The isolation served only to draw the group more closely together, and to engage them, with still greater usurpation of their faculties, in their deeply human office, till Oliver became well-nigh as wrapped up as Fan and Horace were, in that vocation of nurse and brother’s keeper, which—whether it be of the body or the soul—passes with practice into the most enticing and devouring of pursuits. Witness how it lures its recruits from the brightest and most peaceful quarters, and holds its brave soldiers fast, resisting all remonstrance, till they drop at their posts in dens of squalor and misery. Time and place ceased largely to exert their power over persons bound up in one man’s fortunes in a prolonged and terrible single combat. What difference did the varying seasons make, when spring stole on to summer, and summer glided into autumn, and autumn stiffened and froze into winter, if yet there was no sure amendment or certain decline in Harry Stanhope’s condition? What did it matter whether the battle-ground were the heaths of Brittany, the stony vineyards of Burgundy, the fat pastures of Guelderland, the forests of Flanders, the olive and orange gardens wet with the spray of the Mediterranean in the Riviera; or whether the towns offered to the visitors the picturesque gables and roofs of Bruges or Nüremberg, the palaces of Genoa, or the churches of Venice, when the question still was Harry and Harry only? How long was it since there had been an outbreak of his mania? Was he steadier this month than last? Was there any hope left?