Henry Hardwicke hated reading, and had no particular love for the law. His father said he was a fool, and was inordinately fond of him nevertheless. It might be that the old lawyer was right on both points. And, dull as Henry was supposed to be, he was capable of delicate feelings and perceptions as far as Sissy Langton was concerned. It seemed to him that accident had revealed to him a hidden wound in her heart; and the revelation pained him--not selfishly, for he had never hoped for himself, but because of the secret suffering which it implied. His one idea was to do her bidding, yet not betray her. He delivered her message to his father with a tact of which he was himself unconscious. On his lips it became no less urgent, but he dwelt especially on Sissy's desire to see justice done to the man who had been accidentally disinherited; on her feeling that she owed more to the Thornes, whose home and love she had shared, than to the Langtons, with whom she shared nothing but a name; and on her impatience of even an hour's delay, because the squire's sudden death had made a deep impression on her mind. All this, translated into Harry's blunt and simple speech, was intelligible enough to Mr. Hardwicke. The girlish whim that all should be done on her birthday made him smile, but the remembrance of Godfrey Thorne was present in his mind as in hers. He did not attach much importance to the whole affair, and felt that he should not be overwhelmed with surprise should he hear a few months later that Sissy was going to be married to some one else, and wanted to make some compromise--perhaps to resign the squire's legacy to Percival. To his eyes it looked more like an attempt at restitution than anything else. "She is sorry for him, poor fellow!" thought Mr. Hardwicke. "She did not know her own mind, and now she would like to atone to him somehow."