r family a very great service."

"Why do you fix upon me?" I inquired. "Why did you not send for one of
the resident doctors? I left Guernsey some time ago."

"You were here last winter," she said; "and you're a young man, and
would notice her more."

"There are other young doctors in Guernsey," I remarked.

"Ah! but you've been in London," she answered, "and I know something of
Dr. Senior. When you are in a strange place you catch at any chance of
an acquaintance."

"Come, be candid with me," I said. "Did not Messrs. Scott and Brown send
you here?"

The suddenness of my question took her off her guard and startled her.
She hesitated, stammered, and finally denied it with more than natural
emphasis.

"I could take my oath I don't know any such persons," she answered. "I
don't know whom you mean, or what you mean. All I want is quite honest.
There is a fortune waiting for that poor girl, and I want to take her
back to those who love her, and are ready to forgive and forget every
thing. I feel sure you know something of her. But no body except me and
her other friends have any thing to do with it."

"Well," I said, rising to take my leave, "all the information I can give
you is, that I never saw such a person here, either last winter or
since. It is quite possible she went on to Jersey, or to Granville, when
the storm was over. That she did not stay in Guernsey, I am quite sure."

I went away in a fever of anxiety. The woman, who was certainly not a
lady, had inspired me with a repugnance that I could not describe. There
was an ingrain coarseness about her--a vulgarity excessively distasteful
to me as in any way connected with Olivia. The mystery which surrounded
her was made the deeper by it. Surely, this person could not be related
to Olivia! I tried to guess in what relationship to her she could
possibly stand. There was the indefinable delicacy and refinement of a
lady, altogether independent of her surroundings, so apparent in Olivia,
that I could not imagine her as connected by blood with this woman. Yet
why and how should such a person have any right to pursue her? I felt
more chafed than I had ever done about Olivia's secret.

I tried to satisfy myself with the reflection that I had put Tardif on
his guard, and that he would protect her. But that did not set my mind
at ease. I never knew a mother yet who believed that any other woman
could nurse her sick child as well as herself; and I could not be
per