"Do not go away till every thing is clear," I said; "is this all?"

"All?" he repeated; "isn't it enough?"

"Between three and four thousand pounds deficient!" I answered; "it is quite enough."

"Enough to make me a felon," he said, "if Julia chooses to prosecute me."

"I think it is highly probable," I replied; "though I know nothing of the law."

"Then you see clearly, Martin, there is no alternative, but for you to marry her, and keep our secret. I have reckoned upon this for years, and your mother and I have been of one mind in bringing it about. If you marry Julia, her affairs go direct from my hands to yours, and we are all safe. If you break with her she will leave us, and demand an account of my guardianship; and your name and mine will be branded in our own island."

"That is very clear," I said, sullenly.

"Your mother would not survive it!" he continued, with a solemn accent.

"Oh! I have been threatened with that already," I exclaimed, very bitterly. "Pray does my mother know of this disgraceful business?"

"Heaven forbid!" he cried. "Your mother is a good woman, Martin; as simple as a dove. You ought to think of her before you consign us all to shame. I can quit Guernsey. I am an old man, and it signifies very little where I lie down to die. I have not been as good a husband as I might have been; but I could not face her after she knows this. Poor Mary! My poor, poor love! I believe she cares enough for me still to break her heart over it."

"Then I am to be your scape-goat," I said.

"You are my son," he answered; "and religion itself teaches us that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. I leave the matter in your hands. But only answer one question: Could you show your face among your own friends if this were known?"

I knew very well I could not. My father a fraudulent steward of Julia's property! Then farewell forever to all that had made my life happy! We were a proud family—proud of our rank, and of our pure blood; above all, of our honor, which had never been tarnished by a breath. I could not yet bear to believe that my father was a rogue. He himself was not so lost to shame that he could meet my eye. I saw there was no escape from it—I must marry Julia.

"Well," I said, at last, "as you say, the matter is in my hands now; and I must make the best of it. Good-night, sir."

Without a light I went up to my own room, where the moon that had shone upon me in my last night's ride, was gleaming brightly through the window. I intended to reflect and deliberate, but I was worn out. I flung myself down on the bed, but could not have remained awake for a single moment. I fell into a deep sleep which lasted till morning.



CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

TWO LETTERS.

When I awoke, my poor mother was sitting beside me, looking very ill and sorrowful. She had slipped a pillow under my head, and thrown a shawl across me. I got up with a bewildered brain, and a general sense of calamity, which I could not clearly define.

"Martin," she said, "your father has gone by this morning's boat to Jersey. He says you know why; but he has left this note for you. Why have you not been in bed last night?"

"Never mind, mother," I answered, as I tore open the note, which was carefully sealed with my father's private seal. He had written it immediately after I left him.

"11.30 P.M.

"MY SON: To-morrow morning, I shall run over to Jersey for a few days until this sad business of yours is settled. I cannot bear to meet your changed face. You make no allowances for your father. Half my expenses have been incurred in educating you; you ought to consider this, and that you owe more to me, as your father, than to any one else. But in these days parents receive little honor from their children. When all is settled, write to me at Prince's Hotel. It rests upon you whether I ever see Guernsey again. Your wretched father,

"RICHARD DOBREE."

"Can I see it?" asked my mother, holding out her hand.

"No, never mind seeing it," I answered, "it is about Julia, you know. It would only trouble you."

"Captain Carey's man brought a letter from Julia just now," she said, taking it from her pocket; "he said there was no answer."

Her eyelids were still red from weeping, and her voice faltered as if she might break out into sobs any moment. I took the letter from her, but I did not open it.

"You want to be alone to read it?" she said. "O Martin! if you can change your mind, and save us all from this trouble, do it, for my sake?"

"If I can I will," I answered; "but every thing is very hard upon me, mother."

She could not guess how hard, and, if I could help it, she should never know. Now I was fully awake, the enormity of my father's dishonesty and his extreme egotism weighed heavily upon me. I could not view his conduct in a fairer light than I had done in my amazement the night before. It grew blacker as I dwelt upon it. And now he was off to Jersey, shirking the disagreeable consequences of his own delinquency. I knew how he would spend his time there. Jersey is no retreat for the penitent.

As soon as my mother was gone I opened Julia's letter. It began:

"MY DEAR MARTIN: I know all now. Johanna has told me. When you spoke to me so hurriedly and unexpectedly, this afternoon, I could not bear to hear another word. But now I am calm, and I can think it all over quite quietly.

"It is an infatuation, Martin. Johanna says so as well as I, and she is never wrong. It is a sheer impossibility that you, in your sober senses, should love a strange person, whose very name you do not know, better than you do me, your cousin, your sister, your fiancee, whom you have known all your life, and loved. I am quite sure of that, with a very true affection.

"It vexes me to write about that person in any connection with yourself. Emma spoke of her in her last letter from Sark; not at all in reference to you, however. She is so completely of a lower class, that it would never enter Emma's head that you could see any thing in her. She said there was a rumor afloat that Tardif was about to marry the girl you had been attending, and that everybody in the island regretted it. She said it would be a mesalliance for him, Tardif! What then would it be for you, a Dobree? No; it is a delusion, an infatuation, which will quickly pass away. I cannot believe you are so weak as to be taken in by mere prettiness without character; and this person—I do not say so harshly, Martin—has no character, no name. Were you free you could not marry her. There is a mystery about her, and mystery usually means shame. A Dobree could not make an adventuress his wife. Then you have seen so little of her. Three times, since the week you were there in March! What is that compared to the years we have spent together? It is impossible that in your heart of hearts you should love her more than me.

"I have been trying to think what you would do if all is broken off between us. We could not keep this a secret in Guernsey, and everybody would blame you. I will not ask you to think of my mortification at being jilted, for people would call it that. I could outlive that. But what are you to do? We cannot go on again as we used to do. I must speak plainly about it. Your practice is not sufficient to maintain the family in a proper position for the Dobrees; and if I go to live alone at the new house, as I must do, what is to become of my uncle and aunt? I have often considered this, and have been glad the difficulty was settled by our marriage. Now every thing will be unsettled again.

"I did not intend to say any thing about myself; but, O Martin! you do not know the blank that it will be to me. I have been so happy since you asked me to be your wife. It was so pleasant to think that I should live all my life in Guernsey, and yet not be doomed to the empty, vacant lot of an unmarried woman. You think that perhaps Johanna is happy single? She is content—good women ought to be content; but, I tell you, I would gladly exchange her contentment for Aunt Dobree's troubles, with her pride and happiness in you. I have seen her troubles clearly; and I say, Martin, I would give all Johanna's calm, colorless peace for her delight in her son.

"Then I cannot give up the thought of our home, just finished and so pretty. It was so pleasant this afternoon before you came in with your dreadful thunder-bolt. I was thinking what a good wife I would be to you; and how, in my own house, I should never be tempted into those tiresome tempers you have seen in me sometimes. It was your father often who made me angry, and I visited it upon you, because you are so good-tempered. That was foolish of me. You could not know how much I love you, how my life is bound up in you, or you would have been proof against that person in Sark.

"I think it right to tell you all this now, though it is not in my nature to make professions and demonstrations of my love. Think of me, of yourself, of your poor mother. You were never selfish, and you can do noble things. I do not say it would be noble to marry me; but it would be a noble thing to conquer an ignoble passion. How could Martin Dobree fall in love with an unknown adventuress?

"I shall remain in the house all day to-morrow, and if you can come to see me, feeling that this has been a dream of folly from which you have awakened, I will not ask you to own it. That you come at all will be a sign to me that you wish it forgotten and blotted out between us, as if it had never been.

"With true, deep love for you, Martin, believe me still

"Your affectionate JULIA."

I pondered over Julia's letter as I dressed. There was not a word of resentment in it. It was full of affectionate thought for us all. But what reasoning! I had not known Olivia so long as I had known her, therefore I could not love her as truly!

A strange therefore!

I had scarcely had leisure to think of Olivia in the hurry and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours. But now "that person in Sark," the "unknown adventuress," presented itself very vividly to my mind. Know her! I felt as if I knew every tone of her voice and every expression of her face; yet I longed to know them more intimately. The note she had written to me a few weeks ago I could repeat word for word, and the handwriting seemed far more familiar to me even than Julia's. There was no doubt my love for her was very different from my affection for Julia; and if it was an infatuation, it was the sweetest, most exquisite infatuation that could ever possess me.

Yet there was no longer any hesitation in my mind as to what I must do. Julia knew all now. I had told her distinctly of my love for Olivia, and she would not believe it. She appeared wishful to hold me to my engagement in spite of it; at any rate, so I interpreted her letter. I did not suppose that I should not live it down, this infatuation, as they chose to call it. I might hunger and thirst, and be on the point of perishing; then my nature would turn to other nutriment, and assimilate it to its contracted and stultified capacities.

After all there was some reason in the objections urged against Olivia. The dislike of all insulated people against foreigners is natural enough; and in her case there was a mystery which I must solve before I could think of asking her to become my wife. Ask her to become my wife! That was impossible now. I had chosen my wife months before I saw her.

I went mechanically through the routine of my morning's work, and it was late in the afternoon before I could get away to ride to the Vale. My mother knew where I was going, and gazed wistfully into my face, but without otherwise asking me any questions. At the last moment, as I touched Madam's bridle, I looked down at her standing on the door-step. "Cheer up, mother!" I said, almost gayly, "it will all come right."



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

ALL WRONG.

By this time you know that I could not ride along the flat, open shore between St. Peter-Port and the Vale without having a good sight of Sark, though it lay just a little behind me. It was not in human nature to turn my back doggedly upon it. I had never seen it look nearer; the channel between us scarcely seemed a mile across. The old windmill above the Havre Gosselin stood out plainly. I almost fancied that but for Breckhou I could have seen Tardif's house, where my darling was living. My heart leaped at the mere thought of it. Then I shook Madam's bridle about her neck, and she carried me on at a sharp canter toward Captain Carey's residence.

