Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming of the guests, Hannah put her father’s room a little more to rights, lighted another candle, put more wood in the stove, and then sat down to wait the result, with a heart which it seemed to her had ceased to beat, so pulseless and dead it lay in her bosom.  She had no fear of anything personally adverse to herself or her father arising from the telling of the secret kept so many years.  It would be safe with Mr. Sanford, while her proud brother would die a thousand deaths sooner than reveal it; but, oh, how cruelly he would be hurt, and how he would shrink from the story, and blame her that she allowed it to be told, especially to the clergyman—­and she might perhaps prevent that yet.  So she made another effort, but her father was determined.

“I must, I must; I shall die easier, and he will never tell.  We have known him so long.  Twenty-five years he has been here, and he took to us from the first.  Do you remember how often he used to come and read to you on the bench under the apple tree?”

“Yes, father,” Hannah answered, with a gasp, and he went on: 

“Seeing you two together so much, I used to think he had a liking for you, and you for him.  Did you, Hannah?  Were you and the minister ever engaged?”

“No, father, never,” Hannah replied, as she pressed her hands tightly together, while two great burning tears rolled down her cheeks.

“And yet you were a comely enough lass then,” her father rejoined, as if bent on tormenting her.  “You had lost your bright color to be sure, but there was something very winsome in your face and eyes, and manner; and he might better have married you than the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, fussy Martha Craig, who, like the Martha of old, is troubled about many things, and leads the minister a stirred up kind of life.”

“Mrs. Sanford is a model housekeeper, and takes good care of her husband,” Hannah said, softly; and then, as she heard the sound of voices outside, she arose quickly, and went to meet her brother, and the man who, her father had said, would better have married her than the “sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Martha.”

CHAPTER X.

THE INTERVIEW.

The rector was full of interest and concern as he stepped into the room, and when Hannah apologized for sending for him on such a night, he answered promptly: 

“Not at all, not at all.  If I can be of any comfort to you or your father, I should be very sorry not to come.  How is he?”

Hannah did not answer him, so intent was she upon studying her brother’s face, which was anything but sympathetic, as he shook the snow from his overcoat and warmed his hands by the stove.  The Hon. Burton Jerrold liked his comfort and ease, and as he was far from easy or comfortable, he made his sister feel it by his manner, if not by his words.

“Is father so much worse that you must send for us in this storm?” he asked, and Hannah replied: