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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by 
+Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Agatha's Husband
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+Posting Date: March 13, 2009 [EBook #21767]
+Release Date: June 8, 2007
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA'S HUSBAND ***
+
+
+
+
+David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AGATHA'S HUSBAND
+
+A NOVEL
+
+By The Author Of
+
+'John Halifax, Gentleman'
+
+DINAH MARIA CRAIK,
+AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock
+
+With Illustrations By Walter Crane
+
+Macmillan And Co.
+
+1875
+
+
+INSCRIBED TO M, P.,
+
+IN
+
+MEMORIAL OF THE FRIENDSHIP OF A LIFETIME
+
+1852.
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+The husband's farewell
+
+"She began leisurely to read"
+
+"Will you accept it, with my love?"
+
+Arrival at Kingcombe Holm
+
+On horseback
+
+Along the road
+
+
+
+
+AGATHA'S HUSBAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+--If there ever was a woman thoroughly like her name, it was Agatha
+Bowen. She was good, in the first place--right good at heart, though
+with a slight external roughness (like the sound of the g in her name),
+which took away all sentimentalism. Then the vowels--the three broad
+rich a's--which no one can pronounce with nimini-pimini closed lips--how
+thoroughly they answered to her character!--a character in the which was
+nothing small, mean, cramped, or crooked.
+
+But if we go on unfolding her in this way, there will not be the
+slightest use in writing her history, or that of one in whom her life is
+beautifully involved and enclosed--as every married woman's should be--
+
+He was still in clouded mystery--an individual yet to be; and two other
+individuals had been "talking him over," feminine-fashion, in Miss
+Agatha Bowen's drawing-room, much to that lady's amusement and
+edification. For, being moderately rich, she had her own suite of rooms
+in the house where she boarded; and having no mother--sorrowful lot for
+a girl of nineteen!--she sometimes filled her drawing-room with very
+useless and unprofitable acquaintances. These two married ladies--one
+young, the other old--Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Thornycroft--had been for the
+last half-hour vexing their very hearts out to find Agatha a husband--a
+weakness which, it must be confessed, lurks in the heart of almost every
+married lady.
+
+Agatha had been laughing at it, alternately flushing up or looking
+scornful, as her mouth had a natural propensity for looking; balancing
+herself occasionally on the arm of the sofa, which, being rather small
+and of a light figure, she could do with both impunity and grace; or
+else rushing to the open window, ostensibly to let her black kitten
+investigate street-sights from its mistress's shoulder. Agatha was very
+much of a child still, or could be when she chose.
+
+Mrs. Hill had been regretting some two or three "excellent matches" of
+which she felt sure Miss Bowen had thrown away her chance; and young
+Mrs. Thornycroft had tried hard to persuade her dearest Agatha how very
+much happier she would be in a house of her own, than as a boarder even
+in this excellent physician's family. But Agatha only laughed on, and
+devoted herself more than ever to the black kitten.
+
+She was, I fear, a damsel who rather neglected the _bienséances_ of
+life. Only, in her excuse, it must be allowed that her friends were
+doing what they had no earthly business to do; since; if there is one
+subject above all upon which a young woman has a right to keep her
+thoughts, feelings, and intentions to herself, and to exact from others
+the respect of silence, it is that of marriage. Possibly, Agatha Bowen
+was of this opinion.
+
+"Mrs. Hill, you are a very kind, good soul: and Emma Thornycroft, I like
+you very much; but if--(Oh! be quiet, Tittens!)--if you could manage to
+let me and 'my Husband' alone."
+
+These were the only serious words she said--and they were but half
+serious; she evidently felt such an irresistible propensity to laugh.
+
+"Now," continued she, turning the conversation, and putting on a
+dignified aspect, which occasionally she took it into her head to
+assume, though more in playfulness than earnest--"now let me tell you
+who you will meet here at dinner to-day."
+
+"Major Harper, of course."
+
+"I do not see the 'of course' Mrs. Thornycroft," returned Agatha,
+rather sharply; then, melting into a smile, she added: "Well, 'of
+course,' as you say; what more likely visitor could I have than my
+guardian?"
+
+"Trustee, my dear; guardians belong to romances, where young ladies are
+always expected to hate, or fall in love with them."
+
+Agatha flushed slightly. Now, unlike most girls, Miss Bowen did not look
+pretty when she blushed; her skin being very dark, and not over clear,
+the red blood coursing under it dyed her cheek, not "celestial, rosy
+red," but a warm mahogany colour. Perhaps a consciousness of this
+deepened the unpleasant blushing fit, to which, like most sensitive
+people at her age, she was always rather prone.
+
+"Not," continued Mrs. Thornycroft, watching her,--"not that I think any
+love affair is likely to happen in your case; Major Harper is far too
+much of a settled-down bachelor, and at the same time too old."
+
+Agatha pulled a comical face, and made a few solemn allusions to
+Methuselah. She had a peculiarly quick, even abrupt manner of speaking,
+saying a dozen words in the time most young ladies would take to drawl
+out three; and possessing, likewise, the rare feminine quality of never
+saying a word more than was necessary.
+
+"Agatha, how funny you are!" laughed her easily-amused friend. "But,
+dear, tell me who else is coming?" And she glanced doubtfully down on a
+gown that looked like a marriage-silk "dyed and renovated."
+
+"Oh, no ladies--and gentlemen never see whether one is dressed in
+brocade or sackcloth," returned Agatha, rather maliciously;--"only,
+'old Major Harper' as you are pleased to call him, and"----
+
+"Nay, I didn't call him very old--just forty, or thereabouts--though he
+does not look anything like it. Then he is so handsome, and, I must say,
+Agatha, pays you such extreme attention."
+
+Agatha laughed again--the quick, light-hearted laugh of nineteen--and
+her brown eyes brightened with innocent pleasure.
+
+Young Mrs. Thornycroft again looked down uneasily at her dress--not from
+overmuch vanity, but because her hounded mind recurred instinctively
+from extraneous or large interests to individual and lesser ones.
+
+"Is there really any one particular coming, my dear? Of course, _you_
+have no trouble about evening dress; mourning is such easy comfortable
+wear." (Agatha turned her head quickly aside.) "That handsome silk
+of yours looks quite well still; and mamma there," glancing at the
+contentedly knitting Mrs. Hill--"old ladies never require much dress;
+but if you had only told me to prepare for company"----
+
+"Pretty company! Merely our own circle--Dr. Ianson, Mrs. Ianson, and
+Miss Ianson--you need not mind outshining her now"----
+
+"No, indeed! I am married."
+
+"Then the 'company' dwindles down to two besides yourselves; Major
+Harper and his brother."
+
+"Oh! What sort of a person is the brother?"
+
+"I really don't know; I have never seen him. He is just come home from
+Canada; the youngest of the family--and I hate boys," replied Agatha,
+running the sentences one upon the other in her quick fashion.
+
+"The youngest of the family--how many are there in all?" inquired the
+elder lady, her friendly anxiety being probably once more on matrimonial
+thoughts intent.
+
+"I am sure, Mrs. Hill, I cannot tell. I have never seen any of them but
+Major Harper, and I never saw him till my poor father died; all which
+circumstances you know quite well, and Emma too; so there is no need to
+talk a thing twice over."
+
+From her occasional mode of speech, some people might say, and did say,
+that Agatha Bowen "had a temper of her own." It is very true, she was
+not one of those mild, amiable heroines who never can give a sharp word
+to any one. And now and then, probably from the morbid restlessness
+of unsatisfied youth--a youth, too, that fate had deprived of those
+home-ties, duties, and sacrifices, which are at once so arduous and so
+wholesome--she had a habit of carrying, not only the real black kitten,
+but the imaginary and allegorical "little black dog," on her shoulder.
+
+It was grinning there invisibly now; shaking her curls with short
+quick motion, swelling her rich full lips--those sort of lips which are
+glorious in smiles, but which in repose are apt to settle into a gravity
+not unlike crossness.
+
+She was looking thus--not her best, it must be allowed--when a servant,
+opening the drawing-room door, announced "Visitors for Miss Bowen."
+
+The first who entered, very much in advance of the other, appeared with
+that easy, agreeable air which at once marks the gentleman, and one long
+accustomed to the world in all its phases, especially to the feminine
+phase; for he bowed over Agatha's hand, and smiled in Agatha's now
+brightening face, with a sort of tender manliness, that implied his
+being used to pleasing women, and having an agreeable though not an
+ungenerous consciousness of the fact.
+
+"Are you better--really better? Are you quite sure you have no cold
+left? Nothing to make your friends anxious about you?" (Agatha shook her
+head smilingly.) "That's right; I am so glad."
+
+And no doubt Major Harper was; for a true kind-heartedness, softened
+even to tender-heartedness, was visible in his handsome face. Which face
+had been for twenty years the admiration of nearly every woman in every
+drawing-room he entered: a considerable trial for any man. Now and then
+some independent young lady, who had reasons of her own for preferring
+rosy complexions, turn-up noses, and "runaway" chins, might quarrel
+with the Major's fine Roman profile and jet-black moustache and hair;
+but--there was no denying it--he was, even at forty, a remarkably
+handsome man; one of the old school of Chesterfield perfection, which is
+fast dying out.
+
+Everybody liked him, more or less; and some people--a few men and not a
+few women, had either in friendship or in warmer fashion--deeply
+loved him. Society in general was quite aware of this; nor, it must be
+confessed, did Major Harper at all attempt to disprove or ignore the
+fact. He wore his honours--as he did a cross won, no one quite knew
+how, during a brief service in the Peninsula--neither pompously nor
+boastingly, but with the mild indifference of conscious desert.
+
+All this could be at once discerned in his face, voice, and manner;
+from which likewise a keen observer might draw the safe conclusion that,
+though a decided man of fashion, and something of a dandy, he was above
+either puppyism or immorality. And Agatha's rich Anglo-Indian father had
+not judged foolishly when he put his only child and her property in the
+trust of, as he believed, that rare personage, an honest man.
+
+If the girl Agatha, who took honesty as a matter of course in every
+gentleman, endowed this particular one with a few qualities more than he
+really possessed, it was an amiable weakness on her part, for which,
+as Major Harper would doubtless have said with a seriously troubled
+countenance, "no one could possibly blame _him._"
+
+In speaking of the Major we have taken little notice--as little, indeed,
+as Agatha did--of the younger Mr. Harper.
+
+"My brother, Miss Bowen. He came home when my sister Emily died." The
+brief introduction terminated in a slight fall of voice, which made the
+young lady look sympathisingly at the handsome face that took shades of
+sadness as easily as shades of mirth. In her interest for the Major she
+merely bowed to his brother; just noticed that the stranger was a tall,
+fair "boy," not at all resembling her own friend; and after a polite
+speech or two of welcome, to which Mr. Harper answered very briefly,
+she hardly looked at him again until she and her guests adjourned to the
+family drawing-room of Dr. Ianson.
+
+There, the Major happening to be engrossed by doing earnest politeness
+to Mrs. Thornycroft and her mother, Agatha had to enter side by side
+with the younger brother, and likewise to introduce him to the worthy
+family whose inmate she was.
+
+She did so, making the whole circuit of the room towards Miss Jane
+Ianson, in the hope that he would cast anchor, or else be grappled by
+that young lady, and so she should get rid of him. However, fate was
+adverse; the young gentleman showed no inclination to be thus put aside,
+and Miss Bowen, driven to despair, was just going to extinguish him
+altogether with some specimen of the unceremonious manner which she
+occasionally showed to "boys," when, observing him more closely, she
+discovered that he could not exactly come under this category.
+
+His fair face, fair hair, and thin, stripling-like figure, had deceived
+her. Investigating deeper, there was a something in his grave eye
+and firmly-set mouth which bespoke the man, not the boy. Agatha, who,
+treating him with a careless womanly superiority that girls of nineteen
+use, had asked "how long he had been in Canada?" and been answered
+"Fifteen years,"--hesitated at her next intended question--the very rude
+and malicious one--"How old he was when he left home?"
+
+"I was, as you say, very young when I quitted England," he answered, to
+a less pointed remark of Miss Ianson's. "I must have been a lad of nine
+or ten--little more."
+
+Agatha quite started to think of the disrespectful way in which she
+had treated a gentleman twenty-five years old! It made her shy and
+uncomfortable for some minutes, and she rather repented of her habit of
+patronising "boys."
+
+However, what was even twenty-five? A raw, uncouth age. No man was
+really good for anything until he was thirty. And, as quickly as
+courtesy and good feeling allowed her, she glided from the uninteresting
+younger brother to the charmed circle where the elder was talking away,
+as only Major Harper could talk, using all the weapons of conversation
+by turns, to a degree that never can be truly described. Like Taglioni's
+_entrechats_, or Grisi's melodious notes, such extrinsic talent dies on
+the senses of the listener, who cannot prove, scarcely even explain, but
+only say that it was so. Nevertheless, with all his power of amusing, a
+keen observer might have discerned in Major Harper a want of depth--of
+reading--of thought; a something that marked out the man of society
+in contradiction to the man of intellect or of letters. Had he been an
+author--which he was once heard to thank Heaven he was not--he would
+probably have been one of those shallow, fashionable sentimentalists
+who hang like Mahomed's coffin between earth and heaven, an eyesore unto
+both. As it was, his modicum of talent made him a most pleasant man in
+his own sphere--the drawing-room.
+
+"Really," whispered the good, corpulent Dr. Ianson, who had been
+laughing so much that he quite forgot dinner was behind time, "my dear
+Miss Bowen, your friend is the most amusing, witty, delightful person.
+It is quite a pleasure to have such a man at one's table."
+
+"Quite a pleasure, indeed," echoed Mrs. Ianson, deeply thankful to
+anything or anybody that stood in the breach between herself, her
+husband, and the dilatory cook.
+
+Agatha looked gratified and proud. Casting a shy glance towards where
+her friend was talking to Emma Thomycroft and Miss Ianson, she met
+the eye of the younger brother. It expressed such keen, though
+grave observance of her, that she felt her cheeks warm into the old,
+unbecoming, uncomfortable blush.
+
+It was rather a satisfaction that, just then, they were summoned
+to dinner; Major Harper, in his half tender, half paternal manner,
+advancing to take her downstairs; which was his custom, when, as
+frequently happened, Agatha Bowen was the woman he liked best in the
+room. This was indeed his usual way in all societies, except when out of
+kindliness of heart he now and then made a temporary sacrifice in favour
+of some woman who he thought liked _him_ best. Though even in this case,
+perhaps, he would not have erred, or felt that he erred, in offering his
+arm to Agatha.
+
+She looked happy, as any young girl would, in receiving the attentions
+of a man whom all admired; and was quite contented to sit next to him,
+listening while he talked cheerfully and brilliantly, less for her
+personal, entertainment than that of the table in general. Which she
+thought, considering the dulness of the Ianson circle, and that even her
+own kind-hearted, long-known friend, Emma Thomycroft, was not the most
+intellectual woman in the world,--showed great good nature on the part
+of Major Harper.
+
+Perhaps the most silent person at table was the younger brother, whose
+Christian name Agatha did not know. However, hearing the Major call
+him once or twice by an odd-sounding word, something like "Beynell" or
+"Ennell," she had the curiosity to inquire.
+
+"Oh, it is N. L.--his initials; which I call him by, instead of the
+very ugly name his cruel godfathers and godmothers imposed upon him as a
+life-long martyrdom."
+
+"What name is that?" asked Agatha, looking across at the luckless victim
+of nomenclature, who seemed to endure his woes with great equanimity.
+
+He met her eye, and answered for himself, showing he had been listening
+to her all the time. "I am called Nathanael--it is an old family
+name--Nathanael Locke Harper."
+
+"You don't look very like a Nathanael," observed his neighbour, Mrs.
+Thornycroft, doubtless wishing to be complimentary.
+
+"I think he does," said Agatha, kindly, for she was struck by the
+infinitely sweet and "good" expression which the young man's face just
+then wore. "He looks like the Nathanael of Scripture, 'in whom there
+was no guile.'"
+
+A pause--for the Iansons were those sort of religious people who think
+any Biblical allusions irreverent. But Major Harper said, heartily,
+"That's true!" and cordially, nay affectionately, pressed Agatha's
+hand. Nathanael slightly coloured, as if with pleasure, though he made
+no answer of any kind. He was evidently unused to bandy either jests or
+compliments.
+
+If anything could be objected to in a young man so retiring and
+unobtrusive as he, it was a certain something the very opposite of
+his brother's cheerful frankness. His features, regular, delicate, and
+perfectly colourless; his hair long, straight, and of the palest brown,
+without any shadow of what painters would call a "warm tint," auburn or
+gold, running through it; his slow, quiet movements, rare speech, and a
+certain passive composure of aspect, altogether conveyed the impression
+of a nature which, if not positively repellant, was decidedly cold.
+
+Agatha felt it, and though from the rule of opposites, this species of
+character awoke in her a spice of interest, yet was the interest of too
+faint and negative a kind to attract her more than momentarily.
+
+In her own mind she set down Nathanael Harper as "a very odd sort of
+youth"--(_a youth_ she still persisted in calling him)--and turned
+again to his brother.
+
+They had dined late,--and the brief evening bade fair to pass as
+after-dinner evenings do. Arrived in the drawing-room, old Mrs. Hill
+went to sleep; Miss Ianson, a pale young woman, in delicate health,
+disappeared; Mrs. Ianson and Mrs. Thornycroft commenced a low-toned,
+harmless conversation, which was probably about "servants" and "babies."
+Agatha being at that age when domestic affairs are very uninteresting,
+and girlish romance has not yet ripened into the sweet and solemn
+instincts of motherhood, stole quietly aside, and did the very rude
+thing of taking up a book and beginning to read "in company." But, as
+before stated, Miss Agatha had a will of her own, which she usually
+followed out, even when it ran a little contrary to the ultra-refined
+laws of propriety.
+
+The book not being sufficiently interesting, she was beginning, like
+many another clever girl of nineteen, to think the society of married
+ladies a great bore, and to wonder when the gentlemen would come
+up-stairs'. Her wish was shortly gratified by the door's opening--but
+only to admit the "youth" Nathanael.
+
+However, partly for civility, and partly through lack of entertainment,
+Agatha smiled upon even him, and tried to make him talk.
+
+This was not an easy matter, since in all qualities he seemed to be
+his elder brother's opposite. Indeed, his reserve and brevity of speech
+emulated Agatha's own; so they got on together ill enough, until by some
+happy chance they lighted on the subject of Canada and the Backwoods.
+Where is there boy or girl of romantic imagination who did not, at
+some juvenile period of existence, revel in descriptions of American
+forest-life? Agatha had scarcely passed this, the latest of her various
+manias; and on the strength of it, she and Mr. Harper became more
+sociable. She even condescended to declare "that it was a pleasure to
+meet with one who had absolutely seen, nay, lived among red Indians.'"
+
+"Ay, and nearly died among them too," added Major Harper, coming up so
+unexpectedly that Agatha had not noticed him. "Tell Miss Bowen how you
+were captured, tied to the stake, half-tomahawked, etc.--how you lived
+Indian fashion for a whole year, when you were sixteen. Wonderful lad! A
+second Nathaniel Bumppo!" added he, tapping his brother's shoulder.
+
+The young man drew back, merely answered "that the story would not
+interest Miss Bowen," and retired, whether out of pride or shyness it
+was impossible to say.
+
+The conversation, taken up and led, as usual, by Major Harper, became
+a general disquisition on the race of North American Indians.
+Accidentally, or not, the elder brother drew from the younger many
+facts, indicating a degree of both information and experience which
+made every one glance with surprise, respect, and a little awe, on the
+delicate, boyish-looking Nathanael.
+
+Once, too, Agatha took her turn as an object of interest to the rest
+They were all talking of the distinctive personal features of that
+strange race, which some writers have held to be the ten lost tribes of
+Israel. Agatha asked what were the characteristics of an Indian face,
+often stated to be so fine?
+
+"Look in the mirror, Miss Bowen," said Nathanael, joining in the
+conversation.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+I mean, that were you not an Englishwoman, I should have thought you
+descended from a Pawnee Indian--all except the hair. The features are
+exact--long, almond-shaped eyes, aquiline nose, mouth and chin of the
+rare classic mould, which these children of nature keep, long after it
+has almost vanished out of civilised Europe. Then your complexion, of
+such a dark ruddy brown--your"----
+
+"Stop--stop!" cried the Major, heartily laughing. "Miss Bowen will think
+you have learnt every one of her physical peculiarities off by
+heart already. I had not the least idea you were gifted with so much
+observation."
+
+"Nay, do let him go on; it amuses me," cried the young girl, laughing,
+though she could not help blushing a' little also.
+
+But Nathanael had "shrunk into his shell," as his brother humorously
+whispered to Agatha, and was not to be drawn out for the remainder of
+the evening.
+
+The Harpers left early, thus affording great opportunity for their
+characters being discussed afterwards. Every lady in the room had long
+since declared herself "in love" with the elder brother; the fact was
+now repeated for the thousandth time, together with one or two remarks
+about the younger Harper, who they agreed was rather nice-looking, but
+so eccentric!
+
+Miss Bowen scarcely thought about Nathanael at all; except that, after
+she was in bed, a comical recollection floated through other more
+serious ones, and she laughed outright at the notion of being considered
+like a Pawnee Indian!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Of all the misfortunes incidental to youth (falling in love included),
+there are few greater than that of having nothing to do. From this
+trial, Agatha Bowen, being unhappily a young lady of independent
+property, suffered martyrdom every day. She had no natural ties, duties,
+or interests, and was not sufficiently selfish to create the like in and
+about her own personality. She did not think herself handsome enough to
+be vain, so had not that sweet refuge of feminine idleness--dress. Nor,
+it must be dolefully confessed, was she of so loving a nature as to love
+anybody or everybody, as some women can.
+
+Kind to all, and liking many, she was apparently one of those characters
+who only really _love_ two or three people in the whole course of their
+existence. To such, life is a serious, perilous, and often terrible
+journey.
+
+"Well, Tittens, I don't know, really, what we are to do with ourselves
+this morning," said Agatha, talking aloud to her Familiar, the black
+kitten, who shared the solitude of her little drawing-room. "You'd like
+to go and play downstairs, I dare say? It's all very nice for you to be
+running after Mrs. Ianson's wools, but I can't see anything amusing in
+fancy-work. And as for dawdling round this square and Russell Square
+with Jane Ianson and Fido--pah! I'd quite as soon be changed into a
+lapdog, and led along by a string. How stupid London is! Oh, Tittens,
+to think that you and I have never lived in the country since we were
+born. Wouldn't you like to go? Only, then we should never see
+anybody"----
+
+The foolish girl paused, and laughed, as if she did not like to
+soliloquise too confidentially, even to a kitten.
+
+"Which of them did you like the best last night, Tittens? One was not
+over civil to you; but Nathanael--yes, certainly you and that juvenile
+are great friends, considering you have met but four evenings. All in
+one week, too. Our house is getting quite gay, Miss Tittens; only it is
+so much the duller in the mornings. Heigho!
+
+"Life's a weary, weary, weary, Life's a weary coble o' care."
+
+"What's the other verse? And she began humming:
+
+"Man's a steerer, steerer, steerer, Man's a steerer--life is a pool."
+
+"I wonder, Tittens, how you and I shall steer through it? and whether
+the pool will be muddy or clear?"
+
+Twisting her fingers in and about her pet's jetty for, Agatha sat
+silent, until slowly there grew a thoughtful shadow in her eyes, a
+forewarning of the gradual passing away of that childishness, which in
+her, from accidental circumstances, had lasted strangely long.
+
+"Come, we won't be foolish, Tittens," cried she, suddenly starting up.
+"We'll put on our bonnets, and go out--that is, one of us will, and the
+other may take to Berlin wool and Mrs. Ianson."
+
+The bonnet was popped on quickly and independently--Miss Bowen scorned
+to indulge in the convenience or annoyance of a lady's-maid. Crossing
+the hall, the customary question, "Whether she would be home to dinner?"
+stopped her.
+
+"I don't know--I am not quite sure. Tell Mrs. Ianson not to wait for
+me."
+
+And she passed out, feeling keener than usual the consciousness that
+nobody would wait for her, or look for her, or miss her; that her
+comings in and goings out were perfectly indifferent to every human
+being in the house, called by courtesy her "home." Perhaps this was her
+own fault, but she could not help it. It was out of her nature to get up
+an interest among ordinary people, where interests there were none.
+
+Little more had she in the house whither she was going to pay one of her
+extempore visits; but then there was the habit of old affection, begun
+before characters develop themselves into the infinite variety from
+which mental sympathy is evolved. She could not help liking Emma
+Thornycroft, her sole childish acquaintance, whose elder sister had been
+Agatha's daily governess, until she died.
+
+"I know Emma will be glad to see me, which is something; and if she does
+tire me with talk about the babies, why, children are better than Berlin
+wool. And there is always the piano. Besides, I must walk out, or I
+shall rust to death in this horrible Bedford Square."
+
+She walked on, rather in a misanthropic mood, a circumstance to her not
+rare. But she had never known mother, sister, or brother; and the
+name of father was to her little more than an empty sound. It had
+occasionally come mistily over the Indian Ocean, in the shape of formal
+letters--the only letters that ever visited the dull London house where
+she spent her shut-up childhood, and acquired the accomplishments of her
+teens. Mr. Bowen died on the high seas: and when his daughter met the
+ship at Southampton, a closed black coffin was all that remained to her
+of the name of father. That bond, like all others, was destined to be to
+her a mere shadow. Poor Agatha!
+
+Quick exercise always brings cheerfulness when one is young, strong,
+and free from any real cares; Agatha's imaginary ones, together with the
+vague sentimentalisms into which she was on the verge of falling, yet
+had not fallen, vanished under the influence of a cheerful walk on a
+sunny summer's day. She arrived at Mrs. Thornycroft's time enough to
+find that admirable young matron busied in teaching to her eldest boy
+the grand mystery of dining; that is, dining like a Christian, seated
+at a real table with a real silver knife and fork. These latter Master
+James evidently preferred poking into his eyes and nose, rather than his
+mouth, and evinced far greater anxiety to sit on the table than on the
+chair.
+
+"Agatha, dear--so glad to see you!" and Emma's look convinced even
+Agatha that this was true. "You will stay, of course! Just in time to
+see James eat his first dinner, like a man! Now Jemmie, wipe his pretty
+mouth, and then give Auntie Agatha a sweet kiss."
+
+Agatha submitted to the kiss, though she did not quite believe in the
+adjective; and felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the title of
+"Auntie" was a mere compliment. She did not positively dislike children,
+else she would have been only half a woman, or a woman so detestable as
+to be an anomaly in creation; but her philoprogenitiveness was, to say
+the least, dormant at present; and her sense of infantile beauty being
+founded on Sir Joshua's and Murillo's cherubs, she had no great fancy
+for the ugly little James.
+
+She laid aside her bonnet, and smoothing her curls in the nursery
+mirror, looked for one minute at her Pawnee-Indian face, the sight of
+which now often made her smile. Then she sat down to lunch with Emma and
+the children; being allowed, as a great favour, to be placed next Master
+James, and drink with him out of his silver mug. Miss Bowen accepted the
+offered honour calmly, made no remark, but--went thirsty.
+
+For an hour or two she sat patiently listening to what had gone on in
+the house since she was there---how baby had cut two more teeth, and
+James had had a new braided frock--(which was sent for that she might
+look at it)--how Missy had been to her first children's party, and was
+to learn dancing at Midsummer, if papa could be coaxed to agree.
+
+"How is Mr. Thornycroft?" asked Agatha.
+
+"Oh, very well--papa is always well. I only wish the little ones took
+after him in that respect."
+
+Agatha, who was old enough to remember Emma engaged, and Emma newly
+married, smiled to think how entirely the lover beloved and the
+all-important young husband had dwindled into a mere "Papa;" liked and
+obeyed in a certain fashion, for Emma was a good wife, but evidently
+made a very secondary consideration to "the children."
+
+The young girl--as yet neither married, nor in love--wondered if this
+were always so. She often had such wonderings and speculation when she
+came to Emma's house.
+
+She was growing rather tired of so much domestic information, and had
+secretly taken out her watch to see how many hours it would be to dinner
+and to Mr. Thornycroft, a sensible, intelligent man, who from love to
+his wife had been always very kind to his wife's friends--when there
+came the not unwelcome sound of a knock at the hall-door.
+
+"Bless me; that is surely the Harpers. I had quite forgotten Major
+Harper and the bears."
+
+"An odd conjunction," observed Agatha, smiling.
+
+"Major Harper, who yesterday, for the fifth time, promised to take Missy
+to the Zoological Gardens to see the bears. He has remembered it at
+last."
+
+No, he had not remembered it; it would have been a very remarkable
+circumstance if he had; being a person so constantly full of
+engagements, for himself and others. The visitor was only his younger
+brother, who had often daundered in at Mrs. Thornycroft's house,
+possibly from a liking to Emma's friendly manner, or because, cast
+astray for a fortnight on the wide desert of London, he had, like
+Agatha, "nothing to do."
+
+If Nathanael had other reasons, they, of course, never came near the
+surface, but lay buried under the silent waters of his quiet mind.
+
+Agatha was half pleased, half disappointed at seeing him. Mrs.
+Thornycroft, good soul, was always charmed to have a visitor, for
+her society did not attract many. Only betraying, as usual, what was
+uppermost in her simple thoughts, she could not long conceal her regret
+concerning little Missy and the bears.
+
+To Agatha's great surprise, Mr. Harper, who she thought, in his
+dignified gravity, would never have condescended to such a thing,
+volunteered to assume his brother's duty.
+
+"For," said he, with a slight smile, "I have had too many perilous
+encounters with wild bears in America, not to feel some curiosity in
+seeing a few captured ones in England."
+
+"That will be charming," cried Mrs. Thornycroft, looking at him with a
+mixture of respect and maternal benignity. "Then you can tell Missy all
+those wonderful stories, only don't frighten her."
+
+"Perhaps I might She seems rather shy of me." And the adventurous young
+gentleman eyed askance a small be-ribboned child, who was creeping about
+the room and staring at him. "Would it not be better if"----
+
+"If mamma went?"
+
+"There, Missy, don't cry; mamma will go, and Agatha, too, if she would
+like it?"
+
+"Certainly," Miss Bowen answered, with a mischievous glance at
+Nathanael. "I ought to investigate bears, if only to prove myself
+descended from a Pawnee Indian."
+
+So, once more, the heavy nut-brown curls were netted up into the crown
+of her black bonnet, and her shawl pinned on carelessly--rather too
+carelessly for a young woman; since that gracious adornment, neatness,
+rarely increases with years. Agatha was quickly ready. In the ten
+minutes she had to wait for Mrs. Thornycroft, she felt, more than once,
+how much merrier they would have been with the elder than the younger
+brother. Also--for Agatha was a conscientious girl--she thought,
+seriously, what a pity it was that so pleasant and kind a man as Major
+Harper had such an unfortunate habit of forgetting his promises.
+
+Yet she regretted him--regretted his flow of witty sayings that
+attracted the humorous half of her temperament, and his touches of
+seriousness or sentiment which hovered like pleasant music
+round the yet-closed portals of her girlish heart. Until
+suddenly--conscientiousness again!--she began to be aware she was
+thinking a deal too much of Major Harper; so, with a strong effort,
+turned her attention to his brother and the bears.
+
+She had leant on Mr. Harper's offered arm all the way to the Regent's
+Park, yet he had scarcely spoken to her. No wonder, therefore, that
+she had had time for meditation, or that her comparison between the two
+brothers should be rather to Nathanael's disadvantage. The balance of
+favour, however, began to right itself a little when she saw how kind
+he was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and
+made foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched
+over little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile
+pertinacity, would poke his small self into every possible danger.
+
+At the sunken den, where the big brown bear performs gymnastic exercises
+on a centre tree, Master Jemmie was quite in his glory. He emulated
+Bruin by climbing from his feet into nurse's arms--thence into mamma's,
+and lastly, much to her discomfiture, into Miss Bowen's. The attraction
+being that she happened to stand close to the railing and next to Mr.
+Harper, who, with a bun stuck on the end of his long stick, had coaxed
+Bruin up to the very top of the tree.
+
+There the creature swayed awkwardly, his four unwieldy paws planted
+together, and his great mouth silently snapping at the cakes. Agatha
+could hardly help laughing; she, as well as the children, was so much
+amused at the monster.
+
+"Mr. Harper, give Missy your cane. Missy would like to feed bear," cried
+the mamma, now very bold, going with her eldest pet to the other side of
+the den, and attracting the animal thither.
+
+At which little James, who could not yet speak, setting up a scream of
+vexation, tried to stretch after the creature; and whether from his
+own impetuosity or her careless hold, sprang--oh, horror!--right out
+of Agatha's arms. A moment the little muslin frock caught on the
+railing--caught--ripped; then the sash, with its long knotted ends,
+which some one snatched at--nothing but the sash held up the shrieking
+child, who hung suspended half way over the pit, in reach of the beast's
+very jaws.
+
+The bear did not at once see it, till startled by the mother's frightful
+cries. Then he opened his teeth--it looked almost like a grin--and began
+slowly to descend his tree, while, as slowly, the poor child's sash was
+unloosing with its weight.
+
+A murmur of horror ran through the people near; but not a man among them
+offered help. They all slid back, except Nathanael Harper.
+
+Agatha felt his sudden gripe. "Hold my hand firm. Keep me in my
+balance," he whispered, and throwing himself over to the whole extent
+of his body, and long right arm, managed to catch hold of James, who
+struggled violently.
+
+"Hold me tight--tighter still, or we are lost," said he, trying to
+writhe back again; his hand--such a little delicate hand it seemed for a
+man--quivering with the weight of the child.
+
+She grasped him frantically--his wrist--his shoulder--nay,--stretching
+over, linked her arms round his neck. Something in her touch seemed to
+impart strength to him. He whispered, half gasping,--
+
+"Hold me firm, and I'll do it yet, Agatha." She did not then notice, or
+recollect till long afterwards, how he had called her by her Christian
+name, nor the tone in which he had said it.
+
+The moment afterwards, he had lifted the child out of the den, and poor
+Jemmie was screaming out his now harmless terror safe in the maternal
+arms.
+
+Then, and not till then, Agatha burst into tears. Tears which no
+one saw, for the mother, hugging her baby, was the very centre of a
+sympathising crowd. Mr. Harper, paler than ordinary, leaned against the
+stone-work of the den.
+
+"Oh, from what have you saved me?" cried Agatha, as after her
+thankfulness for the rescued life, came another thought, personal yet
+excusable. "Had Emma lost the child, I should have felt like a murderess
+to the day of my death."
+
+Nathanael shook his head, trying to smile; but seemed unable to speak.
+
+"You have not hurt yourself?"
+
+"Oh no. Very little. Only a strain," said he as he removed his hand from
+his side. "Go to your friend: I will come presently."
+
+He did come--though not for a good while; and Miss Bowen fancied from
+his looks that he had been more injured than he acknowledged; but she
+did not like to inquire. Nevertheless he rose greatly in her estimation,
+less for his courage than for the presence of mind and common sense
+which made it Valuable, and for the self-restraint and indifference
+which caused him afterwards to treat the whole adventure as such a
+trifling thing.
+
+It was, after all, nothing very romantic or extraordinary, and happened
+in such a brief space of time, that probably the circumstance is not
+noted in the traditionary chronicles of the Zoological Gardens, which
+contain the frightful legend carefully related that day by several
+keepers to Mrs. Thornycroft--how a bear had actually eaten up a child,
+falling in the same manner into the same den.
+
+But the adventure, slight as it may appear, made a very great and sudden
+difference in the slender tie of acquaintanceship, hitherto subsisting
+between Agatha and Major Harper's brother. She began to treat Nathanael
+more like a friend, and ceased to think of him exactly as a "boy."
+
+Master James's mamma, when she at last turned her attention from his
+beloved small self, was full of thanks to his preserver. Mr. Harper
+assured her that his feat was merely a little exertion of muscular
+strength, and at last grew evidently uncomfortable at being made so much
+of. Returning home with them, he would fain have crept away from the
+scene of his honours; but the good-natured, motherly-hearted Emma
+implored him to stay.
+
+"We will nurse you if you are hurt, which I am afraid you must be--it
+was such a dreadful strain! Oh, Jemmie, Jemmie!" and the poor mother
+shuddered.
+
+"Indeed you must come in," added Miss Bowen kindly, seeing that Emma's
+thoughts were floating away, as appeared this time natural enough, to
+her own concerns. "You shall rest all the evening, and we will talk to
+you, and be very, very agreeable. Pray yield!"
+
+Nathanael argued no more, but went in "quite lamb-like," as Mrs.
+Thornycroft afterwards declared.
+
+This acquiescence in him was little rewarded, Agatha thought--for the
+evening happened to be duller even than evenings usually passed at the
+Thornycrofts'. The head of the household, being detained in the
+City, did not appear; and Mrs. Thornycroft's tongue, unchecked by her
+husband's presence, and excited by the event of the afternoon, galloped
+on at a fearful rapidity. She poured out upon the luckless young man all
+the baby biography of her family, from Missy's christening down to the
+infant Selina's cutting of her first tooth. To all of which he listened
+with a praiseworthy attention, giving at least silence, which was
+doubtless all the answer Emma required.
+
+But Agatha, whose sympathy in these things was, as before said, at
+present small, grew half ashamed, half vexed, and finally rather
+angry--especially when she saw the pale weariness that gradually
+overspread Mr. Harper's face. More than once she hinted that he should
+have the armchair, or lie down, or rest in some way; but he took not the
+least notice; sitting immovably in his place, which happened to be next
+herself, and vaguely looking across the table towards Mrs. Thornycroft.
+
+At nine o'clock, becoming paler than ever, he bestirred himself, and
+talked of leaving.
+
+"I ought to be going too. It is not far, and as our roads agree, I will
+walk with you," said Agatha, simply.
+
+He seemed surprised--so much so, that she almost blushed, and would
+have retracted, save for the consciousness of her own frank and kindly
+purpose. She had watched him closely, and felt convinced that he had
+been more injured than he confessed; so in her generous straightforward
+fashion, she wanted to "take care of him," until he was safe at his
+brother's door, which she could see from her own. And her solitary
+education had been conducted on such unworldly principles, that she
+never thought there was anything remarkable or improper in her proposing
+to walk home with a young man, whom she knew she could trust in every
+way, and who was besides Major Harper's brother.
+
+Nor did even the matronly Mrs. Thornycroft object to the plan--save that
+it took her visitors away so early. "Surely," she added, "you can't be
+tired out already."
+
+Agatha had an ironical answer on the very tip of her tongue: but
+something in the clear, "good" eye of Nathanael repressed her little
+wickedness. So she only whispered to Emma that for various reasons she
+had wished to return early.
+
+"Very well, dear, since you must go, I am sure Mr. Harper will be most
+happy to escort you."
+
+"If not, I hope he will just say so," added Agatha, very plainly.
+
+He smiled; and his full, soft grey eye, fixed on hers, had an
+earnestness which haunted her for many a day. She began heartily to
+like Major Harper's brother, though only as his brother, with a sort
+of reflected regard, springing from that she felt for her guardian and
+friend.
+
+This consciousness made her manner perfectly easy, cheerful, and kind,
+even though they were in the perilously sentimental position of two
+young people strolling home together in the soft twilight of a Midsummer
+evening: likewise occasionally stopping to look westward at a new moon,
+which peered at them round street-corners and through the open spaces of
+darkening squares. But nothing could make these two at all romantic
+or interesting; their talk on the road was on the most ordinary
+topics--chiefly bears.
+
+"You seem quite familiar with wild beast life," Agatha observed. "Were
+you a very great hunter?"
+
+"Not exactly, for I never could muster up the courage, or the cowardice,
+wantonly to take away life. I don't remember ever shooting anything,
+except in self-defence, which was occasionally necessary during the
+journeys that I used to make from Montreal to the Indian settlements
+with Uncle Brian."
+
+"Uncle Brian," repeated Agatha, wondering whether Major Harper had ever
+mentioned such a personage, during the two years of their acquaintance.
+She thought not, since her memory had always kept tenacious record of
+what he said about his relatives--which was at best but little. It
+was one of the few things in him which jarred upon Agatha's
+feelings--Agatha, to whose isolation the idea of a family and a home was
+so pathetically sweet--his seeming so totally indifferent to his own.
+All she knew of Major Harper's kith and kin was, that he was the eldest
+brother of a large family, settled somewhere down in Dorsetshire.
+
+These thoughts swept through her mind, as Agatha, repeated
+interrogatively "Uncle Brian?"
+
+"The same who fifteen years since took me out with him to America; my
+father's youngest brother. Has Frederick never told you of him? They two
+were great companions once."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" And Agatha, seeing that Nathanael at least showed no
+dislike, but rather pleasure, in speaking of his family, thought she
+might harmlessly indulge her curiosity about the Harpers of Dorsetshire.
+"And you went away with Mr. Brian Harper, at ten years old. How could
+your mother part with you?"
+
+"She was dead--she died when I was born. But I ought to apologise for
+thus talking of family matters, which cannot interest you."
+
+"On the contrary, they do--very much!" cried Agatha; and then blushed
+at her own earnestness, at which Nathanael brightened up into positive
+warmth.
+
+"How kind you are! how I wish you knew my sisters! It is so pleasant to
+me to know them at last, after writing to them and thinking about them
+for these many years. How you would like our home--I call it home,
+forgetting that I have been only a visitor, and in a short time must go
+back to my real home, Montreal."
+
+"Must you indeed!" And Agatha felt sorry. She had been at once surprised
+and gratified by the confidential way in which this usually reserved
+young man talked to her, and her alone. "Why do you live in America? I
+hate Americans."
+
+"Do you?" said he, smiling, as if he read her thoughts. "But I have
+neither Yankee blood nor education. I was English born; brought up in
+British Canada, and by Uncle Brian."
+
+He spoke the latter words with a certain proud affection, as if his
+uncle's mere name were sufficient guarantee for himself. Agatha secretly
+wondered what could possibly be the reason that Major Harper had never
+even mentioned this personage, whom Nathanael seemed to hold in such
+honour.
+
+"Of course," he continued, "though I dearly like England, though"--and
+he sunk his voice a little--"though now it will be doubly hard to go
+away, I could never think of leaving Uncle Brian to spend his old age
+alone in the country of his adoption."
+
+"No, no," returned Agatha, absently, her thoughts still running on this
+new Mr. Harper. "What profession is he?"
+
+"Nothing now. He has led an unsettled life--always poor. But he took
+care to settle me in a situation under the Canadian Government. We both
+think ourselves well to do now."
+
+Agatha's sense of womanly decorum could hardly keep her from pressing
+her companion's arm, in instinctive acknowledgment of his goodness. She
+thought his face looked absolutely beautiful.
+
+However, restraining her quick impulses within the bounds of propriety,
+she walked on. "And so you will again cross that fearful Atlantic
+Ocean?" she said at length, with a slight shudder. The young man saw
+her gesture, and looked surprised--nay, gladdened. But nevertheless he
+remained silent.
+
+Agatha did the same, for the mention of the sea brought back to her
+the one only noteworthy incident of her life, which had given her this
+strange antipathy to the sea and to the thought of traversing it. But
+this subject--the horrible bugbear of her childhood--she rarely liked
+to recur to, even now; so it did not mingle in her conversation with Mr.
+Harper.
+
+At last Nathanael said: "I would it were possible--indeed I have often
+vainly tried--to persuade Uncle Brian to come back to England. But since
+he will not, it is clearly right for me to return to Canada. Anne Valery
+says so."
+
+"Anne Valery!" again repeated Agatha, catching at this second strange
+name with which she was supposed to be familiar.
+
+"What, did you never hear of her--my father's ward, my sister's chief
+friend--quite one of the family? Is it possible that my brother never
+spoke to you of Anne Valery?"
+
+No, certainly not. Agatha was quite sure of that. The circumstance
+of Major Harper's having a friend who bore the very suspicious and
+romantically-interesting name of Anne Valery could never have slipped
+Miss Bowen's memory. She answered Nathanael's question in an abrupt
+negative; but all the way through Russell Square she silently pondered
+as to who, or what like, Anne Valery could be? finally sketching a
+fancy portrait of a bewitching young creature, with blue eyes and golden
+hair--the style of beauty which Agatha most envied, because it was most
+unlike herself.
+
+Ere reaching Dr. Ianson's door, her attention was called to Mr. Harper,
+whose feet dragged so wearily along, that Agatha was convinced that, in
+spite of his efforts to conceal it, he was seriously ill. Her womanly
+sympathy rose--she earnestly pressed him to come in and consult Dr.
+Ianson.
+
+"No--no. Uncle Brian and I always cure ourselves. As he often says, 'A
+man after forty is either a doctor or a fool.'"
+
+"But you are only twenty-five."
+
+"Ay, but I have seen enough to make me often feel like a man of forty,"
+said he, smiling. "Do not mind me. That strain was rather too much; but
+I shall be all right in a day or two."
+
+"I hope so," cried Agatha, anxiously; "since, did you suffer, I should
+feel as if it were all of my causing, and for me.
+
+"Do you think I should regret that?" said the young man, in a tone so
+low, that its meaning scarcely reached her. Then, as if alarmed at his
+own words, he shook hands with her hastily, and walked down the square.
+
+Agatha thought how different was the abrupt, singular manner of
+Nathanael from Major Harper's tender, lingering, courteous adieu.
+Nevertheless, she fulfilled her kind purpose towards the young man; and
+running to her own window, watched his retreating figure, till her mind
+was relieved by seeing him safely enter his brother's door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A week--nay, more than a week slipped by in the customary monotony of
+that large, placidly genteel, Bedford Square house, and Agatha heard
+nothing of the house round the corner, which constituted one of the
+faint few interests of her existence. Sometimes she felt vexed at the
+lengthened absence of her friend and "guardian," as she persisted in
+considering him; sometimes the thought of young Nathanael's pale
+face crossed her fancy, awakening both sincere compassion and an
+uncomfortable doubt that all might not be going on quite right within
+the half-drawn window-blinds, at which she now and then darted a curious
+glance.
+
+At last her curiosity or interest rose to such a pitch, that it is to
+be feared that Agatha in her independent spirit, and ignorance of, or
+indifference to the world, might have committed the terrific
+impropriety of making a good-natured inquiry at the door of this
+bachelor-establishment. She certainly would, had it consisted only of
+the harmless youth Nathanael; but then Major Harper, at the mention of
+whose name Mrs. Ianson now began to smile aside, and the invalid Jane to
+dart towards Agatha quick, inquisitive looks--No; she felt an invincible
+repugnance to knocking, on any pretence, at Major Harper's door.
+
+However, having nothing to do and little to think of, and, moreover,
+being under the unwholesome necessity of keeping all her thoughts to
+herself, her conjectures grew into such a mountain of discomfort--partly
+selfish, partly generous, out of the hearty gratitude which had been
+awakened in her towards the younger brother since the adventure with
+the bear--that Miss Bowen set off one fine morning, hoping to gain
+intelligence of her neighbours by the round-about medium of Emma
+Thornycroft.
+
+But that excellent matron had had two of her children ill with some
+infantine disease, and had in consequence not a thought to spare for any
+one out of her own household. The name of Harper never crossed her lips
+until Agatha, using a safe plural, boldly asked the question, "Had Emma
+seen anything of them?"
+
+Mrs. Thorny croft could not remember.--Yes, she fancied some one had
+called--Mr. Harper, perhaps; or no, it must have been the Major, for
+somebody had said something about Mr. Nathanael's being ill or out of
+town. But the very day after that the measles came out on James, and
+poor little Missy had just been moved out of the night-nursery into the
+spare bed-room, etc. etc. etc.
+
+The rest of Emma's information concerning her babies was, as they say
+in the advertisements of lost property, "of no value to anybody but the
+original owner."
+
+Agatha bestowed a passing regret on young Nathanael, whether he were ill
+or out of town; she would have liked to have seen more of him. But that
+Major Harper should contrive to saunter up to the Regent's Park to visit
+the Thornycrofts, and never find time to turn a street-corner to say
+"How d'ye do" to _her_! she thought neither courteous nor kind.
+
+There was little inducement to spend the day with Emma, who, in her
+present mood and the state of her household, was a mere conversational
+Dr. Buchan--a walking epitome of domestic medicine. So Miss Bowen
+extended her progress; took an early dinner with Mrs. Hill, and stayed
+all the afternoon at that good old lady's silent and quiet lodgings,
+where there was neither piano nor books, save one, which Agatha
+patiently read aloud for two whole hours--"The life of Elizabeth Fry."
+A volume uninteresting enough to a young creature like herself, yet
+sometimes smiting her with involuntary reflections, as she contrasted
+her own aimless, useless existence with the life of that worthy
+Quakeress--the prison-angel.
+
+Having tired herself out, first with reading and then with singing--very
+prosy and lengthy ballads of the old school, which were the ditties Mrs.
+Hill always chose--Agatha departed much more cheerful than she came.
+So great strength and comfort is there in having something to do,
+especially if that something happens to be, according to the old
+nursery-rhyme--
+
+Not for ourself, but our neighbour.
+
+Another day passed--which being rainy, made the Doctor's dull house seem
+more inane than ever to the girl's restless humour. In the evening, at
+his old-accustomed hour, Major Harper "dropped in," and Agatha forgot
+his sins of omission in her cordial welcome. Very cordial it was, and
+unaffected, such as a young girl of nineteen may give to a man of forty,
+without her meaning being ill-construed. But under it Major Harper
+looked pathetically sentimental and uncomfortable. Very soon he moved
+away and became absorbed in delicate attentions towards the sick and
+suffering Jane Ianson.
+
+Agatha thought his behaviour rather odd, but generously put upon it
+the best construction possible--viz. his known kind-heartedness. So she
+herself went to the other side of the invalid couch, and tried to make
+mirth likewise.
+
+Asking after Mr. Harper, she learnt that her friend had been acting as
+sick-nurse, to his brother for some days.
+
+"Poor fellow--he will not confess that he is ill, or what made him so.
+But I hope he will be about again soon, for they are anxiously expecting
+him in Dorsetshire. Nathanael is the 'good boy' of our family, and as
+worthy a creature as ever breathed."
+
+Agatha smiled with pleasure to see the elder brother waxing so
+generously warm; but when she smiled, Major Harper sighed, and cast his
+handsome eyes another way. All the evening he scarcely talked to her
+at all, but to Mrs. and Miss Ianson. Agatha was quite puzzled by this
+pointed avoidance, not to say incivility, and had some thoughts
+of plainly asking him if he were vexed with her; but womanly pride
+conquered girlish frankness, and she was silent.
+
+After tea their quartett was broken by a visitor, whom all seemed
+astonished to see, and none more so than Major Harper.
+
+"Why, Nathanael, I thought you were safely disposed of with your sofa
+and book. What madness makes you come out to-night?"
+
+"Inclination, and weariness," returned the other, indifferently, as,
+without making more excuses or apologies, he dragged himself to the
+arm-chair, which Miss Bowen good-naturedly drew out for him, and slipped
+into the circle, quite naturally.
+
+"Well, wilful lads must have their way," cried his brother, "and I am
+only too glad to see you so much better."
+
+With that the flow of the Major's winning conversation recommenced; in
+which current all the rest of the company lay like silent pebbles, only
+too happy to be bubbled round by such a pleasant and refreshing stream.
+
+The younger Harper sat in his arm-chair, leaning his forehead on his
+hand, and from under that curve now and then looking at them all,
+especially Agatha.
+
+At a late hour the brothers went away, leaving Mrs. and Miss Ianson in
+a state of extreme delight, and Miss Bowen in a mood that, to say the
+least, was thoughtful--more thoughtful than usual.
+
+After that lively evening followed three dull days, consisting of
+a solitary forenoon, an afternoon walk through the squares, dinner,
+backgammon, and bed; the next morning, _de capo al fine_, and so on; a
+dance of existence as monotonous as that of the spheres, and not half so
+musical. On the fourth day, while Miss Bowen was out walking, Nathanael
+Harper called to take leave before his journey to Dorsetshire. He stayed
+some time, waiting Agatha's return, Mrs. Ianson thought; but finally
+changed his mind, and made an abrupt departure, for which that young
+lady was rather sorry than otherwise.
+
+The fifth day, Emma Thornycroft appeared, and, strange to say, without
+any of her little ones; still stranger, without many references to them
+on her lips, except the general information that they were all getting
+well now.
+
+The busy woman evidently had something on her mind, and plunged at once
+_in médias res_.
+
+"Agatha, dear, I came to have a little talk with you."
+
+"Very well," said Agatha smiling; calmly and prepared to give up her
+morning to the discussion of some knotty point in dress or infantile
+education. But she soon perceived that Emma's pretty face was too
+ominously important for anything short of that gravest interest of
+feminine life--matrimony; or more properly in this case--match-making.
+
+"Agatha, love," repeated Emma, with the affectionate accent that was
+always quite real, but which now deepened under the circumstances of
+the case, "do you know that young Northen has been speaking to Mr.
+Thornycroft about you again."
+
+"I am very sorry for it," was the short answer.
+
+"But, my dear,'isn't it a great pity that you could not like the young
+man? Such a good young man too, and with such a nice establishment
+already. If you could only see his house in Cumberland Terrace--the real
+Turkey carpets, inlaid tables, and damask chairs."
