CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

LOCKS OF HAIR.


The westerly gale, rising every few hours into a squall, gave me no
chance of leaving Sark the next day, nor for some days afterward; but I
was not at all put out by my captivity. All my interest--my whole
being, in fact--was absorbed in the care of this girl, stranger as she
was. I thought and moved, lived and breathed, only to fight step by step
against delirium and death, and to fight without my accustomed weapons.
Sometimes I could do nothing but watch the onset and inroads of the
fever most helplessly. There was no possibility of aid. The stormy
waters which beat against that little rock in the sea came swelling and
rolling in from the vast plain of the Atlantic, and broke in tempestuous
surf against the island. The wind howled, and the rain and hail beat
across us almost incessantly for two days, and Tardif himself was kept a
prisoner in the house, except when he went to look after his live-stock.
No doubt it would have been practicable for me to get as far as the
hotel, but to what good? It would be quite deserted, for there were no
visitors to Sark at this season, and I did not give it a second thought.
I was entirely engrossed in my patient, and I learned for the first time
what their task is who hour after hour watch the progress of disease in
the person, of one dear to them.

Tardif occupied himself with mending his nets, pausing frequently with
his solemn eyes fixed upon the door of the girl's room, very much as a
patient mastiff watches the spot where he knows his master is near to
him, though out of sight. His mother went about her household work
ploddingly, and Mother Renouf kept manfully to her post, in turn with