ge as me, but she is forty
if she is a day. The simpletons! I did not know what to say, or how to
look. I could not get out of the room again as if I had not seen, for I
cried 'Oh!' at the first sight of them. Then I stood staring at them;
but I think they felt as uncomfortable as I did."

"What did they say?" I asked, sternly.

"Oh, he came up to me quite in his dramatic way, you know, trying to
carry it off by looking grand and majestic; and he was going to take my
hand and lead me to her, but I would not stir a step. 'My love,' he
said, 'I am about to steal your friend from you.' 'She is no friend of
mine,' I said, 'if she is going to be what all this intimates, I
suppose. I will never speak to her or you again, Dr. Dobree.' Upon that
he began to weep, and protest, and declaim, while she sat still and
glared at me. I never thought her eyes could look like that. 'When do
you mean to be married?' I asked, for he made no secret of his intention
to make her his wife. 'What is the good of waiting?' he said, 'My home
is miserable with no woman in it.' 'Uncle,' I said, 'if you will promise
me to give up the idea of a second marriage, which is ridiculous at your
age, I will come back to you, in spite of all the awkwardness of my
position with regard to Martin. For my aunt's sake I will come back.'
Even an arrangement like this would be better than his marriage with
that woman--don't you think so?"

"A hundred times better," I said, warmly. "It was very good of you,
Julia. But he would not agree to that, would he?"

"He wouldn't hear of it. He swore that Kate was as dear to him as ever
my poor aunt was. He vowed he could not live without her and her
companionship. He maintained that his age did not make it ridiculous.
Kate hid her brazen face in her hands, and sobbed aloud.

"That made him ten times worse an idiot. He knelt down before her, and
implored her to look at him. I reminded him how all the island would
rise against him--worse than it did against you, Martin--and he declared
he did not care a fig for the island! I asked him how he would face the
Careys, and the Brocks, and the De Saumarez, and all the rest of them,
and he snapped his fingers at them all. Oh, he must be going out of his
mind."

I shook my head. Knowing him as thoroughly as a long and close study
could help me to know any man, I was less surprised than Julia, who had
only seen him from a woman's point of view, and had always been lenient
to his