What if I could do two patients good at one stroke, kill two birds with one stone? Captain Carey had a pretty little yacht lying idle in St. Sampson's Harbor, and a day's cruising would do him all the good in the world. Why should he not carry me over to Sark, when I could visit my other patient, and nobody be made miserable by the trip?

"I will make you up some of your old medicine," I said, "but I strongly recommend you to have a day out on the water; seven or eight hours at any rate. If the weather keeps as fine as it is now, it will do you a world of good."

"It is so dreary alone," he objected, "and Johanna would not care to go out at this season, I know."

"If I could manage it," I said, deliberating, "I should be glad to have a day with you."

"Ah! if you could do that!" he replied, eagerly.

"I'll see about it," I said. "Should you mind where you sailed to?"

"Not at all, not at all, my boy," he answered, "so that I get your company. You shall be skipper, or helmsman, or both, if you like."

"Well, then," I replied, "you might take me over to the Havre Gosselin, to see how my patient's broken arm is going on. It's a bore there being no resident medical man there at this moment. The accident last autumn was a great loss to the island."

"Ah! poor fellow!" said Captain Carey, "he was a sad loss to them. But I'll take you over with pleasure, Martin; any day you fix upon."

"Get the yacht ship-shape, then," I said; "I think I can manage it on Thursday."

I did not say at home whither I was bound on Thursday. I informed them merely that Captain Carey and I were going out in his yacht for a few hours. This was simply to prevent them from worrying themselves.

It was as delicious a spring morning as ever I remember. As I rode along the flat shore between St. Peter-Port and St. Sampson's, the fresh air from the sea played about my face, as if to drive dull care away, and make me as buoyant and debonair as itself. The little waves were glittering and dancing in the sunshine, and chiming with the merry carols of the larks, outsinging one another in the blue sky overhead. The numerous wind-mills, like children's toys, which were pumping water out of the stone-quarries, whirled and spun busily in the brisk breeze. Every person I met saluted me with a blithe and cheery greeting. My dull spirits had been blown far away before I set foot on the deck of Captain Carey's little yacht.

The run over was all that we could wish. The cockle-shell of a boat, belonging to the yacht, bore me to the foot of the ladder hanging down the rock at Havre Gosselin. A very few minutes took me to the top of the cliff, and there lay the little thatched, nest-like home of my patient. I hastened forward eagerly.

The place seemed very solitary and deserted; and a sudden fear came across me. Was it possible that she should be dead? It was possible. I had left her six days ago only just over a terrible crisis. There might have been a relapse, a failure of vital force. I might be come to find those shining eyes hid beneath their lids forever, and the pale, suffering face motionless in death.

Certainly the rhythmic motion of my heart was disturbed. I felt it contract painfully, and its beating suspended for a moment or two. The farmstead was intensely quiet, with the ominous stillness of death. All the windows were shrouded with their check curtains. There was no clatter of Suzanne's wooden clogs about the fold or the kitchen. If it had been Sunday, this supernatural silence would have been easily accounted for; but it was Thursday. I scarcely dared go on and learn the cause of it.

All silent still as I crossed the stony causeway of the yard. Not a face looked out from door or window. Mam'zelle's casement stood a little way open, and the breeze played with the curtains, fluttering them like banners in a procession. I dared not try to look in. The house-door was ajar, and I approached it cautiously. "Thank God!" I cried within myself as I gazed eagerly into the cottage.

She was lying there upon the fern-bed, half asleep, her head fallen back upon the pillow, and the book she had been reading dropped from her hand. Her dress was of some coarse, dark-green stuff, which made a charming contrast to her delicate face and bright hair. The whole interior of the cottage formed a picture. The old furniture of oak, almost black with age, the neutral tints of the wall and ceiling, and the deep tone of her green dress, threw out into strong relief the graceful, shining head, and pale face.

I suppose she became subtly conscious, as women always are, that somebody's eyes were fixed upon her, for she awoke fully, and looked up as I lingered on the door-sill.

"O Dr. Martin!" she cried, "I am so glad!"

She looked pleased enough to be upon the point of trying to raise herself up in order to welcome me, but I interposed quickly. It was more difficult than I had expected to assume a grave, professional tone, but by an effort I did so. I bade her lie still, and took a chair at some little distance.

"Tardif is gone out fishing," she said, "and his mother is gone away too, to a christening-feast somewhere; but Mrs. Renouf is to be here in an hour or two. I told them I could manage very well as long as that."

"They ought not to have left you alone," I replied.

"And I shall not be left alone," she said, smiling, "for you are come, you see. I am rather glad they are away; for I wanted to tell you how much I felt your goodness to me all through that dreadful week. You are the first doctor I ever had about me, the very first. Perhaps you thought I did not know what care you were taking of me; but, somehow or other, I knew every thing. My mind did not quite go. You were very, very good to me."

"Never mind that," I said; "I am come to see how my work is going on. How is the arm, first of all?"

I almost wished that Mother Renouf or Suzanne Tardif had been at hand. But Miss Ollivier seemed perfectly composed, as much so as a child. She looked like one with her cropped head of hair, and frank, open face. My own momentary embarrassment passed away. The arm was going on all right, and so was Mother Renouf's charge, the sprained ankle.

"We must take care you are not lame," I said, while I was feeling carefully the complicated joint of her ankle.

"Lame!" she repeated, in an alarmed voice, "is there any fear of that?"

"Not much," I answered, "but we must be careful, mam'zelle. You must promise me not to set your foot on the ground, or in any way rest your weight upon it, till I give you leave."

"That means that you will have to come to see me again," she said; "is it not very difficult to come over from Guernsey?"

"Not at all," I answered, "it is quite a treat to me."

Her face grew very grave, as if she was thinking of some unpleasant topic. She looked at me earnestly and questioningly.

"May I speak to you with great plainness, Dr. Martin?" she asked.

"Speak precisely what is in your mind at this moment," I replied.

"You are very, very good to me," she said, holding out her hand to me, "but I do not want you to come more often than is quite necessary, because I am very poor. If I were rich," she went on hurriedly, "I should like you to come every day—it is so pleasant—but I can never pay you sufficiently for that long week you were here. So please do not visit me oftener than is quite necessary."

My face felt hot, but I scarcely knew what to say. I bungled out an answer:

"I would not take any money from you, and I shall come to see you as often as I can."

I bound up her little foot again without another word, and then sat down, pushing my chair farther from her.

"You are not offended with me, Dr. Martin?" she asked, in a pleading tone.

"No," I answered; "but you are mistaken in supposing that a medical man has no love for his profession apart from its profits. To see that your arm gets properly well is part of my duty, and I shall fulfil it without any thought of whether I shall get paid for it or no."

"Now," she said, "I must let you know how poor I am. Will you please to fetch me my box out of my room?"

I was only too glad to obey her. This seemed to be an opening to a complete confidence between us. Now I came to think of it, Fortune had favored me in thus throwing us together alone.

I lifted the small, light box very easily—there could not be many treasures in it—and carried it back to her. She took a key out of her pocket and unlocked it with some difficulty, but she could not raise the lid without my help. I took care not to offer any assistance until she asked it.

Yes, there were very few possessions in that light trunk, but the first glance showed me a blue-silk dress, and seal-skin jacket and hat. I lifted them out for her, and after them a pair of velvet slippers, soiled, as if they had been through muddy roads. I did not utter a remark. Beneath these lay a handsome watch and chain, a fine diamond ring, and five sovereigns lying loose in the box.

"That is all the money I have in the world," she said, sadly.

I laid the five sovereigns in her small, white hand, and she turned them over, one after another, with a pitiful look on her face. I felt foolish enough to cry over them myself.

"Dr. Martin," was her unexpected question after a long pause, "do you know what became of my hair?"

"Why?" I asked, looking at her fingers running through the short curls we had left her.

"Because that ought to be sold for something," she said. "I am almost glad you had it cut off. My hair-dresser told me once he would give five guineas for a head of hair like mine, it was so long and the color was uncommon. Five guineas would not be half enough to pay you though, I know."

She spoke so simply and quietly, that I did not attempt to remonstrate with her about her anxiety to pay me.

"Tardif has it," I said; "but of course he will give it you back again. Shall I sell it for you, mam'zelle?"

"Oh, that is just what I could not ask you!" she exclaimed. "You see there is no one to buy it here, and I hope it may be a long time before I go away. I don't know, though; that depends upon whether I can dispose of my things. There is my seal-skin, it cost twenty-five guineas last year, and it ought to be worth something. And my watch—see what a nice one it is. I should like to sell them all, every one. Then I could stay here as long as the money lasted."

"How much do you pay here?" I inquired, for she had taken me so far into counsel that I felt justified in asking that question.

"A pound a week," she answered.

"A pound a week!" I repeated, in amazement. "Does Tardif know that?"

"I don't think he does," she said. "When I had been here a week I gave Mrs. Tardif a sovereign, thinking perhaps she would give me a little out of it. I am not used to being poor, and I did not know how much I ought to pay. But she kept it all, and came to me every week for more. Was it too much to pay?"

"Too much!" I said. "You should have spoken to Tardif about it, my poor child."

"I could not talk to Tardif about his mother," she answered. "Besides, it would not have been too much if I had only had plenty. But it has made me so anxious. I did not know whatever I should do when it was all gone. I do not know now."

