She felt driven to her wits' end, and pressed her hands to her face. "Charlotte, what is the meaning of this? There is more here than meets the eye. Have you and Hinton quarrelled?" "No, except over this. And even over this it takes two to make a quarrel. I cannot marry next week; I have told him so. He is vexed, and you--you are vexed. Must I break my heart and leave you? You have always given me my own way; give it now. Don't send me away from you. It would break my heart to marry and leave you now." "Is this indeed so, Charlotte?" he said. "Would you with your whole heart rather put it off?" "With my whole, whole heart, I would rather," she said. "I will not urge it. I cannot; and yet it destroys a hope which I thought might cheer me on my dying bed." "Never mind the hope, father; you will have me. I shall not spend that week away from you." "No, that week did seem long to look forward to." "Ah! you are glad after all that I am to be with you," she said. "You will let me nurse you and care for you. You will not force yourself to do more than you are able. Now that I know all, I can take such care of you, and the thought of that will make me happier by and by." "It is a relief that you know the worst," said Mr. Harman, but he did not smile or look contented; he, as well as Hinton, felt that there was more in this strange desire of Charlotte's than met the eye. CHAPTER XLIII. "YOU DON'T WANT MONEY?" Sandy Wilson having again very carefully read Mr. Harman's will, felt much puzzled how to act. He was an honest, upright, practical man himself. The greatness of the crime committed quite startled him. He had no sympathy for the wicked men who had done the deed, and he had the very keenest sympathy for those against whom the deed was done. His little orphan and widowed sister and her baby child were the wronged ones. The men who had wronged her he had never seen. He said to himself that he had no sympathy, no sympathy whatever for Mr. Harman. What if he was a dying man, was that fact to screen him? Was he to be allowed to go down to his grave in peace, his gray head appearing to be to him a crown of glory, honored by the world, cheered for his great success in life? Was all this to be allowed to continue when he was worthy not of applause but of hisses, of the world's most bitter opprobrium? And yet Sandy felt that, little or indeed no pity as he had for this most wicked man, even if Charlotte had not come to him and pleaded with eyes, voice, and manner he could scarcely have exposed Mr. Harman. He could scarcely, after hearing that great doctor's verdict, have gone up to the old man and said that which would hurry him without an instant's time for repentance, to judgment.