The Doctor's Dilemma

BROKEN OFF.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Not know even her name!" she exclaimed.

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

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

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

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

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

"Does Julia know all this?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE DOBRÉES' GOOD NAME.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But why?" I asked, uneasily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TWO LETTERS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A strange therefore!

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

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

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

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

ALL WRONG.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You know nothing about her," I replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, Martin?" she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"All wrong," I repeated.

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

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

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

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

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

DEAD TO HONOR.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes," I answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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