It was like the sharp prick of a poniard, which presently you knew must pierce your heart.

The one moment of rapture had fled.  The paradise, that had been about me for an instant, with no hint of pain, faded out of my sight.  But Olivia remained, and her face grew sad, and her voice low and sorrowful, as she leaned forward to speak to me.

“I have been so grieved for you,” she said.  “Your mother came to see me once, and promised to be my friend.  Is it true?  Is she so very ill?” “Quite true,” I answered, in a choking voice.

We said no more for some minutes, and the splash of the oars in the water was the only sound.  Olivia’s air continued sad, and her eyes were downcast, as if she shrank from looking me in the face.

“Pardon me, doctor,” said Tardif in our own dialect, which Olivia could not understand, “I have made you sorry when you were having a little gladness.  Is your mother very ill?”

“There is no hope, Tardif,” I answered, looking round at his honest and handsome face, full of concern for me.

“May I speak to you as an old friend?” he asked.  “You love mam’zelle, and you are come to tell her so?”

“What makes you think that?” I said.

“I see it in your face,” he answered, lowering his voice, though he knew Olivia could not tell what we were saying.  “Your marriage with mademoiselle your cousin was broken off—­why?  Do you suppose I did not guess?  I knew it from the first-week you stayed with us.  Nobody could see mam’zelle as we see her, without loving her.”

“The Sark folks say you are in love with her yourself, Tardif,” I said, almost against my will, and certainly without any intention beforehand of giving expression to such a rumor.

His lips contracted and his face saddened, but he met my eyes frankly.

“It is true,” he answered; “but what then?  If it had only pleased God to make me like you, or that she should be of my class, I would have done my utmost to win her.  But that is impossible!  See, I am nothing else than a servant in her eyes.  I do not know how to be any thing else, and I am content.  She is as far above my reach as one of the white clouds up yonder.  To think of myself as any thing but her servant would be irreligious.”

“You are a good fellow, Tardif,” I exclaimed.

“God is the judge, of that,” he said, with a sigh.  “Mam’zelle thinks of me only as her servant.  ‘My good Tardif, do this, or do that.’  I like it.  I do not know any happier moment than when I hold her little boots in my hand and brush them.  You see she is as helpless and tender as my little wife was; but she is very much higher than my poor little wife.  Yes, I love her as I love the blue sky, and the white clouds and the stars shining in the night.  But it will be quite different between her and you.”

“I hope so,” I thought to myself.

“You do not feel like a servant,” he continued, his oars dipping a little too deeply and setting the boat a-rocking.  “By-and-by, when you are married, she will look up to you and obey you.  I do not understand altogether why the good God has made this difference between us two; but I see it and feel it.  It would be fitting for you to be her husband; it would be a shame to her to become my wife.”