But the same evening I received a note, desiring me to go and see him immediately. I was myself in a fever of impatience, and glad at the prospect of any settlement "of this subject, in the hope of setting Olivia free, as far as she could be free during his lifetime. He was looking brighter and better than in the morning, and an odd smile played now and then about his face as he talked to me, after having desired Mrs. Foster to leave us alone together.

"Mark!" he said, "I have not the slightest reason to doubt Olivia's death, except your own opinion to the contrary, which is founded upon reasons of which I know nothing. But, acting on the supposition that she may be still alive, I am quite willing to enter into negotiations with her, I suppose it must be through you."

"It must," I answered, "and it cannot be at present. You will have to wait for some months, perhaps, while I pursue my search for her. I do not know where she is any more than you do."

A vivid gleam crossed his face at these words, but whether of incredulity or satisfaction I could not tell.

"But suppose I die in the mean time?" he objected.

That objection was a fair and obvious one. His malady would not pause in its insidious attack while I was seeking Olivia. I deliberated for a few minutes, endeavoring to look at a scheme which presented itself to me from every point of view.

"I do not know that I might not leave you in your present position," I said at last; "it may be I am acting from an over-strained sense of duty. But if you will give me a formal deed protecting her from yourself, I am willing to advance the funds necessary to remove you to purer air, and more open quarters than these. A deed of separation, which both of you must sign, can be drawn up, and receive your signature. There will be no doubt as to getting hers, when we find her. But that may be some months hence, as I said. Still I will run the risk."

"For her sake?" he said, with a sneer.

"For her sake, simply," I answered; "I will employ a lawyer to draw up the deed, and as soon as you sign it I will advance the money you require. My treatment of your disease I shall begin at once; that falls, under my duty as your doctor; but I warn you that fresh air and freedom from agitation are almost, if not positively, essential to its success. The sooner you secure these for yourself, the better your chance."

Some further conversation passed between us, as to the stipulations to be insisted upon, and the division of the yearly income from Olivia's property, for I would not agree to her alienating any portion of it. Foster wished to drive a hard bargain, still with that odd smile on his face; and it was after much discussion that we came to an agreement.

I had the deed drawn up by a lawyer, who warned me that, if Foster sued for a restitution of his rights, they would be enforced. But I hoped that when Olivia was found she would have some evidence in her own favor, which would deter him from carrying the case into court. The deed was signed by Foster, and left in my charge till Olivia's signature could be obtained.

As soon as the deed was secured, I had my patient removed from Bellringer Street to some apartments in Fulham, near to Dr. Senior, whose interest in the case was now almost equal to my own. Here, if I could not visit him every day, Dr. Senior did, while his great professional skill enabled him to detect symptoms which might have escaped my less experienced eye. Never had any sufferer, under the highest and wealthiest ranks, greater care and science expended upon him than Richard Foster.

The progress of his recovery was slow, but it was sure. I felt that it would be so from the first. Day by day I watched the pallid hue of sickness upon his face changing into a more natural tone. I saw his strength coming back by slight but steady degrees. The malady was forced to retreat into its most hidden citadel, where it might lurk as a prisoner, but not dwell as a destroyer, for many years to come, if Foster would yield himself to the regime of life we prescribed. But the malady lingered there, ready to break out again openly, if its dungeon-door were set ajar. I had given life to him, but it was his part to hold it fast.

There was no triumph to me in this, as there would have been had my patient been any one else. The cure aroused much interest among my colleagues, and made my name more known. But what was that to me? As long as this man lived, Olivia was doomed to a lonely and friendless life. I tried to look into the future for her, and saw it stretch out into long, dreary years. I wondered where she would find a home. Could I persuade Johanna to receive her into her pleasant dwelling, which would become so lonely to her when Captain Carey had moved into Julia's house in St. Peter-Port? That was the best plan I could form.



CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.

A FRIENDLY, CABMAN.

Julia's marriage arrangements were going on speedily. There was something ironical to me in the chance that made me so often the witness of them. We were so merely cousins again, that she discussed her purchases, and displayed them before me, as if there had never been any notion between us of keeping house together. Once more I assisted in the choice of a wedding-dress, for the one made a year before was said to be yellow and old-fashioned. But this time Julia did not insist upon having white satin. A dainty tint of gray was considered more suitable, either to her own complexion or the age of the bridegroom. Captain Carey enjoyed the purchase with the rapture I had failed to experience.

The wedding was fixed to take place the last week in July, a fortnight earlier than the time proposed; it was also a fortnight earlier than the date I was looking forward to most anxiously, when, if ever, news would reach Tardif from Olivia. All my plans were most carefully made, in the event of her sending word where she was. The deed of separation, signed by Foster, was preserved by me most cautiously, for I had a sort of haunting dread that Mrs. Foster would endeavor to get possession of it. She was eminently sulky, and had been so ever since the signing of the deed. Now that Foster was very near convalescence, they might be trying some stratagem to recover it. But our servants were trustworthy, and the deed lay safe in the drawer of my desk.

At last Dr. Senior agreed with me that Foster was sufficiently advanced on the road to recovery to be removed from Fulham to the better air of the south coast. The month of May had been hotter than usual, and June was sultry. It was evidently to our patient's advantage to exchange the atmosphere of London for that of the sea-shore, even though he had to dispense with our watchful attendance. In fact he could not very well fall back now, with common prudence and self-denial. We impressed upon him the urgent necessity of these virtues, and required Mrs. Foster to write us fully, three times a week, every variation she might observe in his health. After that we started them off to a quiet village in Sussex. I breathed more freely when they were out of my daily sphere of duty.

But before they went a hint of treachery reached me, which put me doubly on my guard. One morning, when Jack and I were at breakfast, each deep in our papers, with an occasional comment to one another on their contents, Simmons, the cabby, was announced, as asking to speak to one or both of us immediately. He was a favorite with Jack, who bade the servant show him in; and Simmons appeared, stroking his hat round and round with his hand, as if hardly knowing what to do with his limbs off the box.

"Nothing amiss with your wife, or the brats. I hope?" said Jack.

"No, Dr. John, no," he answered, "there ain't any thing amiss with them, except being too many of 'em p'raps, and my old woman won't own to that. But there's some thing in the wind as concerns Dr. Dobry, so I thought I'd better come and give you a hint of it."

"Very good, Simmons," said Jack.

"You recollect taking my cab to Gray's-Inn Road about this time last year, when I showed up so green, don't you?" he asked.

"To be sure," I said, throwing down my paper, and listening eagerly.

"Well, doctors," he continued, addressing us both, "the very last Monday as ever was, a lady walks slowly along the stand, eying us all very hard, but taking no heed to any of 'em, till she catches sight of me. That's not a uncommon event, doctors. My wife says there's something about me as gives confidence to her sex. Anyhow, so it is, and I can't gainsay it. The lady comes along very slowly—she looks hard at me—she nods her head, as much as to say, 'You, and your cab, and your horse, are what I'm on the lookout for;' and I gets down, opens the door, and sees her in quite comfortable. Says she, 'Drive me to Messrs. Scott and Brown, in Gray's-Inn Road.'"

"No!" I ejaculated.

"Yes, doctors," replied Simmons. "'Drive me,' she says, 'to Messrs. Scott and Brown, Gray's-Inn Road.' Of course I knew the name again; I was vexed enough the last time I were there, at showing myself so green. I looks hard at her. A very fine make of a woman, with hair and eyes as black as coals, and a impudent look on her face somehow. I turned it over and over again in my head, driving her there—could there be any reason in it? or had it any thing to do with last time? and cetera. She told me to wait for her in the street; and directly after she goes in, there comes down the gent I had seen before, with a pen behind his ear. He looks very hard at me, and me at him. Says he, 'I think I have seen your face before, my man.' Very civil; as civil as a orange, as folks say. 'I think you have,' I says. 'Could you step up-stairs for a minute or two?' says he, very polite; 'I'll find a boy to take charge of your horse.' And he slips a arf-crown into my hand, quite pleasant."

"So you went in, of course?" said Jack.

"Doctors," he answered, solemnly, "I did go in. There's nothing to be said against that. The lady is sitting in a orfice up-stairs, talking to another gent, with hair and eyes like hers, as black as coals, and the same look of brass on his face. All three of 'em looked a little under the weather. 'What's your name, my man?' asked the black gent. 'Walker,' I says. 'And where do you live?' he says, taking me serious. 'In Queer Street,' I says, with a little wink to show 'em I were up to a trick or two. They all three larfed a little among themselves, but not in a pleasant sort of way. Then the gent begins again. 'My good fellow,' he says, 'we want you to give us a little information that 'ud be of use to us, and we are willing to pay you handsome for it. It can't do you any harm, nor nobody else, for it's only a matter of business. You're not above taking ten shillings for a bit of useful information?' 'Not by no manner of means.' I says."

"Go on," I said, impatiently, as Simmons paused to look as hard at us as he had done at these people.

"Jest so doctors," he continued, "but this time I was minding my P's and Q's. 'You know Dr. Senior, of Brook Street?' he says. 'The old doctor?' I says; 'he's retired out of town.' 'No,' he says, 'nor the young doctor neither; but there's another of 'em isn't there?' 'Dr. Dobry?' I says. 'Yes,' he says, 'he often takes your cab, my friend?' 'First one and then the other,' I says, 'sometimes Dr. John and sometimes Dr. Dobry. They're as thick as brothers, and thicker.' 'Good friends of yours?' he says. 'Well,' says I, 'they take my cab when they can have it; but there's not much friendship, as I see, in that. It's the best cab and horse on the stand, though I say it, as shouldn't. Dr. John's pretty fair, but the other's no great favorite of mine.' 'Ah!' he says."

