Madeleine his own, his wife! The dark cloud which had settled down upon him for so long a time rolled away like a mist and vanished from his sight. Once more his pulse bounded freely within him; once more he looked with keen clear eyes upon life, and owned the sweet aptitude of being. He laughed aloud and scornfully as he remembered how recently he had pictured to himself as pleasant, as endurable, a future which was now naught but the merest vegetation. To live abroad! Yes, but not solitary and self-contained; not pottering on in a miserable German town, droning through existence in the company of a few old _savans!_ Life abroad with Madeleine for a few months in the year perhaps--the wretched winter months, when England was detestable, and when he would take her to brighter climes--to the Mediterranean, to Cannes, Naples, Algiers it may be, where the soft climate and his ever-watchful attention and skill would enable her to shake off the spell of the disease which then oppressed her. He would return at once--to Madeleine! Those dull lawyers in their foggy den in Lincoln's-inn little knew how soon he would obey their mandate, or what was the motive-power which induced his obedience. In his life he had never felt so happy. He laughed aloud. He clapped the astonished waiter, who had hitherto looked upon the Herr Englander as the most miserable of his melancholy nation, on the shoulder, and bade him send his passport to the Embassy to be _viséd_, and prepare for his departure. No; he would go himself to the Embassy. He was so full of radiant happiness that he must find some outlet for it; and he remembered that he had made the acquaintance of a young gentleman, son of one of his aristocratic London patients, who was an _attaché_ to our minister. He would himself go to the Embassy, see the boy, and offer to do any mission for him in England, to convey anything to his mother. The waiter smiled, foreseeing in his guest's happiness a good _trinkgeld_ for himself; gentlemen usually sent their passports by the _hausknecht_, but the Herr could go if he wished it--of course he could go! So Wilmot started off with his passport in his pocket. The sober-going citizens stared as they met, and turned round to stare after the eager rushing Englishman. He never heeded them; he pushed on; he reached the Embassy, and asked for his young friend Mr. Walsingham, and chafed and fumed and stamped about the room in which he was left while Mr. Walsingham was being sought for. At length Mr. Walsingham arrived. He was glad to see Dr. Wilmot; thanks for his offer! He would intrude upon him so far as to ask him to convey a parcel to Lady Caroline. _Visa?_ O, ah! that wasn't in his department; but if Dr. Wilmot would give him the passport, he'd see it put all right. Would Dr. Wilmot excuse him for a few moments while he did so, and would he like to look at last Monday's _Post_, which had just arrived?