The Doctor's Dilemma

OLIVIA GONE.

She did not see me at first; but her air was exultant and satisfied. There was no face on board so elated and flushed. I kept out of her way as long as I could without consigning myself to the black hole of the cabin; but at last she caught sight of me, and came down to the forecastle to claim me as an acquaintance.

"Ha! ha! Dr. Dobrée!" she exclaimed; "so you are going to visit Sark too?"

"Yes," I answered, more curtly than courteously.

"You are looking rather low," she said, triumphantly—"rather blue, I might say. Is there any thing the matter with you? Your face is as long as a fiddle. Perhaps it is the sea that makes you melancholy."

"Not at all," I answered, trying to speak briskly; "I am an old sailor. Perhaps you will feel melancholy by-and-by."

Luckily for me, my prophecy was fulfilled shortly after, for the day was rough enough to produce uncomfortable sensations in those who were not old sailors like myself. My tormentor was prostrate to the last moment.

When we anchored at the entrance of the Creux, and the small boats came out to carry us ashore, I managed easily to secure a place in the first, and to lose sight of her in the bustle of landing. As soon as my feet touched the shore I started off at my swiftest pace for the Havre Gosselin.

But I had not far to go, for at Vaudin's Inn, which stands at the top of the steep lane running from the Creux Harbor, I saw Tardif at the door. Now and then he acted as guide when young Vaudin could not fill that office, or had more parties than he could manage; and Tardif was now waiting the arrival of the weekly stream of tourists. He came to me instantly, and we sat down on a low stone wall on the roadside, but well out of hearing of any ears but each other's.

"Tardif," I said, "has mam'zelle told you her secret?"

"Yes, yes," he answered; "poor little soul! and she is a hundredfold dearer to me now than before."

He looked as if he meant it, for his eyes moistened and his face quivered.

"She is in great danger at this moment," I continued. "A woman sent by her husband has been lurking about in Guernsey to get news of her, and she has come across in the steamer to-day. She will be in sight of us in a few minutes. There is no chance of her not learning where she is living. But could we not hide Olivia somewhere? There are caves strangers know nothing of. We might take her over to Breckhou. Be quick, Tardif! we must decide at once what to do."

"But mam'zelle is not here. She is gone!" he answered.

"Gone!" I ejaculated. I could not utter another word; but I stared at him as if my eyes could tear further information from him.

"Yes," he said; "that lady came last week with Miss Dobrée, your cousin. Then mam'zelle told me all, and we took counsel together. It was not safe for her to stay any longer, though I would have died for her gladly. But what could be done? We knew she must go elsewhere, and the next morning I rowed her over to Peter-Port in time for the steamer to England. Poor little thing! poor little hunted soul!"

His voice faltered as he spoke, and he drew his fisherman's cap close down over his eyes. I did not speak again for a minute or two.

"Tardif," I said at last, as the foremost among the tourists came in sight, "did she leave no message for me?"

"She wrote a letter for you," he said, "the very last thing. She did not go to bed that night, neither did I. I was going to lose her, doctor, and she had been like the light of the sun to me. But what could I do? She was terrified to death at the thought of her husband claiming her. I promised to give the letter into your own hands; but we settled I must not show myself in Peter-Port the day she left. Here it is."

It had been lying in his breast-pocket, and the edges were worn already. He gave it to me lingeringly, as if loath to part with it. The tourists were coming up in greater numbers, and I made a retreat hastily toward a quiet and remote part of the cliffs seldom visited in Little Sark.

There, with the sea, which had carried her away from me, playing buoyantly among the rocks, I read her farewell letter. It ran thus:

"My dear Friend: I am glad I can call you my friend, though nothing can ever come of our friendship—nothing, for we may not see one another as other friends do. My life was ruined four years ago, and every now and then I see afresh how complete and terrible the ruin is. Yet if I had known beforehand how your life would be linked with mine, I would have done any thing in my power to save you from sharing in my ruin. Ought I to have told you at once that I was married? But just that was my secret, and it seemed so much safer while no one knew it but myself. I did not see, as I do now, that I was acting a falsehood. I do not see how I can help doing that. It is as shocking to me as to you. Do not judge me harshly.

"I do not like to speak to you about my marriage. I was very young and very miserable; any change seemed better than living with my step-mother. I did not know what I was doing. The Saviour said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I hope I shall be forgiven by you, and your mother, and God, for indeed I did not know what I was doing.

"Last October when I escaped from them, it was partly because I felt I should soon be as wicked as they. I do not think any one ought to remain where there is no chance of being good. If I am wrong, remember I am not old yet. I may learn what my duty is, and then I will do it. I am only waiting to find out exactly what I ought to do, and then I will do it, whatever it may be.

"Now I am compelled to flee away again from this quiet, peaceful home where you and Tardif have been so good to me. I began to feel perfectly safe here, and all at once the refuge fails me. It breaks my heart, but I must go, and my only gladness is that it will be good for you. By-and-by you will forget me, and return to your cousin Julia, and be happy just as you once thought you should be—as you would have been but for me. You must think of me as one dead. I am quite dead—lost to you.