+
+"But I can't marry carpets, tables, and chairs."
+
+"Agatha, you are _so_ funny! Certainly not, without the poor man
+himself. But there is no harm in him, and I am sure he would make an
+excellent husband."
+
+"I sincerely hope so, provided he is not mine. Come, Tittens, tell Mrs.
+Thornycroft what _you_ think on the matter," cried the wilful girl,
+trying to turn the question off by catching her little favourite. But
+Emma would not thus be set aside. She was evidently well primed with a
+stronger and steadier motive than what usually occupied and sufficed her
+easy mind.
+
+"Ah, how can you be so childish! But when you come to my age"---
+
+"I shall, in a few more years. I wonder if I shall be as young-looking
+as you, Emma?" This was a very adroit thrust on the part of Miss Agatha,
+but for once it failed.
+
+"I hope and trust so, dear. That is, if you have as good a husband as
+I have. Only, be he what he may, he cannot be such another as my dear
+James."
+
+Agatha internally hoped he might not; for, much as she liked and
+respected Emma's good spouse, her ideal of a husband was certainly not
+Mr. James Thornycroft.
+
+"Tell me," continued the anxious matron, keeping up the charge--"tell
+me, Agatha, do you ever intend to marry at all?
+
+"Perhaps so; I can't say. Ask Tittens!"
+
+"Did you ever think in earnest of marrying? And"--here with an air of
+real concern Emma stole her arm round her friend's waist--"did you ever
+see anybody whom you fancied you could like, if he asked you?"
+
+Agatha laughed, but the colour was rising in her brown cheek. "Tut, tut,
+what nonsense!"
+
+"Look at me, dear, and answer seriously."
+
+Agatha, thus hemmed in, turned her face full round, and said, with
+some dignity, "I do not know, Emma, what right you have to ask me that
+question."
+
+"Ah, it is so; I feared it was," sighed Emma, not in the least offended.
+"I often thought so, even before he hinted"------
+
+"Who hinted--and what?"
+
+"I can't tell you; I promised not. And of course you ought not to know.
+Oh, dear, what am I letting out!" added poor Mrs. Thornycroft, in much
+discomfiture.
+
+"Emma, you will make me angry. What ridiculous notion have you got
+into your head? What on earth do you mean?" cried Miss Bowen, speaking
+quicker than her usual quick fashion, and dashing the kitten off her
+knee as she rose.
+
+"Don't be vexed with me, my poor dear girl. It may not be so--I hope
+not; and even if it were, he is so handsome, so agreeable, and talks so
+beautifully--I am sure you are not the first woman by many a dozen that
+has been in love with him."
+
+"With whom?" was the sharp question, as Agatha grew quite pale.
+
+"I must not say.--Ah, yes--I must. It may be a mere supposition. I wish
+you would only tell me so, and set my mind at rest, and his too. He is
+quite unhappy about it, poor man, as I see. Though, to be sure, he could
+not help it, even if you did care for him."
+
+"Him--what 'him?'"
+
+"Major Harper."
+
+Agatha's storm of passion sank to a dead calm. She sat down again
+composedly, turning her flushed cheeks from the light.
+
+"This is a new and very entertaining story. You will be kind enough,
+Emma, to tell me the whole, from beginning to end."
+
+"It all lies in a nutshell, my dear. Oh, how glad I am that you take it
+so quietly. Then, perhaps it is all a mistake, arising from your hearty
+manner to every one. I told him so, and said that he need not scruple
+visiting you, or be in the least afraid that"----
+
+"That I was in love with him? He _was_ afraid, then? He informed you so?
+Very kind of him! I am very much obliged to Major Harper."
+
+"There now--off you go again. Oh, if you would but be patient"
+
+"Patient--when the only friend I had insults me!--when I have neither
+father, nor brother,--nobody--nobody"----
+
+She stopped, and her throat choked; but the struggle was in vain; she
+burst into uncontrollable tears.
+
+"You have me, Agatha, always me, and James!" cried Emma, hanging about
+her neck, and weeping for company; until, very soon, the proud girl
+shut down the floodgates of her passion, and became herself again.
+Herself--as she could not have been, were there a mightier power
+dwelling in her heart than pride.
+
+"Now, Emma, since you have seen how the thing has vexed me, though
+not"--and she laughed--"not as being one of the many dozens of fools in
+love with Major Harper--will you tell me how this amusing circumstance
+arose?"
+
+"I really cannot, my dear. The whole thing was so hurried and confused.
+We were talking together, very friendly and sociably, as the Major and
+I always do, about you; and how much I wished you to be settled in life,
+as he must wish likewise, being the trustee of your little fortune, and
+standing in a sort of fatherly relation towards you. He did not seem to
+like the word; looked very grave and very"--
+
+"Compassionate, doubtless! Said 'he had reason to believe, that is to
+fear, I did not regard him quite as a father!' That was it, Emma, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I am glad to see you laughing at it I don't remember his
+precise words."
+
+"Probably these: 'My dear Mrs. Thornycroft, I am greatly afraid
+poor Agatha Bowen is dying for love of me.' Very candid--and like a
+gentleman!"
+
+"Now you are too sarcastic; for he is a gentleman, and most kind-hearted
+too. If you had only seen how grieved he was at the bare idea of your
+being made unhappy on his account!"
+
+"How considerate!--and how very confidential he must have been to you!"
+
+"Nay, he hardly said anything plainly; I assure you he did not. Only
+somehow he gave me the impression that he was afraid of--what I had
+feared for a long time. For as I always told you, Agatha, Major Harper
+is a settled bachelor--too old to change. Besides, he has had so many
+women in love with him."
+
+"Does he count their names, one by one, on his fingers, and hang their
+locks of hair on his paletot, after the Indian fashion Nathanael Harper
+told us of?--Poor Nathanael!" And on her excited mood that pale "good"
+face rose up like a vision of serenity. She ceased to mock so bitterly
+at Nathanael's brother and her own once-honoured friend.
+
+"I don't like your abusing Major Harper in this way," said Emma,
+gravely; "we all know his little weaknesses, but he is an excellent man,
+and my husband likes him. And it is nothing so very wonderful if he has
+been rather confidential with a steady married woman like me--just the
+right person, in short. It was for your good too, my dear. I am sure I
+asked him plainly if he ever could think of marrying you. But he shook
+his head, and answered, 'No, that was quite impossible.'"
+
+"Quite impossible, indeed," said Agatha, her proud lips quivering. "And
+should he favour you with any more confidences, you may tell him that
+Agatha Bowen never knew what it was to be 'in love' with any man.
+Likewise, that were he the only man on earth, she would not condescend
+to fall in love with or marry Major Frederick Harper.--Now, Emma, let us
+go down to lunch."
+
+They would have done so, after Mrs. Thornycroft had kissed and embraced
+her friend, in sincere delight that Agatha was quite heart-whole, and
+ready to make what she called "a sensible marriage," but they were
+stopped on the stairs by a letter that came by post.
+
+"A strange hand," Miss Bowen observed, carelessly. "Will you go
+down-stairs, Emma, and I will come when I have read it."
+
+But Agatha did not read it. She threw it on the floor, and turning the
+bolt of the door, paced her little drawing-room in extreme agitation.
+
+"I am glad I did not love him--I thank God I did not love him," she
+muttered by fits. "But I might have done so, so good and kind as he was,
+and I so young, with no one to care for. And no one cares for me--no
+one--no one!"
+
+"Young Northen" darted through her mind, but she laughed to scorn the
+possibility. What love could there be in an empty-headed fool?
+
+"Never any but fools have ever made love to me! Oh, if an honest, noble
+man did but love me, and I could marry, and get out of this friendless
+desolation, this contemptible, scheming, match-making set, where I and
+my feelings are talked of, speculated on, bandied about from house to
+house. It is horrible--horrible! But I'll not cry! No!"
+
+She dried the tears that were scorching her eyes, and mechanically took
+up her letter; until, remembering how long she had been upstairs, and
+how all that time Emma's transparent disposition and love of talk might
+have laid her and her whole affairs open before the Iansons, she
+quickly put the epistle in her pocket unread, and went down into the
+dining-room.
+
+It was not till night, when she sat idly brushing out her long curls,
+and looking at her Pawnee face in the mirror--alas! the poor face now
+seemed browner and uglier than ever!--that Agatha recollected this same
+letter.
+
+"It may give me something to think about, which will be well," sighed
+she; and carelessly pushing her hair behind her ears, she drew the
+candle nearer, and began leisurely to read.
+
+[Illustration: She began leisurely to read  p036]
+
+The commencement was slightly abrupt:
+
+
+"A month ago--had any one told me I should write this letter, I
+could not have believed it possible. But strange things happen in our
+lives--things over which we seem to have no control; we are swept on by
+an impulse and a power which most often guide us for our good. I hope it
+may be so now.
+
+"I came to England with no intention save that of seeing my family, and
+no affection in my heart stronger than for them. Living the solitary
+life that Uncle Brian leads, I have met with few women, and have never
+loved any woman--until now.
+
+"You may think me a 'boy;' indeed, I overheard you say so once; but I am
+a man--with a heart full of all a man's emotions, passionate and strong.
+Into that heart I took _you_, from the first moment I ever saw your
+face. This is just three weeks ago, but it might have been three
+years--I know you so well. I have watched you continually; every trait
+of your character--every thought of your mind. From other people I have
+found out every portion of your history--every daily action of your
+life. I know you wholly and completely, faults and all, and--I love you.
+No man will ever love you more than I.
+
+"That you should have the least interest in me now, is, I am aware,
+unlikely; indeed, almost impossible; therefore I shall not expect
+or desire any answer to this letter, sent just before I leave for
+Dorsetshire.
+
+"On my return, a week hence, I shall come and see you, should you not
+forbid it. I shall come merely as a _friend_, so that you need have no
+scruple in my visiting you, once at least. If afterwards, when you know
+me better, you should suffer me to ask for another title, giving to you
+the dearest and closest that man can give to woman--then--oh! little you
+think how I would love you, Agatha!
+
+"Nathanael Locke Harper."
+
+
+Agatha read this letter all through with a kind of fascination. Her
+first emotion was that of most utter astonishment. It had never crossed
+her mind that Nathanael Harper was the sort of being very likely to fall
+in love with anybody--and for him to love her! With such a love, too,
+that despite its suddenness carried with it the impression of quiet
+depth, strength, and endurance irresistible. It was beyond belief.
+
+She read over again fragments of his own words. "I took you into my
+heart from the first moment I ever saw you;"--"I love you--no man will
+ever love you more than I." "Little you think how I would love you,
+Agatha!"
+
+Agatha--who a minute before had been pondering mournfully that no one
+cared for her--that she was of no use to any one--and that no living
+soul would miss her, were her existence blotted out from the face of
+earth that very night!
+
+She began to tremble; ay, even though she felt that Nathanael had
+judged correctly--that she did not now love him, and probably never
+might--still, overwhelmed with the sudden sense of _his_ great love,
+she trembled. A strange softness crept over her; and for the second time
+that day she yielded to a weakness only drawn from her proud heart by
+rare emotions--Agatha wept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+To say that Agatha Bowen slept but ill that night would be unnecessary;
+since there is probably no girl who did not do so after receiving a
+first love-letter. And this was indeed her first; for the commonplace
+and business-like episode of young Northen had not been beautified by
+any such compositions. A second harmless adventure of like kind had
+furnished her with a little amusement and some vexation,--but never till
+now had her girlish heart been approached by any wooing which she could
+instinctively feel was that of real love. It touched her very much; for
+a time absorbing all distinct resolutions or intentions in a maze of
+pleasant, tender pity, and wonderment not unmixed with fear.
+
+Half the night she lay awake, planning what she should do and say in the
+future; writing in her head a dozen imaginary answers to Mr. Harper's
+letter, until she recollected that he had expressly stated it required
+none. Nevertheless, she thought she must write, if only to tell him that
+she did not love him, and that there was not the slightest use in his
+hoping to be anything more to her than a friend.
+
+"A friend!" She recoiled at the word, remembering how sorely her pride
+and feelings had been wounded by him she once held to be the best friend
+she had. She never could hold him as such any more. Her impulsive anger
+exaggerated even to wickedness the vanity of a man who fancied
+every woman was in love with him. She forgot all Major Harper's good
+qualities, his high sense of honour, his unselfish kindheartedness, his
+generous, gay spirit She set him down at once as unworthy the name of
+friend. Then--what friend had she? Not one--not one in the world.
+
+In this strait, strangely, temptingly sweet seemed to come the words,
+"_I love you; no man will ever love you better than I._"
+
+To one whose heart is altogether free, the knowledge of being deeply
+loved, and by a man whose attachment would do honour to any woman, is
+a thought so soothing, so alluring, that from it spring half the
+marriages--not strictly love-marriages--which take place in the world;
+sometimes, though not always, ending in real happiness.
+
+Agatha began to consider that it would seem very odd if she wrote to Mr.
+Harper, in his home, among his family. Perhaps his sisters might notice
+her handwriting--a useless fear, since they had never seen it; and at
+all events it would be a pity to trouble his happiness in that pleasant
+visit, by conveying prematurely the news of his rejection. She would
+wait, and give him no answer for at least a day or two; it was such a
+bitter thing to inflict pain on any human being, especially on one so
+gentle and good as Nathanael Harper.
+
+With this determination she went to sleep. She woke next morning, having
+a confused sense that something had happened, that some one had grieved
+and offended her; and--strange consciousness, softly dawning!--that some
+one loved her--deeply, dearly, as in all the days since she was born she
+had never been loved before. That even now some one might be thinking of
+her--of her alone, as his first object in the world. The sensation was
+new, inexplicable, but pleasant nevertheless. It made her feel--what
+the desolate orphan girl rarely had felt--a sort of tenderness for, and
+honouring of, herself. As she dressed, she once looked wistfully, even
+pensively, in the looking-glass.
+
+"It is certainly a queer, brown, Pawnee face! I wonder what he could see
+in it to admire. He is very good, very! I wish I could have cared for
+him!"
+
+Her heart trembled; all the woman in her was touched. But Agatha was
+resolved not to be sentimental, so she fastened her morning-dress rather
+more tastefully than usual, and descended to breakfast.
+
+Beside her plate lay a letter, which was pretty closely eyed by
+the Ianson family, as their inmate's correspondence had always been
+remarkably small.
+
+"A black edge and seal. No bad news, I hope, my dear Miss Bowen?" said
+the doctor's wife, sympathetically.
+
+Agatha did not fear. Alas! in the whole wide world she had not a
+relative to lose! And, glancing at the rather peculiar hand, she
+recognised it at once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black
+seal, that one of the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether
+from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint
+the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous
+reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the
+meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her own
+sitting-room.
+
+There was not the slightest necessity for any such precaution, as the
+missive contained merely these lines:--
+
+"In my letter of yesterday--which I doubt not you have received, since I
+posted it myself--I omitted to say that not even my brother is aware
+of it, or of its purport; as I rarely inform any one of my own private
+affairs. Though, of course, I presume not to lay the same restriction on
+you. God bless you!"
+
+The "God bless you!" was added hastily in less neat writing, as if
+the letter had been broken open to do it. The signature was merely
+his initials, "N. L. H.," and the date "Kingcombe Holm," which Agatha
+supposed was his father's house in Dorsetshire.
+
+Then, even there, amidst his dear home circle, he had thought of
+her! Agatha was more moved by that trifling circumstance, and by the
+self-restraint and silence that accompanied it, than she would have been
+by a whole quire of ordinary love-letters.
+
+He did not write again during seven entire days, and while this pause
+lasted she had time to think much and deeply. She ceased to play and
+talk confidentially with Tittens, and felt herself growing into a
+woman fast. Great mental changes may at times be wrought in one week,
+especially when it happens to be one of those not infrequent July weeks,
+which seem as if the sky were bent upon raining out at once the tears of
+the whole summer.
+
+On the Friday evening, when Miss Bowen, heartily tired of her
+weather-bound imprisonment, stood at the dining-room window, looking out
+on a hazy, yellow glow that began to appear in the west, sparkled on the
+drenched trees of the square, and made little bright reflections on the
+rain-pools of the pavement,--there appeared a gentleman from the house
+round the corner, carefully picking his steps by the crossing, and
+finally landing at Doctor Ianson's door. It was Major Harper.
+
+Agatha instinctively quitted the window, but on second thoughts returned
+thither, and when he chanced to look up, composedly bowed.
+
+He was come to spend the evening as usual, and she must meet him as
+usual too, otherwise he might think--supposing he had not yet seen Emma
+Thornycroft, or even if he had,--might think--what made Agatha's cheek
+burn like fire. But she controlled herself. The first vehemence of
+her pride and anger was over now. She had discovered that the dawning
+inclination on which she had bestowed a few dreamings and sighings,
+trying, in foolish girlish fashion, to fan a chance tinder-spark into
+the holy altar-fire of a woman's first love--had gone out in darkness,
+and that her free heart lay quiet, in a sort of twilight shade, waiting
+for its destiny; nor for the last few days had she even thought of
+Nathanael. His silence had as yet no power to grieve or surprise her; if
+it struck her at all, it was with the hope that perhaps his wooing might
+die out of itself, and save her the trouble of a painful refusal.
+She had begun to think--what girls of nineteen are very slow to
+comprehend--that there might be other things in the world besides love
+and its ideal dreams. She had read more than usual--some sensible prose,
+some lofty-hearted poetry; and was, possibly, "a sadder and a wiser"
+girl than she had been that day week.
+
+In this changed mood, after a little burst of well-controlled temper, a
+scornful pang, and a slight trepidation of the heart, Miss Agatha Bowen
+walked up-stairs to the drawing-room to meet Major Harper.
+
+Her manner in so doing was most commendable, and a worthy example to
+those young ladies who have to extinguish the tiny embers of a month
+or two's idle fancy, created by an impressible nature, by girlhood's
+frantic longing after unseen mysteries, and by the terrible misfortune
+of having nothing to do. But Miss Bowen's demeanour, so highly
+creditable, cannot be set forward in words, as it consisted in the very
+simplest, mildest, and politest "How d'ye do?"
+
+Major Harper met her with his accustomed pleasantly tender air, until
+gradually he recollected himself, looked pensive, and subsided into
+coldness. It was evident to Agatha that he could not have had any
+communication from Mrs. Thornycroft. She was growing vexed again,
+alternating from womanly wrath to childish pettishness--for in her heart
+of hearts she had a deep and friendly regard for the noble half of her
+guardian's character--when suddenly she decided that it was wisest to
+leave the room and take refuge in indifference and her piano. There she
+stayed for certainly an hour.
+
+At length, Major Harper came softly into her sitting-room.
+
+"Don't let me disturb you--but, when you have quite finished playing, I
+should like to say a word to you.--Merely on business," he added, with
+a slightly confused manner, unusual to the perfect self-possession of
+Major Harper.
+
+Agatha sat down and faced him, so frigidly, that he seemed to withdraw
+from the range of her eyes. "You do not often converse with me on
+business."
+
+He drew back. "That is true. But I considered that with so young a
+lady as yourself it was needless.--And I hate all business," he added,
+imperatively.
+
+"Then I regret that my father burdened you with mine.
+
+"No burden; it is a pleasure--if by any means I can be of use to you.
+Believe me, my dear Miss Bowen, your advantage, your security, is my
+chief aim. And therefore in this investment, of which I think it right
+to inform you"----
+
+"Investment?" she repeated, turning round a childish puzzled face. "Oh,
+Major Harper, you know I am quite ignorant of these things. Do let us
+talk of something else."
+
+"With all my heart," he responded, evidently much relieved, and turned
+the somewhat awkward conversation to the first available topic, which
+chanced to be his brother Nathanael.
+
+"You cannot think how much I miss him in my rooms, even though he was
+such a short time with me. An excellent lad is N. L., and I hear they
+are making so much of him in Dorsetshire. They tell me he will certainly
+stay there the whole three months of his leave."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" observed Agatha, briefly. She hardly knew whether to be
+pleased or sorry at this news, or by doubting it to take a feminine
+pride in being so much better informed on the subject than the Harper
+family.
+
+"No wonder he is so happy," continued the Major, with one of his
+occasional looks of momentary, though real sadness. "Fifteen years is a
+long time to be away. Though I fear, I myself have been almost as long
+without seeing the whole family together."
+
+"Are they all together now?"--Agatha felt an irresistible desire to ask
+questions.
+
+"I believe so; at least my father and my three unmarried sisters. Old
+bachelors and old maids are plentiful in the Harper family. We are all
+stiff-necked animals; we eschew even gilded harness."
+
+Agatha's cheek glowed with anger at this supposed benevolent warning to
+herself.
+
+"I dare say your sisters are very happy, nevertheless; marriage is not
+always a 'holy estate,'" said she carelessly. "But there was some other
+Dorsetshire lady whom Mr. Harper told me of. Who is Anne Valery?"
+
+Major Frederick Harper actually started, and the deep sensitive colour,
+which not even his forty years and his long worldly experience could
+quite keep down, rose in his handsome face.
+
+"So N. L. spoke to you of her. No wonder. She is an--an excellent
+person."
+
+"An excellent person," repeated Agatha mischievously. "Then she is
+rather elderly, I conclude?"
+
+"Elderly--Anne Valery elderly! By Heavens, no!" (And the excited Major
+used the solitary asseveration which clung to him, the last trace of
+his brief military experience.) "Anne Valery old! Not a day older than
+myself! We were companions as boy and girl, young man and young woman,
+until--stay--ten--fifteen years ago. Fifteen years!--ah, yes--I suppose
+she would be considered elderly now."
+
+After this burst, Major Harper sank into one of his cloudy moods. At
+last he said, in a confidential and rather sentimental tone, "Miss
+Valery is an excellent lady--an old friend of our family; but she and I
+have not met for many years. Circumstances necessitated our parting."
+
+"Circumstances?"
+
+Agatha guessed the truth--or fancied she did; and her wrathful pride
+was up again. More trophies of the illustrious Frederick's unwilling
+slaughters--more heart's blood dyeing the wheels of this unconscious
+Juggernaut of female devotees! Yet there he sat, looking so pathetically
+regretful, as if he felt himself the blameless, helpless instrument of
+fate to work the sentimental woe of all womankind! Agatha was absolutely
+dumb with indignation.
+
+She was a little unjust, even were he erring. It is often a great
+misfortune, but it is no blame to a good man that good women--more than
+one--have loved him; if, as all noble men do, he hides the humiliation
+or sorrow of their love sacredly in his own heart, and makes no boast
+of it. Of this nobility of character--rare indeed, yet not unknown or
+impossible--Frederick Harper just fell short. Kind, clever, and amusing,
+he might be, but he was a man not sufficiently great to be humble.
+
+No more was said on the mysterious topic of Miss Anne Valery. Agatha was
+too angry; and the subject seemed painful to Major Harper. Though he did
+what was not his habit--especially with female friends--he endeavoured,
+instead of encouraging, to throw off his momentary sentimentality, and
+become his usual witty, cheerful, agreeable self.
+
+Miss Bowen, even in her tenderest inclinings towards her guardian, had
+at times thought him a little too talkative--a little too much of the
+brilliant man of the world. Now, in her bitterness against him, his
+gaiety was positively offensive to her. She rose, and proposed that they
+should quit her own private room for the general drawing-room of the
+family.
+
+The Iansons were all there, even the Doctor being prone to linger in his
+dull home for the pleasure of Major Harper's delightful company. There
+was another, too, the unexpected sight of whom made both Agatha and her
+companion start.
+
+As she and the Major entered, there arose, almost like an apparition
+from his seat in the window-recess, the tall, slight figure of
+Nathanael.
+
+"N. L.! Where on earth have you dropped from? What a _very_
+extraordinary fellow you are!" cried the elder brother.
+
+"Perhaps unwelcome also," said the quiet voice.
+
+"Unwelcome--never, my dear boy! Only next time, do be a little more
+confidential. Here have I been telling a whole string of apparent fibs
+about your movements--have I not Miss Bowen? Do you not consider this
+brother of mine the most eccentric creature in the world?"
+
+Agatha looked up, and met the young man's eyes. Their expression could
+not be mistaken; they were _lover's eyes_--such as never in her life she
+had met before. They seemed constraining her to do what out of pity or
+mechanical impulse she at once did--silently to hold out her hand.
+
+Nathanael took it with his usual manner. There was no other greeting
+on his part or hers. Immediately afterwards he slipped away to the very
+farthest corner of the room.
+
+It would be hard to say whether Agatha felt relieved or disappointed at
+his behaviour; but surprised she most certainly was. This was not the
+sort of "lover's meeting" of girlish imaginings; nor was he the sort of
+lover, so perfectly unobtrusive, self-restrained, and coldly calm.
+She was glad she had not been at the pains to write the romantically
+pitiful, tender refusal, which she had concocted sentence by sentence
+in her deeply-touched heart, during that first wakeful night He did not
+seem half miserable enough to need such wondrous compassion.
+
+Freed in a measure from constraint, she became her own natural self, as
+women rarely, indeed never, are in the presence of those they love,
+or of those by whom they believe themselves loved. Neither unpleasant
+consciousness rested heavily on Agatha now; her demeanour was therefore
+very sweet, candid, and altogether pleasing.
+
+Major Harper even forgot his benevolent precautions on Miss Bowen's
+account, and tried to render himself as agreeable as heretofore, talking
+away at a tremendous rate, and with most admirable eloquence, while his
+brother sat silent in a corner. The contrast between them was never
+so strong. But once or twice Agatha, wearied out with laughing and
+listening, stole a look towards the figure that she felt was sitting
+there; and encountered the only sign Nathanael gave,--the unmistakeable
+"lover's eyes." They seemed to pierce into her heart and make it
+quiver--not exactly with tenderness, but with the strange controlling
+sense by which the love of a strong nature, reticent, and self-possessed
+even in its utmost passion--at times appears to enfold a woman--and
+any true affection, whether of lover or friend, to those who have never
+known it, and are unconsciously pining for lack of it, comes at first
+like water in a thirsty land.
+
+Miss Bowen's frank gaiety died slowly away, and she fell into more
+than one long reverie, which did not escape the benign notice of her
+guardian. He grew serious, and made an attempt to remove from her his
+own dangerous proximity.
+
+"Come, N. L., it is time we vanished. You have never told me the least
+fragment of news from home--that is, from Kingcombe."
+
+"You were too much engaged, brother. But we have plenty of time."
+
+"Kingcombe; is that the place your father lives at?" said Mrs. lanson,
+who took a patronising interest in the young man. "What a pretty name!
+Were you aware of it, Miss Bowen?"
+
+Agatha, for her life, could not help changing colour as she answered
+"Yes," knowing perfectly well who was watching her the while, and that
+he and she were thinking of the same thing, namely, the brief note whose
+date was her only information as to the family residence of the Harpers.
+
+"Kingcombe is as pretty as its name," observed the elder brother,--"a
+name more peculiar than at first seems. It was given by a loyal Harper
+during the Protectorate. It had been St. Mary's Abbey, but he, with
+pretended sanctimoniousness, changed the name, and called it _Kingcombe
+Holm_; as a gentle hint from the Dorsetshire coast to Prince Charles
+over the water. Ah! a clever fellow was my great-great-grandfather,
+Geoffrey Harper!"
+
+All laughed at the anecdote, and the Iansons looked with additional
+respect on the man who thus carelessly counted his grandfathers up to
+the Commonwealth. But Mrs. Ianson's curiosity penetrated even to the
+Harpers of Queen Victoria's day.
+
+"Indeed we can't let you two gentlemen away so early. If you have family
+matters to talk over, suppose we send you for half-an-hour to Miss
+Bowen's drawing-room! or, if they are not secrets, pray discuss them
+here. I am sure we are all greatly interested; are we not, Miss Bowen?"
+
+Agatha made some unintelligible answer. She thought Nathanael's quick
+eyes darted from her to Mrs. lanson and back again, as if to judge
+whether, young-lady-like, she had told his secret to all her female
+friends. But there was something in Agatha's countenance which marked
+her out as that rare character, a woman who can hold her tongue--even in
+a love affair.
+
+After a minute she looked at Mr. Harper gravely, kindly, as if to say,
+"You need not fear--I have not betrayed you;" and meeting her candid
+eyes, his suspicions vanished. He drew nearer to the circle, and began
+to talk.
+
+"Mrs. lanson is very kind, but we need not hold any such solemn
+conclave, Frederick," said he, smiling. "All the news that I did not
+unfold in my letter of yesterday, I can tell you now. I would like every
+one here to be interested in our good sisters and in all at home."
+
+"Yes--oh, yes," responded the other, mechanically. "Any messages for
+me?"
+
+"My father says he hopes to see you this autumn at Kingcombe. He is
+growing an old man now."
+
+"Ah, indeed!--An admirable man is my father, Miss Bowen. Quite a
+gentleman of the old school; but peculiar--rather peculiar. Well, what
+else, Nathanael?"
+
+"Elizabeth, since Emily's death, seems to have longed after you very
+much.--You were the next eldest, you know, and she fancies you were
+always very like Emily. She says it is so long since you have been to
+Kingcombe."
+
+"It is such a dull place. Besides I have seen them all elsewhere
+occasionally."
+
+"All but Elizabeth; and, you know, unless you go to Kingcombe, you never
+can see Elizabeth," said the younger brother, gently.
+
+"That is true!--Poor dear soul!" Frederick answered, looking grave.
+"Well, I will go ere long."
+
+"Perhaps at Eulalie's wedding, which I told you of?"
+
+"True--true. Eulalie is the youngest Miss Harper, as we should explain
+to our kind friends here--whom I hope we are not boring very much with
+our family reminiscences. And Eulalie, contrary to the usual custom of
+the Harpers, is actually going to be married. To a clergyman, is he not,
+N. L.?--late Curate of Kingcombe parish?"
+
+"No--of Anne Valery's parish. By the way, you have not yet asked a
+single question about Anne Valery."
+
+The Major's aspect visibly changed. In all the years of his acquaintance
+with the world he had not yet learnt the convenient art of being a
+physiognomical hypocrite. "Well, never mind--I ask a dozen questions
+now. How could I forget so excellent a friend of the family?"
+
+"She is indeed," said Nathanael, earnestly, while a glow of pleasure or
+enthusiasm dyed his pale features, and he even ceased his close watch
+over Agatha. "Though I was such a boy when I left, I find I have kept a
+true memory of Anne Valery. She is just the woman I always pictured
+her, from my own remembrance, and from Uncle Brian's chance allusions;
+though, in general, it was little enough he said of England or home. I
+was quite surprised to hear from Elizabeth what a strong friendship used
+to exist between Uncle Brian, yourself, and Anne Valery."
+
+Major Harper's restlessness increased. "Really, we are indulging our
+friends with our whole genealogy--uncles, aunts, and collateral branches
+included--which cannot be very interesting to Mrs. and Miss Ianson,
+or even to Miss Bowen, however kindly she may be disposed towards the
+Harper family."
+
+The Iansons here made polite disclaimers, but Agatha said nothing.
+Immediately afterwards, Nathanael's conversation likewise ebbed away
+into silence.
+
+The next time Agatha heard him speak was in answer to a sudden
+question of his brother's as to what had made him return to London so
+unexpectedly. "I thought you would have stayed at least three months."
+
+"No," he said in a low tone; "by that time I shall be far enough away."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"From circumstances which have lately arisen"--he did not look at
+Agatha, but she felt his meaning--"I fear I must return to America at
+once."
+
+He said no more, for his brother asked no more questions. But the
+tidings jarred painfully on Agatha's mind.
+
+He was then going away, this man of so gentle, true and noble
+nature--this, the only man who loved her, and whom, while she thought of
+rejecting, she had still hoped to retain as an honoured and dear friend.
+He was going away, and she might never see him more. She felt grieved,
+and her lonely, unloved position rose up before her in more bitterness
+and more fear than it was wont to do. She became as thoughtful and
+silent as Nathanael himself.
+
+Mr. Harper never attempted to address her or attract her attention
+during all that strange, long evening, which comprised in itself so many
+slight circumstances, so many conflicting states of feeling. Almost the
+only word this very eccentric lover said to her was in a whisper, just
+as his hand touched hers in bidding good-bye.
+
+"As I am leaving England so soon, may I come here again to-morrow?"
+
+"No, not to-morrow;" and then, her kind heart repenting of the evident
+pain she gave, she added, "Well, the day after to-morrow, if you like.
+But"----
+
+Whatever that forbidding "but" was meant to hint, Nathanael did not stay
+to hear. He was gone in a moment.
+
+However, that night a chance word of Mrs. Ianson's did more for the suit
+of the unloved, or only half-loved lover, than he himself ever dreamed
+of.
+
+"Well," said that lady, with sly, matronly smile, as, showing more
+attention than usual, she lighted Agatha's candle for bed--"Well, my
+dear Miss Bowen, is the wedding to be at my house?"
+
+"What wedding?"
+
+"Oh, you know; you know! I have guessed it a long while, but
+to-night--surely, I may congratulate you? Never was there a more
+charming man than Major Harper."
+
+Agatha looked furious. "Has he then"--"told you the lie he told to
+Emma"--she was about to say, but luckily checked herself. "Has he then
+been so premature as to give you this information?"
+
+"No! oh, of course not. But the thing is as plain as light."
+
+"You are mistaken, Mrs. Ianson. He is one of my very kindest friends;
+but I have never had the slightest intention of marrying Major Harper."
+
+With that she took her candle, and walked slowly to her own room. There,
+with her door locked, though that was needless, since there was
+no welcome or unwelcome friendship likely to intrude on her utter
+solitude,--she gave way to a woman's wounded pride. Added to this, was
+the terror that seizes a helpless young creature, who, all supports
+taken away, is at last set face to face with the cruel world, without
+even the steadfastness given by a strong sorrow. If she had really loved
+Frederick Harper, perhaps her condition would have been more endurable
+than now.
+
+At length, above the storm of passion there seemed floating an audible
+voice, just as if the mind of him who she knew was always thinking of
+her, then spoke to her mind, with the wondrous communication that has
+often happened in dreams, or waking, between two who deeply loved. A
+communication which appears both possible and credible to those who have
+felt any strong human attachment, especially that one which for the sake
+of its object seems able to cross the bounds of distance, time, life, or
+eternity.
+
+It was a thing that neither then or afterwards could she ever account
+for, and years elapsed before she mentioned the circumstance to any
+one. But while she lay weeping across her bed, Agatha seemed to hear
+distinctly, just as if it had been a voice gliding past the window,
+half-mixing with the wind that was then rising, the words:
+
+"_I love you! No man will ever love you like me._"
+
+That night, before she slept, her determination was taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Next morning Miss Bowen astonished every one, and excited once more Mrs.
+Ianson's incredulous smile, by openly desiring the servant who waited to
+take a message for her to Major Harper's. It was to the effect that she
+wished immediately to see that gentleman, could he make it convenient to
+visit her.
+
+The message was given by her very distinctly, and with most creditable
+calmness, considering that the destinies of her whole life hung on the
+sentence.
+
+Major Harper appeared, and was shown into Miss Bowen's drawing-room. She
+was not there, and the Major waited rather uneasily for several minutes,
+unaware that half of that time she had been standing without, her hand
+on the lock of the door. But her tremulousness was that of natural
+emotion, not of fluctuating purpose. No physiognomist studying Agatha's
+mouth and chin would doubt the fact, that though rather slow to
+will--when she had once willed, scarcely anything had power to shake her
+resolution.
+
+She went in at last, and bade Major Harper good morning. "I have sent
+for you," she said, "to talk over a little business."
+
+"Business!"--And the hesitation and discomfort which seemed to arise in
+him at the mere mention of the word again were visible in Major Harper.
+
+"Not trust business--something quite different," said Agatha, scarcely
+able to help smiling at the alarm of her guardian.
+
+"Then anything you like, my dear Miss Bowen! I have nothing in the world
+to do to-day. That stupid brother of mine is worse company than none
+at all. He said he had letters to write to Kingcombe, and vanished
+up-stairs! The rude fellow! But he is an excellent fellow too."
+
+"So you have always said. He appears to love his home, and be much
+beloved there. Is it so?"
+
+"Most certainly. Already they know him better than they do me, and care
+for him more; though he has been away for fifteen years. But then he has
+kept up a constant correspondence with them; while I, tossing about in
+the world--ah! I have had a hard life, Miss Bowen!"
+
+He looked so sad, that Agatha felt sorry for him. But his melancholy
+moods had less power to touch her than of old. His gaiety so quickly
+and invariably returned, that her belief in the reality of his grief was
+somewhat shaken.
+
+She paused a little, and then recurred again, indifferently as it were,
+to Nathanael--the one person in his family of whom Major Harper always
+spoke gladly and warmly.
+
+"You seem to have a great love for your younger brother. Is he then so
+noble a character?"
+
+"What do you call a noble character, my dear young lady?"
+
+The half-jesting, half-patronising manner irritated Agatha; but she
+answered boldly:
+
+"A man honest in his principles, faithful to his word; just, generous,
+and honourable."
+
+"What a category of qualities! How interested young ladies are in a
+pale, thin boy! Well then"--seeing that Agatha looked serious--"well
+then, I declare to Heaven that, even according to your high-flown
+definitions, he is as noble a lad as ever breathed. I can find no
+fault in him, except that, as I said, he is such a mere boy. Are
+you satisfied? Did you want to try if I were indeed a heartless,
+unbrotherly, good-for-nothing fellow, as you appear to think me
+sometimes?"
+
+"No," said Agatha briefly, noticing with something like scorn the
+Major's instinctive assumption that her questions must have some near
+or remote reference to himself, while he never once guessed their real
+motive. That answered, she changed the conversation.
+
+After half-an-hour's chat, Major Harper delicately alluded to the
+supposed business on which she had wished to see him, though in a tone
+that showed him to be rather doubtful whether it existed at all.
+
+Agatha coloured, and her heart quailed a little, as any girl's would,
+in having to speak so openly of things which usually reach young maidens
+softly murmured amidst the confessions of first love, or revealed
+by tender parents with blessings and tears. Life's earliest and best
+romance came to her with all its bloom worn away--all its sacredness and
+mystery set aside. For a moment she felt this hard.
+
+"I wished to inform you of something nearly concerning me, which, as
+the guardian appointed by my father, it is right you should know. I
+have had"--here she tried to make her lips say the words without
+faltering--"I have had an offer of marriage."
+
+"God bless my soul!" stammered out Major Harper, completely thrown off
+his guard by surprise. A very awkward pause ensued, until, his natural
+good feeling conquering any other, he said, not without emotion, "The
+fact of your consulting me shows that this offer is--is not without
+interest to you. May I ask--is it likely--that I shall have to
+congratulate you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He rose up slowly, and walked to the window. Whether his sensations were
+merely those of wounded vanity, or whether he had liked her better than
+he himself acknowledged, certain it was that Major Frederick Harper was
+a good deal moved--so much so, that he succeeded in concealing it. He
+came back, very kind, subdued, and tender, sat down by her side and took
+her hand.
+
+"You will not wonder that I am somewhat surprised--nay, affected--by
+these sudden tidings, viewing you as I have always done in the light of
+a--younger sister--or--or a daughter. Your happiness must naturally be
+very dear to me."
+
+"Thank you," murmured Agatha; and the tears came into her eyes. She felt
+that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great
+thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was
+free and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of love, for
+Major Harper.
+
+"I trust the--the gentleman you allude to is of a character likely to
+make you happy?"
+
+"Yes," returned Agatha, for she could only speak in monosyllables.
+
+"Is he--as your friend and guardian I may ask that question--is he
+of good standing in the world, and in a position to maintain you
+comfortably?"
+
+"I do not know--I have never thought about that," she cried, restlessly.
+"All I know is that he--loves me--that I honour him--that he would take
+me"--"out of this misery," she was about to say, but stopped, feeling
+that both the thought and the expression were unworthy Nathanael's
+future wife, and unfit to be heard by Nathanael's brother.
+
+"That he would take me," repeated she firmly, "into a contented and
+happy home, where I should be made a better woman than I am, and live a
+life more worthy of myself and of him."
+
+"You must then esteem him very highly?"
+
+"I do--more than any man I ever knew."
+
+The Major winced slightly, but quickly recovered himself. "That is, I
+believe, the feeling with which every woman ought to marry. He who
+wins and deserves such an attachment is"--and he sighed--"is a happy
+man!--Happier, perhaps, than those who have remained single."
+
+Again there ensued a pause, until Major Harper broke it by saying:
+
+"There is one more question--the last of all--which, after the
+confidence you have shown me, I may venture to ask: do I know this
+gentleman?"
+
+Agatha replied by putting into his hands his brother's letter.
+
+The moment she had done so she felt remorse for having betrayed her
+lover's confidence by letting any eyes save her own rest on his tender
+words. Had she loved him as he loved her, she could not possibly have
+done so; and even now a painful sensation smote her. She would have
+snatched the letter back, but it was too late.
+
+Major Harper's eyes had merely skimmed down the page to the signature,
+when he threw it from him, crying out vehemently:
+
+"Impossible! Agatha marry Nathanael--Nathanael marry Agatha!--He is
+a boy, a very child! What can he be thinking of? Send his letter
+back--tell him it is utter nonsense! Upon my soul it is!"
+
+Major Harper was very shortsighted and inconsiderate when he gave way to
+this burst of vexation before any woman--still more before such a woman
+as Agatha.
+
+She let him go on without interruption, but she lifted the letter from
+the floor, refolded it, and held it tenderly--more tenderly than she
+had ever until now felt towards it or its writer. Something of the grave
+sweetness belonging to the tie of an affianced wife began to cast its
+shadow over her heart.
+
+"Major Harper, when you have quite done speaking, perhaps you will sit
+down and hear what I have to say."
+
+Struck by her manner, he obeyed, entreating her pardon likewise, for he
+was a gentleman, and felt that he had acted very wrongly.
+
+"Yet surely," he began--until, looking at her, something convinced him
+that his arguments were useless. He stretched out his hand again for the
+letter, but with a slight gesture which expressed much, Agatha withheld
+it. After a pause, he said, meekly enough, as if thoroughly overcome by
+circumstances,--"So, it is quite true? You really love my brother?"
+
+"I honour him, as I said, more than I do any man."
+
+"And love him--are you sure you love him?"
+
+"No one," she answered, deeply blushing--"No one but himself has a right
+to receive the answer to that question."
+
+"True, true. Pardon me once more. But I am so startled, absolutely
+amazed. My brother Nathanael--he that was a baby when I was a grown
+man--he to marry--marrying you too--and I----Well; I suppose I am really
+growing into a miserable, useless old bachelor. I have thrown away
+my life: I shall be the last apple left on the tree--and a tolerably
+withered one too. But no matter. The world shall see the sunny half of
+me to the last."
+
+He laughed rather tunelessly at his own bitter jest, and after a brief
+silence, recovered his accustomed manner.
+
+"So so; such things must be, and I, though a bachelor myself, have no
+right to forbid marriages. Allow me to congratulate you. Of course you
+have answered this letter? My brother knows his happiness?"
+
+"He knows nothing; but I wished that he should do so to-day, after I
+had spoken to you. It was a respect I felt to be your due, to form no
+engagement of this kind without your knowledge."
+
+"Thank you," he said in a low voice.
+
+"You have been good and kind to me," continued Agatha, a little touched,
+"and I wished to have your approval in all things--chiefly in this. Is
+it so?"
+
+He offered his hand, saying, "God bless you!" with a quivering lip. He
+even muttered "child;" as though he felt how old he was growing, and
+how he had let all life's happiness slip by, until it was just that he
+should no longer claim it, but be content to see young people rejoicing
+in their youth. After a pause, he added, "Now, shall I go and fetch my
+brother?"
+
+"No," replied Agatha, "send for him, and do you stay here."
+
+"As you please," said Major Harper, a good deal surprised at this very
+original way of conducting a love affair. After courteously offering to
+withdraw himself to the dining-room, which Agatha declined, he sat and
+waited with her during the few minutes that elapsed before his brother
+appeared.
+
+Nathanael looked much agitated; his boyish face seemed to have grown
+years older since the preceding night. He paused at the door, and
+glanced with suspicion on his brother and Miss Bowen.
+
+"You sent for me, Frederick?"
+
+"It was I who sent for you," said Agatha. And then steadfastly regarding
+him whom she had tacitly accepted as her husband, the guide and ruler
+of her whole life--her self-possession failed. A great timidity,
+almost amounting to terror, came over her. Vaguely she felt the want of
+something unknown--something which in the whirl of her destiny she could
+grasp and hold by, sure that she held fast to the right. It was the one
+emotion, neither regard, liking, honour, or esteem, yet including and
+surpassing all--the _love_, strong, pure love, without which it is so
+dangerous, often so fatal, for a woman to marry.
+
+Agatha, never having known this feeling, could scarcely be said to have
+sacrificed it; at least not consciously. But even while she believed she
+was doing right in accepting the man who loved her, and whom she could
+make so happy, she trembled.
+
+Major Harper sat looking out of the window in an uncomfortable silence,
+which he evidently knew not how to break. It was a very awkward and
+somewhat ridiculous position for all three.
+
+Nathanael was the first to rise out of it. Slowly his features settled
+into composure, and his strong, earnest purpose gave him both dignity
+and calmness, even though all hope had evidently died. He looked
+steadily at his brother, avoiding Agatha.
+
+"Frederick, I think I understand now. She has been telling you all."
+
+"It was right she should. Her father left her in my care. She wishes you
+to learn her decision in my presence," said Major Harper, unwittingly
+taking a new and even respectful tone to the younger brother, whom he
+was wont to call "that boy."
+
+Nathanael grasped with his slight, long fingers, the chair by which he
+stood. "As she pleases. I am quite ready. Still--if--yesterday--without
+telling you or any one--she had said to me--But I am quite ready to hear
+what she decides."
+
+Despite his firmness, the words were uttered slowly and with a great
+struggle.
+
+"Tell him everything, Miss Bowen; it will come better from yourself,"
+said Frederick Harper, rising.
+
+Agatha rose likewise, walked across the room, and laid her hand in that
+of him who loved her. The only words she said were so low that he alone
+could hear them:
+
+"I have been very desolate--be kind to me!"
+
+Nathanael made no answer; indeed for the moment his look was that of a
+man bewildered--but he never forgot those words.
+
+Agatha felt her hand clasped--softly--but with a firm grasp that seemed
+to bind it to his for ever. This was the only sign of betrothal that
+passed between them. In another minute or two, unable to bear the scene
+longer, she crept out of the room and walked up-stairs, feeling with
+a dizzy sense, half of comfort, half of fear--yet, on the whole, the
+comfort stronger than the fear--that the struggle was all over, and her
+fate sealed for life.
+
+When she descended, an hour after, the Harpers had gone; but she found a
+little note awaiting her, just one line:
+
+"If not forbidden, I may come this evening."
+
+Agatha knew she had no right to forbid, even had she wished it, now. So
+she waited quietly through the long, dim, misty day--which seemed the
+strangest day she had ever known; until, in the evening, her lover's
+knock came to the door.
+
+She was sitting with Jane Ianson, near whom, partly in shy fear, partly
+from a vague desire for womanly sympathy, she had closely kept for the
+last hour. As yet, the Iansons knew nothing. She wondered whether from
+his manner or hers they would be likely to guess what had passed that
+morning between herself and Mr. Harper.
+
+It was an infinite relief to her when following, nay preceding,
+Nathanael, there appeared his elder brother, with the old pleasant smile
+and bow.
+
+But amidst all his assumed manner, Major Harper took occasion to whisper
+kindly to Agatha; "My brother made me come--I shall do admirably to talk
+nonsense to the Iansons."
+
+And so he did, carrying off the restraint of the evening so ingeniously
+that no one would have suspected any deeper elements of joy or pain
+beneath the smooth surface of their cheerful group.
+
+Nathanael sat almost as silent as ever; but even his very silence was
+a beautiful, joyful repose. In his aspect a new soul seemed to have
+dawned--the new soul, noble and strong, which comes into a man when he
+feels that his life has another life added to it, to guard, cherish, and
+keep as his own until death. And though Mr. Harper gave little outward
+sign of what was in him, it was touching to see how his eyes followed
+his betrothed everywhere, whether she were moving about the room, or
+working, or trying to sing. Continually Agatha felt the shining of
+these quiet, tender eyes, and she began to experience the
+consciousness--perhaps the sweetest in the world--of being able to make
+another human being entirely happy.
+
+Only sometimes, when she looked at her future husband--hardly able
+to believe he was really such--and thought how strangely things had
+happened; how here she was, no longer a girl, but a woman engaged to
+be married, sitting calmly by her lover's side, without any of the
+tremblingly delicious emotions which she had once believed would
+constitute the great mystery, Love--a strange pensiveness overtook her.
+She felt all the solemnity of her position, and, as yet, little of its
+sweetness. Perhaps that would come in time. She resolved to do her
+duty towards him whom she so tenderly honoured, and who so deeply loved
+herself; and all the evening the entire gentleness of her behaviour
+was enough to charm the very soul of any one who held towards her the
+relation now borne by Nathanael Harper.
+
+At length even the good-natured elder brother's flow of conversation
+seemed to fail, and he gave hints about leaving, to which the younger
+tacitly consented. Agatha bade them both good-night in public, and crept
+away, as she thought, unobserved, to her own sitting-room.
+
+There she stood before the hearth, which looked cheerful enough this
+wet July night,--the fire-light shining on her hands, as they hung down
+listlessly folded together. She was thinking how strange everything
+seemed about her, and what a change had come in a few days, nay, hours.
+
+Suddenly a light touch was laid on her hand. It startled her, but she
+did not attempt to shake it off. She knew quite well whose hand it was,
+and that it had a right to be there.
+
+"Agatha!"
+
+She half turned, and said once more "Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, _my_ Agatha."
+
+And for a minute he stood, holding her hand by the fire-light, until
+some one below called out loudly for "Mr. Harper." Then a kiss, soft and
+timid as a woman's, trembled over Agatha's mouth, and he was gone.
+
+This was the first time she had ever been kissed by any man. The feeling
+it left was very new, tremulous, and strange.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury
+Church--with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and
+Jane's sickly unhappy face at the other--Agatha said her prayers in due
+sabbatical form. "Said her prayers" is the right phrase, for trouble
+had not yet opened her young heart to pray. Yet she was a good girl, not
+wilfully undevout; and if during the long missionary-sermon she secretly
+got her prayer-book and read--what was the most likely portion to
+attract her--the marriage service, it was with feelings solemnised
+and not unsacred. Some portions of it made her very thoughtful, so
+thoughtful that when suddenly startled by the conclusion of the sermon,
+she prayed--not with the clergyman, for "Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
+Heretics"--but for two young creatures, herself and another, who perhaps
+needed Heaven's merciful blessings quite as much.
+
+When she rose up it was with moist eyelashes; and then she perceived
+what until this minute she had not seen,--that close behind her, sitting
+where he had probably sat all church-time, was Nathanael Harper.
+
+If anything can touch the heart of a generous woman, when it is still
+a free heart, it is that quiet, unobtrusive, proudly-silent love which,
+giving all, exacts nothing. Agatha's smile had in it something even of
+shy tenderness when at the church-door she was met by Mr. Harper.
+And when, after speaking courteously to the Iansons, he came, quite
+naturally as it were, to her side, and drew her arm in his, she felt
+a strange sense of calm and rest in knowing that it was her betrothed
+husband upon whom she leant.
+
+At the door he seemed wishful enough to enter; but Mrs. Ianson
+invariably looked very coldly upon Sunday visitors.
+
+And something questioning and questionable in the glances of both that
+lady and her daughter was very painful to Miss Bowen.
+
+"Not to-day," she whispered, as her lover detained her hand. "To-morrow
+I shall have made all clear to the Iansons."
+
+"As you will! Nothing shall trouble you," said he, with a gentle
+acquiescence, the value of which, alas! she did not half appreciate.
+"Only, remember, I have so few to-morrows."
+
+This speech troubled Agatha for many minutes, bringing various thoughts
+concerning the dim future which as yet she had scarcely contemplated.
+It is wonderful how little an unsophisticated girl's mind rests on the
+common-sense and commonplace of marriage,--household prospects, income,
+long or short engagements, and the like. When in the course of that
+drowsy, dark Sunday afternoon, with the rain-drops dripping heavily on
+the balcony, she took opportunity formally to communicate her secret to
+the astonished Mrs. Ianson, Agatha was perfectly confounded by the two
+simple questions: "When are you to be married? And where are you going
+to live?"
+
+"And oh! my dear," cried the doctor's wife, roused into positive
+sympathy by a confidence which always touches the softest chord in every
+woman's heart--"oh, my dear, I hope it will not be a long engagement.
+People change so--at least men do. You don't know what misery comes out
+of long engagements!" And, lowering her voice, she turned her dull grey
+eyes, swimming with motherly tears, towards the corner sofa where the
+pale, fretful, old-maidish Jane lay sleeping.
+
+Agatha understood a little, and guessed more. After that day, however
+ill-tempered and disagreeable the invalid might be, she was always very
+patient and kind towards Jane Ianson.
