"You've been visiting the two pretty hermitesses, eh? Are they nice girls? Do they know anything about my sister? You look as if you had heard good news somewhere. Was it in there?"
He was eager; he was insinuating; he seemed to hang upon Frank's reply. But the lawyer, struck and troubled by this allusion to the women he so cherished, on lips he detested beyond any in the world, stood still for a moment, looking the indignation he dared not speak.
Huckins took advantage of this silence to speak again, this time with an off-hand assurance only less offensive than his significant remarks.
"I know they keep at home and do not go out in the world to hear the gossip. But women who keep themselves shut up often know a lot about what is going on around them, Mr. Etheridge, and as you have been there I thought—"
"Never mind what you thought," burst out Frank, unable to bear his insinuations any longer. "Enough that I do not go there to hear anything about Harriet Smith. There are other law cases in the world besides yours, and other clients besides your sister and her heirs. These young ladies, for instance, whom you speak of so freely."
"I am sure," stammered Huckins, with great volubility, and an air of joviality which became him as little as the suspicious attitude he had hitherto taken, "I never meant to speak with the least disrespect of ladies I have never met. Only I was interested you know, naturally interested, in anything which might seem to bear upon my own affairs. They drag so, don't they, Mr. Etheridge, and I am kept so long out of my rights."
"No longer than justice seems to demand, Mr. Huckins; your sister, and her heirs, if they exist, have rights also."
"So you say," quoth Huckins, "and I have learned not to quarrel with a lawyer. Good-day, Mr. Etheridge, good-day. Hope to hear that some decision has been arrived at soon."
"Good-day," growled Frank, and strode rapidly off, determined to return to Marston that very night if only to learn what Huckins was up to. But before he had gone a dozen steps he came quickly back and seized that person by the arm. "Where are you going?" he asked; for Huckins had laid his hand on Miss Cavanagh's gate and was about to enter.
"I am going to pay a visit," was the smiling reply. "Is there anything wrong in that?"