Never, never shall I forget that night. I could not sleep; but I suppose my mind wandered a little. Hundreds of times I felt myself down on the shore, lying helplessly, while great green waves curled themselves over, and fell just within reach of me, ready to swallow me up, yet always missing me. Then I was back again in my own home in Adelaide, on my father's sheep-farm, and he was still alive, and with no thought but how to make every thing bright and gladsome for me; and hundreds of times I saw the woman who was afterward to be my step-mother, stealing up to the door and trying to get in to him and me. Sometimes I caught myself sobbing aloud, and then Tardif's voice, whispering at the door to ask how mam'zelle was, brought me back to consciousness. Now and then I looked round, fancying I heard my mother's voice speaking to me, and I saw only the wrinkled, yellow face of his mother, nodding drowsily in her seat by the fire. Twice Tardif brought me a cup of tea, freshly made. I could not distinctly made out who he was, or where I was, but I tried to speak loudly enough for him to hear me thank him. I was very thankful when the first gleam of daylight shone into my room. It seemed to bring clearness to my brain. "Mam'zelle," said Tardif, coming to my side very early in his fisherman's dress, "I am going to fetch a doctor." "But it is Sunday," I answered faintly. I knew that no boatman put out to sea willingly on a Sunday from Sark; and the last fatal accident, being on a Sunday, had deepened their reluctance. "It will be right, mam'zelle," he answered, with glowing eyes. "I have no fear." "Do not be long away, Tardif," I said, sobbing. "Not one moment longer than I can help," he replied. PART THE SECOND. CHAPTER THE FIRST. DR. MARTIN DOBRÉE. My name is Martin Dobrée. Martin or Doctor Martin I was called throughout Guernsey. It will be necessary to state a few particulars about my family and position, before I proceed with my part of this narrative. My father was Dr. Dobrée. He belonged to one of the oldest families in the island--a family of distinguished _pur sang_; but our branch of it had been growing poorer instead of richer during the last three or four generations. We had been gravitating steadily downward. My father lived ostensibly by his profession, but actually upon the income of my cousin, Julia Dobrée, who had been his ward from her childhood. The house we dwelt in, a pleasant one in the Grange, belonged to Julia; and fully half of the year's household expenses were defrayed by her. Our practice, which he and I shared between us, was not a large one, though for its extent it was lucrative enough. But there always is an immense number of medical men in Guernsey in proportion to its population, and the island is healthy. There was small chance for any of us to make a fortune.