"No, brother, it would hurt him, but not kill him." Hannah said, with energy; "and ever since he was a little child I have depended upon him to comfort me, to help me, as I knew he would when he was older; and something tells me he will find the heirs. I do not mean to tell him until he is a man, able to understand."
"Hannah!" and there was fierce anger in the voice. "You are not my sister if you ever dare tell Grey this thing, or hint it to him in any way. He must never know it, both for his own sake and mine. I could not even look at him without shame if he knew what my father was. You have kept it thirty-one years; keep it thirty-one longer, and, as you vowed secrecy to my father, so swear to me solemnly, as you hope for Heaven, never to tell Grey or any one."
He had seized her wrist, and held it so tightly that she winced with pain as she cried out: "Oh, Burton, I cannot; I must restore the money and the will."
"Stuff and nonsense!" he repeated, growing more and more excited. "That woman is dead before this, and her heirs, if she had any, scattered to the winds. People never miss what they never had, and they will not miss this paltry sum. Promise me, that you will drop this insane idea of restitution and never reveal what you know, even after Geraldine and I are dead, should you outlive us both. Think of the disgrace to the Greys."
And so, worried, and worn, and half crazed with fatigue and excitement, Hannah bound herself again, and, had not Grey already known the secret, Elizabeth Rogers' heirs would never have heard of the tin box in the chimney, from which place Hannah brought it at last to show the contents to her brother, who, perfectly sure that she would keep her word, could calmly examine the will and scan the features of the young girl upon the ivory.
"She is very lovely," he said, "though evidently she belongs to the working class; her dress indicates as much. But whoever she is or was, she is not like this now; she is old or dead. Put it back in the box, Hannah, and if ever you accidentally find to a certainty where the original is, or her heirs, send the will and the money to her from Boston or New York, and she will thus get her own without knowing where it came from."
This was rather a lame way to make restitution, but Hannah seized upon it as something feasible, and felt in a measure comforted. She would herself go to Europe some time, and hunt up the Rogers heirs so cautiously that no suspicion could attach to her, and then, having found them, she would send them the will and the money she was hoarding for them. This was a ray of hope amid the darkness--the straw to which she clung; and the future did not seem quite so cheerless, even when, a few hours later, she stood with her brother by the side of her dead father, who had died without a struggle or sigh, just as the chill morning was breaking in the east and giving promise of a fairer day than the previous one had been.