"She at once nodded painfully but unmistakably, and, lifting her hand, pointed to her lips and shook her head.
"'She means that she cannot speak', explained the man, in a pant, over my shoulder.
"Moving a step aside in my disgust, I said to her, not to him:
"'But you can hear?'
"Her intelligent eye responded before her head could add its painful acquiescence.
"'And you have property to leave?'
"'This house', answered the man.
"My eyes wandered mechanically to the empty cupboards about me from which the doors had been wrenched and, as I now saw from the looks of the fireplace, burned.
"'The ground—the ground is worth something,' quoth the man.
"'The avidity with which he spoke satisfied me at least upon one point—he was the expectant heir.