take, and all the hypotheses
that had arisen were allowed to dissipate into thin air and fly away.

Another two weeks passed and Hannibal still remained with the Ferns. An
inquiry of Daisy produced the answer that he thought of remaining in
America till spring. The girl tried to act as if it made not the
slightest consequence to her whether he went or stayed, but she did not
succeed. Mr. Weil knew that she wished most heartily for the time when
the negro would take his departure. She was bound up in her father, and
Hannibal was worrying him to death--from whatever cause. She wanted the
tie between him and this black man broken, and hated every day that
stood between them and his hour of sailing.

Roseleaf was almost as uneasy as Daisy over the delay. He had given her
the money she asked for, though no allusion to its purpose had been
made.

She still had it, somewhere, unless she had given it to the one for whom
it was intended. When she took the package from his hand she rose on her
tiptoes and kissed him with the most affectionate of gestures. It was
the second occasion on which he had been permitted to touch her lips,
and he appreciated it fully. He realized from her action how deeply she
felt his kindness in providing her with the funds that were to relieve
her father of an incubus that was sapping his very life.

"You don't find much use for our black Adonis yet, I see," said Weil, as
he laid down the latest page of the slowly building novel. "I had hoped
you would penetrate the secret of his power over your heroine's father,
by this time."

"No, I cannot understand it at all," replied Roseleaf. "And if you, with
your superior quickness of perception, have found nothing, I don't see
how you could expect me to."

"You have greater opportunities," said Weil, with a smile that was not
quite natural. "You have the ear of the fair Miss Daisy, remember," he
explained, in reply to the inquiring look that was raised to him.

"Ah, but she knows nothing, either," exclaimed Roseleaf. "I am sure of
that."

Mr. Weil was silent for some moments.

"Well, if you cannot find the true cause," he said, "you will have to
invent a hypothetical one. Your novel cannot stand still forever.
Imagine something--a crime, for instance, of which this black fellow is
cognizant. A murder--that he peeped in at a keyhole and saw. How would
that do?"

Roseleaf turned pale.

"You know," he said, "that you are talking of impossibilities.