‘I see,’ she said quietly, while Frank looked out at the window, and saw Mr. Rich and Alf leisurely turning down towards the woods, and wished he were with them after all. Being advised for his good was bad enough, but to have his secrets thus demanded of him, and himself looked through and through, was worse. Confound it! what did she see? that he had been thinking of handing her over to Laurie? that he had been ready to traffic with her, presuming on the notice she had taken of him, and coolly planning to get her money for his brother? Was this what she saw, the little sorceress? Just then Alice, who had been sent away not to disturb the investigation, began to strike some plaintive chords on the piano. Ah, there was a creature who would never gaze at a man with such disdainful, suspicious scrutiny--a consolatory being, that would sweeten and smooth life, and make its sorrows bearable, instead of adding distraction to distraction! Frank felt sure that she had heard what was passing, and struck in at the most difficult moment to relieve his embarrassment and tranquillise his mind. Bless her! and of the other he had said, in his perplexity, Confound her! While he stood silent, looking out, the music stole about his heart and caressed and soothed him. He felt as if it had not been the music but the musician who did so; but of course that was nonsense. It freed him from the necessity of making Nelly any further answer, or asking what it was she saw, as a man strong in conscious right might have done. But all Frank’s consciousness was of wrong. It was Nelly who was the first to speak. She changed her position rapidly, and with it her manner and all that was objectionable in her looks. She leaned forward to him with her arm on the ledge of the window. ‘I am impertinent,’ she said; ‘yes, I know you think so; but you must not be angry, Mr. Renton, as Alice says.’ ‘Angry!’ cried Frank. ‘Yes, angry; you might be, for I have been very disagreeable. I can’t help being disagreeable now and then. You are very fond of your brother, and you wanted me to know him. It was a great compliment; and before you came I was saying to Alice how I wished I could have gone with him, and lived just as he did. But I can’t, you know. A girl never can do anything she wants to do. That is what makes us envy you so, and admire your independence and your freedom,’ said Nelly, looking up with different eyes,--with eyes as plaintive and insinuating as the music,--into Frank’s face. What could he do? He was mollified in spite of himself. ‘Not so very independent, after all,’ he said. ‘A subaltern cannot boast of much in that way. I have to come and go as I am told, and ask leave before I can get away to see my friends.’