ll stops. He said something to which silence was the best
retort. I did not stay long with him, for the train by which I was to
return passed through the village in less than an hour from my arrival.
As I walked down the little street I turned round once by a sudden
impulse, and saw Foster gazing after me with his pale face and
glittering eyes. Ho waved his hand in farewell to me, and that was the
last I saw of him.

Some days after this I crossed in the mail-steamer to Guernsey, on a
Monday night, as the wedding was to take place at an early hour on
Wednesday morning, in time for Captain Carey and Julia to catch the boat
to England. The old gray town, built street above street on the rock
facing the sea, rose before my eyes, bathed in the morning sunlight. But
there was no home in it for me now. The old familiar house in the Grange
Road was already occupied by strangers. I did not even know where I was
to go. I did not like the idea of staying under Julia's roof, where
every thing would remind me of that short spell of happiness in my
mother's life, when she was preparing it for my future home. Luckily,
before the steamer touched the pier, I caught sight of Captain Carey's
welcome face looking out for my appearance. He stood at the end of the
gangway, as I crossed over it with my portmanteau.

"Come along, Martin," hee said; "you are to go with me to the Vale, as
my groomsman, you know. Are all the people staring at us, do you think?
I daren't look round. Just look about you for me, my boy."

"They are staring awfully," I answered, "and there are scores of them
waiting to shake hands with us."

"Oh, they must not!" he said, earnestly; "look as if you did not see
them, Martin. That's the worst of getting married; yet most of them are
married themselves, and ought to know better. There's the dog-cart
waiting for us a few yards off, if we could only get to it. I have kept
my face seaward ever since I came on the pier, with my collar turned up,
and my hat over my eyes. Are you sure they see who we are?"

"Sure!" I cried, "why, there's Carey Dobree, and Dobree Carey, and Brock
de Jersey, and De Jersey le Cocq, and scores of others. They know us as
well as their own brothers. We shall have to shake hands with every one
of them."

"Why didn't you come in disguise?" asked Captain Carey, reproachfully;
but before I could answer I was seized upon by the nearest of our
cousins, and we were whirled into a very vortex of gree