The Doctor's Dilemma

WHO IS SHE?

We sat up again together that night, Tardif and I. He would not smoke, lest the scent of the tobacco should get in through the crevices of the door, and lessen the girl's chance of sleep; but he held his pipe between his teeth, taking an imaginary puff now and then, that he might keep himself wide awake. We talked to one another in whispers.

"Tell me all you know about mam'zelle," I said. He had been chary of his knowledge before, but his heart seemed open at this moment. Most hearts are more open at midnight than at any other hour.

"There's not much to tell, doctor," he answered. "Her name is Ollivier, as I said to you; but she does not think she is any kin to the Olliviers of Guernsey. She is poor, though she does not look as if she had been born poor, does she?"

"Not in the least degree," I said. "If she is not a lady of birth, she is one of the first specimens of Nature's gentlefolks I have ever come across."

"Ah, there is a difference!" he said, sighing. "I feel it, doctor, in every word I speak to her, and every step I walk with her eyes upon me. Why cannot I be like her, or like you? You'll be on a level with her, and I am down far below her."

I looked at him curiously. The slouching figure—well shaped as it was—the rough, knotted hands, the unkempt mass of hair about his head and face, marked him for what he was—a toiler on the sea as well as on the land. He understood my scrutiny, and colored under it like a girl.

"You are a better fellow than I am, Tardif," I said; "but that has nothing to do with our talk. I think we ought to communicate with the young lady's friends, whoever they may be, as soon as there are any means of communicating with the rest of the world. We should be in a fix if any thing should happen to her. Have you no clew to her friends?"

"She is not going to die!" he cried. "No, no, doctor. God must hear my prayers for her. I have never ceased to lift up my voice to Him in my heart since I found her on the shingle. She will not die!"

"I am not so sure," I said; "but in any case we should write to her friends. Has she written to any one since she came here?"

"Not to a soul," he answered, eagerly. "She told me she has no friends nearer than Australia. That is a great way off."

"And has she had no letters?" I asked.

"Not one," he replied. "She has neither written nor received a single letter."

"But how did you come across her?" I inquired. "She did not fall from the skies, I suppose. How was it she came to live in this out-of-the-world place with you?"

Tardif smoked his imaginary pipe with great perseverance for some minutes, his face overcast with thought. But presently it cleared, and he turned to me with a frank smile.

"I'll tell you all about it, Dr. Martin," he said. "You know the Seigneur was in London last autumn, and there was a little difficulty in the Court of Chefs Plaids here, about an ordonnance we could not agree over, and I went across to London to see the Seigneur for myself. It was in coming back I met with Mam'zelle Ollivier. I was paying my fare at Waterloo station—the omnibus-fare, I mean—and I was turning away, when I heard the man speak grumblingly. I thought it was at me, and I looked back, and there she stood before him, looking scared and frightened at his rough words. Doctor, I never could bear to see any soft, tender, young thing in trouble. If it's nothing but a little bird that has fallen out of its warm nest, or a lamb slipped down among the cliffs, I feel as if I could risk my life to put them back again in some safe place. Yes, and I have done it scores of times, when I dared not let my poor mother know. Well, there stood mam'zelle, pale and trembling, with the tears ready to fall in her eyes; just such a soft, poor, tender soul as my little wife used to be. You remember my little wife, Dr. Martin?"

I only nodded as he looked at me.

"Just such another," he went on; "only this one was a lady, and less able to take care of herself. Her trouble was nothing but the omnibus-fare, and she had no change, nothing but an Australian sovereign; so I paid it for her. I kept pretty near her about the station while she was buying her ticket, for I overheard two young men, who were roaming up and down, say as they looked at her, 'Pas de gants, et des souliers de velours!' That was true; she had no gloves on her hands, and her little feet had nothing on but some velvet slippers, all wet and muddy with the dirty streets. So I walked up to her, as if I had been her servant, you understand, and put her into a carriage, and stood at the door of it, keeping off any young men who wished to get in—for she was such a pretty young thing—till the train was ready to start, and then I got into the nearest second-class carriage there was to her."

"Well, Tardif?" I said, impatiently, as he paused, looking absently into the dull embers of the seaweed fire.

