"My hands are clean," she went on, "but my soul is in shadow. Why did you make me speak of it? You are my friend and I want to keep your friendship, but you see why it must not grow into love; must not I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal."
"I do not see that," he cried impetuously. "You do not make me see it. You hint and assert, but you tell me nothing. You should give me facts, Hermione, and then I could judge whether I should go or stay."
She flushed, and her face, which had been lifted to his, slowly sank.
"You do not know what you ask of me," she murmured.
"I know that I have asked you to be my wife."
"And it was generous of you, very generous. Such generosity merits confidence, but—Let us talk of something else," she cried. "I am not fit—not well enough, I mean, to speak of serious matters to-night. Tell me about your affairs. Tell me if you have found Harriet Smith."
"No," he returned, greatly disappointed, for there had been something like yielding in her manner a moment before. "There is no Harriet Smith, and I do not even know that there is a Hiram Huckins, for he too has disappeared and cannot be found."
"Hiram Huckins?"
"Yes, her brother and the brother of Mrs. Wakeham, whose will has made all this trouble. He is the heir who will inherit her property if Harriet Smith or her children cannot be found, and as the latter contingency is not likely to happen, it is odd that he should have run away without letting us know where he can be found."
"Is he a good man?"