Here was a capital opening for a question about her friends.

"You will be compelled to communicate with your family," I said. "You have told me how poor you are; cannot you trust me about your friends?"

"I have no friends," she answered, sorrowfully. "If I had any, do you suppose I should be here?"

"I am one," I said, "and Tardif is another."

"Ah, new friends," she replied; "but I mean real old friends who have known you all your life, like your mother, Dr. Martin, or your cousin Julia. I want somebody to go to who knows all about me, and say to them, after telling them every thing, keeping nothing back at all, 'Have I done right? What else ought I to have done?' No new friend could answer questions like those."

Was there any reason I could bring forward to increase her confidence in me? I thought there was, and her friendlessness and helplessness touched me to the core of my heart. Yet it was with an indefinable reluctance that I brought forward my argument.

"Miss Ollivier," I said, "I have no claim of old acquaintance or friendship, yet it is possible I might answer those questions, if you could prevail upon yourself to tell me the circumstances of your former life. In a few weeks I shall be in a position to show you more friendship than I can do now. I shall have a home of my own, and a wife who will be your friend more fittingly, perhaps, than myself."

"I knew it," she answered, half shyly. "Tardif told me you were going to marry your cousin Julia."

Just then we heard the fold-yard gate swing to behind some one who was coming to the house.



CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

ONE IN A THOUSAND.

I had altogether forgotten that Captain Carey's yacht was waiting for me off the little bay below; and I sprang quickly to the door in the dread that he had followed me.

It was an immense relief to see only Tardif's tall figure bending under his creel and nets, and crossing the yard slowly. I hailed him and he quickened his pace, his honest features lighting up at the sight of me.

"How do you find mam'zelle, doctor?" were his first eager words.

"All right," I said; "going on famously. Sark is enough to cure any one and any thing of itself, Tardif. There is no air like it. I should not mind being a little ill here myself."

"Captain Carey is impatient to be gone," he continued. "He sent word by me that you might be visiting every house in the island, you had been away so long."

"Not so very long," I said, testily; "but I will just run in and say good-by, and then I want you to walk with me to the cliff."

I turned back for a last look and a last word. No chance of learning her secret now. The picture was as perfect as when I had had the first glimpse of it, only her face had grown, if possible, more charming after my renewed scrutiny of it.

There are faces that grow upon you the longer and the oftener you look upon them; faces that seem to have a veil over them, which melts away like the thin, fine mist of the morning upon the cliffs, until they flash out in their full color and beauty. The last glance was eminently satisfactory, and so was the last word.

"Shall I send you the hair?" asked Miss Ollivier, returning practically to a matter of business.

"To be sure," I answered. "I shall dispose of it to advantage, but I have not time to wait for it now."

"And may I write a letter to you?"

"Yes," was my reply: I was too pleased to express myself more eloquently.

"Good-by," she said; "you are a very good doctor to me."

"And friend?" I added.

"And friend," she repeated.

That was the last word, for I was compelled to hurry away. Tardif accompanied me to the cliff, and I took the opportunity to tell him as pleasantly as I could the extravagant charge his mother had made upon her lodger, and the girl's anxiety about the future. A more grieved look never came across a man's face.

"Dr. Martin," he said, "I would have cut off my hand rather than it had been so. Poor little mam'zelle! Poor old mother! She is growing old, sir, and old people are greedy. The fall of the year is dark and cold, and gives nothing, but takes away all it can, and hoards it for the young new spring that is to follow. It seems almost the nature of old age. Poor old mother! I am very grieved for her. And I am troubled, troubled about mam'zelle. To think she has been fretting all the winter about this, when I was trying to find out how to cheer her! Only five pounds left, poor little soul! Why! all I have is at her service. It is enough to have her only in the house, with her pretty ways and sweet voice. I'll put it all right with mam'zelle, sir, and with my poor old mother too. I am very sorry for her."

"Miss Ollivier has been asking me to sell her hair," I said.

"No, no," he answered hastily, "not a single hair! I cannot say yes to that. The pretty bright curls! If anybody is to buy them, I will. Yes, doctor! that is famous. She wishes you to sell her hair? Very good; I will buy it; it must be mine. I have more money than you think, perhaps. I will buy mam'zelle's pretty curls; and she shall have the money, and then there will be more than five pounds in her little purse. Tell me how much they will be. Ten pounds? Fifteen? Twenty?"

"Nonsense, Tardif!" I answered; "keep one of them, if you like; but I must have the rest. We will settle it between us."

"No, doctor," he said; "your cousin will not like that. You are going to be married soon; it would not do for you to keep mam'zelle's curls."

It was said with so much simplicity and good-heartedness that I felt ashamed of a rising feeling of resentment, and parted with him cordially. In a few minutes afterward I was on board the yacht, and laughing at Captain Carey's reproaches. Tardif was still visible on the edge of the cliff, watching our departure.

"That is as good a fellow as ever breathed," said Captain Carey, waving his cap to him.

"I know it better than you do," I replied.

"And how is the young woman?" he asked.

"Going on as well as a broken arm and a sprained ankle can do," I answered.

"You will want to come again, Martin," he said; "when are we to have another day?"

"Well, I shall hear how she is every now and then," I answered; "it takes too long a time to come more often than is necessary. But you will bring me if it is necessary?"

"With all my heart," said Captain Carey.

For the next few days I waited with some impatience for Miss Ollivier's promised letter. It came at last, and I put it into my pocket to read when I was alone—why, I could scarcely have explained to myself.

"Dear Dr. Martin," it began, "I have no little commission to trouble you with. Tardif tells me it was quite a mistake, his mother taking a sovereign from me each week. She does not understand English money; and he says I have paid quite sufficient to stay with them a whole year longer without paying any more. I am quite content about that now. Tardif says, too, that he has a friend in Southampton who will buy my hair, and give more than anybody in Guernsey. So I need not trouble you about it, though I am sure you would have done it for me.

"I have not put my foot to the ground yet; but yesterday Tardif carried me all the way down to his boat, and took me out for a little sail under the beautiful cliffs, where we could look up and see all those strange carvings upon the rocks. I thought that perhaps there were real things written there that we should like to read. Sometimes in the sky there are fine faint lines across the blue which look like written sentences, if one could only make them out. Here they are on the rocks, but every tide washes them away, leaving fresh ones. Perhaps they are messages to me, answers to those questions that I cannot answer myself.

"Good-by, my good doctor. I am trying to do every thing you told me exactly; and I am getting well again fast. I do not believe I shall be lame; you are too clever for that. Your patient,

"OLIVIA."

Olivia! I looked at the word again to make sure of it. Then it was not her surname that was Ollivier, and I was still ignorant of that. I saw in a moment how the mistake had arisen, and how innocent she was of any deception in the matter. She would tell Tardif that her name was Olivia, and he thought only of the Olliviers he knew. It was a mistake that had been of use in checking curiosity, and I did not feel bound to put it right. My mother and Julia appeared to have forgotten my patient in Sark altogether.

Olivia! I thought it a very pretty name, and repeated it to myself with its abbreviations, Olive, Livy. It was difficult to abbreviate Julia; Ju I had called her in my rudest school-boy days. I wondered how high Olivia would stand beside me; for I had never seen her on her feet. Julia was not two inches shorter than myself; a tall, stiff figure, neither slender enough to be lissome, nor well-proportioned enough to be majestic. But she was very good, and her price was far above rubies.

According to the wise man, it was a difficult task to find a virtuous woman.

It was a quiet time in the afternoon, and in order to verify my recollection of the wise man's saying, which was a little cloudy in my memory, I searched through Julia's Bible for it. I came across a passage which made me pause and consider. "Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not; one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found."

"Tardif is the man," I said to myself, "but is Julia the woman? Have I had better luck than Solomon?"

"What are you reading, Martin?" asked my father, who had just come in, and was painfully fitting on a pair of new and very tight kid gloves. I read the passage aloud, without comment.

"Very good," he remarked, chuckling, "upon my word! I did not know there was any thing as rich as that in the old book! Who says it, Martin? A very wise preacher he was, and knew what he was talking about. Had seen life, eh? It's as true as—as—as the gospel."

I could not help laughing at the comparison he was forced to; yet I felt angry with him and myself.

"What do you say about my mother and Julia, sir?" I asked.

He chuckled again cynically, examining with care a spot on the palm of one of his gloves. "Ha! ha! my son"—I hated to hear him say "my son"—"I will answer you in the words of another wise man: 'Most virtuous women, like hidden treasures, are secure because nobody seeks after them.'"

So saying, he turned out of the room, swinging his gold-headed cane jauntily between his fingers.

I visited Sark again in about ten days, to set Olivia free from my embargo upon her walking. I allowed her to walk a little way along a smooth meadow-path, leaning on my arm; and I found that she was a head lower than myself—a beautiful height for a woman. That time Captain Carey had set me down at the Havre Gosselin, appointing me to meet him at the Creux Harbor, which was exactly on the opposite side of the island. In crossing over to it—a distance of rather more than a mile—I encountered Julia's friends, Emma and Maria Brouard.

"You here again, Martin!" exclaimed Emma.

"Yes," I answered; "Captain Carey set me down at the Havre Gosselin, and is gone round to meet me at the Creux."

"You have been to see that young person?" asked Maria.