"I turned it over in my own mind then," he continued, "and I've turned it over in my own mind since, and I can make no sort of an account of it—a young lady travelling without any friends in a dress like that, as if she had not had a minute to spare in getting ready for her journey. It was a bad night for a journey too. Could she be going to see some friend who was dying? At every station I looked out to see if my young lady left the train; but no, not even at Southampton. Was she going on to France? 'I must look out for her at the pier-head,' I said to myself. But when we stopped at the pier I did not want her to think I was watching her, only I stood well in the light, that she might see me when she looked round. I saw her stand as if she was considering, and I moved away very slowly to our boat, to give her the chance of speaking to me, if she wished. But she only followed me very quietly, as if she did not want me to see her, and she went down into the ladies' cabin in a moment, out of sight. Then I thought, 'She is running away from some one, or from something.' She had no shawls, or umbrellas, or baskets, such as ladies are always cumbered with, and that looked strange."

"How was she dressed?" I asked.

"She wore a soft, bright-brown jacket," he answered—"a seal-skin they call it, though I never saw a seal with a skin like that—and a hat like it, and a blue-silk gown, and her little muddy velvet slippers. It was a strange dress for travelling, wasn't it, doctor?"

"Very strange indeed," I repeated. An idea was buzzing about my brain that I had heard a description exactly similar before, but I could not for the life of me recall where. I could not wait to hunt it out then, for Tardif was in a full flow of confidence.

"But my heart yearned to her," he said, "more than ever it did over any bird fallen from its nest, or any lamb that had slipped down the cliffs. All the softness and all the helplessness of every poor little creature I had ever seen in my life seemed about her; all the hunted creatures and all the trapped creatures came to my mind. I can hardly tell you about it, doctor. I could have risked my life a hundred times over for her. It was a rough night, and I kept seeing her pale, hunted-looking face before me, though there was not half the danger I've often been in round our islands. I couldn't keep myself from fancying we were all going down to the bottom of the sea, and that poor young thing, running away from one trouble, was going to meet a worse—if it is worse to die than to live in great trouble. Dr. Martin, they tell me all the bed of the sea out yonder under the Atlantic is a smooth, smooth floor, with no currents, or tides, or streams, but a great calm; and there is no life down there of any kind. Well, that night I seemed to see the dead who have perished by sea lying there calm and quiet with their hands folded across their breasts. A great company it was, and a great graveyard, strewed over with sleeping shapes, all at rest and quiet, waiting till they hear the trumpet of the archangel sounding so that even the dead will hear and live again. It was a solemn sight to see, doctor. Somehow I came to think it would not be altogether a bad thing for the poor young troubled creature to go down there among them and be at rest. There are some people who seem too tender and delicate for this world. Yet if there had come a chance I'd have laid down my life for hers, even then, when I knew nothing much about her."

"Tardif," I said, "I did not know what a good fellow you are, though I ought to have known it by this time."

"No," he answered, "it is not in me; it's something in her. You feel something of it yourself, doctor, or how could you stay in a poor little house like this, thinking of nothing but her, and not caring about the weather keeping you away from home? But let me go on. In the morning she came on deck, and talked to me about the islands, and where she could live cheaply, and it ended in her coming home here to lodge in our little spare room. There was another curious thing—she had not any luggage with her, not a box nor a bag of any kind. She never knew that I knew, for that would have troubled her. It is my belief that she has run away."

"But who can she have run away from, Tardif?" I asked.

"God knows," he answered, "but the girl has suffered; you can see that by her face. Whoever or whatever she has run away from, her cheeks are white from it, and her heart sorrowful. I know nothing of her secret; but this I do know: she is as good, and true, and sweet a little soul as my poor little wife was. She has been here all winter, doctor, living under my eye, and I've waited on her as her servant, though a rough servant I am for one like her. She has tried to make herself cheerful and contented with our poor ways. See, she mended me that bit of net; those are her meshes, though her pretty white fingers were made sore by the twine. She would mend it, sitting where you are now in the chimney-corner. No; if mam'zelle should die, it will be a great grief of heart to me. If I could offer my life to God in place of hers, I'd do it willingly."

"No, she will not die. Look there, Tardif!" I said, pointing to the door-sill of the inner room. A white card had been slipped under the door noiselessly—a signal agreed upon between Mother Renouf and me, to inform me that my patient had at last fallen into a profound slumber, which seemed likely to continue some hours. She had slept perhaps a few minutes at a time before, but not a refreshing, wholesome sleep. Tardif understood the silent signal as well as I did, and a more solemn expression settled on his face. After a while he put away his pipe, and, stepping barefoot across the floor without a sound, he stopped the clock, and brought back to the table, where an oil-lamp was burning, a large old Bible. Throughout the long night, whenever I awoke, for I threw myself on the fern bed and slept fitfully, I saw his handsome face, with its rough, unkempt hair falling across his forehead as it was bent over the book, while his mouth moved silently as he read to himself chapter after chapter, and turned softly the pages before him.

