Cynthia Wakeham's Money

"Frank, how impatient you are."

"But I have reason."

"How's that?"

"I want to hear about her, and you mock me with the most evasive replies."

Edgar turned towards his friend; the flush had departed from his features, but his manner certainly was not natural. Yet he did not look unkindly at the ardent young lawyer. On the contrary, there was a gleam of compassion in his eye, as he remarked, with more emphasis than he had before used:

"I am sorry if I seem to be evading any question you choose to put. But the truth is you seem to know more about the young lady than I do myself. I did not know that she was the victim of any such caprice."

"Yet it has lasted a year."

"A year?"

"Just the time you have been away."

"Just – " Edgar paused in the repetition. Evidently his attention had been caught at last. But he soon recovered himself. "A strange coincidence," he laughed. "Happily it is nothing more."

Frank surveyed his friend very seriously.

"I shall believe you," said he.

"You may," was the candid rejoinder. And the young physician did not flinch, though Etheridge continued to look at him steadily and with undoubted intention. "And now what luck with Jerry?" he suddenly inquired, with a cheerful change of tone.

"None; I shall leave town at ten."

"Is there no Harriet Smith here?"

"Not if I can believe him."

"And has been none in the last twenty years?"

"Not that he can find out."

"Then your quest here is at an end?"

"No, it has taken another turn, that is all."

"You mean – "

"That I shall come back here to-morrow. I must be sure that what Jerry says is true. Besides – But why mince the matter? I – I have become interested in that girl, Edgar, and want to know her – hear her speak. Cannot you help me to make her acquaintance? If you used to go to the house – Why do you frown? Do you not like Miss Cavanagh? "

Edgar hastily smoothed his forehead.

"Frank, I have never thought very much about her. She was young when I visited her father, and then that scar – "

"Never mind," cried Frank. He felt as if a wound in his own breast had been touched.

Edgar was astonished. He was not accustomed to display his own feelings, and did not know what to make of a man who did. But he did not finish his sentence.

"If she does not go out," he observed instead, "she may be equally unwilling to receive visitors."

"Oh, no," the other eagerly broke in; "people visit there just the same. Only they say she never likes to hear anything about her peculiarity. She wishes it accepted without words."

It was now Edgar's turn to ask a question.

"You say she lives there alone? You mean with servants, doubtless?"

"Oh, yes, she has a servant. But I did not say she lived there alone; I said she and her sister."

Edgar was silent.

"Her sister does not go out, either, they say."

"No? What does it all mean?"

"That is what I want to know."

"Not go out? Emma!"

"Do you remember Emma?"

"Yes, she is younger than Hermione."

"And what kind of a girl is she?"

"Don't ask me, Frank. I have no talent for describing beautiful women."

"She is beautiful, then?"

"If her sister is, yes."

"You mean she has no scar." It was softly said, almost reverently.

"No, she has no scar."

Frank shook his head.

"The scar appeals to me, Edgar."

Edgar smiled, but it was not naturally. The constraint in his manner had increased rather than diminished, and he seemed anxious to start upon the round of calls he had purposed to make.

"You must excuse me," said he, "I shall have to be off. You are coming back to-morrow?"

"If business does not detain me."

"You will find me in my new office by that time. I have rented the small brown house you must have noticed on the main street. Come there, and if you do not mind bachelor housekeeping, stay with me while you remain in town. I shall have a good cook, you may be sure, and as for a room, the north chamber has already been set apart for you."