"I would you had never come here!" exclaimed Edgar, with unwonted fervency. "There are more words," observed Frank, "but I cannot read them. "Words of sorrow and remorse, no doubt, but what do they avail? The fact remains that she gave her father in his agony another dose of the poison that was killing him, instead of the antidote for which he prayed." "Yes," said Edgar, "only I feel bound to say that no antidote would have saved him then. I know the poison and I know the antidote; we have tested them together often." Frank shuddered. "He had the heart of a demon," declared Edgar, "to plan and carry out such a revenge, even upon a daughter who had so grievously disappointed him. I can hardly believe the tale, only that I have learned that one may believe anything of human nature." "She--she did not kill him, then?" "No, but her guilt is as great as if she had, for she must have had the momentary instinct of murder." "O Hermione, Hermione! so beautiful and so unhappy!" "A momentary instinct, which she is expiating fearfully. No wonder she does not leave the house. No wonder that her face looks like a tragic mask." "No one seems to have suspected her guilt, or even his. We have never heard any whispers about poison." "Dudgeon is a conceited fool. Having once said overwork, he would stick to overwork. Besides that poison is very subtle; I would have difficulty in detecting its workings myself." "And this is the tragedy of that home! Oh, how much worse, how much more fearful than any I have attributed to it!" The Doctor sighed. "What has not Emma had to bear," he said. "Emma!" Frank unconsciously roused himself. "If I remember rightly, Hermione has said that Emma did not know all her trouble." "Thank God! May she never be enlightened." "Edgar," whispered Frank, "I do not think I can let you read all that letter, though it tells much you ought to know. I have yet some consideration--for--for Hermione--" (How hard the word came from lips which once uttered it with so much pride!)--"and she never expected any other eyes than mine to rest upon these revelations of her heart of hearts. But one thing I must tell you in justice to yourself and the girl upon whom no shadow rests but that of a most loyal devotion to a most wretched sister. Not from her heart did the refusal come which blighted your hopes and made you cynical towards women. There were reasons she could not communicate, reasons she could not even dwell upon herself, why she felt forced to dismiss you, and in the seemingly heartless way she did." "I am willing to believe it," said Edgar. "Emma is a pure and beautiful spirit," observed Frank, and gave himself up to grief for her who was not, and yet who commanded his pity for her sufferings and possibly for her provocations.