I fell into a heavy slumber just before daybreak, and when I awoke two or three hours after I found that the house had been put in order, just as usual, though no sound had disturbed me. I glanced anxiously at the closed door. That it was closed, and the white card still on the sill, proved to me that our charge had no more been disturbed than myself. The thought struck me that the morning light would shine full upon the weak and weary eyelids of the sleeper; but upon going out into the fold to look at her casement, I discovered that Tardif had been before me and covered it with an old sail. The room within was sufficiently darkened.

The morning was more than half gone before Mother Renouf opened the door and came out to us, her old face looking more haggard than ever, but her little eyes twinkling with satisfaction. She gave me a patronizing nod, but she went up to Tardif, laid a hand on each of his broad shoulders, and looked him keenly in the face.

"All goes well, my friend," she said, significantly. "Your little mam'zelle does not think of going to the good God yet."

I did not stay to watch how Tardif received this news, for I was impatient myself to see how she was going on. Thank Heaven, the fever was gone, the delirium at an end. The dark-gray eyes, opening languidly as my fingers touched her wrist, were calm and intelligent. She was as weak as a kitten, but that did not trouble me much. I was sure her natural health was good, and she would soon recover her lost strength. I had to stoop down to hear what she was saying.

"Have I kept quite still, doctor?" she asked, faintly.

I must own that my eyes smarted, and my voice was not to be trusted. I had never felt so overjoyed in my life as at that moment. But what a singular wish to be obedient possessed this girl! What a wonderful power of submissive self-control! she had cast aside authority and broken away from it, as she had done apparently, there must have been some great provocation before a nature like hers could venture to assert its own independence.

I had ample time for turning over this reflection, for Mother Renouf was worn out and needed rest, and Suzanne Tardif was of little use in the sick-room. I scarcely left my patient all that day, for the rumor I had set afloat the day before was sufficient to make it a difficult task to procure another nurse. The almost childish face grew visibly better before my eyes, and when night came I had to acknowledge somewhat reluctantly that as soon as a boat could leave the island it would be my bounden duty to return to Guernsey.

"I should like to see Tardif," murmured the girl to me that night, after she had awakened from a second long and peaceful sleep.

I called him, and he came in barefoot, his broad, burly frame seeming to fill up all the little room. She could not lift up her head, but her face was turned toward us, and she held out her small, wasted hand to him, smiling faintly. He fell on his knees before he took it into his great, horny palm, and looked down upon it as he held it very carefully with, tears standing in his eyes.

"Why, it is like an egg-shell," he said. "God bless you, mam'zelle, God bless you for getting well again!"

She laughed at his words—a feeble though merry laugh, like a child's—and she seemed delighted with the sight of his hearty face, glowing as it was with happiness. It was a strange chance that had thrown these two together. I could not allow Tardif to remain long; but after that she kept devising little messages to send to him through me whenever I was about to leave her. Her intercourse with Mother Renouf was extremely limited, as the old woman's knowledge of English was slight; and with Suzanne she could hold no conversation at all. It happened, in consequence, that I was the only person who could talk or listen to her through the long and dreary hours.

WHO ARE HER FRIENDS?

At another time I might have recognized the danger of my post; but my patient had become so childish-looking, and her mind, enfeebled by delirium, was in so childish a condition, that it seemed to me I little more than tending some young girl whose age was far below my own. I did not trouble myself, moreover, with any exact introspection. There was an under-current of satisfaction and happiness running through the hours which I was not inclined to fathom. The winds continued against me, and I had nothing to do but to devote myself to mam'zelle, as I called her in common with the people about me. She was still so far in a precarious state that, if she had been living in Guernsey, it would have been my duty to pay to her unflagging attention.

But upon Friday afternoon Tardif, who had been down to the Creux Harbor, brought back the information that one of the Sark cutters was about to venture to make the passage across the Channel the next morning, to attend the Saturday market, if the wind did not rise again in the night. It was clear as day what I must do. I must bid farewell to my patient, however reluctant I might be, with a very uncertain prospect of seeing her again. A patient in Sark could not have many visits from a doctor in Guernsey.