I saw Julia standing at a window up-stairs, gazing down the long white road, which runs as straight as an arrow through the Braye du Valle to L'Ancresse Common.

She must have seen Madam and me half a mile away; but she kept her post motionless as a sentinel, until I jumped down to open the gate. Then she vanished.

The servant-man was at the door by the time I reached it, and Johanna herself was on the threshold, with her hands outstretched and her face radiant. I was as welcome as the prodigal son, and she was ready to fall on my neck and kiss me.

"I felt sure of you," she said, in a low voice. "I trusted to your good sense and honor, and they have not failed you. Thank God you are come! Julia has neither ate nor slept since I brought her here."

She led me to her own private sitting-room, where I found Julia standing by the fireplace, and leaning against it, as if she could not stand alone. When I went up to her and took her hand, she flung her arms round my neck, and clung to me, in a passion of tears. It was some minutes before she could recover her self-command. I had never seen her abandon herself to such a paroxysm before.

"Julia, my poor girl!" I said, "I did not think you would take it so much to heart as this."

"I shall come all right directly," she sobbed, sitting down, and trembling from head to foot. "Johanna said you would come, but I was not sure."

"Yes, I am here," I answered, with a very dreary feeling about me.

"That is enough," said Julia; "you need not say a word more. Let us forget it, both of us. You will only give me your promise never to see her, or speak to her again."

It might be a fair thing for her to ask, but it was not a fair thing for me to promise. Olivia had told me she had no friends at all except Tardif and me; and if the gossip of the Sark people drove her from the shelter of his roof, I should be her only resource; and I believed she would come frankly to me for help.

"Olivia quite understands about my engagement to you," I said. "I told her at once that we were going to be married, and that I hoped she would find a friend in you."'

"A friend in me, Martin!" she exclaimed, in a tone of indignant surprise; "you could not ask me to be that!"

"Not now, I suppose," I replied; "the girl is as innocent and blameless as any girl living; but I dare say you would sooner befriend the most good-for-nothing Jezebel in the Channel Islands."

"Yes, I would," she said. "An innocent girl indeed! I only wish she had been killed when she fell from the cliff."

"Hush!" I cried, shuddering at the bare mention of Olivia's death; "you do not know what you say. It is worse than useless to talk about her. I came to ask you to think no more of what passed between us yesterday."

"But you are going to persist in your infatuation," said Julia; "you can never deceive me. I know you too well. Oh, I see that you still think the same of her'"

"You know nothing about her," I replied.

"And I shall take care I never do," she interrupted, spitefully.

"So it is of no use to go on quarrelling about her," I continued, taking no notice of the interruption. "I made up my mind before I came here that I must see as little as possible of her for the future. You must understand, Julia, she has never given me a particle of reason to suppose she loves me."

"But you are still in love with her?" she asked.

I stood biting my nails to the quick, a trick I had while a boy, but one that had been broken off by my mother's and Julia's combined vigilance. Now the habit came back upon me in full force, as my only resource from speaking.

"Martin," she said, with flashing eyes, and a rising tone in her voice, which, like the first shrill moan of the wind, presaged a storm, "I will never marry you until you can say, on your word of honor, that you love that person no longer, and are ready to promise to hold no further communication with her. Oh! I know what my poor aunt has had to endure, and I will not put up with it."

"Very well, Julia," I answered, controlling myself as well as I could, "I have only one more word to say on this subject. I love Olivia, and, as far as I know myself, I shall love her as long as I live. I did not come here to give you any reason for supposing my mind is changed as to her. If you consent to be my wife, I will do my best, God helping me, to be most true, most faithful to you; and God forbid I should injure Olivia in thought by supposing she could care for me other than as a friend. But my motive for coming now is to tell you some particulars about your property, which my father made known to me only last night."

It was a miserable task for me; but I told her simply the painful discovery I had made. She sat listening with a dark and sullen face, but betraying not a spark of resentment, so far as her loss of fortune was concerned.

"Yes," she said, bitterly, when I had finished, "robbed by the father and jilted by the son."

"I would give my life to cancel the wrong," I said.

"It is so easy to talk," she replied, with a deadly coldness of tone and manner.

"I am ready to do whatever you choose," I urged. "It is true my father has robbed you; but it is not true that I have jilted you. I did not know my own heart till a word from Captain Carey revealed it to me; and I told you frankly, partly because Johanna insisted upon it, and partly because I believed it right to do so. If you demand it, I will even promise not to see Olivia again, or to hold direct communication with her. Surely that is all you ought to require from me."

"No," she replied, vehemently; "do you suppose I could become your wife while you maintain that you love another woman better than me? You must have a very low opinion of me."

"Would you have me tell you a falsehood?" I rejoined, with vehemence equal to hers.

"You had better leave me," she said, "before we hate one another. I tell you I have been robbed by the father and jilted by the son. Good-by, Martin."

"Good-by, Julia," I replied; but I still lingered, hoping she would speak to me again. I was anxious to hear what she would do against my father. She looked at me fully and angrily, and, as I did not move, she swept out of the room, with a dignity which I had never seen in her before. I retreated toward the house-door, but could not make good my escape without encountering Johanna.

"Well, Martin?" she said.

"It is all wrong," I answered. "Julia persists in it that I am jilting her."

"All the world will think you have behaved very badly," she said.

"I suppose so," I replied; "but don't you think so, Johanna."

She shook her head in silence, and closed the hall-door after me. Many a door in Guernsey would be shut against me as soon as this was known.

I had to go round to the stables to find Madam. The man had evidently expected me to stay a long while, for her saddle-girths were loosened, and the bit out of her mouth, that she might enjoy a liberal feed of oats. Captain Carey came up tome as I was buckling the girths.

"Well, Martin?" he asked, exactly as Johanna had done before him.

"All wrong," I repeated.

"Dear! dear!" he said, in his mildest tones, and with his hand resting affectionately on my shoulder; "I wish I had lost the use of my eyes or tongue the other day, I am vexed to death that I found out your secret."

"Perhaps I should not have found it out myself," I said, "and it is better now than after."

"So it is, my boy; so it is," he rejoined. "Between ourselves, Julia is a little too old for you. Cheer up! she is a good girl, and will get over it, and be friends again with you by-and-by. I will do all I can to bring that about. If Olivia is only as good as she is handsome, you'll be happier with her than with poor Julia."

He patted my back with a friendliness that cheered me, while his last words sent the blood bounding through my veins. I rode home again, Sark lying in full view before me; and, in spite of the darkness of my prospects, I felt intensely glad to be free to win my Olivia.

Four days passed without any sign from either Julia or my father. I wrote to him detailing my interview with her, but no reply came. My mother and I had the house to ourselves; and, in spite of her frettings, we enjoyed considerable pleasure during the temporary lull. There were, however, sundry warnings out-of-doors which foretold tempest. I met cold glances and sharp inquiries from old friends, among whom some rumors of our separation were floating. There was sufficient to justify suspicion: my father's absence, Julia's prolonged sojourn with the Careys at the Vale, and the postponement of my voyage to England. I began to fancy that even the women-servants flouted at me.



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

DEAD TO HONOR.

The mail from Jersey on Monday morning brought us no letter from my father. But during the afternoon, as I was passing along the Canichers, I came suddenly upon Captain Carey and Julia, who wore a thick veil over her face. The Canichers is a very narrow, winding street, where no conveyances are allowed to run, and all of us had chosen it in preference to the broad road along the quay, where we were liable to meet many acquaintances. There was no escape for any of us. An enormously high, strong wall, such as abound in St. Peter-Port, was on one side of us, and some locked-up stables on the other. Julia turned away her head, and appeared absorbed in the contemplation of a very small placard, which did not cover one stone of the wall, though it was the only one there. I shook hands with Captain Carey, who regarded us with a comical expression of distress, and waited to see if she would recognize me; but she did not.

"Julia has had a letter from your father," he said.

"Yes?" I replied, in a tone of inquiry.

"Or rather from Dr. Collas," he pursued. "Prepare yourself for bad news, Martin. Your father is very ill; dangerously so, he thinks."

The news did not startle me. I had been long aware that my father was one of those medical men who are excessively nervous about their own health, and are astonished that so delicate and complicated an organization as the human frame should ever survive for sixty years the ills it is exposed to. But at this time it was possible that distress of mind and anxiety for the future might have made him really ill. There was no chance of crossing to Jersey before the next morning.

"He wished Dr. Collas to write to Julia, so as not to alarm your mother," continued Captain Carey, as I stood silent.

"I will go to-morrow," I said; "but we must not frighten my mother if we can help it."

"Dr. Dobree begs that you will go," he answered—"you and Julia."

"Julia!" I exclaimed. "Oh, impossible!"

"I don't see that it is impossible," said Julia, speaking for the first time. "He is my own uncle, and has acted as my father. I intend to go to see him; but Captain Carey has promised to go with me."

"Thank you a thousand times, dear Julia," I answered, gratefully. A heavy load was lifted off my spirits, for I came to this conclusion—that she had said nothing, and would say nothing, to the Careys about his defalcations. She would not make her uncle's shame public.

I told my mother that Julia and I were going over to Jersey the next morning, and she was more than satisfied. We went on board together as arranged—Julia, Captain Carey, and I. But Julia did not stay on deck, and I saw nothing of her during our two-hours' sail.

Captain Carey told me feelingly how terribly she was fretting, notwithstanding all their efforts to console her. He was full of this topic, and could think and speak of nothing else, worrying me with the most minute particulars of her deep dejection, until I felt myself one of the most worthless scoundrels in existence. I was in this humiliated state of mind when we landed in Jersey, and drove in separate cars to the hotel where my father was lying ill.

