sundry warnings out-of-doors which foretold tempest. I met cold
glances and sharp inquiries from old friends, among whom some rumors of
our separation were floating. There was sufficient to justify suspicion:
my father's absence, Julia's prolonged sojourn with the Careys at the
Vale, and the postponement of my voyage to England. I began to fancy
that even the women-servants flouted at me.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

DEAD TO HONOR.

The mail from Jersey on Monday morning brought us no letter from my
father. But during the afternoon, as I was passing along the Canichers,
I came suddenly upon Captain Carey and Julia, who wore a thick veil over
her face. The Canichers is a very narrow, winding street, where no
conveyances are allowed to run, and all of us had chosen it in
preference to the broad road along the quay, where we were liable to
meet many acquaintances. There was no escape for any of us. An
enormously high, strong wall, such as abound in St. Peter-Port, was on
one side of us, and some locked-up stables on the other. Julia turned
away her head, and appeared absorbed in the contemplation of a very
small placard, which did not cover one stone of the wall, though it was
the only one there. I shook hands with Captain Carey, who regarded us
with a comical expression of distress, and waited to see if she would
recognize me; but she did not.

"Julia has had a letter from your father," he said.

"Yes?" I replied, in a tone of inquiry.

"Or rather from Dr. Collas," he pursued. "Prepare yourself for bad news,
Martin. Your father is very ill; dangerously so, he thinks."

The news did not startle me. I had been long aware that my father was
one of those medical men who are excessively nervous about their own
health, and are astonished that so delicate and complicated an
organization as the human frame should ever survive for sixty years the
ills it is exposed to. But at this time it was possible that distress of
mind and anxiety for the future might have made him really ill. There
was no chance of crossing to Jersey before the next morning.

"He wished Dr. Collas to write to Julia, so as not to alarm your
mother," continued Captain Carey, as I stood silent.

"I will go to-morrow," I said; "but we must not frighten my mother if we
can help it."

"Dr. Dobree begs that you will go," he answered--"you and Julia."

"Julia!" I exclaimed. "Oh, impossible!"

"I don't see that it is impossible," said Julia, spea