Anna Green - Cynthia Wakeham's Money

"Yet you were acquainted with the fact that she went to Marston."

The indignant light in the brother's eye settled into a look of cunning.

"Oh," he acknowledged carelessly, "we heard so at the time, when everything was fresh. But we heard nothing more, nothing."

"Nothing?" Frank repeated. "Not that she had married and had had children?"

"No," was the dogged reply. "My sister up there," and Huckins jerked his hand towards the room where poor Mrs. Wakeham lay, "surmised things, but she didn't know anything for certain. If she had she might have sent for these folks long ago. She had time enough in the last ten years we have been living in this hole together."

"But," Etheridge now ventured, determined not to be outmatched in cunning, "you say she was penurious, too penurious to live comfortably or to let you do so."

Huckins shrugged his shoulders and for a moment looked balked; then he cried: "The closest women have their whims. If she had known any such folks to have been living as you have named, she would have sent for them."

"If you had let her," suggested Frank.

Huckins turned upon him and his eye flashed. But he very soon cringed again and attempted a sickly smile, which completed the disgust the young lawyer felt for him.

"If I had let her," he repeated; "I, who pined for companionship or anything which would have put a good meal into my mouth! You do not know me, sir; you are prejudiced against me because I want my earnings, and a little comfort in my old age."

"If I am prejudiced against you, it is yourself who has made me so," returned the other. "Your conduct has not been of a nature to win my regard, since I have had the honor of your acquaintance."

"And what has yours been, worming, as you have, into my sister's confidence – "

But here Frank hushed him. "We will drop this," said he. "You know me, and I think I know you. I came to give you one last chance to play the man by helping me to find your relatives. I see you have no intention of doing so, so I will now proceed to find them without you."

"If they exist," he put in.

"Certainly, if they exist. If they do not – "

"What then?"

"I must have proofs to that effect. I must know that your sister left no heirs but yourself."

"That will take time," he grumbled. "I shall be kept weeks out of my rights."

"The Surrogate will see that you do not suffer."

He shuddered and looked like a fox driven into his hole.

"It is shameful, shameful!" he cried. "It is nothing but a conspiracy to rob me of my own. I suppose I shall not be allowed to live in my own house." And his eyes wandered greedily over the rafters above him.

"Are you sure that it is yours?"

"Yes, yes, damn you!" But the word had been hasty, and he immediately caught Frank's sleeve and cringed in contrition. "I beg your pardon," he cried, "perhaps we had better not talk any longer, for I have been too tried for patience. They will not even leave me alone in my grief," he whined, pointing towards the rooms full, as I have said, of jostling neighbors and gossips.

"It will be quiet enough after the funeral," Frank assured him.

"Oh! oh! the funeral!" he groaned.

"Is it going to be too extravagant?" Frank insinuated artfully.

Huckins gave the lawyer a look, dropped his eyes and mournfully shook his head.

"The poor woman would not have liked it," he muttered; "but one must be decent towards one's own blood."

Frank succeeded in having Mr. Dickey appointed as Custodian of the property, then he went back to Marston.

"Good-evening, Doctor; what a nest of roses you have here for a bachelor," was his jovial cry, as he entered the quaint little house, in which Sellick had now established himself. "I declare, when you told me I should always find a room here, I did not realize what a temptation you were offering me. And in sight – " He paused, changing color as he drew back from the window to which he had stepped, – "of the hills," he somewhat awkwardly added.

Edgar, who had watched the movements of his friend from under half lowered lids, smiled dryly.

" Of the hills ," he repeated. Then with a short laugh, added, "I knew that you liked that especial view."

Frank's eye, which was still on a certain distant chimney, lighted up wonderfully as he turned genially towards his friend.

"I did not know you were such a good fellow," he laughed. "I hope you have found yourself made welcome here."

"Oh, yes, welcome enough."

"Any patients yet?"

"All of Dudgeon's, I fear. I have been doing little else but warning one man after another: 'Now, no words against any former practitioner. If you want help from me, tell me your symptoms, but don't talk about any other doctor's mistakes, for I have not time to hear it.'"

"Poor old Dudgeon!" cried Frank. Then, shortly: "I'm a poor one to hide my impatience. Have you seen either of them yet?"

"Either – of – them?"

"The girls, the two sweet whimsical girls. You know whom I mean, Edgar."

"You only spoke of one when you were here before, Frank."

"And I only think of one. But I saw the other on my way to the depot, and that made me speak of the two. Have you seen them?"

"No," answered the other, with unnecessary dryness; "I think you told me they did not go out."

"But you have feet, man, and you can go to them, and I trusted that you would, if only to prepare the way for me; for I mean to visit them, as you have every reason to believe, and I should have liked an introducer."

"Frank," asked the other, quietly, but with a certain marked earnestness, "has it gone as deep as that? Are you really serious in your intention of making the acquaintance of Miss Cavanagh?"

"Serious? Have you for a minute thought me otherwise?"

"You are not serious in most things."

"In business I am, and in – "

"Love?" the other smiled.

"Yes, if you can call it love, yet."

"We will not call it anything," said the other. "You want to see her, that is all. I wonder at your decision, but can say nothing against it. Happily, you have seen her defect."

"It is not a defect to me."

"Not if it is in her nature as well?"

"Her nature?"

"A woman who for any reason cuts herself off from her species, as she is said to do, cannot be without her faults. Such idiosyncrasies do not grow out of the charity we are bid to have for our fellow-creatures."

"But she may have suffered. I can readily believe she has suffered from that same want of charity in others. There is nothing like a personal defect to make one sensitive. Think of the averted looks she must have met from many thoughtless persons; and she almost a beauty!"

"Yes, that almost is tragic."

"It can excuse much."

Edgar shook his head. "Think what you are doing, Frank, that's all. I should hesitate in making the acquaintance of one who for any reason has shut herself away from the world."

"Is not her whim shared by her sister?"

"They say so."

"Then there are two whose acquaintance you would hesitate to make?"

"Certainly, if I had any ulterior purpose beyond that of mere acquaintanceship."

"Her sister has no scar?"

Edgar, weary, perhaps, of the conversation, did not answer.

"Why should she shut herself up?" mused Frank, too interested in the subject to note the other's silence.

"Women are mysteries," quoth Edgar, shortly.

"But this is more than a mystery," cried Frank. "Whim will not account for it. There must be something in the history of these two girls which the world does not know."

"That is not the fault of the world," retorted Edgar, in his usual vein of sarcasm.

But Frank was reckless. "The world is right to be interested," he avowed. "It would take a very cold heart not to be moved with curiosity by such a fact as two girls secluding themselves in their own house, without any manifest reason. Are you not moved by it, Edgar? Are you, indeed, as indifferent as you seem?"