+
+After tea, when her daughter was gone to bed, Mrs. Ianson unfolded
+all to the Doctor, who nearly broke Miss Bowen's fingers with his
+congratulatory shake; John the footman, catching fragments of talk,
+probably put the whole story together for the amusement of the lower
+regions; and when Agatha retired to rest she was quite sure that the
+whole house, down to the little maid who waited on herself, was fully
+aware of the important fact that Miss Bowen was going to be married to
+Mr. Locke Harper.
+
+This annoyed her--she had not expected it. But she bore it stoically as
+a necessary evil. Only sometimes she thought how different all things
+were, seen afar and near; and faintly sighed for that long ago lost
+picture of wakening fancy--the Arcadian, impossible love-dream.
+
+She sat up till after midnight, writing to Emma Thorny-croft, the
+only near friend to whom she had to write, the news of her
+engagement--information that for many reasons she preferred giving
+by pen, not words. Finishing, she put her blind aside to have one
+freshening look at the trees in the square. It was quite cloudless now,
+the moon being just rising--the same moon that Agatha had seen, as a
+bright slender line appearing at street corners, on the Midsummer night
+when she and Nathariael Harper walked home together. She felt a deep
+interest in that especial moon, which seemed between its dawning and
+waning to have comprised the whole fate of her life.
+
+Quietly opening the window, she leant out gazing at the moonlight, as
+foolish girls will--yet who does not remember, half pathetically, those
+dear old follies!
+
+"Heigho! I wonder what will be the end of it all!" said Agatha Bowen;
+without specifying what the pronoun "it" alluded to.
+
+But she stopped, hearing a footstep rather policeman-like passing up and
+down the railing under the trees. And as after a while he crossed the
+street--she saw that the "policeman" had the very unprofessional
+appearance of a cloak and long fair hair:--Agatha's cheek burned; she
+shut down the window and blind, and relighted the candle. But her heart
+beat fast--it was so strange, so new, to be the object of such love.
+"However, I suppose I shall get used to it--besides--oh, how good he
+is!"
+
+And the genuine reverence of her heart conquered its touch of feminine
+vanity; which, perhaps, had he known.
+
+Nathanael would have done wiser in going to bed like a Christian, than
+in wandering like a heathen idolater round his beloved's shrine. But,
+however her pride may have been flattered, it is certain that Agatha
+went to sleep with tears, innocent and tender enough to serve as mirrors
+for watching night-angels, lying on her cheek.
+
+The next morning she waited at home, and for the first time received
+her betrothed openly as such. She was sitting alone in her little
+drawing-room engaged at her work; but put it down when Mr. Harper
+entered, and held out her hand kindly, though with a slight restraint
+and confusion. Both were needless: he only touched this lately-won
+hand with his soft boyish lips--like a _preux chevalier_ of the olden
+time--and sat down by her side. However deep his love might be, its
+reserve was unquestionable.
+
+After a while he began to talk to her--timidly yet tenderly, as friend
+with friend--watching her fingers while they moved, until at length the
+girl grew calmed by the calmness of her young lover. So much so, that
+she even forgot he was a young man and her lover, and found herself
+often steadfastly looking up into his face, which was gradually melting
+into a known likeness, as many faces do when we grow familiar with them.
+Agatha puzzled herself much as to who it could be that Mr. Harper was
+like--though she found no nearer resemblance than a head she had once
+seen of the angel Gabriel.
+
+She told him this--quite innocently, and then, recollecting herself,
+coloured deeply. But Nathanael looked perfectly happy.
+
+"The likeness is very flattering," said he, smiling. "Yet I would only
+wish to be--what you called me once, the first evening I saw you. Do you
+remember?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah--well--it was not probable you should," he answered, as if
+patiently taking upon himself the knowledge which only a strong love can
+bear--that it is _alone_ in its strength. "It was merely when they were
+talking of my name, and you said I looked like a Nathanael. Now, do you
+remember?"
+
+"Yes, and I think so still," she replied, without any false shame. "I
+never look at you, but I feel there is 'no guile' in you, Mr. Harper."
+
+"Thanks," he said, with much feeling. "Thanks--except for the last word.
+How soon will you try to say 'Nathanael?'"
+
+A fit of wilfulness or shyness was upon Agatha. She drew away her hand
+which he had taken. "How soon? Nay, I cannot tell. It is a long name,
+old-fashioned, and rather ugly."
+
+He made no answer--scarcely even showed that he was hurt; but he never
+again asked her to call him "Nathanael."
+
+She went on with her work, and he sat quietly looking at her for some
+little time more. Any Asmodeus peering at them through the roof would
+have vowed these were the oddest pair of lovers ever seen.
+
+At last, rousing himself, Mr. Harper said: "It is time, Agatha"--he
+paused, and added--"dear Agatha--quite time that we should talk a
+little about what concerns our happiness--at least mine."
+
+She looked at him--saw how earnest he was, and put down her work. The
+softness of her manner soothed him.
+
+"I know, dear Agatha, that it is very wrong in me; but sometimes I can
+hardly believe this is all true, and that you really promised--what I
+heard from your own lips two days ago. Will you--out of that good heart
+of yours--say it again?"
+
+"What must I say?"
+
+"That you love--no, I don't mean that--but that you care for me a
+little--enough to trust me with your happiness? Do you?"
+
+For all reply, Agatha held out the hand she had drawn back. Her lover
+kept it tight in that peculiar grasp of his--very soft and still, but
+firm as adamant.
+
+"Thank you. You shall never regret your trust. My brother told me all
+you said to him on Saturday morning. I know you do not quite love me
+yet."
+
+Agatha started, it was so true.
+
+"Still, as you have loved no one else--you are sure of that?"
+
+She thought a minute, then lifted her candid eyes, and answered:
+
+"Yes, quite sure!"
+
+He, watching her closely, betrayed himself so far as to give an inward
+thankful sigh.
+
+"Then, Agatha, since I love you, I am not afraid."
+
+"Nor I," she answered, and a tear fell, for she was greatly moved. Her
+betrothed put his arm round her, softly and timidly, as if unfamiliar
+with actions of tenderness; but she trembled so much that, still softly,
+he let her go, only keeping firm hold of her hand, apparently to show
+that no power on earth, gentle or strong, should wrest that from him.
+
+A few minutes after, he began speaking of his affairs, of which Agatha
+was in a state of entire ignorance. She said, jestingly--for they had
+fallen into quite familiar jesting now, and were laughing together like
+a couple of children--that she had not the least idea whether she were
+about to marry a prince or a beggar.
+
+"No," answered her lover, smiling at her unworldliness, and thereby
+betraying that, innocent as he looked, his was not the innocence of
+ignorance. "No; but I am not exactly a prince, and as a beggar I should
+certainly be too proud to marry _you_."
+
+"Indeed! Why?"
+
+"Because I understand you are a very rich young lady (I don't know
+how rich, for I never thought of the subject or inquired about it till
+to-day), while I am only able to earn my income year by year. Yet it is
+a good income, and, I earnestly hope, fully equal to yours."
+
+"I don't know what mine is. But why are you so punctilious?"
+
+"Uncle Brian, impressed upon me, from my boyhood, that one of the
+greatest horrors of life must be the taunt of having married an heiress
+for her money."
+
+"Has he ever married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And is he a very old man?" Miss Bowen asked, less interested in money
+matters than in this Uncle Brian, whose name so constantly floated
+across his nephew's conversation.
+
+"Fifteen years in the colonies makes a man old before his time. And he
+was not very young, probably full thirty, when he went out But I could
+go on talking of Uncle Brian for ever; you must stop me, Agatha."
+
+"Not I--I like to hear," she answered, beginning to feel how sweet it
+was to sit talking thus confidentially, and know herself and her words
+esteemed fair and pleasant in the eyes of one who loved her. But as she
+looked up and smiled, that same witching smile put an effectual stop to
+the chronicle of Brian Harper.
+
+"And I have to go back to Canada so soon!" whispered Nathanael to
+himself, as his gaze, far less calm than heretofore, fell down like a
+warm sunshine over his betrothed, "The time of my stay here will soon be
+over, and what then--Agatha?"
+
+She did not wholly comprehend the question, and so let it pass. She was
+quite content to keep him talking about things and people in whom her
+interest was naturally growing; of Kingcombe Holm, the old house on the
+Dorset coast, where the Harpers had dwelt for centuries; of its present
+owner, Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of that venerable name so renowned in
+Dorsetshire pedigrees, that one Harper had refused to merge it even in
+the blaze of a peerage. Of the five Miss Harpers, of whom one was dead,
+and another, the all-important "married sister," Mrs. Dugdale, lived in
+a town close by. Of Eulalie, the pretty _cadette_ who was at some
+future time going to disappear behind the shadows of matrimony; of
+busy, housekeeping Mary, whom nobody could possibly do without, and who
+couldn't be suffered to marry on any account whatever. Last of all, was
+the eye, ear, and heart of the house, kept tenderly in its inmost nook,
+from which for twenty years she had never moved, and never would move
+until softly carried to the house appointed for all living--Elizabeth,
+the eldest--of whom Nathanael's soft voice grew softer as he spoke. His
+betrothed hesitated to ask many questions about Elizabeth. The one of
+whom she had it in her mind always to inquire, and whose name somehow
+always slipped past, was Miss Anne Valery.
+
+All this conversation--wherein the young lover bore himself much more
+bravely than in regular "love-making"--a manufacture at which he was not
+_au fait_ at all, caused the morning to pass swiftly by. Agatha thought
+if all her life were to move so smoothly and pleasantly, she need never
+repent trusting its current to the guidance of Nathanael Harper. And
+when, soon after he departed, Emma Thorny-croft came in, all smiles,
+wonderings, and congratulations, Miss Bowen was in a mood cheerful
+enough to look the happy _fiancée_ to the life; besides womanly and
+tender enough to hang round her friend's neck, testifying her old
+regard--until Master James testified his also, and likewise his general
+sympathy in the scene, by flying at them both with bread-and-buttery
+fingers.
+
+"Ah, Agatha, there is nothing like being a wife and mother! you see what
+happiness lies before you," cried the affectionate soul, hugging her
+unruly son and heir.
+
+Miss Bowen slightly shuddered; being of a rather different opinion;
+which, however, she had the good taste to keep to herself, since
+occasionally a slight misgiving arose that either she was unreasonably
+harsh, or that the true type of infantile loveableness did not exist in
+the young Thornycrofts.
+
+As a private penance for possible injustice, and also out of the general
+sunniness of her contented heart, she was particularly kind to Master
+James that day, and moreover promised to spend the next at the Botanic
+Gardens--not the terrific Zoological!--with Emma and the babies.
+
+"And," added the young matron, with a gracious satisfaction, "you
+understand, my dear, we shall--now and always--be most happy to see Mr.
+Harper in the evening."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Whether Mr. Harper, being a rather proud and reserved individual, was
+not "so happy to be seen in the evening" as an attendant planet openly
+following his sphered idol, or whether, like all true lovers, he was
+very jealous over the lightest public betrayal of love's sanctity, most
+certainly he did not appear until he had been expected for at least two
+hours. Even then his manner was somewhat constrained. Emma's smiling,
+half-jesting congratulations were nipped in the bud; she felt as she
+afterwards declared--"quite frightened at him."
+
+Agatha, too, met him rather meekly, fearing lest she had led him into
+a position distasteful to his feelings. She was relieved when,
+taking little notice of herself, he fell into conversation with Mr.
+Thornycroft--a serious discussion on political and general topics. Once
+or twice, glancing at him, and noticing how well he talked, and how
+manly and self-possessed he looked, Agatha began to feel proud of her
+betrothed. She could not have endured a lover who--in not unfrequent
+lover-like fashion--"made a fool of himself" on her account.
+
+While the two gentlemen still talked, Miss Bowen stood secretly
+listening, but apparently watching the rich twilight that coloured the
+long sweep of the Regent's Park trees--a pretty sight, even though in
+the land of Cockayne.
+
+"There's a carriage at our door!" screamed Missy from the balcony,
+receiving a hurried maternal reproof for ill-behaviour. Mrs. Thornycroft
+wondered who the inopportune visitor could be.
+
+It was a lady, who gave no name, but wished to know if Mr. Locke Harper
+were there, and if so, would he come to the carriage and speak to her a
+moment?
+
+Nathanael did so, looking not less surprised than the rest of the party.
+After five minutes had elapsed, he was still absent from the room.
+
+"Very odd!" observed Emma, half in jest, half earnest; "I should inquire
+into the matter if I were you. Let me see--I fancy the carriage is still
+at the door. It would be rude to peep, you know, but we can inquire of
+the maid."
+
+"No," said Agatha, gently removing Mrs. Thornycrofts hand from the
+bell; "Mr. Harper will doubtless tell me all that is necessary. He is
+perfectly able to conduct his own affairs."
+
+It was speech implying more indifference than she really felt, for this
+mysterious interview did not quite please her. She tried vainly to go on
+talking with Mrs. Thornycroft, and actually started when she heard the
+carriage drive off, and Nathanael come up-stairs.
+
+His countenance was a good deal troubled, but he did not give the
+slightest explanation--not even when Mrs. Thornycroft joked him about
+his supposed "business."
+
+"With a lady, too! Not, I hope, a young lady?"
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, absently, his eyes fixed afar off on
+Agatha.
+
+"I hope your visitor in the carriage was not a young lady?"
+
+"No." The answer was in a tone that put an end to any more jesting.
+
+Nathanael sat down, and tried to take up the thread of politics just
+dropped with Mr. Thornycroft, but only for a few minutes. Then, stealing
+round by Miss Bowen's side, he whispered:
+
+"I want to speak to you: would you mind coming home soon?"
+
+"At once, if you wish it," she answered, perceiving that something was
+wrong, and feeling towards him too much of kindness and too little of
+jealous love, to be in any way displeased at his strange behaviour.
+
+"Will you do it, then, dear Agatha? Do it for me."
+
+Agatha was ill at contrivance, but she managed somehow to get away; and
+before it was dark she and her betrothed were out in the broad terrace.
+
+"Now," said she, taking his arm kindly, "if anything is amiss, you can
+tell me all as we walk home. Better walk than ride."
+
+"No, we must ride; I would not lose a minute," Nathanael answered, as
+he hurried her into a conveyance, and gave the order to drive to Bedford
+Square.
+
+Miss Bowen felt a twinge of repugnance at this control so newly
+exercised over the liberty of her actions; but her good-heartedness
+still held out, and she waited patiently for her lover to explain.
+However, he seemed to forget that any explanation was necessary. He
+leaned back in the corner quite silent, with his hand over his eyes.
+Had she loved him, or not known that he was her lover, Agatha would soon
+have essayed the womanly part of comforter, but now timidity restrained
+her.
+
+At length timidity was verging into distrust, when he suddenly said,
+just as they were entering the square:
+
+"I have used the dear right you lately gave me, in taking a strange
+liberty with you and your house. I have appointed to meet me there
+to-night one whom I must see, and whom I could not well see in any other
+way--a lady--a stranger to you. But, stay, she is here!"
+
+And as they stopped at the door, where another carriage had stopped
+likewise, Nathanael unceremoniously leaped out, and went to this
+"mysterious stranger."
+
+"Go in, dear Agatha," said he returning; "go to your own sitting-room,
+and I will bring her to you."
+
+Agatha, half reluctant to be so ordered about, and thoroughly bewildered
+likewise, mechanically obeyed. Nevertheless, with a sort of pleasure
+that this humdrum courtship was growing into something interesting at
+last, she waited for the intruding "lady."
+
+That she was a lady, the first glimpse of her as she entered the
+room leaning rather heavily on Nathanael's arm, brought sufficient
+conviction. She was tall, and a certain slow, soft way of moving,
+cast about her an atmosphere of sweet dignity. Her age was not easily
+distinguishable, but her voice, in the few words addressed to Mr.
+Harper, "Is your friend here?" seemed not that of a very young woman.
+
+In her presence, Miss Bowen instinctively rose.
+
+"Yes, she is here," said Nathanael, answering the stranger. "You could
+not have learnt what I wrote yesterday to my father and to Elizabeth.
+She is Agatha Bowen, my--my wife that will be. Agatha, this lady is Miss
+Anne Valery."
+
+It would be hard to say which of the two thus suddenly introduced to
+each other was most surprised. However, the elder lady recovered herself
+soonest.
+
+"I was not aware of this; but I am very glad. And I need not now
+apologise for thus intruding."
+
+She went up to the young betrothed, and took her by the hand warmly,
+seeming at once and without further explanation to comprehend all; while
+on Agatha's side, her look, her voice, her touch, communicated a sudden
+trust and pleasure. It was one of those instinctive, inexplicable
+attractions which almost every one has experienced more or less during
+life. She could not take her eyes off Miss Valery; the face and manner
+seemed at once familiar and strange. She had never been so impressed by
+any woman before.
+
+To show all hospitable attentions, to place an arm-chair for her guest,
+and even, as she appeared weary, to entreat her to put aside her bonnet
+and mantle--seemed quite natural to Miss Bowen, just as if they had
+been friends of years. Anne thanked her courteously, let her do what she
+would--but all the while looked anxiously at Nathanael.
+
+"You know we have much to say. Is she aware of what I told you?"
+
+"Not yet; I could not tell her; it shocked me so. Oh, my poor uncle!"
+
+Agatha, who was unfastening her guest's cloak, turned round.
+
+"What, your Uncle Brian? Has anything happened? You speak almost as if
+he were dead."
+
+Anne Valery shivered.
+
+"Dead! God forbid!" cried the young man, more deeply moved than his
+betrothed had ever seen him. "But we have had ill news. He went as
+interpreter on a Government mission, as he had often done before; he was
+so popular among the Indians. But from some treachery shown them, the
+tribe grew enraged and carried him off prisoner. Heaven only knows if
+they have spared his life. But I think--I feel they will. He was so just
+to the red men always. He is surely safe."
+
+"Yes, he is safe," repeated Miss Valery, as if any alternative but that
+were utterly incredible and impossible.
+
+Nathanael continued: "The tidings reached Kingcombe yesterday, and our
+friend here, coming to London, volunteered to bring them, and consult
+with me. If there is any good deed to be done, it is sure to be done by
+Anne Valery," added Nathanael, stretching out his hand to hers.
+
+She took it without speaking, being apparently much exhausted. And now
+that her bonnet was off, and she sitting near the lamp, Agatha discerned
+that Miss Valery was by no means young or beautiful. At all events, she
+was at that time in an unmarried woman's life when it ceases to signify
+whether she is handsome or not. Her hair at first seemed brown, but on
+looking closer, there appeared on either side the parting broad silvery
+lines, as if two snow-laden hands laid on the head had smoothed it down,
+leaving it shining still.
+
+Agatha turned from her passing examination of Miss Valery to the subject
+in question, evidently so painful to her betrothed.
+
+"You two wish to consult together? Do so. Pray stay here. I am very
+sorry for your trouble, Mr. Harper. Anything that I can do for you or
+your friend, you know"--and her voice dropped softly--"it is my duty
+now."
+
+Nathanael looked at her, as if longing to clasp her to his heart and
+say how happy he was; but he restrained himself and let his eyes alone
+declare what he felt. They were very eloquent.
+
+While this passed between the young people, the elder lady arose from
+her chair; quietness seemed painful to her.
+
+"Nathanael, every minute is precious to anxiety such as you must feel.
+Have you thought what had better be done, since you are the right person
+to do it?"
+
+"As yet I have thought of nothing. And, alas! what _can_ be done?"
+
+"Sit down, and let us consider," said she, laying her hand on his, with
+a force soft yet steady as that of her words.
+
+Agatha was gliding out of the room, but her lover's quick movement and
+Miss Valery's look stopped her.
+
+"Do not go, Miss Bowen; you are not so unknown to me as I am to you. I
+had much rather you stayed."
+
+So she took up her position a little distance off, and listened while
+the two friends consulted; pondering the while on what a rare kind of
+man Mr. Brian Harper must be to win such regard.
+
+"You say the news came accidentally?" Mr. Harper observed. "It may not
+be true, then."
+
+"It is. I had it confirmed to-day."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I went to the Colonial Office myself." ("Kind Anne Valery!" murmured
+the young man.) "It was best to do so before I told you anything. You,
+knowing the whole facts, would then decide more readily."
+
+"You are right and wise as ever. Now, tell me exactly what you heard."
+
+"While a treaty was going forward for the Government purchase of Indian
+lands, there arose a quarrel, and two red men were upon slight grounds
+punished cruelly. Then the whole tribe went off in the night, carrying
+as prisoners two Englishmen--one by force. The other is believed to have
+offered himself willingly as a hostage, until the reparation of what he
+considered an injustice shown by his countrymen to the Indians. You may
+guess who he was."
+
+"Uncle Brian, of course," cried Nathanael, pacing the room. "Just like
+him! He would do the maddest things for the sake of honour."
+
+Anne Valery's eyes flashed in the dark a momentary brightness, as if
+they were growing young again.
+
+"But his life is surely safe: all over the Indian country they respect
+the very name of Brian Harper. No harm can touch him--it is quite
+impossible!"
+
+"I think so too." And Miss Valery drew a long breath. "Still, such
+danger is very terrible--is it not?" And she turned slightly, to include
+Agatha in their conversation.
+
+"Oh, terrible!" the girl cried, deeply interested. "But could he not
+be sought for--rescued? Could not a party be despatched after him? If I
+were a man I would head one immediately."
+
+Miss Valery, faintly smiling, patted Agatha's hand. It was easy to
+see that this good heart opened itself at once to Nathanael's young
+betrothed.
+
+"That is what I had in my own mind, and should have spoken of to his
+nephew here--a party of search which the Canadian Government, if urged,
+would no doubt consent to. Nathanael could propose it--plan it. He is
+both ingenious and wise."
+
+"Ah, he is; he seems to know everything!" cried Agatha warmly. "Surely,
+Mr. Harper, you could think of something--do something?"
+
+"I could," said the nephew, slowly waking from a long interval of
+thought. "I could do--what perhaps I ought, and will--for him who has
+been more than a father to me."
+
+"What is that?" Agatha asked, while Miss Valery regarded him silently.
+
+"To go back to America--head a search; or, if that is refused me, search
+for him myself alone, and never give up until I find him--living or
+dead."
+
+"Ah, do so! that will be right, generous, noble--you could not fail."
+
+"There is no saying, Agatha; only, if done, it must be done without
+delay. I must start at once--in a week--nay a day--leaving England,
+home, you, everything. That is hard!"
+
+He uttered the last words inaudibly, and his left hand was suddenly
+clenched, as he turned and walked once up the room and down again.
+
+Agatha knew not what to say. Only a great love conscious of the extent
+of its own sacrifice, would have had boldness to urge the like sacrifice
+upon him.
+
+Miss Valery's voice broke the troubled pause:
+
+"You cannot start yet, Nathanael; you would have to apply to the
+Government here. It would be impossible for you to leave under at least
+a fortnight."
+
+"Ah!" he sighed, momentarily relieved, which was but natural "Yet, how
+wrong I am! for my poor uncle's sake I ought not to lose a day. Surely
+there would be some way of hastening the time, if inquiries were to be
+set on foot."
+
+"I have made all that could be made; still, try yourself, though I fear
+it is useless. The suspense is bitter, but what is inevitable must be
+borne," said Anne, with the smile of one long used to the practice of
+that doctrine. "And in a fortnight--a fortnight is a long time, Miss
+Bowen?"
+
+The smile, flitting to Agatha, took a cheerfulness which hitherto in
+the sad subject of her talk Miss Valery had not displayed. A certain
+benevolent meaning, which Agatha rather guessed at than discerned, was
+likewise visible there.
+
+"Come," said she, "for this night we can do nothing; but having settled
+what we shall do, or rather what Mr. Harper will do, let us make
+ourselves at rest. Be content, my dear Nathanael. Heaven will take care
+of him for whom we fear."
+
+Her voice trembled, Agatha fancied; and the young girl thought how full
+and generous was this kind woman's sympathy! likewise how good Nathanael
+must be to have awakened so deep a regard in such an one as Miss Anne
+Valery.
+
+The clock struck ten. "We are early folk in Dorsetshire; but as my
+old servant Andrews has secured my lodgings close by (I am a very
+independent woman, you see, Miss Bowen), if you will allow me, I should
+like to sit another half-hour, and become a little better acquainted
+with you."
+
+Agatha gave her a delighted welcome, and astonished the Ianson family
+by ordering all sorts of hospitalities. The three began to converse upon
+various matters, the only remarkable fact being that no one inquired for
+or alluded to a person, doubtless familiar to all--Frederick Harper. On
+Agatha's part this omission was involuntary; he had quietly slipped
+out of her thoughts hour by hour and day by day, as her interest in him
+became absorbed in others more akin to her true nature.
+
+But though every one tried to maintain the conversation on indifferent
+topics, the feelings of at least two out of the three necessarily
+drew it back to one channel. There they sat, running over the slight
+nothings, probable and improbable, which in hard suspense people count
+up; though still the worst Nathanael seemed to fear was the temporary
+hardship to which his uncle would be exposed.
+
+"And he is not so young as he used to be. How often have I urged him to
+be content with his poverty and come home. He _shall_ come home now. If
+once I get him out of these red fellows' hands, he shall turn his face
+from their wild settlements for ever. He can easily do it, even if I
+must stay in Canada."
+
+The young man looked at his newly-betrothed wife, and looked away again.
+It was more than he could bear.
+
+"Agatha," said Miss Valery, after a pause, during which she had closely
+observed both the young people--"I may call you _Agatha_, for the sake
+of my friend here, may I not?"
+
+"Yes," was the low answer.
+
+"Well then, Agatha, shall you and I have a little talk? We need not mind
+that foolish boy; he was a boy, just so high, when I first knew him. Let
+him walk up and down the room a little, it will do him good."
+
+She moved to the sofa, and took Agatha by her side.
+
+"My dear"--(there was a rare sweetness in the way Miss Valery said the
+usually unsweet words _my dear_)--"I need not say, what, of course, we
+two both think, that she will be a happy woman who marries Nathanael
+Harper."
+
+Agatha, with her eyes cast down, looked everything a young girl could be
+expected to look under the circumstances.
+
+"Your happiness, as well as your history, is to me not like that of an
+entire stranger. I once knew your father."
+
+"Ah, that accounts for all!" cried Agatha, delighted to gain this
+confirmation of her strange impression in favour of Miss Valery. "When
+was this, and where was I?"
+
+"Neither born nor thought of."
+
+Agatha's countenance fell. "Then of course it was impossible--yet I felt
+certain--I could even believe so now--that I have seen you before."
+
+While the girl looked, a quick shadow passed over Anne Valery's still
+features, for the moment entirely changing their expression. But soon
+returned their ordinary settled calm.
+
+"We often fancy that strangers' faces are familiar. It is usually held
+to be an omen of future affection. Let me hope that it will prove so
+now. I have long wished, and am truly glad, heart-glad to see you, my
+dear child."
+
+She bent Agatha's forehead towards her, and kissed it. Gradually her
+lips recovered their colour, and she began to talk again, showing
+herself surprisingly familiar with the monotonous past life of the young
+girl, and likewise with her present circumstances.
+
+"How kind of you to take such an interest in me!" cried Agatha, her
+wonder absorbed in pleasure.
+
+"It was natural," Anne said, rather hastily. "A woman left orphan
+from the cradle as I was, can feel for another orphan. And though my
+acquaintance with your father was too slender to warrant my intruding
+upon you--still I never lost sight of you. Poor child, yours has been a
+desolate position for so young a girl."
+
+"Ay, very desolate," said Agatha; and suddenly the recollection
+crossed her mind of how doubly she should feel that desolation when her
+betrothed husband was gone, for how long, no one could tell! A regret
+arose, half tenderness, half selfishness; but she deemed it wholly the
+latter, and so crushed it down.
+
+"How long have you been engaged to Nathanael?" asked Miss Valery, in a
+manner so sweet as entirely to soften the abruptness of the question,
+and win the unhesitating answer.
+
+"A very short time--only a few days. Yet I seem to have known him for
+years. Oh, how good he is! how it grieves me to see him so unhappy!"
+whispered Agatha, watching his restless movements up and down.
+
+"It will be a hard trial for him, this parting with you. Men like
+Nathanael never love lightly; even sudden passions--and his must have
+been rather sudden--in them take root as with the strength of years. I
+am very sorry for the boy."
+
+And Miss Valery's eyes glistened as they rested on him whom probably
+from old habit she thus called.
+
+"Well, have you done your little mysteries?" said he, coming up to the
+sofa, with an effort to be gay. "Have you taken my character to pieces,
+Anne Valery? Remember, if so, I have little enough time to recover it. A
+fortnight will be gone directly."
+
+No one answered.
+
+"Come, make room; I _will_ have my place. I _will_ sit beside you,
+Agatha."
+
+There was a sort of desperation in his "I will" that indicated a
+great change in the reserved, timid youth. Agatha yielded as to an
+irresistible influence, and he placed himself by her side, putting his
+arm firmly round her waist, quite regardless of the presence of a third
+person--though about Anne there was an abiding spirit of love which
+seemed to take under its shadow all lovers, ay, even though she herself
+were an old maid. But perhaps that was the very reason.
+
+"I was doing you no harm, Nathanael," said she, smiling. "And I was
+thinking, like you, how soon a fortnight will be gone, and how hard it
+is for you to part from this little girl that loves you."
+
+The inference, so natural, so holy, which Miss Valery had unconsciously
+drawn, Agatha had not the heart to deny. She knew it was but right that
+she should love, and be supposed to love, her betrothed husband. And
+looking at him, his suffering, his strong self-denial, she almost felt
+that she did really love him, as a wife ought.
+
+"If," said the soft voice of the good angel--"if you had not known
+each other so short a time, and been so newly betrothed, I should have
+said--judging such things by what they were when I was young,"--here she
+momentarily paused--"I should have said, Nathanael, that there was
+only one course which, as regarded both her and yourself, was wisest,
+kindest, best."
+
+"What is that?" cried he, eagerly.
+
+"To do a little sooner what must necessarily have been done soon--to
+take one another's hands--thus."
+
+Agatha felt strong, wild fingers grasping her own; a dizziness came
+over her--she shrank back, crying, "No, no!" and hid her face on Miss
+Valery's shoulder. Nathanael rose up and walked away.
+
+When he returned, it was with his "good" aspect, tender and calm.
+
+"No, Anne, I was wrong even to think of such a thing. Assure her I will
+never urge it. She is quite right in saying 'No'--What man could expect
+such a sacrifice?"
+
+"And what woman would deem it such?" whispered Miss Valery. "But I
+know I am a very foolish, romantic old maid, and view these things in
+a different light to most people. So, my dear, be quite at rest," she
+continued, soothing the young creature, who still clung to her. "No one
+will urge you in any way; _he_ will not, he is too generous; and I had
+no right even to say what I did, except from my affection for him."
+
+She looked fondly at the young man, as if he had been still a little
+child, and she saw him in the light of ancient days. These impelled her
+to speak on earnestly.
+
+"Another reason I had; because I am old, and you two are young. Often,
+it seems as if the whole world--fate, trial, circumstance--were set
+against all lovers to make them part. It is a bitter thing when they
+part of their own free will. Accidents of all kinds--change, sorrow,
+even death--may come between, and they may never meet again. Agatha,
+Nathanael--believe one who has seen more of life than you--rarely do
+those that truly love ever attain the happiness of marrying one another.
+One half the world--the best and noblest half--thirst all their lives
+for that bliss which you throw away. What, Agatha, crying?"
+
+And she tried to lift up the drooping head, but could not.
+
+"Nay, dear, I was wrong to grieve you so. Please God, you two may meet
+again, and marry and be happy, even in this world. Come, Nathanael, you
+can say all this much better than I. Tell her you will be quite content,
+and wait any number of years. And, as to this parting, it is a right and
+noble sacrifice of yours; let her see how nobly you will bear it."
+
+"Ay, Agatha, I will," said the young lover firmly, as he stood before
+her, half stooping, half kneeling--though not quite kneeling, even then.
+But his whole manner showed the crumbling away of that clear but icy
+surface with which nature or habit had enveloped the whole man.
+
+Agatha lifted her head, and looked at him long and earnestly.
+
+"I will," he repeated; "I promise you I will. Only be content--and in
+token that you are so, give me your hand."
+
+She gave him both, and then leaned back again on Miss Valery's shoulder.
+
+"Tell him--I will go with him--anywhere--at any time--if it will only
+make him happy."
+
+The same night, when Nathanael and Anne Valery had left her, Agatha sat
+thinking, almost in a dream, yet without either sorrow or dread--that
+all uncertainty was now over--that this day week would be her
+wedding-day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"I wish, as I stated yesterday, that Miss Bowen's property should be
+settled entirely upon herself. This is the only course which to my
+thinking can reconcile a man to the humiliation of receiving a large
+fortune with his wife."
+
+"An odd doctrine, truly! Where did you learn it?" laughed Major Harper,
+who was pacing the Bedford Square drawing-room with quick, uneasy steps;
+while his brother stood very quiet, only looking from time to time at
+the closed door. It was the Saturday before the marriage; and Agatha's
+trustee had come to execute his last guardianship of her and her
+property. There was lying on a corner-table, pored over by a lawyer-like
+individual--that formidable instrument, a marriage-settlement.
+
+"Where did I learn it?" returned Mr. Harper, smiling. "Why, where I
+learned most of my opinions, and everything that is good in me--with
+Uncle Brian. Poor Uncle Brian!" and the smile faded into grave anxiety.
+
+"Are you really going on that mad expedition?" said the elder brother,
+with the air of a man who, being perturbed in his own mind, is ready to
+take a harsh view of everything.
+
+"I do not think it mad--and anything short of madness I ought to
+undertake, and shall--for him."
+
+"Ay," muttered the other, "there it is, Brian always made everybody love
+him."
+
+"But," continued Nathanael, "as I said last night to Miss Bowen, I shall
+do nothing foolishly. We must hold ourselves prepared for the worst;
+still, if better tidings should come--though that is scarcely possible
+now--then perhaps"----
+
+"You would not go!" cried Major Harper, eagerly. "Which would of course
+delay your marriage. How very much better that would be."
+
+"Why so?" said the bridegroom, with a piercing look.
+
+Frederick appeared confused, but threw it off with a laugh.
+
+"Oh, women like a little longer courtship. They are never caught all in
+a minute, unless they are quite indifferent as to who catches them. And
+even then--'marry in haste'--you know the proverb--nay, don't be angry,"
+he added, as his brother turned abruptly away. "I was only jesting; and
+a happy fellow like you can afford to be laughed at by a miserable old
+bachelor like me."
+
+The momentary annoyance passed. Nathanael was, indeed, too happy to be
+seriously vexed at anything.
+
+"Still, for some reasons," continued Major Harper, "I wish my fair ward
+were not becoming my sister in such a terrible hurry. So much to be done
+in one week, and by a man like me who hates the very name of business;
+it is next to impossible but that some things should he slurred and
+hurried over. For instance, there was no time, Grimes said, to draw up
+a long deed of settlement, showing precisely where her money was
+invested."
+
+"I told you I wanted nothing of the kind. I scarcely understand your
+English law. But can it not be stated in plain legal form--a dozen lines
+would surety; do it--that every farthing Agatha has is settled upon
+herself exclusively from the day she becomes my wife."
+
+"That is done. I--I--in fact, Mr. Grimes had already advised such a
+course as being the shortest."
+
+"Then what is the use of saying any more about it?"
+
+"But, brother," observed Major Harper, in whose manner was perceptible a
+certain vague uneasiness, "if--though I assure you Grimes has transacted
+all these matters, and he is a sharp man of business, while I am
+none--still, if it would be any satisfaction to you to know particulars
+concerning where Miss Bowen's money is invested"--
+
+"In the funds; and to remain there by her father's will, to I think you
+said."
+
+"Precisely. It _was_ invested there," returned the brother, with an
+accent so light on the past tense that Nathanael, preoccupied with other
+things than money matters, did not observe it.
+
+"Well, then, so let it stay. Don't let us talk any more about this
+matter. I trust entirely to you. To whom should I trust, if not to my
+own brother?"
+
+At these hearty words Major Harper's face, quick in every mobile
+expression of feeling, betrayed much discomposure. He walked the room in
+a mood of agitation, compared to which the bridegroom's own restlessness
+was nothing. Then he went to the farther end of the apartment, and
+hurriedly read over the marriage-settlement.
+
+"Faugh, Grimes! what balderdash is this?" he whispered angrily.
+"Balderdash?--nay, downright lies!"
+
+"Drawn up exactly as you desired, and as we arranged, Major Harper,"
+answered Mr. Grimes, formally. "Settling upon the lady and her heirs for
+ever all her property now in the 'Three per Cent. Consols.'"
+
+"Just heavens! and there's not a penny of it there!"
+
+"But there will be by the time the marriage is celebrated, or soon
+after--since you are determined to sell out those shares."
+
+"I wish I could--I wish to Heaven I could!" cried the poor Major, in a
+despair that required all the warnings of his legal adviser to smother
+it down, so as to keep their conference private. "I've been driven
+nearly mad going from broker to broker in the City to-day. I might
+as well attempt to sell out shares in the Elysian Fields as in that
+confounded Wheal Caroline."
+
+"Fluctuations, my dear sir; mere fluctuations! 'Tis the same in all
+Cornish mines. Yet, as I said, both concerning your own little property
+and Miss Bowen's afterwards, I would wish no better investment. I have
+the greatest confidence in the Wheal Caroline shares."
+
+"Confidence!" echoed the Major, ruefully. "But where is my brother's
+confidence in me, when I tell him?--'Pon my life, I can't tell him!"
+
+"There is not the slightest need; I have accurate information from the
+mine, which next week will raise the shares to ten per cent, premium,
+and then, since you are so determined to sell out that most promising
+investment"--
+
+"I will, as sure as I live. I vow I'll never be trustee to any young
+lady again, as long as my name is Frederick Harper. However, if this
+must stand"--and he read from the deed--"'all property now invested
+in the Three per Cents.'--Oh, oh!" Major Harper shook his head, with a
+deep-drawn sigh of miserable irresolution.
+
+Yet there lay the parchment, sickening him with its prevaricating if
+not lying face; and his invisible good angel kept pulling him on one
+side--nay, at last pulled him halfway across the room to where, absorbed
+in a reverie--pardonable under the circumstances--his brother sat.
+
+"Nathanael, pray get out of that brown study, and have five minutes'
+talk with me. If you only knew the annoyance I have endured all this
+week concerning Agatha's fortune! How thankful I shall be to transfer it
+from my hands into yours."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said the lover, rather absently.
+
+"And I hope it will give you less trouble and more reward than it has
+given me," continued the elder brother, still anxiously beating about
+the bush, ere he came to a direct confession. "I declare, I have been as
+anxious for the young lady's benefit as if I had intended marrying her
+myself."
+
+The bridegroom's quick, fiery glance showed Major Harper that he had
+gone a little too far, even in privileged jesting.
+
+But happily Nathanael had heard the door open. He hastily went forward
+and met his bride. With her were Mr. and Mrs. Thornycroft, Dr. and Mrs.
+Ianson, and another lady. The latter quickly passed out of the immediate
+circle, and sat down in a retired corner of the room.
+
+Agatha looked pale and worn out, which was no wonder, considering that
+for several days she had endured, morning, noon, and night, all the
+wearisome preparations which the kind-hearted Emma deemed indispensable
+to "a really nice wedding." But her betrothed noticed her paleness with
+troubled eyes.
+
+"You are not ill, my darling?"
+
+"No," said Agatha, abruptly, blushing lest any one should hear the
+tender word, which none had ever used to her before, and blushing still
+deeper when, meeting Major Harper's anxious looks fixed on them both,
+she fancied he had heard. A foolish sensitiveness made her turn away
+from her lover, and talk to the first person who came in her way.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Thornycroft and Dr. Ianson, with a knowledge that time was
+precious, had gone at once to the business of the meeting, and were
+deep in perusal of the marriage-settlement of which they were to be
+witnesses.
+
+"Why, Miss Bowen, you are a richer girl than I knew," said Emma's worthy
+husband, coming forward, with his round pleasant face. "I congratulate
+you; at this particular crisis, when hundreds are being ruined by last
+year's mania for railway speculation, it is most fortunate to have safe
+funded property."
+
+Major Harper's conscience groaned within, and it was all over. He
+resigned himself to stern necessity and force of circumstances--hoping
+everything would turn out for the best.
+
+Then they all gathered round the table, and Mr. Grimes droned out the
+necessary formalities. The bride-elect listened, half in a dream--the
+bridegroom rather more attentively.
+
+"Are you quite sure," said he, pausing, with the pen in his hand, and
+casting his eyes keenly over the document--"are you quite sure this
+deed answers the purpose I intended? This is the total amount of
+property which Mr. Bowen left?"
+
+And he looked from his brother to the lawyer with an anxiety which long
+afterwards recurred bitterly to Agatha's mind.
+
+Mr. Grimes bowed, and assured him that all was correct. So the young
+bridegroom signed with a steady hand, and afterwards watched the rather
+tremulous signature of his bride. Then an inexpressible content diffused
+itself over his face. Putting her arm in his, he led her away proudly,
+as though she were already his own.
+
+Confused by her novel position, Agatha looked instinctively for some
+womanly encouragement, but Emma Thorny-croft was busily engaged in
+admiring observation of some wedding presents, and Mrs. Ianson was worse
+than nobody.
+
+"Miss Valery!--what has become of Miss Valery? said the bride, her eyes
+wandering restlessly around. Other eyes followed hers--Major Harper's.
+Incredulously these rested on the silent lady in the background, whose
+whole mien, figure, and attire, in the plain dark dress, and close
+morning cap, marked her a woman undeniably and fearlessly middle-aged.
+
+"Is it possible!" he exclaimed. "Can that be Anne Valery?"
+
+The lady arose, and met him with extended hand. "It is Anne Valery, and
+she is very glad to see you, Major Harper."
+
+They shook hands; his confused manner contrasting strongly with
+her perfect serenity. After a moment Miss Bowen, who could not help
+watching, heard him say:
+
+"I, too, am glad we have met at last. I hope it is as friends!"
+
+"I was never otherwise to you," she answered, gently; and joined the
+circle.
+
+This rather singular greeting, noticed by none but herself, awakened
+Agatha's old wrath against Major Harper, lest, as her romantic
+imagination half suggested, the secret of Anne Valery's always
+remaining Anne Valery, was, that his old companion had been first on
+the illustrious Frederick's long list of broken hearts. If so, never was
+there a broken heart that made so little outward show, or wore such a
+cheerful exterior, as Miss Valery's.
+
+But Agatha's own heart was too full of the busy trembling fancies
+natural to her position to speculate overmuch on the hearts of other
+people. Very soon Major Harper quitted the house, and the Thornycrofts
+also. She was left alone with her lover and with Anne--Anne, who ever
+since her arrival had seemed to keep a steady watch over Nathanael's
+bride. They had rarely met, and for brief intervals; yet Agatha felt
+that she was perpetually under this guardianship, gentle, though
+strong--holding her fluctuating spirit firm, and filling her with all
+cheerful hopes and tender thoughts of her future husband. She seemed to
+grow a better woman every time she saw Anne Valery. It was inexpressibly
+sweet to turn for a few moments each day from the lace and the ribbons,
+the dresses and the bridecake, and hear Anne talk of what true marriage
+really was--when two people entirely and worthily loved one another.
+
+Only Agatha had not the courage to confess, what she began to hope was
+a foolish doubt, that the "love" which Miss Valery seemed to take for
+granted she felt towards Nathanael, was a something which as yet she
+herself did not quite understand.
+
+That Saturday afternoon, nevertheless, she was calmer and more at ease.
+Signing the settlement had removed all doubts from her mind, and made
+her realise clearly that she would soon be Mr. Harper's wife. And he
+was so tender over her, so happy. Her marriage with him appeared to make
+every one happy. That very day he had brought her a heap of letters from
+Dorsetshire; her first welcome from his kindred--her own that would be.
+
+They seemed to know all about her--from Anne Valery doubtless--and to
+be delighted at Nathanael's choice. There was a kind but formal missive
+from the old father, implying his dignified satisfaction that at
+last one of his sons would marry to keep up the family name. From
+the daughters there were letters varying in style and matter, but all
+cordial except, perhaps, Eulalie's, who had years to wait before
+_she_ married, and was rather cross accordingly. One note, in neat and
+delicate writing, made Agatha's heart beat; for it was signed, "Your
+affectionate _sister_, Elizabeth."
+
+She, who had longed for a sister all her life! Heaven was very good to
+her, to give her all ties through one! It seemed, indeed, right and holy
+that she should be married to Nathanael.
+
+One only unutterable terror she had, which by a fortunate chance was
+never alluded to by any one, and she was too much occupied to have it
+often forced on her mind. This was, the thought of having to cross the
+seas to Canada.
+
+"Oh!" she sighed, as she sat, with the letters on her lap, listening to
+what her lover said of his sisters and his family--"oh! that we could
+do as your father seems to wish, and go and live in Dorsetshire, near
+Kingcombe Holm."
+
+"I wish it too, if it would please you, dear; but it seems impossible.
+How could I live in England without a profession?--even supposing Uncle
+Brian did consent to return and settle at home. Sometimes, but very
+rarely, he has hinted at such a possibility.--He has indeed, Anne,"
+continued the young man, noticing how keenly Miss Valery's eyes were
+fixed on him.
+
+"I am glad to hear it."
+
+"But he always said he would never return till he was grown either
+very rich or very old. Alas; the latter chance may come, but the former
+never! Poor Uncle Brian! If he comes at all, it is sure not to be for
+many years."
+
+"Not for many years!" repeated Miss Valery, who was crossing over to
+Agatha's side with a piece of rich lace she had been unfolding. As she
+walked, her hand was unconsciously pressed upon her chest, a habit she
+had after any quick movement. And, leaning over Agatha, she breathed
+painfully and hard.
+
+"My dear?" The young girl looked up. "Your sisters that are to be
+desired me to give you from them a wedding-present. It was to be your
+veil. But I had a whim that I would like to give you your veil myself.
+Here it is. Will you accept it, with my love?"
+
+[Illustration: Will you accept it, with my love  p090]
+
+So saying, she laid over the bride's head a piece of old point lace,
+magnificent in texture. Agatha had never seen anything like it.
+
+"Oh, Miss Valery, to think of your giving me this! It is fit for a
+queen!" And she looked at Mr. Harper, hesitating to accept so costly a
+gift.
+
+"Nay, take it," said he smiling. "Never scruple at its costliness; it
+cannot be richer than Anne's heart." And he grasped his old friend's
+hand warmly.
+
+Miss Valery continued, with a slight colour rising in her cheek. "This
+was given me twenty years ago for a wedding-veil. It has been wasted
+upon me, you see, but I wish some one to wear it, and would like it to
+be worn by a Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+Agatha blushed crimson. Nathanael looked delighted. Neither noticed
+Anne Valery; who, her passing colour having sunk into a still deeper
+paleness, quietly returned to her seat, and soon after quitted the
+house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+It was a most unconscionably early hour on the wedding morning when Mrs.
+Thornycroft, who had insisted on mounting guard overnight in Bedford
+Square, to see that all things were made ready to go off "merry as a
+marriage bell," came into Agatha's room and roused the bride.
+
+"I never knew such a thing in all my life! Well, he is the most
+extraordinary young man! What is to be done, my dear?"
+
+"What--what?" said Agatha, waking, with a confused notion that something
+very dreadful had happened, or was going to happen. She recollected that
+this day on which she so early opened her eyes was some day of great
+solemnity. It seemed so like that of her father's funeral.
+
+"Don't be frightened, love. Nothing has occurred; only there is Mr.
+Harper in the parlour below, wanting to speak with you. I never heard of
+such a request from a bridegroom. It is contrary to all rules of common
+sense and decorum."
+
+"Hush!" said Agatha, trying to collect her thoughts. "Tell me exactly
+his message."
+
+"That he wished to speak with you at once, before you dress for church;
+and will wait for you in the dining-room. What--you are not going to
+do as he desires?--I wouldn't! One should never _obey_ till after
+marriage."
+
+Agatha made no answer, but composedly began to dress. In a few minutes
+she had once more put on the mourning, laid aside as she thought for
+ever the night before, and had gone down-stairs to her bridegroom.
+
+He was standing in the only available corner of the room not occupied
+by a chaotic mass of hymeneal preparations, and gazing vacantly out
+into the square, where the trees cast the long shadows of early morning,
+while the merry little sparrows kept up a perpetual din.
+
+As the door moved, Mr. Harper turned round. He had a sickly, worn look,
+as if he had scarcely slept all night, and in his manner was a strange
+mingling of trouble and of joy.
+
+"Agatha--how kind! I ought to apologise," he began, taking both her
+hands. "But no! I cannot."
+
+"Nothing is wrong? No misfortune happened?"
+
+"Misfortune? God forbid! Surely I do not look as if it were a
+misfortune? I am only too glad--too happy. Whatever results from it, I
+am indeed happy!"
+
+"Then so am I, whatsoever it may be," returned Agatha, softly. "Still,
+do tell me."
+
+Her bridegroom, as he pressed her to his bosom, looked as if he had for
+the moment forgotten all about his tidings; but afterwards, when her
+second entreaty came, he took out a letter and bade her read, holding
+her fast the while with a light firm hand on her shoulder. He seemed
+almost to fear that at the news he brought she would glide out of his
+grasp like snow.
+
+"It is an odd hand--strange to me," said Agatha. "Is it"--and a sudden
+thought struck her--"is it"----
+
+"Yes--thank God."
+
+"Oh, then, he is safe--I am so glad--so glad!" cried Agatha, in the
+true sympathy of her heart. But her very gladness appeared to
+affect contrariwise the troubled mood of her lover. His hand dropped
+imperceptibly from her shoulder--he sat down.
+
+"Read the letter, which came late last night. I thought you would be
+pleased--that was why I thus disturbed you."
+
+Agatha, who had not yet learned the joy or pain of reading momently the
+changes of a beloved face, immediately perused the letter. It was rather
+eccentric of its kind:
+
+
+"Lodge of O-me-not-tua.
+
+"My dear Boy,
+
+"If ever you get into the hands of those red devils, be not alarmed: it
+isn't so bad as it seems. If you saw me now, in the big buffalo-cloak of
+a medicine man, after smoking dozens of pipes of peace with every one
+of the tribe, sitting at the door of my lodge, with miles of high
+prairie-grass rolling in waves towards the sunset, you would rather
+envy me than otherwise, and cry out, as I have often done, 'Away with
+civilisation!'
+
+"I am not scalped--I thought I should not be; the tribe (it wastes
+valuable paper to write their long name, but you will have heard it)
+the tribe know me too well. I make a capital white medicine-man. I might
+have escaped any day, but, pshaw! honour!--So I choose to see a little
+of the great western forests, until I know how my two red friends have
+been treated on Lake Winnipeg shore. But in no case is any harm likely
+to come to me, except those chances of mortality which are common to
+all.
+
+"You will receive this (which a worthy psalm-singing missionary conveys
+to New York) almost as soon as the news of our adventure reaches Europe.
+I send it to relieve you, dear nephew, and all friends, if I have any
+left, from further anxiety concerning me, and especially from useless
+search, as under no circumstances whatever shall I consent to return to
+Montreal until it seems to me good.
+
+"Therefore, stay in Europe as long as, or longer than, you planned, and
+God prosper you, Nathanael, my good boy.
+
+"Your affectionate uncle,
+
+"Brian Locke Harper.
+
+"I trust earnestly that this scrawl will reach Kingcombe Holm. Possibly,
+no more news of me may ever reach there.--Yet I fear not, for He who is
+everywhere is likewise in the wild western prairies; and life is not so
+sweet that I should dread its ending. Still, if it does end, remember me
+to my brother, my nieces, and all old friends, including Anne Valery. If
+living, I shall reappear sometime, somewhere. B. L. H."
+
+
+"This is indeed happy news;--so far;" said Agatha, "though he seems in
+no cheerful mood."
+
+"Melancholy was always his way at times."
+
+"What a strange man he must be!" she continued, still thinking more
+of the letter than of anything else. "But"--and she turned to
+Nathanael--"your mind is now at rest? You will not need to go to
+America?"
+
+"Not just yet."
+
+She looked at him a moment in surprise, for there was something peculiar
+in his manner. She felt half angry with him for sitting so still, and
+speaking so briefly, while she herself was trembling with delight. "Have
+you told Miss Valery?" He shook his head. "Ah, then, go at once and tell
+her, so happy as she will be! Do go."
+
+"Presently. Come and sit down here. I want to talk to you, Agatha."
+
+She let him place her by his side. He took her hands, and regarded her
+earnestly.
+
+"Do you remember what day this was to have been?"
+
+"Was to have been?" she repeated, and instinctively guessed what he had
+doubtless come to say. Her heart began to beat violently, and her eyes
+dropped in confusion.
+
+"I say '_was_,' because, if you desire it, it shall not be. I see the
+very idea is a relief to you. I saw it in your sudden joy."
+
+Agatha was amazed--she had till this moment never thought of such a
+thing. Mr. Harper's whole manner of speech and proceeding was so very
+incomprehensible--like a lover's--that she told the entire truth in
+simply saying "that she did not understand him."
+
+"Let me repeat it in plainer words." But the plainer words would
+not come; after one or two vain efforts, he sat with averted face,
+speechless. At last he said abruptly, "Agatha, do you wish to defer our
+marriage?"
