"I believe it; I know it; I remember now that they have always shown an interest in the matter. Hermione wanted to read the will, and—Edgar, Edgar, can they be the heirs for whom we are searching, and is that why Huckins haunts the house and is received by them in plain defiance of my entreaties?"
"If they are the heirs they would have been likely to have told you. Penniless young girls are not usually backward in claiming property which is their due."
"That is certainly true, but this property has been left under a condition. I recollect now how disappointed Hermione looked when she read the will. Give me the book; I must see her sister or herself at once about it." And without heeding the demurs of his more cautious friend, Frank plunged from the house and made his way immediately to the Cavanagh mansion.
His hasty knock brought Emma to the door. As he encountered her look and beheld the sudden and strong agitation under which she labored, he realized for the first time that he was returning to the house before reading the letter upon which so much depended.
But he was so filled with his new discovery that he gave that idea but a thought.
"Miss Cavanagh—Emma," he entreated, "grant me a moment's conversation. I have just found this book in Dr. Sellick's library—a book which he declares was once given him by your sister—and in it——"
They had entered the parlor by this time and were standing by a table upon which burned a lamp——"is a name."
She started, and was bending to look at the words upon which his finger rested, when the door opened. Hermione, alarmed and not knowing what to think of this unexpected return of her lover so soon, as she supposed, after the receipt of her letter, had come down from her room in that mood of extreme tension which is induced by an almost unendurable suspense.
Frank, who in all his experience of her had never seen her look as she did at this moment, fell back from the place where he stood and hastily shook his head.
"Don't look like that," he cried, "or you will make me feel I can never read your letter."