home, bring him back
in it. Say I am waiting here for his opinion on a very serious case. He
shall be well paid, and you shall be well paid. Make haste!"

The woman left the room.

Kirke sat down alone, to wait for her return. He hid his face in his
hands, and tried to realize the strange and touching situation in which
the accident of a moment had placed him.

Hidden in the squalid by-ways of London under a false name; cast,
friendless and helpless, on the mercy of strangers, by illness which
had struck her prostrate, mind and body alike--so he met her again, the
woman who had opened a new world of beauty to his mind; the woman who
had called Love to life in him by a look! What horrible misfortune had
struck her so cruelly, and struck her so low? What mysterious destiny
had guided him to the last refuge of her poverty and despair, in the
hour of her sorest need? "If it is ordered that I am to see her again, I
_shall_ see her." Those words came back to him now--the memorable words
that he had spoken to his sister at parting. With that thought in his
heart, he had gone where his duty called him. Months and months had
passed; thousands and thousands of miles, protracting their desolate
length on the unresting waters had rolled between them. And through the
lapse of time, and over the waste of oceans--day after day, and night
after night, as the winds of heaven blew, and the good ship toiled
on before them--he had advanced nearer and nearer to the end that
was waiting for him; he had journeyed blindfold to the meeting on the
threshold of that miserable door. "What has brought me here?" he said to
himself in a whisper. "The mercy of chance? No. The mercy of God."

He waited, unregardful of the place, unconscious of the time, until
the sound of footsteps on the stairs came suddenly between him and his
thoughts. The door opened, and the doctor was shown into the room.

"Dr. Merrick," said the landlady, placing a chair for him.

"_Mr._ Merrick," said the visitor, smiling quietly as he took the chair.
"I am not a physician--I am a surgeon in general practice."

Physician or surgeon, there was something in his face and manner which
told Kirke at a glance that he was a man to be relied on.

After a few preliminary words on either side, Mr. Merrick sent the
landlady into the bedroom to see if his patient was awake or asleep.
The woman returned, and said she was "betwixt the two, light in the
head again, and burning hot." T