"I couldn't promise her that, sir," was the answer. "I did say I'd send on the message to you, and I was just coming with it, sir. She said she'd sit up till twelve o'clock."
"Very good," I said.
Upon inquiry I found that the place was two miles away; and, as our old friend Simmons was still on the cab-stand, I jumped into his cab, and bade him drive me as fast as he could to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I wanted a sense of motion, and a chance of scene. If I had been in Guernsey, I should have mounted Madam, and had another midnight ride round the island. This was a poor substitute for that; but the visit would serve to turn my thoughts from Julia. If any one in London could do the man good. I believed it was I; for I had studied that one malady with my soul thrown into it.
"We turned at last into a shabby street, recognizable even in the twilight of the scattered lamps as being a place for cheap lodging-houses. There was a light burning in the second-floor windows of No. 19; but all the rest of the front was in darkness. I paid Simmons and dismissed him, saying I would walk home. By the time I turned to knock at the door, it was opened quietly from within. A woman stood in the doorway; I could not see her face, for the candle she had brought with her was on the table behind her; neither was there light enough for her to distinguish mine.
"Are you come from Dr. Lowry's?" she asked.
The voice sounded a familiar one, but I could not for the life of me recall whose it was.
"Yes," I answered, "but I do not know the name of my patient here."
"Dr. Martin Dobrée!" she exclaimed, in an accent almost of terror.
I recollected her then as the person who had been in search of Olivia. She had fallen back a few paces, and I could now see her face. It was startled and doubtful, as if she hesitated to admit me. Was it possible I had come to attend Olivia's husband?
"I don't know whatever to do!" she ejaculated; "he is very ill to-night, but I don't think he ought to see you—I don't think he would."