She was recovering with the wonderful elasticity of a thoroughly sound constitution; but I had not considered it advisable for her even to sit up yet, with her broken arm and sprained ankle. I took my seat beside her for the last time, her fair, sweet face lying upon the pillow as it had done when I first saw it, only the look of suffering was gone. I had made up my mind to learn something of the mystery that surrounded her; and the child, as I called her to myself, was so submissive to me that she would answer my questions readily.

"Mam'zelle," I said, "I am going away to-night. You will be sorry to lose me?"

"Very, very sorry," she answered, in her low, touching voice. "Are you obliged to go?"

If I had not been obliged to go, I should then and there have made a solemn vow to remain with her till she was well again.

"I must go," I said, shaking off the ridiculous and troublesome idea. "I have been away nearly six days. Six days is a long holiday for a doctor."

"It has not been a holiday for you," she whispered, her eyes fastened upon mine, and shining like clear stars.

"Well," I repeated, "I must go. Before I go I wish to write to your friends for you. You will not be strong enough to write yourself for some days, and it is quite time they knew what danger you have been in. I have brought a pen and paper, and I will post the letter as soon as I reach Guernsey."

A faint flush colored her face, and she turned her eyes away from me.

"Why do you think I ought to write?" she asked at length.

"Because you have been very near death." I answered. "If you had died, not one of us would have known whom to communicate with, unless you had left some direction in that box of yours, which is not very likely."

"No," she said, "you would find nothing there. I suppose if I had died nobody would ever have known who I am. How curious that would have been!"

Was she amused, or was she saddened by the thought? I could not tell.

"It would have been very painful to Tardif and to me," I said. "It must be very painful to your friends, whoever they are, not to know what has become of you. Give me permission to write to them. There can scarcely be reasons sufficient for you to separate yourself from them like this. Besides, you cannot go on living in a fisherman's cottage; you were not born to it—"

"How do you know?" she asked, quickly, with a sharp tone in her voice.

It was somewhat difficult to answer that question. There was nothing to indicate what position she had been used to. I had seen no token of wealth about her room, which was as homely as any other cottage chamber. Her conversation had been the simple, childish talk of an invalid recovering from a serious illness, and had scarcely proved her to be an educated person. Yet there was something in her face and tones and manner which, as plainly to Tardif as to me, stamped this runaway girl as a lady.

"Let me write to your friends," I urged, waiving the question. "It is not fit for you to remain here. I beg of you to allow me to communicate with them."

Her face quivered like a child's when it is partly frightened and partly grieved.

"I have no friends," she said; "not one real friend in the world."

An almost irresistible inclination assailed me to fall on my knees beside her, as I had seen Tardif do, and take a solemn oath to be her faithful servant and friend as long as my life should last. This, of course, I did not do; but the sound of the words so plaintively spoken, and the sight of her quivering face, rendered her a hundredfold more interesting to me.

"Mam'zelle," I said, taking her hand in mine, "if ever you should need a friend, you may count upon Martin Dobrée as one as true as any you could wish to have. Tardif is another. Never say again you have no friends."

"Thank you," she answered, simply. "I will count you and Tardif as my friends. But I have no others, so you need not write to anybody."

"But what if you had died?" I persisted.

"You would have buried me quietly up there," she answered, "in the pleasant graveyard, where the birds sing all day long, and I should have been forgotten soon. Am I likely to die, Dr. Martin?"

"Certainly not," I replied, hastily; "nothing of the kind. You are going to get well and strong again. But I must bid you good-by, now, since you have no friends to write to. Can I do any thing for you in Guernsey? I can send you any thing you fancy."

"I do not want any thing," she said.

"You want a great number of things," I said; "medicines, of course—what is the good of a doctor who sends no medicine?—and books. You will have to keep yourself quiet a long time. You would like some books?"

"Oh, I have longed for books," she said, sighing; "but don't buy any; lend me some of your own."

"Mine would be very unsuitable for a young lady," I answered, laughing at the thought of my private library. "May I ask why I am not to buy any?"

"Because I have no money to spend in books," she said.

"Well," I replied, "I will borrow some for you from the ladies I know. We will not waste our money, neither you nor I."

I stood looking at her, finding it harder to go away than I had supposed. So closely had I watched the changes upon her face, that every line of it was deeply engraved upon my memory. Other and more familiar faces seemed to have faded in proportion to that distinctness of impression. Julia's features, for instance, had become blurred and obscure, like a painting which has lost its original clearness of tone.

"How soon will you come back again?" asked the faint, plaintive voice.

Clearly it did not occur to her that I could not pay her a visit without great difficulty. I knew how it was next to an impossibility to get over to Sark, for some time at least; but I felt ready to combat even impossibilities.