"Yet I know you will sometimes wish to hear what has become of me. Tardif will. And I owe you both more than I can ever repay. But it would not be well for me to write often. I have promised Tardif that I will write to him once a year, that you and he may know that I am still alive. When there comes no letter, say, 'Olivia is dead!' Do not be grieved for that; it will be the greatest, best release God can give me. Say, 'Thank God, Olivia is dead!'

"Good-by, my dear friend; good-by, good-by!

"OLIVIA."

The last line was written in a shaken, irregular hand, and her name was half blotted out, as if a tear had fallen upon it. I remained there alone on the wild and solitary cliffs until it was time to return to the steamer.

Tardif was waiting for me at the entrance of the little tunnel through which the road passes down to the harbor. He did not speak at first, but he drew out of his pocket an old leather pouch filled with yellow papers. Among them lay a long curling tress of shining hair. He touched it gently with his finger, as if it had feeling and consciousness.

"You would like to have it, doctor?" he said.

"Ay," I answered, and that only. I could not venture upon another word.

THE EBB OF LIFE.

There was nothing now for me to do but to devote myself wholly to my mother.

I made the malady under which she was slowly sinking my special study. There remained a spark of hope yet in my heart that I might by diligent, intense, unflagging search, discover some remedy yet untried, or perhaps unthought of. I succeeded only in alleviating her sufferings. I pored over every work which treated of the same class of diseases. At last in an old, almost-forgotten book, I came upon a simple medicament, which, united with appliances made available by modern science, gave her sensible relief, and without doubt tended to prolong her shortening days. The agonizing thought haunted me that, had I come upon this discovery at an earlier stage of her illness, her life might have been spared for many years.

But it was too late now. She suffered less, and her spirits grew calm and even. We even ventured, at her own wish, to spend a week together in Sark, she and I—a week never to be forgotten, full of exquisite pain and exquisite enjoyment to us both. We revisited almost every place where we had been many years before, while I was but a child and she was still young and strong. Tardif rowed us out in his boat under the cliffs. Then we came home again, and she sank rapidly, as if the flame of life had been burning too quickly in the breath of those innocent pleasures.

Now she began to be troubled again with the dread of leaving me alone and comfortless. There is no passage in Christ's farewell to His disciples which, touches me so much as those words, "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come unto you." My mother could not promise to come back to me, and her dying vision looked sorrowfully into the future for me. Sometimes she put her fear into words—faltering and foreboding words; but it was always in her eyes, as they followed me wherever I went with a mute, pathetic anxiety. No assurances of mine, no assumed cheerfulness and fortitude could remove it. I even tried to laugh at it, but my laugh only brought the tears into her eyes. Neither reason nor ridicule could root it out—a root of bitterness indeed.

"Martin," she said, in her failing, plaintive voice, one evening when Julia and I were both sitting with her, for we met now without any regard to etiquette—"Martin, Julia and I have been talking about your future life while you were away."

Julia's face flushed a little. She was seated on a footstool by my mother's sofa, and looked softer and gentler than I had ever seen her look. She had been nursing my mother with a single-hearted, self-forgetful devotion that had often touched me, and had knit us to one another by the common bond of an absorbing interest. Certainly I had never leaned upon or loved Julia as I was doing now.

"There is no chance of your ever marrying Olivia now," continued my mother, faintly, "and it is a sin for you to cherish your love for her. That is a very plain duty, Martin."

"Such love as I cherish for Olivia will hurt neither her nor myself," I answered. "I would not wrong her by a thought."

"But she can never be your wife," she said.

"I never think of her as my wife," I replied; "but I can no more cease to love her than I can cease to breathe. She has become part of my life, mother."

"Still, time and change must make a difference," she said. "You will realize your loneliness when I am gone, though you cannot before. I want to have some idea of what you will be doing in the years to come, before we meet again. If I think at all, I shall be thinking of you, and I do long to have some little notion. You will not mind me forming one poor little plan for you once more, my boy?"

"No," I answered, smiling to keep back the tears that were ready to start to my eyes.

"I scarcely know how to tell you," she said. "You must not be angry or offended with us. But my dear Julia has promised me, out of pure love and pity for me, you know, that if ever—how can I express it?—if you ever wish you could return to the old plans—it may be a long time first, but if you conquered your love for Olivia, and could go back, and wished to go back to the time before you knew her—Julia will forget all that has come between. Julia would consent to marry you if you asked her to be your wife. O Martin, I should die so much happier if I thought you would ever marry Julia, and go to live in the house I helped to get ready for you!"

Julia's head had dropped upon my mother's shoulder, and her face was hidden, while my mother's eyes sought mine beseechingly. I was irresistibly overcome by this new proof of her love for both of us, for I knew well what a struggle it must have been to her to gain the mastery over her proper pride and just resentment. I knelt down beside her, clasping her hand and my mother's in my own.

"Mother, Julia," I said, "I promise that if ever I can be true in heart and soul to a wife, I will ask Julia to become mine. But it may be many years hence; I dare not say how long. God alone knows how dear Olivia is to me. And Julia is too good to waste herself upon so foolish a fellow. She may change, and see some one she can love better."

