be the case. Since the day he died, the most
faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of his office, of
his library, of his room, that I have not hunted through. He was so
methodical in business matters, so exact in the care of his papers, that
I had little hope, after I had gone through his desk. I cannot
understand it. It is altogether dark to me."

"What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can he have
heard anything about last summer?"

"Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from
allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once
this winter."

"He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?"

"Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a foreigner: two
things he hated. I never heard there was anything against him but
his poverty."

"How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie, musingly.

"I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard.

"Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You may be
quite sure of _that_."

"Pauline clever! Poor Pauline!" said Richard, with a short, sarcastic
laugh, which had the effect of making Sophie angry.

"I am willing," she said, "that she should be as stupid and as good as
you can wish--. To whom does the money go?" she added, as if she had not
patience for the other subject.

"To a brother, with whom he had a quarrel, and whom he had not seen for
over sixteen years."

"Incredible!"

"But there had been some sort of a reconciliation, at least an exchange
of letters, within these three months past."

"Ah!"

"And it is in consequence of hearing from him, and being pressed by his
lawyer for an immediate settlement of the estate, that I have come up to
tell Pauline, and to prepare her for her changed prospects."

"And what do you propose to advise?" asked Sophie, with a chilling
voice.

"Heaven knows, Sophie," answered her brother, with a heavy sigh. "I see
nothing ahead for the poor girl, but loneliness and trial. She is
utterly unfit to struggle with the world. And she has not even a shelter
for her head."

"Richard," interrupted his sister, with intensity of feeling in her
voice, "I see what you are trying to persuade yourself: do not tell me,
after what has passed, you still feel that you are bound to her--"

"_Bound!_" exclaimed Richard, with a vehemence most strange in him, as,
pacing the room, he stood still before his sister. His back was towa