The landlady received us with a portentous face. Dr. Collas had spoken very seriously indeed of his patient, and, as for herself, she had not the smallest hope. I heard Julia sob, and saw her lift her handkerchief to her eyes behind her veil.

Captain Carey looked very much frightened. He was a man of quick sympathies, and nervous about his own life into the bargain, so that any serious illness alarmed him. As for myself, I was in the miserable condition of mind I have described above.

We were not admitted into my father's room for half an hour, as he sent word he must get up his strength for the interview. Julia and myself alone were allowed to see him. He was propped up in bed with a number of pillows; with the room darkened by Venetian blinds, and a dim green twilight prevailing, which cast a sickly hue over his really pallid face. His abundant white hair fell lankly about his head, instead of being in crisp curls as usual. I was about to feel his pulse for him, but he waved me off.

"No, my son," he said, "my recovery is not to be desired. I feel that I have nothing now to do but to die. It is the only reparation in my power. I would far rather die than recover."

I had nothing to say to that; indeed, I had really no answer ready, so amazed was I at the tone he had taken. But Julia began to sob again, and pressed past me, sinking down on the chair by his side, and laying her hand upon one of his pillows.

"Julia, my love," he continued, feebly, "you know how I have wronged you; but you are a true Christian. You will forgive your uncle when he is dead and gone. I should like to be buried in Guernsey with the other Dobrees."

Neither did Julia answer, save by sobs. I stepped toward the window to draw up the blinds, but he stopped me, speaking in a much stronger voice than before.

"Leave them alone," he said. "I have no wish to see the light of day. A dishonored man does not care to show his face. I have seen no one since I left Guernsey, except Collas."

"I think you are alarming yourself needlessly," I answered. "You know you are fidgety about your own health. Let me prescribe for you. Surely I know as much as Collas."

"No, no, let me die," he said, plaintively; "then you can all be happy. I have robbed my only brother's only child, who was dear to me as my own daughter. I cannot hold up my head after that. I should die gladly if you two were but reconciled to one another."

By this time Julia's hand had reached his, and was resting in it fondly. I never knew a man gifted with such power over women and their susceptibilities as he had. My mother herself would appear to forget all her unhappiness, if he only smiled upon her.

"My poor dear Julia!" he murmured; "my poor child!"

"Uncle," she said, checking her sobs by a great effort, "if you imagine I should tell any one—Johanna Carey even—what you have done, you wrong me. The name of Dobree is as dear to me as to Martin, and he was willing to marry a woman he detested in order to shield it. No, you are quite safe from disgrace as far as I am concerned."

"God in heaven bless you, my own Julia!" he ejaculated, fervently. "I knew your noble nature; but it grieves me the more deeply that I have so thoughtlessly wronged you. If I should live to get over this illness, I will explain it all to you. It is not so bad as it seems. But will you not be equally generous to Martin? Cannot you forgive him as you do me?"

"Uncle," she cried, "I could never, never marry a man who says he loves some one else more than me."

Her face was hidden in the pillows, and my father stroked her head, glancing at me contemptuously at the same time.

"I should think not, my girl!" he said, in a soothing tone; "but Martin will very soon repent. He is a fool just now, but he will be wise again presently. He has known you too long not to know your worth."

"Julia," I said, "I do know how good you are. You have always been generous, and you are so now. I owe you as much gratitude as my father does, and any thing I can do to prove it I am ready to do this day."

"Will you marry her before we leave Jersey?" asked my father.

"Yes," I answered.

The word slipped from me almost unawares, yet I did not wish to retract it. She was behaving so nobly and generously toward us both, that I was willing to do any thing to make her happy.

"Then, my love," he said, "you hear what Martin promises. All's well that ends well. Only make up your mind to put your proper pride away, and we shall all be as happy as we were before."

"Never!" she cried, indignantly. "I would not marry Martin here, hurriedly and furtively; no, not if you were dying, uncle!"

"But, Julia, if I were dying, and wished to see you united before my death!" he insinuated. A sudden light broke upon me. It was an ingenious plot—one at which I could not help laughing, mad as I was. Julia's pride was to be saved, and an immediate marriage between us effected, under cover of my father's dangerous illness. I did smile, in spite of my anger, and he caught it, and smiled back again. I think Julia became suspicious too.

"Martin," she said, sharpening her voice to address me, "do you think your father is in any danger?"

"No, I do not," I answered, notwithstanding his gestures and frowns.

"Then that is at an end," she said. "I was almost foolish enough to think that I would yield. You don't know what this disappointment is to me. Everybody will be talking of it, and some of them will pity me, and the rest laugh at me. I am ashamed of going out-of-doors anywhere. Oh, it is too bad! I cannot bear it."

She was positively writhing with agitation; and tears, real tears I am sure, started into my father's eyes.

"My poor little Julia!" he said; "my darling! But what can be done if you will not marry Martin?"

"He ought to go away from Guernsey," she sobbed. "I should feel better if I was quite sure I should never see him, or hear of other people seeing him."

"I will go," I said. "Guernsey will be too hot for me when all this is known."

"And, uncle," she pursued, speaking to him, not me, "he ought to promise me to give up that girl. I cannot set him free to go and marry her—a stranger and adventuress. She will be his ruin. I think, for my sake, he ought to give her up."

"So he ought, and so he will, my love," answered my father. "When he thinks of all we owe to you, he will promise you that."

I pondered over what our family owed to Julia for some minutes. It was truly a very great debt. Though I had brought her into perhaps the most painful position a woman could be placed in, she was generously sacrificing her just resentment and revenge against my father's dishonesty, in order to secure our name from blot.

On the other hand, I had no reason to suppose Olivia loved me, and I should do her no wrong. I felt that, whatever it might cost me, I must consent to Julia's stipulation.

"It is the hardest thing you could ask me," I said, "but I will give her up. On one condition, however; for I must not leave her without friends. I shall tell Tardif, if he ever needs help for Olivia, he must apply to me through my mother."

"There could be no harm in that," observed my father.

"How soon shall I leave Guernsey?" I asked.

"He cannot go until you are well again, uncle," she answered. "I will stay here to nurse you, and Martin must take care of your patients. We will send him word a day or two before we return, and I should like him to be gone before we reach home."

That was my sentence of banishment. She had only addressed me once during the conversation. It was curious to see how there was no resentment in her manner toward my father, who had systematically robbed her, while she treated me with profound wrath and bitterness.

She allowed him to hold her hand and stroke her hair; she would not have suffered me to approach her. No doubt it was harder for her to give up a lover than to lose the whole of her property.

She left us, to make the necessary arrangements for staying with my father, whose illness appeared to have lost suddenly its worst symptoms. As soon as she was gone he regarded me with a look half angry, half contemptuous.

"What a fool you are!" he said. "You have no tact whatever in the management of women. Julia would fly back to you, if you only held up your finger."

"I have no wish to hold up my finger to her," I answered. "I don't think life with her would be so highly desirable."

"You thought so a few weeks ago," he said, "and you'll be a pauper without her."

"I was not going to marry her for her money," I replied. "A few weeks ago I cared more for her than for any other woman, except my mother, and she knew it. All that is changed now."

"Well well!" he said, peevishly, "do as you like. I wash my hands of the whole business. Julia will not forsake me if she renounces you, and I shall have need of her and her money. I shall cling to Julia."

"She will be a kind nurse to you," I remarked.

"Excellent!" he answered, settling himself languidly down among his pillows. "She may come in now and watch beside me; it will be the sort of occupation to suit her in her present state of feeling. You had better go out and amuse yourself in your own way. Of course you will go home to-morrow morning."

I would have gone back to Guernsey at once, but I found neither cutter nor yacht sailing that afternoon, so I was obliged to wait for the steamer next morning. I did not see Julia again, but Captain Carey told me she had consented that he should remain at hand for a day or two, to see if he could be of any use to her.

The report of my father's illness had spread before I reached home, and sufficiently accounted for our visit to Jersey, and the temporary postponement of my last trip to England before our marriage. My mother, Johanna, and I, kept our own counsel, and answered the many questions asked us as vaguely as the Delphic oracle.

Still an uneasy suspicion and suspense hung about our circle. The atmosphere was heavily charged with electricity, which foreboded storms. It would be well for me to quit Guernsey before all the truth came out. I wrote to Tardif, telling him I was going for an indefinite period to London, and that if any difficulty or danger threatened Olivia, I begged of him to communicate with my mother, who had promised me to befriend her as far as it lay in her power. My poor mother thought of her without bitterness, though with deep regret. To Olivia herself I wrote a line or two, finding myself too weak to resist the temptation. I said:

"MY DEAR OLIVIA: I told you I was about to be married to my cousin Julia Dobree; that engagement is at an end. I am obliged to leave Guernsey, and seek my fortune elsewhere. It will be a long time before I can see you again, if I ever have that great happiness. Whenever you feel the want of a true and tender friend, my mother is prepared to love you as if you were her own daughter. Think of me also as your friend. MARTIN DOBREE."



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

IN EXILE.

I left Guernsey the day before my father and Julia returned from Jersey.

My immediate future was not as black as it might have been. I was going direct to the house of my friend Jack Senior, who had been my chum both at Elizabeth College and at Guy's. He, like myself, had been hitherto a sort of partner to his father, the well-known physician, Dr. Senior of Brook Street. They lived together in a highly-respectable but gloomy residence, kept bachelor fashion, for they had no woman-kind at all belonging to them. The father and son lived a good deal apart, though they were deeply attached to one another. Jack had his own apartments, and his own guests, in the spacious house, and Dr. Senior had his.

The first night, as Jack and I sat up together in the long summer twilight, till the dim, not really dark, midnight came over us, I told him every thing; as one tells a friend a hundred things one cannot put into words to any person who dwells under the same roof, and is witness of every circumstance of one's career.

