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 _rechauffe_ 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.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

OLIVIA'S HUSBAND.

I did not go straight home to our dull, gloomy, bachelor dwelling-place; for I was not in the mood for an hour's soliloquy. Jack and I had undertaken between us the charge of the patients belonging to a friend of ours, who had been called out of town for a few days. I was passing by the house, chewing the bitter cud of my reflections, and, recalling this, I turned in to see if any messages were waiting there for us.

Lowry's footman told me a person had been with an urgent request that he would go as soon as possible to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I did not know the street, or what sort of a locality it was in.

"What kind of a person called?" I asked.

"A woman, sir; not a lady. On foot--poorly dressed. She's been here before, and Dr. Lowry has visited the case twice. No. 19 Bellringer Street. Perhaps you will find him in the case-book, sir."

I went in to consult the case-book. Half a dozen words contained the diagnosis. It was the same disease, in an incipient form, of which my poor mother died. I resolved to go and see this sufferer at once, late as the hour was.

"Did the person expect some one to go to-night?" I asked, as I passed through the hall.

"I couldn't promise her that, sir," was the answer. "I did say I'd send on the message to you, and I was just coming with it, sir. She said she'd sit up till twelve o'clock."