evening, and performed my promise. I noticed a wonderful improvement in my patient, who on being left alone with me, said,
“I feel quite at ease now, Milburn; but I cannot tell you what I felt when Clara told me that you were here, and that my hair had been cut off. Now, however, I am rather glad that you know me.”
“None of that nonsense just now, old fellow, if you please,” I said. “Get well as soon as you can, and then you may tell me why and wherefore you are glad that I know you. Drink this, turn your head from the light and hold your tongue, I will remain by you for some time.” I sat by him until he fell into a deep sleep, and then left him, desiring to be sent for instantly if he should awake before two o’clock. He did not, and recovered rapidly; indeed he must have had an iron constitution, or he could not have escaped fever and erysipelas, as he fortunately did.
When he recovered, he owned to me that the fear of being recognised by me had induced him to decline Sir Clement’s invitation, but as that fear no longer existed, he would not remain cooped up at the Elms. Sir Clement, naturally enough, believed that pride had given way to gratitude, and was very glad to become better acquainted with his foreign tenant. As time wore on I expected that Paul would draw aside the veil of mystery which enshrouded his proceedings, and that I should hear how he, Paul Garrett, whom I had last heard of as an assistant to a Mr. Jones, at an obscure village in Wales, should have become transformed into a Spanish grandee. But he seemed to shrink from touching on the subject. He did indeed once casually mention that when he left Wales he went to South America, and from thence to Cuba, where he married Clara. There was no reticence in his allusions to his life at Cuba, but not a word escaped him concerning his stay in Wales or in South America.
I pondered deeply on all this, and finally came to the conclusion that Paul had either forged or embezzled a sum of money. But whatever he had done, I knew him well enough to be certain that he had not easily succumbed to temptation, for a more honourable, self-denying, conscientious fellow than was Paul Garrett, when I first knew him, never existed. For two years he and his wife frequently visited Sir Clement, and many were the pleasant days we spent together. At the expiration of that time, Sir Clement sank under his malady, and died, bequeathing me a legacy of five thousand pounds. With that sum and my savings I could now attain the height of my ambition—a first-rate London practice, and soon after Sir Clement’s death, I bade adieu to Paul, who with his wife was about to start for the south of France.
PART II.
I reached London full of hope, and conjuring up bright visions of the future. I consulted with the friends who remained to me, and particularly with Mr. Forrest, who strongly advised me to marry before I established myself. I should have had no objection to follow his advice, had I known any young lady likely to come up to my ideas of what a wife ought to be, but my acquaintance among the fair sex was singularly limited. At this juncture, I received a letter from my sister Fanny, who wrote that a young friend of hers, Miss Alice Powell, had just lost her father, her only relative in Australia, and would leave for England by the next ship that sailed after the one that brought my letter, arriving at Plymouth on or about the 20th of April. Would I (if possible) go and meet the young lady, whom I was to escort safely to London, and deliver into the charge of her aunt, who was old and infirm, at Cumming Street, Pentonville? Fanny added, “I promised Alice that you would meet her if you possibly could. So be sure you go, there’s a dear George.”
It was fortunate on Fanny’s account (or she might not have been enabled to keep her word) that I was still a gentleman at large—had I not been, it would have been no easy task to leave London on a piece of knight-errantry. But as it was, nothing interfered to prevent my following all the instructions laid down for me. I met the young lady, escorted her safely to Cumming Street, and left her in charge of her aunt, a gaunt red-haired angular personage, suffering acutely from rheumatism. And on returning to my lodgings, I began wondering whether Alice Powell would help me to follow old Mr. Forrest’s advice. Her manners were so natural, there was such a freshness about her: in short, Alice Powell would just suit me,—if she would have me.
I had asked leave to call on her aunt, and received a churlish affirmative to my request; but I persevered, and soon perceived that poor Alice’s position with her relative was any but a comfortable one. The old lady’s temper was fearful, and not even my presence could prevent her from grumbling at the additional expense Alice’s advent had entailed upon her. In one respect, however, she found it an economy. I attended her gratis, and cured her of her rheumatism, so that she was able to trot about as actively as was her wont before her illness. And then I spoke out, and offered my hand to Alice, who consented to be my wife. By a strange perversity her aunt, Miss Davies, was now quite loth to part with her, and bewailed the dreariness of her future so pathetically to Alice, that, on the latter telling me she was really sorry to leave the poor woman to her loneliness, I was induced—in an unguarded moment, I confess—to offer her a home with us. From that moment Miss Davies was an altered woman. She seldom gave way to her temper, tried to make herself agreeable, and I had no cause to regret her making one of our family. She became exceedingly fond of Alice, and indeed was capable of deep and strong attachment.
We married, and I took a house in Craven Gardens, but waited to begin practice until I could secure a better position, which I could not just then, as the International Exhibition was open, and I had set my mind on a house in Chester Place, which would be vacant at Michaelmas. I took three season-tickets, and all of us visited the Exhibition nearly every day. Sometimes I appointed to meet Alice and her aunt at a particular spot, and on one occasion the place of meeting was to be outside the Roman Court. On