"I will come back," I said—"yes, I promise to come back in a week's time. Make haste and get well before then, mam'zelle. Good-by, now; good-by."

I was going to sleep at Vaudin's Inn, near to Creux Harbor, from which the cutter would sail almost before the dawn. At five o'clock we started on oar passage—a boat-load of fishermen bound for the market. The cold was sharp, for it was still early in March, and the easterly wind pierced the skin like a myriad of fine needles. A waning moon was hanging in the sky over Guernsey, and the east was growing gray with the coming morning. By the time the sun was fairly up out of its bed of low-lying clouds, we had rounded the southern point of Sark, and were in sight of the Havre Gosselin. But Tardif's cottage was screened by the cliffs, and I could catch no glimpse of it, though, as we rowed onward, I saw a fine, thin column of white smoke blown toward us. It was from his hearth, I knew, and, at this moment, he was preparing an early breakfast for my invalid. I watched it till all the coast became an indistinct outline against the sky.

THE SIXTIES OF GUERNSEY.

I was more than half-numb with cold by the time we landed at the quay, opposite the Sark office. The place was all alive, seeming the more busy and animated to me for the solitary six days I had been spending since last Sunday. The arrival of our boat, and especially my appearance in it, created quite a stir among the loungers who are always hanging about the pier. By this time every individual in St. Peter-Port knew that Dr. Martin Dobrée had been missing for several days, having gone out in a fisherman's boat to Sark the Sunday before. I had seen myself in the glass before leaving my chamber at Vaudin's, and to some extent I presented the haggard appearance of a shipwrecked man. A score of voices greeted me; some welcoming, some chaffing. "Glad to see you again, old fellow!" "What news from Sark?" "Been in quod for a week?" "His hair is not cut short!" "No; he has tarried in Sark till his beard be grown!" There was a circling laugh at this last jest at my appearance, which had been uttered by a good-tempered, jovial clergyman, who was passing by on his way to the town church. I did my best to laugh and banter in return, but it was like a bear dancing with a sore head. I felt gloomy and uncomfortable. A change had come over me since I left home, for my return was by no means an unmixed pleasure.

As I was proceeding along the quay, with a train of sympathizing attendants, a man, who was driving a large cart piled with packages in cases, as if they had come in from England by the steamer, touched his hat to me, and stopped the horse. It was in order to inform me that he was conveying furniture which we—that is, Julia and I—had ordered, up to our new house, the windows of which I could see glistening in the morning sun. My spirits did not rise, even at this cheerful information. I looked coldly at the cases, bade the man go on, and shook off my train by taking an abrupt turn up a flight of steps, leading directly into the Haute Rue.

I had chosen instinctively the nearest by-way homeward, but, once in the Haute Rue, I did not pursue it. I turned again upon a sudden thought toward the Market Square, to see if I could pick up any dainties to tempt the delicate appetite of my Sark patient. Every step I took brought me into contact with some friend or acquaintance, whom I would have avoided gladly. The market was sure to be full of them, for the ladies of Guernsey, like Frenchwomen, would be there in shoals, with their maidservants behind them to carry their purchases. Yet I turned toward it, as I said, braving both congratulations and curiosity, to see what I could buy for Tardif's "mam'zelle."

The square had all the peculiar animation of an early market where ladies do their own bargaining. As I had known beforehand, most of my acquaintances were there; for in Guernsey the feminine element predominates terribly, and most of my acquaintances were ladies. The peasant-women behind the stalls also knew me. Most of them nodded to me as I strolled slowly through the crowd, but they were much too busy to suspend their purchases in order to catechise me just then, being sure of me at a future time. I had not done badly in choosing the busiest street for my way home.

But as I left the Market Square I came suddenly upon Julia, face to face. It had all the effect of a shock upon me. Like many other women, she seldom looked well out-of-doors. The prevailing fashion never suited her, however the bonnets were worn, whether hanging down the neck or slouched over the forehead, rising spoon-shaped toward the sky, or lying like a flat plate on the crown. Julia's bonnet always looked as if it had been made for somebody else. She was fond of wearing a shawl, which hung ungracefully about her, and made her figure look squarer and her shoulders higher than they really were. Her face struck sharply upon my brain, as if I had never seen it distinctly before; not a bad face, but unmistakably plain, and just now with a frown upon it, and her heavy eyebrows knitted forbiddingly. A pretty little basket was in her hand, and her mind was full of the bargains she was bent upon. She was even more surprised and startled by our encounter than I was, and her manner, when taken by surprise, was apt to be abrupt.

