“My mother loves you very dearly, Julia,” I ventured to say, after a long pause, which she did not seem inclined to break.  I had no time to lose, lest Kate Daltrey should come in, and it was a very difficult subject to approach.

“Not more than I love her,” she said, warmly.  “Aunt Dobree has been as good to me as any mother could have been.  I love her as dearly as my mother.  Have you seen her since I was with her this afternoon?”

“No.  I have just come from visiting a very curious patient, and have not been home yet.”

I hoped Julia would catch at the word curious, and make some inquiries which would open a way for me; but she seemed not to hear it, and another silence fell upon us both.  For the life of me I could not utter a syllable of what I had come to say.

“We were talking of you,” she said at length, in a harried and thick voice.  “Aunt is in great sorrow about you.  It preys upon her day and night that you will be dreadfully alone when she is gone, and—­and—­Martin, she wishes to know before she dies that the girl in Sark will become your wife.”

The word struck like a shot upon my ear and brain.  What! had Julia and my mother been arranging between them my happiness and Olivia’s safety that very afternoon?  Such generosity was incredible.  I could not believe I had heard aright.

“She has seen the girl,” continued Julia, in the same husky tone, which she could not compel to be clear and calm; “and she is convinced she is no adventuress.  Johanna says the same.  They tell me it is unreasonable and selfish in me to doom you to the dreadful loneliness I feel.  If Aunt Dobree asked me to pluck out my right eye just now, I could not refuse.  It is something like that, but I have promised to do it.  I release you from every promise you ever made to me, Martin.”

“Julia!” I cried, crossing to her and bending over her with more love and admiration than I had ever felt before; “this is very noble, very generous.”

“No,” she said, bursting into tears; “I am neither noble nor generous.  I do it because I cannot help myself, with aunt’s white face looking so imploringly at me.  I do not give you up willingly to that girl in Sark.  I hope I shall never see her or you for many, many years.  Aunt says you will have no chance of marrying her till you are settled in a practice somewhere; but you are free to ask her to be your wife.  Aunt wants you to have somebody to love you and care for you after she is gone, as I should have done.”

“But you are generous to consent to it,” I said again.

“So,” she answered, wiping her eyes, and lifting up her head; “I thought I was generous; I thought I was a Christian, but it is not easy to be a Christian when one is mortified, and humbled, and wounded.  I am a great disappointment to myself; quite as great as you are to me.  I fancied myself very superior to what I am.  I hope you may not be disappointed in that girl in Sark.”