Again she was startled. "Do they hold it still?" "They do. They hold his--I may almost say life--in their hands. Once they are paid, the danger will have passed. You will make no unnecessary delay?" "No," she said with a shudder. "The very hour the money is in my hands it shall be paid to them." "In my desk, in the private compartment, you will find a sealed paper addressed to yourself. It contains full directions how you must accomplish this, and who the parties are. I thought it well to write this down for you, that there might be no mistake or forgetfulness. Inside this paper you will find a letter addressed to these people, and that I wish you to post with your own hands--with your own hands--within four-and-twenty hours after my death. Do you clearly understand?" "Yes, she clearly understood, she answered; answered from the depths of her quivering heart. "And I think that is all, so far as that unhappy business is concerned. Oh, my child, my child! if I could but have left you better off!" "Papa, don't grieve for that!" she said in the midst of her choking sobs. "I shall do very well." "You will have your home with your aunt. And Mark Cray is to pay you a certain sum for five years, which must be invested for you. Bettina will take care of you: but she is not of a cheering temper. If I could but have left you in a happier home!" Looking forward, she felt that all homes would be pretty much alike to her with her load of grief and care. Surely the sorrows of life had fallen upon her early! "I began to think, just about the time of Caroline's marriage, or a little before it, that Oswald Cray was growing to like you very much," resumed Dr. Davenal. "But it may have been only my own fancy. I was mistaken with regard to him once before; perhaps also was again?" She sat silent, her head down, the fingers of her hands nervously entwining themselves one within the other. "You don't answer me, Sara. It may be the last time I shall ask you anything." "It is all over, papa," she said, lifting her streaming eyes. "Then there was! What has ended it?" Ought she to tell him? _Could_ she tell him? Would it be right or wise to do so--to increase the sense of _ill_, wrought by her unhappy brother, already lying with so bitter a weight, in spite of his love, on Dr. Davenal's spirit! No, she thought she ought not. Her sense of right as well as her reticence of feeling shrunk from the task. "Child, have you no answer for me?" "Something--unpleasant--arose between us," she said, in a faltering whisper. "And so we parted. It was neither his fault nor mine; it--it was the fault of circumstances." "Ah!" said the doctor, "a foolish quarrel. But I had thought both of you superior to it. Should the cloud ever pass away, and he wish to make you his wife, remember that you have my full and free approbation--that my blessing would go with it. In spite of his pride and his caprice, I like Oswald Cray."