Simmons's face was illuminated with delight, and he winked sportively at us.

"It were all flummery, doctors," he said; "I don't deny as Dr. John is a older friend, and a older favorite; but that is neither here nor there. I jest see them setting a trap, and I wanted to have a finger in it. 'Ah!' he says, 'all we want to know, but we do want to know that very particular, is where you drive Dr. Dobry to the oftenest. He's going to borrow money from us, and we'd like to find out something about his habits; specially where he spends his spare time, and all that sort of thing, you understand. You know where he goes in your cab.' 'Of course I do,' I says; 'I drove him and Dr. John here nigh a twelvemonth ago. The other gent took my number down, and knew where to look for me when you wanted me.' 'You're a clever fellow,' he says. 'So my old woman thinks,' I says. 'And you'd be glad to earn a little more for your old woman?' he says. 'Try me,' I says. 'Well then,' says he, 'here's a offer for you. If you'll bring us word where he spends his spare time, we'll give you ten shillings; and if it turns out of any use to us, well make it five pounds.' 'Very good,' I says. 'You've not got any information to tell us at once?' he says. 'Well, no,' I says, 'but I'll keep my eye upon him now.' 'Stop,' he says, as I were going away; 'they keep a carriage, of course?' 'Of course,' I says; 'what's the good of a doctor that hasn't a carriage and pair?' 'Do they use it at night?' says he. 'Not often,' says I; 'they take a cab; mine if it's on the stand.' 'Very good,' he says; 'good-morning, my friend.' So I come away, and drives back again to the stand."

"And you left the lady there?" I asked, with no doubt in my mind that it was Mrs. Foster.

"Yes, doctor," he answered, "talking away like a poll-parrot with the black-haired gent. That were last Monday; to-day's Friday, and this morning there comes this bit of a note to me at our house in Dawson Street. So my old woman says. 'Jim, you'd better go and show it to Dr. John.' That's what's brought me here at this time, doctors."

He gave the note into Jack's hands; and he, after glancing at it, passed it on to me. The contents were simply these words: "James Simmons is requested to call at No.—Gray's-Inn Road, at 6.30 Friday evening." The handwriting struck me as one I had seen and noticed before. I scanned it more closely for a minute or two; then a glimmering of light began to dawn upon my memory. Could it be? I felt almost sure it was. In another minute I was persuaded that it was the same hand as that which had written the letter announcing Olivia's death. Probably if I could see the penmanship of the other partner, I should find it to be identical with that of the medical certificate which had accompanied the letter.

"Leave this note with me, Simmons," I said, giving him half a crown in exchange for it. I was satisfied now that the papers had been forged, but not with Olivia's connivance. Was Foster himself a party to it? Or had Mrs. Foster alone, with the aid of these friends or relatives of hers, plotted and carried out the scheme, leaving him in ignorance and doubt like my own?



CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH.

JULIA'S WEDDING.

Before the Careys and Julia returned to Guernsey, Captain Carey came to see me one evening, at our own house in Brook Street. He seemed suffering from some embarrassment and shyness; and I could not for some time lead him to the point he was longing to gain.

"You are quite reconciled to all this, Martin?" he said, stammering. I knew very well what he meant.

"More than reconciled," I answered, "I am heartily glad of it. Julia will make you an excellent wife."

"I am sure of that," he said, simply, "yet it makes me nervous a little at times to think I may be standing in your light. I never thought what it was coming to when I tried to comfort Julia about you, or I would have left Johanna to do it all. It is very difficult to console a person without seeming very fond of them; and then there's the danger of them growing fond of you. I love Julia now with all my heart: but I did not begin comforting her with that view, and I am sure you exonerate me, Martin?"

"Quite, quite," I said, almost laughing at his contrition; "I should never have married Julia, believe me; and I am delighted that she is going to be married, especially to an old friend like you. I shall make your house my home."

"Do, Martin," he answered, his face brightening; "and now I am come to ask you a great favor—a favor to us all."

"I'll do it, I promise that beforehand," I said.

"We have all set our hearts on your being my best man," he replied—"at the wedding, you know. Johanna says nothing will convince the Guernsey people that we are all good friends except that. It will have a queer look, but if you are there everybody will be satisfied that you do not blame either Julia or me. I know it will be hard for you, dear Martin, because of your poor mother, and your father being in Guernsey still; but if you can conquer that, for our sakes, you would make us every one perfectly happy."

I had not expected them to ask this; but, when I came to think of it, it seemed very natural and reasonable. There was no motive strong enough to make me refuse to go to Julia's wedding; so I arranged to be with them the last week in July.

About ten days before going, I ran down to the little village on the Sussex coast to visit Foster, from whom, or from his wife, I had received a letter regularly three times a week. I found him as near complete health as he could ever expect to be, and I told him so; but I impressed upon him the urgent necessity of keeping himself quiet and unexcited. He listened with that cool, taunting sneer which had always irritated me.

"Ah! you doctors are like mothers," he said, "who try to frighten their children with bogies. A doctor is a good crutch to lean upon when one is quite lame, but I shall be glad to dispense with my crutch as soon as my lameness is gone."

"Very good," I replied; "you know your life is of no value to me. I have simply done my duty by you."

"Your mother, Mrs. Dobree, wrote to me this week." he remarked, smiling as I winced at the utterance of that name; "she tells me there is to be a grand wedding in Guernsey; that of your fiancee, Julia Dobree, with Captain Carey. You are to be present, so she says."

"Yes," I replied.

"It will be a pleasure to you to revisit your native island," he said, "particularly under such circumstances."

I took no notice of the taunt. My conversation with this man invariably led to full stops. He said something to which silence was the best retort. I did not stay long with him, for the train by which I was to return passed through the village in less than an hour from my arrival. As I walked down the little street I turned round once by a sudden impulse, and saw Foster gazing after me with his pale face and glittering eyes. Ho waved his hand in farewell to me, and that was the last I saw of him.

Some days after this I crossed in the mail-steamer to Guernsey, on a Monday night, as the wedding was to take place at an early hour on Wednesday morning, in time for Captain Carey and Julia to catch the boat to England. The old gray town, built street above street on the rock facing the sea, rose before my eyes, bathed in the morning sunlight. But there was no home in it for me now. The old familiar house in the Grange Road was already occupied by strangers. I did not even know where I was to go. I did not like the idea of staying under Julia's roof, where every thing would remind me of that short spell of happiness in my mother's life, when she was preparing it for my future home. Luckily, before the steamer touched the pier, I caught sight of Captain Carey's welcome face looking out for my appearance. He stood at the end of the gangway, as I crossed over it with my portmanteau.

"Come along, Martin," hee said; "you are to go with me to the Vale, as my groomsman, you know. Are all the people staring at us, do you think? I daren't look round. Just look about you for me, my boy."

"They are staring awfully," I answered, "and there are scores of them waiting to shake hands with us."

"Oh, they must not!" he said, earnestly; "look as if you did not see them, Martin. That's the worst of getting married; yet most of them are married themselves, and ought to know better. There's the dog-cart waiting for us a few yards off, if we could only get to it. I have kept my face seaward ever since I came on the pier, with my collar turned up, and my hat over my eyes. Are you sure they see who we are?"

"Sure!" I cried, "why, there's Carey Dobree, and Dobree Carey, and Brock de Jersey, and De Jersey le Cocq, and scores of others. They know us as well as their own brothers. We shall have to shake hands with every one of them."

"Why didn't you come in disguise?" asked Captain Carey, reproachfully; but before I could answer I was seized upon by the nearest of our cousins, and we were whirled into a very vortex of greetings and congratulations. It was fully a quarter of an hour before we were allowed to drive off in the dog-cart; and Captain Carey was almost breathless with exhaustion.

"They are good fellows," he said, after a time, "very good fellows, but it is trying, isn't it, Martin? It is as if no man was ever married before; though they have gone through it themselves, and ought to know how one feels. Now you take it quietly, my boy, and you do not know how deeply I feel obliged to you."

There was some reason for me to take it quietly. I could not help thinking how nearly I had been myself in Captain Carey's position. I knew that Julia and I would have led a tranquil, matter-of-fact, pleasant enough life together, but for the unlucky fate that had carried me across to Sark to fall in love with Olivia. There was something enviable in the tranquil prosperity I had forfeited. Guernsey was the dearest spot on earth to me, yet I was practically banished from it. Julia was, beyond all doubt, the woman I loved most, next to Olivia, but she was lost to me. There was no hope for me on the other hand. Foster was well again, and by my means. Probably I might secure peace and comparative freedom for Olivia, but that was all. She could never be more to me than she was now. My only prospect was that of a dreary bachelorhood; and Captain Carey's bashful exultation made the future seem less tolerable to me.

I felt it more still when, after dinner in the cool of the summer evening, we drove lack into town to see Julia for the last time before we met in church the next morning. There was an air of glad excitement pervading the house. Friends were running in, with gifts and pleasant words of congratulation. Julia herself had a peculiar modest stateliness and frank dignity, which suited her well. She was happy and content, and her face glowed. Captain Carey's manner was one of tender chivalry, somewhat old-fashioned. I found it a hard thing to "look at happiness through another man's eyes."