"That is nonsense, Martin," answered Julia, with a ring of the old sharpness in her tone; "at my age I am not likely to fall in love again.—Don't be afraid, aunt; I shall not change, and I will take care of Martin. His home is ready, and he will come back to me some day, and it will all be as you wish."

I know that promise of ours comforted her, for she never lamented over my coming solitude again.

I have very little more I can say about her. When I look back and try to write more fully of those last, lingering days, my heart fails me. The darkened room, the muffled sounds, the loitering, creeping, yet too rapid hours! I had no time to think of Julia, of Olivia, or of myself; I was wrapped up in her.

One evening—we were quite alone—she called me to come closer to her, in that faint, far-off voice of hers, which seemed already to be speaking from another world. I was sitting so near to her that I could touch her with my hand, but she wanted me nearer—with my arm across her, and my cheek against hers.

"My boy," she whispered, "I am going."

"Not yet, mother," I cried; "not yet! I have so much to say. Stay with me a day or two longer."

"If I could," she murmured, every word broken with her panting breath, "I would stay with you forever! Be patient with your father, Martin. Say good-by for me to him and Julia. Don't stir. Let me die so!"

"You shall not die, mother," I said, passionately.

"There is no pain," she whispered—"no pain at all; it is taken away. I am only sorry for my boy. What will he do when I am gone? Where are you, Martin?"

"I am here, mother!" I answered—"close to you. O God! I would go with you if I could."

Then she lay still for a time, pressing my arm about her with her feeble fingers. Would she speak to me no more? Had the dearest voice in the world gone away altogether into that far-off, and, to us, silent country whither the dying go? Dumb, blind, deaf to me? She was breathing yet, and her heart fluttered faintly against my arm. Would not my mother know me again?

"O Martin!" she murmured, "there is great love in store for us all! I did not know how great the love was till now!"

There had been a quicker, more irregular throbbing of her heart as she spoke. Then—I waited, but there came no other pulsation. Suddenly I felt as if I also must be dying, for I passed into a state of utter darkness and unconsciousness.

A DISCONSOLATE WIDOWER.

My senses returned painfully, with a dull and blunted perception that some great calamity had overtaken me. I was in my mother's dressing-room, and Julia was holding to my nostrils some sharp essence, which had penetrated to the brain and brought back consciousness. My father was sitting by the empty grate, sobbing and weeping vehemently. The door into my mother's bedroom was closed. I knew instantly what was going on there.

I suppose no man ever fainted without being ashamed of it. Even in the agony of my awakening consciousness I felt the inevitable sting of shame at my weakness and womanishness. I pushed away Julia's hand, and raised myself. I got up on my feet and walked unsteadily and blindly toward the shut door.

"Martin," said Julia, "you must not go back there. It is all over."

I heard my father calling me in a broken voice, and I turned to him. His frame was shaken by the violence of his sobs, and he could not lift up his head from his hands. There was no effort at self-control about him. At times his cries grew loud enough to be heard all over the house.

"Oh, my son!" he said, "we shall never see any one like your poor mother again! She was the best wife any man ever had! Oh, what a loss she is to me!"

I could not speak of her just then, nor could I say a word to comfort him. She had bidden me be patient with him, but already I found the task almost beyond me. I told Julia I was going up to my own room for the rest of the night, if there were nothing for me to do. She put her arms round my neck and kissed me as if she had been my sister, telling me I could leave every thing to her. Then I went away into the solitude that had indeed begun to close around me.

When the heart of a man is solitary, there is no society for him even among a crowd of friends. All deep love and close companionship seemed stricken out of my life.

We laid her in the cemetery, in a grave where the wide-spreading branches of some beech-trees threw a pleasant shadow over it during the day. At times the moan of the sea could be heard there, when the surf rolled in strongly upon the shore of Cobo Bay. The white crest of the waves could be seen from it, tossing over the sunken reefs at sea; yet it lay in the heart of our island. She had chosen the spot for herself, not very long ago, when we had been there together. Now I went there alone.

I counted my father and his loud grief as nothing. There was neither sympathy nor companionship between us. He was very vehement in his lamentations, repeating to every one who came to condole with us that there never had lived such a wife, and his loss was the greatest that man could bear. His loss was nothing to mine.

Yet I did draw a little nearer to him in the first few weeks of our bereavement. Almost insensibly I fell into our old plan of sharing the practice, for he was often unfit to go out and see our patients. The house was very desolate now, and soon lost those little delicate traces of feminine occupancy which constitute the charm of a home, and to which we had been all our lives accustomed. Julia could not leave her own household, even if it had been possible for her to return to her place in our deserted dwelling. The flowers faded and died unchanged in the vases, and there was no dainty woman's work lying about—that litter of white and colored shreds of silk and muslin, which give to a room an inhabited appearance. These were so familiar to me, that the total absence of them was like the barrenness of a garden without flowers in bloom.

