ng to you," answered
Percival, with an effort to smile, "for I have heard you laugh at the
doctrine of presentiments. We sailors are more superstitious."

"What presentiment can you possibly entertain?" asked Varney, more
anxiously than Percival could have anticipated.

"Presentiments are not so easily defined, Varney. But, in truth, poor
Helen has infected me. Have you not remarked that, gay as she habitually
is, some shadow comes over her so suddenly that one cannot trace the
cause?"

"My dear Percival," said Varney, after a short pause, "what you say does
not surprise me. It would be false kindness to conceal from you that I
have heard Madame Dalibard say that her mother was, when about her
age, threatened with consumptive symptoms; but she lived many years
afterwards. Nay, nay, rally yourself; Helen's appearance, despite the
extreme purity of her complexion, is not that of one threatened by the
terrible malady of our climate. The young are often haunted with the
idea of early death. As we grow older, that thought is less cherished;
in youth it is a sort of luxury. To this mournful idea (which you see
you have remarked as well as I) we must attribute not only Helen's
occasional melancholy, but a generosity of forethought which I cannot
deny myself the pleasure of communicating to you, though her delicacy
would be shocked at my indiscretion. You know how helpless her aunt is.
Well, Helen, who is entitled, when of age, to a moderate competence, has
persuaded me to insure her life and accept a trust to hold the moneys
(if ever unhappily due) for the benefit of my mother-in-law, so that
Madame Dalibard may not be left destitute if her niece die before she is
twenty-one. How like Helen, is it not?"

Percival was too overcome to answer.

Varney resumed: "I entreat you not to mention this to Helen; it would
offend her modesty to have the secret of her good deeds thus betrayed by
one to whom alone she confided them. I could not resist her entreaties,
though, entre nous, it cripples me not a little to advance for her the
necessary sums for the premiums. Apropos, this brings me to a point on
which I feel, as the vulgar idiom goes, 'very awkward,'--as I always do
in these confounded money-matters. But you were good enough to ask me
to paint you a couple of pictures for Laughton. Now, if you could let
me have some portion of the sum, whatever it be (for I don't price my
paintings to you), it would very much oblige me."

P