"Yes," I replied.

"She is a very singular young woman," she continued; "we think her stupid. We cannot make anything of her. But there is no doubt poor Tardif means to marry her."

"Nonsense!" I ejaculated, hotly; "I beg your pardon, Maria, but I give Tardif credit for sense enough to know his own position."

"So did we," said Emma, "but it looks odd. He married an Englishwoman before. It's old Mere Renouf who says he worships the ground she treads upon. You know he holds a very good position in the island, and he is a great favorite with the seigneur. There are dozens of girls of his own class in Guernsey and Alderney, to say nothing of Sark, who would be only too glad to have him. He is a very handsome man, Martin."

"Tardif is a fine fellow," I admitted.

"I shall be very sorry for him to be taken in again," continued Emma; "nobody knows who that young person may be; it looks odd on the face of it. Are you in a hurry? Well, good-by. Give our best love to dear Julia. We are busy at work on a wedding-present for her; but you must not tell her that, you know."

I went on in a hot rage, shapeless and wordless, but smouldering like a fire within me. The cool, green lane, deep between hedge-rows, the banks of which were gemmed with primroses, had no effect upon me just then. Tardif marry Olivia! That was an absurd, preposterous notion indeed. It required all my knowledge of the influence of dress on the average human mind, to convince myself that Olivia, in her coarse green serge dress, had impressed the people of Sark with the notion that she would be no unsuitable mate for their rough, though good and handsome fisherman.

Was it possible that they thought her stupid? Reserved and silent she might be, as she wished to remain unmolested and concealed; but not stupid! That any one should dream so wildly as to think of Olivia marrying Tardif, was the utmost folly I could imagine.

I had half an hour to wait in the little harbor, its great cliffs rising all about me, with only a tunnel bored through them to form an entrance to the green island within. My rage had partly fumed itself away before the yacht came in sight.



CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

OVERHEAD IN LOVE.

Awfully fast the time sped away. It was the second week in March I passed in Sark; the second week in May came upon me as if borne by a whirlwind. It was only a month to the day so long fixed upon for our marriage. My mother began to fidget about my going over to London to pay my farewell bachelor visit to Jack Senior, and to fit myself out with wedding toggery. Julia's was going on fast to completion. Our trip to Switzerland was distinctly planned out, almost from day to day. Go I must to London; order my wedding-suit I must.

But first there could be no harm in running over to Sark to see Olivia once more. As soon as I was married I would tell Julia all about her. But if either arm or ankle went wrong for want of attention, I should never forgive myself.

"When shall we have another run together, Captain Carey?" I asked.

"Any day you like, my boy," he answered; "your days of liberty are growing few and short now, eh? I've never had a chance of trying it myself, Martin, but they are nervous times, I should think. Cruising in doubtful channels, eh? with uncertain breezes? How does Julia keep up?"

"I can spare to-morrow," I replied, ignoring his remarks; "on Saturday I shall cross over to England to see Jack Senior."

"And bid him adieu?" he said, laughing, "or give him an invitation to your own house? I shall be glad to see you in a house of your own. Your father is too young a man for you."

"Can you take me to Sark to-morrow?" I asked.

"To be sure I can," he answered.

It was the last time I could see Olivia before my marriage. Afterward I should see much of her; for Julia would invite her to our house, and be a friend to her. I spent a wretchedly sleepless night; and whenever I dozed by fits and starts, I saw Olivia before me, weeping bitterly, and refusing to be comforted.

From St. Sampson's we set sail straight for the Havre Gosselin, without a word upon my part; and the wind being in our favor, we were not long in crossing the channel. To my extreme surprise and chagrin, Captain Carey announced his intention of landing with me, and leaving the yacht in charge of his men to await our return.

"The ladder is excessively awkward," I objected, "and some of the rungs are loose. You don't mind running the risk of a plunge into the water?"

"Not in the least," he answered, cheerily; "for the matter of that, I plunge into it every morning at L'Ancresse. I want to see Tardif. He is one in a thousand, as you say; and one cannot see such a man every day of one's life."

There was no help for it, and I gave in, hoping some good luck awaited me. I led the way up the zigzag path, and just as we reached the top I saw the slight, erect figure of Olivia seated upon the brow of a little grassy knoll at a short distance from us. Her back was toward us, so she was not aware of our vicinity; and I pointed toward her with an assumed air of indifference.

"I believe that is my patient yonder," I said; "I will just run across and speak to her, and then follow you to the farm."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "there is a lovely view from that spot. I recollect it well. I will go with you, Martin. There will be time enough to see Tardif."

Did Captain Carey suspect any thing? Or what reason could he have for wishing to see Olivia? Could it be merely that he wanted to see the view from that particular spot? I could not forbid him accompanying me, but I wished him at Jericho.

What is more stupid than to have an elderly man dogging one's footsteps?

I trusted devoutly that we should see or hear Tardif before reaching the knoll; but no such good fortune befell me. Olivia did not hear our footsteps upon the soft turf, though we approached her very nearly. The sun shone upon her glossy hair, every thread of which seemed to shine back again. She was reading aloud, apparently to herself, and the sounds of her sweet voice were wafted by the air toward us. Captain Carey's face became very thoughtful.

A few steps nearer brought us in view of Tardif, who had spread his nets on the grass, and was examining them narrowly for rents. Just at this moment he was down on his knees, not far from Olivia, gathering some broken meshes together, but listening to her, with an expression of huge contentment upon his handsome face. A bitter pang shot through me. Could it be true by any possibility—that lie I had heard the last time I was in Sark?

"Good-day, Tardif," shouted Captain Carey; and both Tardif and Olivia started. But both of their faces grew brighter at seeing us, and both sprang up to give us welcome. Olivia's color had come back to her cheeks, and a sweeter face no man ever looked upon.

"I am very glad you are come once more," she said, putting her hand in mine; "you told me in your last letter you were going to England, and might not come over to Sark before next autumn. How glad I am to see you again!"

I glanced from the corner of my eye at Captain Carey. He looked very grave, but his eyes could not rest upon Olivia without admiring her, as she stood before us, bright-faced, slender, erect, with the heavy folds of her coarse dress falling about her as gracefully as if they were of the richest material.

"This is my friend, Captain Carey, Miss Olivia," I said, "in whose yacht I have come over to visit you."

"I am very glad to see any friend of Dr. Martin's," she answered, as she hold out her hand to him with a smile; "my doctor and I are great friends, Captain Carey."

"So I suppose," he said, significantly—or at least his tone and look seemed fraught with significance to me.

"We were talking of you only a few minutes ago, Dr. Martin," she continued; "I was telling Tardif how you sang the 'Three Fishers' to me the last time you were here, and how it rings in my ears still, especially when he is away fishing. I repeated the three last lines to him:

'For men must work, and women must weep; And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep. So good-by to the bar, with its moaning.'"

"I do not like it, doctor," said Tardif: "there's no hope in it. Yet to sleep out yonder at last, on the great plain under the sea, would be no bad thing."

"You must sing it for Tardif," added Olivia, with a pretty imperiousness, "and then he will like it."

My throat felt dry, and my tongue parched. I could not utter a word in reply.

"This would be the very place for such a song," said Captain Carey. "Come, Martin, let us have it."

"No; I can sing nothing to-day," I answered, harshly.

The very sight of her made me feel miserable beyond words; the sound of her voice maddened me. I felt as if I was angry with her almost to hatred for her grace and sweetness; yet I could have knelt down at her feet, and been happy only to lay my hand on a fold of her dress. No feeling had ever stirred me so before, and it made me irritable. Olivia's clear gray eyes looked at me wonderingly.

"Is there anything the matter with you, Dr. Martin?" she inquired.

"No," I replied, turning away from her abruptly. Every one of them felt my rudeness; and there was a dead silence among us for half a minute, which seemed an age to me. Then I heard Captain Carey speaking in his suavest tones.

"Are you quite well again, Miss Ollivier?" he asked.

"Yes, quite well, I think," she said, in a very subdued voice. "I cannot walk far yet, and my arm is still weak: but I think I am quite well. I have given Dr. Martin a great deal of trouble and anxiety."

She spoke in the low, quiet tones of a child who has been chidden unreasonably. I was asking myself what Captain Carey meant by not leaving me alone with my patient. When a medical man makes a call, the intrusion of any unprofessional, indifferent person is unpardonable. If it had been Suzanne, Tardif, or Mother Renouf, who was keeping so close beside us, I could have made no reasonable objection. But Captain Carey!

"Tardif," I said, "Captain Carey came ashore on purpose to visit you and your farm."

I knew he was excessively proud of his farm, which consisted of about four or five acres. He caught at the words with alacrity, and led the way toward his house with tremendous strides. There was no means of evading a tour of inspection, though Captain Carey appeared to follow him reluctantly. Olivia and I were left alone, but she was moving after them slowly, when I ran to her, and offered her my arm on the plea that her ankle was still too weak to bear her weight unsupported.

"Olivia!" I exclaimed, after we had gone a few yards, bringing her and myself to a sudden halt. Then I was struck dumb. I had nothing special to say to her. How was it I had called her so familiarly Olivia?

"Well, Dr. Martin?" she said, looking into my face again with eager, inquiring eyes, as if she was wishful to understand my varying moods if she could.

