"My hands are clean," she went on, "but my soul is in shadow. Why did you make me speak of it? You are my friend and I want to keep your friendship, but you see why it must not grow into love; _must not_ I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal." "I do not see that," he cried impetuously. "You do not make me see it. You hint and assert, but you tell me nothing. You should give me facts, Hermione, and then I could judge whether I should go or stay." She flushed, and her face, which had been lifted to his, slowly sank. "You do not know what you ask of me," she murmured. "I know that I have asked you to be my wife." "And it was generous of you, very generous. Such generosity merits confidence, but--Let us talk of something else," she cried. "I am not fit--not well enough, I mean, to speak of serious matters to-night. Tell me about your affairs. Tell me if you have found Harriet Smith." "No," he returned, greatly disappointed, for there had been something like yielding in her manner a moment before. "There is no Harriet Smith, and I do not even know that there is a Hiram Huckins, for he too has disappeared and cannot be found." "Hiram Huckins?" "Yes, her brother and the brother of Mrs. Wakeham, whose will has made all this trouble. He is the heir who will inherit her property if Harriet Smith or her children cannot be found, and as the latter contingency is not likely to happen, it is odd that he should have run away without letting us know where he can be found." "Is he a good man?" "Hardly. Indeed I consider him a rascal; but he has a good claim on the property, as I have already said, and that is what angers me. A hundred thousand dollars should not fall into the hands of one so mean and selfish as he is." "Poetic justice is not always shown in this world. Perhaps if you found the true heirs, you would find them also lacking in much that was admirable." "Possibly; but they would not be apt to be as bad as he is." "Is he dishonest?" "I do not like to accuse him, but neither would I like to trust him with another man's money." "That is unfortunate," said she. "And he will really have this money if you do not find any nearer heirs?" "Certainly; his name follows theirs in the will." "It is a pity," she observed, rising and moving towards the harp. "Do you want to hear a song that Emma composed when we were happier than we are now?" "Indeed I do," was his eager reply. "Sing, I entreat you, sing; it will make me feel as if the gloom was lifting from between us." But at this word, she came quickly back and sat down in her former place by the fire. "I do not know what came over me," said she; "I never sing." And she looked with a severe and sombre gaze into the flames before her. "Hermione, have you no right to joy, or even to give joy to others?" "Tell me more about the case that is interesting you. Supposing you found Harriet Smith or her children?"