My father did not feel this as I did, for he was not often at home after the first violence of his grief had spent itself. Julia's house was open to him in a manner it could not be open to me. I was made welcome there, it is true; but Julia was not unembarrassed and at home with me. The half-engagement renewed between us rendered it difficult to us both to meet on the simple ground of friendship and relationship. Moreover, I shrank from setting gossips' tongues going again on the subject of my chances of marrying my cousin; so I remained at home, alone, evening after evening, unless I was called out professionally, declining all invitations, and brooding unwholesomely over my grief. There is no more cowardly a way of meeting a sorrow. But I was out of heart, and no words could better express the morbid melancholy I was sinking into.

There was some tedious legal business to go through, for my mother's small property, bringing in a hundred a year, came to me on her death. I could not alienate it, but I wished Julia to receive the income as part payment of my father's defalcations. She would not listen to such a proposal, and she showed me that she had a shrewd notion of the true state of our finances. They were in such a state that if I left Guernsey with my little income my father would positively find some difficulty in making both ends meet; the more so as I was becoming decidedly the favorite with our patients, who began to call him slightingly the "old doctor." No path opened up for me in any other direction. It appeared as if I were to be bound to the place which was no longer a home to me.

I wrote to this effect to Jack Senior, who was urging my return to England. I could not bring myself to believe that this dreary, monotonous routine of professional duties, of very little interest or importance, was all that life should offer to me. Yet for the present my duty was plain. There was no help for it.

I made some inquiries at the lodging-house in Vauvert Road, and learned that the person who had been in search of Olivia had left Guernsey about the time when I was so fully engrossed with my mother as to have but little thought for any one else. Of Olivia there was neither trace nor tidings. Tardif came up to see me whenever he crossed over from Sark, but he had no information to give to me. The chances were that she was in London; but she was as much lost to me as if she had been lying beside my mother under the green turf of Foulon Cemetery.

THE WIDOWER COMFORTED.

In this manner three months passed slowly away after my mother's death. Dr. Dobrée, who was utterly inconsolable the first few weeks, fell into all his old maundering, philandering ways again, spending hours upon his toilet, and paying devoted attentions to every passable woman who came across his path. My temper grew like touch-wood; the least spark would set it in a blaze. I could not take such things in good part.

We had been at daggers-drawn for a day or two, he and I, when one morning I was astonished by the appearance of Julia in our consulting-room, soon after my father, having dressed himself elaborately, had quitted the house. Julia's face was ominous, the upper lip very straight, and a frown upon her brow. I wondered what could be the matter, but I held my tongue. My knowledge of Julia was intimate enough for me to hit upon the right moment for speech or silence—a rare advantage. It was the time to refrain from speaking. Julia was no termagant—simply a woman who had had her own way all her life, and was so sure it was the best way that she could not understand why other people should wish to have theirs.

"Martin," she began in a low key, but one that might run up to shrillness if advisable, "I am come to tell you something that fills me with shame and anger. I do not know how to contain myself. I could never have believed that I could have been so blind and foolish. But it seems as if I were doomed to be deceived and disappointed on every hand—I who would not deceive or disappoint anybody in the world. I declare it makes me quite ill to think of it. Just look at my hands, how they tremble."

"Your nervous system is out of order," I remarked.

"It is the world that is out of order," she said, petulantly; "I am well enough. Oh, I do not know how ever I am to tell you. There are some things it is a shame to speak of."

"Must you speak of them?" I asked.

"Yes; you must know, you will have to know all, sooner or later. If there was any hope of it coming to nothing, I should try to spare you this; but they are both so bent upon disgracing themselves, so deaf to reason! If my poor, dear aunt knew of it, she could not rest in her grave. Martin, cannot you guess? Are men born so dull that they cannot see what is going on under their own eyes?"

"I have not the least idea of what you are driving at," I answered. "Sit down, my dear Julia, and calm yourself. Shall I give you a glass of wine?"

"No, no," she said, with a gesture of impatience. "How long is it since my poor, dear aunt died?"

"You know as well as I do," I replied, wondering that she should touch the wound so roughly. "Three months next Sunday."

"And Dr. Dobrée," she said, in a bitter accent—then stopped, looking me full in the face. I had never heard her call my father Dr. Dobrée in my life. She was very fond of him, and attracted by him, as most women were, and as few women are attracted by me. Even now, with all the difference in our age, the advantage being on my side, it was seldom I succeeded in pleasing as much as he did. I gazed back in amazement at Julia's dark and moody face.

"What now?" I asked. "What has my unlucky father been doing now?"

"Why," she exclaimed, stamping her foot, while the blood mantled to her forehead, "Dr. Dobrée is in haste to take a second wife! He is indeed, my poor Martin. He wishes to be married immediately to that viper, Kate Daltrey."

"Impossible!" I cried, stung to the quick by these words. I remembered my mother's mild, instinctive dislike to Kate Daltrey, and her harmless hope that I would not go over to her side. Go over to her side! No. If she set her foot into this house as my mother's successor, I would never dwell under the same roof. As soon as my father made her his wife I would cut myself adrift from them both. But he knew that; he would never venture to outrage my mother's memory or my feelings in such a flagrant manner.

