“I am ready to do whatever you choose,” I urged.  “It is true my father has robbed you; but it is not true that I have jilted you.  I did not know my own heart till a word from Captain Carey revealed it to me; and I told you frankly, partly because Johanna insisted upon it, and partly because I believed it right to do so.  If you demand it, I will even promise not to see Olivia again, or to hold direct communication with her.  Surely that is all you ought to require from me.”

“No,” she replied, vehemently; “do you suppose I could become your wife while you maintain that you love another woman better than me?  You must have a very low opinion of me.”

“Would you have me tell you a falsehood?” I rejoined, with vehemence equal to hers.

“You had better leave me,” she said, “before we hate one another.  I tell you I have been robbed by the father and jilted by the son.  Good-by, Martin.”

“Good-by, Julia,” I replied; but I still lingered, hoping she would speak to me again.  I was anxious to hear what she would do against my father.  She looked at me fully and angrily, and, as I did not move, she swept out of the room, with a dignity which I had never seen in her before.  I retreated toward the house-door, but could not make good my escape without encountering Johanna.

“Well, Martin?” she said.

“It is all wrong,” I answered.  “Julia persists in it that I am jilting her.”

“All the world will think you have behaved very badly,” she said.

“I suppose so,” I replied; “but don’t you think so, Johanna.”

She shook her head in silence, and closed the hall-door after me.  Many a door in Guernsey would be shut against me as soon as this was known.

I had to go round to the stables to find Madam.  The man had evidently expected me to stay a long while, for her saddle-girths were loosened, and the bit out of her mouth, that she might enjoy a liberal feed of oats.  Captain Carey came up tome as I was buckling the girths.

“Well, Martin?” he asked, exactly as Johanna had done before him.

“All wrong,” I repeated.

“Dear! dear!” he said, in his mildest tones, and with his hand resting affectionately on my shoulder; “I wish I had lost the use of my eyes or tongue the other day, I am vexed to death that I found out your secret.”

“Perhaps I should not have found it out myself,” I said, “and it is better now than after.”

“So it is, my boy; so it is,” he rejoined.  “Between ourselves, Julia is a little too old for you.  Cheer up! she is a good girl, and will get over it, and be friends again with you by-and-by.  I will do all I can to bring that about.  If Olivia is only as good as she is handsome, you’ll be happier with her than with poor Julia.”

He patted my back with a friendliness that cheered me, while his last words sent the blood bounding through my veins.  I rode home again, Sark lying in full view before me; and, in spite of the darkness of my prospects, I felt intensely glad to be free to win my Olivia.