I drove Captain Carey and Johanna home along the low, level shore which I had so often traversed with my heart full of Olivia. It was dusk, the dusk of a summer's night; but the sea was luminous, and Sark lay upon it a bank of silent darkness, sleeping to the music of the waves. A strong yearning came over me, a longing to know immediately the fate of my Olivia. Would to Heaven she could return to Sark, and be cradled there in its silent and isolated dells! Would to Heaven this huge load of anxiety and care for her, which bowed me down, might be taken away altogether!

"A fortnight longer," I said to myself, "and Tardif will know where she is; then I can take measures for her tranquillity and safety in the future."

It was well for me that I had slept during my passage, for I had little sleep during that night. Twice I was aroused by the voice of Captain Carey at my door, inquiring what the London time was, and if I could rely upon my watch not having stopped. At four o'clock he insisted upon everybody in the house getting up. The ceremony was to be solemnized at seven, for the mail-steamer from Jersey to England was due in Guernsey at nine, and there were no other means of quitting the island later in the day. Under these circumstances there could be no formal wedding-breakfast, a matter not much to be regretted. There would not be too much time, so Johanna said, for the bride to change her wedding-dress at her own house for a suitable travelling-costume, and the rest of the day would be our own.

Captain Carey and I were standing at the altar of the old church some minutes before the bridal procession appeared. He looked pale, but wound up to a high pitch of resolute courage. The church was nearly full of eager spectators, all of whom I had known from my childhood—faces that would have crowded about me, had I been standing in the bridegroom's place. Far back, half sheltered by a pillar, I saw the white head and handsome face of my father, with Kate Daltrey by his side; but though the church was so full, nobody had entered the same pew. His name had not been once mentioned in my hearing. As far as his old circle in Guernsey was concerned, Dr. Dobree was dead.

At length Julia appeared, pale like the bridegroom, but dignified and prepossessing. She did not glance at me; she evidently gave no thought to me. That was well, and as it should be. If any fancy had been lingering in my head that she still regretted somewhat the exchange she had made, that fancy vanished forever. Julia's expression, when Captain Carey drew her hand through his arm, and led her down the aisle to the vestry, was one of unmixed contentment.

Yet there was a pang in it—reason as I would, there was a pang in it for me. I should have liked her to glance once at me, with a troubled and dimmed eye. I should have liked a shade upon her face as I wrote my name below hers in the register. But there was nothing of the kind. She gave me the kiss, which I demanded as her cousin Martin, without embarrassment, and after that she put her hand again upon the bridegroom's arm, and marched off with him to the carriage.

A whole host of us accompanied the bridal pair to the pier, and saw them start off on their wedding-trip, with a pyramid of bouquets before them on the deck of the steamer. We ran round to the light-house, and waved out hats and handkerchiefs as long as they were in sight. That duty done, the rest of the day was our own.



CHAPTER THE FORTY-NINTH.

A TELEGRAM IN PATOIS.

What a long day it was! How the hours seemed to double themselves, and creep along at the slowest pace they could!

I had had some hope of running over to Sark to see Tardif, but that could not be. I was needed too much by the party that had been left behind by Captain Carey and Julia. We tried to while away the time by a drive round the island, and by visiting many of my old favorite haunts; but I could not be myself.

Everybody rallied me on my want of spirits, but I found it impossible to shake off my depression. I was glad when the day was over, and Johanna and I were left in the quiet secluded house in the Vale, where the moan of the sea sighed softly through the night air.

"This has been a trying day for you, Martin," said Johanna.

"Yes," I answered; "though I can hardly account for my own depression. Johanna, in another fortnight I shall learn where Olivia is. I want to find a home for her. Just think of her desolate position! She has no friends but Tardif and me; and you know how the world would talk if I were too openly her friend. Indeed, I do not wish her to come to live in London; the trial would be too great for me. I could not resist the desire to see her, to speak to her—and that would be fatal to her. Dearest Johanna, I want such a home as this for her."

Johanna made no reply, and I could not see her face in the dim moonlight which filled the room. I knelt down beside her, to urge my petition more earnestly.

"Your name would be such a protection to her." I went on, "this house such a refuge! If my mother were living, I would ask her to receive her. You have been almost as good to me as my mother. Save me, save Olivia from the difficulty I see before us."

"Will you never get over this unfortunate affair?"' she asked, half angrily.

"Never!" I said; "Olivia is so dear to me that I am afraid of harming her by my love. Save her from me, Johanna. You have it in your power. I should be happy if I knew she was here with you. I implore you, for my mother's sake, to receive Olivia into your home."

"She shall come to me," said Johanna, after a few minutes' silence. I was satisfied, though the consent was given with a sigh. I knew that, before long, Johanna would be profoundly attached to my Olivia.

It was almost midnight the next day when I reached Brook Street, where I found Jack expecting my return. He had bought, in honor of it, some cigars of special quality, over which I was to tell him all the story of Julia's wedding. But a letter was waiting for me, directed in queer, crabbed handwriting, and posted in Jersey a week before. It had been so long on the road in consequence of the bad penmanship of the address. I opened it carelessly as I answered Jack's first inquiries; but the instant I saw the signature I held up my hand to silence him. It was from Tardif. This is a translation:

"DEAR DOCTOR AND FRIEND: This day I received a letter from mam'zelle; quite a little letter with only a few lines in it. She says, 'Come to me. My husband has found me; he is here. I have no friends but you and one other, and I cannot send for him. You said you would come to me whenever I wanted you. I have not time to write more. I am in a little village called Ville-en-bois, between Granville and Noireau. Come to the house of the cure; I am there.'

"Behold, I am gone, dear monsieur. I write this in my boat, for we are crossing to Jersey to catch the steamboat to Granville. To-morrow evening I shall be in Ville-en-bois. Will you learn the law of France about this affair? They say the code binds a woman to follow her husband wherever he goes. At London you can learn any thing. Believe me, I will protect mam'zelle, or I should say madame, at the loss of my life. Write to me as soon as you receive this. There will be an inn at Ville-en-bois; direct to me there. Take courage, monsieur. Your devoted TARDIF."

"I must go!" I exclaimed, starting to my feet, about to rush out of the house.

"Where?" cried Jack, catching my arm between both his hands, and holding me fast.

"To Olivia," I answered; "that villain, that scoundrel has hunted her out in Normandy. Read that, Jack. Let me go."

"Stay!" he said; "there is no chance of going so late as this; it is after twelve o'clock. Let us think a few minutes, and look at Bradshaw."

But at that moment a furious peal of the bell rang through the house. We both ran into the hall. The servant had just opened the door, and a telegraph-clerk stood on the steps, with a telegram, which he thrust into his hands. It was directed to me. I tore it open. "From Jean Grimont, Granville, to Dr. Dobree. Brook Street, London." I did not know any Jean Grimont, of Granville, it was the name of a stranger to me. A message was written underneath in Norman patois, but so mispelt and garbled in its transmission that I could not make out the sense of it. The only words I was sure about were "mam'zelle," "Foster," "Tardif," and "a l'agonie." Who was on the point of death I could not tell.



CHAPTER THE FIRST.

OLIVIA'S JUSTIFICATION.

I know that in the eyes of the world I was guilty of a great fault—a fault so grave that society condemns it bitterly. How shall I justify myself before those who believe a woman owes her whole self to her husband, whatever his conduct to her may be? That is impossible. To them I merely plead "guilty," and say nothing of extenuating circumstances.

But there are others who will listen, and be sorry for me. There are women like Johanna Carey, who will pity me, and lay the blame where it ought to lie.

I was little more than seventeen when I was married; as mere a child as any simple, innocent girl of seventeen among you. I knew nothing of what life was, or what possibilities of happiness or misery it contained. I married to set away from a home that had been happy, but which had become miserable. This was how it was:

My own mother died when I was too young a child to feel her loss. For many years after that, my father and I lived alone together on one of the great sheep-farms of Adelaide, which belonged to him, and where he made all the fortune that he left me. A very happy life, very free, with no trammels of society and no fetters of custom; a simple, rustic life, which gave me no preparation for the years that came after it.

When I was thirteen my father married again—for my sake, and mine only. I knew afterward that he was already foreseeing his death, and feared to leave me alone in the colony. He thought his second wife would be a mother to me, at the age when I most needed one. He died two years after, leaving me to her care. He died more peacefully than he could have done, because of that. This he said to me the very last day of his life. Ah! I trust the dead do not know the troubles that come to the living. It would have troubled my father—nay, it would have been anguish to him, even in heaven itself, if he could have seen my life after he was gone. It is no use talking or thinking about it. After two wretched years I was only too glad to be married, and get away from the woman who owed almost the duty of a mother to me.

Richard Foster was a nephew of my step-mother, the only man I was allowed to see. He was almost twice my age; but he had pleasant manners, and a smooth, smooth tongue. I believed he loved me, he swore it so often and so earnestly; and I was in sore need of love. I wanted some one to take care of me, and think of me, and comfort me, as my father had been used to do. So much alone, so desolate I had been since his death, no one caring whether I were happy or miserable, ill or well, that I felt grateful to Richard Foster when he said he loved me. He seemed to come in my father's stead, and my step-mother urged and hurried on our marriage, and I did not know what I was doing. The trustees who had charge of my property left me to the care of my father's widow. That was how I came to marry him when I was only a girl of seventeen, with no knowledge of the world but what I had learned on my father's sheep-run.

It was a horrible, shameful thing, if you will only think of it. There was I, an ignorant, unconscious, bewildered girl, with the film of childhood over my eyes still; and there was he, a crafty, unprincipled, double-tongued adventurer, who was in love with my fortune, not with me. As quickly as he could carry me off from my home, and return to his own haunts in Europe, he brought me away from the colony, where all whom I could ever call friends were living. I was utterly alone with him—at his mercy. There was not an ear that I could whisper a complaint to; not one face that would look at me in pity and compassion. My father had been a good man, single-hearted, high-minded, and chivalrous. This man laughed at all honor and conscience scornfully.

