"I'll--Go'zammin, I'll--I'll--"

"Unless you're a fool, mon gars, you'll be careful what you say or do.
It'll all come back from the mines and you'll have your share if you
behave yourself."

"---- you and your mines!" was Tom's valedictory, and he flung away in
mortal anger; anger, too, which, from a Sark point of view, was by no
means unjustified. Selling the estate away from the rightful heir was
disinheritance, a blow below the belt which most testators reserve until
they are safe from reach of bodily harm.

Tom left the house and cut all connection with his family. He drifted
away like a threatening cloud, and the sun shone out, and Stephen Gard,
with the rest, found greater comfort in his room than they had ever
found in his company.

So gracious, indeed, did the atmosphere of the house become, purged of
Tom, that Gard, to his great joy, found even Nance not impossible of
approach.

He had always treated her with extremest deference and courtesy,
respecting, as far as he was able, her evident wish for nothing but the
most distant intercourse.

But he was such a very great change from Tom!

She caught his dark eyes fixed on her at times with a look that reminded
her of Helier Baker's black spaniel's, who was a very close friend of