As I was talking to him, every emotion and perception of my brain, which had been in a wild state of confusion and conflict, appeared to fall into its proper rank. I was no longer doubtful as to whether I had been the fool my father called me. My love for Olivia acquired force and decision. My judgment that it would have been a folly and a crime to marry Julia became confirmed.

"Old fellow," said Jack, when I had finished, "you are in no end of a mess."

"Well, I am," I admitted; "but what am I to do?"

"First of all, how much money have you?" he asked.

"I'd rather not say," I answered.

"Come, old friend," he said, in his most persuasive tones, "have you fifty pounds in hand?"

"No," I replied.

"Thirty?"

I shook my head, but I would not answer him further.

"That's bad!" he said; "but it might be worse. I've lots of tin, and we always went shares."

"I must look out for something to do to-morrow," I remarked.

"Ay, yes!" he answered, dryly; "you might go as assistant to a parish doctor, or get a berth on board an emigrant-ship. There are lots of chances for a young fellow."

He sat smoking his cigar—a dusky outline of a human figure, with a bright speck of red about the centre of the face. For a few minutes he was lost in thought.

"I tell you what," he said, "I've a good mind to marry Julia myself. I've always liked her, and we want a woman in the house. That would put things straighter, wouldn't it?"

"She would never consent to leave Guernsey," I answered, laughing. "That was one reason why she was so glad to marry me."

"Well, then," he said, "would you mind me having Olivia?"

"Don't jest about such a thing," I replied; "it is too serious a question with me."

"You are really in love!" he answered. "I will not jest at it. But I am ready to do any thing to help you, old boy."

So it proved, for he and Dr. Senior did their best during the next few weeks to find a suitable opening for me. I made their house my home, and was treated as a most welcome guest in it. Still the time was irksome—more irksome than I ever could have imagined. They were busy while I was unoccupied.

Occasionally I went out to obey some urgent summons, when either of them was absent; but that was a rare circumstance. The hours hung heavily upon me; and the close, sultry air of London, so different from the fresh sea-breezes of my native place, made me feel languid and irritable.

My mother's letters did not tend to raise my spirits. The tone of them was uniformly sad. She told me the flood of sympathy for Julia had risen very high indeed: from which I concluded that the public indignation against myself must have risen to the same tide-mark, though my poor mother said nothing about it. Julia had resumed her old occupations, but her spirit was quite broken. Johanna Carey had offered to go abroad with her, but she had declined it, because it would too painfully remind her of our projected trip to Switzerland.

A friend of Julia's, said my mother in another letter, had come to stay with her, and to try to rouse her.

It was evident she did not like this Kate Daltrey, herself, for the dislike crept out unawares through all the gentleness of her phrases. "She says she is the same age as Julia," she wrote, "but she is probably some years older; for, as she does not belong to Guernsey, we have no opportunity of knowing." I laughed when I read that. "Your father admires her very much," she added.

No, my mother felt no affection for her new guest.

There was not a word about Olivia. Sark itself was never mentioned, and it might have sunk into the sea. My eye ran over every letter first, with the hope of catching that name, but I could not find it. This persistent silence on my mother's part was very trying.

I had been away from Guernsey two months, and Jack was making arrangements for a long absence from London as soon as the season was over, leaving me in charge, when I received the following letter from Johanna Carey:

"DEAR MARTIN: Your father and Julia have been here this afternoon, and have confided to me a very sad and very painful secret, which they ask me to break gently to you. I am afraid no shadow of a suspicion of it has ever fallen upon your mind, and, I warn you, you will need all your courage and strength as a man to bear it. I was myself so overwhelmed that I could not write to you until now, in the dead of the night, having prayed with all my heart to our merciful God to sustain and comfort you, who will feel this sorrow more than any of us. My dearest Martin, my poor boy, how can I tell it to you? You must come home again for a season. Even Julia wishes it, though she cannot stay in the same house with you, and will go to her own with her friend Kate Daltrey. Your father cried like a child. He takes it more to heart than I should have expected. Yet there is no immediate danger; she may live for some months yet. My poor Martin, you will have a mother only a few months longer. Three weeks ago she and I went to Sark, at her own urgent wish, to see your Olivia. I did not then know why. She had a great longing to see the unfortunate girl who had been the cause of so much sorrow to us all, but especially to her, for she has pined sorely after you. We did not find her in Tardif's house, but Suzanne directed us to the little graveyard half a mile away. We followed her there, and recognized her, of course, at the first glance. She is a charming creature, that I allow, though I wish none of us had ever seen her. Your mother told her who she was, and the sweetest flush and smile came across her face! They sat down side by side on one of the graves, and I strolled away, so I do not know what they said to one another. Olivia walked down with us to the Havre Gosselin, and your mother held her in her arms and kissed her tenderly. Even I could not help kissing her.

"Now I understand why your mother longed to see Olivia. She knew then—she has known for months—that her days are numbered. When she was in London last November, she saw the most skilful physicians, and they all agreed that her disease was incurable and fatal. Why did she conceal it from you? Ah, Martin, you must know a woman's heart, a mother's heart, before you can comprehend that. Your father knew, but no one else. What a martyrdom of silent agony she has passed through! She has a clear calculation, based upon the opinion of the medical men, as to how long she might have lived had her mind been kept calm and happy. How far that has not been the case we all know too well.

"If your marriage with Julia had taken place, you would now have been on your way home, not to be parted from her again till the final separation. We all ask you to return to Guernsey, and devote a few more weeks to one who has loved you so passionately and fondly. Even Julia asks it. Her resentment gives way before this terrible sorrow. We have not told your mother what we are about to do, lest any thing should prevent your return. She is as patient and gentle as a lamb, and is ready with a quiet smile for every one. O Martin, what a loss she will be to us all! My heart is bleeding for you.

"Do not come before you have answered this letter, that we may prepare her for your return. Write by the next boat, and come by the one after. Julia will have to move down to the new house, and that will be excitement enough for one day.

"Good-by, my dearest Martin. I have forgiven every thing; so will all our friends as soon as they know this dreadful secret.

"Your faithful, loving cousin, JOHANNA CAREY."

I read this letter twice, with a singing in my ears and a whirling of my brain, before I could realize the meaning. Then I refused to believe it. No one knows better than a doctor how the most skilful head among us may be at fault.

My mother dying of an incurable disease! Impossible! I would go over at once and save her. She ought to have told me first. Who could have attended her so skilfully and devotedly as her only son?

Yet the numbing, deadly chill of dread rested upon my heart. I felt keenly how slight my power was, as I had done once before when I thought Olivia would die. But then I had no resources, no appliances. Now I would take home with me every remedy the experience and researches of man had discovered.



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

OVERMATCHED.

My mother had consulted Dr. Senior himself when she had been in London. He did not positively cut off all hope from me, though I knew well he was giving me encouragement in spite of his own carefully-formed opinion. He asserted emphatically that it was possible to alleviate her sufferings and prolong her life, especially if her mind was kept at rest. There was not a question as to the necessity for my immediate return to her. But there was still a day for me to tarry in London.

"Martin," said Jack, "why have you never followed up the clew about your Olivia—the advertisement, you know? Shall we go to those folks in Gray's-Inn Road this afternoon?"

It had been in my mind all along to do so, but the listless procrastination of idleness had caused me to put it off from time to time. Besides, while I was absent from the Channel Islands my curiosity appeared to sleep. It was enough to picture Olivia in her lowly home in Sark. Now that I was returning to Guernsey, and the opportunity was about to slip by, I felt more anxious to seize it. I would learn all I could about Olivia's family and friends, without betraying any part of her secret.

At the nearest cab-stand we found a cabman patronized by Jack—a red-faced, good-tempered, and good-humored man, who was as fond and proud of Jack's notice as if he had been one of the royal princes.

Of course there was not the smallest difficulty in finding the office of Messrs. Scott and Brown. It was on the second floor of an ordinary building, and, bidding the cabman wait for us, we proceeded at once up the staircase.

There did not seem much business going on, and our appearance was hailed with undisguised satisfaction. The solicitors, if they were solicitors, were two inferior, common-looking men, but sharp enough to be a match for either of us. We both felt it, as if we had detected a snake in the grass by its rattle. I grew wary by instinct, though I had not come with any intention to tell them what I knew of Olivia. My sole idea had been to learn something myself, not to impart any information. But, when I was face to face with these men, my business, and the management of it, did not seem quite so simple as it had done until then.

"Do you wish to consult my partner or me?" asked the keenest-looking man. "I am Mr. Scott."

"Either will do," I answered. "My business will be soon dispatched. Some months ago you inserted an advertisement in the Times."

"To what purport?" inquired Mr. Scott.

"You offered fifty pounds reward," I replied, "for information concerning a young lady."

A gleam of intelligence and gratification flickered upon both their faces, but quickly faded away into a sober and blank gravity. Mr. Scott waited for me to speak again, and bowed silently, as if to intimate he was all attention.

"I came," I added, "to ask you for the name and address of that young lady's friends, as I should prefer communicating directly with them, with a view to cooperation in the discovery of her hiding-place. I need scarcely say I have no wish to receive any reward. I entirely waive any claim to that, if you will oblige me by putting me into connection with the family."

"Have you no information you can impart to us?" asked Mr. Scott.

"None," I answered, decisively. "It is some months since I saw the advertisement, and it must be nine months since you put it into the Times. I believe it is nine months since the young lady was missing."

"About that time," he said.

"Her friends must have suffered great anxiety," I remarked.

"Very great indeed," he admitted.

"If I could render them any service, it would be a great pleasure to me," I continued; "cannot you tell me where to find them?"

"We are authorized to receive any information," he replied. "You must allow me to ask if you know any thing about the young lady in question?"

"My object is to combine with her friends in seeking her," I said, evasively. "I really cannot give you any information; but if you will put me into communication with them, I may be useful to them."