I cannot tell you the shock and horror of it. I had not known there were such places and such people in the world, until I was thrust suddenly into the midst of them; innocent at first, like the child I was, but the film soon passed away from my eyes. I grew to loathe myself as well as him. How would an angel feel, who was forced to go down to hell, and become like the lost creatures there, remembering all the time the undefiled heaven he was banished from? I was no angel, but I had been a simple, unsullied, clear-minded girl, and I found myself linked in association with men and women such as frequent the gambling-places on the Continent. For we lived upon the Continent, going from one gambling-place to another. How was a girl like me to possess her own soul, and keep it pure, when it belonged to a man like Richard Foster?

There was one more injury and degradation for me to suffer. I recollect the first moment I saw the woman who wrought me so much misery afterward. We were staying in Homburg for a few weeks at a hotel; and she was seated at a little table in a window, not far from the one where we were sitting. A handsome, bold-looking, arrogant woman. They had known one another years before, it seemed. He said she was his cousin. He left me to go and speak to her, and I watched them, though I did not know then that any thing more would come of it than a casual acquaintance. I saw his face grow animated, and his eyes look into hers, with an expression that stirred something like jealousy within me, if jealousy can exist without love. When he returned to me, he told me he had invited her to join us as my companion. She came to us that evening.

She never left us after that. I was too young, he said, to be left alone in foreign towns while he was attending to his business, and his cousin would be the most suitable person to take care of me. I hated the woman instinctively. She was civil to me just at first, but soon there was open war between us, at which he laughed only; finding amusement for himself in my fruitless efforts to get rid of her. After a while I discovered it could only be by setting myself free from him.

Now judge me. Tell me what I was bound to do. Three voices I hear speak.

One says: "You, a poor hasty girl, very weak yet innocent, ought to have remained in the slough, losing day by day your purity, your worth, your nobleness, till you grew like your companions. You had vowed ignorantly, with a profound ignorance it might be, to obey and honor this man till death parted you. You had no right to break that vow."

Another says: "You should have made of yourself a spy, you should have laid traps; you should have gathered up every scrap of evidence you could find against them, that might have freed you in a court of law."

A third says: "It was right for you, for the health of your soul, and the deliverance of your whole self from an intolerable bondage, to break the ignorantly-taken vow, and take refuge in flight. No soul can be bound irrevocably to another for its own hurt and ruin."

I listened then, as I should listen now, to the third voice. The chance came to me just before I was one-and-twenty. They were bent upon extorting from me that portion of my father's property which would come to me, and be solely in my own power, when I came of age. It had been settled upon me in such a way, that if I were married my husband could not touch it without my consent.

I must make this quite clear. One-third, of my fortune was so settled that I myself could not take any portion of it save the interest; but the other two-thirds were absolutely mine, whether I was married or single. By locking up one-third, my father had sought to provide against the possibility of my ever being reduced to poverty. The rest was my own, to keep if I pleased; to give up to my husband if I pleased.

At first they tried what fair words and flattery would do with me. Then they changed their tactics. They brought me over to London, where not a creature knew me. They made me a prisoner in dull, dreary rooms, where I had no employment and no resources. That is, the woman did it. My husband, after settling us in a house in London, disappeared, and I saw no more of him. I know now he wished to keep himself irresponsible for my imprisonment. She would have been the scape-goat, had any legal difficulties arisen. He was anxious to retain all his rights over me.

I can see how subtle he was. Though my life was a daily torture, there was positively nothing I could put into words against him—nothing that would have authorized me to seek a legal separation. I did not know any thing of the laws, how should I? except the fact which he dinned into my ears that he could compel me to live with him. But I know now that the best friends in the world could not have saved me from him in any other way than the one I took. He kept within the letter of the law. He forfeited no atom of his claim upon me.

Then God took me by the hand, and led me into a peaceful and untroubled refuge, until I had gathered strength again.



CHAPTER THE SECOND.

ON THE WING AGAIN.

How should I see that Dr. Martin Dobree was falling in love with me? I was blind to it; strangely blind those wise people will think, who say a woman always knows when a man loves her. I knew so well that all my life was shut out from the ordinary hopes and prospects of girlhood, that I never realized the fact that to him I was a young girl whom he might love honorably, were he once set free from his engagement to his cousin Julia.

I had not looked for any trouble of that kind. He had been as kind to me as any brother could have been—kind, and chivalrous, and considerate. The first time I saw him I was weak and worn out with great pain, and my mind seemed wandering. His face came suddenly and distinctly before me; a pleasant face, though neither handsome nor regular in features. It possessed great vivacity and movement, changing readily, and always full of expression. He looked at me so earnestly and compassionately, his dark eyes seeming to search for the pain I was suffering, that I felt perfect confidence in him at once. I was vaguely conscious of his close attendance, and unremitting care, during the whole week that I lay ill. All this placed us on very pleasant terms of familiarity and friendship.

How grieved I was when this friendship came to an end—when he confessed his unfortunate love to me—it is impossible for me to say. Such a thought had never crossed my mind. Not until I saw the expression on his face, when he called to us from the shore to wait for him, and waded eagerly through the water to us, and held my hands fast as I helped him into the boat—not till then did I suspect his secret. Poor Martin!

Then there came the moment when I was compelled to say to him. "I was married four years ago, and my husband is still living"—a very bitter moment to me; perhaps more bitter than to him. I knew we must see one another no more; and I who was so poor in friends, lost the dearest of them by those words. That was a great shock to me.

But the next day came the second shock of meeting Kate Daltrey, my husband's half-sister. Martin had told me that there was a person in Guernsey who had traced my flight so far; but in my trouble and sorrow for him, I had not thought much of this intelligence. I saw in an instant that I had lost all again, my safety, my home, my new friends. I must flee once more, alone and unaided, leaving no trace behind me. When old Mother Renouf, whom Tardif had set to watch me for very fear of this mischance, had led me away from Kate Daltrey to the cottage, I sought out Tardif at once.

He was down at the water's edge, mending his boat, which lay with its keel upward. He heard my footsteps among the pebbles, and turned round to greet me with one of his grave smiles, which had never failed me whenever I went to him.

"Mam'zelle is triste," he said; "is there any thing I can do for you?"

"I must go away from here, Tardif," I answered, with a choking voice.

A change swept quickly across his face, but he passed his hand for a moment over it, and then regarded me again with his grave smile.

"For what reason, mam'zelle?" he asked.

"Oh! I must tell you every thing!" I cried.

"Tell me every thing," he repeated; "it shall be buried here, in my heart, as if it was buried in the depths of the sea. I will try not to think of it even, if you bid me. I am your friend as well as your servant."

Then leaning against his boat, for I could not control my trembling, I told him almost all about my wretched life, from which God had delivered me, leading me to him for shelter and comfort. He listened with his eyes cast down, never once raising them to my face, and in perfect silence, except that once or twice he groaned within himself, and clinched his hard hands together. I know that I could never have told my history to any other man as I told it to him, a homely peasant and fisherman, but with as noble and gentle a heart as ever beat.

"You must go," he said, when I had finished. His voice was hollow and broken, but the words were spoken distinctly enough for me to hear them.

"Yes, there is no help for me," I answered; "there is no rest for me but death."

"It would be better to die," he said, solemnly, "than return to a life like that. I would sooner bury you up yonder, in our little graveyard, than give you up to your husband."

"You will help me to get away at once?" I asked.

"At once," he repeated, in the same broken voice. His face looked gray, and his mouth twitched. He leaned against his boat, as if he could hardly stand; as I was doing myself, for I felt utterly weak and shaken.

"How soon?" I asked.

"To-morrow I will row you to Guernsey in time for the packet to England," he answered. Mon Dieu! how little I thought what I was mending my boat for! Mam'zelle, is there nothing, nothing in the world I can do for you?"

"Nothing, Tardif," I said, sorrowfully.

"Nothing!" he assented, dropping his head down upon his hands. No, there was positively nothing he could do for me. There was no person on the face of the earth who could help me.

"My poor Tardif," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, "I am a great trouble to you."

"I cannot bear to let you go in this way," he replied, without looking up. "If it had been to marry Dr. Martin—why, then—but you have to go alone, poor little child!"

"Yes," I said, "alone."

After that we were both silent for some minutes. We could hear the peaceful lapping of the water at our feet, and its boom against the rocks, and the shrieking of the sea-gulls; but there was utter silence between us two. I felt as if it would break my heart to leave this place, and go whither I knew not. Yet there was no alternative.

"Tardif," I said at last, "I will go first to London. It is so large a place, nobody will find me there. Besides, they would never think of me going back to London. When I am there I will try to get a situation as governess somewhere. I could teach little children; and if I go into a school there will be no one to fall in love with me, like Dr. Martin. I am very sorry for him."

"Sorry for him!" repeated Tardif.

"Yes, very sorry," I replied; "it is as if I must bring trouble everywhere. You are troubled, and I cannot help it."

"I have only had one trouble as great," he said, as if to himself, "and that was when my poor little wife died. I wish to God I could keep you here in safety, but that is impossible."

"Quite impossible," I answered.

Yet it seemed too bad to be true. What had I done, to be driven away from this quiet little home into the cold, wide world? Poor and friendless, after all my father's far-seeing plans and precautions to secure me from poverty and friendlessness! What was to be my lot in that dismal future, over the rough threshold of which I must cross to-morrow?

