"I have no friends," she answered, sorrowfully. "If I had any, do you suppose I should be here?"

"I am one," I said, "and Tardif is another."

"Ah, new friends," she replied; "but I mean real old friends who have known you all your life, like your mother, Dr. Martin, or your cousin Julia. I want somebody to go to who knows all about me, and say to them, after telling them every thing, keeping nothing back at all, 'Have I done right? What else ought I to have done?' No new friend could answer questions like those."

Was there any reason I could bring forward to increase her confidence in me? I thought there was, and her friendlessness and helplessness touched me to the core of my heart. Yet it was with an indefinable reluctance that I brought forward my argument.

"Miss Ollivier," I said, "I have no claim of old acquaintance or friendship, yet it is possible I might answer those questions, if you could prevail upon yourself to tell me the circumstances of your former life. In a few weeks I shall be in a position to show you more friendship than I can do now. I shall have a home of my own, and a wife who will be your friend more fittingly, perhaps, than myself."

"I knew it," she answered, half shyly. "Tardif told me you were going to marry your cousin Julia."

Just then we heard the fold-yard gate swing to behind some one who was coming to the house.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

ONE IN A THOUSAND.

I had altogether forgotten that Captain Carey's yacht was waiting for me off the little bay below; and I sprang quickly to the door in the dread that he had followed me.

It was an immense relief to see only Tardif's tall figure bending under his creel and nets, and crossing the yard slowly. I hailed him and he quickened his pace, his honest features lighting up at the sight of me.

"How do you find mam'zelle, doctor?" were his first eager words.

"All right," I said; "going on famously. Sark is enough to cure any one and any thing of itself, Tardif. There is no air like it. I should not mind being a little ill here myself."

"Captain Carey is impatient to be gone," he continued. "He sent word by me that you might be visiting every house in the island, you had been away so long."

"Not so very long," I said, testily; "but I will just run in and say good-by, and then I want you to walk with me to the cliff."

I turned back for a last look and a last word. No chance of learning her secret now. The picture was as perfect as when I had had the first glimpse of it, only her face had grown, if possible, more charming after my renewed scrutiny of it.

There are faces that grow upon you the longer and the oftener you look upon them; faces that seem to have a veil over them, which melts away like the thin, fine mist of the morning upon the cliffs, until they flash out in their full color and beauty. The last glance was eminently satisfactory, and so was the last word.

"Shall I send you the hair?" asked Miss Ollivier, returning practically to a matter of business.

"To be sure," I answered. "I shall dispose of it to advantage, but I have not time to wait for it now."

"And may I write a letter to you?"

"Yes," was my reply: I was too pleased to express myself more eloquently.

"Good-by," she said; "you are a very good doctor to me."

"And friend?" I added.

"And friend," she repeated.

That was the last word, for I was compelled to hurry away. Tardif accompanied me to the cliff, and I took the opportunity to tell him as pleasantly as I could the extravagant charge his mother had made upon her lodger, and the girl's anxiety about the future. A more grieved look never came across a man's face.

"Dr. Martin," he said, "I would have cut off my hand rather than it had been so. Poor little mam'zelle! Poor old mother! She is growing old, sir, and old people are greedy. The fall of the year is dark and cold, and gives nothing, but takes away all it can, and hoards it for the young new spring that is to follow. It seems almost the nature of old age. Poor old mother! I am very grieved for her. And I am troubled, troubled about mam'zelle. To think she has been fretting all the winter about this, when I was trying to find out how to cheer her! Only five pounds left, poor little soul! Why! all I have is at her service. It is enough to have her only in the house, with her pretty ways and sweet voice. I'll put it all right with mam'zelle, sir, and with my poor old mother too. I am very sorry for _her_."

"Miss Ollivier has been asking me to sell her hair," I said.

"No, no," he answered hastily, "not a single hair! I cannot say yes to that. The pretty bright curls! If anybody is to buy them, I will. Yes, doctor! that is famous. She wishes you to sell her hair? Very good; I will buy it; it must be mine. I have more money than you think, perhaps.

I will buy mam'zelle's pretty curls; and she shall have the money, and then there will be more than five pounds in her little purse. Tell me how much they will be. Ten pounds? Fifteen? Twenty?"

"Nonsense, Tardif!" I answered; "keep one of them, if you like; but I must have the rest. We will settle it between us."

"No, doctor," he said; "your cousin will not like that. You are going to be married soon; it would not do for you to keep mam'zelle's curls."

It was said with so much simplicity and good-heartedness that I felt ashamed of a rising feeling of resentment, and parted with him cordially. In a few minutes afterward I was on board the yacht, and laughing at Captain Carey's reproaches. Tardif was still visible on the edge of the cliff, watching our departure.

"That is as good a fellow as ever breathed," said Captain Carey, waving his cap to him.

"I know it better than you do," I replied.

"And how is the young woman?" he asked.

"Going on as well as a broken arm and a sprained ankle can do," I answered.

"You will want to come again, Martin," he said; "when are we to have another day?"

"Well, I shall hear how she is every now and then," I answered; "it takes too long a time to come more often than is necessary. But you will bring me if it is necessary?"

"With all my heart," said Captain Carey.

For the next few days I waited with some impatience for Miss Ollivier's promised letter. It came at last, and I put it into my pocket to read when I was alone--why, I could scarcely have explained to myself.

"Dear Dr. Martin," it began, "I have no little commission to trouble you with. Tardif tells me it was quite a mistake, his mother taking a sovereign from me each week. She does not understand English money; and he says I have paid quite sufficient to stay with them a whole year longer without paying any more. I am quite content about that now. Tardif says, too, that he has a friend in Southampton who will buy my hair, and give more than anybody in Guernsey. So I need not trouble you about it, though I am sure you would have done it for me.

"I have not put my foot to the ground yet; but yesterday Tardif carried me all the way down to his boat, and took me out for a little sail under the beautiful cliffs, where we could look up and see all those strange carvings upon the rocks. I thought that perhaps there were real things written there that we should like to read. Sometimes in the sky there are fine faint lines across the blue which look like written sentences, if one could only make them out. Here they are on the rocks, but every tide washes them away, leaving fresh ones. Perhaps they are messages to me, answers to those questions that I cannot answer myself.

"Good-by, my good doctor. I am trying to do every thing you told me exactly; and I am getting well again fast. I do not believe I shall be lame; you are too clever for that. Your patient,

"OLIVIA."

Olivia! I looked at the word again to make sure of it. Then it was not her surname that was Ollivier, and I was still ignorant of that. I saw in a moment how the mistake had arisen, and how innocent she was of any deception in the matter. She would tell Tardif that her name was Olivia, and he thought only of the Olliviers he knew. It was a mistake that had been of use in checking curiosity, and I did not feel bound to put it right. My mother and Julia appeared to have forgotten my patient in Sark altogether.

Olivia! I thought it a very pretty name, and repeated it to myself with its abbreviations, Olive, Livy. It was difficult to abbreviate Julia; Ju I had called her in my rudest school-boy days. I wondered how high Olivia would stand beside me; for I had never seen her on her feet.

Julia was not two inches shorter than myself; a tall, stiff figure, neither slender enough to be lissome, nor well-proportioned enough to be majestic. But she was very good, and her price was far above rubies.

According to the wise man, it was a difficult task to find a virtuous woman.

It was a quiet time in the afternoon, and in order to verify my recollection of the wise man's saying, which was a little cloudy in my memory, I searched through Julia's Bible for it. I came across a passage which made me pause and consider. "Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not; one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found."