Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/363

Rh not know whether it be true, that your aunt has come in for a good property."

"For a little something."

"Then, shall you go to her and reside with her?"

"No; she will not have Jamie and me."

"So we supposed. Now my father has a proposal to make. The firm to which I belong has been good enough to take me into partnership, esteeming my services far higher than they deserve, and I am to live at Oporto, and act for them there. As my income will now be far larger than my humble requirements, I have resolved to allow my dear father sufficient for him to live upon comfortably where he wills, and he has elected to follow me, and take up his abode in Portugal. Now what he has commissioned me to say is—will you go with him? Will you continue to regard him as Uncle Zachie, and be to him as his dear little niece, and keep house for him in the sunny southern land?"

Judith's eyes filled with tears.

"And Jamie is included in the invitation. He is to come also, and help my father to stuff the birds of Portugal. A new ornithological field is opening before him, he says, and he must have help in it."

"I cannot," said Judith, in a low tone, with her head sunk on her breast. "I cannot leave here till Captain Coppinger gives me leave."

"But, surely, you are no longer bound to him?"

"He holds me faster than before."

"I cannot understand this."

"No; because you do not know all."

"Tell me the whole truth. Let me help you. Let my father help you. You little know how we both have our hearts in your service."

"Well, I will tell you."

But she hesitated and trembled. She fixed her eyes on the wild, foaming, leaden sea, and pressed her bosom with both hands.

"I poisoned him."

"Judith!"

"It is true, I gave him arsenic, once; that your father had let me have for Jamie. If he had taken it the second time, when I offered it him in his bowl of porridge, he would be dead now. Do you see—he holds me in his hands and I cannot stir. I could not escape till I know