I went down the narrow staircase, closely followed by Mrs. Foster. Her face had lost its gayety and boldness, and looked womanly and careworn, as she laid her hand upon my arm before opening the house-door. "For God's sake, come again," she said, "if you can do any thing for him! We have money left yet, and I am earning more every day. We can pay you well. Promise me you will come again." "I can promise nothing to-night," I answered. "You shall not go till you promise," she said, emphatically. "Well, then, I promise," I answered, and she unfastened the chain almost noiselessly, and opened the door into the street. CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH. SAD SEWS. A fine, drizzling rain was falling; I was just conscious of it as an element of discomfort, but it did not make me quicken my steps. I wanted no rapidity of motion now. There was nothing to be done, nothing to look forward to, nothing to flee away from. Olivia was dead! I had said the same thing again and again to myself, that Olivia was dead to me; but at this moment I learned how great a difference there was between the words as a figure of speech and as a terrible reality. I could no longer think of her as treading the same earth--the same streets, perhaps; speaking the same language; seeing the same daylight as myself. I recalled her image, as I had seen her last in Sark; and then I tried to picture her white face, with lips and eyes closed forever, and the awful chill of death resting upon her. It seemed impossible; yet the cuckoo-cry went on in my brain, "Olivia is dead--is dead!" I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement. He let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed. "Good Heavens! Martin, what has happened to you?" "Olivia is dead," I answered. His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together still, when we were alone. He knew all about Olivia, and he waited patiently till I could put my tidings into words. "It must be true," he said, though in a doubtful tone; "the scoundrel would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof." "She must have died very soon after my mother," I answered, "and I never knew it!" "It's strange!" he said. "I wonder she never got anybody to write to you or Tardif." There was no way of accounting for that strange silence toward us. We sat talking in short, broken sentences, while Jack smoked a cigar; but we could come to no conclusion about it. It was late when we parted, and I went to bed, but not to sleep.