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Before nine o'clock Tardif and his mother had gone up-stairs to their rooms in the thatch; and I lay wearied but sleepless in my bed, listening to these dull, faint, ceaseless murmurs, as a child listens to the sound of the sea in a shell.
How the hours seemed to double themselves, and creep along at the slowest pace they could! I had had some hope of running over to Sark to see Tardif, but that could not be. I was needed too much by the party that had been left behind by Captain Carey and Julia. We tried to while away the time by a drive round the island, and by visiting many of my old favorite haunts; but I could not be myself.
She would tell Tardif that her name was Olivia, and he thought only of the Olliviers he knew. It was a mistake that had been of use in checking curiosity, and I did not feel bound to put it right. My mother and Julia appeared to have forgotten my patient in Sark altogether. Olivia! I thought it a very pretty name, and repeated it to myself with its abbreviations, Olive, Livy.
"Mam'zelle'" cried a voice I knew well, "is this you!" "O Tardif! Tardif!" I exclaimed. I rested my beating head against him, and sobbed violently, while he surrounded me with his strong arm, and laid his hand upon my head, as if to assure me of his help and protection. "Hush; hush! mam'zelle," he said; "it is Tardif, your friend, my little mam'zelle; your servant, you know. I am here.
"Yes, mesdemoiselles," I said, uncoiling the tress of hair as if it had been a serpent, and going forward to greet them; "are you surprised to see me?" "Surprised!" echoed the elder. "No; we are amazed petrified! However did you get here? When did you come?" "Quite easily," I replied. "I came on Sunday, and Tardif fetched me in his own boat.
I am not used to being poor, and I did not know how much I ought to pay. But she kept it all, and came to me every week for more. Was it too much to pay?" "Too much!" I said. "You should have spoken to Tardif about it, my poor child." "I could not talk to Tardif about his mother," she answered. "Besides, it would not have been too much if I had only had plenty. But it has made me so anxious.
He saw that his pistols were duly primed, he learned that Tardif had passed but two hours before, boasting again that Europe would have gossip for a year, once he reached Quebec. Tardif too had paid liberally for his refreshment and his horses, for here he had taken a carriage, and had swaggered like a trooper in a conquered country.
In another hour from their arrival they were on the road again, with the knowledge that Tardif had changed horses and gone forward four hours before, boasting as he went that when the bombshell he was carrying should burst, the country would stay awake o' nights for a year.
There was another curious thing she had not any luggage with her, not a box nor a bag of any kind. She never knew that I knew, for that would have troubled her. It is my belief that she has run away." "But who can she have run away from, Tardif?" I asked. "God knows," he answered, "but the girl has suffered; you can see that by her face.
"Is that the young woman's hair?" asked Emma, as Tardif gathered together the scattered tresses and tied them up quickly in a little white handkerchief, out of their sight and mine. I saw them again afterward. The handkerchief had been his wife's white, with a border of pink roses. "Yes," I replied to her question, "it was necessary to cut it off. She is dangerously ill with fever."
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