of Separation, that
extraordinary Linda used to declare quite simply that she was going to
be Gian' Battista's wife."

"They are not married yet," said the doctor, curtly. "I have looked
after them a little."

"Thank you, dear Dr. Monygham," said Mrs. Gould; and under the shade
of the big trees her little, even teeth gleamed in a youthful smile of
gentle malice. "People don't know how really good you are. You will not
let them know, as if on purpose to annoy me, who have put my faith in
your good heart long ago."

The doctor, with a lifting up of his upper lip, as though he were
longing to bite, bowed stiffly in his chair. With the utter absorption
of a man to whom love comes late, not as the most splendid of illusions,
but like an enlightening and priceless misfortune, the sight of that
woman (of whom he had been deprived for nearly a year) suggested ideas
of adoration, of kissing the hem of her robe. And this excess of feeling
translated itself naturally into an augmented grimness of speech.

"I am afraid of being overwhelmed by too much gratitude. However, these
people interest me. I went out several times to the Great Isabel light
to look after old Giorgio."

He did not tell Mrs. Gould that it was because he found there, in her
absence, the relief of an atmosphere of congenial sentiment in
old Giorgio's austere admiration for the "English signora--the
benefactress"; in black-eyed Linda's voluble, torrential, passionate
affection for "our Dona Emilia--that angel"; in the white-throated, fair
Giselle's adoring upward turn of the eyes, which then glided towards him
with a sidelong, half-arch, half-candid glance, which made the doctor
exclaim to himself mentally, "If I weren't what I am, old and ugly, I
would think the minx is making eyes at me. And perhaps she is. I dare
say she would make eyes at anybody." Dr. Monygham said nothing of this
to Mrs. Gould, the providence of the Viola family, but reverted to what
he called "our great Nostromo."

"What I wanted to tell you is this: Our great Nostromo did not take much
notice of the old man and the children for some years. It's true, too,
that he was away on his coasting voyages certainly ten months out of the
twelve. He was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He
seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is
a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take
chances and risks of every sort. I remember being