The Doctor's Dilemma

A BRIGHT BEGINNING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Where is neighbor Tardif?" I called.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What makes you think that?" I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I hope so," I thought to myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE GOULIOT CAVES.

Olivia was very silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, yes!" she answered; "I spent three months there once, and this place is like it."

"Was it a happy time?" I inquired, jealous of those tears.

"It was a hateful time," she said, vehemently. "Don't let us talk of it. I hate to remember it. Why cannot we forget things, Dr. Martin? You, who are so clever, can tell me that."

"That is simple enough," I said, smiling. "Every circumstance of our life makes a change in the substance of the brain, and, while that remains sound and in vigor, we cannot forget. To-day is being written on our brain now. You will have to remember this, Olivia."

"I know I shall remember it," she answered, in a low tone.

"You have travelled a great deal, then?" I pursued, wishing her to talk about herself, for I could scarcely trust my resolution to wait till we were out of the caves. "I love you with all my heart and soul" was on my tongue's end.

"We travelled nearly all over Europe," she replied.

I wondered whom she meant by "we." She had never used the plural pronoun before, and I thought of that odious woman in Guernsey—an unpleasant recollection.

We had wandered back to the opening where Tardif had left us. The rapid current between us and Breckhou was running in swift eddies, which showed the more plainly because the day was calm, and the open sea smooth. Olivia stood near me; but a sort of chilly diffidence had crept over me, and I could not have ventured to press too closely to her, or to touch her with my hand.

"How have you been content to live here?" I asked.

"This year in Sark has saved me," she answered, softly.

"What has it saved you from?" I inquired, with intense eagerness. She turned her face full upon me, with a world of reproach in her gray eyes.

"Dr. Martin," she said, "why will you persist in asking me about my former life? Tardif never does. He never implies by a word or look that he wishes to know more than I choose to tell. I cannot tell you any thing about it."

I felt uncomfortably that she was drawing a comparison unfavorable to me between Tardif and myself—the gentleman, who could not conquer or conceal his desire to fathom a mystery, and the fisherman, who acted as if there were no mystery at all. Yet Olivia appeared more grieved than offended; and when she knew how I loved her she would admit that my curiosity was natural. She should know, too, that I was willing to take her as she was, with all the secrets of her former life kept from me. Some day I would make her own I was as generous as Tardif.

Just then my ear caught for the first time a low boom-boom, which had probably been sounding through the caves for some minutes.

"Good Heavens!" I ejaculated.

Yet a moment's thought convinced me that, though there might be a little risk, there was no paralyzing danger. I had forgotten the narrowness of the gully through which alone we could gain the cliffs. From the open span of beach where we were now standing, there was no chance of leaving the caves except as we had come to them, by a boat; for on each side a crag ran like a spur into the water. The comparatively open space permitted the tide to lap in quietly, and steal imperceptibly higher upon its pebbles. But the low boom I heard was the sea rushing in through the throat of the narrow outlet through which lay our only means of escape. There was not a moment to lose. Without a word, I snatched up Olivia in my arms, and ran back into the caves, making as rapidly as I could for the long, straight passage.

Neither did Olivia speak a word or utter a cry. We found ourselves in a low tunnel, where the water was beginning to flow in pretty strongly. I set her down for an instant, and tore off my coat and waistcoat. Then I caught her up again, and strode along over the slippery, slimy masses of rock which lay under my feet, covered with seaweed.

"Olivia," I said, "I must have my right hand free to steady myself with. Put both your arms round my neck, and cling to me so. Don't touch my arms or shoulders."

Yet the clinging of her arms about my neck, and her cheek close to mine, almost unnerved me. I held her fast with my left arm, and steadied myself with my right. We gained in a minute or two the mouth of the tunnel. The drift was pouring into it with a force almost too great for me, burdened as I was. But there was the pause of the tide, when the waves rushed out again in white floods, leaving the water comparatively shallow. There were still six or eight yards to traverse before we could reach an archway in the cliffs, which would land us in safety in the outer caves. Across this small space the tide came in strongly, beating against the foot of the rocks, and rebounding with great force. There was some peril; but we had no alternative. I lifted Olivia a little higher against my shoulder, for her long serge dress wrapped dangerously around us both; and then, waiting for the pause in the throbbing of the tide, I dashed hastily across.