Tardif and I talked it all over that evening, sitting at the cottage-door until the last gleam of daylight had faded from the sky. He had some money in hand just then, which he had intended to invest the next time he went to Guernsey, and could see his notary. This money, thirty pounds, he urged me to accept as a gift; but I insisted upon leaving with him my watch and chain in pledge, until I could repay the money. It would be a long time before I could do that, I knew; for I was resolved never to return to Richard Foster, and to endure any privation rather than claim my property.

I left Tardif after a while, to pack up my very few possessions. We did not tell his mother that I was going, for he said it would be better not. In the morning he would simply let her know I was going over to Guernsey. No communication had ever passed between the old woman and me except by signs, yet I should miss even her in that cold, careless crowd in which I was about to be lost, in the streets of London.

We started at four in the morning, while the gray sky was dappled over with soft clouds, and the sea itself seemed waking up from sleep, as if it too had been slumbering through the night. The morning mist upon the cliffs made them look mysterious, as if they had some secrets to conceal. Untrodden tracks climbed the surface of the rocks, and were lost in the fine filmy haze. The water looked white and milky, with lines across it like the tracks on the cliffs, which no human foot could tread; and the tide was coming back to the shore with a low, tranquil, yet sad moan. The sea-gulls skimmed past us with their white wings, almost touching us; their plaintive wailing seeming to warn us of the treachery and sorrow of the sea. I was not afraid of the treachery of the sea, yet I could not bear to hear them, nor could Tardif.

We landed at one of the stone staircases running up the side of the pier at Guernsey; for we were only just in time for the steamer. The steps were slimy and wet with seaweed, but Tardif's hand grasped mine firmly. He pushed his way through the crowd of idlers who were watching the lading of the cargo, and took me down immediately into the cabin.

"Good-by, mam'zelle," he said; "I must leave you. Send for me, or come to me, if you are in trouble and I can do any thing for you. If it were to Australia, I would follow you. I know I am only fit to be your servant, but all the same I am your friend. You have a little regard for me, mam'zelle?"

"O Tardif!" I sobbed, "I love you very dearly."

"Now that makes me glad," he said, holding my hand between his, and looking down at me with tears in his eyes; "you said that from your good heart, mam'zelle. When I am out alone in my boat, I shall think of it, and in the long winter nights by the fire, when there is no little mam'zelle to come and talk to me, I shall say to myself, 'She loves you very dearly.' Good-by, mam'zelle. God be with you and protect you!"

"Good-by," I said, with a sore grief in my heart, "good-by, Tardif. It is very dreadful to be alone again."

There was no time to say more, for a bell rang loudly on deck, and we heard the cry, "All friends on shore!" Tardif put his lips to my hand, and left me. I was indeed alone.



CHAPTER THE THIRD.

IN LONDON LODGINGS.

Once more I found myself in London, a city so strange to me that I did not know the name of any street in it. I had more acquaintance with almost every great city on the Continent. Fortunately, Tardif had given me the address of a boarding-house, or rather a small family hotel, where he had stayed two or three times, and I drove there at once. It was in a quiet back street, within sound of St. Paul's clock. The hour was so late, nearly midnight, that I was looked upon with suspicion, as a young woman travelling alone, and with little luggage. It was only when I mentioned Tardif, whose island bearing had made him noticeable among the stream of strangers passing through the house, that the mistress of the place consented to take me in.

This was my first difficulty, but not the last. By the advice of the mistress of the boarding-house, I went to several governess agencies, which were advertising for teachers in the daily papers. At most of these they would not even enter my name, as soon as I confessed my inability to give one or two references to persons who would vouch for my general character, and my qualifications. This was a fatal impediment, and one that had never occurred to me; yet the request was a reasonable one, even essential. What could be more suspicious than a girl of my age without a friend to give a guarantee of her respectability? There seemed no hope whatever of my entering into the ill-paid ranks of governesses.

When a fortnight had passed with no opening for me, I felt it necessary to leave the boarding-house which had been my temporary home. I must economize my funds, for I did not know how long I must make them hold out. Wandering about the least fashionable suburbs, where lodgings would cost least, I found a bedroom in the third story of a house in a tolerably respectable street. The rent was six shillings a week, to be paid in advance. In this place, I entered upon a new phase of life, so different from that in Sark that, in the delusions which solitude often brings, I could not always believe myself the same person.

A dreamy, solitary, gloomy life; shut in upon myself, with no outlet for association with my fellow creatures. My window opened upon a back-yard, with a row of half-built houses standing opposite to it. These houses had been left half-finished, and were partly falling into ruin. A row of bare, empty window-frames faced me whenever I turned my wearied eyes to the scene without. Not a sound or sign of life was there about them. Within, my room was; small and scantily furnished, yet there was scarcely space enough for me to move about it. There was no table for me to take my meals at, except the top of the crazy chest of drawers, which served as my dressing-table. One chair, broken in the back, and tied together with a faded ribbon, was the only seat, except my box, which, set in a corner where I could lean against the wall, made me the most comfortable place for resting. There was a little rusty grate, but it was still summer-time, and there was no need of a fire. A fire indeed would have been insupportable, for the sultry, breathless atmosphere of August, with the fever-heat of its sun burning in the narrow streets and close yards, made the temperature as parching as an oven. I panted for the cool cliffs and sweet fresh air of Sark.

In this feverish solitude one day dragged itself after another with awful monotony. As they passed by, the only change they brought was that the sultry heat grew ever cooler, and the long days shorter. The winter seemed inclined to set in early, and with unusual rigor, for a month before the usual time fires became necessary. I put off lighting mine, for fear of the cost, until my sunless little room under the roof was almost like an ice-house. A severe cold, which made me afraid of having to call in a doctor, compelled me to have a fire; and the burning of it, and the necessity of tending it, made it like a second person and companion in the lonely place. Hour after hour I sat in front of it on my box, with my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands, watching the changeful scenery of its embers, and the exquisite motion of the flames, and the upward rolling of the tiny columns of smoke, and the fiery, gorgeous colors that came and went with a breath. To see the tongues of fire lap round the dull, black coal, and run about it, and feel it, and kindle it with burning touches, and never quit it till it was glowing and fervid, and aflame like themselves—that was my sole occupation for hours together.

Think what a dreary life for a young girl! I was as fond of companionship, and needed love, as much as any girl. Was it strange that my thoughts dwelt somewhat dangerously upon the pleasant, peaceful days in Sark?

When I awoke in the morning to a voiceless, solitary, idle day, how could I help thinking of Martin Dobree, of Tardif, even of old Mother Renouf, with her wrinkled face and her significant nods and becks? Martin Dobree's pleasant face would come before me, with his eyes gleaming so kindly under his square forehead, and his lips moving tremulously with every change of feeling. Had he gone back to his cousin Julia again, and were they married? I ought not to feel any sorrow at that thought. His path had run side by side with mine for a little while, but always with a great barrier between us; and now they had diverged, and must grow farther and farther apart, never to touch again. Yet, how my father would have loved him had he known him! How securely he would have trusted to his care for me! But stop! There was folly and wickedness in thinking that way. Let me make an end of that.

There was no loneliness like that loneliness. Twice a day I exchanged a word or two with the overworked drudge of a servant in the house where I lived; but I had no other voice to speak to me. No wonder that my imagination sometimes ran in forbidden and dangerous channels.

When I was not thinking and dreaming thus, a host of anxieties crowded about me. My money was melting away again, though slowly, for I denied myself every thing but the bare necessaries of life. What was to become of me when it was all gone? It was the old question; but the answer was as difficult to find as ever. I was ready for any kind of work, but no chance of work came to me. With neither work nor money, what was I to do? What was to be the end of it?



CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

RIDLEY'S AGENCY-OFFICE.

Now and then, when I ventured out into the streets, a panic would seize me, a dread unutterably great, that I might meet my husband amid the crowd. I did not even know that he was in London; he had always spoken of it as a place he detested. His habits made the free, unconventional life upon the Continent more agreeable to him. How he was living now, what he was doing, where he was, were so many enigmas to me; and I did not care to run any risk in finding out the answers to them. Twice I passed the Bank of Australia, where very probably. I could have learned if he was in the same city as myself; but I dared not do it, and as soon as I knew how to avoid that street, I never passed along it.

I had been allowed to leave my address with the clerk of a large general agency in the city, when I had not been permitted to enter my name in the books for want of a reference. Toward the close of October I received a note from him, desiring me to call at the office at two o'clock the following afternoon, without fail.

No danger of my failing to keep such an appointment! I felt in better spirits that night than I had done since I had been driven from Sark. There was an opening for me, a chance of finding employment, and I resolved beforehand to take it, whatever it might be.

It was an agency for almost every branch of employment not actually menial, from curates to lady's-maids, and the place of business was a large one. There were two entrances, and two distinct compartments, at the opposite ends of the building; but a broad, long counter ran the whole length of it, and a person at one end could see the applicants at the other as they stood by the counter. The compartment into which I entered was filled with a crowd of women, waiting their turn to transact their business. Behind the counter were two or three private boxes, in which employers might see the candidates, and question them on the spot. A lady was at that moment examining a governess, in a loud, imperious voice which we could all hear distinctly. My heart sank at the idea of passing through such a cross-examination as to my age, my personal history, my friends, and a number of particulars foreign to the question of whether I was fit for the work I offered myself for.