+
+As he spoke, his grasp of her hand was so fierce that it positively hurt
+her. "Oh, let me go--you are not kind," she cried, shrinking from the
+pain, which he did not even perceive he had inflicted--so strange a
+mood was upon him. He loosed her hand at once, and stood up before her,
+speaking vehemently.
+
+"I meant to be kind--very kind--just in the way that I knew would most
+please you. I meant to tell you that I wish you to hold yourself quite
+free, both as to this day or any other days: that you have only to say
+the word, and--What a fool I am making of myself!"
+
+Muttering the last words, he turned and walked quickly to the far end
+of the room, leaving Agatha to meditate. It was a new thing to see
+such passion in him; and while half frightened she was interested and
+touched. She would have been more so, but for a certain something in
+him which roused her pride, until she could not do as she had at first
+intended--follow him, and ask why he was angry. The humility of love was
+not yet hers.
+
+So she sat without moving, her eyes fixed on her hand, where the red
+mark left by her lover's grasp was slowly disappearing; until a minute
+after, he approached.
+
+"Was that the mark of my fingers on your wrist? Did I hurt you, my poor
+Agatha?"
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+"Forgive me!" And sitting down beside her, he bent his lips to where
+his rude grasp had been, kissing the little wrist over and over again,
+though he did not speak.
+
+His humility in this, the first ripple which had ever stirred their
+calmest of all calm courtships, moved Agatha even more than his sudden
+gust of passion. It is a curious fact, that some women--and they not of
+the weaker or more foolish kind--like very much to be ruled. A strong
+nature is instinctively attracted by one still stronger. Most certainly
+Agatha had never so distinctly felt the cords--not exactly of love, but
+of some influence akin thereto--which this young man had netted round
+her, as when he began to draw them with a tight, firm hand, less that of
+a submissive lover than of a dominant husband. She had never liked him
+half so well as when, taking her hand once more into his determined
+hold, he said--gently, indeed, but in a tone that would be answered--
+
+"Now, tell me, what do you wish?"
+
+"What do I wish?" echoed she, feeling as though some hard but firm
+support were about to relax from her, leaving her trembling and insecure
+to the world's open blasts. "I do not know--I cannot tell. Talk to me a
+little; that will help me to judge."
+
+His eye brightened, though faintly. "I will speak, but you shall decide,
+for all lies in your own hands. I thought this right, and came here
+determined on telling you so."
+
+"Well?" said Agatha, expectantly.
+
+"You promised me this hand to-day, believing I was to leave England at
+once. My not leaving frees you from that promise--at least at present.
+If you would rather wait until you know me better, or love me better,
+then"--
+
+"What then?"
+
+"We will quite blot out this day--crush it--destroy it, no matter what
+it was to have been. We will enter upon to-morrow, not as wife and
+husband, but mere lovers--friends--acquaintances--anything you like.
+Nay--I am growing a fool again."
+
+He put his hand to his forehead, sighed heavily, and then continued with
+less violence.
+
+"If this is what you wish--as from your silence I conclude it is--be
+assured, Agatha, that I shall consent. I will take no wife against her
+will. The kisses of her lips would sting me, if there were no love in
+her heart."
+
+Agatha was still silent.
+
+"Well then, it must be so," said he, in slow, measured speech. "I must
+go away out of this house, for I am no bridegroom. You may tell the
+women to put away this white finery till it is wanted--which may
+be--never!"
+
+She looked up questioningly.
+
+"I repeat--_never_. The currents of life, so many and so fierce, may
+sweep us asunder at any moment. I may become mercenary, and choose a
+richer wife even than yourself; or you may turn from me to some one more
+pleasing, more winning--my brother, perhaps"--
+
+Agatha recoiled, while the angry blood flashed from brow to throat. Her
+lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze.
+But immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of
+his own creating, and continued with a softened manner:
+
+"Or, if our own wills hold secure, many things may happen, as Anne
+Valery forewarned us, to prevent our union. Even ere a month or two--for
+if you are ever mine it must be as soon as then--but even within
+that time one or other of us may have gone away where no loving, no
+regretting, can ever call us back any more."
+
+Terrible was the imagined solitude of a world from which had passed
+the only being who cherished her--the only being whom she thoroughly
+honoured. Agatha drew closer to Nathanael.
+
+"Still, for all that," continued he, striving to keep even in his mind
+the balance of honour and generous tenderness against the arguments of
+selfish passion, "if for any reason you wish to postpone this day for
+weeks, months, or years, I will take the chance. All shall be as
+you deem best for your own happiness. As for mine--I will try to be
+content."
+
+He paused a little, but it was a pause which no woman could
+misunderstand. Then, turning back to her, he said in a low tone,
+
+"When am I to go away, Agatha?"
+
+Her brow dropped slowly against his arm, as, much agitated, yet not
+unhappy, she whispered the one word "_Never_."
+
+For one moment Agatha felt against her own the loud convulsive throbs of
+the heart that loved her--an embrace which, in its fierce rapture, was
+like none that came before it, or after. When she learned to count and
+chronicle such tokens of love, as one begins to count each wave when
+the sand grows dry, this embrace remained to her as a truth, a reality,
+which no succeeding doubts could explain away or gainsay.
+
+It lasted, as such moments can but last, a space too brief to be
+reckoned, dying out of its own intensity. Agatha slid from her lover's
+arms, and swiftly passing out at the door, met Emma coming in. The
+unlucky bridegroom was left to make his own explanation to Mrs.
+Thornycroft, and how he performed that feat remains a mystery to this
+day.
+
+Solemnly, and much affected, the bride went up-stairs to put on her
+wedding-garments.
+
+Anne Valery had just arrived. She sat alone in Miss Bowen's
+dressing-room, playing with the orange-wreath. Her face wore a
+thoughtful, sickly, sad look, but the moment she heard some one at the
+door this expression vanished.
+
+"So, my dear, you have a rather unconscionable bridegroom, Mrs.
+Thornycroft tells me. He has been here already."
+
+Suddenly all that had happened recurred to Agatha. She forgot her own
+agitation in the joy of being the first to bring good news.
+
+"Ah, you little know why he came. Uncle Brian--there is a letter from
+Uncle Brian."
+
+And in her warm-heartedness of delight she threw her arms round Miss
+Valery's neck. She was very much surprised that Anne did not speak a
+single word, and that the cheek against which her young glowing one was
+pressed felt as cold as marble.
+
+"Are you not glad, Miss Valery?"
+
+"Yes, very glad. Now will you go down-stairs and fetch me the letter?"
+
+And, gently putting the young girl from her, Anne sat down! As Agatha
+left the room, she fancied she heard a faint sound--a sigh or gasp; but
+Miss Valery had not moved. She sat as at first--her hands clasped on her
+lap, the veil of her bonnet falling over her face. And coming back some
+minutes after, Agatha found her in precisely the same position.
+
+"Thank you, dear." She held out her hand for the letter, and then
+retired with it to a far window. It took a good while to read. All the
+time that the young bride was being dressed by Emma and the maid, Miss
+Valery stood in that recess, her back turned towards them, apparently
+reading or pondering over that strange scrawl from the Far West.
+
+At last Mrs. Thornycroft gently hinted that there was hardly time for
+her to return home and dress for the wedding.
+
+"Dress for the wedding," repeated Anne, absently. "Oh, yes; I remember,
+it was to be early. No fear! I will be quite ready."
+
+She crossed the room, walking slowly, but at the door turned to look at
+the bride, on whose head Emma was already placing the orange-blossoms.
+
+"Doesn't she look pretty?" appealed the gratified matron-ministrant.
+
+"Yes; very pretty.--God bless her!" said Miss Valery, and kissed her on
+the forehead. Agatha quite started--the lips were so cold.
+
+"Well!" cried Emma Thornycroft, as the door closed, "I do wish, my dear,
+that little Missy had been grown up enough to be your bridesmaid instead
+of that very quiet ordinary-looking old maid. But, after all, the
+contrast will be the greater."
+
+At nine o'clock the bride's half of the wedding-party were all safely
+assembled in Doctor Ianson's drawing-room, and everything promised to
+go off successfully--to which result Emma, now all in her glory, prided
+herself as having been the main contributor--and no doubt the kind,
+active, sensible little matron was right.--When, lo!--there came an
+unlucky _contretemps_.
+
+Major Harper, who of course was to give away the bride, sent word that
+on account of sudden business he could not possibly be at the church
+before eleven. At that hour he promised faithfully to meet his brother
+there. The note which he sent over was a very hurried and disjointed
+scrawl. This was all that the vexed bridegroom knew of the matter.
+
+So for two long hours Agatha sat in her wedding-dress, strangely quiet
+and silent--sometimes playing with the wreath of orange-blossoms which
+her lover had sent her, and which, being composed of natural flowers,
+according to a whim of Mr. Harper's, was already beginning to fade.
+Still she refused to put it aside, though the prudent Emma warned her it
+would be quite withered before she reached the church; "as was sure to
+be the case when people were so ridiculous as to wear real flowers."
+
+The good soul went about, half scolding, half crying; hoping nothing
+might happen, or consoling herself with looking alternately at her
+pretty peach-coloured dress, and her "James," who walked about,
+indulging in gay reminiscences of his own wedding, and looking the most
+comfortable specimen imaginable of a worthy middle-aged "family man."
+Nevertheless, in spite of Mr. Thornycroft's efforts to cheer up the
+dreariness of the group, it was a great relief to everybody when, at the
+earliest reasonable time, the bride's small party started, and were at
+length assembled under the dark arches of Bloomsbury Church--darker than
+usual today, for the morning had gloomed over, and become close, hot,
+and thundery.
+
+Punctually at eleven, but not a minute before, which--Emma
+whispered--was certainly not quite courteous in a bridegroom, Mr. Harper
+came in. There was no one with him.
+
+"My brother not here?" he said in anxiety.
+
+Some one hinted that Major Harper was never very punctual.
+
+"He ought to be, this day at least," observed Mr. Thorny-croft. "And I
+am confident I saw him not half-an-hour ago walking homeward round the
+other side of Bedford Square. Do not be alarmed about him, pray." This
+last remark was addressed to Agatha, who, overpowered by the closeness
+of the day, and by these repeated disasters, had begun to turn pale.
+
+Nathanael watched her with a keen anxiety, which only agitated her the
+more. Every one seemed uneasy and rather dull;--a circumstance not very
+remarkable, since, in spite of the popular delusion on that subject,
+very few ever really look happy at a wedding. It makes clearer to each
+one the silent ghost sitting in every human heart, which may take any
+form--bliss long desired, lost, or unfulfilled--or, in the fulfilling
+changed to pain--or, at best, looked back upon with a memory
+half-pensive if only because it is the past.
+
+For forty interminable minutes did the little party wait in the dreary
+church aisles, until the clock, and likewise the beadle, warned them it
+was near the canonical hour.
+
+"What are we to do?" whispered the bridegroom, looking towards Anne
+Valery. She took his hand, and drawing it towards Agatha's which hung on
+her arm, said earnestly:
+
+"Wait no longer--life's changes will not wait Marry her _now_--nothing
+should come between lovers that love one another."
+
+Anne's manner, so faltering, so different from her usual self,
+irresistibly impressed the hearers. Silently the little group moved to
+the altar; the clergyman, weary of delay, hurried the service, and in
+a few minutes the young creatures who eight weeks before had scarcely
+heard each other's names, were made "not two, but one flesh."
+
+It was all like a dream to Agatha Bowen; she never believed in its
+reality until, signing that name, "Agatha Bowen," in the register-book,
+she remembered she was so signing it for the last time. A moment after,
+Emma's husband, who had assumed the office of father to the bride,
+cordially shaking her hand, wished all happiness to _Mrs. Harper_.
+
+Agatha started, shivered, and burst into tears. It was a natural thing,
+after so many hours of overstrained excitement; nor were her tears those
+of unhappiness, yet they seemed, every drop, to burn on her bridegroom's
+heart. To crown all, while these unlucky tears were still falling, some
+one at the vestry door cried out, "There's Major Harper."
+
+It was indeed himself. He entered the church hurriedly--very pale--with
+beads of dew standing on his brow.
+
+"Are they married? Am I too late--are they married?" cried he.
+
+Some uncontrollable feeling made Nathanael move to his wife's side, and
+snatch her hand.
+
+"Yes," said he, meeting his brother's eye, "we are married."
+
+Major Harper sank into one of the vestry-chairs, muttering something,
+inaudible to all ears save those which seemed fatally gifted with
+preternatural acuteness--the young bridegroom's. Nathanael fancied--nay,
+was certain--that he heard his brother say, "_Oh, my poor Agatha._" He
+looked suddenly at his bride, whose weeping had changed into silent but
+violent trembling. He dropped her hand, then with a determined air again
+took possession of it, saying sharply to his brother:
+
+"What is the reason of all this? Is anything amiss?"
+
+"No, nothing--have I said anything?"
+
+"Then why startle us thus? It is not right, Frederick."
+
+"Hush--perhaps he is ill," whispered Anne Valery.
+
+Major Harper looked up, and among the many inquiring eyes, met hers. It
+seemed to fix him, sting him, rouse him to self-command.
+
+"I am quite well," he cried, with a hoarse attempt at laughter. "A gay
+bachelor always feels doubly cheery at a wedding. So it is all over,
+Nathanael? I beg your pardon for being too late; but I have been running
+about town on important business, till I am half-dead. Still, let me
+offer my congratulations to the bride."
+
+He came forward jauntily, seized Agatha's hand and was about to kiss
+it, but for a slight shrinking on her part. The colour rushed to her
+face--his darkened with an expression of uncontrollable pain. At least
+so it appeared to one who never for a moment relaxed his watch--the
+younger brother.
+
+"Really," said Mr. Thornycroft, who, during the few minutes thus
+occupied, had bustled in and out of the vestry--"really, are we never
+intending to come home? Somebody must make a diversion here. Major
+Harper, will you take my wife? Miss Valery, allow me."
+
+This fortunate interference effected a change. All moved away a little
+from the bridegroom, who was still standing by his wife's chair.
+
+"Agatha--will you come?"
+
+She mechanically rose; Mr. Harper drew her arm in his, and led her down
+the aisle. There were a few stray lookers-on at the church-door, who
+peered at them curiously. An inexplicable shadow hung over them. Never
+were a newly-married couple more silent or more grave.
+
+Only, as they stood on the entrance-steps that were wet with a past
+shower of thunder-rain, and Agatha in her thin white shoes was walking
+right on, her husband drew her back.
+
+"It will not hurt me. Do let me go," she said.
+
+"No, you must not; you are mine now," was the answer, with a look that
+would have made the tone of control sound in any loving bride's ear the
+sweetest ever heard.
+
+He left Agatha in the church, and hurried a little in advance. His
+brother and Mrs. Thomycroft were standing at the porch outside, Emma
+laughing and whispering. And while waiting for the carriage, it so
+chanced that Nathanael caught what they were saying.
+
+"Why, Major Harper, you look as dull as if you had been in love with
+Agatha yourself! And after what you confessed to me, I did positively
+believe she was in love with you."
+
+"Agatha in love with me! really you flatter me," said Major Harper,
+looking down and tapping his boot, with his own self-complacent,
+regretful smile.
+
+"I did indeed think it, from her agitation when I hinted at such a
+thing. And I never was more amazed in my life than when she told me she
+was going to marry your brother. I do hope, poor dear Agatha"--
+
+"Don't speak of her," cried Major Harper, in a burst of real emotion.
+"And she liked me so well, poor child! Oh, I wish to Heaven I had
+married her, and saved her from"--
+
+Here a voice was heard calling "Mr. Harper--Mr. Harper," but the
+bridegroom was nowhere to be seen. Some one--not her husband--put Agatha
+into the carriage. Several minutes after, Nathanael appeared.
+
+"Where have you been? Your wife is waiting."
+
+"My wife?" He looked round bewildered, as if the words struck him with
+the awful irrevocable sense of what was done. Hurriedly he ran down the
+steps, sprang into the carriage beside Agatha, and they drove away.
+
+Through many streets and squares they passed, for the breakfast was
+to be at Emma's house. Agatha sat for the first time alone with her
+husband. The sun just coming out threw a soft crimson light through the
+closed carriage blinds; the very air felt warm and sweet, like love.
+Agatha's heart was stirred with a new tenderness towards him into whose
+keeping she had just given her whole life.
+
+For a little while she sat, her eyes cast down, wondering what he would
+say or do, whether he would take her hand, or draw her softly to his
+breast and let her cry her heart out there, as she almost longed to
+do--poor fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless girl, who in
+her husband alone must concentrate every earthly tie.
+
+But he never spoke--never moved. He leaned back in the carriage as pale
+as death, his lips rigidly shut together, his eyes shut too, except that
+now and then they opened and closed again, to show that he was not in a
+state of total unconsciousness. But towards his young wife no look ever
+once wandered.
+
+At length he started as from a trance and saw her sitting there, very
+quiet, for the pride of her nature was beginning to rise at this strange
+treatment from him to whom she had just given herself--her all. She was
+nervously moving the fingers of her left hand, where the newly placed
+ring felt heavy and strange.
+
+Nathanael snatched the hand with violence.
+
+"Agatha,--are you not my Agatha? Tell me the truth--the whole truth. I
+will have it from you!"
+
+"Mr. Harper!" she exclaimed, half frightened, half angry.
+
+His long, searching gaze tried to read her every feature--her pale
+cheeks--her lips proud, nay, almost sullen--her eyes, from which the
+softness so lately visible had changed into inquietude and trouble.
+There was in her all maidenly innocence--no one could doubt that; but
+nothing could be more unlike the shy tenderness of a bride, loving, and
+married for love.
+
+Slowly, slowly, the young bridegroom's gaze fell from her, and his
+thoughts settled into dull conviction. All his violence ceased, leaving
+an icy composure, which in itself bore the omen of its lasting stay.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, in a kind but cold voice, while his vehement
+grasp relaxed into a loose hold. "You are my dear wife now, and I will
+try to be a good husband to you, Agatha."
+
+Stooping forward, his lips just touched her cheek--which shrank from
+him, Agatha scarcely knew why.
+
+"I see!" he muttered to himself "Well, be it so! and God help us both!"
+
+The carriage stopped. Honest Mr. James Thomycroft was at the door,
+bidding a gay and full-hearted welcome to the bridegroom and bride.
+
+What a marriage-day!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+"Are you quite warm there, Agatha?"
+
+"Yes, thank you, quite warm," she said, turning round a little, and then
+turning back. She sat working, or seeming to work, at a large bay window
+that fronted the sea at Brighton. Already there had come over her the
+slight but unmistakable change which indicates the wife--the girl no
+longer. She had been married just one week.
+
+Her husband sat at a table writing, as was his habit during the middle
+of the day, in order that they might walk out in the evening. He had
+often been thus busy during the week, even though it was the first week
+of the honeymoon.
+
+The honeymoon! How different the word now sounded to Agatha! Yet she had
+nothing to complain of. Mr. Harper was very kind; watchful and tender
+over her to a degree which she felt even more than she saw. In the
+mornings he read to her, or talked, chiefly upon subjects higher and
+withal pleasanter than Agatha had ever heard talked of before; in the
+evenings they drove out or walked, till far into the starry summer
+night. They were together constantly, there never passed between them a
+quick or harsh word, and yet--
+
+Agatha vainly tried to solve the dim, cloudy "yet" which had no tangible
+form, and only arose now that the first bewilderment of her changed
+existence was settling into reality, and she was beginning to recognise
+herself as Agatha Harper, no longer a girl, but a married woman. The
+sole conclusion she could come to was, that she must be now learning
+what she supposed every one had to learn--that a honeymoon is not quite
+the dream of bliss which young people believe in, and that few married
+couples are quite happy during the first year of their union.
+
+And Mrs. Harper (or Mrs. Locke Harper, as her husband had had printed on
+the cards, omitting the name which she had once stigmatised as "ugly,")
+was probably not altogether wide of the truth, though in this case
+she judged from mistaken because individual evidence. It is next to
+impossible that two lives, unless assimilated by strong attachment and
+rare outward circumstances, if suddenly thrown together, should at once
+mingle and flow harmoniously on. It takes time, and the influence of
+perfect love, to melt and fuse the two currents into one beautiful
+whole. Perhaps, did all young lovers believe and prepare for this, there
+would be fewer disappointed and unhappy marriages.
+
+Though sitting at the open window, with the sharp sea-breeze blowing
+in upon her--it happened to be a sunless and gloomy day--Agatha had
+answered that she was "quite warm." Nevertheless her heart felt cold.
+Not positively sad, yet void. A great deal of passionate devotion is
+necessary to make two active human beings content with one another's
+sole company for eight entire days, having nothing to occupy them but
+each other.
+
+Wanting this--yet scarcely conscious of her need--the young wife sat, in
+her secret soul all shivering and a-cold. At last, wearied with the long
+grey sweep of undulating sea, she closed the window.
+
+"I thought the breeze would be too keen for you," said Mr. Harper, whom
+her lightest movement always seemed to attract.
+
+"Oh no; but I am tired of watching the waves. How melancholy it must be
+to live here. I have a perfect terror of the sea."
+
+"Had I known that, I would not have proposed our coming to-day from
+Leamington to Brighton. But we can leave to-morrow."
+
+"I did not mean that," she answered quickly, dreading lest her husband
+might have thought her speech ungracious or unkind. "We need not
+go--unless you wish it."
+
+The bridegroom made no immediate reply: but there was a melancholy
+tenderness in his eyes, as, without her knowing it, he sat watching his
+young wife. At length he rose, and putting her arm in his, stood a long
+time with her at the window.
+
+"I think, dear Agatha, that you are right. The sea is always sad. How
+dreary it looks now--like a wide-stretched monotonous life whose ending
+we see not, yet it must be crossed. How shall we cross it?"
+
+Agatha looked inquiringly.
+
+"The sea I mean," he continued, with a sudden change of tone. "Shall we
+go over to France for a week or two?"
+
+"Oh no"--and she shuddered. "It would kill me to cross the water."
+
+He looked surprised at her unaccountable repugnance, which she had
+scarcely expressed than she seemed overpowered by confusion. Her husband
+forbore to question her further; but the next day told her that he had
+arranged for their quitting Brighton and making a tour through the west
+of England, proceeding from thence to London.
+
+"Where--as my brother, or rather my brother's solicitor, writes me
+word--some business about your fortune will require our return in
+another fortnight. Are you willing, Agatha?"
+
+"Oh yes--quite willing," she cried; for now that her changed life was
+floating her far away from her old ties, she began to have a yearning
+for them all.
+
+So the honeymoon dwindled to three weeks, at the close of which Mr. and
+Mrs. Locke Harper were again in London.
+
+It seemed very strange to Agatha to come back to the known places, and
+roll over the old familiar London stones, and see all things going on as
+usual; while in herself had come so wide a gap of existence, as if those
+one-and-twenty days of absence had been one-and-twenty years.
+
+She had become a little more happy lately; a little more used to her new
+life. And day by day something undefinable began to draw her towards
+her husband. It was in fact the dawning spirit of love, which should
+and might have come before marriage, instead of being, as now, an
+after-growth. Beneath its influence Nathanael's very likeness altered;
+his face grew more beautiful, his voice softer. Looking at him now, as
+he sat by her side, Mr. Harper hardly appeared to her the same man who,
+returning from the church as her bridegroom, had impressed her with such
+shrinking awe.
+
+He too was more cheerful. All the long railway journey he had tried to
+amuse her; the humorous half of his disposition--for Nathanael had, like
+most good men, a spice of humour about him--coming out as it had never
+done before. However, as they neared London, he as well as his wife had
+become rather grave. But when, abruptly turning round, he perceived
+her earnestly, even tenderly regarding him (at which Agatha was foolish
+enough to blush, as if it were a crime to be looking admiringly at one's
+husband), he melted into a smile.
+
+"Here we are in the old quarters, Agatha. The question is, Where shall
+we go to, since we have no lodgings taken?"
+
+"You should have let me write to Emma, as I wished."
+
+"No," he said, shortly; "it was a pity to trouble her."
+
+"She would not have thought it so, poor dear Emma."
+
+"Were you very intimate with Mrs. Thornycroft? Did you tell her
+everything in your heart, as women do?"
+
+Agatha was amused by the jealous searching tone and look, so replied
+carelessly: "Oh yes, all I had to tell, which was not much. I don't
+deal in mysteries, nor like them. But the chief mystery now seems to be,
+where are we to go? If Emma may not be troubled, surely Mrs. Ianson, or
+your brother"--
+
+"My brother is out of town."
+
+"Indeed!" And Agatha looked as she felt, neither glad nor sorry, but
+purely indifferent. Her husband, observing it, became more cheerful.
+
+"Nay, my dear Agatha, you shall not be inconvenienced. We will go first
+to some quiet lodgings I know of, where Anne Valery always stays
+when she is in London--though she has returned home now, I think. And
+afterwards, if you find the evening very dull"--
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the young wife, smiling a beautiful negative.
+
+"We will go and take a sentimental walk through those very squares we
+strolled through that night--do you remember?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+How strange seemed that recollection!--how little she had then thought
+she was walking with her future husband!
+
+Yet, when a few hours after she trod the well-known streets, with her
+wifely feelings, sweet and grave, and thought that the arm on which she
+now leaned was her own through life, Agatha Harper was not unhappy, nor
+would she for one moment have wished to be again Agatha Bowen.
+
+The next day, by the husband's express desire--the declaring of which
+was a great act of self-denial on his part--word was sent to the
+Thornycrofts of the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper.
+
+Very trembling, shy, and bewitching the bride sat, waiting for the
+meeting; and when Emma did really come, very tragico-comic, half
+pleasure, half tears, was the hearty embrace between the two women. Mr.
+Harper stood and looked on--he played the young husband as composedly
+as he had done the lover and the bridegroom, except for a slight jealous
+movement as he saw the clinging, the kisses, the tears, which, with
+the warmth of a heart thrilled by new emotions and budding out into all
+manner of new tendernesses, Agatha lavished on her friend.
+
+Yet, whatever he felt, no one could observe but that Nathanael was
+extremely polite and kind to Mrs. Thorny-croft. She on her part admired
+him extremely--in whispers.
+
+"How well he looks! Really quite changed! No one would ever think of
+calling him a 'boy' now. You must be quite proud of your husband, my
+dear."
+
+Agatha smiled, and a light thrill at her heart betrayed its answer.
+Very soon she ceased to be shy and shame-faced, and sat talking quite at
+ease, as if she had been Mrs. Locke Harper for at least a year.
+
+Emma Thornycroft was a person not likely to waste much time on
+the sentimentalities of such a meeting; she soon dashed into the
+common-sense question of what were their plans in London? and when they
+would come and dine with herself and "James" "Quite friendly. We will
+ask no one, except of course Major Harper."
+
+"He is out of town," said Nathanael.
+
+"What a pity--Yet, no wonder; London is so terribly hot now. Is he quite
+well?"
+
+"I believe so," Agatha answered for her husband, who had moved off.
+
+"Because James has met him frequently of late, rushing about the City as
+pale as a ghost, and looking so miserable. We were afraid something was
+wrong with him."
+
+"Oh, I hope not," exclaimed Agatha, eagerly.
+
+"My brother is quite well," Mr. Harper again observed, from his outpost
+by the window; and something in his tone unconsciously checked and
+changed the conversation.
+
+Whether by Agatha's real inclination, or by some unnoticed influence of
+Nathanael's, who, gentle as his manners were, through a score of
+other opposing wills seemed always silently to attain his own, Mrs.
+Thornycroft's hospitable schemes were overruled. At least, the
+_venue_ was changed from Regent's Park to the Harpers' own temporary
+home--where, as if by magic, a multitude of small luxuries had already
+gathered round the young wife. She took all quite naturally, never
+pausing to think how they came.
+
+It was with a trepidation which had yet its pleasure, that she arrayed
+herself for this, the first time of her taking her place at the head of
+her husband's table. She put on a high white gown, which Mr. Harper had
+once said he liked--she was beginning to be anxious over her dress and
+appearance now. Glancing into the mirror, there recurred to her mind
+a speech she had once heard from some foolish matron--"Oh, it does not
+signify what I wear, or how I look--I'm married!" Agatha thought what a
+very wrong doctrine that was! and laughed at herself for never having
+much cared to seem pleasing until she had some one to please. Nay, now
+for the first time she grumbled at the Pawnee-face, wishing it had been
+fairer!
+
+But fair or not, when it came timidly and shone over Nathanael's
+shoulder, he sitting leaning thoughtfully on his hand, the result was
+such as materially to relieve any womanly doubts about her personal
+appearance. He kissed her in unwonted smiling tenderness.
+
+"I like that dress; and your curls--softly touching them--your curls
+fall so prettily. How well you look, Agatha! Happy, too! Is it really
+so? Are you getting more used to me and my faults, dear?" There was
+something inexpressibly tender in the way he said "Dear," the only
+caressing word he ever used.
+
+"Your faults?" re-echoed she in a merry incredulous tone. But before she
+could say more, the guests most inopportunely arrived. And Agatha, very
+naturally, darted from her husband to the other side of the room like a
+flash of lightning.
+
+If the Thornycrofts had expected to find a couple of turtle-doves cooing
+in a cage, they were certainly disappointed. Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper
+had apparently settled down into an ordinary husband and wife, resuming
+serenely their place in society, and behaving towards each other, and
+the world in general, just like sensible old married people. Their
+friends, taking the hint, treated them in like manner; and thus, now and
+for ever, vanished Agatha's honeymoon.
+
+After dinner, Emma, anxious about Agatha's proceedings, and still more
+anxious to have a hand in the same, for she was never happy unless busy
+about her own or other people's affairs, made inquiries as to the future
+plans of the young couple.
+
+Agatha could give no answer, for, to her great thankfulness, her husband
+had hitherto avoided the subject. She looked at him for a reply.
+
+"I think, Mrs. Thornycroft, it will probably be three months before
+I"--he smilingly corrected himself, and said "_we_ return to Canada."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do meanwhile? Of course, Agatha dear, you
+will remain in London?"
+
+"Oh yes," she replied, accustomed to decide for herself, and forgetting
+at the moment that there was now another to whose decision she was bound
+to defer. Blushing, she looked towards her husband, who was talking to
+Mr. Thornycroft. He turned, as indeed he always did when he heard her
+speaking; but he made no remark, and the "Yes" passed as their mutual
+assent to Emma's question.
+
+"I know a place that would just suit you," pursued the latter; "that is,
+if you take a furnished house."
+
+"I should like it much."
+
+"It is but a cottage--rather small, considering your means; by-the-by,
+Agatha, how close our friend the Major kept all your affairs. No one
+imagined you were so rich."
+
+"Neither did I, most certainly. But--the cottage."
+
+"The prettiest little place imaginable. Such a love of a drawing-room!
+I went there to call on young Northen's sister when she married, last
+year. Poor thing--sad affair that, my dear."
+
+"Indeed," said Agatha, who now felt an interest in all stories of
+marriages.
+
+"It happened a fortnight ago, soon after your wedding. They
+quarrelled--she got through a window, and ran away home to her father.
+It seems she had never cared a straw for her husband, but had married
+him out of spite, liking some one else better all the time. His own
+brother, too, they say."
+
+"What a wicked--wicked thing!" cried Agatha warmly. So warmly, that she
+did not see, close by her chair, her husband--watching her intently,
+nay wildly. As she ceased, he rose from his stooping attitude. His
+countenance became wonderfully beautiful, altogether glowing.
+
+"Really you seem to have comprehended the matter at once," said Mr.
+Thornycroft, startled in the winding-up of a long harangue about the
+Corn Laws by the exceedingly bright look which his hearer turned towards
+him.
+
+"Yes, I think I shall soon comprehend everything," was the answer, as
+Mr. Harper placed himself on the arm of his wife's chair in the gay
+attitude of a very boy. She, moving a little, made room for him and
+smiled. Nay, she even leant silently against his arm, which he had
+thrown round the back of her chair.
+
+"Come, Agatha, I want to hear about that wonderful house which your
+friend is persuading you to take. You know, I happen to have a little
+concern in the matter likewise. Have I not, Mr. Thornycroft?"
+
+"Certainly; since you have turned out to be that no less wonderful
+personage which my wife has been perpetually boring me about for the
+last two years--Agatha's Husband," said Mr. Thornycroft, patiently
+resigning the Corn Laws to their inevitable doom--oblivion.
+
+But Emma, plunging gladly into her native element, discussed the whole
+house from attic to kitchen. Mr. Harper listened with a complaisant and
+amused look. Beginning to discern the sterling good there was in the
+little woman, he passed over her harmless small-mindedness; knowing well
+that in the wide-built mansion of human nature there must be always a
+certain order of beings honourable, useful, and excellent in themselves,
+to form the basement-story.
+
+The twilight darkened while Emma talked, the faster perhaps that her
+"James," whose respected presence always restrained her tongue, was
+discovered to be undeniably asleep. But the young couple were excellent
+listeners. Nathanael still sat balancing himself on the arm of his
+wife's chair; his hand having dropped playfully among her curls. He
+joined with gaiety in all the discussions. More than once, in talking of
+the various arrangements of their new household, his voice faltered, and
+the hearts of the husband and wife seemed trembling towards one another.
+
+The conversation ended in Emma's receiving _carte-blanche_ to take the
+house, if practicable, that the Harpers might settle there for three
+months certain.
+
+"Come, this is better than I expected," cried the worthy little woman.
+"We shall be neighbours, and I can teach Agatha house-keeping. She
+will have a nice little _ménage_, and can give a proper 'At Home' and
+charming wedding parties. Shall she not, Mr. Harper?"
+
+"If she wishes."
+
+But Agatha's whispered "No," and kind pressure of the hand, brought to
+him a most blissful conviction that she did _not_ wish, and that she
+would be, as she said, "happier living quietly at home." _Home_! what a
+word of promise that sounded in both their ears!
+
+When the lights came, Mr. Thornycroft woke up; with many apologies, poor
+man; only, as his wife said, "Everybody knew how hard James worked, and
+how tired he was at night." The two gentlemen fraternised once more.
+They began one of those general arguments on the history of the times,
+which when spoken, are intensely interesting, and being written as
+intensely prosy. The ladies listened in a most wife-like and pleased
+submission.
+
+"How well my husband talks--doesn't he?" whispered Emma, with sparkling
+eyes.
+
+Agatha agreed, and indeed Mr. Thornycroft's strong sense and acute
+judgment were patent to every one. But when Mr. Harper spoke, his
+clear views on every point, his trenchant but pleasant wit, by which
+he rounded off the angularities of argument, and above all his keen,
+far-seeing intellect, which dived into wondrous depths of knowledge, and
+invariably brought something precious to light--these things were to the
+young wife a positive revelation.
+
+She sat attentive, beginning to learn, what strange to say was no
+pain--her own ignorance, and her husband's superior wisdom. She had
+never before felt at once so humble and so proud.
+
+When the Thornycrofts departed, and Mr. Harper returned up-stairs from
+bidding them good-bye, he found his wife in a thoughtful mood.
+
+"Well, dear, have you had a pleasant evening? Are you content with our
+plans?"
+
+"Yes--indeed, more so than I deserve. Oh, how good you are!" she
+whispered; and her shortcomings towards him grew into a great burden of
+regret.
+
+"Hush!" he answered, smiling; "we will not begin discussing one
+another's goodness, or you know the subject would be interminable. And
+I would like us to hold a little serious consultation before to-morrow.
+You are not sleepy?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Stretch yourself out on the sofa, and let me sit beside you. There--are
+you quite comfortable?"
+
+"Ah, yes," she said, and thought for the hundredth time how sweet it was
+to have some one to take care of her.
+
+"Now, my wife, listen! You seemed to long for that cottage very much,
+and you shall have it. Nay, you ought, because at present you are the
+rich lady; while I, so long as I remain in England, receive none of my
+salary from Montreal, and am, comparatively speaking, poor. In fact,
+nothing but that very secondary character, Agatha's Husband.'"
+
+Though he laughed, there was a little jarring tone in this confession;
+but Agatha was too simple to notice it. He continued quickly,
+
+"Nevertheless, this question is only temporary; I shall be quite your
+equal in Canada."
+
+"In Canada!" she echoed dolefully. "Oh, surely--surely we need not go?"
+
+"Are you in earnest, Agatha?"
+
+"I am indeed," said she, gathering up courage to speak to him of what
+ever since her marriage had been growing an inexpressible dread.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I--I am afraid to tell."
+
+"Shall I tell you? You cannot bear to leave your old friends? You fear
+to go into a new country, entirely among strangers, with only your
+husband?"
+
+His suddenly suspicious tone stopped the frank denial that was bursting
+to his wife's lips. She only said a little hurt, "If that were true, I
+would have told you. I always speak exactly what I think."
+
+"Is it so? is it indeed so?" he cried, with a lightening of countenance
+as sudden as its shade. "Oh, Agatha, forgive me," and his heart
+seemed melting before her. "I am not good to you--but you do not quite
+understand me yet."
+
+"I feel that. Yet what can I do?"
+
+"Nothing! Only wait I will try to cure myself without paining you. But,
+for the sake of our whole life's happiness, henceforward always be open
+with me, Agatha! Don't hide from me anything! Set your frank goodness
+against my wicked suspiciousness, and make me ashamed of myself, as
+now."
+
+He had not spoken so freely or with so much emotion since they were
+married; and his wife was deeply touched. She made no answer, but half
+raising herself, crept to his arms, almost as if she loved him. So she
+truly did, in a measure, though not with the spontaneous, self-existent
+love, which, once lit in a woman's breast, is like the central
+fire hidden in the earth's bosom, enduring through all surface
+variations--through summer and winter, earthquakes, floods, and
+storms--utterly unchangeable and indestructible. And, however wildly
+extravagant this simile may sound--however rare the fact it illustrates,
+nevertheless such Love is a great truth, possible and probable, which
+has existed and may exist--thank God for it!--to prove that He did not
+found the poetry of all humanity upon a beautiful deceit.
+
+Something of this mystery was beginning to stir in the wife's heart;
+the girl-wife, married before her character was half formed--before
+the perfecting of real love, which, taking, as all feelings must, the
+impress of individual nature, was in her of slow development.
+
+As Agatha lay, her head hidden on her husband's shoulder, guessing out
+of her own heart something of what was passing in his, there came to her
+the first longing after that oneness of spirit, without which marriage
+is but a false or base union, legal and sanctified before men, but, oh!
+how unholy in the sight of God!
+
+The young wife felt as if now, and not until now, she could unfold
+to her husband all the secrets of her heart, all its foolishness,
+ignorance, and fears.
+
+"If you will listen to me, and not despise me very much, I will tell you
+something that I have never told to any one until now."
+
+She could not imagine why, but at this soft whisper he trembled;
+however, he bade her go on.
+
+"You wonder why it is I am so terrified at leaving England? It is not
+for any of the reasons you said, but for one so foolish that I am half
+ashamed to confess it. I dare not cross the sea."
+
+"Is that all?" Mr. Harper cried, and the unutterable dread which had
+actually blanched his cheek disappeared instantaneously. He felt himself
+another man.
+
+"Wait, and I'll tell you why this is," continued Agatha. "When I was
+a little child, somewhere about four years old, I was at some seaport
+town--I don't know where nor ever did, for there was no one with me but
+my nurse, and she died soon after. One day, I remember being in a
+little boat going to see a large ship. There were other people with us,
+especially one lady. Somehow, playing with her, I fell overboard." Here
+Agatha shuddered involuntarily. "It may be very ridiculous, but even
+now, when I am ill or restless in mind, I constantly dream over again
+that horrible drowning."
+
+Her husband drew her closer to him, murmuring, "Poor child!"
+
+"Ah, I was indeed a poor child! When, after being brought to life
+again--for I fancy I must have been nearly dead--my nurse forbade me
+ever to speak of what had happened, no one can tell into what a terror
+it grew. I never shall overcome it, never! The very sight of the sea is
+more than I can bear. To cross it---to be on it"--
+
+"Hush, dear, quiet yourself," said her husband, soothingly. "Now, tell
+me all you can remember about this."
+
+"Scarcely anything more, except that when I came to myself I was lying
+on the beach, with the stranger lady by me."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"I have not the slightest idea. Being so young, I recollect little about
+her--in fact, only one thing: that just as she was leaving me to go on
+in the little boat, my nurse called out, 'The ship is gone!' and the
+lady fell flat down--dead, as I thought then. They carried me away, and
+I never saw or heard of her again."
+
+"How strange!"
+
+"But," continued Agatha, gathering courage as she found her husband did
+not smile at this story, and beginning to speak with him more freely
+than she had ever done with any person in her life, "but you have no
+idea what a vivid impression the circumstance left on my mind. For years
+I made of this lady--to whom I feel sure I owed in some way or other the
+saving of my life--a sort of guardian angel I believe I even prayed to
+her--such a queer, foolish child I was--oh, so foolish!"
+
+"Very likely, dear; we all are," said Mr. Harper, gaily. "And you are
+quite sure you never saw your angel?"
+
+"No, nor any one like her. The person most like, and yet very unlike,
+too, in some things, was--don't laugh, please--was Miss Valery. That, I
+fancy, was the reason why I liked her so from the first, and was ready
+to do anything she bade me."
+
+"Then when you consented to be married it was not for love of me but
+of Anne Valery?" And beneath Nathanael's smile lingered a little sad
+earnest.
+
+His wife did not answer--even yet she was too shy to say the words, "I
+love you." But she took his hand, and reverently kissed it, whispering,
+
+"I am quite content. I would not have things otherwise than they are.
+And all I mean by telling such a long foolish story is this--teach
+me how to conquer myself and my fears, and I will go with you
+anywhere--even across the sea."
+
+"My own dear wife!" His voice was quite broken; so sudden, so unexpected
+was this declaration from her, and by the tremblings which shook her all
+the while he saw how great her struggle had been.
+
+For many minutes, holding her little head on his arm, the young husband
+sat silent, buried in deep thought; Agatha never saw the changes,
+bitter, fierce, sorrowful, that by turns swept over the face under which
+her own lay so calmly, with sweet shut eyes. Strange difference between
+the woman and the man!
+
+"Agatha," he said at last, "I have quite decided."
+
+"Decided what?"
+
+"That I will give up my office at Montreal, and we will live in
+England."
+
+She was so astonished that at first she could not speak; then she burst
+into joyful tears, and hung about him, murmuring unutterable thanks. For
+the moment he felt as if this reward made his sacrifice nothing, and yet
+it had cost him almost everything that his manly pride held dear.
+
+"Then you will not go? You will never cross the terrible Atlantic
+again?"
+
+"I do not promise that: for I must go, soon or late, if only to persuade
+Uncle Brian to return with me to England.--Uncle Brian! what will he
+say when he learns that I have given up my independence, and am living
+pensioner on a rich wife?"
+
+Agatha looked surprised.
+
+"But," continued he, trying to make a jest of the matter, "though I do
+renounce my income in the New World, I am not going to live an idler on
+your little ladyship's bounty. I intend to work hard at anything that I
+can find to do. And it will be strange if, in this wide, busy England,
+I cannot turn to some honourable profession. If not, I'd rather go into
+the fields and chop wood with this right hand"--
+
+And suddenly dashing it down on the table, he startled Agatha very much;
+so much that she again clung to him, and innocently begged him not to be
+angry with her.
+
+Then, once more, Nathanael took his wife in his arms, and became calm in
+calming her. Thus they sat, until the silence grew heavenly between
+the two, and it seemed as if, in this new confidence, and in the joy of
+mutual self-renunciation, were beginning that true marriage, which makes
+of husband and wife not only "one flesh," but one soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+It had been arranged with Emma Thornycroft that Mrs. Harper should take
+the benefit of that lady's superior domestic and worldly experience--for
+Agatha herself was a perfect child in such matters--and that they two
+should go over the intended house together. Accordingly, in the course
+of the following day Mrs. Thornycroft appeared to carry away the young
+wife, and give her the first lesson in household responsibilities.
+
+From this important business, Mr. Harper was laughingly excluded, as
+being only a "gentleman," and required merely to pronounce a final
+decision upon the niceties of feminine choice.
+
+"In fact," said Emma, gaily assuming the autocracy of her sex, "husbands
+ought to have nothing at all to do with house-choosing or house-keeping,
+except to pay the rent and the bills."
+
+Agatha could not help laughing at this, until she saw that Mr. Harper
+was silent.
+
+A few minutes before they started he took his wife aside, and showed her
+a letter. It was the formal renunciation of the appointment he held at
+Montreal.
+
+"How kind!" she cried in unfeigned delight. "And how quickly you have
+fulfilled your promise!"
+
+"When I have once decided I always like to do the thing immediately.
+This letter shall go to-day."
+
+"Ah!--let me post it," whispered Agatha, taking a wilful, childish
+pleasure in thus demolishing every chance of the future she had so
+dreaded.
+
+"What! cannot you yet trust me?" returned her husband. "Nay, there is no
+fear. What is done is done. But you shall have your way."
+
+And walking with them a little distance, he suffered Agatha with her own
+hands to post the decisive letter.
+
+After he left them, she told Mrs. Thornycroft the welcome news,
+enlarging upon Mr. Harper's goodness in resigning so much for her sake.
+
+"Resigning?" said Emma, laughing. "Well, I don't see much noble
+resignation in a young man's giving up a hardworking situation in the
+colonies to live at ease on his wife's property in England. My dear,
+husbands always like to make the most of their little sacrifices. You
+mustn't believe half they say."
+
+"My husband never said one word of his," cried Agatha, rather
+indignantly, and repented herself of her frankness to one whose
+ideas now more than ever jarred with her own. Three weeks' constant
+association with a man like Nathanael had lifted her mind above the
+ordinary standard of womanhood to which Emma belonged. She began to half
+believe the truth of what she had once with great astonishment heard
+Anne Valery declare--ay, even Anne Valery--that if the noblest moral
+type of man and of woman were each placed side by side, the man would be
+the greater of the two.
+
+But this thought she kept fondly to herself, and suffered Emma to talk
+on without much attending to her conversation. It was chiefly about
+some City business with which "her James" had been greatly annoyed of
+late--having to act for a friend who had been ruined by taking shares
+in a bubble company formed to work a Cornish mine. Agatha had often
+been doomed to listen to such historiettes. Mrs. Thornycroft had a
+great fancy for putting her harmless fingers into her husband's business
+matters, for which the chief apology in her friend's eyes was the good
+little wife's great interest in all that concerned "my James." So Agatha
+had got into a habit of listening with one ear, saying, "Yes," "No," and
+"Certainly;" while she thought of other things the while. This habit she
+to-day revived, and, pondered vaguely over many pleasant fancies
+while hearing mistily of certain atrocities perpetrated by "City
+scoundrels"--Emma was always warm in her epithets.
+
+"The 'Company,' my dear, is a complete take-in--all sham names,
+secretaries, treasurers, and even directors. The whole affair was got
+up among two or three people in a lawyer's office; and who do you think
+that lawyer is, Agatha?"
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Harper, feeling as perfectly indifferent as if
+he were the man in the moon.
+
+"I am not sure that I ought to tell you, for James only found it out, or
+rather guessed it, this morning at breakfast-time. And if the thing can
+only be proved, it will go very suspiciously against the people who
+have been mixed up in the affair, and especially against this Mr.
+Grimes.--There, I declare I've let the cat out of the bag at last, for
+all James cautioned me not!"
+
+"Well, be content," said Agatha, awaking from a reverie as to how many
+days her husband intended to stay at Kingcombe Holm, whither they were
+this week going on a formal invitation, and whether the new house would
+be quite ready on their return--"Be content, Emma; I really did not
+catch the name."
+
+"I'm glad of it," said the gossiping little woman--though she looked
+extremely sorry. "Of course, if Major Harper had known--why, you would
+have heard."
+
+"Heard what" asked Agatha, her curiosity at last attracted by
+her brother-in-law's name. But now Emma seemed wilfully bent upon
+maintaining a mysterious silence.
+
+"That's exactly what I can't tell you, my dear, except thus much--that
+my husband is afraid Major Harper has been losing a good deal of money,
+since more than two-thirds of the shares in Wheal Caroline were in his
+name, and now the vein has failed--that is, if ever there was a vein or
+a mine at all--and the other shareholders declare there has been a great
+deal of cheating somewhere--and--you understand."
+
+Agatha did not understand one jot. All she drew from this confused
+volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for
+which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or
+business matters the term "losing money" bore very little meaning.
+However, she recurred with satisfaction to her own reputed wealth, and
+thought if Major Harper were in any need he would of course tell his
+brother, and she and Nathanael could at once supply what he wanted.
+She determined to speak to her husband the first opportunity, and so
+dismissed the subject, as being not half so interesting as that of "the
+new house."
+
+At the gate of this the two ladies now stood, and Emma, with a matronly
+importance, introduced the gratified young wife to all its perfections.
+
+If there be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to
+spring up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and
+happy feelings, it is the sense of home--of pleasant domestic sway and
+domestic comfort--the looking forward to "a house of one's own." Many
+ordinary girls marry for nothing but this; and in the nobler half
+of their sex even amidst the strongest and most romantic personal
+attachment there is a something--a vague, dear hope, that, flying beyond
+the lover and the bridegroom, nestles itself in the husband and the
+future home.--The home as well as the husband, since it is given by him,
+is loved for his sake, and made beautiful for his comfort, while he is
+the ruler, the guide, and the centre of all.
+
+Mrs. Harper, as she went through the rooms of this, the first house
+she had ever looked on with an eye of interest, admiring some things,
+objecting to others, and beginning to arrange and decide in her own
+mind,--felt the awakening of that feeling which philosophers call "the
+domestic instinct"--the instinct which makes of women good wives, fond
+mothers, and wise mistresses of pleasant households. She wondered that,
+as Agatha Bowen, she had thought so little of these things.
+
+"Yes," said she, brightening up as she listened to Emma's long-winded
+discourse upon furniture and arrangements, and learning for the first
+time to appreciate the capital good sense of that admirable domestic
+oracle and young housekeeper's guide--"Yes, I think this will just do.
+And, as you say, we easily manage to buy it, furniture and all, so as to
+make what improvements we choose. Oh, how delicious it will be to have a
+house of one's own!"
+
+And the tears almost came into her eyes at thought of that long vista of
+future joy--the years which might pass in this same dwelling.
+
+"My husband," she said to the person who showed them over the place--and
+her cheeks glowed, and her heart dilated with a tender pride as she used
+the word--"my husband will come to-morrow and make his decision. I think
+there is very little doubt but that we shall take the house."
+
+So anxious was she to conclude the matter and let Mr. Harper share in
+all her pleasant feelings, that she excused herself from staying at
+Emma's until he came to fetch her, and determined to walk back to meet
+him.
+
+"What, with nobody to take care of you?" said Emma.
+
+"The idea of anybody's taking care of me! We never thought of such a
+thing three months ago. I used to come and go everywhere at my own sweet
+will, you know." Nevertheless, it was a sweet thought that there _was_
+somebody to take care of her. Her high spirit was beginning to learn
+that there are dearer pleasures in life than even the pleasure of
+independence.
+
+Pondering on these things--and also on the visit to Kingcombe Holm which
+her husband had that morning decided--she walked through the well-known
+squares, her eyes and her veil lowered, her light springy step
+restrained into matronly dignity. Agatha had a wondrous amount of
+dignity for such a little woman. Her gait, too, had in it something very
+peculiar--a mixture of elasticity, decision, and pride. Her small figure
+seemed to rise up airily between each footpress, as if unaccustomed to
+creep. There was a trace of wildness in her motions; hers was anything
+but a dainty tread or a lazy drawing-room glide; it was a bold, free,
+Indian-like walk--a footstep of the wilderness.
+
+No one who had once known her could ever mistake Agatha, be she seen
+ever so far off; and as she went on her way, a gentleman, crossing
+hastily from the opposite side of the square, saw her, started, and
+seemed inclined to shrink from recognition. But she, attracted by his
+manner, lifted up her eyes, and soon put an end to his uncertainty.
+Though a good deal surprised by the suddenness of the _rencontre_, there
+was no reason on earth why Mrs. Harper should not immediately go up and
+speak to her husband's brother.
+
+She did so, holding out her hand frankly.
+
+Major Harper's response was hesitating to a painful degree. He looked,
+in the common but expressive phrase, "as if he had seen a ghost."
+
+"Who would have thought of meeting you here, Miss Bowen--Mrs. Harper I
+mean?" he added, seeing her smile at the already strange sound of her
+maiden name. What could have possessed Major Harper to be guilty of such
+uncourteous forgetfulness?
+
+"You evidently did not think I was my real self, or you would not have
+been going to pass me by; I--that is, _we_"---at the word Nathanael's
+wife cast off her shyness, and grew bravely dignified--"we came back to
+London two days ago."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Your brother," she had not yet quite the courage to say "my husband,"
+when speaking of him, especially to Frederick Harper--"your brother
+thought you were out of town."
+
+"I?--yes--no. No, it was a mistake. But are you not going in? Good
+morning!"
+
+In his confusion of mind he was handing her up the steps of Dr.
+Ianson's door, which they were just passing. Agatha drew back; at first
+surprised, then alarmed. His strange manner, his face, not merely
+pale but ghastly, the suppressed agitation of his whole aspect, seemed
+forewarnings of some ill. It was her first consciousness that she was
+no longer alone, in herself including alike all her pleasure and all her
+pain.