"What a lovely place this is!" I ejaculated.

More lovely than any words I ever heard could describe. It was a perfect day, and a perfect view. The sea was like an opal, changing every minute with the passing shadows of snow-white clouds which floated lazily across the bright blue of the sky. The cliffs, Sark Cliffs, which have not their equal in the world, stretched below us, with every hue of gold and bronze, and hoary white, and soft gray; and here and there a black rock, with livid shades of purple, and a bloom upon it like a raven's wing. Rocky islets, never trodden by human foot, over which the foam poured ceaselessly, were dotted all about the changeful surface of the water. And just beneath the level of my eyes was Olivia's face—the loveliest thing there, though there was so much beauty lying around us.

"Yes, it is a lovely place," she assented, a mischievous smile playing about her lips.

"Olivia," I said, taking my courage by both hands, "it is only a month now till my wedding-day."

Was I deceiving myself, or did she really grow paler? It was but for a moment if it were so. But how cold the air felt all in an instant! The shock was like that of a first plunge into chilly waters, and I was shivering through every fibre.

"I hope you will be happy," said Olivia, "very happy. It is a great risk to run. Marriage will make you either very happy or very wretched."

"Not at all," I answered, trying to speak gayly; "I do not look forward to any vast amount of rapture. Julia and I will get along very well together, I have no doubt, for we have known one another all our lives. I do not expect to be any happier than other men; and the married people I have known have not exactly dwelt in paradise. Perhaps your experience has been different?"

"Oh, no!" she said, her hand trembling on my arm, and her face very downcast; "but I should have liked you to be very, very happy."

So softly spoken, with such a low, faltering voice! I could not trust myself to speak again. A stern sense of duty toward Julia kept me silent; and we moved on, though very slowly and lingeringly.

"You love her very much?" said the quiet voice at my side, not much louder than the voice of conscience, which was speaking imperiously just then.

"I esteem her more highly than any other woman, except my mother," I said. "I believe she would die sooner than do any thing she considered wrong. I do not deserve her, and she loves me, I am sure, very truly and faithfully."

"Do you think she will like me?" asked Olivia, anxiously.

"No; she must love you," I said, with warmth; "and I, too, can be a more useful friend to you after my marriage than I am now. Perhaps then you will feel free to place perfect confidence in us."

She smiled faintly, without speaking—a smile which said plainly she could keep her own secret closely. It provoked me to do a thing I had had no intention of doing, and which I regretted very much afterward. I opened my pocket-book, and drew out the little slip of paper containing the advertisement.

"Read that," I said.

But I do not think she saw more than the first line, for her face went deadly white, and her eyes turned upon me with a wild, beseeching look—as Tardif described it, the look of a creature hunted and terrified. I thought she would have fallen, and I put my arm round her. She fastened both her hands about mine, and her lips moved, though I could not catch a word she was saying.

"Olivia!" I cried, "Olivia! do you suppose I could do any thing to hurt you? Do not be so frightened! Why, I am your friend truly. I wish to Heaven I had not shown you the thing. Have more faith in me, and more courage."

"But they will find me, and force me away from here," she muttered.

"No," I said; "that advertisement was printed in the Times directly after your flight last October. They have not found you out yet; and the longer you are hidden, the less likely they are to find you. Good Heavens! what a fool I was to show it to you!"

"Never mind," she answered, recovering herself a little, but still clinging to my arm; "I was only frightened for the time. You would not give me up to them if you knew all."

"Give you up to them!" I repeated, bitterly. "Am I a Judas?"

But she could not talk to me any more. She was trembling like an aspen-leaf, and her breath came sobbingly. All I could do was to take her home, blaming myself for my cursed folly.

Captain Carey and Tardif met us at the farm-yard gate, but Olivia could not speak to them; and we passed them in silence, challenged by their inquisitive looks. She could only bid me good-by in a tremulous voice; and I watched her go on into her own little room, and close the door between us. That was the last I should see of her before my marriage.

Tardif walked with us to the top of the cliff, and made me a formal, congratulatory speech before quitting us. When he was gone, Captain Carey stood still until he was quite out of hearing, and then stretched out his hand toward the thatched roof, yellow with stone-crop and lichens.

"This is a serious business, Martin," he said, looking sternly at me; "you are in love with that girl."

"I love her with all my heart and soul!" I cried.



CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.

IN A FIX.

Yes, I loved Olivia with all my heart and soul.

I had not known it myself till that moment; and now I acknowledged it boldly, almost defiantly, with a strange mingling of delight and pain in the confession.

Yet the words startled me as I uttered them. They had involved in them so many unpleasant consequences, so much chagrin and bitterness as their practical result, that I stood aghast—even while my pulses throbbed, and my heart beat high, with the novel rapture of loving any woman as I loved Olivia. If I followed out my avowal to its just issue, I should be a traitor to Julia; and all my life up to the present moment would be lost to me. I had scarcely spoken it before I dropped my head on my hands with a groan.

"Come, come, my poor fellow!" said Captain Carey, who could never see a dog with his tail between his legs without whistling to him and patting him, "we must see what can be done."

It was neither a time nor a place for the indulgence of emotion of any kind. It was impossible for me to remain on the cliffs, bemoaning my unhappy fate. I strode on doggedly down the path, kicking the loose stones into the water as they came in my way. Captain Carey followed, whistling softly to himself, and, of all the tunes in the world, he chose the one to the "Three Fishers," which I had sung to Olivia. He continued doing so after we were aboard the yacht, and I saw the boatmen exchange apprehensive glances.

"We shall have wind enough, without whistling for it, before we reach Guernsey," said one of them, after a while; and Captain Carey relapsed into silence. We scarcely spoke again, except about the shifting of the sails, in our passage across. A pretty stiff breeze was blowing, and we found plenty of occupation.

"I cannot leave you like this, Martin, my boy," said Captain Carey, when we went ashore at St. Sampson's; and he put his arm through mine affectionately.

"You will keep my secret?" I said—my voice a key or two lower than usual.

"Martin," answered the good-hearted, clear-sighted old bachelor, "you must not do Julia the wrong of keeping this secret from her."

"I must," I urged. "Olivia knows nothing of it; nobody guesses it but you. I must conquer it. Things have gone too far with poor Julia, for me to back out of our marriage now. You know that as well as I do. Think of it, Captain Carey!"

"But shall you conquer it?" asked Captain Carey, seriously.

I could not answer yes frankly and freely. It seemed a sheer impossibility for me to root out this new love, which I found in my heart below all the old loves and friendships of my whole life. Mad as I was with myself at the thought of my folly, the folly was so sweet to me, that I would as soon have parted with life itself. Nothing in the least resembling this feeling had been a matter of experience with me before. I had read of it in poetry and novels, and laughed a little at it; but now it had come upon me like a strong man armed. I quailed and flinched before the painful conflict necessary to cast out the precious guest.

"Martin," urged Captain Carey, "come up to Johanna, and tell her all about it."

Johanna Carey was one of the powers in the island. Everybody knew her; and everybody went to her for comfort and counsel. She was, of course, related to us all; and knew the exact degree of relationship among us, having the genealogy of each family at her fingers' ends. But, besides these family histories, which were common property, she was also intrusted with the inmost secrets of every household—those secrets which were the most carefully and jealously guarded. I had always been a favorite with her, and nothing could be more natural than this proposal of her brother's, that I should go and tell her all my dilemma.

The house stood on the border of L'Ancresse Common, with no view of the sea, but with the soft, undulating brows and hollows of the common lying before it, and a broken battlement of rocks rising beyond them.

There was always a low, solemn murmur of the invisible sea, singing like a lullaby about the peaceful dwelling, and hushing it into a more profound quiet than even utter silence; for utter silence is irksome and fretting to the ear, which needs some slight reverberation to keep the brain behind it still. A perfume of violets, and the more dainty scent of primroses, pervaded the garden. It seemed incredible that any man should be allowed to live in such a spot; but then Captain Carey was almost as gentle and fastidious as a woman.

Johanna was not unlike her home. There was a repose about her similar to the calm of a judge, which gave additional weight to her counsels. The moment we entered through the gates, a certainty of comfort and help appeared to be wafted upon the pure breeze, floating across the common from the sea.

Johanna was standing at one of the windows in a Quakerish dress of some gray stuff, and with a plain white cap over her white hair. She came down to the door as soon as she saw me, and received me with a motherly kiss, which I returned with more than usual warmth, as one does in any new kind of trouble. I think she was instantly aware that something was amiss with me.

"Is dinner ready, Johanna?" asked her brother; "we are as hungry as hunters."

That was not true as far as I was concerned. For the first time within my recollection my appetite quite failed me, and I merely played with my knife and fork.

Captain Carey regarded me pitifully, and said, "Come, come, Martin, my boy!" several times.

Johanna made no remark; but her quiet, searching eyes looked me through and through, till I almost longed for the time when she would begin to question and cross-question me. After she was gone, Captain Carey gave me two or three glasses of his choicest wine, to cheer me up, as he said; but we were not long before we followed his sister.

"Johanna," said Captain Carey, "we have something to tell you."

"Come and sit here by me," she said, making room for me beside her on her sofa; for long experience had taught her how much more difficult it is to make a confession face to face with one's confessor, under the fire of his eyes, as it were, than when one is partially concealed from him.