"Why, Martin!" she ejaculated.

"Well, Julia!" I said.

We stood looking at one another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she could not guess.

"I told you just how it would be," she said, in her mentor voice. "I knew there was a storm coming, and I begged and entreated of you not to go. Your mother has been ill all the week, and your father has been as cross as—as—"

"As two sticks," I suggested, precisely as I might have done when I was thirteen.

"It is nothing to laugh at," said Julia, severely. "I shall say nothing about myself and my own feelings, though they have been most acute, the wind blowing a hurricane for twenty-four hours together, and we not sure that you had even reached Sark in safety. Your mother and I wanted to charter the Rescue, and send her over to fetch you home as soon as the worst of the storm was over, but my uncle pooh-poohed it."

"I am very glad he did," I replied, involuntarily.

"He said you would be more than ready to come back in the first cutter that sailed," she went on. "I suppose you have just come in?"

"Yes," I said, "and I'm half numbed with cold, and nearly famished with hunger. You don't give me as good a welcome as the Prodigal Son got, Julia."

"No," she answered, softening a little; "but I'm not sorry to see you safe again. I would turn back with you, but I like to do the marketing myself, for the servants will buy any thing. Martin, a whole cartload of our furniture is come in. You will find the invoice inside my davenport. We must go down this afternoon and superintend the unpacking."

"Very well," I said; "but I cannot stay longer now."

I did not go on with any lighter heart than before this meeting with Julia. I had scrutinized her face, voice, and manner, with unwonted criticism. As a rule, a face that has been before us all our days is as seldom an object of criticism as any family portrait which has hung against the same place on the wall all our lifetime. The latter fills up a space which would otherwise be blank; the former does very little else. It never strikes you; it is almost invisible to you. There would be a blank space left if it disappeared, and you could not fill it up from memory. A phantom has been living, breathing, moving beside you, with vanishing features and no very real presence.

I had, therefore, for the first time criticised my future wife. It was a good, honest, plain, sensible face, with some fine, insidious lines about the corners of the eyes and lips, and across the forehead. They could hardly be called wrinkles yet, but they were the first faint sketch of them, and it is impossible to obliterate the slightest touch etched by Time. She was five years older than I—thirty-three last birthday. There was no more chance for our Guernsey girls to conceal their age than for the unhappy daughters of peers, whose dates are faithfully kept, and recorded in the Peerage. The upper classes of the island, who were linked together by endless and intricate ramifications of relationship, formed a kind of large family, with some of its advantages and many of its drawbacks. In one sense we had many things in common; our family histories were public property, as also our private characters and circumstances. For instance, my own engagement to Julia, and our approaching marriage, gave almost as much interest to the island as though we were members of each household.

I have looked out a passage in the standard work upon the Channel Islands. They are the words of an Englishman who was studying us more philosophically than we imagined. Unknown to ourselves we had been under his microscope. "At a period not very distant, society in Guernsey grouped itself into two divisions—one, including those families who prided themselves on ancient descent and landed estates, and who regarded themselves as the pur sang; and the other, those whose fortunes had chiefly been made during the late war or in trade. The former were called Sixties, the latter were the Forties."

Now Julia and I belonged emphatically to the Sixties. We had never been debased by trade, and a mésalliance was not known in our family. To be sure, my father had lost a fortune instead of making one in any way; but that did not alter his position or mine. We belonged to the aristocracy of Guernsey, and noblesse oblige. As for my marriage with Julia, it was so much the more interesting as the number of marriageable men was extremely limited; and she was considered favored indeed by Fate, which had provided for her a cousin willing to settle down for life in the island.

Still more greetings, more inquiries, more jokes, as I wended my way homeward. I had become very weary of them before I turned into our own drive. My father was just starting off on horseback. He looked exceedingly well on horseback, being a very handsome man, and in excellent preservation. His hair, as white as snow, was thick and well curled, and his face almost without a wrinkle. He had married young, and was not more than twenty-five years older than myself. He stopped, and extended two fingers to me.

"So you are back, Martin?" he said. "It has been a confounded nuisance, you being out of the way; and such weather for a man of my years! I had to ride out three miles to lance a baby's gums, confound it! in all that storm on Tuesday. Mrs. Durande has been very ill too; all your patients have been troublesome. But it must have been awfully dull work for you out yonder. What did you do with yourself, eh? Make love to some of the pretty Sark girls behind Julia's back, eh?"

