so heavily upon her, and from which she shrank as she had never
done before. Not that she wished to stay in that grand house, where she
was so sadly out of place, but she wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, so
that she escaped from the one spot so horrible to her. She was thinking
of all this and standing with her face to the window, when her brother
entered the room and began, abruptly:

"I say, Hannah, I want to ask you something. Just before Aunt Wetherby
died, she had a long talk with me on various matters, and among other
things she said she believed there was something troubling you and
father, some secret you were hiding from me and the world. Is it so? Do
you know anything which I do not?"

"Yes, many things."

The voice which gave this reply was not like Hannah's voice, but was
hard and sharp, and sounded as if a great ways off, and Burton could see
how violently his sister was agitated, even though she stood with her
back to him. Suddenly he remembered that his aunt had also said: "If
there is a secret, never seek to discover it, lest it should bring
disgrace." And here he was, trying to find it out almost before she was
cold. A great fear took possession of Burton then, for he was the
veriest moral coward in the world, and before Hannah could say another
word, he continued:

"Yes, Aunt Wetherby was right. There is something; there has always been
something; but don't tell me, please, I'd rather not know."

He spoke very gently for him, for somehow, there had been awakened
within him a great pity for his sister, and by some sudden intuition he
seemed to understand all her loneliness and pain. If there had been a
wrongdoing it was not her fault; and as she still stood with her back to
him, and did not speak, he went up to her, and laying his hand upon her
shoulder, said to her:

"I regret that I asked a question which has so agitated you, and,
believe me, I am sorry for you, for whatever it is, you are innocent."

Then she turned toward him with a face as white as ashes and a look of
terror in her large black eyes, before which he quailed. Never in his
life, since he was a little child, had he seen her cry, but now, after
regarding him fixedly a moment, she broke into such a wild fit of
sobbing that he became alarmed, and passing his arm around her, lead her
to a seat and made her lean her head upon him, while he smoothed her
heavy hair, which was more than half gray, and she was only three years
his seni