"Well," she said, in her calm, inviting voice.

"Johanna," I replied, "I am in a terrible fix!"

"Awful!" cried Captain Carey, sympathetically; but a glance from his sister put him to silence.

"What is it, my dear Martin?" asked her inviting voice again.

"I will tell you frankly," I said, feeling I must have it out at once, like an aching tooth. "I love, with all my heart and soul, that girl in Sark; the one who has been my patient there."

"Martin!" she cried, in a tone full of surprise and agitation—"Martin!"

"Yes; I know all you would urge—my honor; my affection for Julia; the claims she has upon me, the strongest claims possible; how good and worthy she is; what an impossibility it is even to look back now. I know it all, and feel how miserably binding it is upon me. Yet I love Olivia; and I shall never love Julia."

"Martin!" she cried again.

"Listen to me, Johanna," I said, for now the ice was broken, my frozen words were flowing as rapidly as a runnel of water; "I used to dream of a feeling something like this years ago, but no girl I saw could kindle it into reality. I have always esteemed Julia, and when my youth was over, and I had never felt any devouring passion, I began to think love was more of a word than a fact, or to believe that it had become only a word in these cold late times. At any rate, I concluded I was past the age for falling in love. There was my cousin Julia certainly dearer to me than any other woman, except my mother. I knew all her little ways; and they were not annoying to me, or were so in a very small degree. Besides, my father had had a grand passion for my mother, and what had that come to? There would be no such white ashes of a spent fire for Julia to shiver over. That was how I argued the matter out with myself. At eight-and-twenty I had never lost a quarter of an hour's sleep, or missed a meal, for the sake of any girl. Surely I was safe. It was quite fair for me to propose to Julia, and she would be satisfied with the affection I could offer her. Then there was my mother; it was the greatest happiness I could give her, and her life has not been a happy one, God knows. So I proposed to Julia, and she accepted me last Christmas."

"And you are to be married next month?" said Johanna, in an exceedingly troubled tone.

"Yes," I answered, "and now every word Julia speaks, and every thing she does, grates upon me. I love her as much as ever as my cousin, but as my wife! Good Heavens! Johanna, I cannot tell you how I dread it."

"What can be done?" she exclaimed, looking from me to Captain Carey, whose face was as full of dismay as her own. But he only shook his head despondingly.

"Done!" I repeated, "nothing, absolutely nothing. It is utterly impossible to draw back. Our house is nearly ready for us, and even Julia's wedding-dress and veil are bought."

"There is not a house you enter," said Johanna, solemnly, "where they are not preparing a wedding-present for Julia and you. There has not been a marriage in your district, among ourselves, for nine years. It is as public as a royal marriage."

"It must go on," I answered, with the calmness of despair. "I am the most good-for-nothing scoundrel in Guernsey to fall in love with my patient. You need not tell me so, Johanna. And yet, if I could think that Olivia loved me, I would not change with the happiest man alive."

"What is her name?" asked Johanna.

"One of the Olliviers," answered Captain Carey; "but what Olliviers she belongs to, I don't know. She is one of the prettiest creatures I ever saw."

"An Ollivier!" exclaimed Johanna, in her severest accents. "Martin, what are you thinking of?"

"Her Christian name is Olivia," I said, hastily; "she does not belong to the Olliviers at all. It was Tardif's mistake, and very natural. She was born in Australia, I believe."

"Of a good family, I hope?" asked Johanna. "There are some persons it would be a disgrace to you to love. What is her other name?"

"I don't know," I answered, reluctantly but distinctly.

Johanna turned her face full upon me now—a face more agitated than I had ever seen it. There was no use in trying to keep back any part of my serious delinquency, so I resolved to make a clean breast of it.

"I know very little about her," I said—"that is, about her history; as for herself, she is the sweetest, dearest, loveliest girl in the whole world to me. If I were free, and she loved me, I should not know what else to wish for. All I know is, that she has run away from her people; why, I have no more idea than you have, or who they are, or where they live; and she has been living in Tardif's cottage since last October. It is an infatuation, do you say? So it is, I dare say. It is an infatuation; and I don't know that I shall ever shake it off."

"What is she like?" asked Johanna. "Is she very merry and bright?"

"I never saw her laugh," I said.

"Very melancholy and sad, then?"

"I never saw her weep," I said.

"What is it then, Martin?" she asked, earnestly.

"I cannot tell what it is," I answered. "Everything she does and says has a charm for me that I could never describe. With her for my wife I should be more happy than I ever was; with any one else I shall be wretched. That is all I know."

I had left my seat by Johanna, and was pacing to and fro in the room, too restless and miserable to keep still. The low moan of the sea sighed all about the house. I could have cast myself on the floor had I been alone, and wept and sobbed like a woman. I could see no loop-hole of escape from the mesh of circumstances which caught me in their net.

A long, dreary, colorless, wretched life stretched before me, with Julia my inseparable companion, and Olivia altogether lost to me. Captain Carey and Johanna, neither of whom had tasted the sweets and bitters of marriage, looked sorrowfully at me and shook their heads.

"You must tell Julia," said Johanna, after a long pause.

"Tell Julia!" I echoed. "I would not tell her for worlds!"

"You must tell her," she repeated; "it is your clear duty. I know it will be most painful to you both, but you have no right to marry her with this secret on your mind."

"I should be true to her," I interrupted, somewhat angrily.

"What do you call being true, Martin Dobree?" she asked, more calmly than she had spoken before. "Is it being true to a woman to let her believe you choose and love her above all other women when that is absolutely false? No; you are too honorable for that. I tell you it is your plain duty to let Julia know this, and know it at once."

"It will break her heart," I said, with a sharp twinge of conscience and a cowardly shrinking from the unpleasant duty urged upon me.

"It will not break Julia's heart," said Johanna, very sadly; "it may break your mother's."

I reeled as if a sharp blow had struck me. I had been thinking far less of my mother than of Julia; but I saw, as with a flash of lightning, what a complete uprooting of all her old habits and long-cherished hopes this would prove to my mother, whose heart was so set upon this marriage. Would Julia marry me if she once heard of my unfortunate love for Olivia? And, if not, what would become of our home? My mother would have to give up one of us, for it was not to be supposed she would consent to live under the same roof with me, now the happy tie of cousinship was broken, and none dearer to be formed.

Which could my mother part with best? Julia was almost as much her daughter as I was her son; yet me she pined after if ever I was absent long. No; I could not resolve to run the risk of breaking that gentle, faithful heart, which loved me so fully. I went back to Johanna, and took her hand in both of mine.

"Keep my secret," I said, earnestly, "you two. I will make Julia and my mother happy. Do not mistrust me. This infatuation overpowered me unawares. I will conquer it; at the worst I can conceal it. I promise you Julia shall never regret being my wife."

"Martin," answered Johanna, determinedly, "if you do not tell Julia I must tell her myself. You say you love this other girl with all your heart and soul."

"Yes, and that is true," I said.

"Then Julia must know before she marries you."

Nothing could move Johanna from that position, and in my heart I recognized its righteousness. She argued with me that it was Julia's due to hear it from myself. I knew afterward that she believed the sight of her distress and firm love for myself would dissipate the infatuation of my love for Olivia. But she did not read Julia's character as well as my mother did.

Before she let me leave her I had promised to have my confession and subsequent explanation with Julia all over the following day; and to make this the more inevitable, she told me she should drive into St. Peter-Port the next afternoon about five o'clock, when she should expect to find this troublesome matter settled, either by a renewal of my affection for my betrothed, or the suspension of the betrothal. In the latter case she promised to carry Julia home with her until the first bitterness was over.



CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.

A MIDNIGHT RIDE.

I took care not to reach home before the hour when Julia usually went to bed. She had been out in the country all day, visiting the south cliffs of our island, with some acquaintances from England who were staying for a few days in St. Peter-Port. In all probability she would be too tired to sit up till my return if I were late.

I had calculated aright. It was after eleven o'clock when I entered, and my mother only was waiting for me. I wished to avoid any confidential chat that evening, and, after answering briefly her fond inquiries as to what could have kept me out so late, I took myself off to my own room.

But it was quite vain to think of sleep that night. I had soon worked myself up into that state of nervous, restless agitation; when one cannot remain quietly in one; room. I attempted to conquer it, but I could not.

The moon, which was at the full, was shining out of a cloudless field of sky upon my window. I longed for fresh air, and freedom, and motion; for a distance between myself and my dear old home—that home which I was about to plunge into troubled waters. The peacefulness oppressed me.

About one o'clock I opened my door as softly as possible, and stole silently downstairs—but not so silently that my mother's quick ear did not catch the slight jarring of my door.

The night-bell hung in my room, and occasionally I was summoned away at hours like this to visit a patient. She called to me as I crept down the stairs.

"Martin, what is the matter?" she whispered, over the banisters.

"Nothing, mother; nothing much," I answered. "I shall be home again in an hour or two. Go to bed, and go to sleep. Whatever makes you so thin-eared?"

"Are you going to take Madam?" she asked, seeing my whip in my hand. "Shall I ring up Pellet?"

"No, no!" I said; "I can manage well enough. Good-night again, my darling old mother."

Her pale, worn face smiled down upon me very tenderly as she kissed her hand to me. I stood, as if spellbound, watching her, and she watching me, until we both laughed, though somewhat falteringly.

