To this question Wilson made no answer for a few moments. Though a just man, he was a kind one. He could read human nature with tolerable accuracy. It was despair, not want of feeling, which put those hard tones into that young voice. He would not, he could not, take advantage of its bewilderment. "Miss Harman," he said after a pause, "you will pardon me, but I don't think you quite know what you are saying; you have got a considerable bit of a shock; you were not prepared for this baseness--this baseness on your father's part." Here her eyes, turned with a sudden swift flash of agony upon him, said as plainly as eyes could speak-- "Need you ask?" "No, you could not have guessed it," continued Sandy, replying to this mute, though beautiful appeal, almost with tears. "You are Mr. Harman's only child. Now I daresay you are a good bit of an idol with him. I know how I'd worship a fine lassie like you if I had her. Well, well, miss: I don't want to pain you, but when young things come all on a heap on a great wrong like you have done to-day, they're apt, whatever their former love, to be a bit, just a bit, too hard. They do things, in their first agony, that they are sorry enough for by and by. Now, miss, what I want to say is this, that I won't take down your father's address to-day nor listen indeed to anything you may tell me about him. I want you to sleep it over, miss. Of course something must be done, but if you will sleep it over, and I, Sandy Wilson sleep it over too, we'll come together over the business with our heads a deal clearer than we could when we both felt scared, so to speak, as we doubtless do just at present. I won't move hand or foot in the matter until I see you again, Miss Harman, When do you think you will be able to see me again?" "Will this hour to-morrow do?" "Yes; I shall be quite at your service. And as we may want to look at that will again, suppose we meet just here, miss?" "I will be here at this hour to-morrow," said Charlotte, and as she spoke she pulled out her watch to mark the exact time. "It is a quarter past four now," she said; "I will meet you here at this hour to-morrow, at a quarter past four." "Very well, young lady, and may God help you! If I might express a wish for you, it is that you may have a good hard cry between now and then. When I was told, and quite sudden like too, that my little sister, Daisy Wilson, was dead nothing took off the pressure from my heart and brain like a good hearty cry. So I wish you the same. They say women need it more than men." CHAPTER XXXV. DAN'S WIFE