My father kept himself young, as he was very fond of stating; his style of conversation was eminently so. It jarred upon my ears more than ever after Tardif's grave and solemn words, and often deep thoughts. I was on the point of answering sharply, but I checked myself.

"The weather has been awful," I said. "How did my mother bear it?"

"She has been like an old hen clucking after her duckling in the water," he replied. "She has been fretting and fuming after you all the week. If it had been me out in Sark, she would have slept soundly and ate heartily; as it was you, she has neither slept nor ate. You are quite an old woman's pet, Martin. As for me, there is no love lost between old women and me."

"Good-morning, sir," I said, turning away, and hurrying on to the house. I heard him laugh lightly, and hum an opera-air as he rode off, sitting his horse with the easy seat of a thorough horseman. He would never set up a carriage as long as he could ride like that. I watched him out of sight, and then went in to seek my poor mother.

A CLEW TO THE SECRET.

She was lying on the sofa in the breakfast-room, with the Venetian blinds down to darken the morning sunshine. Her eyes wore closed, though she held in her hands the prayer-hook, from which she had been reading as usual the Psalms for the day. I had time to take note of the extreme fragility of her appearance, which, doubtless I noticed the more plainly for my short absence. Her hands were very thin, and her cheeks hollow. A few silver threads were growing among her brown hair, and a line or two between her eyebrows were becoming deeper. But while I was looking at her, though I made no sort of sound or movement, she seemed to feel that I was there; and after looking up she started from her sofa, and flung her arms about me, pressing closer and closer to me.

"O Martin, my boy! my darling!" she sobbed, "thank God you are come back safe! Oh, I have been very rebellious, very unbelieving. I ought to have known that you would be safe. Oh, I am thankful!"

"So am I, mother," I said, kissing her, "and very hungry into the bargain."

I knew that would check her hysterical excitement. She looked up at me with smiles and tears on her face; but the smiles won the day.

"That is so like you, Martin," she said; "I believe your ghost would say those very words. You are always hungry when you come home. Well, my boy shall have the best breakfast in Guernsey. Sit down, then, and let me wait upon you."

That was just what pleased her most whenever I came in from some ride into the country. She was a woman with fondling, caressing little ways, such as Julia could no more perform gracefully than an elephant could waltz. My mother enjoyed fetching my slippers, and warming them herself by the fire, and carrying away my boots when I took them off. No servant was permitted to do any of these little offices for me—that is, when my father was out of the way. If he was there, my mother sat still, and left me to wait on myself, or ring for a servant, Never in my recollection had she done any thing of the kind for my father. Had she watched and waited upon him thus in the early days of their married life, until some neglect or unfaithfulness of his had cooled her love for him? I sat down as she bade me, and had my slippers brought, and felt her fingers passed fondly through my hair.

"You have come back like a barbarian," she said, "rougher than Tardif himself. How have you managed, my boy? You must tell me all about it as soon as your hunger is satisfied."

"As soon as I have had my breakfast, mother, I must put up a few things in a hamper to go back by the Sark cutter," I answered.

"What sort of things?" she asked. "Tell me, and I will be getting them ready for you."

"Well, there will be some physic, of course," I said; "you cannot help me in that. But you can find things suitable for a delicate appetite; jelly, you know, and jams, and marmalade; any thing nice that comes to hand. And some good port-wine, and a few amusing books."

"Books!" echoed my mother.

I recollected at once that the books she might select, as being suited to a Sark peasant, would hardly prove interesting to my patient. I could not do better than go down to Barbet's circulating library, and look out some good works there.

"Well, no," I said; "never mind the books. If you will look out the other things, those can wait."

"Whom are they for?" asked my mother.

"For my patient," I replied, devoting myself to the breakfast before me.

"What sort of a patient, Martin?" she inquired again.

"Her name is Ollivier," I said. "A common name. Our postmaster's name is Ollivier."

"Oh, yes," she answered; "I know several families of Olliviers. I dare say I should know this person if you could tell me her Christian name. Is it Jane, or Martha, or Rachel?"

"I don't know," I said; "I did not ask."

Should I tell my mother about my mysterious patient? I hesitated for a minute or two. But to what good? It was not my habit to talk about my patients and their ailments. I left them all behind me when I crossed the threshold of home. My mother's brief curiosity had been satisfied with the name of Ollivier, and she made no further inquiries about her. But to expedite me in my purpose, she rang, and gave orders for old Pellet, our only man-servant, to find a strong hamper, and told the cook to look out some jars of preserve.