"How romantic you are, my boy!" she said, in a tremulous voice.

"I shall not stir till you go back to bed," I answered, peremptorily; and as just then we heard my father calling out fretfully to ask why the door was open, and what was going on in the house, she disappeared, and I went on my way to the stables.

Madam was my favorite mare, first-rate at a gallop when she was in good temper, but apt to turn vicious now and then. She was in good temper to-night, and pricked up her ears and whinnied when I unlocked the stable-door. In a few minutes we were going up the Grange Road at a moderate pace till we reached the open country, and the long, white, dusty roads stretched before us, glimmering in the moonlight. I turned for St. Martin's, and Madam, at the first touch of my whip on her flanks, started off at a long and steady gallop.

It was a cool, quiet night in May. A few of the larger fixed stars twinkled palely in the sky, but the smaller ones were drowned in the full moonlight. The largest of them shone solemnly and brightly in afield of golden green just above the spot where the sun had set hours before. The trees, standing out with a blackness and distinctness never seen by day, appeared to watch for me and look after me as I rode along, forming an avenue of silent but very stately spectators; and to my fancy, for my fancy was highly excited that night, the rustling of the young leaves upon them whispered the name of Olivia. The hoof-beats of my mare's feet upon the hard roads echoed the name Olivia, Olivia!

By-and-by I turned off the road to got nearer the sea, and rode along sandy lanes with banks of turf instead of hedge-rows, which were covered thickly with pale primroses, shining with the same hue as the moon above them. As I passed the scattered cottages, here and there a dog yapped a shrill, snarling hark, and woke the birds, till they gave a sleepy twitter in their new nests.

Now and then I came in full sight of the sea, glittering in the silvery light. I crossed the head of a gorge, and stopped for a while to gaze down it, till my flesh crept. It was not more than a few yards in breadth, but it was of unknown depth, and the rocks stood above it with a thick, heavy blackness. The tide was rushing into its narrow channel with a thunder which throbbed like a pulse; yet in the intervals of its pulsation I could catch the thin, prattling tinkle of a brook running merrily down the gorge to plunge headlong into the sea. Round every spar of the crags, and over every islet of rock, the foam played ceaselessly, breaking over them like drifts of snow, forever melting, and forever forming again.

I kept on my way, as near the sea as I I could, past the sleeping cottages and hamlets, round through St. Pierre du Bois and Torteval, with the gleaming light-houses out on the Hanways, and by Rocquaine Bay, and Vazon Bay, and through the vale to Captain Carey's peaceful house, where, perhaps, to-morrow night—nay, this day's night—Julia might be weeping and wailing broken-hearted.

I had made the circuit of our island—a place so dear to me that it seemed scarcely possible to live elsewhere; yet I should be forced to live elsewhere. I knew that with a clear distinctness. There could be no home for me in Guernsey when my conduct toward Julia should become known.

But now Sark, which had been behind me all my ride, lay full in sight, and the eastern sky behind it began to quicken with new light. The gulls were rousing themselves, and flying out to sea, with their plaintive cries; and the larks were singing their first sleepy notes to the coming day.

As the sun rose, Sark looked very near, and the sea, a plain of silvery blue, seemed solid and firm enough to afford me a road across to it. A white mist lay like a huge snow-drift in hazy, broad curves over the Havre Gosselin, with sharp peaks of cliffs piercing through.

Olivia was sleeping yonder behind that veil of shining mist; and, dear as Guernsey was to me, she was a hundredfold dearer.

But my night's ride bad not made my day's task any easier for me. No new light had dawned upon my difficulty. There was no loop-hole for me to escape from the most painful and perplexing strait I had ever been in. How was I to break it to Julia? and when? It was quite plain to me that the sooner it was over the better it would be for myself, and perhaps the better for her. How was I to go through my morning's calls, in the state of nervous anxiety I found myself in?

I resolved to have it over as soon as breakfast was finished, and my father had gone to make his professional toilet, a lengthy and important duty with him. Yet when breakfast came I was listening intently for some summons, which would give me an hour's grace from fulfilling my own determination. I prolonged my meal, keeping my mother in her place at the table; for she had never given up her office of pouring out my tea and coffee.

I finished at List, and still no urgent message had come for me. My mother left us together alone, as her custom was, for what time I had to spare—a variable quantity always with me.

Now was the dreaded moment. But how was I to begin? Julia was so calm and unsuspecting. In what words could I convey my fatal meaning most gently to her? My head throbbed, and I could not raise my eyes to her face. Yet it must be done.

"Dear Julia," I said, in as firm a voice as I could command.

"Yes, Martin."

But just then Grace, the housemaid, knocked emphatically at the door, and after a due pause entered with a smiling, significant face, yet with an apologetic courtesy.

"If you please, Dr. Martin," she said, "I'm very sorry, but Mrs. Lihou's baby is taken with convulsion-fits; and they want you to go as fast as ever you can, please, sir."

"Was I sorry or glad? I could not tell. It was a reprieve; but then I knew positively it was nothing more than a reprieve. The sentence must be executed. Julia came to me, bent her cheek toward me, and I kissed it. That was our usual salutation when our morning's interview was ended.

"I am going down to the new house," she said. "I lost a good deal of time yesterday, and I must make up for it to-day. Shall you be passing by at any time, Martin?"

"Yes—no—I cannot tell exactly," I stammered.

"If you are passing, come in for a few minutes," she answered; "I have a thousand things to speak to you about."

"Shall you come in to lunch?" I asked.

"No, I shall take something with me," she replied; "it hinders so; coming back here."

I was not overworked that morning. The convulsions of Mrs. Lihou's baby were not at all serious; and, as I have before stated, the practice which my father and I shared between us was a very limited one. My part of it naturally fell among our poorer patients, who did not expect me to waste their time and my own, by making numerous or prolonged visits. So I had plenty of time to call upon Julia at the new house; but I could not summon sufficient courage. The morning slipped away while I was loitering about Fort George, and chatting carelessly with the officers quartered there.

I went to lunch, pretty sure of finding no one but my mother at home. There was no fear of losing her love, if every other friend turned me the cold shoulder, as I was morally certain they would, with no blame to themselves. But the very depth and constancy of her affection made it the more difficult and the more terrible for me to wound her. She had endured so much, poor mother! and was looking so wan and pale. If it had not been for Johanna's threat, I should have resolved to say nothing about Olivia, and to run my chance of matrimonial happiness.

What a cruel turn Fate had done me when it sent me across the sea to Sark ten weeks ago!

My mother was full of melancholy merriment that morning, making pathetic little jokes about Julia and me, and laughing at them heartily herself—short bursts of laughter which left her paler than she had been before.

I tried to laugh myself, in order to encourage her brief playfulness, though the effort almost choked me. Before I went out again, I sat beside her for a few minutes, with my head, which ached awfully by this time, resting on her dear shoulder.

"Mother," I said, "you are very fond of Julia?"

"I love her just the same as if she were my daughter, Martin—as she will be soon," she answered.

"Do you love her as much as me?" I asked.

"Jealous boy!" she said, laying her hand on my hot forehead, "no, not half as much; not a quarter, not a tenth part as much! Does that content you?"

"Suppose something should prevent our marriage?" I suggested.

"But nothing can," she interrupted; "and, O Martin! I am sure you will be very happy with Julia."

I said no more, for I did not dare to tell her yet; but I wished I had spoken to her about Olivia, instead of hiding her name, and all belonging to her, in my inmost heart. My mother would know all quite soon enough, unless Julia and I agreed to keep it secret, and let things go on as they were.

If Julia said she would marry me, knowing that I was heart and soul in love with another woman, why, then I would go through with it, and my mother need never hear a word about my dilemma.

Julia must decide my lot. My honor was pledged to her; and if she insisted upon the fulfilment of my engagement to her, well, of course, I would fulfil it.

I went down reluctantly at length to the new house; but it was at almost the last hour. The church-clocks had already struck four; and I knew Johanna would be true to her time, and drive up the Grange at five. I left a message with my mother for her, telling her where she would find Julia and me. Then doggedly, but sick at heart with myself and all the world, I went down to meet my doom.

It was getting into nice order, this new house of ours. We had had six months to prepare it in, and to fit it up exactly to our minds; and it was as near my ideal of a pleasant home as our conflicting tastes permitted. Perhaps this was the last time I should cross its threshold. There was a pang in the thought.

This was my position. If Julia listened to my avowal angrily, and renounced me indignantly, passionately, I lost fortune, position, profession; my home and friends, with the sole exception of my mother. I should be regarded alternately as a dupe and a scoundrel. Guernsey would become too hot to hold me, and I should be forced to follow my luck in some foreign land. If, on the other hand, Julia clung to me, and would not give me up, trusting to time to change my feelings, then I lost Olivia; and to lose her seemed the worse fate of the two.

Julia was sitting alone in the drawing-room, which overlooked the harbor and the group of islands across the channel. There was no fear of interruption; no callers to ring the bell and break in upon our tete-a-tete. It was an understood thing that at present only Julia's most intimate friends had been admitted into our new house, and then by special invitation alone.

