tings and
congratulations. It was fully a quarter of an hour before we were
allowed to drive off in the dog-cart; and Captain Carey was almost
breathless with exhaustion.

"They are good fellows," he said, after a time, "very good fellows, but
it is trying, isn't it, Martin? It is as if no man was ever married
before; though they have gone through it themselves, and ought to know
how one feels. Now you take it quietly, my boy, and you do not know how
deeply I feel obliged to you."

There was some reason for me to take it quietly. I could not help
thinking how nearly I had been myself in Captain Carey's position. I
knew that Julia and I would have led a tranquil, matter-of-fact,
pleasant enough life together, but for the unlucky fate that had carried
me across to Sark to fall in love with Olivia. There was something
enviable in the tranquil prosperity I had forfeited. Guernsey was the
dearest spot on earth to me, yet I was practically banished from it.
Julia was, beyond all doubt, the woman I loved most, next to Olivia, but
she was lost to me. There was no hope for me on the other hand. Foster
was well again, and by my means. Probably I might secure peace and
comparative freedom for Olivia, but that was all. She could never be
more to me than she was now. My only prospect was that of a dreary
bachelorhood; and Captain Carey's bashful exultation made the future
seem less tolerable to me.

I felt it more still when, after dinner in the cool of the summer
evening, we drove lack into town to see Julia for the last time before
we met in church the next morning. There was an air of glad excitement
pervading the house. Friends were running in, with gifts and pleasant
words of congratulation. Julia herself had a peculiar modest stateliness
and frank dignity, which suited her well. She was happy and content, and
her face glowed. Captain Carey's manner was one of tender chivalry,
somewhat old-fashioned. I found it a hard thing to "look at happiness
through another man's eyes."

I drove Captain Carey and Johanna home along the low, level shore which
I had so often traversed with my heart full of Olivia. It was dusk, the
dusk of a summer's night; but the sea was luminous, and Sark lay upon it
a bank of silent darkness, sleeping to the music of the waves. A strong
yearning came over me, a longing to know immediately the fate of my
Olivia. Would to Heaven she could return to Sark, and be cradled there
in its silent and isolated d