"You here again, Martin!" exclaimed Emma.
"Yes," I answered; "Captain Carey set me down at the Havre Gosselin, and is gone round to meet me at the Creux."
"You have been to see that young person?" asked Maria.
"Yes," I replied.
"She is a very singular young woman," she continued; "we think her stupid. We cannot make anything of her. But there is no doubt poor Tardif means to marry her."
"Nonsense!" I ejaculated, hotly; "I beg your pardon, Maria, but I give Tardif credit for sense enough to know his own position."
"So did we," said Emma, "but it looks odd. He married an Englishwoman before. It's old Mère Renouf who says he worships the ground she treads upon. You know he holds a very good position in the island, and he is a great favorite with the seigneur. There are dozens of girls of his own class in Guernsey and Alderney, to say nothing of Sark, who would be only too glad to have him. He is a very handsome man, Martin."
"Tardif is a fine fellow," I admitted.
"I shall be very sorry for him to be taken in again," continued Emma; "nobody knows who that young person may be; it looks odd on the face of it. Are you in a hurry? Well, good-by. Give our best love to dear Julia. We are busy at work on a wedding-present for her; but you must not tell her that, you know."
I went on in a hot rage, shapeless and wordless, but smouldering like a fire within me. The cool, green lane, deep between hedge-rows, the banks of which were gemmed with primroses, had no effect upon me just then. Tardif marry Olivia! That was an absurd, preposterous notion indeed. It required all my knowledge of the influence of dress on the average human mind, to convince myself that Olivia, in her coarse green serge dress, had impressed the people of Sark with the notion that she would be no unsuitable mate for their rough, though good and handsome fisherman.