Leah welcomed the New Year at Firmingham, with the fervent hope that its bounty would bestow the insurance money, and rid her of an official husband. It really seemed as though Providence, or the fetish, was in a benign mood, for Jim caught the worst of colds while skating. Being confined to an undesired bed, and fed with food tasteless to a cultivated palate, he lost both flesh and temper. Demetrius talked gravely of weak lungs, and hinted at inherited consumption. The Duke was anxious, but scarcely surprised, and recalled similar cases of a grandmother, two ancestors, and a rackety uncle. Lady Jim encouraged these pulmonary recollections for obvious reasons. She and Demetrius winked privately at one another like the celebrated augurs, when they heard the old man's lamentations. Nature was acting strictly on the lines of the Russian's proposed medicine, and there was no need to dose Jim into a sickly likeness of Garth. Day by day he grew as white-faced, as haggard, and as lean, until he became alarmed at the anxiety of Providence to forward the schemes of himself and Leah. But there was no end to the kindness of an overruling fate. Jim's illness afforded his wife the opportunity of posing as a sister of mercy, and she fussed round the patient so ostentatiously, that the Duke was quite touched. He began to think that Leah was a true ministering angel, and not the money-wasting doll he had considered her to be. Jim grinned as Leah measured medicine, and fed him with gruel, and read him interesting bits from the sporting journals. "I believe I'm goin' to get well," he chuckled. "Why so, dear?" asked his wife, who was profuse of adjectives in private, so that they might slip out the more easily in public. "You look so uncommon dismal." "It is necessary to keep up appearances," Leah assured him. "Besides, this will be the last chance of my doing anything for you. In future, Lola will soothe your weary pillow"; after which and similar passages of arms, Jim would curse himself to sleep, and wake up to accuse his wife of wishing to poison him. This fortunate illness kept Lady Jim at Firmingham when the house-party disintegrated. But as the Duke was a twaddling old ass, and Jim the most trying of patients, Leah looked upon her ten days' boredom as a kind of Lenten penance. Besides, she had frequent confabulations with Demetrius, to settle details of the plot. Already the doctor had explained to the Duke that Garth would die easier in the tropics, and Funchal had been selected as the most agreeable place for his demise. "And then?" asked Lady Jim. "Your husband must go to Jamaica, to wait events." "What events?" "Those which I propose to bring about," retorted Demetrius, who had his reasons for not explaining himself too fully.