One swirl of the water coiled about us, washing up nearly to my throat, and giving me almost a choking sensation of dread; but before a second could swoop down upon us I had staggered half-blinded to the arch, and put down Olivia in the small, secure cave within it. She had not spoken once. She did not seem able to speak now. Her large, terrified eyes looked up at me dumbly, and her face was white to the lips. I clasped her in my arms once more, and kissed her forehead and lips again and again in a paroxysm of passionate love and gladness.

"Thank God!" I cried. "How I love you, Olivia!"

I had told her only a few minutes before that the brain is ineffaceably stamped with the impress of every event in our lives. But how much more deeply do some events burn themselves there than others' I see it all now—more clearly, it seems to me, than my eyes saw it then. There is the huge, high entrance to the outer caves where we are standing, with a massive lintel of rocks overhead, all black but for a few purple and gray tints scattered across the blackness. Behind us the sea is glistening, and prismatic colors play upon the cliffs. Shadows fall from rocks we cannot see. Olivia stands before me, pale and terrified, the water running from her heavy dress, which clings about her slender figure. She shrinks away from me a pace or two.

"Hush!" she cries, in a tone of mingled pain and dread—"hush!"

There was something so positive, so prohibitory in her voice and gesture, that my heart contracted, and a sudden chill of despondency ran through me. But I could not be silent now. It was impossible for me to hold my peace, even at her bidding.

"Why do you say hush?" I asked, peremptorily. "I love you, Olivia. Is there any reason why I should not love you?"

"Yes," she said, very slowly and with quivering lips. "I was married four years ago, and my husband is living still!"

A GLOOMY ENDING.

Olivia's answer struck me like an electric shock. For some moments I was simply stunned, and knew neither what she had said, nor where we were.

I suppose half a minute had elapsed before I fairly received the meaning of her words into my bewildered brain. It seemed as if they were thundering in my ears, though she had uttered them in a low, frightened voice. I scarcely understood them when I looked up and saw her leaning against the rock, with her hands covering her face.

"Olivia!" I cried, stretching out my arms toward her, as though she would flutter back to them and lay her head again where it had been resting upon my shoulder, with her face against my neck.

But she did not see my gesture, and the next moment I knew that she could never let me hold her in my arms again. I dared not even take one step nearer to her.

"Olivia," I said again, after another minute or two of troubled silence, with no sound but the thunders of the sea reverberating through the perilous strait where we had almost confronted death together—"Olivia, is it true?"

She bowed her head still lower upon her hands, in speechless confirmation. A stricken, helpless, cowering child she seemed to me, standing there in her drenched clothing. An unutterable tenderness, altogether different from the feverish passion of a few minutes ago, filled my heart as I looked at her.

"Come," I said, as calmly as I could speak, "I am at any rate your doctor, and I am bound to take care of you. You must not stay here wet and cold. Let us make haste back to Tardif's, Olivia."

I drew her hand down from her face and through my arm, for we had still to re-enter the outer cave, and to return through a higher gallery, before we could reach the cliffs above. I did not glance at her. The road was very rough, strewed with huge bowlders, and she was compelled to receive my help. But we did not speak again till we were on the cliffs, in the eye of day, with our faces and our steps turned toward Tardif's farm.

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly, in a tone that made my heart ache the keener, "how sorry I am!"

"Sorry that I love you?" I asked, feeling that my love was growing every moment in spite of myself. The sun shone on her face, which was just below my eyes. There was an expression of sad perplexity and questioning upon it, which kept away every other sign of emotion. She lifted her eyes to me frankly, and no flush of color came over her pale cheeks.

"Yes," she answered; "it is such a miserable, unfortunate thing for you. But how could I have helped it?"

"You could not help it," I said.

"I did not mean to deceive you," she continued—"neither you nor any one. When I fled away from him I had no plan of any kind. I was just like a leaf driven about by the wind, and it tossed me here. I did not think I ought to tell any one I was married. I wish I could have foreseen this. Why did God let me have that accident in the spring? Why did he let you come over to see me?"

"Are you surprised that I love you?" I asked.

Now I saw a subtle flush steal across her face, and her eyes fell to the ground.

"I never thought of it till this afternoon," she murmured. "I knew you were going to marry your cousin Julia, and I knew I was married, and that there could be no release from that. All my life is ruined, but you and Tardif made it more bearable. I did not think you loved me till I saw your face this afternoon."