"Well," he said, with an air of candor, "of course the young lady's friends are anxious to keep in the background. It is not a pleasant circumstance to occur in a family; and if possible they would wish her to be restored without any eclat. Of course, if you could give us any definite information it would be quite another thing. The young lady's family is highly connected. Have you seen any one answering to the description?"

"It is a very common one," I answered. "I have seen scores of young ladies who might answer to it. I am surprised that in London you could not trace her. Did you apply to the police?"

"The police are blockheads," replied Mr. Scott.—"Will you be so good as to see if there is any one in the outer office, Mr. Brown, or on the stairs? I believe I heard a noise outside."

Mr. Brown disappeared for a few minutes; but his absence did not interrupt our conversation. There was not much to be made out of it on either side, for we were only fencing with one another. I learned nothing about Olivia's friends, and I was satisfied he had learned nothing about her.

At last we parted with mutual dissatisfaction; and I went moodily downstairs, followed by Jack. We drove back to Brook Street, to spend the few hours that remained before the train started for Southampton.

"Doctor," said Simmons, as Jack paid him his fare, with a small coin added to it, "I'm half afeard I've done some mischief. I've been turning it over and over in my head, and can't exactly see the rights of it. A gent, with a pen behind his ear, comes down, at that orfice in Gray's Inn Road, and takes my number. But after that he says a civil thing or two. 'Fine young gents,' he says, pointing up the staircase. 'Very much so,' says I. 'Young doctors?' he says. 'You're right,' I says. 'I guessed so,' he says; 'and pretty well up the tree, eh?' 'Ay,' I says; 'the light-haired gent is son to Dr. Senior, the great pheeseecian; and the other he comes from Guernsey, which is an island in the sea.' 'Just so,' he says; 'I've heard as much.' I hope I've done no mischief, doctor?"

"I hope not, Simmons," answered Jack; "but your tongue hangs too loose, my man.—Look out for a squall on the Olivia coast, Martin," he added.

My anxiety would have been very great if I had not been returning immediately to Guernsey. But once there, and in communication with Tardif, I could not believe any danger would threaten Olivia from which I could not protect or rescue her. She was of age, and had a right to act for herself. With two such friends as Tardif and me, no one could force her away from her chosen home.



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

HOME AGAIN.

My mother was looking out for me when I reached home the next morning. I had taken a car from the pier-head to avoid meeting any acquaintances; and hers was almost the first familiar face I saw. It was pallid with the sickly hue of a confirmed disease, and her eyes were much sunken; but she ran across the room to meet me. I was afraid to touch her, knowing how a careless movement might cause her excruciating pain; but she was oblivious of every thing save my return, and pressed me closer and closer in her arms, with all her failing strength, while I leaned my face down upon her dear head, unable to utter a word.

"God is very good to me," sobbed my mother.

"Is He?" I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears, so forced and altered it was.

"Very, very good," she repeated. "He has brought you back to me."

"Never to leave you again, mother," I said—"never again!"

"No; you will never leave me alone again here," she whispered. "Oh, how I have missed you, my boy!"

I made her sit down on the sofa, and sat beside her, while she caressed my hand with her thin and wasted fingers.

I must put an end to this, if I was to maintain my self-control.

"Mother," I said, "you forget that I have been on the sea all night, and have not had my breakfast yet."

"The old cry, Martin," she answered, smiling. "Well, you shall have your breakfast here, and I will wait upon you once more."

I watched her furtively as she moved about, not with her usual quick and light movements, but with a slow and cautious tread. It was part of my anguish to know, as only a medical man can know, how every step was a fresh pang to her. She sat down with me at the table, though I would not suffer her to pour out my coffee, as she wished to do. There was a divine smile upon her face; yet beneath it there was an indication of constant and terrible pain, in the sunken eyes and drawn lips. It was useless to attempt to eat with that smiling face opposite me. I drank thirstily, but I could not swallow a crumb. She knew what it meant, and her eyes were fastened upon me with a heart-breaking expression.

That mockery of a meal over, she permitted me to lay her down on the sofa, almost as submissively as a tired child, and to cover her with an eider-down quilt; for her malady made her shiver with its deadly coldness, while she could not bear any weight upon her. My father was gone out, and would not be back before evening. The whole day lay before us; I should have my mother entirely to myself.

We had very much to say to one another; but it could only be said at intervals, when her strength allowed of it. We talked together, more calmly than I could have believed possible, of her approaching death; and, in a stupor of despair, I owned to myself and her that there was not a hope of her being spared to me much longer.

"I have longed so," she murmured, "to see my boy in a home of his own before I died. Perhaps I was wrong, but that was why I urged on your marriage with Julia. You will have no real home after I am gone, Martin; and I feel as if I could die so much more quietly if I had some knowledge of your future life. Now I shall know nothing. I think that is the sting of death to me."

"I wish it had been as you wanted it to be," I said, never feeling so bitterly the disappointment I had caused her, and almost grieved that I had ever seen Olivia.

"I suppose it is all for the best," she answered, feebly. "O Martin! I have seen your Olivia."

"Well?" I said.

"I did so want to see her," she continued—"though she has brought us all into such trouble. I loved her because you love her. Johanna went with me, because she is such a good judge, you know, and I did not like to rely upon my own feelings. Appearances are very much against her; but she is very engaging, and I believe she is a good girl. I am sure she is good."

"I know she is," I said.

"We talked of you," she went on—"how good you were to her that week in the spring. She had never been quite unconscious, she thought; but she had seen and heard you all the time, and knew you were doing your utmost to save her. I believe we talked more of you than of any thing else."

That was very likely, I knew, as far as my mother was concerned. But I was anxious to hear whether Olivia had not confided to her more of her secret than I had yet been able to learn from other sources. To a woman like my mother she might have intrusted all her history.

"Did you find any thing out about her friends and family?" I asked.

"Not much," she answered. "She told me her own mother had died when she was quite a child; and she had a step-mother living, who has been the ruin of her life. That was her expression. 'She has been the ruin of my life!' she said; and she cried a little, Martin, with her head upon my lap. If I could only have offered her a home here, and promised to be a mother to her!"

"God bless you, my darling mother!" I said.

"She intends to stay where she is as long as it is possible," she continued; "but she told me she wanted work to do—any kind of work by which she could earn a little money. She has a diamond ring, and a watch and chain, worth a hundred pounds; so she must have been used to affluence. Yet she spoke as if she might have to live in Sark for years. It is a very strange position for a young girl."

"Mother," I said, "you do not know how all this weighs upon me. I promised Julia to give her up, and never to see her again; but it is almost more than I can bear, especially now. I shall be as friendless and homeless as Olivia by-and-by."

I had knelt down beside her, and she pressed my face to hers, murmuring those soft, fondling words, which a man only hears from his mother's lips. I knew that the anguish of her soul was even greater than my own. The agitation was growing too much for her, and would end in an access of her disease. I must put an end to it at once.

"I suppose Julia is gone to the new house now," I said, in a calm voice.

"Yes," she answered, but she could say no more.

"And Miss Daltrey with her?" I pursued.

The mention of that name certainly roused my mother more effectually than any thing else I could have said. She released me from her clinging hands, and looked up with a decided expression of dislike on her face.

"Yes," she replied. "Julia is just wrapped up in her, though why I cannot imagine. So is your father. But I don't think you will like her, Martin. I don't want you to be taken with her."

"I won't, mother," I said. "I am ready to hate her, if that is any satisfaction to you."

"Oh, you must not say that," she answered, in a tone of alarm. "I do not wish to set you against her, not in the least, my boy. Only she has so much influence over Julia and your father; and I do not want you to go over to her side. I know I am very silly; but she always makes my flesh creep when she is in the room."

"Then she shall not come into the room," I said.

"Martin," she went on, "why does it rouse one up more to speak evil of people than to speak good of them? Speaking of Kate Daltrey makes me feel stronger than talking of Olivia."

I laughed a little. It had been an observation of mine, made some years ago, that the surest method of consolation in cases of excessive grief, was the introduction of some family or neighborly gossip, seasoned slightly with scandal. The most vehement mourning had been turned into another current of thought by the lifting of this sluice.

"It restores the balance of the emotions," I answered. "Anything soft, and tender, and touching, makes you more sensitive. A person like Miss Daltrey acts as a tonic; bitter, perhaps, but invigorating."

The morning passed without any interruption; but in the afternoon Grace came in, with a face full of grave importance, to announce that Miss Dobree had called, and desired to see Mrs. Dobree alone. "Quite alone," repeated Grace, emphatically.

"I'll go up-stairs to my own room," I said to my mother.

"I am afraid you cannot, Martin," she answered, hesitatingly. "Miss Daltrey has taken possession of it, and she has not removed all her things yet. She and Julia did not leave till late last night. You must go to the spare room."

"I thought you would have kept my room for me, mother," I said, reproachfully.

"So I would," she replied, her lips quivering, "but Miss Daltrey took a fancy to it, and your father and Julia made a point of indulging her. I really think Julia would have had every thing belonging to you swept into the streets. It was very hard for me, Martin. I was ten times more vexed than you are to give up your room to Miss Daltrey. It was my only comfort to go and sit there, and think of my dear boy." "Never mind, never mind," I answered. "I am at home now, and you will never be left alone with them again—nevermore, mother."

I retreated to the spare room, fully satisfied that I should dislike Miss Daltrey quite as much as my mother could wish. Finding that Julia prolonged her visit downstairs, I went out after a while for a stroll in the old garden, where the trees and shrubs had grown with my growth, and were as familiar as human friends to me. I visited Madam in her stall, and had a talk with old Pellet; and generally established my footing once more as the only son of the house; not at all either as if I were a prodigal son, come home repentant. I was resolved not to play that role, for had I not been more sinned against than sinning?

