"Not more than I love her," she said, warmly. "Aunt Dobree has been as
good to me as any mother could have been. I love her as dearly as my
mother. Have you seen her since I was with her this afternoon?"

"No. I have just come from visiting a very curious patient, and have not
been home yet."

I hoped Julia would catch at the word curious, and make some inquiries
which would open a way for me; but she seemed not to hear it, and
another silence fell upon us both. For the life of me I could not utter
a syllable of what I had come to say.

"We were talking of you," she said at length, in a harried and thick
voice. "Aunt is in great sorrow about you. It preys upon her day and
night that you will be dreadfully alone when she is gone,
and--and--Martin, she wishes to know before she dies that the girl in
Sark will become your wife."

The word struck like a shot upon my ear and brain. What! had Julia and
my mother been arranging between them my happiness and Olivia's safety
that very afternoon? Such generosity was incredible. I could not believe
I had heard aright.

"She has seen the girl," continued Julia, in the same husky tone, which
she could not compel to be clear and calm; "and she is convinced she is
no adventuress. Johanna says the same. They tell me it is unreasonable
and selfish in me to doom you to the dreadful loneliness I feel. If Aunt
Dobree asked me to pluck out my right eye just now, I could not refuse.
It is something like that, but I have promised to do it. I release you
from every promise you ever made to me, Martin."

"Julia!" I cried, crossing to her and bending over her with more love
and admiration than I had ever felt before; "this is very noble, very
generous."

"No," she said, bursting into tears; "I am neither noble nor generous. I
do it because I cannot help myself, with aunt's white face looking so
imploringly at me. I do not give you up willingly to that girl in Sark.
I hope I shall never see her or you for many, many years. Aunt says you
will have no chance of marrying her till you are settled in a practice
somewhere; but you are free to ask her to be your wife. Aunt wants you
to have somebody to love you and care for you after she is gone, as I
should have done."

"But you are generous to consent to it," I said again.

"So," she answered, wiping her eyes, and lifting up her head; "I thought
I was generous; I thought I was a Christian, but it is not easy to be a
Christian when one is mo