"I shall always love you," I cried, passionately, looking down on the shining, drooping head beside me, and the sad face and listless arms hanging down in an attitude of dejection. She seemed so forlorn a creature that I wished I could take her to my heart again; but that was impossible now.

"No," she answered in her calm, sorrowful voice. "When you see clearly that it is an evil thing, you will conquer it. There will be no hope whatever in your love for me, and it will pass away. Not soon, perhaps; I can scarcely wish you to forget me soon. Yet it would be wrong for you to love me now. Why was I driven to marry him so long ago?"

A sharp, bitter tone rang through her quiet voice, and for a moment she hid her face in her hands.

"Olivia," I said, "it is harder upon me than you can think, or I can tell."

She had not the faintest notion of how hard this trial was. I had sacrificed every plan and purpose of my life in the hope of winning her. I had cast away, almost as a worthless thing, the substantial prosperity which had been within my grasp, and now that I stretched out my hand for the prize, I found it nothing but an empty shadow. Deeper even than this lay the thought of my mother's bitter disappointment.

"Your husband must have treated you very badly, before you would take such a desperate step as this," I said again, after a long silence, scarcely knowing what I said.

"He treated me so ill," said Olivia, with the same hard tone in her voice, "that when I had a chance of escape it seemed as if God Himself opened the door for me. He treated me so ill that, if I thought there was any fear of him finding me out here, I would rather a thousand times you had left me to die in the caves."

That brought to my mind what I had almost forgotten—the woman whom my imprudent curiosity had brought into pursuit; of her. I felt ready to curse my folly aloud, as I did in my heart, for having gone to Messrs. Scott and Brown.

"Olivia," I said, "there is a woman in Guernsey who has some clew to you—"

But I could say no more, for I thought she would have fallen to the ground in her terror. I drew her hand through my arm, and hastened to reassure her.

"No harm can come to you," I continued, "while Tardif and I are here to protect you. Do not frighten yourself; we will defend you from every danger."

"Martin," she whispered—and the pleasant familiarity of my name spoken by her gave me a sharp pang, almost of gladness—"no one can help me or defend me. The law would compel me to go back to him. A woman's heart may be broken without the law being broken. I could prove nothing that would give me a right to be free—nothing. So I took it into my own hands. I tell you I would rather have been drowned this afternoon. Why did you save me?"

I did not answer, except by pressing her hand against my side. I hurried her on silently toward the cottage. She was shivering in her cold, wet dress, and trembling with fear. It was plain to me that even her fine health should not be trifled with, and I loved her too tenderly, her poor, shivering, trembling frame, to let her suffer if I could help it. When we reached the fold-yard gate, I stopped her for a moment to speak only a few words.

"Go in." I said, "and change, every one of your wet clothes. I will see you again, once again, when we can talk with one another calmly. God bless and take care of you, my darling!"

She smiled faintly, and laid her hand in mine.

"You forgive me?" she said.

"Forgive you!" I repeated, kissing the small brown hand lingeringly; "I have nothing to forgive."

She went on across the little fold and into the house, without looking back toward me. I could see her pass through the kitchen into her own room, where I had watched her through the struggle between life and death, which had first made her dear to me. Then I made my way, blind and deaf, to the edge of the cliff, seeing nothing, hearing-nothing. I flung myself down on the turf with my face to the ground, to hide my eyes from the staring light of the summer sun.

Already it seemed a long time since I had known that Olivia was married. The knowledge had lost its freshness and novelty, and the sting of it had become a rooted sorrow. There was no mystery about her now. I almost laughed, with a resentful bitterness, at the poor guesses I had made. This was the solution, and it placed her forever out of my reach. As with Tardif, so she could be nothing for me now, but as the blue sky, and the white clouds, and the stars shining in the night. My poor Olivia! whom I loved a hundredfold more than I had done even this morning. This morning I had been full of my own triumph and gladness. Now I had nothing in my heart but a vast pity and reverential tenderness for her.

Married? That was what she had said. It shut out all hope for the future. She must have been a mere child four years ago; she looked very young and girlish still. And her husband treated her ill—my Olivia, for whom I had given up all I had to give. She said the law would compel her to return to him, and I could do nothing. I could not interfere even to save her from a life which was worse to her than death.

