ght a letter from Julia just now," she said,
taking it from her pocket; "he said there was no answer."

Her eyelids were still red from weeping, and her voice faltered as if
she might break out into sobs any moment. I took the letter from her,
but I did not open it.

"You want to be alone to read it?" she said. "O Martin! if you can
change your mind, and save us all from this trouble, do it, for my
sake?"

"If I can I will," I answered; "but every thing is very hard upon me,
mother."

She could not guess how hard, and, if I could help it, she should never
know. Now I was fully awake, the enormity of my father's dishonesty and
his extreme egotism weighed heavily upon me. I could not view his
conduct in a fairer light than I had done in my amazement the night
before. It grew blacker as I dwelt upon it. And now he was off to
Jersey, shirking the disagreeable consequences of his own delinquency. I
knew how he would spend his time there. Jersey is no retreat for the
penitent.

As soon as my mother was gone I opened Julia's letter. It began:

"MY DEAR MARTIN: I know all now. Johanna has told me. When you
spoke to me so hurriedly and unexpectedly, this afternoon, I
could not bear to hear another word. But now I am calm, and I
can think it all over quite quietly.

"It is an infatuation, Martin. Johanna says so as well as I,
and she is never wrong. It is a sheer impossibility that you,
in your sober senses, should love a strange person, whose very
name you do not know, better than you do me, your cousin, your
sister, your _fiancee_, whom you have known all your life, and
loved. I am quite sure of that, with a very true affection.

"It vexes me to write about that person in any connection with
yourself. Emma spoke of her in her last letter from Sark; not
at all in reference to you, however. She is so completely of a
lower class, that it would never enter Emma's head that you
could see any thing in her. She said there was a rumor afloat
that Tardif was about to marry the girl you had been
attending, and that everybody in the island regretted it. She
said it would be a _mesalliance_ for him, Tardif! What then
would it be for you, a Dobree? No; it is a delusion, an
infatuation, which will quickly pass away. I cannot believe
you are so weak as to be taken in by mere prettiness without
character; and this person--