My father came in to dinner; but, like a true man of the world, he received me back on civil and equal terms, not alluding beyond a word or two to my long absence. We began again as friends; and our mutual knowledge of my mother's fatal malady softened our hearts and manners toward one another. Whenever he was in-doors he waited upon her with sedulous attention. But, for the certainty that death was lurking very near to us, I should have been happier in my home than I had ever been since that momentous week in Sark. But I was also nearer to Olivia, and every throb of my pulse was quickened by the mere thought of that.



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

A NEW PATIENT.

In one sense, time seemed to be standing still with me, so like were the days that followed the one to the other. But in another sense those days fled with awful swiftness, for they were hurrying us both, my mother and me, to a great gulf which would soon, far too soon, lie between us.

Every afternoon Julia came to spend an hour or two with my mother; but her arrival was always formally announced, and it was an understood thing that I should immediately quit the room, to avoid meeting her. There was an etiquette in her resentment which I was bound to observe.

What our circle of friends thought, had become a matter of very secondary consideration to me; but there seemed a general disposition to condone my offences, in view of the calamity that was hanging by a mere thread above me. I discovered from their significant remarks that it had been quite the fashion to visit Sark during the summer, by the Queen of the Isles, which made the passage every Monday; and that Tardif's cottage had been an object of attraction to many of my relatives of every degree. Few of them had caught even a glimpse of Olivia; and I suspected that she had kept herself well out of sight on those days when the weekly steamer flooded the island with visitors.

I had not taken up any of my old patients again, for I was determined that everybody should feel that my residence at home was only temporary. But, about ten days after my return, the following note was brought to me, directed in full to Dr. Martin Dobree:

"A lady from England, who is only a visitor in Guernsey, will be much obliged by Dr. Martin Dobree calling upon her, at Rose Villa, Vauvert Road. She is suffering from a slight indisposition; and, knowing Dr. Senior by name and reputation, she would feel great confidence in the skill of Dr. Senior's friend."

I wondered for an instant who the stranger could be, and how she knew the Seniors; but, as there could be no answer to these queries without visiting the lady, I resolved to go. Rose Villa was a house where the rooms were let to visitors during the season, and the Vauvert Road was scarcely five minutes' walk from our house. Julia was paying her daily visit to my mother, and I was at a loss for something to do, so I went at once.

I found a very handsome, fine-looking woman; dark, with hair and eyes as black as a gypsy's, and a clear olive complexion to match. Her forehead was low, but smooth and well-shaped; and the lower part of her face, handsome as it was, was far more developed than the upper. There was not a trace of refinement about her features; yet the coarseness of them was but slightly apparent as yet. She did not strike me as having more than a very slight ailment indeed, though she dilated fluently about her symptoms, and affected to be afraid of fever. It is not always possible to deny that a woman has a violent headache; but, where the pulse is all right, and the tongue clean, it is clear enough that there is not any thing very serious threatening her. My new patient did not inspire me with much sympathy; but she attracted my curiosity, and interested me by the bold style of her beauty.

"You Guernsey people are very stiff with strangers," she remarked, as I sat opposite to her, regarding her with that close observation which is permitted to a doctor.

"So the world says," I answered. "Of course I am no good judge, for we Guernsey people believe ourselves as perfect as any class of the human family. Certainly, we pride ourselves on being a little more difficult of approach than the Jersey people. Strangers are more freely welcome there than here, unless they bring introductions with them. If you have any introductions, you will find Guernsey as hospitable a spot as any in the world."

"I have been here a week," she replied, pouting her full crimson lips, "and have not had a chance of speaking a word, except to strangers like myself who don't know a soul."

That, then, was the cause of the little indisposition which had obtained me the honor of attending her. I indulged myself in a mild sarcasm to that effect, but it was lost upon her. She gazed at me solemnly with her large black eyes, which shone like beads.

"I am really ill," she said, "but it has nothing to do with not seeing anybody, though that's dull. There's nothing for me to do but take a bath in the morning, and a drive in the afternoon, and go to bed very early. Good gracious! it's enough to drive me mad!"

"Try Jersey," I suggested.

"No, I'll not try Jersey," she said. "I mean to make my way here. Don't you know anybody, doctor, that would take pity on a poor stranger?"

"I am sorry to say no," I answered.

She frowned at that, and looked disappointed. I was about to ask her how she knew the Seniors, when she spoke again.

"Do you have many visitors come to Guernsey late in the autumn, as late as October?" she inquired.

"Not many," I answered; "a few may arrive who intend to winter here."

"A dear young friend of mine came here last autumn," she said, "alone, as I am, and I've been wondering, ever since I've been here, however she would get along among such a set of stiff, formal, stand-offish folks. She had not money enough for a dash, or that would make a difference, I suppose."

"Not the least," I replied, "if your friend came without any introductions."

"What a dreary winter she'd have!" pursued my patient, with a tone of exultation. "She was quite young, and as pretty as a picture. All the young men would know her, I'll be bound, and you among them, Dr. Martin. Any woman who isn't a fright gets stared at enough to be known again."

Could this woman know any thing of Olivia? I looked at her more earnestly and critically. She was not a person I should like Olivia to have any thing to do with. A coarse, ill-bred, bold woman, whose eyes met mine unabashed, and did not blink under my scrutiny. Could she be Olivia's step-mother, who had been the ruin of her life?

"I'd bet a hundred to one you know her," she said, laughing and showing all her white teeth. "A girl like her couldn't go about a little poky place like this without all the young men knowing her. Perhaps she left the island in the spring. I have asked at all the drapers' shops, but nobody recollects her. I've very good news for her if I could find her—a slim, middle-sized girl, with a clear, fair skin, and gray eyes, and hair of a bright brown. Stay, I can show you her photograph."

She put into my hands an exquisite portrait of Olivia, taken in Florence. There was an expression of quiet mournfulness in the face, which touched me to the core of my heart. I could not put it down and speak indifferently about it. My heart beat wildly, and I felt tempted to run off with the treasure and return no more to this woman.

"Ah! you recognize her!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

"I never saw such a person in Guernsey," I answered, looking steadily into her face. A sullen and gloomy expression came across it, and she snatched the portrait out of my hand.

"You want to keep it a secret," she said, "but I defy you to do it. I am come here to find her, and find her I will. She hasn't drowned herself, and the earth hasn't swallowed her up. I've traced her as far as here, and that I tell you. She crossed in the Southampton boat one dreadfully stormy night last October—the only lady passenger—and the stewardess recollects her well. She landed here. You must know something about her."

"I assure you I never saw that girl here," I replied, evasively. "What inquiries have you made after her?"

"I've inquired here, and there, and everywhere," she said. "I've done nothing else ever since I came. It is of great importance to her, as well as to me, that I should find her. It's a very anxious thing when a girl like that disappears and is never heard of again, all because she has a little difference with her friends. If you could help me to find her you would do her family a very great service."

"Why do you fix upon me?" I inquired. "Why did you not send for one of the resident doctors? I left Guernsey some time ago."

"You were here last winter," she said; "and you're a young man, and would notice her more."

"There are other young doctors in Guernsey," I remarked.

"Ah! but you've been in London," she answered, "and I know something of Dr. Senior. When you are in a strange place you catch at any chance of an acquaintance."

"Come, be candid with me," I said. "Did not Messrs. Scott and Brown send you here?"

The suddenness of my question took her off her guard and startled her. She hesitated, stammered, and finally denied it with more than natural emphasis.

"I could take my oath I don't know any such persons," she answered. "I don't know whom you mean, or what you mean. All I want is quite honest. There is a fortune waiting for that poor girl, and I want to take her back to those who love her, and are ready to forgive and forget every thing. I feel sure you know something of her. But no body except me and her other friends have any thing to do with it."

"Well," I said, rising to take my leave, "all the information I can give you is, that I never saw such a person here, either last winter or since. It is quite possible she went on to Jersey, or to Granville, when the storm was over. That she did not stay in Guernsey, I am quite sure."

I went away in a fever of anxiety. The woman, who was certainly not a lady, had inspired me with a repugnance that I could not describe. There was an ingrain coarseness about her—a vulgarity excessively distasteful to me as in any way connected with Olivia. The mystery which surrounded her was made the deeper by it. Surely, this person could not be related to Olivia! I tried to guess in what relationship to her she could possibly stand. There was the indefinable delicacy and refinement of a lady, altogether independent of her surroundings, so apparent in Olivia, that I could not imagine her as connected by blood with this woman. Yet why and how should such a person have any right to pursue her? I felt more chafed than I had ever done about Olivia's secret.

I tried to satisfy myself with the reflection that I had put Tardif on his guard, and that he would protect her. But that did not set my mind at ease. I never knew a mother yet who believed that any other woman could nurse her sick child as well as herself; and I could not be persuaded that even Tardif would shield Olivia from danger and trouble as I could, if I were only allowed the privilege. Yet my promise to Julia bound me to hold no communication with her. Besides, this was surely no time to occupy myself with any other woman in the world than my mother. She herself, good, and amiable, and self-forgetting, as she was, might feel a pang of jealousy, and I ought not to be the one to add a single drop of bitterness to the cup she was drinking.

On the other hand, I was distracted at the thought that this stranger might discover the place of Olivia's retreat, from which there was no chance of escape if it were once discovered. A hiding-place like Sark becomes a trap as soon as it is traced out. Should this woman catch the echo of those rumors which had circulated so widely through Guernsey less than three months ago—and any chance conversation with one of our own people might bring them to her ears—then farewell to Olivia's safety and concealment. Here was the squall which had been foretold by Jack. I cursed the idle curiosity of mine which had exposed her to this danger.

