Johanna was standing at one of the windows in a Quakerish dress of some gray stuff, and with a plain white cap over her white hair. She came down to the door as soon as she saw me, and received me with a motherly kiss, which I returned with more than usual warmth, as one does in any new kind of trouble. I think she was instantly aware that something was amiss with me. "Is dinner ready, Johanna?" asked her brother; "we are as hungry as hunters." That was not true as far as I was concerned. For the first time within my recollection my appetite quite failed me, and I merely played with my knife and fork. Captain Carey regarded me pitifully, and said, "Come, come, Martin, my boy!" several times. Johanna made no remark; but her quiet, searching eyes looked me through and through, till I almost longed for the time when she would begin to question and cross-question me. After she was gone, Captain Carey gave me two or three glasses of his choicest wine, to cheer me up, as he said; but we were not long before we followed his sister. "Johanna," said Captain Carey, "we have something to tell you." "Come and sit here by me," she said, making room for me beside her on her sofa; for long experience had taught her how much more difficult it is to make a confession face to face with one's confessor, under the fire of his eyes, as it were, than when one is partially concealed from him. "Well," she said, in her calm, inviting voice. "Johanna," I replied, "I am in a terrible fix!" "Awful!" cried Captain Carey, sympathetically; but a glance from his sister put him to silence. "What is it, my dear Martin?" asked her inviting voice again. "I will tell you frankly," I said, feeling I must have it out at once, like an aching tooth. "I love, with all my heart and soul, that girl in Sark; the one who has been my patient there." "Martin!" she cried, in a tone full of surprise and agitation--"Martin!" "Yes; I know all you would urge--my honor; my affection for Julia; the claims she has upon me, the strongest claims possible; how good and worthy she is; what an impossibility it is even to look back now. I know it all, and feel how miserably binding it is upon me. Yet I love Olivia; and I shall never love Julia." "Martin!" she cried again.