My heart was caught in a vice, and there was no escape from the torture of its relentless grip. Whichever way I looked there was sorrow and despair. I wished, with a faint-heartedness I had never felt before, that Olivia and I had indeed perished together down in the caves where the tide was now sweeping below me.

"Martin!" said a clear, low, tender tone in my ear, which could never be deaf to that voice. I looked up at Olivia without moving. My head was at her feet, and I laid my hand upon the hem of her dress.

"Martin," she said again, "see, I have brought you Tardifs coat in place of your own. You must not lie here in this way. Captain Carey's yacht is waiting for you below."

I staggered giddily when I stood on my feet, and only Olivia's look of pain steadied me. She had been weeping bitterly. I could not trust myself to look in her face again. At any rate my next duty was to go away without adding to her distress, if that were possible. Tardif was standing behind her, regarding us both with great concern.

"Doctor," he said, "when I came in from my lobster-pots, the captain sent a message by me to say the sun would be gone down before you reach Guernsey. He has come round to the Havre Gosselin. I'll walk down the cliff with you."

I should have said no, but Olivia caught at his words eagerly.

"Yes, go, my good Tardif," she cried, "and bring me word that Dr. Martin is safe on board.—Good-by!"

Her hand in mine again for a moment, with its slight pressure. Then she was gone, Tardif was tramping down the stony path before me, speaking to me over his shoulder.

"It has not gone well, then, doctor?" he said.

"She will tell you," I answered, briefly, not knowing how much Olivia might wish him to know.

"Take care of mam'zelle," I said, when we had reached the top of the ladder, and the little boat from the yacht was dancing at the foot of it. "There is some danger ahead, and you can protect her better than I."

"Yes, yes," he replied; "you may trust her with me. But God knows I should have been glad if it had gone well with you."

A STORY IN DETAIL.

"Well?" said Captain Carey, as I set my foot on the deck. His face was all excitement; and he put his arm affectionately through mine.

"It is all wrong," I answered, gloomily.

"You don't mean that she will not have you?" he exclaimed.

I nodded, for I had no spirit to explain the matter just then.

"By George!" he cried; "and you've thrown over Julia, and offended all our Guernsey folks, and half broken your poor mother's heart, all for nothing!"

The last consideration was the one that stung me to the quick. It had half broken my mother's heart. No one knew better than I that it had without doubt tended to shorten her fleeting term of life. At this moment she was waiting for me to bring her good news—perhaps the promise that Olivia had consented to become my wife before her own last hour arrived; for my mother and I had even talked of that. I had thought it a romantic scheme when my mother spoke of it, but my passion had fastened eagerly upon it, in spite of my better judgment. These were the tidings she was waiting to hear from my lips.

When I reached home I found her full of dangerous excitement. It was impossible to allay it without telling her either an untruth or the whole story. I could not deceive her, and with a desperate calmness I related the history of the day. I tried to make light of my disappointment, but she broke down into tears and wailings.

"Oh, my boy!" she lamented; "and I did so want to see you happy before I died: I wanted to leave some one who could comfort you; and Olivia would have comforted you and loved you when I am gone! You had set your heart upon her. Are you sure it is true? My poor, poor Martin, you must forget her now. It becomes a sin for you to love her."

"I cannot forget her," I said; "I cannot cease to love her. There can be no sin in it as long as I think of her as I do now."

"And there is poor Julia!" moaned my mother.

Yes, there was Julia; and she would have to be told all, though she would rejoice over it. Of course, she would rejoice; it was not in human nature, at least in Julia's human nature, to do otherwise. She had warned me against Olivia; had only set me free reluctantly. But how was I to tell her? I must not leave to my mother the agitation of imparting such tidings. I couldn't think of deputing the task to my father. There was no one to do it but myself.

My mother passed a restless and agitated night, and I, who sat up with her, was compelled to listen to all her lamentation. But toward the morning she fell into a heavy sleep, likely to last for some hours. I could leave her in perfect security; and at an early hour I went down to Julia's house, strung up to bear the worst, and intending to have it all out with her, and put her on her guard before she paid her daily visit to our house. She must have some hours for her excitement and rejoicing to bubble over, before she came to talk about it to my mother.

"I wish to see Miss Dobrée," I said to the girl who quickly answered my noisy peal of the house-bell.

"Please, sir,'" was her reply, "she and Miss Daltrey are gone to Sark with Captain Carey."