At last I heard the imperious voice say, "You may go. I do not think you will suit me," and a girl of about my own age came away from the interview, pale and trembling, and with tears stealing down her cheeks. A second girl was summoned to go through the same ordeal.

What was I to do if this person, unseen in her chamber of torture, was the lady I had been summoned to meet?

It was a miserable sight, this crowd of poor women seeking work, and my spirits sank like lead. A set of mournful, depressed, broken-down women! There was not one I would have chosen to be a governess for my girls. Those who were not dispirited were vulgar and self-asserting; a class that wished to rise above the position they were fitted for by becoming teachers. These were laughing loudly among themselves at the cross-questioning going on so calmly within their hearing. I shrank away into a corner, until my turn to speak to the busy clerk should come.

I had a long time to wart. The office clock pointed to half-past three before I caught the clerk's eye, and saw him beckon me up to the counter. I had thrown back my veil, for here I was perfectly safe from recognition. At the other end of the counter, in the compartment devoted to curates, doctors' assistants, and others, there stood a young man in earnest consultation with another clerk. He looked earnestly at me, but I was sure he could not know me.

"Miss Ellen Martineau?" said the clerk. That was my mother's name, and I had adopted it for my own, feeling as if I had some right to it.

"Yes," I answered.

"Would you object to go into a French school as governess?" he inquired.

"Not in the least," I said, eagerly.

"And pay a small premium?" he added. "How much?" I asked, my spirits falling again.

"A mere trifle," he said; "about ten pounds or so for twelve months. You would perfect yourself in French, you know; and you would gain a referee for the future."

"I must think about it," I replied.

"Well, there is the address of a lady who can give you all the particulars," he said, handing me a written paper.

I left the office heavy-hearted. Ten pounds would be more than the half of the little store left to me. Yet, would it not be wiser to secure a refuge and shelter for twelve months than run the risk of hearing of some other situation? I walked slowly along the street toward the busier thoroughfares, with my head bent down and my mind busy, when suddenly a heavy hand was laid upon my arm, grasping it with crushing force, and a harsh, thick voice shouted triumphantly in my ear:

"The devil! I've caught you at last!"

It was like the bitterness of death, that chill and terror sweeping over me. My husband's hot breath was upon my cheek, and his eyes were looking closely into mine. But before I could speak his grasp was torn away from me, and he was sent whirling into the middle of the road. I turned, almost in equal terror, to see who had thrust himself between us. It was the stranger whom I had seen in the agency-office. But his face was now dark with passion, and as my husband staggered back again toward us, his hand was ready to thrust him away a second time.

"She's my wife," he stammered, trying to get past the stranger to me. By this time a knot of spectators had formed about us, and a policeman had come up. The stranger drew my arm through his, and faced them defiantly.

"He's a drunken vagabond!" he said; "he has just come out of those spirit-vaults. This young lady is no more his wife than she is mine, and I know no more of her than that she has just come away from Ridley's office, where she has been looking after a situation. Good Heavens! cannot a lady walk through the streets of London without being insulted by a drunken scoundrel like that"?"

"Will you give him in charge, sir?" asked the policeman, while Richard Foster was making vain efforts to speak coherently, and explain his claim upon me. I clung to the friendly arm that had come to my aid, sick and almost speechless with fear.

"Shall I give him in charge?" he asked me.

"I have only just heard of a situation," I whispered, unable to speak aloud.

"And you are afraid of losing it?" he said; "I understand.—Take the fellow away, policeman, and lock him up if you can for being drunk and disorderly in the streets; but the lady won't give him in charge. I've a good mind to make him go down on his knees and beg her pardon."

"Do, do!" said two or three voices in the crowd.

"Don't," I whispered again, "oh! take me away quickly."

He cleared a passage for us both with a vigor and decision that there was no resisting. I glanced back for an instant, and saw my husband struggling with the policeman, the centre of the knot of bystanders from which I was escaping. He looked utterly unlike a gay, prosperous, wealthy man, with a well-filled purse, such as he had used to appear. He was shabby and poor enough now for the policeman to be very hard upon him, and to prevent him from following me. The stranger kept my hand firmly on his arm, and almost carried me into Fleet Street, where, in a minute or two we were quite lost in the throng, and I was safe from all pursuit.

"You are not fit to go on," he said, kindly; "come out of the noise a little."

He led me down a covered passage between two shops, into a quiet cluster of squares and gardens, where only a subdued murmur of the uproar of the streets reached us. There were a sufficient number of passers-by to prevent it seeming lonely, but we could hear our own voices, and those of others, even in whispers.

"This is the Temple," he said, smiling, "a fit place for a sanctuary."

"I do not know how to thank you," I answered falteringly.

"You are trembling still!" he replied; "how lucky it was that I followed you directly out of Ridley's! If I ever come across that scoundrel again, I shall know him, you may be sure. I wish we were a little nearer home, you should go in to rest; but our house is in Brook Street, and we have no women-kind belonging to us. My name is John Senior. Perhaps you have heard of my father, Dr. Senior, of Brook Street?"

"No." I replied, "I know nobody in London."

"That's bad," he said. "I wish I was Jane Senior instead of John Senior; I do indeed. Do you feel better now, Miss Martineau?"

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

"The clerk at Ridley's called you Miss Ellen Martineau," he answered. "My hearing is very good, and I was not deeply engrossed in my business. I heard and saw a good deal while I was there, and I am very glad I heard and saw you. Do you feel well enough now for me to see you home?"

"Oh! I cannot let you see me home," I said, hurriedly.

"I will do just what you like best." he replied. "I have no more right to annoy you than that drunken vagabond had. If I did, I should be more blamable than he was. Tell me what I shall do for you then. Shall I call a cab?"

I hesitated, for my funds were low, and would be almost spent by the time I had paid the premium of ten pounds, and my travelling expenses; yet I dared not trust myself either in the streets or in an omnibus. I saw my new friend regard me keenly; my dress, so worn and faded, and my old-fashioned bonnet. A smile flickered across his face. He led me back into Fleet Street, and called an empty cab that was passing by. We shook hands warmly. There was no time for loitering; and I told him the name of the suburb where I was living, and he repeated it to the cabman.

"All right," he said, speaking through the window, "the fare is paid, and I've taken cabby's number. If he tries to cheat you, let me know; Dr. John Senior, Brook Street. I hope that situation will be a good one, and very pleasant. Good-by."

"Good-by," I cried, leaning forward and looking at his face till the crowd came between us, and I lost sight of it. It was a handsomer face than Dr. Martin Dobree's, and had something of the same genial, vivacious light about it. I knew it well afterward, but I had not leisure to think much of it then.



CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

BELLRINGER STREET.

I was still trembling with the terror that my meeting with Richard Foster had aroused. A painful shuddering agitated me, and my heart fluttered with an excess of fear which I could not conquer. I could still feel his grasp upon my arm, where the skin was black with the mark; and there was before my eyes the sight of his haggard and enraged face, as he struggled to get free from the policeman. When he was sober would he recollect all that had taken place, and go to make inquiries after me at Ridley's agency-office? Dr. John Senior had said he had followed me from there. I scarcely believed he would. Yet there was a chance of it, a deadly chance to me. If so, the sooner I could fly from London and England the better.

I felt safer when the cabman set me down at the house where I lodged, and I ran up-stairs to my little room. I kindled the fire, which had gone out during my absence, and set my little tin tea-kettle upon the first clear flame which burned up amid the coal. Then I sat down on my box before it, thinking.

Yes; I must leave London. I must take this situation, the only one open to me, in a school in France. I should at least be assured of a home for twelve months; and, as the clerk had said, I should perfect myself in French and gain a referee. I should be earning a character, in fact. At present I had none, and so was poorer than the poorest servant-maid. No character, no name, no money; who could be poorer than the daughter of the wealthy colonist, who had owned thousands of acres in Adelaide? I almost laughed and cried hysterically at the thought of my father's vain care and provision for my future.

But the sooner I fled from London again the better, now that I knew my husband was somewhere in it and might be upon my track. I unfolded the paper on which was written the name of the lady to whom I was to apply. Mrs. Wilkinson. 19 Bellringer Street. I ran down to the sitting-room, to ask my landlady where it was, and told her, in my new hopefulness, that I had heard of a situation in France. Bellringer Street was less than a mile away, she said. I could be there before seven o'clock, not too late perhaps for Mrs. Wilkinson to give me an interview.

A thick yellow fog had come in with nightfall—a fog that could almost be tasted and smelt—but it did not deter me from my object. I inquired my way of every policeman I met, and at length entered the street. The fog hid the houses from my view, but I could see that some of the lower windows were filled with articles for sale, as if they were shops struggling into existence. It was not a fashionable street, and Mrs. Wilkinson could not be a very aristocratic person.

No. 19 was not difficult to find, and I pulled the bell-handle with a gentle and quiet pull, befitting my errand. I repeated this several times without being admitted, when it struck me that the wire might be broken. Upon that I knocked as loudly as I could upon the panels of the broad old door; a handsome, heavy door, such as are to be found in the old streets of London, from which the tide of fashion has ebbed away. A slight, thin child in rusty mourning opened it, with the chain across, and asked who I was in a timid voice.

"Does Mrs. Wilkinson live here?" I asked.

"Yes," said the child.

"Who is there?" I heard a voice calling shrilly from within; not an English voice, I felt sure, for each word was uttered distinctly and slowly.

"I am come about a school in France," I said to the child.

"Oh! I'll let you in," she answered, eagerly; "she will see you about that, I'm sure. I'm to go with you, if you go."