"It is possible, for it is true," said Julia. She had not let her voice rise above its low, angry key, and now it sank nearly to a whisper, as she glanced round at the door. "They have understood each other these four weeks. You may call it an engagement, for it is one; and I never suspected them, not for a moment! He came down to my house to be comforted, he said: his house was so dreary now. And I was as blind as a mole. I shall never forgive myself, dear Martin. I knew he was given to all that kind of thing, but then he seemed to mourn for my poor aunt so deeply, and was so heart-broken. He made ten times more show of it than you did. I have heard people say you bore it very well, and were quite unmoved, but I knew better. Everybody said he could never get over it. Couldn't you take out a commission of lunacy against him? He must be mad to think of such a thing."

"How did you find it out?" I inquired.

"Oh, I was so ashamed!" she said. "You see I had not the faintest shadow of a suspicion. I had left them in the drawing-room to go up-stairs, and I thought of something I wanted, and went back suddenly, and there they were—his arm around her waist, and her head on his shoulder—he with his gray hairs too! She says she is the same age as me, but she is forty if she is a day. The simpletons! I did not know what to say, or how to look. I could not get out of the room again as if I had not seen, for I cried 'Oh!' at the first sight of them. Then I stood staring at them; but I think they felt as uncomfortable as I did."

"What did they say?" I asked, sternly.

"Oh, he came up to me quite in his dramatic way, you know, trying to carry it off by looking grand and majestic; and he was going to take my hand and lead me to her, but I would not stir a step. 'My love,' he said, 'I am about to steal your friend from you.' 'She is no friend of mine,' I said, 'if she is going to be what all this intimates, I suppose. I will never speak to her or you again, Dr. Dobrée.' Upon that he began to weep, and protest, and declaim, while she sat still and glared at me. I never thought her eyes could look like that. 'When do you mean to be married?' I asked, for he made no secret of his intention to make her his wife. 'What is the good of waiting?' he said, 'My home is miserable with no woman in it.' 'Uncle,' I said, 'if you will promise me to give up the idea of a second marriage, which is ridiculous at your age, I will come back to you, in spite of all the awkwardness of my position with regard to Martin. For my aunt's sake I will come back.' Even an arrangement like this would be better than his marriage with that woman—don't you think so?"

"A hundred times better," I said, warmly. "It was very good of you, Julia. But he would not agree to that, would he?"

"He wouldn't hear of it. He swore that Kate was as dear to him as ever my poor aunt was. He vowed he could not live without her and her companionship. He maintained that his age did not make it ridiculous. Kate hid her brazen face in her hands, and sobbed aloud.

"That made him ten times worse an idiot. He knelt down before her, and implored her to look at him. I reminded him how all the island would rise against him—worse than it did against you, Martin—and he declared he did not care a fig for the island! I asked him how he would face the Careys, and the Brocks, and the De Saumarez, and all the rest of them, and he snapped his fingers at them all. Oh, he must be going out of his mind."

I shook my head. Knowing him as thoroughly as a long and close study could help me to know any man, I was less surprised than Julia, who had only seen him from a woman's point of view, and had always been lenient to his faults. Unfortunately, I knew my father too well.

"Then I talked to him about the duty he owed to our family name," she resumed, "and I went so far as to remind him of what I had done to shield him and it from disgrace, and he mocked at it—positively mocked at it! He said there was no sort of parallel. It would be no dishonor to our house to receive Kate into it, even if they were married at once. What did it signify to the world that only three months had elapsed? Besides, he did not mean to marry her for a month to come, as the house would need beautifying for her—beautifying for her! Neither had he spoken of it to you; but he had no doubt you would be willing to go on as you have done."

"Never!" I said.

"I was sure not," continued Julia. "I told him I was convinced you would leave Guernsey again, but he pooh-poohed that. I asked him how he was to live without any practice, and he said his old patients might turn him off for a while, but they would be glad to send for him again. I never saw a man so obstinately bent upon his own ruin."

"Julia," I said, "I shall leave Guernsey before this marriage can come off. I would rather break stones on the highway than stay to see that woman in my mother's place. My mother disliked her from the first."

"I know it," she replied, with tears in her eyes, "and I thought it was nothing but prejudice. It was my fault, bringing her to Guernsey. But I could not bear the idea of her coming as mistress here. I said so distinctly. 'Dr. Dobrée,' I said, 'you must let me remind you that the house is mine, though you have paid me no rent for years. If you ever take Kate Daltrey into it, I will put my affairs into a notary's hands. I will, upon my word, and Julia Dobrée never broke her word yet.' That brought him to his senses better than any thing. He turned very pale, and sat down beside Kate, hardly knowing what to say. Then she began. She said if I was cruel, she would be cruel too. Whatever grieved you, Martin, would grieve me, and she would let her brother Richard Foster know where Olivia was."

"Does she know where she is?" I asked, eagerly, in a tumult of surprise and hope.

"Why, in Sark, of course," she replied.

"What! Did you never know that Olivia left Sark before my mother's death?" I said, with a chill of disappointment. "Did I never tell you she was gone, nobody knows where?"