There was a very happy, very placid expression on her face. Every harsh line seemed softened, and a pleased smile played about her lips. Her dress was one of those simple, fresh, clean muslin gowns, with knots of ribbon about it, which make a plain woman almost pretty, and a pretty woman bewitching. Her dark hair looked less prim and neat than usual. She pretended not to hear me open the door; but as I stood still at the threshold gazing at her, she lifted up her head, with a very pleasant smile.

"I am very glad you are come, my dear Martin," she said, softly.



CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

A LONG HALF-HOUR.

I dared not dally another moment. I must take my plunge at once into the icy-cold waters.

"I have something of importance to say to you, dear cousin," I began.

"So have I," she said, gayly; "a thousand things, as I told you this morning, sir, though you are so late in coming to hear them. See, I have been making a list of a few commissions for you to do in London. They are such as I can trust to you; but for plate, and glass, and china, I think we had better wait till we return from Switzerland. We are sure to come home through London."

Her eyes ran over a paper she was holding in her hand; while I stood opposite to her, not knowing what to do with myself, and feeling the guiltiest wretch alive.

"Cannot you find a seat?" she asked, after a short silence.

I sat down on the broad window-sill instead of on the chair close to hers. She looked up at that, and fixed her eyes upon me keenly. I had often quailed before Julia's gaze as a boy, but never as I did now.

"Well! what is it?" she asked, curtly. The incisiveness of her tone brought life into me, as a probe sometimes brings a patient out of stupor.

"Julia," I said, "are you quite sure you love me enough to be happy with me as my wife?"

She opened her eyes very widely, and arched her eyebrows at the question, laughed a little, and then drooped her head over the work in her hands.

"Think of it well, Julia," I urged.

"I know you well enough to be as happy as the day is long with you," she replied, the color rushing to her face. "I have no vocation for a single life, such as so many of the girls here have to make up their minds to. I should hate to have nothing to do and nobody to care for. Every night and morning I thank God that he has ordained another life for me. He knows how I love you, Martin."

"What was I to say to this? How was I to set my foot down to crush this blooming happiness of hers?

"You do not often look as if you loved me," I said at last.

"That is only my way," she answered. "I can't be soft and purring like many women. I don't care to be always kissing and hanging about anybody. But if you are afraid I don't love you enough—well! I will ask you what you think in ten years' time."

"What would you say if I told you I had once loved a girl better than I do you?" I asked.

"That's not true," she said, sharply. "I've known you all your life, and you could not hide such a thing from your mother and me. You are only laughing at me, Martin."

"Heaven knows I'm not laughing," I answered, solemnly; "it's no laughing matter. Julia, there is a girl I love better than you, even now."

The color and the smile faded out of her face, leaving it ashy pale. Her lips parted once or twice, but her voice failed her. Then she broke out into a short, hysterical laugh.

"You are talking nonsense, dear Martin!" she gasped; "you ought not! I am not very strong. Get me a glass of water."

I fetched a glass of water from the kitchen; for the servant, who had been at work, had gone home, and we were quite alone in the house. When I returned, her face was still working with nervous twitchings.

"Martin, you ought not!" she repeated, after she had swallowed some water. "Tell me it is a joke directly."

"I cannot," I replied, painfully and sorrowfully; "it is the truth, though I would almost rather face death than own it. I love you dearly, Julia; but I love another woman better. God help us both!"

There was dead silence in the room after those words. I could not hear Julia breathe or move, and I could not look at her. My eyes were turned toward the window and the islands across the sea, purple and hazy in the distance.

"Leave me!" she said, after a very long stillness; "go away, Martin."

"I cannot leave you alone," I exclaimed; "no, I will not, Julia. Let me tell you more; let me explain it all. You ought to know every thing now."

"Go away!" she repeated, in a slow, mechanical tone.

I hesitated still, seeing her white and trembling, with her eyes glassy and fixed. But she motioned me from her toward the door, and her pale lips parted again to reiterate her command.

How I crossed that room I do not know; but the moment after I had closed the door I heard the key turn in the lock. I dared not quit the house and leave her alone in such a state; and I longed ardently to hear the clocks chime five, and the sound of Johanna's wheels on the roughly-paved street. She could not be here yet for a full half-hour, for she had to go up to our house in the Grange Road and come back again. What if Julia should have fainted, or be dead!

That was one of the longest half-hours in my life. I stood at the street-door watching and waiting, and nodding to people who passed by, and who simpered at me in the most inane fashion.

"The fools!" I called them to myself. At length Johanna turned the corner, and her pony-carriage came rattling cheerfully over the large round stones. I ran to meet her.

"For Heaven's sake, go to Julia!" I cried. "I have told her."

"And what does she say?" asked Johanna.

"Not a word, not a syllable," I replied, "except to bid me go away. She has locked herself into the drawing-room."

"Then you had better go away altogether," she said, "and leave me to deal with her. Don't come in, and then I can say you are not here."

A friend of mine lived in the opposite house, and, though I knew he was not at home, I knocked at his door and asked permission to sit for a while in his parlor.

The windows looked into the street, and there I sat watching the doors of our new house, for Johanna and Julia to come out. No man likes to be ordered out of sight, as if he were a vagabond or a criminal, and I felt myself aggrieved and miserable.

At length the door opposite opened, and Julia appeared, her face completely hidden behind a veil. Johanna helped her into the low carriage, as if she had been an invalid, and paid her those minute trivial attentions which one woman showers upon another when she is in great grief. Then they drove off, and were soon out of my sight.

By this time our dinner-hour was near, and I knew my mother would be looking out for us both. I was thankful to find at the table a visitor, who had dropped in unexpectedly: one of my father's patients—a widow, with a high color, a loud voice, and boisterous spirits, who kept up a rattle of conversation with Dr. Dobree. My mother glanced anxiously at me very often, but she could say little.

"Where is Julia?" she had inquired, as we sat down to dinner without her.

"Julia?" I said, quite absently; "oh! she is gone to the Vale, with Johanna Carey."

"Will she come back to-night?" asked my mother.

"Not to-night," I said, aloud; but to myself I added, "nor for many nights to come; never, most probably, while I am under this roof. We have been building our house upon the sand, and the floods have come, and the winds have blown, and the house has fallen; but my mother knows nothing of the catastrophe yet."

If it were possible to keep her ignorant of it! But that could not be. She read trouble in my face, as clearly as one sees a thunder-cloud in the sky, and she could not rest till she had fathomed it. After she and our guest had left us, my father lingered only a few minutes. He was not a man that cared for drinking much wine, with no companion but me, and he soon pushed the decanters from him.

"You are as dull as a beetle to-night, Martin," he said. "I think I will go and see how your mother and Mrs. Murray get along together."

He went his way, and I went mine—up into my own room, where I should be alone to think over things. It was a pleasant room, and had been mine from my boyhood. There were some ugly old pictures still hanging against the walls, which I could not find in my heart to take down. The model of a ship I had carved with my penknife, the sails of which had been made by Julia, occupied the top shelf over my books. The first pistol I had ever possessed lay on the same shelf. It was my own den, my nest, my sanctuary, my home within the home. I could not think of myself being quite at home anywhere else.

Of late I had been awakened in the night two or three times, and found my mother standing at my bedside, with her thin, transparent fingers shading the light from my eyes. When I remonstrated with her she had kissed me, smoothed the clothes about me, and promised meekly to go back to bed. Did she visit me every night? and would there come a time when she could not visit me?



CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

BROKEN OFF.

As I asked myself this question, with an unerring premonition that the time would soon come when my mother and I would be separated, I heard her tapping lightly at the door. She was not in the habit of leaving her guests, and I was surprised and perplexed at seeing her.

"Your father and Mrs. Murray are having a game of chess," she said, answering my look of astonishment. "We can be alone together half an hour. And now tell me what is the matter? There is something going wrong with you."

She sank down weariedly into a chair, and I knelt down beside her. It was almost harder to tell her than to tell Julia; but it was worse than useless to put off the evil moment. Better for her to hear all from me before a whisper reached her from any one else.

"Johanna came here," she continued, "with a face as grave as a judge, and asked for Julia in a melancholy voice. Has there been any quarrel between you two?"

She was accustomed to our small quarrels, and to setting them right again; for we were prone to quarrel in a cousinly fashion, without much real bitterness on either side, but with such an intimate and irritating knowledge of each other's weak points, that we needed a peace-maker at hand.

"Mother, I am not going to marry my cousin Julia," I said.

"So I have heard before," she answered, with a faint smile. "Come, come, Martin! it is too late to talk boyish nonsense like this."

"But I love somebody else," I said, warmly, for my heart throbbed at the thought of Olivia; "and I told Julia so this afternoon. It is broken off for good now, mother."

She gave me no answer, and I looked up into her dear face in alarm. It had grown rigid, and a peculiar blue tinge of pallor was spreading over it. Her head had fallen back against the chair. I had never seen her look so death-like in any of her illnesses, and I sprang to my feet in terror. She stopped me by a slight convulsive pressure of her hand, as I was about to unfasten her brooch and open her dress to give her air.

"No, Martin," she whispered, "I shall be better in a moment."

But it was several minutes before she breathed freely and naturally, or could lift up her head. Then she did not look at me, but lifted up her eyes to the pale evening sky, and her lips quivered with agitation.

"Martin, it will be the death of me," she said; and a few tears stole down her cheeks, which I wiped away.

