“Do not commit yourself, either in word or deed, until this mystery has been solved; until we know whether Dick or the doctor, or both, or neither, is the scoundrel. There is something wrong somewhere. I do not know where. I am completely befogged and bewildered. Like yourself, I cannot condemn either of them. Both are my friends; but one of them must be wrong.” “Which, Eugene?” “I don’t know.” “You have an opinion.” “There is much that I cannot explain on both sides. Let us wait.” “Certainly we shall wait; we cannot do otherwise.” “But, Julia, you must check the doctor.” “I see nothing to check.” Julia could not even answer to herself whether she loved Dr. Bilks or Dick. Both of them were friendly, both agreeable. In a comparison of the characters of the two gentlemen, the advantage was in Dick’s favor; but her gratitude to the doctor for his kindness and devotion during her sickness more than offset the other’s advantage. She did not think of a husband, save in the abstract; if she had, perhaps she would have considered one as eligible as the other, and would have been prepared to accept him who spoke first. She did not yet love either, though both were lovable. With one so fair, so young, so accomplished, love could not exist without its complement. A loving look, a sweet word, a pressure of the hand, would have developed the treasures of her affection. She waited, unconsciously, for these tokens; if Dick had given them, probably he would have been accepted; and the same was true of Dr. Bilks. Julia made no promises; they seemed unnecessary to her. Perhaps she knew less of her own heart than others knew of it. She was not hungering and thirsting for a husband. Fortune had been over lavish to her, and she was too much enamoured of Pine Hill, too much devoted to her mother and her brother, to think of leaving them without the strongest of provocations. Probably she expected to be a wife some time; but she regarded a husband as she did the airs of heaven, that came unbought and unsought. She thought that he who was to be her all-in-all must be the gift of God, in some special manner, and she floated on the tide, a creature of fate and circumstances. She could not possibly marry one she did not love, and she waited unresistingly for her heart to speak her destiny. Eugene drove down to the Port again, after he had, as he believed, made a proper use of Dick’s solemn warning. He was very nervous, uneasy, perplexed, and anxious, as a man in prison when life and hope are without its walls. He wanted the truth, which should enable him to decide between his two friends, now doubly necessary for Julia’s sake as well as his own. If he could not satisfy himself, he might comfort Dick, and enable him to wait with patience till the final judgment could be pronounced.