I had strolled down some of the quieter streets of the town while I was turning this affair over in my mind, and now, as I crossed the end of Rue Haute, I caught sight of Kate Daltrey turning into a milliner's shop. There was every reasonable probability that she would not come out again soon, for I saw a bonnet reached out of the window. If she were gone to buy a bonnet, she was safe for half an hour, and Julia would be alone. I had felt a strong desire to see Julia ever since I returned home. My mind was made up on the spot. I knew her so well as to be certain that, if I found her in a gentle mood, she would, at any rate, release me from the promise she had extorted from me when she was in the first heat of her anger and disappointment. It was a chance worth trying. If I were free to declare to Olivia my love for her, I should establish a claim upon her full confidence, and we could laugh at further difficulties. She was of age, and, therefore, mistress of herself. Her friends, represented by this odious woman, could have no legal authority over her.

I turned shortly up a side-street, and walked as fast as I could toward the house which was to have been our home. By a bold stroke I might reach Julia's presence. I rang, and the maid who answered the bell opened wide eyes of astonishment at seeing me there. I passed by quickly.

"I wish to speak to Miss Dobree," I said. "Is she in the drawing-room?"

"Yes, sir," she answered, in a hesitating tone.

I waited for nothing more, but knocked at the drawing-room door for myself, and heard Julia call, "Come in."



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

SET FREE.

Julia looked very much the same as she had done that evening when I came reluctantly to tell her that my heart was not in her keeping, but belonged to another. She wore the same kind of fresh, light muslin dress, with ribbons and lace about it, and she sat near the window, with a piece of needle-work in her hands; yet she was not sewing, and her hands lay listlessly on her lap. But, for this attitude of dejection, I could have imagined that it was the same day and the same hour, and that she was still ignorant of the change in my feelings toward her. If it had not been for our perverse fate, we should now be returning from our wedding-trip, and receiving the congratulations of our friends. A mingled feeling of sorrow, pity, and shame, prevented me from advancing into the room. She looked up to see who was standing in the doorway, and my appearance there evidently alarmed and distressed her.

"Martin!" she cried.

"May I come in and speak to you, Julia?" I asked.

"Is my aunt worse?" she inquired, hurriedly. "Are you come to fetch me to her?"

"No, no, Julia," I said; "my mother is as well as usual, I hope. But surely you will let me speak to you after all this time?"

"It is not a long time," she answered.

"Has it not been long to you?" I asked. "It seems years to me. All life has changed for me. I had no idea then of my mother's illness."

"Nor I," she said, sighing deeply.

"If I had known it," I continued, "all this might not have happened. Surely, the troubles I shall have to bear must plead with you for me!"

"Yes, Martin," she answered; "yes, I am very sorry for you."

She came forward and offered me her hand, but without looking into my face. I saw that she had been crying, for her eyes were red. In a tone of formal politeness she asked me if I would not sit down. I considered it best to remain standing, as an intimation that I should not trouble her with my presence for long.

"My mother loves you very dearly, Julia," I ventured to say, after a long pause, which she did not seem inclined to break. I had no time to lose, lest Kate Daltrey should come in, and it was a very difficult subject to approach.

"Not more than I love her," she said, warmly. "Aunt Dobree has been as good to me as any mother could have been. I love her as dearly as my mother. Have you seen her since I was with her this afternoon?"

"No. I have just come from visiting a very curious patient, and have not been home yet."

I hoped Julia would catch at the word curious, and make some inquiries which would open a way for me; but she seemed not to hear it, and another silence fell upon us both. For the life of me I could not utter a syllable of what I had come to say.

"We were talking of you," she said at length, in a harried and thick voice. "Aunt is in great sorrow about you. It preys upon her day and night that you will be dreadfully alone when she is gone, and—and—Martin, she wishes to know before she dies that the girl in Sark will become your wife."

The word struck like a shot upon my ear and brain. What! had Julia and my mother been arranging between them my happiness and Olivia's safety that very afternoon? Such generosity was incredible. I could not believe I had heard aright.

"She has seen the girl," continued Julia, in the same husky tone, which she could not compel to be clear and calm; "and she is convinced she is no adventuress. Johanna says the same. They tell me it is unreasonable and selfish in me to doom you to the dreadful loneliness I feel. If Aunt Dobree asked me to pluck out my right eye just now, I could not refuse. It is something like that, but I have promised to do it. I release you from every promise you ever made to me, Martin."

"Julia!" I cried, crossing to her and bending over her with more love and admiration than I had ever felt before; "this is very noble, very generous."

"No," she said, bursting into tears; "I am neither noble nor generous. I do it because I cannot help myself, with aunt's white face looking so imploringly at me. I do not give you up willingly to that girl in Sark. I hope I shall never see her or you for many, many years. Aunt says you will have no chance of marrying her till you are settled in a practice somewhere; but you are free to ask her to be your wife. Aunt wants you to have somebody to love you and care for you after she is gone, as I should have done."

"But you are generous to consent to it," I said again.

"So," she answered, wiping her eyes, and lifting up her head; "I thought I was generous; I thought I was a Christian, but it is not easy to be a Christian when one is mortified, and humbled, and wounded. I am a great disappointment to myself; quite as great as you are to me. I fancied myself very superior to what I am. I hope you may not be disappointed in that girl in Sark."

The latter words were not spoken in an amiable tone, but this was no time for criticising Julia. She had made a tremendous sacrifice, that was evident; and a whole sacrifice without any blemish is very rarely offered up nowadays, however it may have been in olden times. I could not look at her dejected face and gloomy expression without a keen sense of self-reproach.

"Julia," I said, "I shall never be quite happy—no, not with Olivia as my wife—unless you and I are friends. We have grown up together too much as brother and sister, for me to have you taken right out of my life without a feeling of great loss. It is I who would lose a right hand or a right eye in losing you. Some day we must be friends again as we used to be."

"It is not very likely," she answered; "but you had better go now, Martin. It is very painful to me for you to be here."

I could not stay any longer after that dismissal. Her hand was lying on her lap, and I stooped down and kissed it, seeing on it still the ring I had given her when we were first engaged. She did not look at me or bid me good-by; and I went out of the house, my veins tingling with shame and gladness. I met Captain Carey coming up the street, with a basket of fine grapes in his hand. He appeared very much amazed.

"Why, Martin!" he exclaimed; "can you have been to see Julia?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Reconciled?" he said, arching his eyebrows, which were still dark and bushy though his hair was grizzled.

"Not exactly," I replied, with a stiff smile, exceedingly difficult to force; "nothing of the sort indeed. Captain, when will you take me across to Sark?"

"Come, come! none of that, Martin," he said; "you're on honor, you know. You are pledged to poor Julia not to visit Sark again."

"She has just set me free," I answered; and out of the fulness of my heart I told him all that had just passed between us. His eyes glistened, though a film came across them which he had to wipe away.

"She is a noble girl," he ejaculated; "a fine, generous, noble girl. I really thought she'd break her heart over you at first, but she will come round again now. We will have a run over to Sark to-morrow."

I felt myself lifted into a third heaven of delight all that evening. My mother and I talked of no one but Olivia. The present rapture so completely eclipsed the coming sorrow, that I forgot how soon it would be upon me. I remember now that my mother neither by word nor sign suffered me to be reminded of her illness. She listened to my rhapsodies, smiling with her divine, pathetic smile. There is no love, no love at all, like that of a mother!



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

A BRIGHT BEGINNING.

Not the next day, which was wet and windy, but the day following, did Captain Carey take me over to Sark. I had had time to talk over all my plans for the future with my mother, and I bore with me many messages from her to the girl I was about to ask to become my wife.

Coxcomb as I was, there was no doubt in my mind that I could win Olivia.

To explain my coxcombry is not a very easy task. I do not suppose I had a much higher sense of my own merits than such as is common to man. I admit I was neither shy nor nervous on the one hand, but on the other I was not blatantly self-conceited. It is possible that my course through life hitherto—first as an only son adored by his mother, and secondly as an exceedingly eligible parti in a circle where there were very few young men of my rank and family, and where there were twenty or more marriageable women to one unmarried man—had a great deal to do with my feeling of security with regard to this unknown, poor, and friendless stranger. But, added to this, there was Olivia's own frank, unconcealed pleasure in seeing me, whenever I had had a chance of visiting her, and the freedom with which she had always conversed with me upon any topic except that of her own mysterious position. I was sure I had made a favorable impression upon her. In fact, when I had been talking with her, I had given utterance to brighter and clearer thoughts than I had ever been conscious of before. A word from her, a simple question, seemed to touch the spring of some hidden treasure of my brain, and I had surprised myself by what I had been enabled to say to her. It was this, probably more than her beauty, which had drawn me to her and made me happy in her companionship. No, I had never shown myself contemptible, but quite the reverse, in her presence. No doubt or misgiving assailed me as the yacht carried us out of St. Sampson's Harbor.

Swiftly we ran across, with a soft wind drifting over the sea and playing upon our faces, and a long furrow lying in the wake of our boat. It was almost low tide when we reached the island—the best time for seeing the cliffs. They were standing well out of the water, scarred and chiselled with strange devices, and glowing in the August sunlight with tints of the most gorgeous coloring, while their feet, swathed with brown seaweed, were glistening with the dashing of the waves. I had seen nothing like them since I had been there last, and the view of these wild, rugged crags, with their regal robes of amber and gold and silver, almost oppressed me with delight. If I could but see Olivia on this summit!

The currents and the wind had been in favor of our running through the channel between Sark and Jethou, and so landing at the Creux Harbor, on the opposite coast of the island to the Havre Gosselin. I crossed in headlong haste, for I was afraid of meeting with Julia's friends, or some of my own acquaintances who were spending the summer months there. I found Tardif's house completely deserted. The only sign of life was a family of hens clucking about the fold.

The door was not fastened, and I entered, but there was nobody there. I stood in the middle of the kitchen and called, but there was no answer. Olivia's door was ajar, and I pushed it a little more open. There lay books I had lent her on the table, and her velvet slippers were on the floor, as if they had only just been taken off. Very worn and brown were the little slippers, but they reassured me she had been wearing them a short time ago.