+
+"Oh, tell me," she cried, catching his arm, "is there anything the
+matter? Where is my husband?"
+
+The quick fear, darting arrow-like to her heart, betrayed whose image
+lay there nearest and dearest now. Major Harper looked at her, looked
+and--sighed!
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said kindly; "all is well with your husband, for
+aught I know. He is a happy fellow in having some one in the world to be
+alarmed on his account."
+
+Agatha blushed deeply, but made no reply. She took her brother-in-law's
+offered arm, offered with a mechanical courtesy that survived the great
+discomposure of mind under which he evidently laboured, and turned with
+him towards home. She was at once puzzled and grieved to see the state
+he was in, which, deny it and disguise it as he would--and he tried
+hard to do so--was quite clear to her womanly perception. His laugh was
+hollow, his step hurried, his eyes wandering from side to side as if he
+were afraid of being seen. How different from his old cheerful lounge,
+full of a good-natured conceit, apparently content with himself, and
+willing that the whole street should gaze their fill at Major Frederick
+Harper.
+
+So old he looked, too; as if the moment his merry mask of smiles was
+thrown off, the cruel lurking wrinkles appeared. Agatha pitied him, and
+felt a return of the old liking, warm and kind, such as it was before
+the innuendoes of foolish friends had first lured her to distrust the
+nature of her own innocent feelings, and then changed them into positive
+contempt and aversion.
+
+She said, with an air of gentle matronly freedom, half sisterly, too,
+and wholly different from the shy manner of Agatha Bowen to Major
+Harper:
+
+"You must come home with me. I fear you are ill, or in anxiety. Why did
+you not tell your brother?" And suddenly she thought of Emma's statement
+of the morning. But Agatha, in her unworldliness, never supposed such a
+trivial loss as that of money could make any man so miserable as Major
+Harper seemed.
+
+"I ill? I anxious? I tell my brother?" he repeated, sharply.
+
+"Nay, as you will. Only do come to us. He will be so glad to see you."
+
+"Glad to see me?" He again repeated her words, as though he had none
+of his own, or were too bewildered to use them. Nevertheless, through
+a certain playful influence which Agatha could exert when she liked,
+making almost everybody yield to her, Major Harper suffered himself to
+be led along; his companion talking pleasantly to him the while, lest he
+might think she noticed his discomposure.
+
+Arrived at home, they found that Nathanael had walked to the Regent's
+Park to fetch his wife, according to agreement.
+
+Mrs. Harper looked sorry. She had already learned one little secret of
+her husband's character--his dislike to any unpunctuality, any altered
+plans or broken promises. "Still, you must come in and wait for him."
+
+"Wait for whom?" said Major Harper, absently.
+
+"Your brother."
+
+"My brother!--I, wait to see my brother! Impossible--I--I'll write. Good
+morning--good morning."
+
+He was leaving the hall--more hurried and agitated than ever--when Mrs.
+Harper, now really concerned, laid her hand upon his arm.
+
+"I will not let you go. Come in, and tell me what ails you."
+
+The soft whisper, the eyes of genuine compassion--womanly compassion
+only, without any love--were more than Major Harper could resist.
+
+"I will go," he muttered. "Better tell it to you than to my brother."
+And he followed her up-stairs.
+
+The cool shadow of the room seemed to quiet his excitement; he drank a
+glass of water that stood by, and became more like himself.
+
+"Well, my dear young lady," he said, with some return of the paternal
+manner of old times, "when did you come back to London?"
+
+"Two days since, as I told you. And, as you will soon hear, your
+brother's plans are all changed--we are going to live in London."
+
+"To live in London?"
+
+"He has given up his appointment at Montreal. We have taken a house, or
+shall take it to-day, and settle here. He intends entering at the bar,
+or something of the sort; but you must persuade him not. What is the use
+of his toiling, when I--that is we--are so rich?"
+
+While Agatha thus talked, chiefly to amuse her brother-in-law and make
+him feel that she was really his sister, one and the same in family
+interests--while she talked, she was astonished to see Major Harper's
+face overspread with blank dismay.
+
+"And--Nathanael has really given up his appointment?"
+
+"He has, and for my sake. Was it not good of him?"
+
+"It was madness! Nay--it is I that have been the madman--it is I that
+have done it all Agatha, forgive me! But no--you never can!"
+
+As they stood together by the fireplace he snatched her hand, gazing
+down upon her with unutterable remorse.
+
+"Poor Bowen's daughter that he trusted to me! Such a mere child too! Oh,
+forgive me, Agatha!"
+
+She thought some extraordinary delusion had come upon him--perhaps the
+forerunner of some dreadful illness. She tried to take her hand away,
+though kindly, for she firmly believed him to be delirious. Nothing
+could really have happened to herself that Mr. Harper did not know. With
+him to take care of her, she was quite safe. And in that moment--for all
+passed in a moment--Nathanael's wife first felt how implicitly she was
+beginning to put her trust in him.
+
+While she remained thus--her hand still closed tightly in her
+brother-in-law's grasp, half terrified, yet trying not to show her
+terror--the door opened, and her husband entered.
+
+At first Mr. Harper seemed petrified with amazement; then he turned
+deadly white. Crossing the room, he laid a heavy hand on his brother's
+shoulder:
+
+"Frederick, you forget yourself; this is my wife,--Agatha!"
+
+The searching agony of that one word, as he turned and looked her full
+in the face, was unutterable. She scarcely perceived it.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you are come," was all she said. He drew her to his
+side--indeed, she had sprung there of her own accord--and wrapped his
+arms tightly round her, as if to show that she was his possession, his
+own property.
+
+"Now, brother, whatever you wished to say to my wife, say it to us
+both."
+
+Major Harper could not speak.
+
+"He was waiting to see you; he is ill--very ill, I think," whispered
+Agatha to her husband. "Shall I leave you together?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, releasing her, but only to draw her back again,
+with the same wildly questioning look, the meaning of which was to her
+innocence quite inexplicable.--"My wife?"
+
+"My dear husband!"
+
+At that whisper, which burst from her full heart in the comfort of
+seeing him and of knowing that he would take on himself the burden of
+all her anxiety, Nathanael let her go. She crept away, most thankful to
+get out of the room, and leave Major Harper safe in his brother's hands.
+
+But when a quarter of an hour--half-an-hour--passed by, and still the
+two gentlemen remained shut up together, without sending for her to join
+their conference, or, as she truly expected, to tell her that poor Major
+Harper must be taken home in the delirium of brain fever--Agatha began
+rather to wonder at the circumstance.
+
+She apprehended no evil, for her even course of existence had never been
+crossed by those sudden tragedies, the impression of which no one ever
+entirely overcomes, which teach us to walk trembling along the ways of
+life, lest each moment a gulf should open at our feet. Agatha had read
+of such misfortunes, but believed them only in books; to her the real
+world, and her own fate therein, appeared the most monotonous thing
+imaginable. It never entered her mind to create an adventure or a
+mystery.
+
+She waited another fifteen minutes--until the clock struck five, and the
+servant came up to her to announce dinner, and to know whether the same
+information should be conveyed to the gentlemen in the drawing-room.
+Servants seem instinctively to guess when there is something
+extraordinary going on in a house, and the maid--as she found her
+mistress sitting in her bed-chamber, alone and thoughtful--wore a look
+of curiosity which made Mrs. Harper colour.
+
+"Go down and tell your master--no, stay, I will go myself."
+
+She waited until the maid had disappeared, and then went down-stairs,
+but stopped at the drawing-room door, on hearing within loud voices,
+at least one voice--Major Harper's. He seemed pleading or protesting
+vehemently: Agatha might almost have distinguished the words, but--and
+the fact is much to her credit, since her brother-in-law's apparently
+sane tones having suppressed her fears, she was now smitten with very
+natural curiosity--but she stopped her ears, and ran up-stairs again.
+There she remained, waiting for a lull in the dispute--in which,
+however, she never caught one tone of Nathanael's.
+
+At last, feeling rather humiliated at being thus obliged to flutter up
+and down the stairs of her own abode, and crave admittance into her own
+drawing-room, Mrs. Harper ventured to knock softly, and enter.
+
+Frederick Harper was sitting on the sofa, his head crushed down upon
+his hands. Nathanael stood at a little distance, by the fireplace. The
+attitude of the elder brother indicated deep humiliation, that of the
+younger was freezing in its sternness. Agatha had never seen such an
+expression on Nathanael face before.
+
+"What did you want?" he said abruptly, thinking it was the servant who
+entered.
+
+She could not imagine what made him start so, nor what made the two
+brothers look at her so guiltily. The fact left a very uncomfortable
+impression on her mind.
+
+"I only came"--she began.
+
+"No matter, dear." Her husband walked up to her, speaking in a low
+voice, studiously made kind, she thought "Go away now--we are engaged,
+you see."
+
+"But dinner," she added. "Will not your brother stay and dine with us?"
+
+Major Harper turned with an imploring look to his brother's wife.
+
+"No," said Mr. Harper emphatically; held the door open for Agatha to
+retire, and closed it after her. Never in all her life had she been
+treated so unceremoniously.
+
+The newly-married wife returned to her room, her cheeks burning with no
+trifling displeasure. She began to feel the tightening pressure of that
+chain with which her life was now eternally bound.
+
+But, after five minutes of silent reflection, she was too sensible to
+nourish serious indignation at being sent out of the room like a mere
+child. There must have been some good reason, which Mr. Harper would
+surely explain when his brother left. The whole conversation was
+probably some personal affair of the Major's, with which she had nothing
+to do. Yet why did her brother-in-law regard her so imploringly? It was,
+after all, rather extraordinary. So, genuine female curiosity getting
+the better of her, never did Blue Beard's Fatima watch with greater
+anxiety for "anybody coming" than did Agatha Harper watch at her window
+for somebody going--viz., Major Harper. She was too proud to listen,
+or to keep any other watch, and sat with her chamber-door resolutely
+closed.
+
+At length her vigil came to an end. She saw her late guardian passing
+down the street--not hastily or in humiliation, but with his usual
+measured step and satisfied air. Nay, he even crossed over the way to
+speak to an acquaintance, and stood smiling, talking, and swinging his
+cane. There could not be anything very wrong, then.
+
+Agatha thought, having been once sent out of the room, she would not
+re-enter it until her husband fetched her--a harmless ebullition of
+annoyance. So she stood idly before the mirror, ostensibly arranging her
+curls, though in reality seeing nothing, but listening with all her
+ears for the one footstep--which did not come. Not, alas! for many, many
+minutes.
+
+She was still standing motionless, though her brows were knitted in deep
+thought, and her mouth had assumed the rather cross expression which
+such rich, rare lips always can, and which only makes their smiling the
+more lovely--when she saw in the mirror another reflection beside her
+own.
+
+Her husband had come softly behind her, and put his arms round her
+waist.
+
+"Did you think I was a long time away from you? I could not help it,
+dear. Let us go down-stairs now."
+
+Agatha was surprised that, in spite of all the tenderness of his manner,
+he did not attempt the slightest explanation. And still more surprised
+was she to find her own questions, wonderings, reproaches, dying
+away unuttered in the atmosphere of silentness which always seemed to
+surround Nathanael Harper. This silentness had from the very beginning
+of their acquaintance induced in her that faint awe, which is the most
+ominous yet most delicious feeling that a woman can have towards a
+man. It seems an instinctive acknowledgment of the much-condemned,
+much-perverted, yet divine and unalterable law given with the first
+human marriage--"_He shall rule over thee_."
+
+After all that Agatha had intended to say, she said--nothing. She only
+turned her face to her husband, and received his kiss. Very soft it
+was--even cold--as though he dared not trust himself to the least
+expression of feeling. He merely whispered, "Now, come down with me;"
+and she went.
+
+But on the staircase she could not forbear saying, "I thought you two
+would never have done talking. Is it anything very serious? I trust not,
+since your brother walked down the street so cheerfully."
+
+"Did he?--and--were you watching him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," returned Agatha, for she had no notion of doing anything
+that she would be afterwards ashamed to confess. "But what put him into
+such a state of mind, and made him behave to me so strangely?"
+
+"How dared he behave?" asked the husband, with quickness, then stopped.
+"Forgive me. You know, I have never inquired--I never shall inquire
+about anything."--Again he paused, seeing how his mood alarmed her. "Do
+not be afraid of me! Poor child--poor little Agatha!"
+
+Waiting for no reply, he led her in to dinner.
+
+While the servants waited, Mr. Harper scarcely spoke, except when
+necessary. Only in his lightest word addressed to Agatha was a certain
+tremulousness--in his most careless look a constant tender observance,
+which soothed her mind, and quite removed from thence the impression
+of his hasty and incomprehensible words. She laid all to the charge of
+Major Harper and his unpleasant business.
+
+At dessert, Nathanael sat varying his long silences with a few
+commonplace remarks which showed how oblivious he was of all around
+him, and how sedulously he tried to disguise the fact, and rise to the
+surface of conversation. Agatha's curiosity returned, not unmingled with
+a feeling tenderer, more woman-like, more wife-like, which showed itself
+in stray peeps at him from under the lashes of net brown eyes. At length
+she took courage to say:
+
+"Now--since we seem to have nothing better to talk about, will you tell
+me what you and your brother were plotting together, that you kept poor
+little me out of the room so long?"
+
+"Plotting together? Surely, Agatha, you did not mean to use that word?"
+
+She had used it according to a habit she had of putting a jesting form
+of phrase upon matters where she was most in earnest. She was amazed to
+see her husband take it so seriously.
+
+"Well, blot out the offending word, and put in any other you choose;
+only tell me."
+
+"Why do you wish to know, little Curiosity?" said he, recovering
+himself, and eagerly catching the tone his wife had adopted.
+
+"Why? Because I am a little Curiosity, and like to know everything."
+
+"That is both presumptuous and impossible, your ladyship! If one-half
+the world were always bent on knowing all the secrets of the other half,
+what a very uncomfortable world it would be!"
+
+"I do not see that, even if the first half included the wives, and the
+second the husbands; which is apparently what you mean to imply."
+
+"I shall not plead guilty to anything by implication."
+
+They went on a few moments longer in this skirmish of assumed gaiety,
+when Agatha, pausing, leant her elbows on the table, and looked
+seriously at her husband,
+
+"Do you know we are two very foolish people?"
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+"We are pretending to make idle jests, when all the time we are both of
+us very much in earnest."
+
+"That is true!" And he sighed, though within himself, as though he did
+not wish her to hear it. "Agatha, come over to me." He held out both his
+hands; she came, and placed herself beside him, all her jesting subdued.
+She even trembled, at the expectation of something painful or sorrowful
+to be told. But her husband said nothing--except to ask if she would
+like to go anywhere this evening.
+
+Agatha felt annoyed. "Why do you put me off in this manner, when I know
+you have something on your mind?"
+
+"Have I?" he said, half mournfully.
+
+"Then tell it to me."
+
+"Nay. I always thought it was wisest, kindest, for a man to bear the
+burden of his own cares."
+
+Nathanael had spoken in his most gentle tone, and slowly, as if impelled
+to what he said by hard necessity. He was not prepared to see the sudden
+childish burst of astonishment, anger, and resistance.
+
+"From this, I understand, what you might as well have said plainly, that
+I am not to inquire what passed between you and your brother?"
+
+He moved his head in assent, and then sunk it on his left hand, holding
+out the other to his wife, as though talking were impossible to him, and
+all he wished were silence and peace. Agatha was too angry for either.
+
+"But if I do not choose at nineteen to be treated like a mere child--if
+I ask, nay, _insist_"--She hesitated, lest the last word might have
+irritated him too far. Vague fears concerning the full meaning of the
+word "obey" in the marriage service rushed into her mind.
+
+Nathanael sat motionless, his fingers pressed upon his eyelids. This
+silence was worse than any words.
+
+"Mr. Harper!"
+
+"I hear." And the grave, sad eyes--and without any displeasure--were
+turned upon her. Agatha felt a sting of conscience.
+
+"I did not mean to speak rudely to my husband; but I had my own reasons
+for inquiring about Major Harper, from something Emma said to-day."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"How eager you look! Nay, I can keep a secret too. But no, I will not."
+And the generous impulse burst out, even accompanied by a few childish
+tears and childish blushes. "She told me he had probably lost money. I
+wished to say that if such a trifle made him unhappy he might take as
+much as he liked of mine. That was all!"
+
+Her husband regarded her with mingled emotions, which at last all melted
+into one--deep tenderness. "And you would do this, even for him? Thank
+God! I never doubted your goodness, Agatha. And I _trusted_ you always."
+
+Wondering, yet half-pleased, to see him so moved, Agatha received his
+offered hand. "Then all is settled. Now tell me everything that passed
+between you."
+
+"I cannot."
+
+Gentle as the tone was, there was something in it which implied that
+to strive with Nathanael would be like beating against a marble wall.
+A great terror came over Agatha--she, who had lived like a wild bird,
+knowing no stronger will than her own. Then all the combativeness of her
+nature, hitherto dormant because she had known none worthy to contend
+against, awoke up, and tempted her to struggle fiercely with her chain.
+
+She unloosed her hands and sprang from him. "Mr. Harper, you are
+teaching me early how men rule their wives."
+
+"I only ask my wife to trust me. She would, if she knew how great was
+the sacrifice."
+
+"What sacrifice? How many more mysteries am I to be led through
+blindfold?"
+
+And her crimson cheek, her quick wild step across the room, showed a new
+picture to the husband's eyes--a picture that all young wives should be
+slow to let any man see, for it is often a fatal vision.
+
+Nathanael closed his eyes--was it to shut it out?--then spoke, steadily,
+sorrowfully:
+
+"We have scarcely been married a month. Are we beginning to be angry
+with one another already?"
+
+She made him no answer.
+
+"Will you listen to me--if for only two minutes?"
+
+She felt his step approaching, his hand fastening on hers, and replacing
+her in her chair. Resistance was impossible.
+
+"Agatha, had I trusted you less than I do, I might easily have put off
+your questions, or told you what was false. I shall do neither. I shall
+tell you truth."
+
+"That is all I wish."
+
+Nathanael said, with a visible effort, "To-day I learnt from my
+brother several rather painful circumstances--some which I was ignorant
+of--one"--his voice grew cold and hard--"one which I already knew, and
+knew to be irremediable."
+
+His wife looked much alarmed; seeing it, he forced a smile.
+
+"But what is irremediable can and must be borne. I can bear things
+better, perhaps, than most people. The other cares may be removed by
+time and--silence. To that end I have promised Frederick to keep his
+confidence secret from every one, even from my own wife, for a year to
+come. A sacrifice harder than you think; but it must be made, and I have
+made it."
+
+Agatha turned away, saying bitterly; "Your wife ought to thank you! She
+was not aware until now how wondrously well you loved your brother."
+
+There was a heavy silence, and then Mr. Harper said, in a hoarse voice,
+"Did you ever hear the story of a man who plunged into a river to save
+the life of an enemy, and when asked why he did it, answered, 'It was
+because he _was_ an enemy?"
+
+"I do not understand you," cried Agatha.
+
+"No"--her husband returned, hastily--"better not. A foolish, meaningless
+story. What were we talking about?"
+
+He--when her heart was bursting with vexation and wounded feeling--he
+pretended to treat all so lightly that he did not even remember what
+they were saying! It was more than Agatha could endure.
+
+Had he been irritated like herself--had he shown annoyance, pain--had
+they even come to a positive quarrel--for love will sometimes quarrel,
+and take comfort therein--it would have been less trying to a girl of
+her temperament. But that grave superior calm of unvarying kindness--her
+poor angry spirit beat against it like waves against a shining rock.
+
+"We were talking of what, had I considered the matter a month ago,
+I might possibly have saved myself the necessity of discussing or
+practising--a wife's blind obedience to her husband."
+
+"Agatha!"
+
+"When I married," she recklessly pursued, "I did not think what I was
+doing. It is hard enough blindly to obey even those whom one has known
+long--trusted long--loved long--but you"--
+
+"I understand. Hush! there needs not another word."
+
+Agatha began to hesitate. She had only wished to make him feel--to shake
+him from that rigid quietude which to her was so trying. She had not
+intended to wound him so.
+
+"Are you angry with me?" she asked at length.
+
+"No, not angry. No reproaches of yours can be more bitter than my own."
+
+She was just about to ask him what he meant--nay, she even considered
+whether her woman's pride might not stoop to draw aside the
+tight-pressed hands, entreating him to look up and forgive her and love
+her, when in burst Mrs. Thornycroft.
+
+"Oh--so glad to catch you--have not a minute to spare, for James is
+waiting. Where is your husband?"
+
+Mr. Harper had risen, and stood in the shadow, where his face was not
+easily visible. Agatha wondered to see him so erect and calm, while her
+own cheeks were burning, and every word she tried to utter she had to
+gulp down a burst of tears.
+
+"Mr. Harper, it was you I wanted--to ask your decision about the
+house. A mere formality. But I thought I would just call as we went
+to grandmamma's, and then I can settle everything for you to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"You are very kind, but"--
+
+"Oh, perhaps you would rather see the house yourself! Quite right. Of
+course you will take it!"
+
+"I fear not."
+
+Agatha, as well as Mrs. Thornycroft, was so utterly astonished, that
+neither of them could make any observation. To give up the house, and
+all her dear home-visions! She was aghast at the idea.
+
+"Bless me, what does your husband mean? Mr. Harper, what possible
+objection?"------
+
+"None, except we have changed our plans. It is quite uncertain how long
+we may stay at Kingcombe Holm, or where we may go from thence."
+
+"Not to America, surely? You would not break your word to poor dear
+Agatha?"
+
+"I never break my word."
+
+"Well, Mr. Harper, I declare I can't understand you," cried Emma,
+sharply. "I only hope that Agatha does. Is all this with your knowledge
+and consent, my poor child?"
+
+She said this, eyeing the husband with doubt and the wife with
+curiosity, as if disposed to put herself in the breach between the two,
+if breach there were.
+
+Agatha heard Nathanael's quick breathing--caught her friend's look of
+patronising compassion. Something of the dignity of marriage, the shame
+lest any third party should share or even witness aught that passes
+between those two who have now become one--awoke in the young girl's
+spirit. The feeling was partly pride, yet mingled with something far
+holier.
+
+She put Emma gently aside.
+
+"Whatever my husband's decision may be, I am quite satisfied therewith."
+
+Mrs. Thornycroft was mute with amazement However, she was too
+good-natured to be really angry. "Certainly, you are the most
+extraordinary, incomprehensible young couple! But I can't stay to
+discuss the matter. Agatha, I shall see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes; I will bring her to you to-morrow," said Mr. Harper, cheerfully,
+as their visitor departed.
+
+The husband and wife regarded one another in silence. At last he said,
+taking her hand:
+
+"I owe you thanks, Agatha, for"--
+
+"For doing my duty. I hope I shall never forget that."
+
+At the word "duty," so coldly uttered, Mr. Harper had let her hand fall
+He stood motionless, leaning against the marble chimney-piece, his face
+as white as the marble itself, and, in Agatha's fancy, as hard.
+
+"Have you, then, quite decided against our taking the house?" she asked
+at length.
+
+"I find it will be impossible."
+
+"Why so? But I forget; it is useless to ask _you_ questions."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+"Pardon my inquiry, but do you still keep to your plan of leaving next
+week for Dorsetshire?"
+
+"If you are willing."
+
+"I willing?" And she thought how, two hours before, she had rejoiced
+in the prospect of seeing her husband's ancestral home--her
+father-in-law--her new sisters. Her heart failed her--the poor girlish
+heart that as yet knew not either the world or itself. She burst into
+tears.
+
+Instantly Mr. Harper caught her in his arms.
+
+"Oh, Agatha, forgive me!--Have patience with me, and we may still
+be happy; at least, you may. Only trust your husband, and love him a
+little--a very little--as much as you can."
+
+"How can I trust you, whom I do not thoroughly understand? how can
+I--love"--
+
+Her hesitation--her pride warring with the expression of that feeling
+which her very anger taught her was there--seemed to pierce her husband
+to the soul.
+
+"I see," he said, mournfully. "We are both punished, Agatha; I for the
+selfishness of my love towards you, and you--Alas! how can I make you
+happier, poor child?" Her tears fell still, but less with anger than
+emotion. "I know now, we ought never to have been married. Yet, since we
+are married"--
+
+"Ay, since we are married, let us try to be good to one another, and
+bear with one another. I will!"
+
+She kissed his hand, which held up her drooping head, and Nathanael
+pressed his lips on her forehead. So outward peace was made between
+them; but in sadness and in fear, like a compact sealed tremblingly over
+a newly-closed grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"And this is Dorsetshire! What a sharp bleak wind!" said Agatha,
+shivering.
+
+Her husband, who was driving her in a phaeton which had met them at the
+railway station, turned to wrap a cloak round her.
+
+"Except in the height of summer it is always cold across these moors.
+But we shall soon be safe at Kingcombe Holm. Are you very tired?"
+
+She answered "No," which was hardly the truth. Yet her heart was more
+weary than her limbs.
+
+During the few days that elapsed between Major Harper's visit and their
+quitting London, she had scarcely seen her husband. He had been
+out continually, coming home to dinner tired and exhausted, though
+afterwards he always tried to talk and be cheerful. To her surprise,
+Major Harper never again called, nor, except in the brief answer to
+her question, "that Frederick was gone from home," did Nathanael ever
+mention his brother's name.
+
+"This is Kingcombe," said Mr. Harper, as they drove through a little
+town, which Agatha, half blinded by the wind, scarcely opened her eyes
+to look at. "My sister, Mrs. Dugdale, lives here. I thought they might
+have met us at the station; but the Dugdales are always late. Ah, there
+he is!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"My brother-in-law, Marmaduke Dugdale--or 'Duke Dugdale,' as everybody
+about here calls him. Holloa, Duke!"
+
+And Agatha, through her blue veil, "was ware," as old chronicles say,
+of a country-looking gentleman coming down the street in a mild, lazy,
+dreamy fashion, his hat pushed up at a considerable elevation from his
+forehead, leaving a mass of light hair straggling out at the back, his
+eyes bent thoughtfully on the pavement, and his hands crossed behind
+him.
+
+"Holloa, Duke!" cried Nathanael, for the second time, before he caught
+the attention of this very abstracted personage.
+
+"Eh--is it you? You don't say so! E--h!"
+
+Agatha was amused by the long, sweet-sounding drawl of the last
+monosyllable, which seemed formed out of all the five vowels rolled
+into one. It was said in such a pleasant voice, with such a simple,
+child-like air of delighted astonishment, that Agatha, conquering her
+shyness at this first meeting with one of her husband's family, peeped
+behind Nathanael's shoulder at Mr. Dugdale.
+
+She saw--what to her keen sense of beauty was a considerable shock--the
+very plainest man she thought she had ever beheld!
+
+"Mr. Dugdale--my wife."
+
+"Indeed! Very glad to see her." And Agatha who was intending merely to
+bow, felt her hand buried in another thrice its size, which gave it a
+shy, gentle, but thoroughly cordial shake. "And really, now I think of
+it, I was coming to meet you. The Missus told me to do it."
+
+"How is 'the Missus?'" asked Mr. Harper.
+
+"Quite well--they're all waiting for you. So make haste--the Squire is
+very particular as to time, you know!"
+
+Nodding to them both with a smile which diffused such an extraordinary
+light over the uncomely face that Agatha was quite startled and began to
+reconsider her first impression regarding it,--"Duke" Dugdale turned to
+walk on; but just as the horse was starting, came back again.
+
+"Nathanael, you are here just in time--general election coming. You're a
+Free-trader of course?"
+
+"Why, I never thought much about the matter."
+
+"Eh!--What a pity! But we'll convert you, and you shall convert your
+father. Ah, yes--I think we'll get the Squire on our side at last
+Good-bye."
+
+"Who is 'the Missus' and who is 'the Squire'" asked Agatha, as they
+drove off.
+
+"'The Missus' is his wife--my sister Harriet, and 'the Squire' is my
+father," said Nathanael, smiling. His face had worn a pleasant look ever
+since he caught sight of Duke Dugdale's. "When I first came home I was
+as much amused as yourself at these queer Dorsetshire phrases, but I
+like them now; they are so simple and patriarchal."
+
+Agatha agreed; yet she could hardly help laughing. But though this
+brother-in-law of Mr. Harper's--and she suddenly remembered that he
+was her own brother-in-law too--used provincial words, and spoke with a
+slight accent, which she concluded was "Dorset,"--though his dress and
+appearance had an anti-Stultzified, innocent, country look, still there
+was something about Marmaduke Dugdale which bespoke him unmistakably the
+gentleman.
+
+"I am glad we met him," said Mr. Harper, looking back down the street.
+"There he is, talking to a knot of people at the market-hall--farmers,
+no doubt, whom he will try to make Free-traders of, and who would listen
+to him affectionately, even if he tried to make them Mahometans. The
+good soul! There isn't a better man in all Dorsetshire."
+
+It was evident that Nathanael greatly liked "Duke Dugdale."
+
+Agatha would have asked a score of questions; about his age, which
+defied all guessing, and might have been anything from thirty to
+fifty-five--also about his "Missus," for he looked like a man who never
+could have made love, or thought of such a thing, in all his life. But
+her curiosity was restrained, partly by that of the old servant behind,
+who kept up a close though reverential observance of all the sayings
+and doings of "Ma-a-ester" Nathanael's wife. She did not like even
+accidentally to betray how very little of Kingcombe her reserved husband
+had told her, and how she knew scarcely more of his family than their
+names.
+
+Having parted from his brother-in-law, and gradually lost the benign
+influence which Duke Dugdale seemed to impart, Mr. Harper's face
+re-assumed that gravity, almost sadness, which, except when talking with
+herself, his wife now continually saw it wear.
+
+They drove on, pushing against a fierce wind, that appeared like an
+invisible iron barrier to intercept their way. Every now and then,
+Agatha could not help shivering and creeping closer to her husband;
+whenever she did so, he always turned round and wrapped her up with most
+sedulous care.
+
+"It is a dreary day for you to see our county for the first time,
+Agatha. If the sun were shining, these wide bleak sweeps of country
+would look all purple with heather, and that dun-coloured, gloomy range
+of hills;--we must call them hills out of compliment, though they are so
+small--would stand out in a clear line against the sky. Beyond them lies
+the British Channel, with its grand sea-coast."
+
+"The sea--ah! always the sea."
+
+"Nay, dear, don't be afraid, how don't'ee--as we Dorset people would
+say. Kingcombe Holm lies in a valley. You would never know you were so
+near the ocean. It is the same at Anne Valery's house."
+
+"Where is that!" said Agatha, brightening up at the mention of the name.
+
+"Why, this animal seems inclined to show me--even if I did not know
+it of long habit," answered Mr. Harper, bestowing a little less of his
+attention on his wife, and more on the obstreporous pony, who, in regard
+to a certain turn of the road, had grown peculiarly wrong-headed.
+
+"Don't'ee give in, sir! T'Squire bought he o' Miss Valery, and she do
+gi' un their own way, terrible bad," hinted the groom.
+
+"Unfortunately, his own way happens to be a wrong one," said Nathannael,
+quietly, as he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which
+it takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse.
+Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a
+case being no bad criterion of a man's character, "lose your temper, and
+you'll lose your beast," ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain.
+She was considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from
+the struggling animal to her husband, in whose fair face the colour
+had risen, while the boyish lips were set together with a will, fierce,
+rigid, and man-like. She could hardly take her eyes from him.
+
+"Agatha, are you afraid? Will you descend?" asked he, suddenly.
+
+"No--I will stay with you."
+
+The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the
+end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to
+Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.
+
+"I fear," she said--when he tried to draw her out of her contemplative
+mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees, almost the
+only trees that grow in this region--standing in black clumps on the
+hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used to encamp
+there--"I fear you have made _me_ as much in awe of you as you have the
+pony."
+
+He smiled, and was quoting something about "love casting out fear," when
+he suddenly corrected himself, and grew silent. In that silence they
+swept on to the gates of Kingcombe Holm.
+
+It was a place--more like an ancient manorial farm than a gentleman's
+residence--nestled snugly in one of those fairy valleys which are found
+here and there among the bleak wastes of Dorsetshire coast scenery--the
+richer for the barrenness of all around. Before and behind the house
+rose sudden acclivities, thick with autumn-tinted trees. On another side
+was a smooth, curving, wavy hill, bare in outline, with white dots of
+grazing sheep floating about upon its green. The Holm, with its garden
+and park, lay on a narrow plain of verdurous beauty, at the bottom of
+the valley. Nothing was visible beyond it, save a long, bare, terraced
+range of hill, and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in
+sight, except a tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three
+labourers' cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed
+children stood, poking their fingers in their mouths, and staring
+intensely at Agatha.
+
+"Oh, what a delicious nest," she cried--overcome with excitement at her
+first view of Kingcombe Holm, where, however, there was not a creature
+visible but the great dog, that barked a furious welcome from the
+courtyard, and the peacock, that strutted to and fro before the blank
+windows, sweeping his draggled tail. "Are they at home, I wonder? Will
+they all be waiting for us?"
+
+"In the drawing-room, most likely. It is my father's way. He receives
+there all strangers--new-comers, I mean. We shall see nobody till then."
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, brother Nathanael," said a quick, lively
+voice. "So, ho! Dunce, hold still, do'ee! You used to be as precise as
+the Squire himself, bless his heart! Now then, N. L. Jump down!"
+
+The speaker of all this had come flying out of the hall-door--a vision
+of flounces, gaiety, and heartiness, had given the pony a few pats, or
+rather slaps, _en passant_, and now stood balancing herself on one of
+the spokes of the wheel, and leaning over into the carriage.
+
+[Illustration: Arrival at Kingcombe Holm  p148]
+
+"Is that you, Harrie? Agatha, this is my sister Mrs. Dugdale."
+
+And Agatha found herself face to face (literally speaking, too, for
+"Harrie" kissed her) with a merry-looking, pretty woman, of a style a
+little too _prononcée_ perhaps, for her features were on a similar mould
+to Major Harper's. Still, there could be no doubt as to the prettiness,
+and the airy, youthful aspect--younger, perhaps, than her years. Agatha
+was perfectly astounded to find in this gay "Harrie" the wife of the
+grave and middle-aged Duke Dugdale!
+
+"You see, my dear--ahem! what shall I call you?--that I can't be formal
+and polite, and it's no use trying. So I just left my father sitting
+stately in the drawing-room with Mary on one side, as mistress of the
+household; Eulalie on the other, looking as bewitching and effective as
+she can, and both dying with curiosity to run out and see you. But I'm
+not a Miss Harper now; so, while they longed to do it, I--did it. Here I
+am! Welcome home, Mrs. Locke Harper!"
+
+"Thank you," stammered the young bride, hardly knowing whether to laugh
+or to cry. Her husband was scarcely less agitated than herself, but
+showed it only in the nervous trembling of his upper lip, and in the
+extreme brevity of his words. He lifted his wife down from the carriage,
+and Mrs. Dugdale, throwing back the blue veil, peered curiously into the
+face of her new sister.
+
+"E--h!" she said, in that long musical ejaculation just like her
+husband--the only thing in which she was like him. Never was a pair
+who so fully exemplified the theory of matrimonial opposites. "E--h,
+Nathanael!" And her quick glance at her brother indicated undisguised
+admiration of "the Pawnee-face."
+
+He himself looked restless, uncomfortable, as if his sister slightly
+fidgeted him; she had indeed, with all her heartiness, a certain
+quicksilverishness of manner, jumping here, there, and everywhere like
+mercury on a plate, in a fashion that was very perplexing at first to
+quiet people.
+
+"Come along, my dear," continued Harrie, tucking the young wife under
+her arm--"come and beautify a little--the Squire likes it. And run
+away to your father, N. L., my boy!" added she to her younger
+brother--younger--as a closer inspection of her fresh country face
+showed--possibly by some five or six years.
+
+Mr. Harper assented with as good a grace as he could, and resigned his
+wife to his sister.
+
+For the next ten minutes Agatha had a confused notion of being taken
+through many rooms and passages, hovered about by Mrs. Dugdale, her
+flounces, and her lively talk--of trying to answer a dozen questions per
+minute, and being so bewildered, that she succeeded in answering none,
+save that she had met Mr. Dugdale--that she did _not_ think him "a
+beauty," and (she hastily and in terror added this fact) that there was
+not the least necessity for his being so.
+
+"Not the least, my dear. I always thought the same! You'll love him
+heartily in a week--I did! Bless him for a dear, good, ugly, beautiful
+old soul!"
+
+Here Agatha, who stood listening, and nervously arranging the long curls
+that _would_ fall uncurled and untidy, felt a renewal of her old girlish
+enthusiasm for all true things; her eyes brightened, and her heart
+warmed towards "Harrie." She would have liked to stay talking longer,
+but for a vision of Mr. Harper waiting uncomfortably down-stairs.
+
+"So you have finished adorning, and want to go! You can't bear to be ten
+minutes away from your husband, that's clear! Well, my dear, you'll get
+wiser when you have been married as long as I have. But I don't know,"
+added Mrs. Dugdale laughing; "I'm always glad enough to get rid of Duke
+for an hour or two; yet somehow, when he is away, I'm always wanting
+him. By-the-by, did he happen to say what time he was coming over
+here--only to see you, you know? He has quite enough of 'the Missus.'"
+
+Agatha laughingly asked how long "the Missus" had borne that title.
+
+"Couldn't possibly count! Look at Gus and Fred in jacket and trousers,
+and little Brian learning to ride. Frightful antiquity! And yet when
+I married I was a girl like you; only ten times wilder--the greatest
+harum-scarum in the county! I often wonder poor Duke was not afraid to
+marry me! Heigho! Well, here we are down-stairs, and here--take your
+wife, most solemn brother Nathanael! If you were but a little more like
+Frederick! By the way, have you seen Fred lately?"
+
+"He has left town," said Mr. Harper, shortly, as he drew his young
+wife's arm through his own, and led her to his father's presence.
+
+Agatha was conscious of a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman--not unlike
+Major Harper frozen into stately age--who rose and came to meet her.
+
+"I am most happy to welcome my son's wife to Kingcombe Holm."
+
+Agatha felt the withered fingers touching her own--the kiss of welcome
+formally sealed on her forehead. She trembled exceedingly for a moment,
+but recovered herself, and met old Mr. Harper's keen observant gaze with
+one as clear and as composed as his own. One glance told her that he was
+not the sort of man into whose fatherly arms she could throw herself,
+and indulge the emotion brimming over in her heart. But his examination
+of her was evidently favourable.
+
+"You are most welcome, believe me. And my daughters"--here he turned to
+two ladies, of whom Agatha at first distinguished nothing, save that
+one was very pretty, the other much older, and plain--"my daughters,
+receive your new sister." Here the ladies aforesaid approached and shook
+hands, the plain one very warmly.--"You also can tell her how truly glad
+we are to receive--Mrs. Harper."
+
+He hesitated a little before the latter word, and pronounced it with
+some tremulousness, as though the old man were thinking how many years
+had passed since the name "Mrs. Harper" had been unspoken at Kingcombe
+Holm.
+
+His daughters looked at one another--even Harriet observing a grave
+respect No one spoke, or took outward notice of the circumstance; but
+from that time the subject of much secret conjecture was set at rest,
+and Agatha was called by every one "Mrs. Harper."
+
+During the somewhat awkward quarter of an hour that followed, in which
+the chief conversation was sustained by "the Squire," and occasionally
+by Nathanael--Mrs. Dugdale having vanished--the young girl observed
+her two sisters-in-law. Neither struck her fancy particularly, perhaps
+because there was nothing particular to strike it. The Misses Harper
+were, like most female branches of "county families," vegetating on
+their estates from generation to generation in uninterrupted gentility
+and uniformity. Of the two, Agatha liked Mary best; for there was great
+goodnature shining through her fearless plainness--a sort of placid
+acknowledgment of the fact that she was born for usefulness, not
+ornament. Eulalie, on the contrary, carried in her every gesture a
+disagreeable self-consciousness, which testified to her long assumption
+of one character--the beauty of the family. Despite Agatha's admiration
+of handsome women in general, she and the youngest Miss Harper eyed one
+another uncomfortably, as if sure from the first that they shall never
+like one another.
+
+All this while Nathanael spoke but little to his wife, apparently
+leaving her to nestle down at her own will among his family. But he kept
+continually near her, within reach of a word or glance, had she given
+him either; and she more than once felt his look of grave tenderness
+reading her very soul. She could not think why, in spite of all his
+efforts to the contrary, he should be continually so serious, while she
+was quite ready to be happy and at ease.
+
+There was one thing, however, which gave her keen satisfaction--the
+great honour in which her husband was evidently held by his family.
+
+Very soon a heterogeneous post-prandial repast was announced for the
+benefit of the travellers; to which Mr. Harper graciously bade them
+retire--even leading his daughter-in-law to the dining-room door.
+
+"He'll not come further in," whispered Mrs. Dugdale, who made herself
+most active about Agatha. "You arrived at seven, and my father would
+as soon think of changing his six o'clock dinner hour as he would of
+changing his politics; for all Duke says to the contrary."
+
+Agatha was not sorry, since the idea of dining under the elaborate
+kindness and dignified courtliness of old Mr. Harper was rather
+alarming. Besides, she was so hungry!
+
+The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came
+gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every
+possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She
+had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about--rattling on
+like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging away _bon mots_ and
+witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a "wonderfully clever
+woman,"--the very last character which this light-spirited country-lady
+would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had relaxed
+into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being of
+sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her much
+but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane
+beauty.
+
+Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness
+not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted
+among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the
+intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him.
+
+In quitting the dining-room--where Agatha, irresistibly led on by Mrs.
+Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had laughed
+till she was fairly tired out--he said, in a half whisper:
+
+"Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth."
+
+In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was
+another sister--in truth, the Miss Harper of the family--Mary, its head
+and housekeeper, being properly only "Miss Mary." She noticed that as
+Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself doubtfully,
+as if to inquire how much she knew--and anxiously, as though there
+were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's first seeing
+Elizabeth.
+
+Mrs. Harper felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm
+in her husband's, and said, "I should much like to go."
+
+Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other
+two moving away into the drawing-room.
+
+Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to
+quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and
+his sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what
+sort of person she was going to see--for all she had heard was that from
+some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room--made
+the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her
+husband perceived it.
+
+"Nay, you need not mind," he whispered. "You will see nothing to pain
+you. We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy--poor
+Elizabeth!"
+
+As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase
+into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room--made scrupulously pleasant,
+Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things,
+engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper
+on the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate
+and careful choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its
+arrangements, or have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the
+sense of æsthetic fitness is its native element.
+
+At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a
+sofa--though so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form--she
+saw what seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the
+face was no child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at
+middle age. Many wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in
+soft, close bands, was quite grey. The only thing notable about the
+countenance was a remarkable serenity, which in youth might have
+conveyed that painful impression of premature age often seen in similar
+cases, but which now in age made it look young. It was as if time
+and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this sad victim of Nature's
+unkindness--had passed by and left her to keep something of the child's
+paradise about her still.
+
+This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the
+silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so
+shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed.
+
+Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see
+her easily without turning round.
+
+"Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?"
+
+The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful,
+smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called "poor Elizabeth." Such
+thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It
+took away all the painful constraint which most people experience on
+first coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus;
+and made Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that
+poor distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth
+Harper.
+
+"She is just what I thought," said a voice, thin, but not unmusical.
+"You described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister."
+
+Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of
+all greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least
+of its sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith,
+looking more like himself than he had done since they entered his
+father's doors.
+
+They all sat down and talked for a long time, Elizabeth more cheerfully
+than any. She appeared completely versed in the affairs of the whole
+family, as though her mind were a hidden gallery in which were clearly
+daguerreotyped, and faithfully retained, all impressions of the external
+world. She seemed to know everybody and everybody's circumstances--to
+have ranged them and theirs distinctly and in order, in the wide, empty
+halls of her memory, which could be filled in no other way. For, as
+Agatha gradually learned, this spinal disease, withering up the form
+from infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute
+physical pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements
+of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect
+alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble
+and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the
+average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her
+only possession was the loving heart.
+
+She asked an infinitude of questions, her bright quick eyes seeming to
+extort and gain more than the mere verbal answers. She talked a good
+deal, throwing more light than Agatha had ever before received on the
+manners, characters, and history of the Harper family, the Dugdales, and
+Anne Valery. But there was in her speech a certain reticence, as though
+all the common gossip of life was in her clear spirit received, sifted,
+purified, and then distributed abroad in chosen portions as goodly and
+pleasant food. She seemed to receive the secrets of every one's life and
+to betray none.
+
+Agatha now learnt why there had been such a mystery of regret,
+reverence, and love hanging over the very mention of the eldest Miss
+Harper.
+
+When the tumult of this strange day had resolved itself into silence,
+Agatha, believing her husband fast asleep, lay pondering over
+it, wondering why he had not asked her what she thought of his
+family--wondering, above all, what was the strange weight upon him which
+he tried so hard to conceal, and to appear just the same to every one,
+especially to her. Her coming life rose up like a great maze, about
+which all the characters now apparently mingled therein wandered mistily
+in and out. Among them, those which had gained most vivid individuality
+in a fancy not prone to catch quick interests, affecting her alternately
+with a sense of pensive ideal calm, and cheerful healthy human liking,
+were Elizabeth Harper, the "Missus," and Duke Dugdale.
+
+Likewise, as an especial pleasure, she had discovered the one to whom
+she clung as to a well-known friend among all these strangers, lived
+within eight miles of Kingcombe Holm.
+
+"And"--she kept recurring to a fact spread abroad in the house just
+before bed-time, and apparently diffusing universal satisfaction--"and
+Anne Valery is sure to be here to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+On the morning--her first morning at Kingcombe Holm--Mrs. Harper woke
+refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was
+pencilled distinctly against the bluest of blue skies, which hung like
+a tent over the shut-up valley. She stood at the window looking at it,
+while Mary Harper made the breakfast and Eulalie curiously examined
+Agatha's dress, supposed to be the latest bridal fashion from London.
+Nathanael sat writing letters until breakfast was ready, and then took
+his father's place at the foot of the table.
+
+"Elizabeth bade me ask you," said Mary, addressing him, "if you had any
+letters this morning from Frederick? You know she likes to look at all
+family letters--they amuse her. Shall I take this one?"
+
+Nathanael put his hand upon a heap, among which was plainly
+distinguishable Major Harper's writing. "No, Mary--not now. If
+necessary, I will read part of it to Elizabeth myself."
+
+Agatha, who had before vainly asked the same question, was annoyed by
+her husband's reserve. His silence in all his affairs, especially those
+relating to his brother, was impenetrable.
+
+But this was rousing in her, day by day, a strong spirit of opposition.
+Had not the presence of his sisters restrained her, for her external
+wifely pride grew as much as her inward antagonism--she would have again
+boldly put forward her claim to read the letter. As it was, she had
+self-control enough to sit silent, but her mouth assumed that peculiar
+expression which at times revealed a few little mysteries of her
+nature--showing that beneath the quietude and simplicity of the girl lay
+the strong, desperate will of a resolute woman.
+
+After breakfast, when Mr. Harper, with some slight apology, had gone to
+his letters again, she rose, intending to stroll about and explore
+the lawn. She had never been used to ask any one's permission for her
+out-goings and in-comings, so was departing quite naturally, when Mary
+stopped her.
+
+"I hope you will not mind it, but we always stay in the house until my
+father comes down-stairs. He likes to see us before he begins the day."
+
+Agatha submitted--with a good grace, of course; though she thought
+the rule absolute was painfully prevalent in the Harper family. But as
+half-an-hour went by, and the morning air, so fresh and cool, tempted
+her sorely, she tried to set aside this formal domestic regulation.
+
+Mary looked quite frightened at her overt rebellion.--"My dear Mrs.
+Harper--indeed we never do it. Do we, Nathanael?" said she, appealingly.
+
+He listened to the discussion a moment.--"My dear wife, since my father
+would not like it, you will not go, I know."
+
+The tone was gentle, but Agatha would as soon have thought of
+overleaping a stone wall as of opposing a desire thus expressed. She
+sat quietly down again--or would have done so, but that she saw Eulalie
+smile meaningly at her sister. Intercepting the young wife, the smile
+changed into affected condolence.
+
+"Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as
+a little boy," and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically.
+"Really, as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did
+their lady loves know them only half as well as their sisters do."
+
+"Nay," said the good-natured Mary, "but Harrie also says that men, like
+wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not
+too much shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very
+disagreeable boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you"------
+
+"There is no need; I am quite satisfied," said Mrs. Harper, with no
+small dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered
+the room.
+
+He entered dressed for riding--looking somewhat younger than the night
+before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He
+saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity,
+patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a
+good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret
+pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with "my son Nathanael,"
+and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two
+daughters listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was
+the same benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate
+of reserve and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as
+Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either
+his mind or his body to appear _en déshabille_. Agatha wondered how he
+could ever have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man
+wooing; nay, more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she
+noticed the extreme feebleness which his dignity but half disguised),
+how he would ever stoop to the last levelling of all humanity--the
+grave-clothes and the tomb.
+
+"Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride
+to Kingcombe?" said he, looking round the circle with a patronising
+interest, which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the
+kindly expression of the old man's eye.
+
+"There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie
+"--here Eulalie looked affectedly conscious--"no others, I think."
+
+"Except one to Nathanael from Frederick," observed the Beauty.
+
+At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little
+graver--a little statelier. He said coldly, "Nathanael, I hope you have
+pleasant news from your brother. Where is he now?"
+
+"In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent."
+
+"My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He
+is not really gone?"
+
+"Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more--but certainly a year."
+
+The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his
+riding-whip. "If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the
+respect of informing _him_ first. Excuse me if I doubt whether my son's
+plans are quite decided."
+
+"They are indeed, sir," said Nathanael gently. "And I was aware of,
+indeed advised, this journey. He bids me explain to you that when this
+letter arrives he will be already gone."
+
+The father started--and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood
+a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like
+a cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's
+ready hand--thanked him--bade good morning to the womenkind all round,
+and left them.
+
+"Shall I ride with you, father?" said Nathanael, following him to the
+hall-door, with a concerned air.
+
+"Not to-day--I thank you! Not to-day."
+
+Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. "This will be a sad blow to
+papa," said the former. "Frederick was always a great anxiety to him."
+
+Agatha inquired wherefore.
+
+"Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished
+his eldest son to settle down in the county. I know--though he says
+nothing--that this has been a sore point between them for nearly twenty
+years."
+
+"And I know," added Eulalie, mysteriously, "that papa was going to make
+a last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A
+pretty fight there would have been--papa and Frederick against Marmaduke
+and his pet candidate!"
+
+"'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best," said
+Mary, sagely. "But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or
+he would say we had been gossiping."
+
+Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life,
+from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were
+wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared,
+riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up
+one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can
+drive, and make herself independent of everybody.
+
+"It is Anne Valery!" was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the
+door--Agatha being the first.
+
+"My dear--my dear!" murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little
+carriage to pat the brown curls. "Are you quite well?--quite happy? And
+your husband?" She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry.
+"Is all well, Nathanael?"
+
+Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought,
+as usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly,
+"Yes, Anne, all is well!"
+
+She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage.
+Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright
+colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she
+came into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even
+so healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago--the last time they
+had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness.
+
+"I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire--and
+my own. May I, Mary?"
+
+"Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering
+and longing after you."
+
+"I have not been well. London never suits me," said Anne carelessly.
+"But come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day.
+In the first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen
+yet, Eulalie?"
+
+Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of
+Elizabeth's "hard days," when she could not talk much to any one till
+evening.
+
+Anne continued, after a pause--"I want to drive over to Kingcombe about
+some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr. Wilson's
+death."
+
+"Anne's steward," whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law.
+"You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?" And Agatha
+noticed, with some amusement, what an extreme deference was infused into
+the usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper.
+
+"So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?"
+asked Mr. Harper suddenly.
+
+"No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a
+woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would
+wish him always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but
+undoubtedly a gentleman."
+
+As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting
+her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in
+a low tone, "Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk
+with you."
+
+She assented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand
+Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no
+further questions.
+
+"And, for the third important business which should be done to-day,
+and perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm
+Hill, and show her the view of the Channel."
+
+Agatha drew back from the window. "Ah, not the sea!--I cannot bear the
+sea." Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness.
+
+"Were you ever on the sea, my dear?"
+
+"Once, long ago."
+
+"Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your
+bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace--do you see it?--with
+Nathanael and me."
+
+"But you will be tired," Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to
+resist Anne Valery.
+
+"Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength--health. I hardly live
+when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go,
+Agatha."
+
+She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they
+soon started--they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and
+the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air.
+
+They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew
+clusters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must
+be in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving
+only the short grass cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the
+furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove
+along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight
+of Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as
+though the sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose
+leaving the carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse
+of the Channel.
+
+"There!" she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed
+over to his wife. "There, Agatha!"
+
+It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They
+stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of
+moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between
+the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay.
+Parallel to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace--until it likewise
+reached the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs,
+against which the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain.
+Beyond all, motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away
+in a mist of brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide,
+immeasurable sea.
+
+The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with
+her former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is
+always given by the sight of the ocean--that ocean which One "holdeth
+in the hollow of his hand." Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she
+was able to look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and
+there on the dazzling sheet of waves.