"Gone to Sark!" I repeated, in utter amazement.

"Yes, Dr. Martin. They started quite early because of the tide, and Captain Carey's man brought the carriage to take them to St. Sampson's. I don't look for them back before evening. Miss Dobrée said I was to come, with her love, and ask how Mrs. Dobrée is to-day, and if she's home in time she'll come this evening; but if she's late she'll come to-morrow morning."

"When did they make up their minds to go to Sark?" I inquired, anxiously.

"Only late last night, sir," she answered. "Cook had settled with Miss Dobrée to dine early to-day; but then Captain Carey came in, and after he was gone she said breakfast must be ready at seven this morning in their own rooms while they were dressing; so they must have settled it with Captain Carey last night."

I turned away very much surprised and bewildered, and in an irritable state which made the least thing jar upon me. Curiosity, which had slept yesterday, or was numbed by the shock of my disappointment, was feverishly awake to-day. How little I knew, after all, of the mystery which surrounded Olivia! The bitter core of it I knew, but nothing of the many sheaths and envelops which wrapped it about. There might be some hope, some consolation to be found wrapped up with it. I must go again to Sark in the steamer on Monday, and hear Olivia tell me all she could tell of her history.

Then, why were Julia and Kate Daltrey gone to Sark? What could they have to do with Olivia? It made me almost wild with anger to think of them finding Olivia, and talking to her perhaps of me and my love—questioning her, arguing with her, tormenting her! The bare thought of those two badgering my Olivia was enough to drive me frantic.

In the cool twilight, Julia and Kate Daltrey were announced. I was about to withdraw from my mother's room, in conformity with the etiquette established among us, when Julia recalled me in a gentler voice than she had used toward me since the day of my fatal confession.

"Stay, Martin," she said; "what we have to tell concerns you more than any one."

I sat down again by my mother's sofa, and she took my hand between both her own, fondling it in the dusk.

"It is about Olivia," I said, in as cool a tone as I could command.

"Yes," answered Julia; "we have seen her, and we have found out why she has refused you. She is married already."

"She told me so yesterday," I replied.

"Told you so yesterday!" repeated Julia, in an accent of chagrin. "If we had only known that, we might have saved ourselves the passage across to Sark."

"My dear Julia," exclaimed my mother, feverishly, "do tell us all about it, and begin at the beginning."

There was nothing Julia liked so much, or could do so well, as to give a circumstantial account of any thing she had done. She could relate minute details with so much accuracy, without being exactly tedious, that when one was lazy or unoccupied it was pleasant to listen. My mother enjoyed, with all the delight of a woman, the small touches by which Julia embellished her sketches. I resigned myself to hearing a long history, when I was burning to ask one or two questions and have done with the topic.

"To begin at the beginning, then," said Julia, "dear Captain Carey came into town very late last night to talk to us about Martin, and how the girl in Sark had refused him. I was very much astonished, very much indeed! Captain Carey said that he and dear Johanna had come to the conclusion that the girl felt some delicacy, perhaps, because of Martin's engagement to me. We talked it over as friends, and thought of you, dear aunt, and your grief and disappointment, till all at once I made up my mind in a moment. 'I will go over to Sark and see the girl myself,' I said. 'Will you?' said Captain Carey. 'Oh, no, Julia, it will be too much for you.' 'It would have been a few weeks ago,' I said; 'but now I could do any thing to give Aunt Dobrée a moment's happiness.'"

"God bless you, Julia!" I interrupted, going across to her and kissing her cheek impetuously.

"There, don't stop me, Martin," she said, earnestly. "So it was arranged off-hand that Captain Carey should send for us at St. Sampson's this morning, and take us over to Sark. You know Kate has never been yet. We had a splendid passage, and landed at the Creux, where the yacht was to wait till we returned. Kate was in raptures with the landing-place, and the lovely lane leading up into the island. We went on past Vaudin's Inn and the mill, and turned down the nearest way to Tardifs. Kate said she never felt any air like the air of Sark. Well, you know that brown pool, a very brown pool, in the lane leading to the Havre Gosselin? Just there, where there are some low, weather-beaten trees meeting overhead and making a long green isle, with the sun shining down through the knotted branches, we saw all in a moment a slim, erect, very young-looking girl coming toward us. She was carrying her bonnet in her hand, and her hair curled in short, bright curls all over her head. I knew in an instant that it was Miss Ollivier."

