"No," she said, "you would find nothing there. I suppose if I had died nobody would ever have known who I am. How curious that would have been!" Was she amused, or was she saddened by the thought? I could not tell. "It would have been very painful to Tardif and to me," I said. "It must be very painful to your friends, whoever they are, not to know what has become of you. Give me permission to write to them. There can scarcely be reasons sufficient for you to separate yourself from them like this. Besides, you cannot go on living in a fisherman's cottage; you were not born to it--" "How do you know?" she asked, quickly, with a sharp tone in her voice. It was somewhat difficult to answer that question. There was nothing to indicate what position she had been used to. I had seen no token of wealth about her room, which was as homely as any other cottage chamber. Her conversation had been the simple, childish talk of an invalid recovering from a serious illness, and had scarcely proved her to be an educated person. Yet there was something in her face and tones and manner which, as plainly to Tardif as to me, stamped this runaway girl as a lady. "Let me write to your friends," I urged, waiving the question. "It is not fit for you to remain here. I beg of you to allow me to communicate with them." Her face quivered like a child's when it is partly frightened and partly grieved. "I have no friends," she said; "not one real friend in the world." An almost irresistible inclination assailed me to fall on my knees beside her, as I had seen Tardif do, and take a solemn oath to be her faithful servant and friend as long as my life should last. This, of course, I did not do; but the sound of the words so plaintively spoken, and the sight of her quivering face, rendered her a hundredfold more interesting to me. "Mam'zelle," I said, taking her hand in mine, "if ever you should need a friend, you may count upon Martin Dobrée as one as true as any you could wish to have. Tardif is another. Never say again you have no friends." "Thank you," she answered, simply. "I will count you and Tardif as my friends. But I have no others, so you need not write to anybody." "But what if you had died?" I persisted. "You would have buried me quietly up there," she answered, "in the pleasant graveyard, where the birds sing all day long, and I should have been forgotten soon. Am I likely to die, Dr. Martin?" "Certainly not," I replied, hastily; "nothing of the kind. You are going to get well and strong again. But I must bid you good-by, now, since you have no friends to write to. Can I do any thing for you in Guernsey? I can send you any thing you fancy." "I do not want any thing," she said. "You want a great number of things," I said; "medicines, of course--what is the good of a doctor who sends no medicine?--and books. You will have to keep yourself quiet a long time. You would like some books?"