+
+"There go the ships," said Nathanael. "See what numbers of
+them--numbers, yet how few they seem!--are moving up and down on this
+highway of all nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping
+in the horizon.
+
+"Do you remember Tennyson's lines?--they reached Uncle Brian and me even
+in the wild forests of America:
+
+     "'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
+     Which brings our friends up from the under world;
+     Sad as the last which reddens over one
+     That sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'"
+
+"There! it is gone now," cried Agatha, almost with a sense of loss. She
+felt Anne Valery's fingers tighten convulsively over her arm, and saw
+her with straining eyes and quivering lips watching the vanishing--nay,
+vanished--ship, as if all her soul were flying with it to the "under
+world."
+
+The sight was so startling, so moving--especially in a woman of Miss
+Valery's mature age and composed demeanour--that Nathanael's wife
+instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two
+Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as
+before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook,
+where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as
+summer.
+
+Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of
+scenery--especially the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line
+of coast sweeps on ruggedly westward to the Land's End.
+
+"But I believe," he said, "that there is nowhere a grander coast than we
+have here--not even in Cornwall."
+
+"Speaking of Cornwall," Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael,
+"I lately heard a sad story about some mines there."
+
+Mr. Harper seemed restless. "The speculation had failed, having been
+ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had
+property near in the county--what, did you not know that, Nathanael--I
+was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal
+Caroline. Have you heard the name, Agatha?"
+
+"No," said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the
+lovely view.
+
+"Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael"--
+
+"I know all," he said hastily. "It is a sad history--too sad to be
+talked of here. Another time"--
+
+His eye met hers--and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little apart,
+enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea--vague
+object of nameless terror--could ever appear so beautiful.
+
+"Poor child!" murmured Miss Valery.
+
+"Hush, Anne!" Nathanael whispered, so imploringly--nay, commandingly,
+that Anne was startled.
+
+"How like you are to"--
+
+"What were you saying?" asked Agatha, turning at last.
+
+"I was saying," Miss Valery replied hastily--"I was saying how like
+Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian."
+
+"Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?"
+
+"Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell
+you, _as he ought_," added Anne pointedly.
+
+"Surely I will, one day," said Nathanael. "But in this case, as in many
+others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best,
+wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the
+wrong has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face
+that seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was
+marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery.
+
+"And now," continued Mr. Harper, "while I am alone with you and my
+wife"--here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean
+against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind--"I wanted to
+talk with you, Anne, about some plans I have."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"I have given up--as Agatha wrote you word--all idea of our settling at
+Montreal. It is necessary that I should at once find some employment in
+England."
+
+"Not yet--not just yet," said his wife.
+
+"I must, dear. It is right--it is necessary. Anne herself would say so."
+
+Miss Valery assented, much to Agatha's surprise.
+
+"The only question then is--what can I do? Nothing in the
+professions--for I have acquired none; nothing in literature--for I
+am not a genius; but anything in the clear, straightforward,
+man-of-business line--Uncle Brian used to accuse me of being so very
+practical.--Anne," he added, smiling, "I wish, instead of having to puff
+off myself thus, Uncle Brian were here to advertise my qualifications."
+
+"Qualifications for what?" inquired Agatha, Miss Valery being silent
+
+"For obtaining from my friend here what I would at once have applied for
+to any stranger; poor Wilson's vacant post as her overseer, land-agent,
+steward, or whatever the name may be."
+
+"Steward!" cried Mrs. Harper. "Surely you would never dream of being a
+steward?"
+
+"Why not? Because I am unworthy of the situation, or--as I fear my proud
+little wife thinks--because the situation is not worthy of me? Nay, a
+man never loses honour by earning his bread in honourable fashion;
+and Miss Valery herself said that for this office she required both a
+gentleman and a friend. Will she accept me?"
+
+And he extended, proudly as his father might--yet with a frank
+independence nobler than the pride of all the Harpers--his honest right
+hand. Anne Valery took it, the tears rising in her eyes.
+
+"I could never have offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so
+steadfast, so wise----Yes! it is indeed, considering all things, the
+wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless your
+wife consents."
+
+"I will not consent," said Agatha, determinedly.
+
+There was an uncomfortable pause.
+
+"I see in your plan no reason--no right," continued she, forgetting
+in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of
+conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. "Why was I
+never told this before?"
+
+"Because I never thought of it myself until this morning."
+
+The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many
+more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips.
+
+"The fact is, Agatha--I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both
+love"--
+
+"And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred."
+
+These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that
+was rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery.
+
+"It is necessary," Mr. Harper went on--"imperatively so, for my
+comfort--that I should at once do something. And in choosing
+one's work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the
+rule--'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many
+things I could not do; this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will
+find. Nor need I feel ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery."
+
+Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. "But your
+father--your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?"
+
+"Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling
+near him in Dorsetshire."
+
+"In Dorsetshire!" echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her
+last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's
+county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable
+equanimity.
+
+"And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if
+my wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the
+best."
+
+His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first
+dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either
+she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured
+her to believe him in the right. She listened--only half-convinced, yet
+still she listened.
+
+Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only
+continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm
+affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead
+likeness revived in a living face.
+
+At last, when he had expressed all he could--everything except entreaty
+or complaint--Mr. Harper paused. "Now, Agatha, speak."
+
+She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She
+had been so unused to control.
+
+"You should have consulted with me--have explained more of your reasons,
+which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously
+anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind."
+
+"Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?" His accent was that of unutterable
+pain.
+
+"No! no! that you never are! Only--I suppose because I am young and
+lately married--I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss
+Valery?"
+
+Anne looked from one to the other--Nathanael, who, as was his habit
+in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard--and
+Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet
+half repentant all the while. "What must you do? You must try to learn
+the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she
+loves--to have faith in him."
+
+"We women," she continued softly, "the very best and wisest of us,
+cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only
+love him. That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly
+knowing that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite
+understand, we must, as I said, _have faith in him_. I have heard of
+some women whose faith has lasted all their life."
+
+Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which
+vaguely turned seaward--though apparently looking at nothing--made a
+deep impression on the young wife.
+
+She answered, thoughtfully, "I believe in my husband too, otherwise
+I would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to
+clash, and he is the older and the wiser--let him decide as he thinks
+best--I will try to 'have faith in him.'"
+
+Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak--it seemed impossible to
+him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy
+terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either,
+excepting only--for one lingering, parting glance--Anne Valery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to
+Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house
+suitable for the young couple. They had not said a word to either of
+the Miss Harpers concerning this sudden arrangement, agreeing that the
+father of the household ought to be shown the respect of receiving the
+first information.
+
+"And then," said Nathanael, "I trust mainly to Anne Valery to overcome
+his scruples. Anne can do anything she likes with my father. Don't you
+remember," he continued, leaning over to the front seat where the two
+ladies were, and looking quite cheerful, as though a great load had
+been taken off his mind--"don't you remember--I do, though I was such
+a little boy--how there was one day a grand family tumult because
+Frederick wanted his commission, and my father refused it--how you
+walked up and down the garden, first with one and then with the other,
+persuading everybody to be friends, while Uncle Brian and I"--
+
+"There, that will do," said Miss Valery. "Never mind old times, but let
+us look forward to the future. Here we are at Kingcombe. Agatha, how do
+you like the place?"
+
+And Agatha, on this glowing autumn afternoon, eagerly examined her
+future home.
+
+It was a rather noteworthy country town; small, clean, with an air of
+sober preservation, reminding one of a well-kept, dignified, healthy
+old age. It wore its antiquity with a sort of pride, as if its quaint
+streets, intersecting one another in cruciform shape, still kept
+the impress of mediaeval feet, baron's or priest's, in the days when
+Kingcombe had sixteen churches and a castle to boot--as if the Roman
+walls which enclosed it lay solemnly conscious that, at night, ghosts
+of old Latin warriors glided over the smooth turf of those great earthen
+mounds where the town's-children played. Even the very river, which came
+up to the town narrow and slow, with perhaps one sailing-barge on it
+visible far across the flat country, and looking like a boat taking an
+insane pedestrian excursion over the meadows--even the river seemed to
+run silently, as if remembering the time when it had floated up Danish
+ships with their fierce barbarian freight, and landed them just under
+that red sand-cliff, where the lazy cows now stood, and the innocent
+blackberry-bushes grew.
+
+It was a curious place Kingcombe, or so Agatha thought.
+
+"How strange it is," Mr. Harper observed. "All these old spots seem to
+me like places beheld in a dream. Uncle Brian often used to talk about
+them. I think to this day he remembers everything and everybody about
+Kingcombe."
+
+"Does he?"
+
+"And that some day or other he will come back again I do most firmly
+believe. Do not you, Anne?"
+
+"Yes." As she spoke, her hand involuntarily was pressed upon her side.
+Agatha wondered she responded so coldly and with so melancholy a look,
+to such a joyous prospect as Uncle Brian's return would surely be to all
+the family.
+
+But here they were in Kingcombe streets--very quiet, sleepy streets,
+which seemed to have taken an undisturbed doze for a few centuries, to
+atone for the terrible excitements there created successively by
+Danish, Roman, Saxon, and baronial ruffians. The poor little town seemed
+determined to spend its old age in peace and solitude, for you might
+have planted a cannonade at the market-place, and swept down East
+Street, West Street, North Street, and South Street, without laying
+more than a dozen official murders on your soul. There was indeed great
+reason for Mrs. Harper's innocent inquiry--"Where are all the people
+gone to?"
+
+"Except on market-days, we rarely see more street passengers than now in
+Kingcombe," Aline Valery answered, smiling. "You will get accustomed to
+that and many other things when you are a country lady. Now, shall we
+drive to the Dugdales, or look first at the two houses I told you of?"
+
+Mr. Harper preferred the latter course, under fear, his wife merrily
+declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and
+sister, she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire
+and water, since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably "put out"
+the other. They did not squabble--Nathanael Harper never squabbled--but
+they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals.
+Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always
+occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat.
+
+The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft
+would have phrased it, "a love of a place!" Dining-room, drawing-rooms,
+conservatory, gardens--quite a gentleman's mansion. Agatha set her heart
+upon it at once, and it blotted out even her lingering regret over the
+lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee
+of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it,
+giving her this thing and that thing necessary to its beautification.
+
+He patted her cheek with a pleased yet sad look.
+
+"Dear, I will give you all I can; be quite sure of that. But"--
+
+"Nay, no buts; I must have this house. Besides, Miss Valery says it is
+the only house to let in Kingcombe."
+
+"Except the one I showed you as we passed."
+
+"Oh, that mean little cottage--impossible. We could never think of
+living there."
+
+"Nevertheless, let us look at it. You know we are but just beginning the
+world, and 'small beginnings make great endings' as Uncle Brian would
+sagely observe. Come along, my little wife."
+
+She tried to slip from his hand and appeal to Miss Valery, but Anne
+had moved forward, and left them alone. There was no resource; and even
+while Agatha's spirit was rather restive under the coercion, she could
+not but acknowledge the pleasantness with which it was enforced.
+
+"Well, I'll go with you, but I hereby declare rebellion. I will not have
+that miserable nutshell of a house," said she, laughing.
+
+Yet it was a pretty nutshell--quite after the "love in a cottage"
+fashion--though adorned and perfected by the late Mr. Wilson, an old
+bachelor.
+
+"Did he die here?" asked Agatha.
+
+"No; in Cornwall," Anne answered. "He had gone over to look at some
+property I have lately bought there. The people on it, miners thrown
+out of work, gave him more anxiety than he could bear, for he was not
+strong. He said their misery broke his heart."
+
+Miss Valery spoke softly, but the words caught Nathanael's ear. He
+looked greatly shocked--and said, in a low tone, "Anne, don't talk of
+this. If I live, the wrong shall be atoned for."
+
+Agatha wondered for the moment what wrong there was which made her
+husband look so pained and humbled. But she forbore to ask questions,
+and again turned her attention to the house.
+
+"It must have been a charming nest for an old bachelor, and I would have
+liked it very much myself had I been an old maid. But it would never do
+for _us_, you know."
+
+Nathanael smiled, so loth to contradict her, or thwart her pretty ways.
+
+"Don't you see, Miss Valery;" Agatha continued, gathering apprehensions
+from his silence, smiling though it was--"Don't you see how different
+the cases are? This little house might do very well for Mr. Wilson,
+but then if my husband takes his place as your steward, it is only for
+amusement. We are rich people, you know."
+
+"My poor child!" began Anne Valery, looking regretfully, nay,
+reproachfully at Mr. Harper. But he whispered as he passed:
+
+"Not yet, Anne--for my father's sake--the whole family's--nay, her own.
+Not just yet!"
+
+Such was his earnestness, such his air of command, that, for the
+second time, Anne, looking in his face and reading the old likeness
+there--obeyed him.
+
+Agatha, wondering, uncomfortable, recommenced what she jestingly called
+"her little rebellion." "I see, Mr. Harper, your heart is inclining to
+this place, though why or wherefore I cannot tell. But do incline it
+back again! We must have the other house--that delicious Honeywood."
+
+"My dear little wife! Nobody could live at Honeywood under a thousand a
+year."
+
+"Well, and have we not that? I am sure I thought I had more money than
+ever I could do with. How much have I?"
+
+He hesitated--she fancied it was at the thoughtless "I," and generously
+changed the expression.
+
+"How much have _we?_"
+
+"Enough--I will make it enough--to keep you from wanting anything, and
+give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not enough to
+warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it--not even for your
+sake, Agatha."
+
+"I do not see the matter as you do."
+
+"You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing--when, on various
+accounts, I can judge better than she can--will not my wife trust me?"
+
+And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, "Trust him."
+
+Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more
+bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband
+and Anne Valery.
+
+"You expect too much," she said, sharply. "I cannot trust, even though I
+may be compelled to obey."
+
+Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. "Agatha, what must--what can I
+do? No," he muttered to himself, "I can do nothing." He walked to the
+window, and stood looking out mutely on the little garden--tiny, but so
+pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees
+serving as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia,
+woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and
+singing over the few fallen leaves.
+
+While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of
+draperies to the door.
+
+"My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha--Anne! How d'ye
+do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?"
+
+"We were coming directly," Agatha said. "But how did you find out we
+were at Kingcombe?"
+
+"You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne
+Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke
+Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily
+circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know,
+the grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid
+told it to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss
+Trenchard, who was coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the
+children their dinner, and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as
+one of Nathanael's Red Indians. And here I am."
+
+She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in
+all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured,
+that her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha--more especially as, for
+a great wonder, she asked no questions.
+
+"So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty
+place, isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would
+not let it go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house,
+with all the furniture just as it was. How melancholy!"
+
+She said "How melancholy!" just in the tone that she would have
+said "How entertaining!" From circumstances, or from natural
+peculiarity--that light easy temper which dances like a feather over the
+troubled waters of life--she had evidently never learnt the meaning of
+the word sorrow.
+
+"But now," Harriet continued, "what I come for, is to carry you all off
+to lunch--the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your
+nephews."
+
+Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews!
+
+"And such boys!" Miss Valery added, interposing. "'The Missus' has
+good right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie
+succeeds better than another, it is in the management of her children."
+
+"Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature," cried Mrs.
+Dugdale; but her eye--the mother's eye--twinkled with pleasure all the
+time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She walked
+off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed
+behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr.
+Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another.
+
+"I declare there is Duke!" cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. "Just look at
+him, meandering up and down the town." (Agatha laughed at the word;
+"meandering" seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) "But
+my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does
+yours? I beg your pardon--since you are watching him as if you thought
+he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha--(I always call everybody by
+their Christian names)--Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his
+brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look."
+
+The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at
+the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and
+earnestly, as men will do--Nathanael having apparently forgotten the
+bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's
+heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.
+
+Neither spoke to their wives--being busy laying their heads together
+over a newspaper--until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her
+husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At
+last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage,
+mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young
+kitten.
+
+"Nay, now, Missus--don't'ee, love; I'm busy.--And you see, Nathanael,
+as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr.
+Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you
+think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard
+wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction."
+
+"Wouldn't he?" said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician,
+who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At
+which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with "Vote
+for Trenchard!" stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner
+shouting:
+
+"Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!--and give us a
+shilling! Amen!"
+
+"You see now what comes of your politics," cried his wife, trying to
+pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a
+perplexed expression troubling his face.
+
+"It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny
+for drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what
+it is, Nathanael," and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always
+broadened when he was very earnest, "those lads drink because they are
+starving--drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be
+starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore,
+hurrah for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling!
+Only don't'ee let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no
+bribery money o' Mr. Trenchard's, its _mine_.
+
+"Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!"
+shouted the men as they staggered off.
+
+Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile
+which made his ugly face quite beautiful--at least Agatha thought
+so;--which was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least
+notice of her all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing
+way.
+
+"Eh--what, Missus? did you say Mrs. Harper was here?" He shook hands
+with her, looking in another direction;--then again turned to Nathanael.
+
+"Utterly useless!" cried Harrie, laughing. "He's more misty than usual
+to-day. Let us leave the men alone, stupid bears as they are! and come
+up-stairs to the children."
+
+All this time no one asked or looked for Miss Valery, who had lingered
+behind, bidding them go forward. It seemed the habit of the family that
+she should be left to go about in her own fashion, interfered with by
+nobody, and attended by nobody, save when she came among them to do them
+good. It was not wonderful; since, having passed that time of youth when
+a pleasant woman is everybody's petted darling, she had lived to feel
+herself alone in the world--wife, sister, and child to no one. It always
+takes a certain amount of moral courage to meet that destiny.
+
+Aided by the beneficial influence of dinner, which in the Dugdales'
+house seemed to have the mysterious property of extending over an
+indefinite time, Agatha had succeeded in making friends with her
+"nephews" to say nothing of a lovely little niece, who would persist in
+putting chubby arms round "Pa's" neck, and dividing his attention sorely
+between Free-trade and rice-pudding. Mr. Harper had taken another child
+on his knee, and was cutting oranges and doing "Uncle Nathanael" to
+perfection. His wife stole beside him with affection. Why would he not
+be always as now? Why was he so good, so gentle to others, yet so hard
+to be understood by her? Was it her own fault? She almost believed so.
+
+On this group, all happy, all united together by those lovely links in
+the chain of happiness--little children--Anne Valery entered. She passed
+round the table, having a word, or smile, or kiss for all. Then she
+went to an arm-chair, looking tired, though joining all the while in the
+conversation, particularly with Mr. Dugdale, who seemed to have a great
+regard for her.
+
+"Ah, Miss Valery, I wish you were a man, and could vote for us!" said
+he, peering from underneath the baby-hands which made a pointed Norman
+arch over "Pa's" eyes. "You'd be sure to vote on the right side. Didn't
+we make a convert of you, Brian and I, years before people talked of
+Free-trade; long before he went out, and I got married to mamma there?
+Eh, Brian, my lad"--and he patted his youngest boy, throned on
+Mr. Harper's knee--"if you only grow up such a wise man as your
+grand-uncle!"
+
+Agatha was amused to see how the idea and recollection of Uncle Brian
+had permeated through every branch of the Harper family. Almost every
+family has some such personage, mythical, sublime, exciting the wonder
+and hero-worship of all the young people. Little Brian opened wide his
+large grey eyes at the mention of his honoured namesake.
+
+But while he gazed, his papa's pudding-laden spoon stopped half-way on
+its journey to the baby-mouth that was waiting for it--Duke Dugdale was
+in a reverie. He did not even hear the little clamourer on his knee.
+
+"Really, now, that's very odd, very odd indeed." And he felt anxiously
+in his pocket. "No, I had another coat on that day--mamma, where's my
+grey overcoat?"
+
+"Duke--what on earth are you talking about? Now, Agatha, confess--isn't
+my husband the very vaguest, mistiest man you ever knew? Oh, you dear
+old visionary, what do you want with grey overcoats at dinner-time?"
+
+He smiled patiently--perhaps he did not even hear--put down his little
+girl, and walked out of the room, his wife anxiously jumping up and
+following with some pathetic exclamation about "Duke's being so cross!"
+Which seemed to Agatha the most amusing exaggeration possible.
+
+In a minute or two this most opposite couple--opposite, but fitting like
+a dovetailed joint--came in merrily together, Harrie holding a letter.
+
+"Would you believe, he got it last week, has been carrying it about ever
+since, and never thought of it! There, Nathanael, it's yours! Devour
+it!"
+
+"From Uncle Brian!" cried the young man. At which name there ran a great
+sensation throughout the family, in all but Miss Valery, who still kept
+her chair.
+
+"News! news!" cried Harrie, Agatha and the boys gathering round. Mr.
+Dugdale walked up and down the room--his hands behind him--smiling in
+benevolent content at everybody and at nobody. Brian and his tiny sister
+consoled themselves for the little attention they got by slily climbing
+on the table and embedding their fingers in the rice-pudding.
+
+Nathanael read the letter aloud, as seemed to be the family custom with
+Uncle Brian's correspondence.
+
+
+"My dear Boy," I find the Western solitudes are no nearer heaven than
+civilisation. My two red friends having escaped and got back, which they
+did on purpose to tomahawk me--I gave the tribe the slip, and am here in
+New York. There I accidentally received your letter.
+
+"You are a foolish boy. When I was young, I think I would rather have
+died than have married a rich woman, even if she loved me, which no
+woman ever did. Nevertheless, I hope you will fare better than you
+deserve.
+
+"Shall you ever come back to America? Not on my account, I pray, though
+I miss you, and am getting old and lonely. Perhaps it is as well that
+you left me, and have married and settled. That seems to me now the
+happier, worthier life for a man to lead. I should like to come and see
+you, if I could come not quite the beggar I am now. Therefore, I often
+think I shall go to California."
+
+There was a light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was
+found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's
+shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it
+with him. She moved her head in thanks, and he continued:
+
+"If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a
+little of that cursed--I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in
+England. Till then--or till death--which seems equally likely, I remain,
+
+"Your affectionate Uncle,
+
+"Brian Locke Harper.
+
+"P.S.--I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New York.
+Tell my old friend Duke that I congratulate him on having given up
+merchandising, so that my brother at Kingcombe Holm can no longer
+reproach him with being the only one of the Harper connection who
+_earns_ a livelihood."
+
+
+This letter, which was trying to read, being sharp and stinging on many
+points to more than one person present, Nathanael went steadily through,
+though several times his colour changed. No one made any comment
+except Agatha, who observed "that Uncle Brian must be rather bitter and
+sarcastic at heart."
+
+"No--not bitter," Anne Valery said,--"only sorrowful. It is often so,
+when after a hard life men feel themselves growing old. What shall you
+do, Nathanael?"
+
+"About what? His going to California? Nay, I cannot prevent that. What
+use in my writing when he gives me such lectures about my marriage?"
+
+"He would not if he knew Agatha. Besides, in this doctrine he is a
+little wrong. It is of small moment on which side lies the wealth;--love
+makes all things even."
+
+Mr. Harper turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had
+already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that
+at the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim
+her right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.
+
+The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys
+were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian
+would not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject
+Nathanael was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory
+information. Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden
+behind, where Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling
+up and down in close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha
+noticed that. Anne Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr.
+Dugdale's "mistiness" of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was
+shaking his companion warmly by the hand.
+
+"Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in
+coming into _my_ head. And it's just the very thing. It will give him
+occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover"--and a
+sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure--"I shouldn't
+wonder if it brought him home."
+
+"Hush!"
+
+"Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by,
+Anne"--here a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man--"what a help
+he would be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn't _he_ see the
+blessing of Free-trade?"
+
+Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and
+they stepped in at the window;--Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away,
+lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was
+doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell
+as abundant and unnoticed as rain.
+
+"Now"--and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little
+rosy chin and kissing him--"now, who will come back with us to that
+grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt
+Mary is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?"
+
+All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will,
+by her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a
+helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them
+on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving
+that she had reached home alive.
+
+Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody asked
+what she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly
+suspected he had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes
+of her Kingcombe tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and
+Free-trade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table
+was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His
+grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only
+enriched his courtesies, like the "body" in mellow old wine. He leaned
+graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long
+table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most
+of them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary,
+taking the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black
+velvet dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of
+the family; while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side
+of the host, and were duly honoured by him.
+
+Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked
+very pretty, her girlish _abandon_ of manner softened by a certain
+wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position
+well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her
+husband to see if he were satisfied with her--a fact which no one but
+herself could doubt.
+
+"Now, my children," said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn,
+and dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he
+was so fond--"now, my children--I may call you all so?" and he smiled at
+Anne Valery--"let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and especially
+the youngest of you"--here he softly patted Agatha's hand, on the table.
+"And since we always drink healths here--a good old fashion that I
+should be loth to renounce--let me give you the first toast--Mr. and
+Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!"
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table,
+at which indecorum--probably occasioned by a county meeting that was
+running in his head--his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But the
+severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round.
+After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:
+
+"Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne--my wife and I thank you all"
+
+"What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'" said the Squire,
+turning to his daughter-in-law. "A remnant of my young days, when every
+lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every
+gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table,
+Anne, where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the
+pleasure of giving yours."
+
+"Thank you," said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite
+with the old gentleman.
+
+"You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with
+this lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held
+over her the right which I understand my eldest son"--he paused a
+moment--"which Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her
+grandfather left me his executor and sole guardian of his infant
+heiress. I was a young man then, but I tried to deserve his trust. Did
+I, Anne?"
+
+Again she smiled--most affectionately.
+
+"And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest
+heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me
+infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred
+trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne--let us drink
+his memory."
+
+Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the glass to his lips--a
+glass filled with only water--he never took wine.
+
+"You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost
+or absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and
+of old times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable
+pleasant recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our
+guests at Kingcombe Holm.--Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast."
+
+Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but
+met nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought--remembering
+her own few ties--that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one
+nearest to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave "Uncle Brian."
+
+Every one applauded--the Squire graciously acknowledging the compliment
+to his brother.
+
+"The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much
+regarded by me," he explained to his daughter-in-law. "In spite of
+the great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our
+characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian." And
+hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read
+aloud by his son--saving the wise omission of the postscript.
+
+"Go to California?" said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. "I do not
+like that--it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and daring
+enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so, Anne?"
+
+Anne assented.
+
+"He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before
+he left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get
+some ice for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl."
+It was touching to hear him call Miss Valery a "girl"--she whom the
+young Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.
+
+"And though he did leave us so abruptly--wherefore, remains to this day
+a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change--still I
+have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper," continued the Squire, who
+seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.
+
+"Brian Harper!" exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. "Yes--Brian
+would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His
+judgment was always as sound as his politics."
+
+"What was your remark, Marmaduke" said the old Squire, testily.
+
+"O, nothing--nothing, father!" Harrie quickly answered, with a half
+merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up
+again into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl
+in his keeping--the undoubted value of which there is no need either to
+put forward or to defend.
+
+Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into
+a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of
+unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be
+called even by those that loved her, "an old maid." And when at last the
+Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated
+away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as
+though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business,
+and of thinking and judging for everybody.
+
+Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be
+the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching
+Anne Valery.
+
+There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman
+occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself.
+It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of
+love--in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its
+hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this
+reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love,
+the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which
+makes--according to the Platonic doctrine--a perfect being. Of
+course, this theory would be almost universally considered
+"sentimentalism"--Agatha's little infatuation being included therein;
+but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us
+argues some truth at their origin.
+
+To the young girl--still so girlish, though she was married--there was
+an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very
+sweep of her dress across the floor--her slow soft motions, which might
+have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and
+self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and
+looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from
+sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy
+nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way,
+so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards--all filled
+Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she
+had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago--or that her
+own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser
+and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman
+as Miss Valery.
+
+Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she
+wished to appropriate her--and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so long
+discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging
+to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs.
+Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the
+part of the Beauty--which had reference to a certain "Edward"--about
+whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to
+Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they
+two--Mrs. Harper and herself--should go and visit Elizabeth.
+
+Passing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly,
+stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over
+the hills.
+
+"Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we
+do when we are young!" The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over
+her quiet face like a cloud over the moon--surprised and touched Agatha.
+
+"Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since
+I was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for
+stopping here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let
+us pass on."
+
+She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a
+pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.
+
+Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and
+it was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking
+fingers could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind--clear,
+delicate, well-arranged, exact.
+
+"We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?"
+
+"Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad,
+you are aware?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?" said
+Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.
+
+Both answered in the negative--Miss Valery saying, with attempted
+gaiety, "You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael.
+He can be both deaf and dumb."
+
+"Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out
+that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever
+she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen
+Nathanael when he came down to us that week."
+
+"What did he do?" the young wife asked, not without some painful
+curiosity--for sometimes, in the moments when she could not "make out"
+her husband's rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered
+that perhaps Mr. Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion
+was too sudden to be a lasting reality.
+
+"What did he do?--Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very self-possessed.
+You could hardly tell he was in love at all. Nobody ever guessed it but
+I--not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he was determined to
+have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing--Oh, I knew you would
+be married to him! You could not help it!"
+
+"Nor did she wish--nor need she," said Anne, gently, as she saw Agatha's
+confusion. "But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I hear
+that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family. Edward
+Thorpe has got the living--the richest one."
+
+"So, of course, Eulalie will marry him." The deduction reached Agatha as
+rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her
+own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual
+plain speeches:
+
+"Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?"
+
+The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said,
+"Answer that question, Anne."
+
+"What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?"
+
+"One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the
+man she is to marry?"
+
+"Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well
+for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as
+a matter of necessity. As for love--have you noticed, Agatha, how many
+women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long
+life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real
+meaning of the word?"
+
+Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen.
+The subject came home to her. "Will Eulalie be one of these?"
+
+"I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will
+never know what is real love."
+
+"Tell me, what is that sort of love--the right love--which one ought to
+bring to one's husband?"
+
+Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. "Are you
+seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?"
+
+"Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'"
+
+"Almost every human being loves in a different way."
+
+"Well, then, your way I mean." But noticing the momentary reticence
+which Anne's manner showed, she added, "I mean the kind of love you have
+most sympathy with in other people."
+
+"I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that
+Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker
+(not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is
+pleasant to see young people loving one another."
+
+"Still, you have not told me what _you_ call loving."
+
+"Do you really wish to hear?" said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a
+low voice, she added: "I would have every woman marry, not merely liking
+a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly,
+that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none
+other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his
+little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet
+would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to
+look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true,
+and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor
+burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely
+independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry
+neither from liking, esteem, nor gratitude for his love, but from the
+fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens"--and
+Anne's voice slightly faltered--"God will cause them to meet in the next
+existence. They cannot be parted--they belong to one another."
+
+All were silent--these three women--one to whom love must have been
+only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk
+of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat
+thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which
+brought with it her own condemnation.
+
+"You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it
+romance."
+
+"Would they? And do you?"
+
+"Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like
+perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life."
+
+"Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find
+approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too
+old for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite
+all I have seen--the false, foolish, weak attachments--the unholy
+marriages--the after-life of marriage made unholier still by struggling
+against what was inevitable--still I believe in the one true love which
+binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life and, God grant
+it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this--little wife? You
+do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?"
+
+Agatha tried to smile--to conceal the pain rising in her heart.
+
+"Come then, I will teach you how to love him--in better words than
+mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her
+poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'"
+
+"Any woman would," answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book
+which Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which "poor
+Elizabeth" looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a
+friend.
+
+"Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there," said
+Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was
+not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice
+was hardly like itself--at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard
+it--when she began to read:
+
+"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth,
+and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
+For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every
+day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as
+men strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise:
+I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my
+childhood's faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost
+saints; I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and,
+if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
+
+There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh
+behind her.
+
+Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in,
+no one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were
+closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a
+lost or impossible paradise.
+
+"Agatha!" She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest
+aspect--that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling within
+her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression--scarcely meant
+to pass her lips--and inaudible to all save him:
+
+"Oh, why--why did I marry!"
+
+The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but
+Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he
+seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him:
+
+"Are you come to talk with us, or to fetch your wife away?"
+
+"Neither," he said, bitterly. But recovering himself--"Nay, Anne, I came
+for you. My father wishes to see you. He will hear nothing I can urge.
+You must come down and talk with him, or I do not know what will be
+done."
+
+Agatha had until now forgotten that her husband had intended after
+dinner to tell his father his plans concerning the stewardship. It had
+been apparently a harder task than he thought, to strive with the old
+Squire's prejudices. Seeing his extreme perturbation, Agatha repented
+herself deeply of any unkindness towards him.
+
+She went to his side. "What is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you."
+
+"You!" he echoed; then added, with an accent studiously kind, "Thank
+you, Agatha. You are very good always."
+
+He let her take his arm and stand talking with himself and Miss Valery.
+
+"I feared it would be so," the latter said. "Your father has a strong
+will; still he can be persuaded. We must try."
+
+"But only persuasion--no reasons. Understand me, Anne--no reasons!"
+
+Miss Valery looked at the young man very earnestly.
+
+"Nathanael, if I did not know you well, and know too whose guidance
+formed your character, it would be hard to trust you."
+
+"Anne!" Again the peculiar manner which sometimes appeared in him,
+making him seem much older than his years, had its strange influence
+with Miss Valery, guiding her by an under-current deeper even than her
+judgment.
+
+"Ay," she said in a whisper, "I will trust you. Let us go down." And she
+turned with him to say good-bye to Miss Harper.
+
+The excitement of talking had been too much for "poor Elizabeth." One
+of her "dark hours" was upon her. The eyes were closed, and the face
+sharpened under keen physical pain. Agatha could hardly bear to see her;
+but Nathanael bent over his sister with that soothing kindness which in
+a man is so beautiful.
+
+"Shall we stay with you? at least, shall I?"
+
+Elizabeth motioned a decided negative.
+
+"I know," Miss Valery said, apart, "she had rather be alone. No one can
+do her good, and it is too much for this child, who is not used to it as
+we are."
+
+Calling Elizabeth's maid from the inner room, Anne hurried Agatha away.
+She, clinging to her husband's arm, heard him say, half to himself:
+
+"And yet we think life hard, and murmur at that we have, and grieve for
+that we have not! We are very wicked, all of us. Poor Elizabeth!"
+
+The three went very silently down-stairs.
+
+At the dining-room door Mrs. Harper let go her husband's arm.
+
+"Why are you leaving me, Agatha?"
+
+"Because I thought--I imagined, perhaps you wished"--
+
+"I wish to have you with me always. Anne knows," and he looked pointedly
+at Miss Valery, "that I shall never respond to, and most certainly never
+volunteer, any confidence to either her or my father that I do not share
+with my wife. She has the first claim, and what is not hers no other
+person shall obtain."
+
+Anne looked puzzled. At last she said, in an under tone, "I think I
+understand, and you are quite right. I shall remember."
+
+The old Squire was sitting in his arm-chair, the dessert and wine still
+before him. The cheerfulness of the dinner-circle over, he looked very
+aged now--aged and lonely too, being the only occupant of that large
+room. He raised his head when Miss Valery entered, but seemed annoyed at
+the entrance of his daughter-in-law.
+
+"Mrs. Harper! I did not mean to encroach on _your_ leisure."
+
+"No, father; it was I who wished her to come. Forgive me, but I could
+not bring Miss Valery into our family councils and exclude my own wife.
+She is not a stranger now."
+
+Saying this, Nathanael placed Agatha in a chair and stood beside her,
+taking her cold hand, for with all her power she could not keep herself
+from trembling. She had never known anything of those formidable affairs
+which are called "family quarrels."
+
+"Now, father," he continued in a straightforward but respectful manner,
+"Anne will answer any question to prove what I have already told
+you--that it is at my own request she takes me for her steward."
+
+"Her friend and adviser," Anne interposed.
+
+"I never doubted, Nathanael, that it was at your own request. Otherwise
+it were impossible that Miss Valery would so far have insulted my
+family."
+
+At these words Anne coloured, and moved a step or two with something of
+the pride of her young days. "I did not think, Mr. Harper, that it
+would have been either an insult to offer, or a disgrace to accept, the
+position which your son desires to hold. Far be it from me in any way to
+wrong any member of your family, especially the son whom your wife left
+in my arms--and Brian's--when she died."
+
+Agatha had never before heard Miss Valery say "Brian." She was evidently
+speaking as people do when much moved, using a form of phrase and
+alluding to things not commonly referred to.
+
+The old Squire sat silent a minute, and then stretched out his hand. "I
+know your goodness, Anne! But I cannot renounce all my rights. Even a
+younger son must not throw discredit on his family. Except in one brief
+instance, for centuries there has never been a Harper who worked for his
+living."
+
+"Then, father, let me be the first to commence that act of inconceivable
+boldness and energy," said Nathanael, with a good-humoured persuasive
+smile. "Let me, being likewise a younger son, take a leaf out of Uncle
+Brian's book, and try to labour, as he once did, in my own county, with
+the honour of my own race about me."
+
+"And what did he effect? Was he not looked down upon, humiliated,
+cheated? I never ride past his old deserted clay-pits without being
+thankful that he went to Canada, rather than have disgraced us by what
+his folly must have come to at last. He would have lost the little he
+had--have been bankrupt, perhaps dishonoured."
+
+"Mr. Harper!"--Anne rose from her chair--"I think you speak rather
+hardly of your brother. It never could be said, or will be said, that
+Brian Harper was _dishonoured._"
+
+At these words, spoken with unusual warmth, Nathanael gratefully clasped
+her hand. The Squire observed, with added dignity, that no one could be
+more sensible than himself of his brother's merit, and that he thanked
+Miss Valery for extending her kind interests to every branch of the
+Harper family.
+
+"And now," he continued, "we will cease this conversation. My son
+knows my sentiments, and will doubtless act upon them. I never maintain
+arguments with my children." And the sentence implied that what "I never
+do," was consequently a thing unnecessary and impossible to be done. The
+old gentleman leant on each arm of his chair, and feebly tried to rise.
+
+"Father," cried Nathanael, detaining him, "I would do much rather than
+try you thus; but it cannot be helped. I must work."
+
+"I do not see the necessity."
+
+"But if there be a necessity; if my own feelings, my conscience--other
+reasons, which here I cannot urge"--and involuntarily his eye glanced
+towards his wife.
+
+An instinct of delicacy brightened the old man's perceptions. He bowed
+to Agatha. "We need not apologise for these discussions before a lady
+who has done my son the honour of uniting her fortune to his ancient
+family." (And he evidently thought the honour bestowed was quite as
+much on the Harper side.) "She, I am sure, will agree with me that this
+proceeding is not necessary."
+
+Agatha hesitated. Much as she longed to do it, a sense of right
+prevented her from openly siding against her husband. She kept silence;
+Nathanael answered with the tone of one who sets a strong guard upon his
+lips, almost stronger than he can bear:
+
+"I have already told my wife all the reasons I have just given you,
+that, since I am resolved to be independent, there is no way but this. I
+have been brought up abroad, and have learnt no profession; my health is
+not robust enough for a town life, or for hard study. Many, almost all
+the usual modes in which a man, born a gentleman, can earn his living
+are thus shut out from me. What Anne Valery offers me I _can_ do,
+and should be content in doing. Father, do not stand in the way of my
+winning for myself a little comfort--a little peace."
+
+Through his entreaty, earnest and manly as it was, there ran a sort of
+melancholy which surprised and grieved Agatha. Could this be the lover
+on whom, in giving him herself, she believed she had bestowed entire
+felicity? Had he too, like herself, found a something wanting in
+marriage, a something to fill up which he must needs resort to an active
+career of worldly toil? Would she never be able to make either him or
+herself truly happy? and if so, what was the cause?
+
+The Squire keenly regarded his son, who stood before him in an attitude
+so respectful yet so firm. Something seemed to strike him in the pale,
+delicate, womanish features; perhaps he saw therein the wife who had
+died when Nathanael was born, and whose death, people said, had chilled
+the father's heart strangely against the poor babe.
+
+"My son," he said, "you have been away from me nearly all your life--and
+where I have given little, I can require little. But I am an old man.
+Do not let me feel that you too are setting yourself against my grey
+hairs."
+
+"God knows, father, I would not for worlds! But what can I do? Anne,
+what can I do?"
+
+Anne rose, and leant over Mr. Harper's chair, like a privileged eldest
+daughter who secretly strengthened with her judgment the wisdom that
+was growing feeble through old age; doing it reverently, as we all would
+wish our children to do when our own light grows dim. For, alas! the
+wisest and firmest of us may come one day to mutter in the ears of
+a younger generation the senile cry, "I am old and foolish--old and
+foolish."
+
+"Dear friend--if Nathanael follows out this plan, it will be for the
+comfort and not the disquiet of your grey hairs. Think how pleasant
+always to have a son at hand, and a young, pretty Mrs. Harper to
+brighten Kingcombe Holm."
+
+This was a wise thrust--the old gentleman looked in his
+daughter-in-law's fair face, and bowed complacently.
+
+"Then, too, your son will live in the country, lead the life that he
+loves, and that you love--the very life which all these years you have
+been vainly planning for his brother."
+
+The Squire turned sharply round. "On that subject, if you please, we
+will be silent. Anne, Anne," he added, "do you want again to turn my
+plans aside? Would you take from me my other son also?"
+
+She drew back, much wounded.
+
+"No, no, my dear, I did not mean that. It was not your fault--you
+two were not suited for each other. Nevertheless, in spite of your
+wilfulness, in nothing but the name did I lose a daughter. Forgive me,
+Anne!"
+
+"My dear old friend," she whispered, and stole her fingers into the
+withered palm of the Squire. He kissed them with the grace of an old
+courtier: the tenderness of a father. She, though moved at his kindness,
+betrayed no stronger emotion; and Agatha, who had watched intently
+this little episode, confirmatory of an old suspicion of her own, was
+considerably puzzled thereby. If Anne Valery's life contained any sad
+secret, it was evidently not this. She had not remained an old maid for
+love of Major Harper.
+
+"Nathanael," said the old man, returning with dignity to the former
+conversation, "I would not be harsh or unjust. There is but one way to
+reconcile our opposing wills, since you are determined on this scheme of
+independence. You have told me your plan--will you accept mine?"
+
+"Let me hear it, father," answered Nathanael respectfully.
+
+"You have hitherto had nothing from me--your Uncle Brian insisted on
+that--nor will you ever have much; I must keep my property intact for
+the next heir of Kingcombe Holm. Nothing shall alienate the rights of
+my eldest son, with whom rests the honour of our family and name."
+
+Agatha noticing the determined pride with which her father-in-law said
+this, wondered that her husband listened with a lowered aspect and made
+no response. She thought it unbrotherly, unkind.
+
+"But," continued Mr. Harper, "though the chief of all I possess must
+remain secure for Frederick, I have a little besides, saved for my
+daughters' portions. If, with their consent, I lend you this, and you
+will embark in some profession"--
+
+"No, father, no! I will never take one farthing from you or my sisters!
+I will not again be burdened with other people's property! Oh for the
+days when I earned my own solitary bread from hand to mouth, and was
+free and at rest!"
+
+He spoke excitedly, and was only conscious of the extent of what he had
+said by feeling his wife's hand drop slowly from his own.
+
+"Nay, Agatha, I did not mean"--and he tried to draw it back again.
+"Forgive me."
+
+"Perhaps we have both need to forgive one another."
+
+No one heard this mournful whisper between the young husband and wife;
+they stood as if it had not been uttered--for both their consciences
+felt duty to be a bond as strong as love.
+
+And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten
+heavy strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time--too
+swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her
+pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon.
+
+"My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time
+has not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any
+of us. Let Agatha decide."
+
+The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a
+compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride
+of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will
+which any father looking into Nathanael's face could see was not to be
+threatened into concession.
+
+"_Pas aux dames,_" said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air.
+Then more seriously: "My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you
+stand between your husband and his father."
+
+Agatha, thrust into so new and important a position, felt a rush of
+temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss
+Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her
+husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain
+desperation.
+
+"He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful
+child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of
+what I shall say."
+
+And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly
+judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and
+a better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward
+and forward the still unfamiliar wedding-ring, until in accidentally
+feeling the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality.
+
+"I am a wife," she thought. "Under _all_ circumstances I will do a
+wife's duty." And with that determination all the pleasant little
+follies and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left
+her--as one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing
+else--resolute and at ease.
+
+She said very simply--almost childishly--taking her father-in-law's hand
+the while, "If you please, and if you would not be angry, I would rather
+do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best."
+
+In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes
+after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire
+had walked off, not angrily, but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss
+Valery's arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with
+Nathanael.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+"So here is the result of family dinner-parties, and family-talks kept
+up till midnight!" said Mary Harper, with a little natural acerbity.
+"It is provoking for the mistress of a precise household to sit waiting
+breakfast for a whole hour."
+
+"Mary, be charitable! We did not know you were ready, and we were so
+busy in my room. No laziness, was it, Agatha?"
+
+"No, indeed: I think Miss Valery is the very busiest woman I ever knew.
+How can she get through it all?"
+
+"Only by first making up my mind, and then acting upon it. Your
+husband's plan, too, I see. He and I shall get on as if we had worked
+together all our lives. Shall we not, my 'right-hand' Nathanael?"
+
+He answered pleasantly; he looked quite a new man this morning. "Yes: I
+seem to understand your ways already. My first half-hour's business in
+the memorable 'Anne's room' at Kingcombe Holm has been like a return of
+old times. What a woman you are! You might have been brought up as I was
+by Uncle Brian. You have just his ways."
+
+Anne smiled: and with a jest about the treble compliment he had
+contrived to pay, let the conversation slip past to other things.
+
+Mary and Eulalie talked excessively. They were both much scandalised by
+their brother's new position and intended course of life, to be put in
+practice immediately.
+
+Both the Miss Harpers were that sort of feminine minds which are like
+some kinds of flower-bells--the less fair the wider they open. Agatha
+wondered to see how very patient Miss Valery was over Mary's mild
+platitudes and Eulalie's follies. But Anne's good heart seemed to cast
+a shield of tenderness over everybody that bore the name of Harper. At
+length the young wife got tired of the after-breakfast discussion, which
+consisted of about a dozen different plans for the day--severally put
+up and knocked down again--each contradicting the other. The mild
+_laissez-faire_ of country life in a large family was quite too much for
+her patience; she longed to get up and shake everybody into common-sense
+and decision. But her husband and Miss Valery took everything
+easily--they were used to the ways at Kingcombe Holm.
+
+"Oh, if your sister Harriet would but come in, or Mr. Dugdale!" she
+whispered to her husband, "surely they would settle something."
+
+"Not at all; they would only make matters worse. And, look!--'speaking
+of angels, one often sees their wings.'--Is that you, Marmaduke?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+Mr. Dugdale walked in composedly through the sash-window, beaming around
+him a sort of general smile. He never attempted any individual greeting,
+and Agatha offering her hand, was met by his surprised but benevolent
+"Eh!" However, when required, he gave her a hearty grasp. After which,
+peering dreamily round the room, he pounced upon a queer-looking folio,
+and buried himself therein, making occasional remarks highly interesting
+of their kind, but slightly irrelevant to the conversation in general.
+Agatha amused herself with peeping at the title of the book--some
+abstruse work on mechanical science--and then watched the reader,
+thinking what great intellectual power there was in the head, and what
+acuteness in the eye. Also, he wore at times a wonderfully spiritual
+expression, strangely contrasting with the materiality of his daily
+existence. No one could see that look without feeling convinced that
+there were beautiful depths open only to Divinest vision, in the silent
+and abstracted nature of Marmaduke Dugdale. Nevertheless, he could be
+eminently practical now and then, especially in mechanics.
+
+"Nathanael, Nathanael! just look here. This is the very contrivance that
+would have suited Brian in his old clay-pits. See!"
+
+And he began talking in a style that was Greek itself to Agatha, but to
+which Nathanael, leaning over his chair-back, listened intelligently.
+It was very nice to see the liking between the two brothers-in-law--the
+young man so tender over the oddities of the elder one, who seemed such
+a strange mixture of the philosopher and the child. These were the sort
+of traits which continually turned Agatha's heart towards her husband.
+
+"Talking of clay-pits," said Duke, with a gleam of recollection, "I've
+something for you here!" He drew out of the voluminous mass of papers
+that stuffed his pockets one more carelessly scrawled than the rest.
+"It's a plan of my own, for giving a little help to our own clay-cutters
+and to the stone-cutters in the Isle of Portland, who are shockingly off
+in the winter sometimes. Here's Trenchard's name down for a good sum--it
+will make him and Free-trade popular, you know."
+
+And Mr. Dugdale smiled with the most amiable and innocent
+Machiavellianism.
+
+Nathanael shook his head mischievously, greatly to the amusement of his
+wife, who had stolen up to see what was going on, and stood hanging on
+his arm and peeping over at the illegible paper.
+
+"Excellent plan, Marmaduke--very long-headed. You give them Christmas
+dinners, and they give you--votes."
+
+"Bless you, no! That would be bribery. We"--he reflected a minute--"Oh,
+we will only help those who have got no votes."
+
+"Then the voters will all be against you."
+
+Mr. Dugdale, much puzzled, pushed up his hair until it stood right aloft
+on his forehead. Soon a dawn of satisfaction reappeared. "All against
+us? Dear me, no! They would be pleased to see their poor neighbours
+helped on in the world, as you or I would, you know. They'd side at once
+with Trenchard and Free-trade. Come now, Nathanael, you'll assist? By
+the way, somebody told me you were very rich--or at least that your wife
+was an heiress. She looks a kind little soul She'll put her name down
+under Anne Valery's here?"
+
+And he turned to Agatha with that air of frank goodness by which
+Marmaduke Dugdale could coax everybody round to his own ends.
+
+"Ay, that we will, though I suppose I am not so rich as Miss Valery.
+Still, we have enough to help poor people--have we not?"
+
+She appealed gaily to Mr. Harper, but he replied nothing. She persisted:
+
+"We need not give much, since Mr. Trenchard and Miss Valery are both on
+the list before us. We'll give--let me see--fifty pounds. Ah, now,
+just go up-stairs and fetch me down fifty pounds!" said she, hanging
+caressingly on her husband's arm.
+
+He looked down on her, and looked away. He had become very grave. "We
+will talk of this some other time, dear."
+
+"But another time will not do. I want it now. I fear," she whispered,
+blushing--"I fear, before I married, I was very thoughtless and selfish.
+I would like to cure myself, and spend my money usefully, as Anne Valery
+does. Charity is such a luxury."
+
+"Too dear a luxury for every one," said Nathanael sighing.
+
+She looked up, scarcely believing him to be in earnest. Her
+open-hearted, open-handed nature was much hurt. She said, with a bitter
+meaning:
+
+"I did not know I had such a very prudent husband."
+
+He took no notice, but addressed himself to Mr. Dugdale. "Nay, Duke, you
+and your benevolences are too hard upon us young married people. We must
+tighten our purse-strings against you this time."
+
+Agatha's cheek flamed. "But if _I_ wish it"--
+
+"Dear, it cannot be, we cannot afford it."
+
+Agatha moved angrily from his side, and soon after, though not so soon
+as to attract notice to him or herself, she quitted the room. Scarcely
+had she reached her own when she heard a step behind her.
+
+"Are you angry with me, my wife, and for such a little thing?"
+
+Nathanael stood there, holding both her hands, and looking down upon her
+with a face so kind, so regretful, so grave, that she felt ashamed of
+the quick storm which had ruffled her own spirit The cause of this did
+seem now a very "little thing." She hung her head, child-like, and made
+no answer.
+
+"Why is it," said Mr. Harper, putting his arm round her--"why is it that
+we are always having these 'little things' rising up to trouble us?
+Why cannot we bear with one another, and take the chance-happiness that
+falls to our lot? It is not much, I fear"--
+
+She looked uneasy.
+
+"Nay, perhaps that is chiefly my fault. I often wish Heaven had given
+you a better husband, Agatha."
+
+And his countenance was so softened, mournful, and tender, that Agatha's
+affection returned. There was something childish and foolish in these
+small wranglings. They wore her patience away. For the twentieth time
+she vowed not to make herself unhappy, or restless, or cross, but to
+take Nathanael's goodness as she saw it, believing in it and him. Since
+according to that wise speech of Harriet--which even Anne Valery smiled
+at and did not deny--the best of men were very disagreeable at times,
+and no man's good qualities ever came out thoroughly until he had been
+married for at least a year.
+
+With a tear in her eye and a quiver on her lip, Agatha held up her young
+face to her husband. He kissed her, and there was peace.
+
+But though he had made this concession, and made many others in the
+course of the next hour, to remove from her mind every thought of pain,
+still he showed not the slightest change of will regarding the cause of
+dispute. And perhaps in her secret heart this only caused his wife to
+respect him the more. It is usually the weak and erring who vacillate.
+Firmness of purpose, mildly carried out, implies a true motive at the
+root. Agatha began to think whether her husband might not have some
+reason for his conduct; probably the very simple one of disliking to see
+his name or her own paraded in a subscription-list, or mixed up with a
+political clique.
+
+Nevertheless, he puzzled her. She could not think why, with all his
+tenderness, he so often put his will in opposition to her own, and
+prevented her pleasure; why he was so slow in giving her his confidence;
+why he more than once plainly stated that there was "a reason" for
+various disagreeable whims, yet had not told her what that reason was.