She paused for a minute. How plainly I could see the picture! The arching trees, and the sunbeams playing fondly with her shining golden hair! I held my breath to listen.

"What completely startled me," said Julia, "was that Kate suddenly darted forward and ran to meet her, crying 'Olivia!'"

"How does she know her?" I exclaimed.

"Hush. Martin! Don't interrupt me. The girl went so deadly pale, I thought she was going to faint, but she did not. She stood for a minute looking at us, and then she burst into the most dreadful fit of crying!

"I ran to her, and made her sit down on a little bank of turf close by, and gave her my smelling-bottle, and did all I could to comfort her. By-and-by, as soon as she could speak, she said to Kate, 'How did you find me out?' and Kate told her she had not the slightest idea of finding her there. 'Dr. Martin Dobrée, of Guernsey, told me you were looking for me, only yesterday,' she said.

"That took us by surprise, for Kate had not the faintest idea of seeing her. I have always thought her name was Ollivier, and so did Kate. 'For pity's sake,' said the girl, 'if you have any pity, leave me here in peace. For God's sake do not betray me!'

"I could hardly believe it was not a dream. There was Kate standing over us, looking very stern and severe, and the girl was clinging to me—to me, as if I were her dearest friend. Then all of a sudden up came old Mother Renouf, looking half crazed, and began to harangue us for frightening mam'zelle. Tardif, she said, would be at hand in a minute or two, and he would take care of her from us and everybody else. 'Take me away!' cried the girl, running to her; and the old woman tucked her hand under her arm, and walked off with her in triumph, leaving us by ourselves in the lane."

"But what does it all mean?" asked my mother, while I paced to and fro in the dim room, scarcely able to control my impatience, yet afraid to question Julia too eagerly.

"I can tell you," said Kate Daltrey, in her cold, deliberate tones; "she is the wife of my half-brother, Richard Foster, who married her more than four years ago in Melbourne; and she ran away from him last October, and has not been heard of since."

"Then you know her whole history," I said, approaching her and pausing before her. "Are you at liberty to tell it to us?"

"Certainly," she answered; "it is no secret. Her father was a wealthy colonist, and he died when she was fifteen, leaving her in the charge of her step-mother, Richard Foster's aunt. The match was one of the stepmother's making, for Olivia was little better than a child. Richard was glad enough to get her fortune, or rather the income from it, for of course she did not come into full possession of it till she was of age. One-third of it was settled upon her absolutely; the other two-thirds came to her for her to do what she pleased with it. Richard was looking forward eagerly to her being one-and-twenty, for he had made ducks and drakes of his own property, and tried to do the same with mine. He would have done so with his wife's; but a few weeks before Olivia's twenty-first birthday, she disappeared mysteriously. There her fortune lies, and Richard has no more power than I have to touch it. He cannot even claim the money lying in the Bank of Australia, which has been remitted by her trustees; nor can Olivia claim it without making herself known to him. It is accumulating there, while both of them are on the verge of poverty."

"But he must have been very cruel to her before she would run away!" said my mother in a very pitiful voice. Poor mother! she had borne her own sorrows dumbly, and to leave her husband had probably never occurred to her.

"Cruel!" repeated Kate Daltrey. "Well, there are many kinds of cruelty. I do not suppose Richard would ever transgress the limits of the law. But Olivia was one of those girls who can suffer great torture—mental torture I mean. Even I could not live in the same house with him, and she was a dreamy, sensitive, romantic child, with as much knowledge of the world as a baby. I was astonished to hear she had had daring enough to leave him."

"But there must be some protection for her from the law," I said, thinking of the bold, coarse woman, no doubt his associate, who was in pursuit of Olivia. "She might sue for a judicial separation, at the least, if not a divorce."

"I am quite sure nothing could be brought against him in a court of law," she answered. "He is very wary and cunning, and knows very well what he may do and what he may not do. A few months before Olivia's flight, he introduced a woman as her companion—a disreputable woman probably; but he calls her his cousin, and I do not know how Olivia could prove her an unfit person to be with her. Our suspicions may be very strong, but suspicion is not enough for an English judge and jury. Since I saw her this morning I have been thinking of her position in every light, and I really do not see any thing she could have done, except running away as she did, or making up her mind to be deaf and blind and dumb. There was no other alternative."

