“How soon?” I asked.

“To-morrow I will row you to Guernsey in time for the packet to England,” he answered.  Mon Dieu! how little I thought what I was mending my boat for!  Mam’zelle, is there nothing, nothing in the world I can do for you?”

“Nothing, Tardif,” I said, sorrowfully.

“Nothing!” he assented, dropping his head down upon his hands.  No, there was positively nothing he could do for me.  There was no person on the face of the earth who could help me.

“My poor Tardif,” I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, “I am a great trouble to you.”

“I cannot bear to let you go in this way,” he replied, without looking up.  “If it had been to marry Dr. Martin—­why, then—­but you have to go alone, poor little child!”

“Yes,” I said, “alone.”

After that we were both silent for some minutes.  We could hear the peaceful lapping of the water at our feet, and its boom against the rocks, and the shrieking of the sea-gulls; but there was utter silence between us two.  I felt as if it would break my heart to leave this place, and go whither I knew not.  Yet there was no alternative.

“Tardif,” I said at last, “I will go first to London.  It is so large a place, nobody will find me there.  Besides, they would never think of me going back to London.  When I am there I will try to get a situation as governess somewhere.  I could teach little children; and if I go into a school there will be no one to fall in love with me, like Dr. Martin.  I am very sorry for him.”

“Sorry for him!” repeated Tardif.

“Yes, very sorry,” I replied; “it is as if I must bring trouble everywhere.  You are troubled, and I cannot help it.”

“I have only had one trouble as great,” he said, as if to himself, “and that was when my poor little wife died.  I wish to God I could keep you here in safety, but that is impossible.”

“Quite impossible,” I answered.

Yet it seemed too bad to be true.  What had I done, to be driven away from this quiet little home into the cold, wide world?  Poor and friendless, after all my father’s far-seeing plans and precautions to secure me from poverty and friendlessness!  What was to be my lot in that dismal future, over the rough threshold of which I must cross to-morrow?

Tardif and I talked it all over that evening, sitting at the cottage-door until the last gleam of daylight had faded from the sky.  He had some money in hand just then, which he had intended to invest the next time he went to Guernsey, and could see his notary.  This money, thirty pounds, he urged me to accept as a gift; but I insisted upon leaving with him my watch and chain in pledge, until I could repay the money.  It would be a long time before I could do that, I knew; for I was resolved never to return to Richard Foster, and to endure any privation rather than claim my property.

I left Tardif after a while, to pack up my very few possessions.  We did not tell his mother that I was going, for he said it would be better not.  In the morning he would simply let her know I was going over to Guernsey.  No communication had ever passed between the old woman and me except by signs, yet I should miss even her in that cold, careless crowd in which I was about to be lost, in the streets of London.