"Well?" said Captain Carey, as I set my foot on the deck. His face was all excitement; and he put his arm affectionately through mine.
"It is all wrong," I answered, gloomily.
"You don't mean that she will not have you?" he exclaimed.
I nodded, for I had no spirit to explain the matter just then.
"By George!" he cried; "and you've thrown over Julia, and offended all our Guernsey folks, and half broken your poor mother's heart, all for nothing!"
The last consideration was the one that stung me to the quick. It had half broken my mother's heart. No one knew better than I that it had without doubt tended to shorten her fleeting term of life. At this moment she was waiting for me to bring her good news—perhaps the promise that Olivia had consented to become my wife before her own last hour arrived; for my mother and I had even talked of that. I had thought it a romantic scheme when my mother spoke of it, but my passion had fastened eagerly upon it, in spite of my better judgment. These were the tidings she was waiting to hear from my lips.
When I reached home I found her full of dangerous excitement. It was impossible to allay it without telling her either an untruth or the whole story. I could not deceive her, and with a desperate calmness I related the history of the day. I tried to make light of my disappointment, but she broke down into tears and wailings.
"Oh, my boy!" she lamented; "and I did so want to see you happy before I died: I wanted to leave some one who could comfort you; and Olivia would have comforted you and loved you when I am gone! You had set your heart upon her. Are you sure it is true? My poor, poor Martin, you must forget her now. It becomes a sin for you to love her."
"I cannot forget her," I said; "I cannot cease to love her. There can be no sin in it as long as I think of her as I do now."
"And there is poor Julia!" moaned my mother.