"You have never spoken of her in my hearing, except once—you recollect when, Martin? We have supposed she was still living in Tardif's house. Then there is nothing to prevent me from carrying out my threat. Kate Daltrey shall never enter this house as mistress."

"Would you have given it up for Olivia's sake?" I asked, marvelling at her generosity.

"I should have done it for your sake," she answered, frankly.

"But," I said, reverting to our original topic, "if my father has set his mind upon marrying Kate Daltrey, he will brave any thing."

"He is a dotard," replied Julia. "He positively makes me dread growing old. Who knows what follies one may be guilty of in old age! I never felt afraid of it before. Kate says she has two hundred a year of her own, and they will go and live on that in Jersey, if Guernsey becomes unpleasant to them. Martin, she is a viper—she is indeed. And I have made such a friend of her! Now I shall have no one but you and the Careys. Why wasn't I satisfied with Johanna as my friend?"

She stayed an hour longer, turning over this unwelcome subject till we had thoroughly discussed every point of it. In the evening, after dinner, I spoke to my father briefly but decisively upon the same topic. After a very short and very sharp conversation, there remained no alternative for me but to make up my mind to try my fortune once more out of Guernsey. I wrote by the next mail to Jack Senior, telling him my purpose, and the cause of it, and by return of post I received his reply:

It was a splendid opening, without question. Dr. Senior had been in good practice for more than thirty years, and he had quietly introduced Jack to the position he was about to resign. Yet I pondered over the proposal for a whole week before agreeing to it. I knew Jack well enough to be sure he would never regret his generosity; but if I went I would go as junior partner, and with a much smaller proportion of the profits than that proffered by Jack. Finally I resolved to accept the offer, and wrote to him as to the terms upon which alone I would join him.

FINAL ARRANGEMENTS.

I did not wait for my father to commit the irreparable folly of his second marriage. Guernsey had become hateful to me. In spite of my exceeding love for my native island, more beautiful in the eyes of its people than any other spot on earth, I could no longer be happy or at peace there. A few persons urged me to stay and live down my chagrin and grief, but most of my friends congratulated me on the change in my prospects, and bade me God-speed. Julia could not conceal her regret, but I left her in the charge of Captain Carey and Johanna. She promised to be my faithful correspondent, and I engaged to write to her regularly. There existed between us the half-betrothal to which we had pledged ourselves at my mother's urgent request. She would wait for the time when Olivia was no longer the first in my heart; then she would be willing to become my wife. But if ever that day came, she would require me to give up my position in England, and settle down for life in Guernsey.

Fairly, then, I was launched upon the career of a physician in the great city. The completeness of the change suited me. Nothing here, in scenery, atmosphere, or society, could remind me of the fretted past. The troubled waters subsided into a dull calm, as far as emotional life went. Intellectual life, on the contrary, was quickened in its current, and day after day drifted me farther away from painful memories. To be sure, the idea crossed me often that Olivia might be in London—even in the same street with me. I never caught sight of a faded green dress but my steps were hurried, and I followed till I was sure that the wearer was not Olivia. But I was aware that the chances of our meeting were so small that I could not count upon them. Even if I found her, what then? She was as far away from me as though the Atlantic rolled between us. If I only knew that she was safe, and as happy as her sad destiny could let her be, I would be content. For this assurance I looked forward through the long months that must intervene before her promised communication would come to Tardif.

Thus I was thrown entirely upon my profession for interest and occupation. I gave myself up to it with an energy that amazed Jack, and sometimes surprised myself. Dr. Senior, who was an old veteran, loved it with ardor for its own sake, was delighted with my enthusiasm. He prophesied great things for me.

So passed my first winter in London.

THE TABLES TURNED.

A dreary season was that first winter in London.

It happened quite naturally that here, as in Guernsey, my share of the practice fell among the lower and least important class of patients. Jack Senior had been on the field some years sooner, and he was London-born and London-bred. All the surroundings of his life fitted him without a wrinkle. He was at home everywhere, and would have counted the pulse of a duchess with as little emotion as that of a dairy-maid. On the other hand, I could not accommodate myself altogether to haughty and aristocratic strangers—though I am somewhat ante-dating later experiences, for during the winter our fashionable clients were all out of town, and our time comparatively unoccupied. To be at ease anywhere, it was, at that time, essential to me to know something of the people with whom I was associating—an insular trait, common to all those who are brought up in a contracted and isolated circle.

Besides this rustic embarrassment which hung like a clog about me out-of-doors, within-doors I missed wofully the dainty feminine ways I had been used to. There was a trusty female servant, half cook, half house-keeper, who lived in the front-kitchen and superintended our household; but she was not at all the angel in the house whom I needed. It was a well-appointed, handsome dwelling, but it was terribly gloomy. The heavy, substantial leather chairs always remained undisturbed in level rows against the wall, and the crimson cloth upon the table was as bare as a billiard-table. A thimble lying upon it, or fallen on the carpet and almost crushed by my careless tread, would have been as welcome a sight to me as a blade of grass or a spring of water in some sandy desert. The sound of a light foot and rustling dress, and low, soft voice, would have been the sweetest music in my ears. If a young fellow of eight-and-twenty, with an excellent appetite and in good health, could be said to pine, I was pining for the pretty, fondling woman's ways which had quite vanished out of my life.

