I finished packing the hamper, and sent Pellet with it to the Sark office, having addressed it to Tardif, who had engaged to be down at the Creux Harbor to receive it when the cutter returned.  Then I made a short and hurried toilet, which by this time had become essential to my reappearance in civilized society.  But I was in haste to secure a parcel of books before the cutter should start home again, with its courageous little knot of market-people.  I ran down to Barbet’s, scarcely heeding the greetings which were flung after mo by every passer-by.  I looked through the library-shelves with growing dissatisfaction, until I hit upon two of Mrs. Gaskell’s novels, “Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austin, and “David Copperfield.”  Besides these, I chose a book for Sunday reading, as my observations upon my mother and Julia had taught me that my patient could not read a novel on a Sunday with a quiet conscience.

Barbet brought half a sheet of an old Times to form the first cover of my parcel.  The shop was crowded with market-people, and, as he was busy, I undertook to pack them myself, the more willingly as I had no wish for him to know what direction I wrote upon them.  I was about to fold the newspaper round them, when my eye was caught by an advertisement at the top of one of the columns, the first line of which was printed in capitals.  I recollected in an instant that I had seen it and read it before.  This was what I had tried in vain to recall while Tardif was describing Miss Ollivier to me.  “Strayed from her home in London, on the 20th inst., a young lady with bright-brown hair, gray eyes, and delicate features; age twenty one.  She is believed to have been alone.  Was dressed in a blue-silk dress, and seal-skin jacket and hat.  Fifty pounds reward is offered to any person giving such information as will lead to her restoration to her friends.  Apply to Messrs. Scott and Brown, Gray’s Inn Road, E.C.”

I stood perfectly still for some seconds, staring blankly at the very simple, direct advertisement under my eyes.  There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that it had a direct reference to my pretty patient in Sark.  I had a reason for recollecting the date of Tardif’s return from London, the very day after the mournful disaster off the Havre Gosselin, when four gentlemen and a boatman had been lost during a squall.  But I had no time for deliberation then, and I tore off a large corner of the Times containing that and other advertisements, and thrust it unseen into my pocket.  After that I went on with my work, and succeeded in turning out a creditable-looking parcel, which I carried down to the Sark cutter.