"But could he not be induced to leave her in peace if she gave up a portion of her property?" I asked.

"Why should he?" she retorted. "If she was in his hands the whole of the property would be his. He will never release her—never. No, her only chance is to hide herself from him. The law cannot deal with wrongs like hers, because they are as light as air apparently, though they are as all-pervading as air is, and as poisonous as air can be. They are like choke-damp, only not quite fatal. He is as crafty and cunning as a serpent. He could prove himself the kindest, most considerate of husbands, and Olivia next thing to an idiot. Oh, it is ridiculous to think of pitting a girl like her against him!"

"If she had been older, or if she had had a child, she would never have left him," said my mother's gentle and sorrowful voice.

"But what can be done for her?" I asked, vehemently and passionately. "My poor Olivia! what can I do to protect her?"

"Nothing!" answered Kate Daltrey, coldly. "Her only chance is concealment, and what a poor chance that is! I went over to Sark, never thinking that your Miss Ollivier whom I had heard so much of was Olivia Foster. It is an out-of-the-world place; but so much the more readily they will find her, if they once get a clew. A fox is soon caught when it cannot double; and how could Olivia escape if they only traced her to Sark?"

My dread of the woman into whose hands my imbecile curiosity had put the clew was growing greater every minute. It seemed as if Olivia could not be safe now, day or night; yet what protection could I or Tardif give to her?

"You will not betray her?" I said to Kate Daltrey, though feeling all the time that I could not trust her in the smallest degree.

"I have promised dear Julia that," she answered.

I should fail to give you any clear idea of my state of mind should I attempt to analyze it. The most bitter thought in it was that my own imprudence had betrayed Olivia. But for me she might have remained for years, in peace and perfect seclusion, in the home to which she had drifted. Richard Foster and his accomplice must have lost all hope of finding her during the many months that had elapsed between her disappearance and my visit to their solicitors. That had put them on the track again. If the law forced her back to her husband, it was I who had helped him to find her. That was a maddening thought. My love for her was hopeless; but what then? I discovered to my own amazement that I had loved her for her sake, not my own. I had loved the woman in herself, not the woman as my wife. She could never become that, but she was dearer to me than ever. She was as far removed from me as from Tardif. Could I not serve her with as deep a devotion and as true a chivalry as his? She belonged to both of us by as unselfish and noble a bond as ever knights of old were pledged to.

It became my duty to keep a strict watch over the woman who had come to Guernsey to find Olivia. If possible I must decoy her away from the lowly nest where my helpless bird was sheltered. She had not sent for me again, but I called upon her the next morning professionally, and stayed some time talking with her. But nothing resulted from the visit beyond the assurance that she had not yet made any progress toward the discovery of my secret. I almost marvelled at this, so universal had been the gossip about my visits to Sark in connection with the breaking-off of my engagement to Julia. But that had occurred in the spring, and the nine-days' wonder had ceased before my patient came to the island. Still, any accidental conversation might give her the information, and open up a favorable chance for her. I must not let her go across to Sark unknown to myself.

Neither did I feel quite safe about Kate Daltrey. She gave me the impression of being as crafty and cunning as she described her half-brother. Did she know this woman by sight? That was a question I could not answer. There was another question hanging upon it. If she saw her, would she not in some way contrive to give her a sufficient hint, without positively breaking her promise to Julia? Kate Daltrey's name did not appear in the newspapers among the list of visitors, as she was staying in a private house; but she and this woman might meet any day in the streets or on the pier.

Then the whole story had been confided by Julia at once to Captain Carey and Johanna. That was quite natural; but it was equally natural for them to confide it again to some one or two of their intimate friends. The secret was already an open one among six persons. Could it be considered a secret any longer? The tendency of such a singular story, whispered from one to another, is to become in the long-run more widely circulated than if it were openly proclaimed. I had a strong affection for my circle of cousins, which widened as the circle round a stone cast into water; but I knew I might as well try to arrest the eddying of such waters as stop the spread of a story like Olivia's.

I had resolved, in the first access of my curiosity, to cross over to Sark the next week, alone and independent of Captain Carey. Every Monday the Queen of the Isles made her accustomed trip to the island, to convey visitors there for the day.

I had not been on deck two minutes the following Monday when I saw my patient step on after me. The last clew was in her fingers now, that was evident.