"It shall not be the death of you," I exclaimed. "If Julia is willing to marry me, knowing the whole truth, I am ready to marry her for your sake, mother. I would do any thing for your sake. But Johanna said she ought to be told, and I think it was right myself."

"Who is it, who can it be that you love?" she asked.

"Mother," I said, "I wish I had told you before, but I did not know that I loved the girl as I do, till I saw her yesterday in Sark, and Captain Carey charged me with it."

"That girl!" she cried. "One of the Olliviers! O Martin, you must marry in your own class."

"That was a mistake," I answered. "Her Christian name is Olivia; I do not know what her surname is."

"Not know even her name!" she exclaimed.

"Listen, mother," I said; and then I told her all I knew about Olivia, and drew such a picture of her as I had seen her, as made my mother smile and sigh deeply in turns.

"But she may be an adventuress; you know nothing about her," she objected. "Surely, you cannot love a woman you do not esteem?"

"Esteem!" I repeated. "I never thought whether I esteemed Olivia, but I am satisfied I love her. You may be quite sure she is no adventuress. An adventuress would not hide herself in Tardif's out-of-the-world cottage."

"A girl without friends and without a name!" she sighed; "a runaway from her family and home! It does not look well, Martin."

I could answer nothing, and it would be of little use to try. I saw when my mother's prejudices could blind her. To love any one not of our own caste was a fatal error in her eyes.

"Does Julia know all this?" she asked.

"She has not heard a word about Olivia," I answered. "As soon as I told her I loved some one else better than her, she bade me begone out of her sight. She has not an amiable temper."

"But she is an upright, conscientious, religious woman," she said, somewhat angrily. "She would never have run away from her friends; and we know all about her. I cannot think what your father will say, Martin. It has given him more pleasure and satisfaction than any thing that has happened for years. If this marriage is broken off, it upsets every thing."

Of course it would upset every thing; there was the mischief of it. The convulsion would be so great, that I felt ready to marry Julia in order to avoid it, supposing she would marry me. That was the question, and it rested solely with her. I would almost rather face the long, slow weariness of an unsuitable marriage than encounter the immediate results of the breaking off of our engagement just on the eve of its consummation. I was a coward, no doubt, but events had hurried me on too rapidly for me to stand still and consider the cost.

"O Martin, Martin!" wailed my poor mother, breaking down again suddenly. "I had so set my heart upon this! I did so long to see you in a home of your own! And Julia was so generous, never looking as if all the money was hers, and you without a penny! What is to become of you now, my boy? I wish I had been dead and in my grave before this had happened!"

"Hush, mother!" I said, kneeling down again beside her and kissing her tenderly; "it is still in Julia's hands. If she will marry me, I shall marry her."

"But then you will not be happy?" she said, with fresh sobs.

It was impossible for me to contradict that. I felt that no misery would be equal to that of losing Olivia. But I did my best to comfort my mother, by promising to see Julia the next day and renew my engagement, if possible.

"Pray, may I be informed as to what is the matter now?" broke in a satirical, cutting voice—the voice of my father. It roused us both—my mother to her usual mood of gentle submission, and me to the chronic state of irritation which his presence always provoked in me.

"Not much, sir," I answered, coldly; "only my marriage with my cousin Julia is broken off."

"Broken off!" he ejaculated—"broken off!"



CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

THE DOBREES' GOOD NAME.

My father's florid face looked almost as rigid and white as my mother's had done. He stood in the doorway, with a lamp in his hand (for it had grown quite dark while my mother and I were talking), and the light shone full upon his changed face. His hand shook violently, so I took the lamp from him and set it down on the table.

"Go down to Mrs. Murray," he said, turning savagely upon my mother. "How could you be so rude as to leave her? She talks of going away. Let her go as soon as she likes. I shall stay here with Martin."

"I did not know I had been away so long," she answered, meekly, and looking deprecatingly from the one to the other of us.—"You will not quarrel with your father, Martin, if I leave you, will you?" This she whispered in my ear, in a beseeching tone.

"Not if I can help it, mother," I replied, also in a whisper.

"Now, confound it!" cried Dr. Dobree, after she had gone, slowly and reluctantly, and looking back at the door to me—"now just tell me shortly all about this nonsense of yours. I thought some quarrel was up, when Julia did not come home to dinner. Out with it, Martin."

"As I said before, there is not much to tell," I answered. "I was compelled in honor to tell Julia I loved another woman more than herself; and I presume, though I am not sure, she will decline to become my wife."

"In love with another woman!" repeated my father, with a long whistle, partly of sympathy, and partly of perplexity. "Who is it, my son?"

"That is of little moment," I said, having no desire whatever to confide the story to him. "The main point is that it's true, and I told Julia so, this afternoon."

"Good gracious, Martin!" he cried, "what accursed folly! What need was there to tell her of any little peccadillo, if you could conceal it? Why did you not come to me for advice? Julia is a prude, like your mother. It will not be easy for her to overlook this."

"There is nothing to overlook," I said. "As soon as I knew my own mind, I told her honestly about it."

At that moment it did not occur to me that my honesty was due to Johanna's insistent advice. I believed just then that I had acted from the impulse of my own sense of honor, and the belief gave my words and tone more spirit than they would have had otherwise. My father's face grew paler and graver as he listened; he looked older, by ten years, than he had done an hour ago in the dining-room.

"I don't understand it," he muttered; "do you mean that this is a serious thing? Are you in love with some girl of our own class? Not a mere passing fancy, that no one would think seriously of for an instant? Just a trifling faux pas, that it is no use telling women about, eh? I could make allowance for that, Martin, and get Julia to do the same. Come, it cannot be any thing more."

I did not reply to him. Here we had come, he and I, to the very barrier that had been growing up between us ever since I had first discovered my mother's secret and wasting grief. He was on one side of it and I on the other—a wall of separation which neither of us could leap over.

"Why don't you speak, Martin?" he asked, testily.

"Because I hate the subject," I answered. "When I told Julia I loved another woman, I meant that some one else occupied that place in my affection which belonged rightfully to my wife; and so Julia understood it."

"Then," he cried with a gesture of despair, "I am a ruined man!"

His consternation and dismay were so real that they startled me; yet, knowing what a consummate actor he was, I restrained both my fear and my sympathy, and waited for him to enlighten me further. He sat with his head bowed, and his hands hanging down, in an attitude of profound despondency, so different from his usual jaunty air, that every moment increased my anxiety.

"What can it have to do with you?" I asked, after a long pause.

"I am a ruined and disgraced man." he reiterated, without looking up; "if you have broken off your marriage with Julia, I shall never raise my head again."

"But why?" I asked, uneasily.

"Come down into my consulting-room," he said, after another pause of deliberation. I went on before him, carrying the lamp, and, turning round once or twice, saw his face look gray, and the expression of it vacant and troubled. His consulting-room was a luxurious room, elegantly furnished; and with several pictures on the walls, including a painted photograph of himself, taken recently by the first photographer in Guernsey. There were book-cases containing a number of the best medical works; behind which lay, out of sight, a numerous selection of French novels, more thumbed than the ponderous volumes in front. He sank down into an easy-chair, shivering as if we were in the depth of winter.

"Martin, I am a ruined man!" he said, for the third time.

"But how?" I asked again, impatiently; for my fears were growing strong. Certainly he was not acting a part this time.

"I dare not tell you," he cried, leaning his head upon his desk, and sobbing. How white his hair was! and how aged he looked! I recollected how he used to play with me when I was a boy, and carry me before him on horseback, as long back as I could remember. My heart softened and warmed to him as it had not done for years.

"Father!" I said, "if you can trust any one, you can trust me. If you are ruined and disgraced I shall be the same, as your son."

"That's true," he answered, "that's true! It will bring disgrace on you and your mother. We shall be forced to leave Guernsey, where she has lived all her life; and it will be the death of her. Martin, you must save us all by making it up with Julia."

"But why?" I demanded, once more. "I must know what you mean."

"Mean?" he said, turning upon me angrily, "you blockhead! I mean that unless you marry Julia I shall have to give an account of her property; and I could not make all square, not if I sold every stick and stone I possess."

I sat silent for a time, trying to take in this piece of information. He had been Julia's guardian ever since she was left an orphan, ten years old; but I had never known that there had not been a formal and legal settlement of her affairs when she was of age. Our family name had no blot upon it; it was one of the most honored names in the island. But if this came to light, then the disgrace would be dark indeed.

"Can you tell me all about it?" I asked.

My father, after making his confession, settled himself in his chair comfortably; appearing to feel that he had begun to make reparation for the wrong. His temperament was more buoyant than mine. Selfish natures are often buoyant.

"It would take a long time," he said, "and it would be a deuse of a nuisance. You make it up with Julia, and marry her, as you're bound to do. Of course, you will manage all her money when you are her husband, as you will be. Now you know all."

"But I don't know all," I replied; "and I insist upon doing so, before I make up my mind what to do."

I believe he expected this opposition from me, for otherwise all he had said could have been said in my room. But after feebly giving battle on various points, and staving off sundry inquiries, he opened a drawer in one of his cabinets, and produced a number of deeds, scrip, etc., belonging to Julia.

For two hours I was busy with his accounts. Once or twice he tried to slink out of the room; but that I would not suffer. At length the ornamental clock on his chimney-piece struck eleven, and he made another effort to beat a retreat.