I returned through the fold and mounted the bank that sheltered the house, to see if I could discover any trace of her, or Tardif, or his mother. All the place seemed left to itself. Tardif's sheep were browsing along the cliffs, and his cows were tethered here and there, but nobody appeared to be tending them. At last I caught sight of a head rising from behind a crag, the rough shock head of a boy, and I shouted to him, making a trumpet with my hands.

"Where is neighbor Tardif?" I called.

"Down below there," he shouted back again, pointing downward to the Havre Gosselin. I did not wait for any further information, but darted off down the long, steep gulley to the little strand, where the pebbles were being lapped lazily by the ripple of the lowering tide. Tardif's boat was within a stone's throw, and I saw Olivia sitting in the stern of it. I shouted again with a vehemence which made them both start.

"Come back, Tardif," I cried, "and take me with you."

The boat was too far off for me to see how my sudden appearance affected Olivia. Did she turn white or red at the sound of my voice? By the time it neared the shore, and I plunged in knee-deep to meet it, her face was bright with smiles, and her hands were stretched out to help me over the boat's side.

If Tardif had not been there, I should have kissed them both. As it was, I tucked up my wet legs out of reach of her dress, and took an oar, unable to utter a word of the gladness I felt.

I recovered myself in a few seconds, and touched her hand, and grasped Tardif's with almost as much force as he gripped mine.

"Where are you going to?" I asked, addressing neither of them in particular.

"Tardif was going to row me past the entrance to the Gouliot Caves," answered Olivia, "but we will put it off now. We will return to the shore, and hear all your adventures, Dr. Martin. You come upon us like a phantom, and take an oar in ghostly silence. Are you really, truly there?"

"I am no phantom," I said, touching her hand again. "No, we will not go back to the shore. Tardif shall row us to the caves, and I will take you into them, and then we two will return along the cliffs. Would you like that, mam'zelle?"

"Very much," she answered, the smile still playing about her face. It was brown and freckled with exposure to the sun, but so full of health and life as to be doubly beautiful to me, who saw so many wan and sickly faces. There was a bloom and freshness about her, telling of pure air, and peaceful hours and days spent in the sunshine. I was seated on the bench before Tardif, with my back to him, and Olivia was in front of me—she, and the gorgeous cliffs, and the glistening sea, and the cloudless sky overhead. No, there is no language on earth that could paint the rapture of that moment.

"Doctor," said Tardif's deep, grave voice behind me, "your mother, is she better?"

It was like the sharp prick of a poniard, which presently you knew must pierce your heart.

The one moment of rapture had fled. The paradise, that had been about me for an instant, with no hint of pain, faded out of my sight. But Olivia remained, and her face grew sad, and her voice low and sorrowful, as she leaned forward to speak to me.

"I have been so grieved for you," she said. "Your mother came to see me once, and promised to be my friend. Is it true? Is she so very ill?" "Quite true," I answered, in a choking voice.

We said no more for some minutes, and the splash of the oars in the water was the only sound. Olivia's air continued sad, and her eyes were downcast, as if she shrank from looking me in the face.

"Pardon me, doctor," said Tardif in our own dialect, which Olivia could not understand, "I have made you sorry when you were having a little gladness. Is your mother very ill?"

"There is no hope, Tardif," I answered, looking round at his honest and handsome face, full of concern for me.

"May I speak to you as an old friend?" he asked. "You love mam'zelle, and you are come to tell her so?"

"What makes you think that?" I said.

"I see it in your face," he answered, lowering his voice, though he knew Olivia could not tell what we were saying. "Your marriage with mademoiselle your cousin was broken off—why? Do you suppose I did not guess? I knew it from the first-week you stayed with us. Nobody could see mam'zelle as we see her, without loving her."

"The Sark folks say you are in love with her yourself, Tardif," I said, almost against my will, and certainly without any intention beforehand of giving expression to such a rumor.

His lips contracted and his face saddened, but he met my eyes frankly.

"It is true," he answered; "but what then? If it had only pleased God to make me like you, or that she should be of my class, I would have done my utmost to win her. But that is impossible! See, I am nothing else than a servant in her eyes. I do not know how to be any thing else, and I am content. She is as far above my reach as one of the white clouds up yonder. To think of myself as any thing but her servant would be irreligious."

"You are a good fellow, Tardif," I exclaimed.

"God is the judge, of that," he said, with a sigh. "Mam'zelle thinks of me only as her servant. 'My good Tardif, do this, or do that.' I like it. I do not know any happier moment than when I hold her little boots in my hand and brush them. You see she is as helpless and tender as my little wife was; but she is very much higher than my poor little wife. Yes, I love her as I love the blue sky, and the white clouds and the stars shining in the night. But it will be quite different between her and you."

"I hope so," I thought to myself.

"You do not feel like a servant," he continued, his oars dipping a little too deeply and setting the boat a-rocking. "By-and-by, when you are married, she will look up to you and obey you. I do not understand altogether why the good God has made this difference between us two; but I see it and feel it. It would be fitting for you to be her husband; it would be a shame to her to become my wife."

"Are you grieved about it, Tardif?" I asked.

"No, no," he answered; "we have always been good friends, you and I, doctor. No, you shall marry her, and I will be happy. I will come to visit you sometimes, and she will call me her good Tardif. That is enough for me."

"What are you talking about?" asked Olivia. It was impossible to tell her, or to continue the conversation. Moreover, the narrow channel between Breckhou and Sark is so strong in its current, that it required both caution and skill to steer the boat amid the needle-like points of the rocks. At last we gained one of the entrances to the caves, but we could not pull the boat quite up to the strand. A few paces of shallow water, clear as glass, with pebbles sparkling like gems beneath it, lay between us and the caves.

"Tardif," I said, "you need not wait for us. We will return by the cliffs."

"You know the Gouliot Caves as well as I do?" he replied, though in a doubtful tone.

"All right!" I said, as I swung over the side of the boat into the water, when I found myself knee-deep. Olivia looked from me to Tardif with a flushed face—an augury that made my pulses leap. Why should her face never change when he carried her in his arms? Why should she shrink from me?

"Are you as strong as Tardif?" she asked, lingering and hesitating before she would trust herself to me.

"Almost, if not altogether," I answered gayly. "I'm strong enough to undertake to carry you without wetting the soles of your feet. Come, it is not more than half a dozen yards."

She was standing on the bench I had just left, looking down at me with the same vivid flush upon her cheeks and forehead, and with an uneasy expression in her eyes. Before she could speak again I put my arms round her, and lifted her down.

"You are quite as light as a feather," I said, laughing, as I carried her to the strip of moist and humid strand under the archway in the rocks. As I put her down I looked back to Tardif, and saw him regarding us with grave and sorrowful eyes.

"Adieu!" he cried; "I am going to look after my lobster-pots. God bless you both!"

He spoke the last words heartily; and we stood watching him as long as he was in sight. Then we went on into the caves.



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.

THE GOULIOT CAVES.

Olivia was very silent.

The coast of Sark shows some of the most fantastic workmanship of the sea, but the Gouliot Caves are its wildest and maddest freak. A strong, swift current sets in from the southwest, and being lashed into a giddy fury by the lightest southwest wind, it has hewn out of the rock a series of cells, and grottos, and alcoves, some of them running far inland, in long, vaulted passages and corridors, with now and then a shaft or funnel in the rocky roof, through which the light streams down into recesses far from the low porches, which open from the sea. Here and there a crooked, twisted tunnel forms a skylight overhead, and the blue heavens look down through it like a far-off eye. You cannot number the caverns and niches. Everywhere the sea has bored alleys and galleries, or hewn out solemn aisles, with arches intersecting each other, and running off into capricious furrows and mouldings. There are innumerable refts, and channels, and crescents, and cupolas, half-finished or only hinted at. There are chambers of every height and shape, leading into one another by irregular portals, but all rough and rude, as though there might have been an original plan, from which, while the general arrangement is kept, every separate stroke perversely diverged.

But another, and not a secondary, curiosity of this ocean-labyrinth is, that it is the habitat of a multitude of marine creatures, not to be seen at home in many other places. Except twice a month, at the neaptides, the lower chambers are filled with the sea; and here live and flourish thousands, upon thousands of those mollusks and zoophytes which can exist only in its salt waters. The sides of the caves, as far as the highest tides swept, were studded with crimson and purple and amber mollusca, glistening like jewels in the light pouring down upon them from the eyelet-openings overhead. Not the space of a finger-tip was clear. Above them in the clefts of the rock hung fringes of delicate ferns of the most vivid green, while here and there were nooks and crevices of profound darkness, black with perpetual, unbroken shadow.

I had known the caves well when I was a boy, but it was many years since I had been there. Now I was alone in them with Olivia, no other human being in sight or sound of us. I had scarcely eyes for any sight but that of her face, which had grown shy and downcast, and was generally turned away from me. She would be frightened, I thought, if I spoke to her in that lonesome place, I would wait till we were on the cliffs, in the open eye of day.

She left my side for one moment while I was poking under a stone for a young pieuvre, which had darkened the little pool of water round it with its inky fluid. I heard her utter an exclamation of delight, and I gave up my pursuit instantly to learn what was giving her pleasure. She was stooping down to look beneath a low arch, not more than two feet high, and I knelt down beside her. Beyond lay a straight narrow channel of transparent water, blue from a faint reflected light, with smooth, sculptured walls of rock, clear from mollusca, rising on each side of it. Level lines of mimic waves rippled monotonously upon it, as if it was stirred by some soft wind which we could not feel. You could have peopled it with tiny boats flitting across it, or skimming lightly down it. Tears shone in Olivia's eyes.

"It reminds me so of a canal in Venice," she said, in a tremulous voice.

"Do you know Venice?" I asked; and the recollection of her portrait taken in Florence came to my mind. Well, by-and-by I should have a right to hear about all her wanderings.