“Will you wait here a few minutes?” she asked, “while I see what he will do?”

She left me in the dimly-lighted hall, pervaded by a musty smell of unventilated rooms, and a damp, dirty underground floor.  The place was altogether sordid, and dingy, and miserable.  At last I heard her step coming down the two flights of stairs, and I went to meet her.

“He will see you,” she said, eying me herself with a steady gaze of curiosity.

Her curiosity was not greater than mine.  I was anxious to see Olivia’s husband, partly from the intense aversion I felt instinctively toward him.  He was lying back in an old, worn-out easy-chair, with a woman’s shawl thrown across his shoulders, for the night was chilly.  His face had the first sickly hue and emaciation of the disease, and was probably refined by it.  It was a handsome, regular, well-cut face, narrow across the brows, with thin, firm lips, and eyes perfect in shape, but cold and glittering as steel.  I knew afterward that he was fifteen years older than Olivia.  Across his knees lay a shaggy, starved-looking cat, which he held fast by the fore-paws, and from time to time entertained himself by teasing and tormenting it.  He scrutinized me as keenly as I did him.

“I believe we are in some sort connected.  Dr. Martin Dobree,” he said, smiling coldly; “my half-sister, Kate Daltrey, is married to your father, Dr. Dobree.”

“Yes,” I answered, shortly.  The subject was eminently disagreeable to me, and I had no wish to pursue it with him.

“Ay! she will make him a happy man,” he continued, mockingly; “you are not yourself married, I believe, Dr. Martin Dobree?”

I took no notice whatever of his question, or the preceding remark, but passed on to formal inquiries concerning his health.  My close study of his malady helped me here.  I could assist him to describe and localize his symptoms, and I soon discovered that the disease was as yet in a very early stage.

“You have a better grip of it than Lowry,” he said, sighing with satisfaction.  “I feel as if I were made of glass, and you could look through me.  Can you cure me?”

“I will do my best,” I answered.

“So you all say,” he muttered, “and the best is generally good for nothing.  You see I care less about getting over it than my wife does.  She is very anxious for my recovery.”

“Your wife!” I repeated, in utter surprise; “you are Richard Foster, I believe?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“Does your wife know of your present illness?” I inquired.

“To be sure,” he answered; “let me introduce you to Mrs. Richard Foster.”

The woman looked at me with flashing eyes and a mocking smile, while Mr. Foster indulged himself with extorting a long and plaintive mew from the poor cat on his knees.

“I cannot understand,” I said.  I did not know how to continue my speech.  Though they might choose to pass as husband and wife among strangers, they could hardly expect to impose upon me.