France!--she was in France; there would I follow her, and yet be revenged upon them all. I started up to seek old Crammer, and resign my situation as his assistant. The afternoon was far advanced, and many a patient must have been sorely neglected by that time. But what cared I if the world had burst like a bomb-shell beneath my feet? I sought the house in Bedford Street, with the red bottle in the fanlight, to find that its crimson glow paled beside the hue of Crammer's face. He was literally boiling and choking with indignation at me. He had received due intimation of my "insolence and presumption" from Sir Percival; was desired to send in his account, and appear at the house no more. Thus his most aristocratic patients were lost to him for ever. Ere I could speak, he took the initiative, and dismissed me, and that night found me in a humble residence, near the Temple, with, a few pounds in my purse, my worldly goods a portmanteau and a few medical books ("Bell on the Bones,") seeking to soothe my thoughts by the aid of an execrable cigar and a little weak brandy and water. The bright bubble had burst! I had lost Gertrude, and she, being facile, or having little will of her own, on finding that she had lost me, would too probably make peace with her own family by fulfilling the engagement that was so odious to her. As this conviction forced itself upon me, I could have wept; then I would start up, and mutter of going to France ere it might be too late; but I had no money, and travelling in those pre-railway times was not the cheap luxury it is now. Moreover, I knew not how or where to seek her; and while doubts grew thus, and time went on, I might lose her for ever. The result of all this was that the next day saw me in a raging fever, and months elapsed ere I was convalescent. For some time after sense returned I knew not where I was, or what had happened to me. Close by a table sat a familiar figure in his shirt-sleeves, smoking, and occasionally taking a pull at a pint of stout. These pleasures he varied by reading aloud from a medical work, on pharmacy apparently, and breaking into a scrap from a song, thus:-- "'_Plumbi subacet_: an aqueous solution of the salt produced with the acetate and oxide of lead. A dense, clear liquid. Colourless, odourless, and slightly alkaline in taste. Produces a white coating on glass.' _Plumbi subacet_--that's the ticket! "'He was a jolly old cock, and he cared not a d--n For the laws or the new police, And he thought mighty little of taking a lamb, If he only fancied the fleece.' "'_Sodæ chloratæ_: a solution of carbonate of soda, after the absorption of chlorine gas. A clear liquid, and colourless. Odour----'"