his ruin. I think, for my sake, he
ought to give her up."

"So he ought, and so he will, my love," answered my father. "When he
thinks of all we owe to you, he will promise you that."

I pondered over what our family owed to Julia for some minutes. It was
truly a very great debt. Though I had brought her into perhaps the most
painful position a woman could be placed in, she was generously
sacrificing her just resentment and revenge against my father's
dishonesty, in order to secure our name from blot.

On the other hand, I had no reason to suppose Olivia loved me, and I
should do her no wrong. I felt that, whatever it might cost me, I must
consent to Julia's stipulation.

"It is the hardest thing you could ask me," I said, "but I will give her
up. On one condition, however; for I must not leave her without friends.
I shall tell Tardif, if he ever needs help for Olivia, he must apply to
me through my mother."

"There could be no harm in that," observed my father.

"How soon shall I leave Guernsey?" I asked.

"He cannot go until you are well again, uncle," she answered. "I will
stay here to nurse you, and Martin must take care of your patients. We
will send him word a day or two before we return, and I should like him
to be gone before we reach home."

That was my sentence of banishment. She had only addressed me once
during the conversation. It was curious to see how there was no
resentment in her manner toward my father, who had systematically robbed
her, while she treated me with profound wrath and bitterness.

She allowed him to hold her hand and stroke her hair; she would not have
suffered me to approach her. No doubt it was harder for her to give up a
lover than to lose the whole of her property.

She left us, to make the necessary arrangements for staying with my
father, whose illness appeared to have lost suddenly its worst symptoms.
As soon as she was gone he regarded me with a look half angry, half
contemptuous.

"What a fool you are!" he said. "You have no tact whatever in the
management of women. Julia would fly back to you, if you only held up
your finger."

"I have no wish to hold up my finger to her," I answered. "I don't think
life with her would be so highly desirable."

"You thought so a few weeks ago," he said, "and you'll be a pauper
without her."

"I was not going to marry her for her money," I replied. "A few weeks
ago I cared more for her than for any other woman, except my mother,