“Is there anything to be heard?” she said, looking at him. Matilda’s languor was a great deal more safe than the keen alertness of the other. He answered, “No, oh no!--I suppose not, since you have heard nothing,” with some confusion. It was the very best way of broaching the subject; but his confusion was real, and he did not think of that. “Since we have heard nothing?” said Verna, raising herself to a very upright position. She had never been perfectly easy since Dr. Murray had thrown, quite inadvertently, into her mind that suggestion of another heir. “Well,” said Hepburn, with some impatience, “I have no double meaning. I supposed there must be nothing to hear as you have not heard. Otherwise, I have just been listening to a story--” “What story?” It was strange that Matilda kept silent so long; she was cowed, I suppose, by Verna’s harsh and peremptory tone. “They say,” said Hepburn, hesitating, and sinking his voice involuntarily; “indeed, I do not believe it, I give no credence at all to it. They say that Tom Heriot was married privately, and that there is a child--” “What is that?” said Matilda, rousing up. “Tom Heriot married--and a child? Oh, what a wicked, wicked story! Oh, Mr. Hepburn, how can you say so, when you know, as well as I do, that we heard quite different, that it was all settled when the will was read, and that Tommy was the only heir--the only, only heir, everybody said. How can you make up such a story? It is only to frighten me, and make me unhappy. You know you don’t mean what you say.” “Indeed,” said poor Johnnie, abject in the penitence for which he had no cause. “I would not make you unhappy for the world. I thought it right to tell you as I heard--but I don’t believe it. It will turn out to be a mere invention, of that I am sure; but as I had just heard, I wanted to find out whether you knew.” “Of course we know to the contrary,” said Matilda, laying herself back, somewhat excited, upon her pillows, satisfied so far with the explanation, and only angry with Johnnie in a coquettish tormenting way. But Verna, who had no such confidence, restrained her feelings, keeping her anxiety under. She was a great deal more anxious than her sister, and understood much better all that was involved. “For simple curiosity, Mr. Hepburn,” said Verna, “tell us what they say.” “Oh, it is just what is always said,” he answered. “Tom Heriot, they say, was privately married--married irregularly, as sometimes happens in Scotland--” “What sort of a thing is that--before the registrar, or something?” “Oh, not so formal. In Scotland,” said Hepburn, “if two people were to say to each other, before us, for instance, ‘This is my husband, and this is my wife,’ they would be supposed to be married.” “Supposed! but what would that matter? It would be no marriage at all.”