At times my thoughts dwelt upon my semi-engagement to Julia. As soon as I could dethrone the image of Olivia from its pre-eminence in my heart, she was willing to welcome me back again—a prodigal suitor, who had spent all his living in a far country. We corresponded regularly and frequently, and Julia's letters were always good, sensible, and affectionate. If our marriage, and all the sequel to it, could have been conducted by epistles, nothing could have been more satisfactory. But I felt a little doubtful about the termination of this Platonic friendship, with its half-betrothal. It did not appear to me that Olivia's image was fading in the slightest degree; no, though I knew her to be married, though I was ignorant where she was, though there was not the faintest hope within me that she would ever become mine.

During the quiet, solitary evenings, while Jack was away at some ball or concert, to which I had no heart to go, my thoughts were pretty equally divided between my lost mother and my lost Olivia—lost in such different ways! It would have grieved Julia in her very soul if she could have known how rarely, in comparison, I thought of her.

Yet, on the whole, there was a certain sweetness in feeling myself not altogether cut off from womanly love and sympathy. There was a home always open to me—a home, and a wife devotedly attached to me, whenever I chose to claim them. That was not unpleasant as a prospect. As soon as this low fever of the spirit was over, there was a convalescent hospital to go to, where it might recover its original tone and vigor. At present the fever had too firm and strong a hold for me to pronounce myself convalescent; but if I were to believe all that sages had said, there would come a time when I should rejoice over my own recovery.

Early in the spring I received a letter from Julia, desiring me to look out for apartments, somewhere in my neighborhood, for herself, and Johanna and Captain Carey. They were coming to London to spend two or three months of the season. I had not had any task so agreeable since I left Guernsey. Jack was hospitably anxious for them to come to our own house, but I knew they would not listen to such a proposal. I found some suitable rooms for them, however, in Hanover Street, where I could be with them at any time in five minutes.

On the appointed day I met them at Waterloo Station, and installed them in their new apartments.

It struck me that, notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, Julia was looking better and happier than I had seen her look for a long time. Her black dress suited her, and gave her a style which she never had in colors. Her complexion looked dark, but not sallow; and her brown hair was certainly more becomingly arranged. Her appearance was that of a well-bred, cultivated, almost elegant woman, of whom no man need be ashamed. Johanna was simply herself, without the least perceptible change. But Captain Carey again looked ten years younger, and was evidently taking pains with his appearance. That suit of his had never been made in Guernsey; it must have come out of a London establishment. His hair was not so gray, and his face was less hypochondriac. He assured me that his health had been wonderfully good all the winter. I was more than satisfied, I was proud of all my friends.

"We want you to come and have a long talk with us to-morrow," said Johanna; "it is too late to-night. We shall be busy shopping in the morning, but can you come in the evening?"

"Oh, yes," I answered; "I am at leisure most evenings, and I count upon spending them with you. I can escort you to as many places of amusement as you wish to visit."

"To-morrow, then," she said, "we shall take tea at eight o'clock."

I bade them good-night with a lighter heart than I had felt for a long while. I held Julia's hand the longest, looking into her face earnestly, till it flushed and glowed a little under my scrutiny.

"True heart!" I said to myself, "true and constant! and I have nothing, and shall have nothing, to offer it but the ashes of a dead passion. Would to Heaven," I thought as I paced along Brook Street, "I had never been fated to see Olivia!"

I was punctual to my time the next day. The dull, stiff drawing-room was already invested with those tokens of feminine occupancy which I missed so greatly in our much handsomer house. There were flowers blooming in the centre of the tea-table, and little knick-knacks lay strewed about. Julia's work-basket stood on a little stand near the window. There was the rustle and movement of their dresses, the noiseless footsteps, the subdued voices caressing my ear. I sat among them quiet and silent, but revelling in this partial return of olden times. When Julia poured out my tea, and passed it to me with her white hand, I felt inclined to kiss her jewelled fingers. If Captain Carey had not been present I think I should have done so.

We lingered over the pleasant meal as if time were made expressly for that purpose, instead of hurrying over it, as Jack and I were wont to do. At the close Captain Carey announced that he was about to leave us alone together for an hour or two. I went down to the door with him, for he had made me a mysterious signal to follow him. In the hall he laid his hand upon my shoulder, and whispered a few incomprehensible sentences into my ear.

"Don't think any thing of me, my boy. Don't sacrifice yourself for me. I'm an old fellow compared to you, though I'm not fifty yet; everybody in Guernsey knows that. So put me out of the question, Martin. 'There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.' That I know quite well, my dear fellow."

He was gone before I could ask for an explanation, and I saw him tearing off toward Regent Street. I returned to the drawing-room, pondering over his words. Johanna and Julia were sitting side by side on a sofa, in the darkest corner of the room—though the light was by no means brilliant anywhere, for the three gas-jets were set in such a manner as not to turn on much gas.

