Astonished at her manner and still more astonished at the intimation conveyed in her last words, he looked at her as one who would say: "But you also share her fate and the resolve that made it." She seemed to understand him. "Free Hermione," she whispered, "from the shackles she has wound about herself and you will free me." "Miss Emma," he began, but she put her finger on her lips. "Hush!" she entreated; "let us not talk any more about it. I have already said what I never meant should pass my lips; but the affection I bear my sister made me forget myself; she does so need to love and be loved." "And you think I----" "Ah, sir, you must be the judge of your own chances. You have heard her refusal and must best know just how much it means." "How much it means!" Long did Frank muse over that phrase, after he had left the sweet girl who had uttered it. As he sat with Edgar at supper, his abstracted countenance showed that he was still revolving the question, though he endeavored to seem at home with his friend and interested in the last serious case which had occupied the attention of the newly settled doctor. How much it means! Not much, he was beginning to say to himself, and insensibly his face began to brighten and his manner to grow less restrained, when Edgar, who had been watching him furtively, broke out: "Now you are more like yourself. Business responsibilities are as hard to shake off as a critical case in medicine." "Yes," was the muttered reply, as Frank rose from the table, and took the cigar his friend offered him. "And business with me just now is particularly perplexing. I cannot get any clue to Harriet Smith or her heirs, nor can the police or the presumably sharp detective I have put upon the search." "That must please Huckins." "Yes, confound him! such a villain as he is! I sometimes wonder if he killed his sister." "That you can certainly find out." "No, for she had a mortal complaint, and that satisfies the physicians. But there are ways of hastening a death, and those I dare avow he would not be above using. The greed in his eyes would do anything; it even suffices to make him my very good friend, now that he sees that he might lose everything by opposing me." "I am glad you see through his friendship." "See through a sieve?" "He plays his part badly, then?" "He cannot help it, with that face of his; and then he gave himself away in the beginning. No attitude he could take now would make me forget the sneak I saw in him then." This topic was interesting, but Edgar knew it was no matter of business which had caused the fitful changes he had been observing in Frank's tell-tale countenance. Yet he did not broach any other theme, and it was Frank who finally remarked: "I suppose you think me a fool to fix my heart on a woman with a secret."