completely as to be
able to return to your old dissipations. You must make up your mind to
lead a regular, quiet, abstemious life, avoiding all excitement. Nine
months out of the twelve at least, if not the whole year, you must spend
in the country for the sake of fresh air. A life in town would kill you
in six months. But if you are careful of yourself you may live to sixty
or seventy."

"Life at any price!" he answered, in his old accents, "yet you put it in
a dreary light before me. It hardly seems worth while to buy such an
existence, especially with that wife of mine downstairs, who cannot
endure the country, and is only a companion for a town-life. Now, if it
had been Olivia--you could imagine life in the country endurable with
Olivia?"

What could I answer to such a question, which ran through me like an
electric shock? A brilliant phantasmagoria flashed across my brain--a
house in Guernsey with Olivia in it--sunshine--flowers--the singing of
birds--the music of the sea--the pure, exhilarating atmosphere. It had
vanished into a dead blank before I opened my mouth, though probably a
moment's silence had not intervened. Foster's lips were curled into a
mocking smile.

"There would be more chance for you now," I said, "if you could have
better air than this."

"How can I?" he asked.

"Be frank with me," I answered, "and tell me what your means are. It
would be worth your while to spend your last farthing upon this chance."

"Is it not enough to make a man mad," he said, "to know there are
thousands lying in the bank in his wife's name, and he cannot touch a
penny of it? It is life itself to me; yet I may die like a dog in this
hole for the want of it. My death will lie at Olivia's door, curse her!"

He fell back upon his pillows, with a groan as heavy and deep as ever
came from the heart of a wretch perishing from sheer want. I could not
choose but feel some pity for him; but this was an opportunity I must
not miss.

"It is of no use to curse her," I said; "come, Foster, let us talk over
this matter quietly and reasonably. If Olivia be alive, as I cannot help
hoping she is, your wisest course would be to come to some mutual
agreement, which-would release you both from your present difficulties;
for you must recollect she is as penniless as yourself. Let me speak to
you as if I were her brother. Of this one thing you may be quite
certain, she will never consent to return to you; and in that I will aid
her