+All these were trivial things--yet in the early sunrise of married life
+the least molehill throws a long black shadow.
+
+"I will be a wise woman. I will not disquiet myself in vain," said the
+little wife to herself, as her husband left her, in answer to repeated
+calls from some feminine voice which had just entered the house, and
+was immediately audible half over it. Harriet Dugdale's, of course. To
+her--sharp-sighted and merry-tongued woman that she was--Agatha would
+not for worlds have betrayed anything; so, dashing cold water on her
+forehead to hide the very near approach to tears, she quickly descended.
+
+Harrie was in a state of considerable indignation, mixed with laughter.
+"I never knew such people as you are! and certainly never was there the
+like of my Duke there. He set off to fetch you all to Corfe Castle--his
+own proposition. I waited an hour and a half--then I took the pony to
+see after you--and lo!--there he is, sitting quite at his ease. Oh,
+Duke--Duke!"
+
+She shook her riding-whip at him twice before she disturbed him from his
+book.
+
+"Eh, Missus--what do'ee want, my child?"
+
+"Want? Don't you see what a passion we're all in? Abuse him,
+Anne--Agatha--Nathanael! Do! I've no patience with him. Didn't he say
+himself that he would take us all to Corfe Castle? Oh, you--you"---- And
+Harrie looked unutterable things.
+
+Mr. Dugdale gazed round placidly. "Really, now, that's a pity! Never
+mind, Missus! I only forgot." And patting her hand with ineffable
+gentleness and good-humour, he opened his book again.
+
+"Oh, you--you"--here she put on a melodramatic scowl--"you inconceivably
+provoking, misty, oblivious, incomprehensible old darling!"
+
+And springing upon the back of his chair, Harrie hugged him to a degree
+that compelled the unfortunate philosopher to renounce his book. He took
+the caresses very patiently, and smiled with superior love upon his
+merry wife.
+
+"That'll do, Missus! Eh--and before folk, too! Now don't'ee, my child!"
+
+And shaking himself, hair and all, into something like order, he picked
+up the folio, tucked it under his arm, and wended his way through the
+window slowly down the lawn.
+
+Agatha glanced at her husband, who stood talking to Miss Valery. She
+wondered what Nathanael would say if _she_ were to take a leaf out of
+his sister's book, and treat her own liege lord after the unceremonious
+fashion of Harrie Dugdale!
+
+"There--off he goes, quite cross, no doubt." (He was smiling as
+benevolently as if he could embrace the whole world.) "But we must catch
+him at the stables. I brought White-star galloping after me, and Duke
+will rouse up when he sees his beloved horse. You shall take my pony,
+Agatha. Of course you can ride?"
+
+Agatha could--in a London riding-school and London parks. She had her
+doubts about the country, but felt strongly inclined to try; for Mrs.
+Dugdale had entered Kingcombe Holm like a breath of keen fresh air,
+putting life and spirit into everybody. Nathanael made no opposition,
+only he insisted on Mary's quiet grey mare being substituted for
+Harrie's skittish pony.
+
+"I shall ride with you part way," said he, "and then leave you in Mr.
+Dugdale's charge, while I stay at Kingcombe."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I have business there."
+
+Still the same weary "business" which he never explained or talked
+about, yet which always seemed to rise up like a bugbear on their
+pleasures, until Agatha was sick of the sound of the word!
+
+She turned away, and put herself altogether under Mrs. Dugdale's care to
+be equipped for the ride.
+
+Anne Valery, coming in with her quiet common sense, succeeded in making
+up the party, which, with one exception, Harrie had left to make itself
+up according to its own discretion. When Mrs. Harper descended, she
+found all settled for the spending of a day at Corfe Castle, in picnic
+style--glorious and free--with a moonlight canter home in the evening.
+No one was omitted except the Squire, who with considerable dignity
+declined such _al fresco_ amusements; and Anne Valery, who promised to
+peep in upon them as she passed the Castle on her way to her own house,
+after spending a few hours with Elizabeth.
+
+Agatha had never been on horseback since she was married. It made her
+feel like a girl again, and brought back all the wild spirits of her
+youth, now repressed in propriety by her changed life--until sometimes
+she hardly knew herself, or fancied she was growing into that object of
+her former scorn, an ordinary young lady. She cast the subdued and meek
+"Mrs. Locke Harper" to the winds, and dashed wildly back for this day at
+least into "Agatha Bowen."
+
+Her husband, putting her on her horse, with many injunctions, was
+surprised to see her give him a careless nod and dart off delightedly,
+as if she and the grey mare had wings. The Dugdales followed, a wild
+pair, for Marmaduke was quite another being on horseback.
+
+"Look at him, Agatha,"--and Harrie's laugh ringing on the wind caused
+the mild grey mare to seem rather restless in her mind. "Did you think
+my Duke could ride as he does? He never looks so well as on horseback.
+He is a perfect Thessalian!"
+
+Agatha was amused to find classic lore in Harrie Dugdale, and she gave
+most cordial admiration to Duke. "He is a magnificent rider; he sits the
+horse just as if he were born to it."
+
+"Bless him! so he was. He rode his father's horses at four years old,
+and went hunting at fourteen. And he has such a beautiful temper, and
+such a firm will besides--that he could manage the wildest brute in the
+county. See there!"
+
+White-star had become rather obstreperous, showing his spirit; his
+master carelessly lent down, giving him a box on each ear, just as if
+the stately blood horse had been a naughty child; then composedly rode
+him back to the two ladies.
+
+"Harrie! Missus! do'ee come on! Nathanael is behind, all right. Come
+along!"
+
+He gave his wife's pony a switch, and off they dashed, she laughing
+merrily, and he galloping away with such ease and grace that Agatha
+could not take her eyes off him.
+
+She looked after them with a vague sense of envy,--this odd married
+pair, in whose union so many things appeared unequal and peculiar,
+except for one thing--the love which hallowed and perfected all. When
+her own husband came up, she, unwilling to talk, and dreading above all
+that his quick eye should detect anything amiss in her, pushed her horse
+forward, and calling to Nathanael to follow, rode on after the Dugdales.
+
+Ere they had ridden far, all her wild spirits came back again, and all
+her wifely feelings too, for her husband seemed as happy as herself, and
+entered into all her frolics. They swept along like two children, across
+the breezy moors, purple and fragrant, down by the hilly sheep-paths,
+lying bare in autumn sunshine. Nathanael proved himself almost as good a
+horseman as Duke Dugdale: a great pleasure to Agatha, for of all things
+women do like a man to be manly. Nay, once, in the descent of a hill so
+steep, that a Cockney equestrian would have been frightened out of his
+seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief
+that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he snatched little
+Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been
+awakened towards him. She hinted this, and said how pleasant it was to
+feel that one's husband was, as she expressed it, "a man that could take
+care of one."
+
+"And how very foolish and helpless townfolk--drawing-room gentlemen,
+appear in the country! I wonder," and she could not help telling him the
+comical idea, though not very complimentary to her husband's brother--"I
+wonder how Major Harper would look on horseback?"
+
+"What did you say? The wind blew that sentence away."
+
+She hardly liked to repeat it exactly, but said something about Major
+Harper and his coming down to Dorset.
+
+Nathanael spurred his horse forward without replying. A minute
+afterwards he returned to his wife's side, bringing her a great bunch of
+heather, with yellow gorse mixed, and made jokes about the Dorsetshire
+saying, "When gorse is out of bloom kissing's out of season." And
+evermore he looked secretly at her, to notice if she laughed and was
+happy, had roses on her cheeks, and pleasure in her eyes. Seeing this,
+the husband appeared contented and at ease.
+
+They and the Dugdales rode merrily into Kingcombe, much to that good
+town's astonishment. The equestrian quartette at Marmaduke's door was
+a sight that the worthy inhabitants of that sleepy street would not get
+over for a week. Everybody gathered at doors and windows, and a small
+group of farmers at the market quadrangle stared with all their eyes.
+The sensation created was enormous, and likewise the crowd,--almost as
+dense as a wandering juggler gathers in a quiet suburban London street!
+Agatha, passing through it, laughed till she could laugh no longer.
+
+Her husband, pleased at her gaiety, came to lift her off her horse.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" Mrs. Dugdale cried. "Keep your seat, Agatha; no time
+to lose; on we go in a minute, when Duke has been to get his letters.
+Here, Brian, my pet."--There had rushed out round her horse a cluster of
+infantine Dugdales.--"Lift Brian up here, Uncle Nathanael, and I'll give
+him a canter. Bravo! He's Pa's own boy, born for a rider! Come along,
+Auntie Agatha."
+
+Agatha would willingly have followed down the street. She was amused by
+the daring of the mother and the boy, and amused especially by her new
+title of "Auntie Agatha."
+
+"Do let me go, Mr. Harper; I don't want to dismount, indeed."
+
+"But I have something to say to you--just a few words. We must decide
+to-day about the house, you know."
+
+"Never mind the house; I had rather not think about it." And the mere
+shadow of past vexation still vexed her. "Ah!" she added, entreatingly,
+"do be good to me--do let me enjoy myself for once!"
+
+"I would not prevent you for the world." He dropped her bridle with a
+sigh, and turned back among his little nephews.
+
+Fred had coaxed the horse from the groom, and Gus was bent on mounting;
+there was a dreadful struggle, and angry cries for Uncle Nathanael. In
+the midst of it Uncle Nathanael appeared, like an angel of peace, and
+setting the boys one behind another on his horse's back, led the animal
+up and down carefully.
+
+Agatha looked after them, thinking how kind and good her husband was.
+She wished she had not refused so hastily such a simple request; she
+began to think herself a wretch for ever contradicting him in anything.
+
+The little party started again, increased by the arrival of the family
+carriage from Kingcombe Holm, wherein sat Mary and Eulalie. To these
+were speedily added the three young Dugdales, all in high glee. And it
+spoke well for the Miss Harpers, whom Agatha was disposed to like least
+of her husband's relatives, that they made very lenient and kindly aunts
+to those obstreperous boys.
+
+Agatha was crossing the bridge which bounded South Street, trying to
+make her horse stand still while Mr. Dugdale pointed out the identical
+red cliff where the Danes drew up their ships, and laughing with Harrie
+at the notion of how terribly frightened the quiet souls in Kingcombe
+would be at such an incursion now, when Nathanael came on foot to his
+wife's side.
+
+"Why did you start without speaking to me?"
+
+"I could not help it; I thought you were gone. You will come after us
+soon?" And she felt angry with herself for having momentarily forgotten
+him.
+
+"I will come when I have settled this business of the house. You
+understand, Agatha, I am obliged to decide to-day? You will not blame
+me afterwards?"
+
+"Oh, no--no!" His extreme seriousness of manner jarred with her youthful
+spirits. She did not think or care about what he did, so that for this
+day only he let her be gay and happy. From some incomprehensible cause,
+his very love seemed to hang over her like a cloud, and so it had been
+from the beginning. She did so long to dash out into the sunshine of
+her careless, girlish life, and scamper over the beautiful country with
+Harrie Dugdale.
+
+"Oh, no!" she repeated only wishing to satisfy him. "Take any house you
+like, and come onward soon; and oh, do let us be cheerful and merry!"
+
+"We will!" His bright look as she patted his shoulder--a very
+venturesome act---gave her much cheer; and when, after she had cantered
+a good way down the road, she turned and saw him still leaning on the
+bridge looking after her, her heart throbbed with pleasure. Despite all
+his reserves and peculiarities, and her own conscious failings, there
+was one thing to which she clung as to a root of comfort that
+would never be taken away, and would surely bear blossom and fruit
+afterwards--the belief that her husband truly loved her.
+
+[Illustration: On horseback  p212]
+
+"If so," she thought, "I suppose all will come right in time, and Agatha
+Harper will be as happy as, or happier than, Agatha Bowen."
+
+So on she went, yielding to the delicious excitement of being on
+horseback. She was also much interested by the country round about,
+which appeared to her as old, desolate, and strange as if she had been
+a Thane's daughter riding across the moors to the gates of that renowned
+castle which, as Harrie declared, putting on the physiognomy of some
+school-child drawling out a history-lesson, "was celebrated for being
+the residence of the ancient Saxon kings."
+
+"And this was the place," continued she in the same tone, pointing to an
+old gate-post--"this was the place where His Majesty's most illustrious
+horse did stop when His Majesty's most sainted body was dragged along by
+the leg, in the stirrup, on account of the wound given him when he was
+a-drinking at the castle-door, by his stepmother, Queen Elfrida. All of
+which is to be seen to the present day."
+
+Agatha first laughed at this comical view of the subject, then she
+felt a little repugnance at hearing that stern old tragedy so lightly
+treated. As she walked her horse along the road which might have been,
+and probably was, the very same Saxon highway as in those times, she
+thought of the wounded horseman dashing out from between those green
+hills and of the murdered body dropping slowly, slowly from the saddle,
+dragged in dust, and beat against stones, until the woman that loved
+him--for even a king might have had some woman that loved him--would not
+have known the face she thought so fair.
+
+It was an idle fancy, but beneath it her tears were rising; chiefly
+for thinking, not of "The Martyr," but of the woman--whoever she
+was--(Agatha had not historical erudition enough to remember if King
+Edward had a wife)--to whom that day's tragedy might have brought
+a lifetime's doom. She began to shudder--to feel that she too was a
+wife--to understand dimly what a wife's love might come to be--also
+something of a wife's terrors. She wished--it was foolish enough, but
+she did wish that Nathanael had not been riding on horseback, or else
+that, in picturing to herself the dead head of the Martyr dragged along
+the road, she did not always see it with long fair hair. And then she
+wondered if these horrible fancies indicated the dawning of that feeling
+which she had deceived herself into believing she already possessed. Was
+she beginning to find out the difference between that quiet response
+to secured affection, that pleasant knowledge of being loved, and
+the strong, engrossing, self-existent attachment which Anne Valery
+described--the passion which has but one object, one interest, one joy,
+in the whole wide world?
+
+Was she beginning really _to love_ her husband?
+
+The answer to that question involved so much, both of what had been, and
+what was yet to come, that Agatha dared not ponder over it.
+
+"Mrs. Harper! Mrs. Harper!" She mused no longer, but hurried on after
+the Dugdales.
+
+It was not to point out the Castle that Harrie had been so vociferous,
+but to show a place which she evidently deemed far more interesting.
+
+"Do you see that white house far among the trees? That's where my Duke
+was born. He lived there in peace and quietness till he got acquainted
+with Uncle Brian, and came to Kingcombe Holm and fell in love with me."
+
+"How did he do it? I want to know what is the fashion of such things in
+Dorset."
+
+"How did Duke fall in love with me? Really I can't tell. I was fifteen
+or so--a mere baby! He first gave me a doll, and then he wanted to marry
+me!"
+
+"But how did he make love, or 'propose' as they call it?" persisted
+Agatha, to whom the idea of Marmaduke Dugdale in that character was
+irresistibly funny.
+
+"Make love? Propose? Bless you, my dear, he never did either! Somehow it
+all came quite naturally. We belonged to one another."
+
+The very phrase Anne Valery had used! It made Nathanael's wife rather
+thoughtful. She wondered what was the feeling like, when people
+"belonged to one another."
+
+But she had no time for meditation; for now the great grey ruin loomed
+in sight, and everybody, including the shouting boys in the carriage
+behind, was eager to point it out, especially when Agatha made the
+lamentable confession that she had never seen a ruined castle in her
+life before.
+
+"And you might go all over England and not find such another as this,"
+said Mr. Dugdale, riding up to her with a smile of great satisfaction.
+"Nobody thinks much of it in these parts, and few antiquarians ever come
+and poke about it. Perhaps it's as well. They couldn't find out more
+than we know already. But no!"--and his eye, taking in the noble
+old ruin arched over by the broad sky, assumed its peculiar dreamy
+expression--"We don't know anything. Nobody knows anything about this
+wonderful world!"
+
+Agatha looked around. On the top of a smooth conical hill, each side of
+which was guarded by other two hills equally smooth and bare, rose the
+wreck of the magnificent fortress, enough of the walls remaining to show
+its extent and plan. Its destroyer had been--not Father Time, who does
+his work quietly and gracefully--but that worse spoiler, man. Huge
+masses of masonry, hurled from the summit, lay in the moat beneath,
+fixed as they had been for centuries, with vegetation growing over them.
+Some of the walls, undermined and shaken from their foundations, took
+strange, oblique angles, yet refused to fall. Marks of cannon-balls were
+indented on the stonework of the battered gateway, which still remained
+a gateway--probably the very same under which Queen Elfrida, "fair and
+false," had offered to her son the stirrup-cup.
+
+The general impression left on the mind was not that of natural decay,
+solemn and holy, but of sudden destruction, coming unawares, and
+struggled against, as a man in the flower of life struggles with
+mortality. There was something very melancholy about the ruined fortress
+left on the hill-top in sight of the little town close below, where its
+desolation was unheeded. Agatha, sensitive, enthusiastic, and easily
+impressed, grew silent, and wondered that her companions could laugh
+so carelessly, even when passing under the grey portal into the very
+precincts of the deserted castle.
+
+"We shall not find a soul here," said Harrie; "scarcely anybody ever
+comes at this season, except when our Kingcombe Oddfellows' Club have
+a picnic on this bowling-green; or schoolboys get together and climb
+up the ivy to frighten the jackdaws--my husband has done it many a
+time--haven't you, Duke?"
+
+"I see mamma," vaguely responded Duke, who was busy lifting his boys
+down from the carriage, with a paternal care and tenderness beautiful
+to see. He then, with one little fellow on his shoulder, another holding
+his hand, and a third clinging to his coat-tails, strode off up the
+green ascent, without paying the slightest attention to Mrs. Harper.
+Which dereliction from the rules of politeness it never once came into
+her mind to notice or to blame.
+
+"There they go! Nobody minds me; it's all Pa!" said Mrs. Dugdale, with
+an assumption of wrath; a very miserable pretence, while her look was so
+happy and fond. "You see, Agatha, what you'll come to--after ten years'
+matrimony!"
+
+Agatha's heart was so full, she could not laugh but sighed, yet it was
+not with unhappiness.
+
+He and Harrie wandered over the castle together, for the two Miss
+Harpers did not approve of climbing. The little boys and "Pa" reappeared
+now and then at all sorts of improbable and terrifically dangerous
+corners, and occasionally Mrs. Dugdale made frantic darts after them.
+Especially when they were all seen standing on one of the topmost
+precipices, the father giving a practical scientific lesson on the
+momentum of falling bodies; in illustration of which Harrie declared he
+would certainly throw little Brian out of his arms, in a fit of absence
+of mind, thoroughly believing the child was a stone.
+
+At last, when their excitement had fairly worn itself out, and even Mrs.
+Dugdale's energetic liveliness had come to a dead stop in consequence
+of a fit of sleepiness and crossness on the part of Brian--Agatha roamed
+about the old castle by herself; creeping into all the queer nooks with
+a childish pleasure, mounting impassable walls so as to find the highest
+point of view. She always had a great delight in climbing, and in
+feeling herself at the top of everything.
+
+It was such a strange afternoon too, grey, soft, warm, the sun having
+long gone in and left an atmosphere of pleasant cloudiness, tender and
+dim, the shadowing over of a fading day, which nevertheless foretells no
+rain, but often indicates a beautiful day to-morrow. Somehow or other,
+it made Agatha think of Miss Valery; nor was she surprised when,
+as suddenly as if she had dropped out of the sky, Anne was seen
+approaching.
+
+"Let me help you up these stones. How good of you to come, and how tired
+you seem!"
+
+"Oh no, I shall be rested in a minute. But I am not quite so young as
+you, my dear."
+
+She came up and leaned against the ivy-wall that Agatha had climbed,
+which was on the opposite side of the hill to the bowling-green, the
+gathering-spot of the little party. It was a nook of thorough solitude
+and desolation, nothing being visible from it but the widely extended
+flat of country, looking seaward, though the sea itself was not in view.
+
+"Why did you climb so high?" said Agatha, as, earnestly regarding her
+friend, she perceived more than ever before the difference in their
+years, and felt strongly tempted to wrap her strong young arms round
+Miss Valery's waist, and support her with even a daughter's care.
+
+"I shall be well presently," Anne repeated, with cheerfulness. "I have
+not climbed up to this spot for many years. I thought I would like to
+come here once again."
+
+She sat down on a flat stone raised upon two others.
+
+"What a comfortable seat! It might have been made on purpose for you."
+
+"So it was--long ago. No one has disturbed it since. Come, my dear."
+
+She drew Agatha beside her--there was just room for two; and they sat in
+silence, looking at the view, except that Agatha sometimes cast her eyes
+about rather restlessly. It was a magical answer to her thoughts when
+Anne observed:
+
+"I met your husband as I drove through Kingcombe. He desired me to
+tell you he was detained a little, but would be here ere long. How very
+thoughtful and good he is!"
+
+Agatha said "Yes"--a mere "Yes," quiet and low.
+
+Miss Valery made no further remark, but sat a long time, absently
+gazing over the low-lying sweep of country which gradually melted into a
+greyness that looked like sea.
+
+"Is it the sea?" asked Mrs. Harper.
+
+"No, it lies yonder, behind the hill opposite--where there is the smoke
+of the furze burning. From that spot I should think one could trace the
+line of coast almost to Weymouth. Do you remember ever seeing Weymouth?"
+
+"No! how could I?" returned Agatha, surprised by the suddenness of the
+question, and its form. "I never was in Dorsetshire before."
+
+Anne said something, either in jest or earnest, about one's often
+fancying one has seen places in a previous existence, and changed the
+theme by pointing out the view on the other hand. "My house, Thornhurst,
+lies in that direction. You must come and see me soon, and we will talk
+more pleasantly than I can do to-day. It is so strange to be sitting
+here with Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+"Why so? What makes you so often call me by that name?"
+
+"Only a whim I have. But is it not a good name--a beautiful name? Ah,
+you child!--you poor little one! To think of _you_ becoming Mrs. Locke
+Harper!"
+
+There was a pathos--a kind of tender retrospection in Anne Valery's
+manner as she touched the brown curls and smoothed the neat dress,
+which--riding hat and skirt having been laid aside or tucked up--made
+a pretty mountain-maiden out of Nathanael's wife. Agatha never could
+understand the peculiar fondness with which Miss Valery sometimes
+regarded her--to-day especially. She seemed constantly on the point of
+saying something--which she never did say. At last she rose from the
+stone seat.
+
+"We will talk another day. We must go now." Yet she lingered. "Just
+let us stand here, in this exact spot; and look at the view." She
+looked--her eyes absorbing it from every point, as one drinks in, for
+the last time, a long-familiar draught of landscape beauty.. "My dear!"
+
+The whisper was strangely soft--even solemn.
+
+"You will remember, dear, it was I that brought you here first. You'll
+come here sometimes, will you not?"
+
+"Oh, very often indeed! It is a delicious place."
+
+"I thought so when I was your age. And you'll not forget the stone seat,
+Agatha? I hope no one will disturb it. Good-bye! poor old stone."
+
+Saying this in a whisper, she stooped and patted it with her hand--the
+thin white hand that might once have been so round, pretty, and young.
+The act, natural even to childishness, might have made Agatha smile,
+but for a certain something about Miss Valery that invested with dignity
+even her simplicities. So, merely echoing "Goodbye, old stone!" she
+followed Anne down the slope.
+
+After a loud-lamenting adieu, especially from the Dugdale boys, Miss
+Valery mounted her little carriage and drove away into the gathering
+shadow--Agatha knew not where.
+
+"What a good woman she is! I wish we were all like her!" she said,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"My dear, nobody can be, especially with a husband and four children. It
+is a blessing to society in general that Anne Valery never married."
+
+"But people do marry late in life sometimes. So may she. Do you think
+she will?"
+
+"Can't say! Don't know! Very mysterious!" ejaculated Harrie. "My brother
+Fred once hinted--and Fred was a very fascinating young fellow when I
+was a child--But all that belongs to the year One. I'll hold my tongue."
+
+Agatha had too much delicacy to inquire further. Still, it seemed very
+odd that there should be a general impression of Anne's early attachment
+to Major Harper, in contradistinction to the old Squire's regretful hint
+that she had refused his eldest son. But these scraps of romance, so far
+back in the past, were useless searching.
+
+"An excellent woman is Anne Valery," continued Harrie--"really
+excellent: but sometimes rather a bore to her friends who have families.
+My Duke often forgets he has four children to provide for, when he
+listens to her charitable schemes. 'Twas but the other day he and she
+were mad about some starving Cornish miners that she sent poor Mr.
+Wilson to look after."
+
+"Ah, I remember," cried Agatha, now interested in things which she had
+before heard indifferently. She was thirsting for some opportunity of
+doing good--of redeeming the long waste of idle years and unemployed
+fortune. "Do tell me about those miners."
+
+"Little to tell, my dear. Only philanthropic ideas about helping poor
+wretches that had been thrown out of work by some cheating speculators
+shutting up the mines. Anne sent Wilson to find out who the man was, and
+what could be done. After that I never heard any more of it, nor did my
+husband either.--Stop--don't run and question him! For goodness' sake
+let the nonsense drop out of his poor dear head."
+
+Agatha, thus rebuffed, ceased her inquiries, but she inwardly resolved
+to find out all about the Cornish miners, and consult with her husband
+about assisting them. He could not object to this good deed--it should
+be done as privately as ever he liked--she would take care not even to
+make mention of it before anybody, as in the matter of the subscription.
+And surely, though he was strange and had his peculiar notions,
+Nathanael was generous at heart, and would not thwart her in anything
+really essential, especially when she only wished to follow in the steps
+of Anne Valery, and use worthily her large fortune.
+
+With these thoughts elevating and cheering her mind, she sat and watched
+for her husband until he came. She was so glad to see him that she quite
+forgot to inquire about the house. He seemed at first expectant of her
+questions, and rather grave, but at last gave himself up to the general
+merry mood.
+
+Once only, when they were riding homeward side by side, the fading
+sunset before them, and the low moon hiding herself behind the great
+black hill of Corfe, Nathanael suddenly said:
+
+"My dear Agatha, perhaps you would like me to tell you"--
+
+"No," she cried, with a quick instinct of reluctance. "Tell me nothing
+to-night. Let us be happy for this one day."
+
+Her husband sighed, and was silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"Agatha, will you come out and walk with me?"
+
+"Do you not see it is raining?"
+
+He had not indeed, though he had stood at the window in meditation ever
+since breakfast-time. As for Agatha, she had been so tired with her
+excursion the previous day that she had done nothing but sleep, and
+had scarcely opened her lips to her husband or to any one. Now, on this
+rainy day, she felt the reaction of her high spirits--was dull, dreamy;
+wished her husband would come and talk to her, and "make a baby" of
+her. She could not think why he stood at that odious window, pondering,
+counting rain-drops apparently, and then made the unaccountable
+proposition of a walk.
+
+"Raining, is it?" He looked up at the murky sky. "What a change from
+last night."
+
+"I did not know you were so subject to elemental influences?"
+
+"We all are, more or less; but I was just then thinking about other
+things than what I spoke of. My dear wife, I want to talk to you very
+much. Where shall we go, so as not to be interrupted?"
+
+"Anywhere you like," said she, resigning herself to her fate and to a
+long argument, which she supposed was about the new house. She did
+not remember about it clearly, but she had a floating suspicion that
+Nathanael was determined to settle the matter soon, and that she
+should have a hard struggle between the pretty house she liked, and Mr.
+Wilson's cottage, which her husband so unaccountably preferred. This was
+a matter in which she could not yield, come what might. Therefore
+the "anywhere you like" was in rather an ungracious manner. He seemed
+determined not to observe this.
+
+"Suppose we go into the conservatory;--you have never seen it. But put
+on something to keep you warm."
+
+He wrapped Mary's crimson garden-shawl over her head--clumsily enough,
+for Mr. Harper was not a "ladies' man;" his whole character and habits
+of life being in curious opposition to the extreme delicacy which Nature
+had externally stamped upon his appearance. Pausing, he held his wife at
+arm's length, gazing at her admiringly.
+
+"Will that do? What a gipsy you look, with your red shawl and brown
+face!"
+
+"Pawnee-face, you know! Do you remember how you once called me so, and
+how your brother"--
+
+"Come, let us go," he said abruptly, and hurried her through the
+drawing-rooms. Agatha was rather hurt that his aspect should change so
+cloudily, and that he should thus quench her little reminiscences of
+courtship-days, so dear to every happy wife, and gradually becoming
+dearer even to herself. As they entered the conservatory, she shivered
+with an uncomfortable sense of gloom.
+
+"What a large, bare place! Even the vines look cheerless--and where have
+they put all the flowers? What a shame to send them away, and turn it
+into a billiard-room."
+
+"It was done years ago, to please--my brother"--(Agatha was amazed at
+the hard tone of that tender fraternal word--so can the sense of words
+alter in the saying)--"and my father will not have it removed."
+
+"He must have been very fond of your brother," said Agatha, as, with
+a woman's natural leaning to the injured side, she thought of Major
+Harper--his gaiety and his good-nature. She wondered why Nathanael was
+so rigid and cold in his forced and rare mentioning of his brother's
+name. As she pondered, her eyes took a serious shadow in their depths.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Agatha?"
+
+The suddenness of the question--the consciousness that she might vex
+Nathanael did she answer it--made her hesitate, blushing vividly--nay,
+painfully.
+
+"No, don't tell me. I want to hear nothing, nothing, Agatha. I have
+before told you so. Do not be afraid."
+
+"How strange you are! What should I be afraid of?"
+
+"Nothing. Forget I said anything. You are my wife now--mine--mine!" and
+for a moment he pressed her hand tightly. "In time"--he relinquished his
+hold with a sad smile--"in time, Agatha, I hope we shall become used to
+one another; perhaps even grow into a contented, sedate married couple."
+
+"Do you think so?" Alas! far more than this had been her thought--the
+thought which had dawned when she paused, shuddering over the tale of
+King Edward the Martyr and the woman that loved him--the dim hope, daily
+rising, of an Eden not altogether lost, even though she had married so
+rashly and blindly--a hope that this might have been only the burying of
+her foolish girlish dream of love, which must needs die in order to be
+raised up again in a different form and in a new existence.
+
+Somewhat heavy-hearted, Agatha sat down on a raised bench that looked
+down on the battered and decaying billiard-table, listening to the rain
+that pattered on the glass roof above the vine-leaves--wondering how old
+were the ragged-looking, flowerless, fruitless orange-trees that were
+ranged on either side, the only other specimens of vegetation left.
+Evidently nobody at Kingcombe Holm cared much for flowers.
+
+"I think we will quit this dull place. You do not seem to like it,
+Agatha?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I like it well enough. I like the rain falling, falling, and
+the vine-branches crushing themselves against the panes. They'll never
+ripen, never--poor things! They are dying for sun, and it will not--will
+not shine!"
+
+"Agatha, what do you mean?"
+
+"I don't clearly know what I mean. Never mind. Talk to me
+about--whatever it was that you brought me to unfold. Be quick--I have
+not a large stock of patience, you know of old."
+
+"Do not laugh, for I am serious. I wanted to talk to you about our new
+house."
+
+"Our new house! Where and what like is it to be, I wonder!"
+
+"Do you not recollect?"
+
+"No; the two we looked at would not do," said Agatha, determinedly. She
+guessed what was coming--that the discussion about Wilson's cottage,
+which Nathanael seemed so to have set his heart upon, was about to be
+renewed. But she would never consent to that--never! "The house I liked
+you did not approve of," she continued, observing her husband's silence.
+"The other I could not think of for a moment."
+
+"But supposing there was no alternative, since we must settle at once?"
+
+"This is the first time you have condescended to inform me of that
+necessity."
+
+"If," he went on, taking no notice of her sharp speech, but speaking
+with the extreme gentleness of one who himself feels tenfold the pain he
+is compelled to inflict--"if, as I told you yesterday, we ought to form
+our plans immediately; and since, Kingcombe being such a small place,
+there is at present no choice left us but those two houses"--
+
+"Build one! We are rich enough."
+
+"Not quite." His eyes dropped, almost like those of guilt. After a
+pause, he cried out violently:
+
+"Agatha, a secret at one's heart is ten times worse to the keeper of it
+than it can be to any one else. Have pity for me, have patience with me,
+just for a little while."
+
+"What are you talking about? What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing," said he. "Nothing to harm your peace, my little wife. Believe
+me, I have committed no greater crime, than"--
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Than having taken Wilson's cottage."
+
+He tried by smiling to teach her to make light of it--perhaps because it
+was a thing so light to him. But Agatha was enraged beyond endurance.
+
+"You have absolutely taken it--that mean, wretched hovel that I told you
+I hated;--taken it secretly, without my knowledge or consent!"
+
+"You mistake there. I told you we were obliged to decide yesterday; you
+were unwilling to consult with me, and at last--do you remember? you
+left the decision in my hands. I merely believed your own words, and
+knowing the necessity of acting upon them, did so. I cannot think I was
+wrong."
+
+"Oh, no! Not at all!" cried Agatha, laughing wildly. "It was only like
+you--under-handed in stealing my few pleasures--very frank and open when
+you can rule. Never honest or candid with me, except to my punishment. A
+kind, generous husband, truly!"
+
+These and a torrent more of bitter words she poured out. She never knew
+till now the passion, the galling sarcasm, there was in her nature. She
+felt a longing to hate--a wish to wound. Every time she looked at her
+husband, there seemed a demon rising up within her--that demon which
+lurks strangely enough in the heart's closest and tenderest depths.
+
+"Cannot you speak!" she cried, going up to him. "Anything is better than
+that wicked silence. Speak!"
+
+"Agatha!"
+
+"No--I'll not hear you. See what you have done--how you have made me
+disgrace myself" and she almost sobbed.--"Never in my life was I in a
+passion before."
+
+"Is it my fault then?" said he, mournfully.
+
+"Yes, yours. It is you who stir up all these bad feelings in me.. I was
+a good girl, a happy girl, before you married me."
+
+"Was it so? Then you shall be held blameless. Poor child--poor child!"
+
+His unutterable regret, his entire prostration, stung her to the heart,
+and silenced her for the moment; but speedily she burst out again:
+
+"You call me a child--so perhaps I am, in years; but you should have
+thought of that before. You married me, and made me a woman. You took
+away my gay childish heart, and yet in all humiliating things you still
+treat me like a child."
+
+"Do I?" He answered mechanically, out of thoughts that lay deep down,
+far below the surface of his wife's bitter words. These last awoke
+in him not one ray of anger--not even when at last, in a fit of
+uncontrollable petulance, she tore his hand from before his eyes,
+bidding him look at her--if he dared.
+
+"Yes, I dare." And the look she courted, arose steady, sorrowful, like
+that of a man who turns his eyes upward, hopeless yet faithful, out of a
+wrecked ship. "Whatever has been, or may come, God knows that, from the
+first, I did love you, Agatha."
+
+Wherefore had he used the word "did!" Why could she not smother down
+the unwonted pang, the new craving? Or rather, why could she not throw
+herself in his arms and cry out, "Do you love me--do you love me now?"
+Pride--pride only--the restless wild nature upon which his reserve fell
+like water upon fire, without the blending spirit of conscious love
+which often makes two opposite temperaments result in closest union.
+
+Nevertheless, she was somewhat soothed, and began to compress the mass
+of imaginary wrongs into the one little wrong which had originated it
+all.
+
+"What made you take a liking to that miserable house? I hate small
+rooms--I cannot breathe in them--I have never been used to a little
+house. Why must I now? I am not going to be extravagant--nobody could be
+if they tried, in a poor place like Kingcombe. Since you _will_
+insist on our living there, and _will_ carry out your cruel pride of
+independence"--
+
+"Cruel--oh, Agatha!" He absolutely groaned.
+
+"Wishing no extravagance, I do wish for comfort--perhaps some little
+elegance--as I have had all my life."
+
+"You shall have it still, Agatha," her husband muttered. "I will coin my
+heart's blood into gold but you shall have it."
+
+"Now you are talking barbarously! Or else--how very very wrong am I!
+What can be the reason that we torture each other so?"
+
+"Fate!" he cried, pacing wildly up and down. "Fate! that has netted
+us both to our own misery--nay, worse--to make us the misery of one
+another. Yet how could I know? You seemed a young simple girl, free to
+love--I felt sure I could make you love me. Poor dupe that I was! Oh,
+why did I ever see you, Agatha Bowen?"
+
+He snatched his wife on his knee, and kissed her repeatedly--madly--just
+as he had done on the morning of their wedding-day; never since! Then he
+let her go--almost with coldness.
+
+"There--I will not vex you. I must not be foolish any more."
+
+Foolish! He thought it foolish to show that he loved her! Without
+replying, Agatha sat down on the bench where her husband placed her. He
+might say what he liked: she was very patient now.
+
+He began to explain his reasons for taking the house; that he had
+naturally more acquaintance with worldly matters than she had; that
+whatever their income, it was advisable for young people to begin
+housekeeping prudently, since it was easy to increase small beginnings,
+while of all outward domestic horrors there was nothing greater than the
+horror of running into debt. When he talked thus, at once with wisdom
+and gentleness, Agatha began to forgive him.
+
+"After all," said she, brightening, "your prudence--which I might
+call by a harder word, but I'll be good now--your prudence is only
+restraining me in my little pleasures, and I don't much mind. But if you
+ever tried to restrain me in a matter of kindness, as you did yesterday,
+only I guessed the motive"--
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"There--don't look so startled and displeased. I saw you did not like
+the _éclat_ of political charities. But another time, if I want to do
+good--like Anne Valery, only in a very, very much smaller way--Hark!
+what is that noise?"
+
+It was a decent-looking working-man, standing out in the pouring rain,
+watching them through the panes, and rattling angrily at the locked
+conservatory-door.
+
+"What a fierce eye! It looks quite wolfish. What can he want with us?"
+
+"I will go and see. Some labourer wanting work, probably; but the fellow
+has no business to come beckoning and interrupting. Stay here, Agatha."
+
+"No--I will come with you." And she tripped after her husband, the
+momentary content of her heart creating a longing to do good--a sort of
+tithe of happiness thankfully paid to Heaven.
+
+Nathanael unfastened the glass-door, not without annoyance; for, unlike
+his wife, _his_ joy-tithe was not yet due.
+
+"What do you want, my good fellow?"
+
+"Some o' th' Harpers."
+
+"Indeed! Are you after work? You don't look like one of the
+clay-cutters. Where do you come from?"
+
+"I be Darset, I be; but I comed fra Carnwall."
+
+"From where?" asked Agatha, puzzled by the provincialism, and attracted
+at once by the man's intelligent face, and by a keen, misery-stricken,
+hungry look, which she had truly called "wolfish."
+
+"I be comed fra the miners in Carnwall," reiterated the man, raising
+his voice threateningly. "They sent I back to Darset to see some o' th'
+Harpers."
+
+"You must go in, Agatha; it is cold. I cannot have you standing here.
+Go--quick." And Agatha was astonished to see how pallid and eager her
+husband looked, and how anxious he seemed to get her out of the way.
+
+"No, thank you. I am not cold at all. I want to hear this man. Perhaps
+he is one of the poor miners Miss Valery spoke of at Wheal--what was
+it?"
+
+"I be comed fra Wheal Caroline, Missus, and I do want one o' th'
+Harpers. There be the old 'un at the window! Thick's the man for we."
+
+And he was hurrying off to the bow-window of the Squire's room, which
+was alongside of the conservatory. But Nathanael called him back
+imperatively.
+
+"Stay, friend. My father has nothing to do with the mines--it is I. I'll
+speak to you presently.--Some business of Anne's," he explained hastily
+to his wife. "Leave us, dear."
+
+"Why do you make me go in? I want to hear about the poor miners; I want
+to help them, as well as Anne Valery."
+
+"Do'ee help we, Missus!" implored the man, softened by a woman's kind
+looks. "Do'ee give we some'at to keep 'un fra starving!"
+
+"Starving!" cried Agatha in horror. And even her husband's anxiety
+was for the moment quelled in the deep pity which overspread his
+countenance.
+
+"It be nigh that, I tell'ee. Us be no cheats--there be other folk as has
+cheated we. Fine grand folk as knew nowt o' the mines, but shut 'un up,
+and paid no money."
+
+"How wicked!"
+
+"But I be come to find 'un out," cried the man fiercely, as his eye lit
+on Nathanael. "For I do know thick fine folk. And I tell'ee"--
+
+"Silence! you forget you are speaking before a lady. Wait for me, and I
+will talk with you."
+
+"Will'ee, Mister? Don't'ee cheat, now!" said the miner, with a rude
+attempt at a sneer.
+
+The young man's cheek flushed, but he said very quietly--
+
+"I promise you, I will speak with you here in half-an-hour. I am
+Nathanael Harper--Mr. Harper's youngest son."
+
+After a minute's keen observation, the miner pulled off his cap
+respectfully. "Thank'ee, sir! You bean't _he_, I see. But you be th' old
+Squire's son, and--I be Darset, I be!"
+
+Another bow--the involuntary respect to the ancient county family from
+honest labour born upon its ancestral sod, and the man leaned exhausted
+against the ragged stem of one of the old vines.
+
+"Missus," he said, looking up hungrily--at the lady this time--
+"Missus, do'ee gie 'un a bit o' bread!"
+
+Agatha, full of compassion, was eager to send the servants or take him
+into the kitchen, or even fetch him his dinner with her own hands. Mr.
+Harper interfered.
+
+"I will bring him some food myself. Stay here, my man; don't stir hence.
+Remember, you have nothing to do with my father."
+
+There was a warning severity in the tone which annoyed Agatha. Why did
+her husband speak harshly to the poor miner?
+
+Still she obeyed Mr. Harper's evident wish that she should go away; and
+spent the time in Elizabeth's room, telling her of this little incident.
+
+Miss Harper listened with all the quick intelligence of her bright eyes.
+The only remark she made was:
+
+"What could have led this miner to come back to Dorsetshire after our
+family?"
+
+Agatha had never thought of this, indeed she did not want to think. Her
+heart was brimming with charity. She longed to empty it out in a torrent
+of benefactions, to which even Anne Valery's constant stream of good
+deeds appeared measured and slow. Elizabeth watched her with a strange
+piercing expression--Elizabeth, who from her silent nest seemed to
+behold all things clearer, like a spirit sitting halfway in upper air,
+to whose passionless wide vision distant mazes take form and proportion.
+Often, there was something almost supernatural in Elizabeth and her
+attentive eyes.
+
+"My dear," she said at last, when Agatha paused for a response to her
+own enthusiasm, "Man proposes--God disposes! Go and talk over these
+things with your husband first." Agatha went.
+
+She met Nathanael on the staircase, going up to their own room.
+
+"Ah; is it you? I am so glad. Come and tell me what has been done about
+the poor miner."
+
+"He is gone. I have sent him back to Cornwall."
+
+"What, so soon? Not to starve at that Wheal--Wheal something or other--I
+always forget the name?"
+
+"Do forget it. Don't let the matter trouble my little wife. Let her run
+down-stairs and think of something else."
+
+He patted her head with assumed carelessness, and was passing her by;
+but she stopped him.
+
+"Ah! there it is--I am always to be a child! I am to run down-stairs
+and think of something else, while you go and shut yourself up to
+ponder over this affair. But I will not be shut out; I will go with
+you;--come!"
+
+In playful force she drew him to their room, and closed the door.
+
+"Now, sit down, and tell me the whole story. Why, how grave and pale
+it has made you look! But never mind; we'll find out a plan to help the
+poor people."
+
+He gave some inarticulate assent, which checked her by its coldness,
+sank on the chair she placed, and folded his fingers tightly in one
+another, so that Agatha could not even strengthen herself in the bold
+projects she was about to communicate, by stealing her own into her
+husband's hand. However, she placed herself on the floor at his feet, in
+the attitude of a Circassian beauty; or--she accidentally thought--not
+unlike a Circassian slave.
+
+"Begin, please! I must hear about these mines."
+
+"I doubt if you could understand,--at least with the few explanations I
+am able to give you at present."
+
+"Nevertheless, I'll try. Why are the poor men starving in this way?"
+
+"You heard but now. Because the mines were first opened on a
+speculation, worked carelessly--dishonestly I fear--till the
+speculator's money failed, and the vein stopped. Then the miners being
+thrown out of employ were reduced to great distress, as this man tells
+me."
+
+"But why should he have come here after your father?"
+
+"And," continued Nathanael, in a quick and rather inexplicable
+correlative, "the mines were lately sold as waste land. Anne Valery
+bought them."
+
+"Why did she do that?"
+
+"Out of charity; that she might begin some employment--flax-growing, I
+think--to find food for the poor people. There the tale's ended, my Lady
+Inquisitive. Will you go down to my sisters?"
+
+"Not yet. I want to talk to you a little--a very little longer. May I?"
+
+And she drooped her head, blushing as the young will blush over the same
+charitable feeling which the old and hardened ostentatiously parade.
+
+Mr. Harper gazed hopelessly around, as if longing any means of escape
+and solitude. His wife saw him and was pained.
+
+"What--are you tired of me?"
+
+"No, no, dear, Only I am so busy--and have so many things to think about
+just now."
+
+"Tell me some of them."
+
+"What--tell you all my business mysteries," he returned, playfully.
+"Didn't you say to me once, before we were married, that you hated
+secrets, and never could keep one in your life?"
+
+"It is true--quite true. I do hate them," cried Agatha.
+
+"And for all your smiling, I know you are keeping back something from me
+now."
+
+"Foolish little wife!"
+
+"Foolish--but still a wife. Look at me and tell the truth. Is there
+anything in your heart which I do not know?"
+
+"Yes, Agatha, several things."
+
+The sudden change from jest to deep earnest startled the wife so much
+that she was struck dumb.
+
+"Circumstances may happen," he continued, "which a husband cannot always
+tell to his wife, especially a man of my queer temper and lonely ways.
+I always knew that the woman I married would have much to bear from me.
+Did I not tell her so, poor little Agatha?" And he tried to take her
+hand.
+
+"You are talking in this way to soothe me, but I know well what you
+mean. No husband ever really thinks himself in fault, but his wife. Emma
+always said so."
+
+Mr. Harper dropped the unwilling hand; but the next moment, by a strong
+effort, reclaimed it firmly.
+
+"Agatha, are we beginning again to be angry with one another? Is there
+never to be peace between us?"
+
+"Peace" only? Nothing closer, dearer? Yet what was it that, as Agatha
+looked at her husband, made her think even his "peace" better than any
+other's love?
+
+"Yes," she murmured, after watching him long in silence--"yes, there
+shall be peace. Whatever I am, I know how good you are. And," she added,
+gaily, "now let me unfold a plan of mine for proving how good we both
+are."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I want some money--a good deal."
+
+Mr. Harper turned away. "Wherefore?"
+
+"Cannot you guess? I thought you would at once--nay, that you would be
+the first to propose it. I am glad I am first. Now, do guess."
+
+"I had rather not, if it is a serious matter. If otherwise, I am hardly
+quite merry enough for jests to-day. Tell me."
+
+"It is a very simple thing, though it has cost me half-an-hour's
+puzzling. I never thought so much about business in all my life.
+Well,"--she hesitated.
+
+"Go on, Agatha."
+
+"I want--it must come out--I want you to take half or all of my--_our_
+money which is in the Funds (as I believe Major Harper said, though I
+have not the least idea what Funds are)--and with it to buy a new mine,
+and set the poor miners all working again; they'll like it a great deal
+better than flax-growing. And perhaps we could afterwards build schools
+and cottages, and do oceans of good. Oh! how glad I am I was born an
+heiress!"
+
+She rose, her eyes brightening; her little figure dilated; she had never
+looked so lovely--so loveable. And yet the husband sat as it were stone
+blind and dumb.
+
+"You cannot have any objection to this, I know," Agatha went on. "It is
+not like giving money openly away--making a show of charity. Nobody need
+know but that we do it on our own account--just to increase our riches;"
+and she laughed merrily at the idea. "Think now--how much money would it
+take?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"A great deal, probably, since you look so serious over it," said the
+wife, a little vexed. "Perhaps my plan is foolish in some things; but I
+think it is right, and I am very firm--firmer than you imagine--when
+I feel I am in the right. Surely, living so cheaply in that tiny
+house--and we will live cheaper still if you choose--we shall have
+plenty to spare. We must do this. Say that we shall."
+
+Her husband was silent.
+
+Gradually the blush of enthusiasm deepened into that of annoyance--real
+anger. "Mr. Harper, I wait until you answer me."
+
+As she turned away, Nathanael looked after her. Such a flood of
+tenderness, reverence, sorrow, passion, rarely swept over a human face.
+
+Then he rose, paced up the room in his usual fashion, and down again;
+pausing once at the window (a strange thing for him to notice just then)
+to let out a brown bee that, having come in for shelter from the rain,
+wanted to go out again with the sunshine. At last he came to Agatha's
+side.
+
+"My dear wife, it grieves me to pain you by a refusal--grieves me more
+than you can tell; but the plan you propose is utterly impracticable."
+
+"Indeed!" Her colour flashed, darkened of a stormy red, and paled. She
+was exercising very great self-restraint.
+
+"I will ask less," she resumed, bitterly. "I had forgotten the extreme
+prudence of your character. Give me just what _you_ think is sufficient
+for charity." And her lip tried not to curl--her heart tried not to
+despise her husband.
+
+Nathanael gave no answer.
+
+"Mr. Harper, three--four times lately you have denied me what I asked.
+Thrice it was merely my own pleasure--which I relinquished. This time it
+is a matter of principle, and I will not yield. Will you--since I have
+made you master of my fortune--will you allow me enough out of it for
+my own slight gratification? That at least is but justice."
+
+"Justice!" echoed Nathanael, his features sinking gradually into the
+rigidity they sometimes wore--a warning of how much the gentleness of
+his nature could bear.
+
+"Hear me for one minute, Agatha. I know this is hard, very hard for you.
+I have prevented your living in London; I have taken a smaller house
+than you like; I have restricted you in acts of charity. But for all
+these things I have reasons."
+
+"Will you tell me those reasons?" It was a tone, not of entreaty, but
+of threatening--such as a man rarely hears from a woman without all the
+pride within him recoiling into obstinacy.
+
+Mr. Harper grew yet paler, though still his answer was soft--"Agatha, do
+not ask me. I cannot tell you."
+
+"You dare not! You are ashamed!"
+
+He walked away from her. When he returned, it was less the lover that
+spoke than the man. "I am not ashamed of anything I do, and I have clear
+motives for all. I only desire my wife to have patience for awhile, and
+trust her husband."
+
+"I trust my husband!" she cried, in violent passion--"When he acts
+outrageously, unjustly, insultingly--binds me hand and foot like a
+child, and then smiles and tells me 'to be patient!' When he has secrets
+from me--when, for all I know, his whole conduct may have been one long
+deceit towards me."
+
+"Take care, Agatha." The words were said between his teeth, and then the
+lips closed in that strong straight line which made his face look all
+iron.
+
+"I say it may have been--I have heard of such things"--and she laughed
+fearfully at the horrible thought a tempting devil was putting into her
+mind--"I have heard of young girls--poor desolate creatures, cursed
+with riches, and having no one to guard them--of some stranger coming
+and marrying them hastily, but not for love--oh, not for love!" And her
+laughter grew absolutely frightful in its mockery. "How do I know but
+that you thus married me?"
+
+Her wild eyes fixed themselves on her husband. She saw his face change
+to very ghastliness, and guilt itself could not have trembled more than
+the shudder which ran through his frame.
+
+"I was right," she gasped, her passion subdued into cold horror--"you
+did marry me for my money!"
+
+No answer--not a breath--only an incredulous stare. Once more Agatha's
+passion rose, a sea of wrath, misery, despair, that dashed her blindly
+on, she recked not where.
+
+"I see it all now--all your wickedness. You never loved me, you only
+loved my riches. You have them now, and so you can stand there and gaze
+at me, as hard, as dumb as a stone. But I will make you hear--I will
+shriek it into your silence again--again--You married me for my money!"
+
+Still no word. The silence she spoke of was awful. Nathanael stood
+upright, his hands knotted together, the lids dropping over his eyes.
+He neither looked at her nor at anything. There was not the slightest
+expression in his face--it might have been carved in granite. When at
+last almost to see if he were living man, Agatha clutched his arm, it
+also felt hard, immoveable, like a granite rock.
+
+"Mr. Harper!" she cried, terror mingling with the outburst of her rage.
+
+He merely lifted his eyes and looked at the door.--Not once--oh! never
+once at her!
+
+"Ay, I will go," she answered--"most gladly, most thankfully! I will run
+anywhere to escape your presence."
+
+She crossed the room and tried to unfasten the door, which she had
+herself bolted a little while before, out of play; but her trembling
+fingers were useless. She was obliged to call her husband's help, and he
+came.
+
+Perfectly silent, without a single glance towards her, he undid the
+fastening, and set the door open for her to pass. A pang of fear, nay
+remorse, came over Agatha.
+
+"Speak," she cried--"if only one word, speak!"
+
+His lips moved, as though framing an inarticulate "No," and then closed
+again in that iron line. He still stood holding the door.
+
+Hardly knowing what she did, Agatha sprang past the threshold and
+tottered a few steps on. Then turning, she saw the door shut behind her,
+slowly, noiselessly, but _it was shut_. She felt as if the door of hope
+had been shut upon her heart.
