feel absolutely sure of the new medicine; and, with time of such terrible
importance, and London so far off, I was really afraid to miss a post."

I was far from blaming him--and I said so. In his place I should have
done what he did. We arranged that I should write to Fritz by that
night's mail, on the chance that my announcement of the better news might
reach him before he left London.

"My letter despatched," Mr. Engelman continued, "I begged both the
doctors to speak with me before they went away, in my private room. There
I told them, in the plainest words I could find, exactly what I have told
you. Doctor Dormann behaved like a gentleman. He said, 'Let me see the
lady, and speak to her myself, before the new remedy is tried.' As for
the other, what do you think he did? Walked out of the house (the old
brute!) and declined any further attendance on the patient. And who do
you think followed him out of the house, David, when I sent for Madame
Fontaine? Another old brute--Mother Barbara!"

After what I had seen myself of the housekeeper's temper on the previous
evening, this last piece of news failed to surprise me. To be stripped of
her authority as nurse in favor of a stranger, and that stranger a
handsome lady, was an aggravation of the wrong which Mother Barbara had
contemplated, when she threatened us with the alternative of leaving the
house.

"Well," Mr. Engelman resumed, "Doctor Dormann asked his questions, and
smelt and tasted the medicine, and with Madame Fontaine's full approval
took away a little of it to be analyzed. That came to nothing! The
medicine kept its own secret. All the ingredients but two set analysis at
defiance! In the meantime we gave the first dose. Half an hour since we
tried the second. You have seen the result with your own eyes. She has
saved his life, David, and we have you to thank for it. But for you we
might never have known Madame Fontaine."

The door opened as he spoke, and I found myself confronted by a second
surprise. Minna came in, wearing a cook's apron, and asked if her mother
had rung for her yet. Under the widow's instructions, she was preparing
the peculiar vegetable diet which had been prescribed by Doctor Fontaine
as part of the cure. The good girl was eager to make herself useful to us
in any domestic capacity. What a charming substitute for the crabbed old
housekeeper who had just left us!

So here were Madame Fontaine and Minna actually established as inmates