The packing of that hamper interested me wonderfully; and my mother, rather amazed at my taking the superintendence of it in person, stood by me in her store-closet, letting me help myself liberally. There was a good space left after I had taken sufficient to supply Miss Ollivier with good things for some weeks to come. If my mother had not been by, I should have filled it up with books.

"Give me a loaf or two of white bread," I said; "the bread at Tardif's is coarse and hard, as I know after eating it for a week. A loaf, if you please, dear mother."

"Whatever are you doing here, Martin?" exclaimed Julia's unwelcome voice behind me. Her bilious attack had not quite passed away, and her tones were somewhat sharp and raspy.

"He has been living on Tardif's coarse fare for a week," answered my mother; "so now he has compassion enough for his Sark patient to pack up some dainties for her. If you could only give him one or two of your bad headaches, he would have more sympathy for you."

"Have you had one of your headaches, Julia?" I inquired.

"The worst I ever had," she answered. "It was partly your going off in that rash way, and the storm that came on after, and the fright we were in. You must not think of going again, Martin. I shall take care you don't go after we are married."

Julia had been used to speak out as calmly about our marriage as if it was no more than going to a picnic. It grated upon me just then; though it had been much the same with myself. There was no delightful agitation about the future that lay before us. We were going to set up housekeeping by ourselves, and that was all. There was no mystery in it; no problem to be solved; no discovery to be made on either side. There would be no Blue Beard's chamber in our dwelling. We had grown up together; now we had agreed to grow old together. That was the sum total of marriage to Julia and me.

I finished packing the hamper, and sent Pellet with it to the Sark office, having addressed it to Tardif, who had engaged to be down at the Creux Harbor to receive it when the cutter returned. Then I made a short and hurried toilet, which by this time had become essential to my reappearance in civilized society. But I was in haste to secure a parcel of books before the cutter should start home again, with its courageous little knot of market-people. I ran down to Barbet's, scarcely heeding the greetings which were flung after mo by every passer-by. I looked through the library-shelves with growing dissatisfaction, until I hit upon two of Mrs. Gaskell's novels, "Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austin, and "David Copperfield." Besides these, I chose a book for Sunday reading, as my observations upon my mother and Julia had taught me that my patient could not read a novel on a Sunday with a quiet conscience.

Barbet brought half a sheet of an old Times to form the first cover of my parcel. The shop was crowded with market-people, and, as he was busy, I undertook to pack them myself, the more willingly as I had no wish for him to know what direction I wrote upon them. I was about to fold the newspaper round them, when my eye was caught by an advertisement at the top of one of the columns, the first line of which was printed in capitals. I recollected in an instant that I had seen it and read it before. This was what I had tried in vain to recall while Tardif was describing Miss Ollivier to me. "Strayed from her home in London, on the 20th inst., a young lady with bright-brown hair, gray eyes, and delicate features; age twenty one. She is believed to have been alone. Was dressed in a blue-silk dress, and seal-skin jacket and hat. Fifty pounds reward is offered to any person giving such information as will lead to her restoration to her friends. Apply to Messrs. Scott and Brown, Gray's Inn Road, E.C."

I stood perfectly still for some seconds, staring blankly at the very simple, direct advertisement under my eyes. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that it had a direct reference to my pretty patient in Sark. I had a reason for recollecting the date of Tardif's return from London, the very day after the mournful disaster off the Havre Gosselin, when four gentlemen and a boatman had been lost during a squall. But I had no time for deliberation then, and I tore off a large corner of the Times containing that and other advertisements, and thrust it unseen into my pocket. After that I went on with my work, and succeeded in turning out a creditable-looking parcel, which I carried down to the Sark cutter.

Before I returned home I made two or three half-professional calls upon patients whom my father had visited during my absence. Everywhere I had to submit to numerous questions as to my adventures and pursuits during my week's exile. At each place curiosity seemed to be quite satisfied with the information that the young woman who had been hurt by a fall from the cliffs was an Ollivier. With that freedom and familiarity which exists among us, I was rallied for my evident absence and preoccupation of mind, which were pleasantly ascribed to the well-known fact that a large quantity of furniture for our new house had arrived from England while I was away. These friends of mine could tell me the colors of the curtains, and the patterns of the carpets, and the style of my chairs and tables; so engrossingly interesting to all our circle was our approaching marriage.

In the mean time, I had no leisure to study and ponder over the advertisement, which by so odd a chance had come into my hands. That must be reserved till I was alone at night.