"Come here, Martin," said Johanna; "we wish to consult you on a subject of great importance to us all."

I drew up a chair opposite to them, and sat down, much as if it was about to be a medical consultation. I felt almost as if I must feel somebody's pulse, and look at somebody's tongue.

"It is nearly eight months since your poor dear mother died," remarked Johanna.

Eight months! Yes; and no one knew what those eight months had been to me—how desolate! how empty!

"You recollect," continued Johanna, "how her heart was set on your marriage with Julia, and the promise you both made to her on her death-bed?"

"Yes," I answered, bending forward and pressing Julia's hand, "I remember every word."

There was a minute's silence after this; and I waited in some wonder as to what this prelude was leading to.

"Martin," asked Johanna, in a solemn tone, "are you forgetting Olivia?"

"No," I said, dropping Julia's hand as the image of Olivia flashed across me reproachfully, "not at all. What would you have me say? She is as dear to me at this moment as she ever was."

"I thought you would say so," she replied; "I did not think yours was a love that would quickly pass away, if it ever does. There are men who can love with the constancy of a woman. Do you know any thing of her?"

"Nothing!" I said, despondently; "I have no clew as to where she may be now."

"Nor has Tardif," she continued; "my brother and I went across to Sark last week to ask him."

"That was very good of you," I interrupted.

"It was partly for our own sakes," she said, blushing faintly. "Martin, Tardif says that if you have once loved Olivia, it is once for all. You would never conquer it. Do you think that this is true? Be candid with us."

"Yes," I answered, "it is true. I could never love again as I love Olivia."

"Then, my dear Martin," said Johanna, very softly, "do you wish to keep Julia to her promise?"

I started violently. What! Did Julia wish to be released from that semi-engagement, and be free? Was it possible that any one else coveted my place in her affections, and in the new house which we had fitted up for ourselves? I felt like the dog in the manger. It seemed an unheard-of encroachment for any person to come between my cousin Julia and me.

"Do you ask me to set you free from your promise, Julia?" I asked, somewhat sternly.

"Why, Martin," she said, averting her face from me, "you know I should never consent to marry you, with the idea of your caring most for that girl. No, I could never do that. If I believed you would ever think of me as you used to do before you saw her, well, I would keep true to you. But is there any hope of that?"

"Let us be frank with one another," I answered; "tell me, is there any one else whom you would marry if I release you from this promise, which was only given, perhaps, to soothe my mothers last hours?"

Julia hung her head, and did not speak. Her lips trembled. I saw her take Johanna's hand and squeeze it, as if to urge her to answer the question.

"Martin," said Johanna, "your happiness is dear to every one of us. If we had believed there was any hope of your learning to love Julia as she deserves, and as a man ought to love his wife, not a word of this would have been spoken. But we all feel there is no such hope. Only say there is, and we will not utter another word."

"No," I said, "you must tell me all now. I cannot let the question rest here. Is there any one else whom Julia would marry if she felt quite free?"

"Yes," answered Johanna, while Julia hid her face in her hands, "she would marry my brother."

Captain Carey! I fairly gasped for breath. Such an idea had never once occurred to me; though I knew she had been spending most of her time with the Careys at the Vale. Captain Carey to marry! and to marry Julia! To go and live in our house! I was struck dumb, and fancied that I had heard wrongly. All the pleasant, distant vision of a possible marriage with Julia, when my passion had died out, and I could be content in my affection and esteem for her—all this vanished away, and left my whole future a blank. If Julia wished for revenge—and when is not revenge sweet to a jilted woman?—she had it now. I was as crestfallen, as amazed, almost as miserable, as she had been. Yet I had no one to blame, as she had. How could I blame her for preferring Captain Carey's love to my réchauffé affections?

"Julia," I said, after a long silence, and speaking as calmly as I could, "do you love Captain Carey?"

"That is not a fair question to ask," answered Johanna. "We have not been treacherous to you. I scarcely know how it has all come about. But my brother has never asked Julia if she loves him; for we wished to see you first, and hear how you felt about Olivia. You say you shall never love again as you love her. Set Julia free then, quite free, to accept my brother or reject him. Be generous, be yourself, Martin."

"I will," I said.—"My dear Julia, you are as free as air from all obligation to me. You have been very good and very true to me. If Captain Carey is as good and true to you, as I believe he will be, you will be a very happy woman—happier than you would ever be with me."

"And you will not make yourself unhappy about it?" asked Julia, looking up.

"No," I answered, cheerfully, "I shall be a merry old bachelor, and visit you and Captain Carey, when we are all old folks. Never mind me, Julia; I never was good enough for you. I shall be very glad to know that you are happy."

Yet when I found myself in the street—for I made my escape as soon as I could get away from them—I felt as if every thing worth living for were slipping away from me. My mother and Olivia were gone, and here was Julia forsaking me. I did not grudge her her new happiness. There was neither jealousy nor envy in my feelings toward my supplanter. But in some way I felt that I had lost a great deal since I entered their drawing-room two hours ago.