“I’d bet a hundred to one you know her,” she said, laughing and showing all her white teeth.  “A girl like her couldn’t go about a little poky place like this without all the young men knowing her.  Perhaps she left the island in the spring.  I have asked at all the drapers’ shops, but nobody recollects her.  I’ve very good news for her if I could find her—­a slim, middle-sized girl, with a clear, fair skin, and gray eyes, and hair of a bright brown.  Stay, I can show you her photograph.”

She put into my hands an exquisite portrait of Olivia, taken in Florence.  There was an expression of quiet mournfulness in the face, which touched me to the core of my heart.  I could not put it down and speak indifferently about it.  My heart beat wildly, and I felt tempted to run off with the treasure and return no more to this woman.

“Ah! you recognize her!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

“I never saw such a person in Guernsey,” I answered, looking steadily into her face.  A sullen and gloomy expression came across it, and she snatched the portrait out of my hand.

“You want to keep it a secret,” she said, “but I defy you to do it.  I am come here to find her, and find her I will.  She hasn’t drowned herself, and the earth hasn’t swallowed her up.  I’ve traced her as far as here, and that I tell you.  She crossed in the Southampton boat one dreadfully stormy night last October—­the only lady passenger—­and the stewardess recollects her well.  She landed here.  You must know something about her.”

“I assure you I never saw that girl here,” I replied, evasively.  “What inquiries have you made after her?”

“I’ve inquired here, and there, and everywhere,” she said.  “I’ve done nothing else ever since I came.  It is of great importance to her, as well as to me, that I should find her.  It’s a very anxious thing when a girl like that disappears and is never heard of again, all because she has a little difference with her friends.  If you could help me to find her you would do her 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.”