She let down the chain, and opened the door. There was a dim light burning in the hall, which looked shabby and poverty-stricken. There was no carpet upon the broad staircase, and nothing but worn-out oil-cloth on the floor. I had only time to take in a vague general impression, before the little girl conducted me to a room on the ground-floor. That too was uncarpeted and barely furnished; but the light was low, and I could see nothing distinctly, except the face of the child looking wistfully at me with shy curiosity.

"I'm to go if you go," she said again; "and, oh! I do so hope you will agree to go."

"I think I shall," I answered.

"I daren't be sure," she replied, nodding her head with an air of sagacity; "there have been four or five governesses here, and none of them would go. You'd have to take me with you; and, oh! it is such a lovely, beautiful place. See! here is a picture of it."

She ran eagerly to a side-table, on which lay a book or two, one of which she opened, and reached out a photograph, which had been laid there for security. When she brought it to me, she stood leaning lightly against me as we both looked at the same picture. It was a clear, sharply-defined photograph, with shadows so dark yet distinct as to show the clearness of the atmosphere in which it had been taken. At the left hand stood a handsome house, with windows covered with lace curtains, and provided with outer Venetian shutters. In the centre stood a large square garden, with fountains, and arbors, and statues, in the French style of gardening, evidently well kept; and behind this stood a long building of two stories, and a steep roof with dormer windows, every casement of which was provided, like the house in the front, with rich lace curtains and Venetian shutters. The whole place was clearly in good order and good taste, and looked like a very pleasant home. It would probably be my home for a time, and I scrutinized it the more closely. Which of those sunny casements would be mine? What nook in that garden would become my favorite? If I could only get there undetected, how secure and happy I might be!

Above the photograph was written in ornamental characters, "Pensionnat de Demoiselles, a Noireau, Calvados." Underneath it were the words, "Fonde par M. Emile Perrier, avocat, et par son epouse." Though I knew very little of French, I could make out the meaning of these sentences. Monsieur Perrier was an avocat. Tardif had happened to speak to me about the notaries in Guernsey, who appeared to me to be of the same rank as our solicitors, while the avocats were on a par with our barristers. A barrister founding a boarding-school for young ladies might be somewhat opposed to English customs, but it was clear that he must be a man of education and position; a gentleman, in fact.

"Isn't it a lovely place?" asked the child beside me, with a deep sigh of longing.

"Yes," I said; "I should like to go."

I had had time to make all these observations before the owner of the foreign voice, which I had heard at the door, came in. At the first glance I knew her to be a Frenchwoman, with the peculiar yellow tone in her skin which seems inevitable in middle-aged Frenchwomen. Her black eyes were steady and cold, and her general expression one of watchfulness. She had wrapped tightly about her a China crape shawl, which had once been white, but had now the same yellow tint as her complexion. The light was low, but she turned it a little higher, and scrutinized me with a keen and steady gaze.

"I have not the honor of knowing you," she said politely.

"I come from Ridley's agency-office," I answered, "about a situation as English teacher in a school in France."

"Be seated, miss," she said, pointing me to a stiff, high-backed chair, whither the little girl followed me, stroking with her hand the soft seal-skin jacket I was wearing.

"It is a great chance," she continued; "my friend Madame Perrier is very good, very amiable for her teachers. She is like a sister for them. The terms are very high, very high for France; but there is absolutely every comfort. The arrangements are precisely like England. She has lived in England for two years, and knows what English young ladies look for; and the house is positively English. I suppose you could introduce a few English pupils."

"No," I answered, "I am afraid I could not. I am sure I could not."

"That of course must be considered in the premium," she continued; "if you could have introduced, say, six pupils, the premium would be low. I do not think my friend would take one penny less than twenty pounds for the first year, and ten for the second."

The tears started to my eyes. I had felt so sure of going if I would pay ten pounds, that I was quite unprepared for this disappointment. There was still my diamond ring left; but how to dispose of it, for any thing like its value, I did not know. It was in my purse now, with all my small store of money, which I dared not leave behind me in my lodgings.

"What were you prepared to give?" asked Mrs. Wilkinson, while I hesitated.

"The clerk at Ridley's office told me the premium would be ten pounds," I answered;

"I do not see how I can give more."

"Well," she said, after musing a little, while I watched her face anxiously, "it is time this child went. She has been here a month, waiting for somebody to take her down to Noireau. I will agree with you, and will explain it to Madame Perrier. How soon could you go?"

"I should like to go to-morrow," I replied, feeling that the sooner I quitted London the better. Mrs. Wilkinson's steady eyes fastened upon me again with sharp curiosity.

"Have you references, miss?" she asked.

"No," I faltered, my hope sinking again before this old difficulty.

"It will be necessary then," she said, "for you to give the money to me, and I will forward it to Madame Perrier. Pardon, miss, but you perceive I could not send a teacher to them unless I knew that she could pay the money down. There is my commission to receive the money for my friend."

She gave me a paper written in French, of which I could read enough to see that it was a sort of official warrant to receive accounts for Monsieur Perrier, avocat, and his wife. I did not waver any longer. The prospect seemed too promising for me to lose it by any irresolution. I drew out my purse, and laid down two out of the three five-pound notes left me. She gave me a formal receipt in the names of Emile and Louise Perrier, and her sober face wore an expression of satisfaction.

"There! it is done," she said, wiping her pen carefully. "You will take lessons, any lessons you please, from the professors who attend the school. It is a grand chance, miss, a grand chance. Let us say you go the day after to-morrow; the child will be quite ready. She is going for four years to that splendid place, a place for ladies of the highest degree."

At that moment an imperious knock sounded upon the outer door, and the little girl ran to answer it, leaving the door of our room open. A voice which I knew well, a voice which made my heart stand still and my veins curdle, spoke in sharp loud tones in the hall.

"Is Mr. Foster come home yet?" were the words the terrible voice uttered, quite close to me it seemed; so close that I shrank back shivering as if every syllable struck a separate blow. All my senses were awake: I could hear every sound in the hall, each step that came nearer and nearer. Was she about to enter the room where I was sitting? She stood still for half a minute as if uncertain what to do.

"He is up stairs," said the child's voice. "He told me he was ill when I opened the door for him."

"Where is Mrs. Wilkinson?" she asked.

"She is here," said the child, "but there's a lady with her."

Then the woman's footsteps went on up the staircase. I listened to them climbing up one step after another, my brain throbbing with each sound, and I heard a door opened and closed. Mrs. Wilkinson had gone to the door, and looked out into the hall, as if expecting some other questions to be asked. She had not seen my panic of despair. I must get away before I lost the use of my senses, for I felt giddy and faint.

"I will send the child to you in a cab on Wednesday," she said, as I stood up and made my way toward the hall; "you have not told me your address."

I paused for a moment. Dared I tell her my address? Yet my money was paid, and if I did not I should lose both it and the refuge I had bought with it. Besides, I should awaken suspicion and inquiry by silence. It was a fearful risk to run; yet it seemed safer than a precipitous retreat. I gave her my address, and saw her write it down on a slip of paper.

As I returned to my lodgings I grew calmer and more hopeful. It was not likely that my husband would see the address, or even hear that any one like me had been at the house. I did not suppose he would know the name of Martineau as my mother's maiden name. As far as I recollected, I had never spoken of her to him. Moreover he was not a man to make himself at all pleasant and familiar with persons whom he looked upon as inferiors. It was highly improbable that he would enter into any conversation with his landlady. If that woman did so, all she would learn would be that a young lady, whose name was Martineau, had taken a situation as English teacher in a French school. What could there be in that to make her think of me?

I tried to soothe and reassure myself with these reasonings, but I could not be quiet or at peace. I watched all through the next day, listening to every sound in the house below; but no new terror assailed me. The second night I was tranquil enough to sleep.



CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

LEAVING ENGLAND.

I was on the rack all the next day. It was the last day I should be in England, and I had a nervous dread of being detained. If I should once more succeed in quitting the country undetected, it seemed as though I might hope to be in safety in Calvados. Of Calvados I knew even less than of the Channel Islands; I had never heard the name before. But Mrs. Wilkinson had given me the route by which we were to reach Noireau: by steamer to Havre, across the mouth of the Seine to Honfleur, to Falaise by train, and finally from Falaise to Noireau by omnibus. It was an utterly unknown region to me; and I had no reason to imagine that Richard Foster was better acquainted with it than I. My anxiety was simply to get clear away.

In the afternoon the little girl arrived quite alone, except that a man had been hired to carry a small box for her, and to deliver her into my charge. This was a great relief to me, and I paid the shilling he demanded gladly. The child was thinly and shabbily dressed for our long journey, and there was a forlorn loneliness about her position, left thus with a stranger, which touched me to the heart. We were alike poor, helpless, friendless—I was about to say childish, and in truth I was in many things little more than a child still. The small elf, with her sharp, large eyes, which were too big for her thin face, crept up to me, as the man slammed the door after him and clattered noisily downstairs.

"I'm so glad!" she said, with a deep-drawn sigh of relief; "I was afraid I should never go, and school is such a heavenly place!"

The words amused yet troubled me; they were so different from a child's ordinary opinion.

"It's such a hateful place at Mrs. Wilkinson's," she went on, "everybody calling me at once, and scolding me; and there are such a many people to run errands for. You don't know what it is to run errands when you are tired to death. And it's such a beautiful, splendid place where we're going to!"

"What is your name, my dear?" I asked, sitting down on my box and taking her on my lap. Such a thin, stunted little woman, precociously learned in trouble! Yet she nestled in my arms like a true child, and a tear or two rolled down her cheeks, as if from very contentment.

