I was punctual to my time the next day.  The dull, stiff drawing-room was already invested with those tokens of feminine occupancy which I missed so greatly in our much handsomer house.  There were flowers blooming in the centre of the tea-table, and little knick-knacks lay strewed about.  Julia’s work-basket stood on a little stand near the window.  There was the rustle and movement of their dresses, the noiseless footsteps, the subdued voices caressing my ear.  I sat among them quiet and silent, but revelling in this partial return of olden times.  When Julia poured out my tea, and passed it to me with her white hand, I felt inclined to kiss her jewelled fingers.  If Captain Carey had not been present I think I should have done so.

We lingered over the pleasant meal as if time were made expressly for that purpose, instead of hurrying over it, as Jack and I were wont to do.  At the close Captain Carey announced that he was about to leave us alone together for an hour or two.  I went down to the door with him, for he had made me a mysterious signal to follow him.  In the hall he laid his hand upon my shoulder, and whispered a few incomprehensible sentences into my ear.

“Don’t think any thing of me, my boy.  Don’t sacrifice yourself for me.  I’m an old fellow compared to you, though I’m not fifty yet; everybody in Guernsey knows that.  So put me out of the question, Martin.  ’There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.’  That I know quite well, my dear fellow.”

He was gone before I could ask for an explanation, and I saw him tearing off toward Regent Street.  I returned to the drawing-room, pondering over his words.  Johanna and Julia were sitting side by side on a sofa, in the darkest corner of the room—­though the light was by no means brilliant anywhere, for the three gas-jets were set in such a manner as not to turn on much gas.

“Come here, Martin,” said Johanna; “we wish to consult you on a subject of great importance to us all.”

I drew up a chair opposite to them, and sat down, much as if it was about to be a medical consultation.  I felt almost as if I must feel somebody’s pulse, and look at somebody’s tongue.

“It is nearly eight months since your poor dear mother died,” remarked Johanna.

Eight months!  Yes; and no one knew what those eight months had been to me—­how desolate! how empty!

“You recollect,” continued Johanna, “how her heart was set on your marriage with Julia, and the promise you both made to her on her death-bed?”

“Yes,” I answered, bending forward and pressing Julia’s hand, “I remember every word.”

There was a minute’s silence after this; and I waited in some wonder as to what this prelude was leading to.

“Martin,” asked Johanna, in a solemn tone, “are you forgetting Olivia?”

“No,” I said, dropping Julia’s hand as the image of Olivia flashed across me reproachfully, “not at all.  What would you have me say?  She is as dear to me at this moment as she ever was.”