upon."

"Get the yacht ship-shape, then," I said; "I think I can manage it on
Thursday."

I did not say at home whither I was bound on Thursday. I informed them
merely that Captain Carey and I were going out in his yacht for a few
hours. This was simply to prevent them from worrying themselves.

It was as delicious a spring morning as ever I remember. As I rode along
the flat shore between St. Peter-Port and St. Sampson's, the fresh air
from the sea played about my face, as if to drive dull care away, and
make me as buoyant and debonair as itself. The little waves were
glittering and dancing in the sunshine, and chiming with the merry
carols of the larks, outsinging one another in the blue sky overhead.
The numerous wind-mills, like children's toys, which were pumping water
out of the stone-quarries, whirled and spun busily in the brisk breeze.
Every person I met saluted me with a blithe and cheery greeting. My dull
spirits had been blown far away before I set foot on the deck of Captain
Carey's little yacht.

The run over was all that we could wish. The cockle-shell of a boat,
belonging to the yacht, bore me to the foot of the ladder hanging down
the rock at Havre Gosselin. A very few minutes took me to the top of the
cliff, and there lay the little thatched, nest-like home of my patient.
I hastened forward eagerly.

The place seemed very solitary and deserted; and a sudden fear came
across me. Was it possible that she should be dead? It was possible. I
had left her six days ago only just over a terrible crisis. There might
have been a relapse, a failure of vital force. I might be come to find
those shining eyes hid beneath their lids forever, and the pale,
suffering face motionless in death.

Certainly the rhythmic motion of my heart was disturbed. I felt it
contract painfully, and its beating suspended for a moment or two. The
farmstead was intensely quiet, with the ominous stillness of death. All
the windows were shrouded with their check curtains. There was no
clatter of Suzanne's wooden clogs about the fold or the kitchen. If it
had been Sunday, this supernatural silence would have been easily
accounted for; but it was Thursday. I scarcely dared go on and learn the
cause of it.

All silent still as I crossed the stony causeway of the yard. Not a face
looked out from door or window. Mam'zelle's casement stood a little way
open, and the breeze played with the curtains, fluttering them like
banners in a pro