"Nobody has nursed me like this since mother died," she said. "I'm Mary; but father always called me Minima, because I was the least in the house. He kept a boys' school out of London, in Epping Forest, you know; and it was so heavenly! All the boys were good to me, and we used to call father Dominie. Then he died, and mother died just before him; and he said,'Courage, Minima! God will take care of my little girl.' So the boys' fathers and mothers made a subscription for me, and they got a great deal of money, a hundred pounds; and somebody told them about this school, where I can stay four years for a hundred pounds, and they all said that was the best thing they could do with me. But I've had to stay with Mrs. Wilkinson nearly two months, because she could not find a governess to go with me. I hate her; I detest her; I should like to spit at her!"

The little face was all aflame, and the large eyes burning.

"Hush! hush!" I said, drawing her head down upon my shoulder again.

"Then there is Mr. Foster," she continued, almost sobbing; "he torments me so. He likes to make fun of me, and tease me, till I can't bear to go into his room. Father used to say it was wicked to hate anybody, and I didn't hate anybody then. I was so happy. But you'd hate Mr. Foster, and Mrs. Foster, if you only knew them."

"Why?" I asked in a whisper. My voice sounded husky to me, and my throat felt parched. The child's impotent rage and hatred struck a slumbering chord within me.

"Oh! they are horrid in every way," she said, with emphasis; "they frighten me. He is fond of tormenting any thing because he's cruel. We had a cruel boy in our school once, so I know. But they are very poor—poor as Job, Mrs. Wilkinson says, and I'm glad. Aren't you glad?"

The question jarred in my memory against a passionate craving after revenge, which had died away in the quiet and tranquillity of Sark. A year ago I should have rejoiced in any measure of punishment or retribution, which had overtaken those who had destroyed my happiness. But it was not so now; or perhaps I should rather own that it was only faintly so. It had never occurred to me that my flight would plunge him into poverty similar to my own. But now that the idea was thrust upon me. I wondered how I could have overlooked this necessary consequence of my conduct. Ought I to do any thing for him? Was there any thing I could do to help him?"

"He is ill, too," pursued the child; "I heard him say once to Mrs. Foster, he knew he should die like a dog. I was a little tiny bit sorry for him then; for nobody would like to die like a dog, and not go to heaven, you know. But I don't care now, I shall never see them again—never, never! I could jump out of my skin for joy. I sha'n't even know when he is dead, if he does die like a dog."

Ill! dead! My heart beat faster and faster as I pondered over these words. Then I should be free indeed; his death would release me from bondage, from terror, from poverty—those three evils which dogged my steps. I had never ventured to let my thoughts run that way, but this child's prattling had forced them into it. Richard Foster ill—dying! O God! what ought I to do?

I could not make myself known to him; that was impossible. I would ten thousand times sooner die myself than return to him. He was not alone either. But yet there came back to my mind the first days when I knew him, when he was all tenderness and devotion to me, declaring that he could find no fault in his girl-wife. How happy I had been for a little while, exchanging my stepmother's harshness for his indulgence! He might have won my love; he had almost won it. But that happy, golden time was gone, and could never come back to me. Yet my heart was softened toward him, as I thought of him ill, perhaps dying. What could I do for him, without placing myself in his power?

There was one thing only that I could do, only one little sacrifice I could make for him whom I had vowed, in childish ignorance, to love, honor, and cherish in sickness and in health, until death parted us. A home was secured to me for twelve months, and at the end of that time I should have a better career open to me. I had enough money still to last me until then. My diamond ring, which had been his own gift to me on our wedding-day, would be valuable to him. Sixty pounds would be a help to him, if he were as poor as this child said. He must be poor, or he would never have gone to live in that mean street and neighborhood.

Perhaps—if he had been alone—I do not know, but possibly if he had been quite alone, ill, dying in that poor lodging of his, I might have gone to him. I ask myself again, could you have done this thing? But I cannot answer it even to myself. Poor and ill he was, but he was not alone.

It was enough for me, then, that I could do something, some little service for him. The old flame of vengeance had no spark of heat left in it. I was free from hatred of him. I set the child gently away from me, and wrote my last letter to my husband. Both the letter and the ring I enclosed in a little box. These are the words I wrote, and I put neither date nor name of place:

"I know that you are poor, and I send you all I can spare—the ring you once gave to me. I am even poorer than yourself, but I have just enough for my immediate wants. I forgive you, as I trust God forgives me."

I sat looking at it, thinking of it for some time. There was a vague doubt somewhere in my mind that this might work some mischief. But at last I decided that it should go. I must register the packet at a post-office on our way to the station, and it could not fail to reach him.

This business settled, I returned to the child, who was sitting, as I had so often, done, gazing pensively into the fire. Was she to be a sort of miniature copy of myself?

"Come, Minima," I said, "we must be thinking of tea. Which would you like best, buns, or cake, or bread-and-butter? We must go out and buy them, and you shall choose."

"Which would cost the most?" she asked, looking at me with the careworn expression of a woman. The question sounded so oddly, coming from lips so young, that it grieved me. How bitterly and heavily must the burden of poverty have already fallen upon this child! I was almost afraid to think what it must mean. I put my arm round her, pressing my cheek against hers, while childish visions, more childish than any in this little head, flitted before me, of pantomimes, and toys, and sweetmeats, and the thousand things that children love. If I had been as rich as my father had planned for me to be, how I would have lavished them upon this anxious little creature!

We were discussing this question with befitting gravity, when a great thump against the door brought a host of fears upon me. But before I could stir the insecure handle gave way, and no one more formidable appeared than the landlady of the house, carrying before her a tray on which was set out a sumptuous tea, consisting of buttered crumpets and shrimps. She put it down on my dressing-table, and stood surveying it and us with an expression of benign exultation, until she had recovered her breath sufficiently to speak.

"Those as are going into foring parts," she said, "ought to get a good English meal afore they start. If you was going to stay in England, miss, it would be quite a differing thing; but me and my master don't know what they may give you to eat where you're going to. Therefore we beg you'll accept of the crumpets, and the shrimps, and the bread-and-butter, and the tea, and every thing; and we mean no offence by it. You've been a very quiet, regular lodger, and give no trouble; and we're sorry to lose you. And this, my master says, is a testimonial to you."

I could hardly control my laughter, and I could not keep back my tears. It was a long time now since any one had shown me so much kindness and sympathy as this. The dull face of the good woman was brightened by her kind-hearted feeling, and instead of thanking her I put my lips to her cheek.

"Lor!" she exclaimed, "why! God bless you, my dear! I didn't mean any offence, you know. Lor! I never thought you'd pay me like that. It's very pretty of you, it is; for I'm sure you're a lady to the backbone, as often and often I've said to my master. Be good enough to eat it all, you and the little miss, for you've a long journey before you. God bless you both, my dears, and give you a good appetite!"

She backed out of the room as she was speaking, her face beaming upon us to the last.

There was a pleasant drollery about her conduct, and about the intense delight of the child, and her hearty enjoyment of the feast, which for the time effectually dissipated my fears and my melancholy thoughts. It was the last hour I should spend in my solitary room; my lonely days were past. This little elf, with her large sharp eyes, and sagacious womanly face, was to be my companion for the future. I felt closely drawn to her. Even the hungry appetite with which she ate spoke of the hard times she had gone through. When she had eaten all she could eat, I heard her say softly to herself, "Courage, Minima!"



CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

A LONG JOURNEY.

It as little more than twelve months since I had started from the same station on the same route; but there was no Tardif at hand now. As I went into the ticket-office, Minima caught me by the dress and whispered earnestly into my ear.

"We're not to travel first-class," she said; "it costs too much. Mrs. Wilkinson said we ought to go third, if we could; and you're to pay for me, please, only half-price, and they'll pay you again when we reach the school. I'll come with you, and then they'll see I'm only half-price. I don't look too old, do I?"

"You look very old," I answered, smiling at her anxious face.

"Oh, dear, dear!" she said; "but I sit very small. Perhaps I'd better not come to the ticket-office; the porters are sure to think me only a little girl."

She was uneasy until we had fairly started from the station, her right to a half-ticket unchallenged.

The November night was cold and foggy, and there was little difference between the darkness of the suburbs and the darkness of the open country.

Once again the black hulls and masts of two steamers stood before us, at the end of our journey, and hurrying voices shouted, "This way for Jersey and Guernsey," "This way to Havre." What would I not have given to return to Sark, to my quiet room under Tardif's roof, with his true heart and steadfast friendship to rest upon! But that could not be. My feet were setting out upon a new track, and I did not know where the hidden path would lead me.

The next morning found us in France. It was a soft, sunny day, with a mellow light, which seemed to dwell fondly on the many-tinted leaves of the trees which covered the banks of the Seine. From Honfleur to Falaise the same warm, genial sunshine filled the air. The slowly-moving train carried us through woods where the autumn seemed but a few days old, and where the slender leaflets of the acacias still fluttered in the caressing breath of the wind. We passed through miles upon miles of orchards, where a few red leaves were hanging yet upon the knotted branches of the apple-trees, beneath which lay huge pyramids of apples. Truck-loads of them stood at every station. The air was scented by them. Children were pelting one another with them; and here and there, where the orchards had been cleared and the trees stripped, flocks of geese were searching for those scattered among the tufts of grass. The roses were in blossom, and the chrysanthemums were in their first glory. The few countrywomen who got into our carriage were still wearing their snowy muslin caps, as in summer. Nobody appeared cold and pinched yet, and everybody was living out-of-doors.