+
+She turned again, and fled away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+It was late afternoon. The rain had ceased, and glowed into one of those
+soft October days, so exquisitely sunny and fair. The light glimmered
+through the closed Venetian blinds of "Anne's room," and danced on the
+carpet and about Agatha's feet as she sat, quiet at last, and tried to
+remember how she had come and how long she had been there. She had seen
+no one; nobody ever came into "Anne's room."
+
+The dressing-bell rang--the only sound she had heard in the house for
+hours.
+
+She started up, waking to the frightful certainty that all was
+real--that the ways of the household were going on just as usual--that
+she must rouse up, no matter staggering under what burden of misery, and
+go through her daily part, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was
+about to happen.
+
+Nothing? when this day, perhaps this same hour, must decide one of two
+things--whether she were a wretched wife, bound for life to a man
+who married her solely for mercenary motives, or whether she were
+a wife--perhaps in this even more wretched--who had so wronged and
+insulted her husband that nothing ever could win his forgiveness or
+restore his love. His love, which, as she now dimly began to see, and
+shuddered in the seeing, was becoming to her the most precious thing in
+existence.
+
+Never, until she sat there, quite alone, and feeling what it was to be
+left alone, after being so watched and cherished---never until now had
+she understood what the world would be to her if doomed to question her
+husband's honour or to outlive her husband's love.
+
+"It must have been all a dream," she said, moving her cold fingers to
+and fro over her forehead. "He never could have wronged me so, or I him.
+He must surely explain, and I will ask his pardon for what I said in my
+passion--Unless, indeed, my accusation were true."
+
+But she could not think of that possibility now--it maddened her.
+
+"I shall meet him soon. I wonder how he will meet me. That will decide
+all.--Hark!"
+
+She listened--with a vague expectation of footsteps at the door. But no
+one came.
+
+"I suppose he is in his room still--our room." And all the solemn union
+of married life--the perpetual presence, the never parting night nor
+day, which makes estrangement in that tie worse than in any other human
+bond--rushed upon her with unutterable terror.
+
+"If he has deceived and wronged me, how shall I endure the sight of him?
+If I have outraged him, and he will not forgive me--oh, what will become
+of me?"
+
+She heard various bells ringing throughout the house, and knew that she
+had no time to lose. She rose up feebly, with that aching numbed feeling
+which strong agitation leaves in the whole frame, and tottered to the
+mirror.
+
+"I must look at myself, to see that there is nothing strange about me,
+in case I meet any one in the passages.--Oh, what a face!"
+
+It was sallow, blanched, with dark shadows round the eyes, and dark
+lines drawn everywhere. That first storm of wild passion--that agony of
+remorse following, had left indelible marks. She seemed ten years older
+since she had last beheld herself, which was when she pulled out her
+long curls in the morning. She pulled them out mechanically now, trying
+to make of them a screen to hide the poor face that she had used to
+fancy they adorned. Then she flew like a frightened creature along the
+passages, and without meeting any one, reached her chamber-door. It was
+a little way open; she need not knock then--knock and wait trembling for
+the answer. Perhaps Mr. Harper was not there, and so for a few minutes
+she was safe from the dreaded meeting. She went in.
+
+The room was empty, but her husband's handkerchief and riding-gloves
+were lying about; he had apparently just gone down-stairs. Nevertheless,
+though a relief, it was rather a shock to her to find the room deserted.
+She felt a weight in its silence, forewarning her of she knew not what;
+she looked round inquiringly, as if the walls could tell her what had
+passed within them since she left. At last she took up her husband's
+gloves and laid them by with a care foreign to her general habit, and
+with a strange tenderness. When Mary's maid answered her summons,
+she could not forbear asking, carelessly, but with an inward
+heart-beat--"Where was Mr. Harper?"
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper, ma'am, is sitting reading to master in the library."
+
+He then could sit and read quietly to his father. With him, too, all
+household ways went on unaltered--with her only was the tempest--the
+despair. Her remorse ebbed down--her pride and anger rose. Light--a
+fierce flashing light--came to her eyes, and crimson roses to her
+cheeks. She dressed herself with care, and went down--though not until
+the last minute--to the drawing-room.
+
+Mary met her at the door. "I was just coming to fetch you. Nathanael
+said you had been sitting in Anne's room."
+
+How could he know? Had he watched her?
+
+She answered flippantly, "'Tis very true. I have been enjoying my
+own company. Very good company too. Have I detained you, though? Is
+everybody here?"
+
+Everybody was here. _He_ was here. Though she never glanced that way,
+she saw him, and the look he wore. To others it might seem his ordinary
+look, a little paler, a little more reserved, but she knew what it
+meant. She knew likewise, now that her passion had subsided, how his
+whole life--his stainless life--gave the lie to the accusation she had
+cast upon him. She had outraged him in the keenest point where a proud
+honourable man can be outraged by his wife; her own hand had cleft a
+gulf between them which might never close.
+
+At the thought her heart seemed dropping down--down in her bosom, like
+a bird whose wing is broken, it knows not how. Sick, giddy, she clung to
+Mary's arm for a moment.
+
+"Nathanael, look here. What is the matter with your wife?"
+
+"Nothing," Agatha cried. "I have only stupified myself with--with
+thinking. I will think no more--no more."
+
+She tossed her head back with a fierce laugh. Her husband, who had
+half-risen at Mary's call, resumed his seat, making no remark.
+
+He had never been used to show her much fondness or attention before
+his family, so it did not appear strange that in the few minutes
+before dinner he should talk to his sisters, and leave his wife to
+the courtesies of his father. For it was now an acknowledged fact at
+Kingcombe Holm that the Squire was growing very fond of Agatha.
+
+Dinner came, the long, dreadful dinner, with the brilliant light
+glimmering in her face, and showing every expression there; with old
+Mr. Harper leaning forward to address her every time she relapsed
+into silence; with the consciousness upon her that there was no medium
+course, that she must talk and laugh, fast and recklessly, or else fall
+into tears; with the knowledge, worst of all, that there was one
+sitting at the bottom of the table whom she dared not look at, but whom
+nevertheless she perpetually saw.
+
+Her husband had taken his usual place, and sustained it in his usual
+manner. There was the same brotherly chat with Mary and Eulalie,
+the same answers to his father, and when once, in the dinner-table
+courtesies, he addressed his wife, the tone was precisely as it had ever
+been.
+
+Agatha could have shrieked back her answer, betraying him to all the
+household! This smooth outside of daily life--and with what below? It
+was horrible.
+
+Yet she felt herself powerless to burst through it. His perfect silence,
+leaving his honour, the honour of both, in her hands, was like a chain
+of iron wrapped round her; however she writhed and dashed herself
+against it, there it was.
+
+The Squire seemed to remain at table longer than ever to-day. He would
+not let his woman-kind depart. He had many toasts to give, and various
+old reminiscences to unfold to his daughter-in-law. She heard all in
+a misty dream, and kept on vaguely smiling. At last the purgatory was
+ended, and they rose.
+
+Nathanael held the door open for his wife and sisters to retire--things
+went on so formally even in the every-day life at Kingcombe Holm. In
+passing, Agatha felt as if she must burst through that icy barrier he
+had drawn; she _must_ meet her husband's look, and compel him to meet
+hers. She gave him a look, proud, threatening, yet full of hidden
+misery. He would surely answer that.
+
+No! No response--not even anger. Some sorrow perhaps, but a sorrow that
+was stern, hopeless, undemonstrative, as was his own nature. If any
+wreck had been, it had already sank down into those deep waters, of
+which the surface appeared perpetually calm.
+
+Agatha threw him back another look. Scorn was there and hatred--she felt
+as though she did really hate him at that moment. Her heart gave a
+leap, like a smitten deer, and then a "laughing devil" seemed to enter
+therein, and dash her on--anywhere--to anything.
+
+"Come, Mary--come Eulalie, we must be very merry tonight, and my husband
+must join, for all his solemnity. Shake it off quick, Mr. Harper, or
+we'll call you a deciever--a smooth-faced, smiling cheat."
+
+Laughing out loud--she caught his hand, wrung it violently, and struck
+it aside.
+
+"How comical you are!" said the languid Eulalie.
+
+"But," whispered sensible Mary, "are you quite sure Nathanael liked the
+joke."
+
+"Who cares?" Yet Agatha looked back.
+
+He had merely drawn his hand in again to the other, and his colour
+faintly rose. Otherwise the poor, mad, passionate girl might as well
+have dashed herself against a rock. She grew still again, with a kind of
+fear. Her very limbs tottered as she went towards the drawing-room, and
+all the time that she lay there on the sofa, Mary bustling about her and
+chattering all kinds of domestic nothings, Agatha saw, as in a vision,
+her husband's face, so beautiful in its very sternness, so pure and
+righteous-looking, whilst she felt herself so desperately, daringly
+wicked. All the "black, ingrained spots," which had become visible
+in her soul, and she knew herself to be worse than any one knew
+her--appeared gathering in one cloud, until she sickened at her own
+likeness. For beside it rose another image--and such an one! Yet there
+was a time when she had thought it a great sacrifice and condescension
+that Nathanael should be allowed to love her. Now--
+
+No, she dared not hear the cry of her heart. She dared not do anything
+but hate him, as he must surely hate her. Had he stood before her that
+minute, she would have flung away this softness, made her flashing eyes
+burn up their tears, and appeared all indifference. He might if he chose
+be as cold as ice, as proud as Lucifer;--she would be the same. She
+would never once let him suspect that which this day's misery had shown
+her was kindling in her heart. A something, before which the pleasant
+little vanity of being adored, the content of an easy unexacting liking
+in return, fell like straws in a flame. A something which she tried to
+call wrath and hate, but which was truly the avenging angel, Love.
+
+It seemed an age before Mr. Harper came up-stairs. When he did, his
+father was leaning on his arm. The old gentleman looked tired, as
+if they had been talking much, yet seemed to regard with a lingering
+tenderness his son, once so little of a favourite. Why did he? Why did
+Nathanael soon or late win every one's attachment? And how could he show
+that reverent attention to his father, that cheerful kindness to his
+sisters, while _she_ sat there, jealous of every look and word? Each
+time he addressed any of these three, Agatha felt as if some unseen
+power were lashing her into fury.
+
+It is a strange and terrible thing, but nevertheless true, that a good
+man, a kind man, a generous man, may sometimes quite unconsciously drive
+a woman nearly mad; make her feel as though a legion of fiends were
+struggling for possession of her soul, goad her weakness into acts which
+torture alone causes, and the after-blackness of which, presented to
+her real self, creates a humiliation which only drives her madder still.
+Men, that is, good men, who are stronger and better able to do and
+to bear--ought to be very gentle, very wise, in the manner they deal
+towards women. No short-coming or wrong, however great, from the weaker
+to the stronger, can merit an equal return; and according to the law
+that the more delicate the mental and physical organisation, the
+keener is the power of suffering; so no man, be he ever so wise or
+tender-hearted, can rightly estimate the depth of a woman's agony.
+
+Agatha rose, and went away by herself into a smaller room that led
+out of the other, not unlike her own pet sitting-room in her maiden
+days--the room where she had once stood by the firelight, and Nathanael
+had come in and given her the first trembling, thrilling love-kiss. She
+stood in the same attitude now. Did she remember it? Was she, in that
+shadowy corner, with glimpses of light and fragments of talk pouring
+in from the other room, dreaming over that old time--old, though it
+happened scarcely three months ago--dreaming it over, with oh! what
+different emotions!
+
+And when she heard a step--her ears were very quick now. Did she turn,
+and think to see her lover of old--so little loved? Alas! without
+lifting her eyes, she felt the presence was no longer that of her timid
+young lover, but of her husband.
+
+Mr. Harper came in, and for the first time since that fearful minute
+when she quitted him, the husband and wife were alone. Not quite so, for
+he had left the door wide open--purposely, she thought. There was a full
+vision of Mary playing chess with her father, and of Eulalie lounging on
+the sofa, gazing now and then with idle curiosity into the little room.
+
+It was insulting! Why, if he came to speak healing words, did he let his
+whole family peer into the mysteries which ought to be strictly sacred
+between the two whom marriage had made one? If only he had shut the
+door! If only she could do it, and then turn and cling round his neck,
+or even weep at his knees--for that frantic desire did strike her for a
+moment--anything, to win from him pardon and peace!
+
+"Agatha, are you quite at leisure?"
+
+To dream of answering such a tone with a flood of tears! or of clinging
+round a neck that lifted itself up in such a marble pride! It was
+impossible.
+
+"I am quite at leisure, Mr. Harper."
+
+At such a crisis, and between two such characters, the fate of a
+lifetime may depend upon the first word. The first word had been spoken,
+and answered.
+
+Agatha turned to the fire again, and her husband to the shadow. Either
+it was fancy, or the effect of natural contact, but the one face seemed
+to flame, the other to darken--suddenly, hopelessly--as when the last
+glimmer of light fades out upon a wall.
+
+"Can you speak with me for a few moments?"
+
+"Certainly. Shall it be here?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+Agatha sat down; smoothed her dress, and held her folded hands tight
+upon her knees, lest he should see how they were trembling.
+
+Mr. Harper resumed. His tone was gentle, though with a certain
+strangeness in it, a want of that music which runs through all
+deep-toned low voices, and which in his was very peculiar.
+
+"It appears to me--though nothing shall be done against your
+decision--that, considering all things, it would be better that our stay
+in my father's house were made as short as possible."
+
+"Yes--yes." Two long pausing words, said beneath her breath.
+
+"Accordingly I rode to Kingcombe this afternoon, and find that we can
+enter the cottage on Saturday. To-day is Thursday"----
+
+"Is it?--Oh yes. I beg your pardon. Proceed."
+
+"If it would be agreeable and convenient to you, I think we had better
+arrange matters so. I have already told my father it was probable we
+should leave on Saturday. Are you willing?"
+
+"Quite willing."
+
+"It is settled then. On Saturday evening we go home."
+
+Go home! To their first home! To that new bridal nest, which, be it the
+poorest dwelling on earth, seems--or should seem--holy, happy, and fair!
+What a coming home it was! Better, she thought, that he had cast her
+adrift, or torn himself from her and placed the wide world between them.
+Rather any open separation than the mockery of such a union.
+
+"Home!" she cried. "I will not go--I cannot. Oh, not home!"
+
+"To a house, then--call it by what name you please. To your own
+house, which we will merely _say_ is mine. Your comfort"--he stopped a
+little--"must always be the first consideration of your husband."
+
+"My husband!" she repeated, almost in a shriek--and the old fit of
+fierce laughter was coming back.
+
+At this moment Eulalie's curious eyes were seen turning towards the
+little room. Nathanael moved so as to shield his wife from them. "Hush!"
+he said, sorrowfully, even with a sort of pity--"hush, Agatha. We are
+married. Between us two there must be, under all circumstances, honour
+and silence."
+
+His manner was so solemn, free from bitterness or anger, that Agatha's
+passion was quelled. She was awed as by the sight of some dead face,
+wronged grievously in life, but which now only revenges itself by the
+hopelessness of its mute perpetual smile. She remained staring blankly
+into the fire, plaiting and unplaiting the sash of her dress with
+heedless fingers. Eulalie might peer safely.
+
+"There was another thing," resumed Nathanael, "which, before telling
+the rest of the household, I wished to say to you. I had business in
+Weymouth to-morrow; and--if"--
+
+"Well? I listen."
+
+"If--I were to ride there to-night"--
+
+"Go." A soft, quick word--a mere motion of the lips--and yet it was the
+one word of doom.
+
+After that, without saying more, Mr. Harper walked back slowly into the
+drawing-room, and Agatha sat by the fireside alone.
+
+She heard the rest talking--complaining--reasoning--heard one or two
+persuasive calls for "Agatha"--but she never moved. Then came the
+bell hastily pulled, and the old Squire's testy summons for "Mr. Locke
+Harper's horse," and "was it a fine night, and the moon risen?" Then the
+drawing-room door opened and closed. No--he was not gone--not without
+saying adieu. He would surely pay his wife that deference. Outside the
+wall she heard his foot ascending the staircase, slowly, with heavy
+pauses between each step. She crept close to the farther door--behind
+the curtain, and listened.
+
+"Agatha--where is she gone to?" said Mary, peeping carelessly into the
+dark room.
+
+"Oh, she has followed her husband up-stairs, of course. Think of all the
+charges and farewells--the kissing and the crying. 'Tis a wonder she
+did not insist on riding with him across the country, and coming back at
+midnight, as I suppose Nathanael will do. La? what's to become of these
+very devoted husbands and wives."
+
+Agatha crushed her hands against the wall She felt as if she could
+almost have torn Eulalie's heart out--if she had a heart. While in her
+own bosom, leaping up in all its strength, ready at once for heroism,
+love, and fury--for any nobleness or any crime--was that fountain of
+all her sex's actions, that mainspring of all her life--the fatal
+woman-heart.
+
+She waited until she heard Nathanael descend the stairs, and then, as
+he passed into the drawing-room to his sisters, she, by the little
+curtained door, passed out into the hall. There she remained until the
+rest came; the sisters trooping after Nathanael, and the old Squire
+following likewise, to see that his son had the best and steadiest horse
+for a night-ride, which ride, he took care to observe, pointedly, was a
+most uncourteous proceeding, and warranted by nothing, save the fact of
+its being performed on the especial service of Anne Valery.
+
+"Agatha--where is Agatha hiding herself?" said Mary. "She ought not to
+keep her husband waiting a minute.''
+
+"Oh, no?" And the little figure, all in white, glided out from some
+queer corner of the hall, and stood like a ghost in the moonlight.
+"Good night--good night." She threw out her hand with those of the
+others--threw it--not gave it.
+
+Nathanael took the hand, but did not say good night--indeed he never
+spoke at all.
+
+"Well, are you not going to embrace one another, stage-fashion? Don't
+let Mary and me interrupt you, pray." And the two Miss Harpers drew back
+a little from the young couple.
+
+Mr. Harper bent coldly over his wife's brow, hid under the shadow of her
+heavy hair.
+
+"No, no; not that," Agatha whispered, recoiling from his touch. "Never
+that again."
+
+He opened the hall-door--saying adieu to neither father nor
+sisters--leaped on his horse, and was gone.
+
+"Agatha, Agatha; where are you running? He is far down the road by this
+time. Come in, do! Are you so very reluctant to be left for a few hours
+alone?"
+
+"Oh, no! Oh, no!" And Agatha went back to the drawing-room with her
+sisters-in-law.
+
+Alone! The word she had repudiated rose up like a spirit, everywhere,
+all over the house. Not a room but what seemed empty, strange. Fast and
+busily the Miss Harpers talked--yet all around was, oh! such silence.
+The silence that we feel in a house when some voice and step has gone
+out of it, which no one misses except we, and which we miss as we should
+miss the daylight or the sun.
+
+When all grew quiet, and Agatha sat in her own room--expecting nothing,
+for she knew he would not come--but still sitting, with her hair falling
+damp about her, and her eyes fixed on the mirror for company, yet
+half growing frightened as if it were a strange object on which she
+gazed--then, indeed, there was silence--then, indeed, she was _alone_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Mr. Harper did not ride home by midnight, as his wife was well assured
+he would not do, though with some idle hope put into her mind by
+Eulalie, she sat at the window until the stars whitened in the dawn.
+
+At noon--which seemed to come slowly, every hour a day--Mr. Dugdale
+appeared with a message, which by some wondrous good fortune he
+remembered to deliver--that Nathanael had returned from Weymouth to
+Kingcombe, and was waiting there. Agatha gathered with difficulty that
+her husband wished her to return with Mr. Dugdale.
+
+"I will not go."
+
+"That's right! I wouldn't do it upon any account," said Eulalie, with
+not the kindest of laughs. "I wouldn't be sent for like a school-girl.
+Let Nathanael come himself and fetch you. What a rude fellow he is!"
+
+"Eulalie!--You forget you are speaking of your brother and my husband. I
+will be ready in five minutes, Mr. Dugdale."
+
+Duke lifted his placid but observant eyes, and smiled. "That's good.
+Come along, my child."
+
+He had never spoken so kindly to her before. It was as if he read her
+trouble. Her anger faded--she was near bursting in tears. In a little
+while she had taken the good man's arm--which Eulalie pointedly informed
+her was not the fashion at Kingcombe--and was walking with him to meet
+her husband.
+
+Marmaduke talked but little; marching on leisurely in a meditative mood,
+and leaving his young sister-in-law to follow his example. Once or twice
+she felt stealing down upon her one of his kindly, paternal glances,
+and heard him saying to himself his usual winding-up of every mental
+difficulty:
+
+"Eh!--We know nothing! Nobody knows anything. But everything always
+comes clear sometime."
+
+At the verge of the town, apparently coming to meet them, she saw
+Nathanael--saw him a long way off. Her heart leaped at the first vision
+of the tall slender figure and light hair; but when he approached she
+was walking steadfastly along. Her eyes lowered, and her mouth firm set.
+He came up, silently gave her his arm, and she took it as silently.
+
+Mr. Dugdale and her husband immediately began to talk, so there was no
+need for Agatha to do anything but walk on, trying to remember where she
+was, and what course of conduct she had to pursue; trying above all to
+repress these alternate storms of anger and lulls of despair, and deport
+herself not like a passionate child, but a reasonable woman--a woman
+who, after all, might have been heavily wronged.
+
+Sometimes she essayed to consider this--to recall, as is so difficult
+always, the original cause of difference, the little cloud which had
+produced this tempest--but everything was in an inextricable maze.
+
+Ere long, Nathanael's silence warned her that they two were alone, Mr.
+Dugdale having made himself absent, and being seen afar off, diving into
+a knot of market-politicians. Arm-in-arm the husband and wife passed
+on through the street. Agatha pulled her veil down, and caught more
+steadfast hold of her husband's arm--he was her husband, and she would
+maintain their honour in the world's sight. She felt how many curious
+eyes were watching them from windows--how many gossiping tongues would
+be passing comment on the looks and demeanour of Mr. and Mrs. Locke
+Harper.
+
+"Shall we go over the house now, or would you like to call for my
+sister?"
+
+"No--we will go at once," returned Agatha.
+
+Steadfastly--mechanically--the young husband and wife looked over their
+future home, which was all but ready for habitation. It was not a mean
+abode now; to Mr. Wilson's furniture had been added various comforts
+and luxuries. Agatha asked no questions--scarcely noticed anything. She
+merely moved about, trying to sustain her position in the eyes of the
+work-people that showed her round the house; stopping a minute to speak
+kindly to the servant who was already installed there, and who, dropping
+a dozen respectful curtsies, explained that she was the daughter of
+"Master Nathanael's" nurse.
+
+Everything seemed arranged for Mrs. Harper's comfort, as by invisible
+hands. She never inquired, or even thought, who was the origin of
+it all. She could not believe she was in her own home;--her married
+home;--she felt as if each minute she should wake and find herself
+Agatha Bowen, in the old rooms in Bedford Square, with all things else a
+dream.
+
+"Oh, that it were," she sighed within herself. "Oh that I had never"--
+
+She paused here--she could not wish that she had never seen Nathanael.
+
+They quitted the cottage and went out into the street, for country
+and town blended together in tiny Kingcombe. Mr. Harper closed the
+wicket-gate, and looked back upon the little house. There was an unquiet
+glitter in his eye, and his chest heaved violently for a few moments.
+Then, with all outward observance, he linked his wife's arm in his, and
+they proceeded onwards.
+
+At the end of East Street they met Harriet Dugdale--the Dugdales seemed
+always wandering about Kingcombe after one another, and turning up at
+intervals at odd corners.
+
+"Here you both are! I was looking for my husband. Has anybody seen Duke.
+Oh, where on earth is Duke gone to? He said he would be back in five
+minutes--which means five hours."
+
+"I left him at the market-place."
+
+"That's an hour ago. He has been home two or three times since then. Do
+you think he could get on for a whole hour without wanting the Missus?
+Oh, there he is. Stop, and I'll catch him."
+
+He was caught, and led forward prisoner by his pretty wife, who never
+once let him go, lest he should slide away again, and become absorbed in
+the mysterious electioneering groups that haunted the town.
+
+"Now--Harrie--Missus, just wait--I'll be back in a minute."
+
+"Not a minute! Anne has sent word that she wants you directly--you and
+Nathanael. You'll go, brother!"
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To Thornhurst, to meet Mr. Trenchard and some other folk. You must
+start immediately."
+
+Mr. Harper glanced towards his wife, who had dropped his arm; not
+pointedly, but as though release were welcome.
+
+"What, couldn't it leave its pet again?" cried Harrie, laughing. "Bless
+it, nobody demands that terrible sacrifice. Do you think Anne would
+invite husbands without their wives? We are all to go--if you agree,
+Agatha."
+
+"Oh, yes!" It was quite indifferent to her where she went, or what she
+did.
+
+So they all four started in one of those inimitable conveyances called
+dog-carts, which seem to offer every facility for "accidental death,"
+either by flying over the horse's head, tumbling under the wheels, or
+slipping off behind.
+
+"Where will you sit, my dear? Beside your husband, I suppose? Mine
+drives."
+
+Agatha answered by springing up beside Mr. Dugdale, with some vague jest
+about husbands being no company at all. The dark fit had passed, and she
+was now in a mood of desperation.
+
+They dashed on quickly; Marmaduke was a daring driver.
+
+Sometimes Agatha even thought he would overturn them in the road. Little
+she cared! She was in that state of excitement when the utmost peril
+would only have made her laugh. Passing under the three hills, and
+looking up at the old castle, silent and grey, the daylight shining
+through the fissured apertures that had been windows, she turned round
+and recklessly proposed to Harrie their scrambling up the green slope
+and rolling down again.
+
+"E--h, my child!" said Duke Dugdale, turning his mild benevolent looks
+on the flushed face beside him. "Don't'ee try that, don't'ee, now! When
+people once set themselves rolling down-hill they never stop till they
+get to the bottom. It's always so in this world."
+
+Agatha laughed more loudly. She wished her husband to hear how merry she
+was. She talked incessantly to Mr. Dugdale or Harrie, and held herself
+very upright, so that Nathanael, who sat behind her, might not
+even feel the touch of her shoulder. She, who had hitherto been so
+indifferent to everybody, so mild in her likings and dislikes--never
+till now had she felt such strange emotions. Yet each and all carried
+with them a fierce charm. It was like a person learning for the first
+time what thirst was, and drinking fire, because, in any case, he must
+drink. And with all her wrath there seemed a spell over heart, brain,
+and senses, which never for a moment allowed her to cease thinking
+of her husband. Every movement he made, every word he uttered, she
+distinctly felt and heard.
+
+The way grew unfamiliar; they were passing through a track of country,
+wilder, and more peculiar than any Mrs. Harper had yet seen in
+Dorsetshire--a road cut through furzy eminences, looking down on deep,
+abrupt valleys, that might have been the bed of dried-up lakes or bays;
+long heathery sweeps of undulating ground, with great stones lying here
+and there; cultivation altogether ceasing--even sheep becoming rare; and
+ever when they chanced to rise on higher ground, a sharp, salt, sea-wind
+blowing, not a human being to be seen for miles.
+
+"Here's the gate. I'll open it. Now we get into Anne Valery's property,"
+said Harrie, as she leaped down and leaped up again, mocking Nathanael's
+"brown study."
+
+"What a change!" Agatha cried. "I have not seen such trees in
+Dorsetshire."
+
+"They seem indeed to have grown on purpose for Anne. Her grandfather
+built Thornhurst. A queer desolate spot to choose, but it's a perfect
+little nest of beauty. There!"
+
+The road opened upon a semicircular green plane, levelled among the
+hills, as it were on purpose, and planted round with a sheltering
+bulwark of trees--lime, chestnut, oak--rising higher and higher, until
+at the summit, where the sea-breeze caught them, grew nothing but the
+perpetual Dorsetshire fir. On the edge of the semicircle stood the
+house, this green plane before it, behind, a wide stretch of country,
+where the tide, running for miles inland, made strange-shaped lakes and
+broad rivers, spread out glistening in the afternoon sun.
+
+"Anne, must always be near the sea. I don't think she would live even
+here unless she knew that just climbing those rocks would bring her in
+sight of the Channel. She has quite an ocean-mania."
+
+"I'll learn it from her. I want a convenient little mania. Suppose I
+cure myself of my old grudge against the sea, and go from hatred into
+love, or from love back again into hatred--as people do."
+
+"What a comical girl you are!"
+
+"Very. Stay now. Wait till the horse is quiet, and I'll take a leap
+down--just like a person leaping into"--
+
+"Hold, Agatha"--and she felt her arm caught by her husband. It was the
+first time he had touched or addressed her since they left Kingcombe.
+"Don't spring down--it is not safe. Stay till I lift you."
+
+"I do not want your help."
+
+"Excuse me, you do; you are not used to this sort of carriage.'
+
+"Stand aside--I _will_ jump down," she cried, roused by the contest,
+slight as it was, but enough to show the clashing of the two wills.
+"Stand aside," she repeated, leaning forward with glittering eyes,
+giddy, and in so great confusion of mind as to be in real danger--"we
+will see who gives way."
+
+"Are you in earnest?" Nathanael whispered.
+
+"Quite. Go!"
+
+"I would go if it were play. But when I see my wife about to do any
+frantic thing to her own injury, I shall restrain her--thus."
+
+Balancing himself on the carriage-step, he clasped the little figure in
+his arms--tight--strangely tight and close. Before Agatha could resist,
+he had lifted her safely down, and set her free.
+
+She stood passive--astonished. What could it be in that firm will, in
+that sudden clasp, which made her feel--was it anger? No not anger,
+though her cheeks glowed and her breast heaved. Why was it, that as
+Nathanael walked onward towards the house, his wife looked after him
+with such a mingling of attraction and repulsion? What could it be, this
+strange power which gave him the preeminence over her--which taught her,
+without her knowing it, the mystery that causes man to rule and woman
+to obey; Very thoughtful--even unmoved by Harrie's loud laughter at
+the "excellent joke"--Mrs. Harper suffered herself to be led on by her
+sister-in-law.
+
+"Nonsense, child, don't look so serious. Men will have their
+way--especially husbands. Mine gets obeyed as little as any one; but now
+and then, when it comes to the point"--here Harrie looked astonishingly
+grave, for her--"I'm obliged to give in to Pa; and somehow Pa's always
+right, bless him!"
+
+How every word of one happy wife went like a dagger into the other
+wife's heart! But there was no shield. Here they were in Anne Valery's
+house, obliged to appear as cheerful guests, especially the newest
+guest, the bride. Agatha tried, and tried successfully, to play her
+part:--misery makes such capital hypocrites!
+
+"Isn't this a large house for a single woman?" said Mrs. Dugdale, as the
+two ladies passed up-stairs. "Yet Anne constantly manages to fill it,
+especially in summer-time. The dozens of sick friends she has staying
+here to be cured by sea-breezes! the scores of young people that come
+and make love in those green alleys down the garden! But then in the
+lulls of company the house is dull and silent--as now."
+
+It was very silent, though not with the desolation which often broods
+over a large house thinly inhabited. The room--Anne's bedroom--lay
+westward, and a good deal of sunshine was still glinting in. A few late
+bees were buzzing about the open window, cheated perhaps by the feathery
+seeds of the clematis, which had long ceased flowering. There was no
+other sound. But many fine prints, a few painted portraits, and several
+white-gleaming statuettes, seemed as the sunlight struck them to burst
+the silence, with mute speech.
+
+"Oh, you are looking at Anne's 'odds and ends' as I call them. Rather a
+contrast, her walls and ours. I don't see the use of prints and plaster
+images--always in the way where there are children. But Anne is so
+dreadfully fond of pretty things. She says they're company. No wonder! A
+solitary old maid must find herself very dull at times."
+
+"Must she?--then she is the more glad to see her visitors"--a pleasant
+voice, a silken-rustling step, which in Agatha's fancy seemed always to
+enter like daylight into a dusky room--and Miss Valery came to welcome
+her guests.
+
+She addressed Mrs. Harper first, and then Harrie, who looked confused
+for the moment. But it was not a trifle that could upset the equanimity
+of the honest-speaking Harrie Dugdale.
+
+"Bless us, Anne, how softly you walk!' Listeners,' etc.--You know the
+saying! But you might listen at every door in Dorsetshire, and never
+hear worse of yourself than I said just now."
+
+"Thank you. When I want a good character I shall be sure to come to
+Harriet Dugdale.--And now, what is the news with the little wife! whom I
+have yet to bid welcome to Thornhurst. Welcome Mrs. Locke Harper."
+Anne said the name, as she often did, with a peculiar under-tone of
+hesitation and tenderness; then, according to her frequent habit, she
+put her hand on her favourite's shoulder, and began to play with the
+brown curls. "Have you been quite well and happy since I saw you?"
+
+The question, so simple, so full of kindness, pierced Agatha's soul.
+Alas? how much had happened since she sat on the stone seat at Corfe
+Castle, and looked over the view with Anne Valery! How little did Anne
+or any one know that she was wretched--maddened--hating herself and the
+whole world--believing in nothing good, nothing holy--not even in her
+who spoke. The words, the smile, appeared the mocking hypocrisy of one
+who had persuaded her to marry, and must ere long know of that hasty
+marriage the miserable result This thought steeled her heart even
+against Anne Valery.
+
+She burst into a sharp laugh. "Well! Happy! Cannot you see? You are the
+best person to answer your own question." And she moved away out of the
+room.
+
+Anne looked after her, thoughtfully, rather sadly. Perhaps she was used
+to have her pets glide from her, dancing out indifferently into the
+merry world. She made no attempt to follow Agatha, but led the way
+down-stairs into the drawing-room.
+
+"Mr. Trenchard, come and let me introduce you to Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+As Miss Valery said this, an elderly gentleman, dapper, dandy, and
+small, escaped from under the hands of Duke Dugdale--those big earnest
+hands that were laid upon him in all the apostleship of sincere
+argument--and came, nothing loth, as his eager bow showed, to do the
+polite to the young bride who had been lately brought to the county.
+For Mr. Trenchard, besides the wondrously sweetening power of his
+candidateship, came of a very ancient name in Dorsetshire. He was
+evidently a beau too--one of those harmless general adorers whom the
+influence of a graceful woman touches even unto old age.
+
+Agatha saw in his first look that he admired her, and she was in
+that proud desperate mood when a girl is ready to catch hold of the
+attentions or conversation of any one--even an elderly gentleman. She
+was very gracious to Mr. Trenchard--nay, altogether bewitching--though
+for the first ten minutes she herself saw and heard nothing save a thing
+in black with white hair, talking to her of the beauties of Dorsetshire.
+More distinctly than aught he said, she heard what was passing in the
+group at the other end of the room--especially her husband's voice,
+so quiet and deep, always a tone deeper than any other voices, falling
+through all the rest like a note of music. And she soon found out that
+Anne was listening also--to Nathanael, of course. She always did.
+
+Mr. Trenchard followed the direction of the two ladies' eyes, and
+ingeniously took up the text.
+
+"I assure you, Mrs. Harper, it is a pleasure to all the neighbourhood
+that your husband has come back from America. I remember him quite a
+child, and his uncle a young man. And really, how like he is, in both
+feature and voice, to what his uncle used to be at that time. As he
+stands there talking, I could almost fancy it was Mr. Locke Harper."
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper," repeated Agatha. "Was that the name Uncle Brian went
+by?"
+
+"Yes, save with those privileged people who called him Brian. But they
+were few. He had not the fortune or misfortune of possessing a thousand
+and one intimate friends. Yet all respected him, and remember him still.
+It will be a real satisfaction to have in the country a second Mr. Locke
+Harper,--Dear me, how like he is! Don't you see it, Miss Valery?"
+
+"There is a general likeness running through all the Harper family."
+
+"Except the eldest son, though even to him I can trace some resemblance
+here"--and he bowed to Mrs. Dugdale. "And this reminds me that I knew
+beforehand I should probably have the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Harper in
+Dorsetshire. Only two days ago I saw at Paris Major Frederick Harper."
+
+"Is Major Harper at Paris?" eagerly cried Agatha, caught by the name,
+which had so soon passed out of the daily interests of her life,
+that its sound was already quite strange. It reached her now like a
+comforting breath of old times--a something to catch hold of in the
+wide, dreary maze around her. Her former guardian seemed to rise up
+before her; with all his cheery, good-natured ways; his compassion
+when she had been newly made an orphan; his kindness of manner that
+remained--ay, to the very last.
+
+In a rush of many feelings that softened her voice to positive
+tenderness, she cried, "Oh do tell me all about Major Harper?"
+
+And this time she did not notice that, in the political discussion going
+forward, it was Mr. Dugdale who spoke, his brother-in-law having ceased
+the argument and become silent.
+
+"Madam," returned the candidate, with a smile--perhaps a little too
+meaning a smile--"I will, with pleasure, tell you everything. I guessed
+from his anxious questions concerning you, and whether I had met you in
+Dorsetshire, that before he was your brother-in-law Major Harper had the
+happiness of being an intimate friend of yours."
+
+"He was my guardian."
+
+"That fact he did not inform me of. Indeed we had little time for
+conversation. We merely dined together, and parted almost immediately.
+He seemed in the midst of a whirl of pleasant engagements, as Major
+Harper invariably is. Charming, agreeable man! An immense favourite with
+all ladies."
+
+Agatha answered "Yes" rather coldly. Her attention was wandering; she
+had missed the sound of her husband's voice altogether. But the next
+moment she heard him behind her.
+
+"Mr. Trenchard?"
+
+"Well, my dear sir? Are you also come to ask questions about your
+brother, whom, as I have been telling Mrs. Harper, I had the pleasure to
+meet in Paris?"
+
+"So I have just heard you say. Where, and how was he living?"
+
+Agatha thought this a strange question for Nathanael to put to a third
+party concerning his own brother. She was glad to hear Miss Valery
+observe, with genuine tact, that Major Harper was always careless in the
+matter of giving addresses.
+
+"He was living--let me see--at 102 Rue--, one of the handsomest and
+pleasantest streets in Paris. I remember he said he was obliged to take
+this _appartement_ for three months, after which he was going to act the
+hermit and economise. Very unlikely that, I should think, for a man of
+Major Harper's social habits."
+
+"Very," Agatha said, being looked to for a response. She was much
+surprised to learn this of her brother-in-law; still more did she wonder
+at the rigid silence with which her husband heard the same.
+
+"I think, Mrs. Harper, we may safely say that his determination will not
+last. A mere fit of misanthropy after rather too much gaiety. In such
+a pleasant fellow as Frederick Harper we must excuse a few broken
+resolutions."
+
+"We ought," said Anne Valery, with that rare gentleness which makes men
+listen to a woman even when she "preaches." "It is a very hard trial for
+any one to be thrown into the world with so many gifts as Major Harper.
+A man whom all men like, and not a few women are prone to love, goes
+through an ordeal so fierce, that if he withstand it he is one of the
+greatest heroes on earth. If he fall"--and Anne lowered her voice so
+that Agatha could scarcely hear, though she felt sure Nathanael did--"if
+he fall, we ought, through all the wrong, clearly to discern the
+temptation."
+
+It was a new doctrine, the last Agatha would have expected to hear on
+the lips of such a sternly good woman as she had painted Miss Valery.
+She said so, adding, with her usual plainness, "I thought, somehow, that
+you did not like Major Harper?"
+
+"Nay, we were young together. But hush, my dear, your husband is
+speaking."
+
+He was saying, with quite an altered expression, something about "my
+brother Frederick." But after that mention Major Harper's name died out
+of the conversation, as out of Agatha's memory. Alas, not the unfrequent
+fate of the Major Harpers of society--meteors, never thought of but
+while they are shining, and forgotten as soon as they have burnt
+themselves out.
+
+By this time the two or three stray visitors--gentlemen-farmers, Anne's
+tenants, as Mrs. Dugdale whispered--had disappeared, and Mr. Trenchard
+was the sole stranger left in the drawing-room. Miss Valery did the
+honours of her house with a remarkably simple grace.
+
+"I give no state dinner parties," she said, smiling, to Mr. Trenchard.
+"It is a whim of mine that I never could see the use of friends meeting
+together merely to eat and drink, or of offering them more and richer
+fare than is customary or necessary. But if you will stay and dine with
+me, and with these my own people, country fashion, even though you have
+been a ten years' resident in London"--
+
+"But have never forgotten Dorset, and good Dorset ways," said the old
+gentleman, as he bowed over the hostess's hand. Then, obeying Anne's
+signal, he offered his arm to Mrs. Harper to lead her in to dinner;--the
+innocent daylight dinner, with real China-roses looking in at the
+window, and an energetic autumn-robin singing his good-night before the
+sun went down.
+
+Agatha could have been happy, merry--she was still so young, and
+the weight on her heart was the first that ever had fallen there. At
+intervals she struggled to forget it--almost succeeded; and then the
+first glimpse of her husband's face, the first tone of his voice,
+brought the burden back again. Her spirits grew wilder than ever, lest
+any one should guess she was so very, very miserable.
+
+After dinner, dreading Anne's eyes, she rushed off into the garden with
+Harrie Dugdale; tossing back her hair, and inhaling by gasps the cold
+evening wind, that it might bring calm and clearness to her brain. Even
+yet she felt as though she were dreaming.
+
+Returning, she found lights in the drawing-room. Mr. Trenchard, in a
+patient attitude, was listening to Marmaduke Dugdale; some distance
+off, Nathanael sat talking to Miss Valery. Anne was leaning back in an
+arm-chair: the lamp shining full on her face showed how very pale and
+worn it was. Her voice, too, sounded feeble, as Agatha caught the words:
+
+"In two months, you think? That is a long time."
+
+"It cannot be sooner, Marmaduke says. I met him on board the ship
+at Weymouth; when he told me of this innocent little scheme he was
+transacting."
+
+"But you will not tell"--
+
+"Uncle Brian? No, of course not. Yet I think it would do Uncle Brian
+good to know how dearly Marmaduke and all his friends here care for him.
+Yet he might not believe it--I think he never did."
+
+Anne was silent.
+
+"He used to say," continued Nathanael, who was sitting where he
+could not see his wife, and for once heard not her soft step over the
+carpet--"Uncle Brian used to say, that it was wisest neither to love
+nor need love. I think different. It is a cruel, hardening, embittering
+thing for a man to feel that no one loves him."
+
+--"Love--love! Have you two sage ones been discussing that folly? Now,
+may I have the honour to hear?"
+
+"If Anne will talk; I have done speaking," said Mr. Harper, as he gave
+Agatha his chair, and slowly moved away to the other circle.
+
+Thus, ever thus, he went from her, escaping the chance of either being
+wounded or healed. Agatha was nearly wild. With all her might she flung
+herself into conversation with Mr. Trenchard, and tried to conjugate
+that verb--hitherto a mystery to her innocent mind--_to flirt_. She
+wished to make herself beautifully hateful--bewitchingly foul; or rather
+she did not care what she made herself, if she only made _him_--who had
+now in her thoughts sank to the namelessness, which proves that one name
+is fast filling up the whole world--made him stir from that mountain
+height of impassive calm--melted him into repentance--shook him into
+frenzied jealousy. Anything--anything--so that he no longer should stand
+before her like a serene Alp, which nothing human could disturb, and
+which--ah, in all her madness, she saw that but too clearly!--which
+had always such a heavenly light shining on its forehead--a purity
+"God-given," like his name.
+
+His name, which she had once so disliked, but which now caught a strange
+beauty. Lately, she had looked out its meaning in a list of Bible names;
+and many a time, the night before, she had said it to herself, crying
+it out into the dark, until its soft Hebrew vowels grew musical, and its
+holy Hebrew meaning grew divine. "Nathanael--Nathanael--_God-given_."
+Might he not indeed be a husband given unto her of God--to lead her in
+the right way, and make a true noble woman of her; such as a woman is
+always made by the love of, and the loving of, a noble man.
+
+But these were sacred night-time thoughts which vanished in the
+daylight, or only came in snatches and rifts, careering through the
+blackness that surrounded her.
+
+And still she talked to the fortunate Mr. Trenchard; made herself more
+agreeable than she had ever believed possible. The elderly beau was
+fascinated, and even Mr. Dugdale turned from election-papers, to look at
+his fair sister-in-law with genuine admiration--now and then nodding to
+Harrie, as if to see what she thought of this new light that had shot
+across their country hemisphere. At which Mrs. Dugdale once or
+twice pretended to be mightily jealous, until her husband, with his
+inconceivable sweet smile, his way of patting her knees with his big
+gentle hand, and the utterly inexpressible tone of his "Nay, now Missus"
+made matters quite straight, and plunged back into his politics.
+
+All this while Anne Valery sat in her arm chair--speaking little,
+looking from one to the other of her guests with a wandering, thoughtful
+eye, that, for once, noticed little the things around her, because her
+mental vision was afar off.--Whither--
+
+And Marmaduke went on with his benevolent schemes for improving
+Dorsetshire and the world; and his Harrie had her dreams too--possibly
+about the advantage an M.P.'s interest might prove in future days to
+"the children;" and the young couple, in all the whirl of their misery,
+still clung to hope and youth and life, so little of which way they had
+trod, and so much of which lay before them. No one thought of her who
+sat apart, looking smilingly on them all, but to whom they and the
+things surrounding them were day by day growing more dim--who was
+fading, fading, even while she smiled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+When, late at night, the party reached Kingcombe, it was resolved that
+the Harpers should remain there until morning. Agatha, worn out with
+bodily fatigue and the great tension of her mind during so many hours,
+laid her head down on her pillow, closed her aching eyes, and never
+opened them till near upon broad noon. Then she found breakfast was long
+over in the early house of the Dugdales, and that Nathanael had left her
+and gone out some hours before.
+
+"He would not let me come and wake you--he said you slept so heavily
+and looked so tired. Certainly, he is the very kindest husband! Who ever
+would have believed that stiff, cold disagreeable Nathanael, who came
+home from America some months ago, puzzling us all, would have turned
+out so well. It is your ladyship's doing, I suppose."
+
+So ran on Mrs. Dugdale, nor noticed how beneath her words her
+sister-in-law writhed, as though they had been sharp swords. Harrie was
+not a penetrating woman; Agatha had already discerned that, and thought,
+with a bitter smile, that it was well they were coming to live at
+Kingcombe, and that Mrs. Dugdale would be a very safe and amusing
+companion.
+
+"Now, what is to be done to-day?" said she, as she ate the breakfast
+which Harrie brought her, and looked round the strange bed-room, which
+made her feel more bewildered than ever. So many phases, so many lives
+did she seem to have passed through since she was married.
+
+"The first thing to be done, my dear, is to take you back to Kingcombe
+Holm, to do respectful to your papa-in-law. Very punctilious is the
+Squire. If Nathanael had not ridden over there at some unearthly hour
+this morning, he never would have forgiven your not returning at
+night--the last night too, for I see your husband is determined to be
+settled at the cottage this evening."
+
+"Ah, that is well." Agatha breathed more freely. She was so glad to hide
+herself under any roof that was her own. And perhaps a vague thought
+crept up, that some time--not for days yet, but when she could bend her
+pride to soften him--when they were living quite alone together--all
+might be gradually explained, nay, healed, between her and her husband.
+She was on the whole not sorry to go "home."
+
+"I see you two are quite agreed," laughed Harrie. "Marvellous union,
+Mrs. Locke Harper. You'll be really a pattern couple soon, and throw
+Duke and me cruelly in the shade. Now, dress like lightning, and I'll
+drive you and the children over to grandpapa's. Most likely well meet Pa
+and Nathanael somewhere about the town."
+
+But, with the general vagueness of the Dugdale habits, that meeting did
+not arrive, nor was Mr. Harper anywhere to be seen.
+
+"I dare say he is at the cottage, where I was bid not to take you upon
+any account. Charming little mysteries, I suppose, attendant on bringing
+home the bride. Very nice. Heigh-ho! I remember how happy I was when my
+poor dear Duke brought me home for the first time!"
+
+"Where was that?" They were dashing over the moors, Agatha sitting
+rather silent, and Harrie's tongue galloping as fast as Dunce, her
+steed. Little Brian was perched on his mother's knee, holding the
+reins--a baby Phaeton, though with small danger of setting the world on
+fire--at least just yet.
+
+"Where was it, my dear? Why, to the same old house we live in, empty
+and gloomy then, though it's full enough now. And I had been
+married--(hold your tongues, Fred and Gus! you can't have the whip,
+simpletons!)--married only three weeks, and it was queer coming back to
+my native place; and my father was rather cross that I had married Duke
+at all, and--I was foolish enough to cry."
+
+Here Harrie laughed, and gave Dunce a lash that quite discomposed his
+pony faculties, and made Brian scream with delight.
+
+"And what did your husband say?"
+
+"Say? Nothing. He never speaks when he's vexed or hurt; only, a little
+while afterwards he came beside me, and said something about my being
+such a young girl, so gay-hearted and pretty--(bah!--though I was pretty
+then)--too young, he said, to marry such an elderly man, etc. etc. etc."
+
+"And what did _you_ say?"
+
+"Likewise nothing. I just jumped on his knee, and took him round the
+neck, and--But that isn't of the slightest consequence to anybody. Tuts!
+On with you, Dunce!" And Harrie leaned forward, her eyelashes glittering
+wet in spite of her fun.
+
+"I know I don't deserve him," she continued. "I never did. Nobody could.
+There are a lot of bad men in the world, but when a man is really good,
+there's hardly a woman alive that is good enough for him. And I'm not
+half good enough for Duke--but--I love him! That's all. Bless thee,
+Brian! thee is Pa's own boy all over!"
+
+And Harrie kissed the little fellow passionately, with something more
+even than a mother's love.--Agatha could have lifted up her arms and
+shrieked with misery.
+
+It was a strange long day at Kingcombe Holm; many things to be arranged,
+many questions to be parried, many prying eyes to be avoided. But
+the general conclusion seemed to be, that this sudden movement was a
+mysterious whim of Nathanael--and Nathanael was supposed by one-half of
+his family to be mightily prone to mysteries and whims.
+
+At length, when the day was nigh spent, and Agatha had dressed for the
+last of those formal dinners to which she had never been able quite to
+reconcile herself, she took refuge in Elizabeth's room. Thither she
+had of late absented herself; there was something so formidable in the
+keenness of Elizabeth's silent eyes. Hesitating before the door, she
+remembered when she had last quitted it. It required all her bravery to
+cross the threshold once more.
+
+"Come in. I hear your foot, Agatha." There was no stepping back now.
+
+The same atmosphere of peace and sanctity pervading the pretty room; the
+same lights dancing through the painted window on the silk coverlet; the
+same face, which had all the colourless reality of death, without any
+of its ghastliness--a smiling repose, such as is seen only at the
+beginning and end of life's tumult--in the cradle and in the coffin. Its
+effect upon Agatha was instantaneous. Her trembling ceased; she stepped
+lightly, as one does in entering a holy place.
+
+"Elizabeth!" It seemed a beautiful name, a saint's name, and as such
+came quite naturally, though she had rarely before been so familiar with
+any one of her new sisters. She kneeled down and kissed Elizabeth.
+
+"That is right. You are good to come. And where have you been, my little
+sister?--I have not seen you for three days."
+
+"Is it so long?"
+
+"Yes--though it may seem longer to me here. You remember you came and
+told me a long story about a Cornish miner. How did the tale end? What,
+no answer?"
+
+None. She tried to hide herself--crush herself into the very floor where
+she sat, out of reach of Elizabeth's eyes.
+
+"Ah, well, dear! I shall not ask."
+
+"Perhaps my husband will tell you some day. Talk to me of something
+else, Elizabeth. And oh! however I may look and speak, don't notice me.
+Let me feel that I need not make pretences with you."
+
+"You need not. Nothing that happens here goes beyond these four walls.
+Everybody tells me everything."
+
+Elizabeth might well say this. There was that about her which made
+people fearless and free in their confidence; it did not seem like
+talking to a mortal woman, mixed up continually in the affairs of life,
+but to one removed to a different sphere, where there was no chance of
+betrayal.
+
+Her room was a safe confessional, and she was a sort of general
+conscience in the house.
+
+"Everybody tells you everything," repeated Agatha. "Does my husband?"
+
+"Not yet; at least not in words."
+
+"Then I will not. Only let me come here, and"--
+
+She covered her face, and for a few moments wept fully and freely, as
+one weep's before one's own heart and before God. Then she dried her
+eyes, and the storm was over.
+
+Elizabeth only said, "Poor child--poor child. Wait!" But the one word
+struck like a sun-ray through darkness. No one ever "waited" but had
+some hopeful ending to wait for.
+
+"Now," said Agatha, overcoming her weakness--"now let us talk. What have
+you been doing all day?"
+
+"Little else than read this, and think over it. You know Frederick's
+hand, I see? He does not usually write such long letters, even to me.
+All is not right with him, I fear."
+
+"Indeed!"--and Agatha met unsuspiciously the keen look of Elizabeth.
+"Yet he is well and in the midst of gaieties; Mr. Trenchard said so
+yesterday. They met in Paris."
+
+"Did they?" Elizabeth lay musing for a good while; then suddenly said,
+observing her young sister, "Agatha, you are listening? There's some one
+at the door?"
+
+It was Nathanael. Any one might have known that by the quick flush
+that swept over his wife's features. But when this passed she was again
+composed--not at all like the young creature who had wept by Elizabeth's
+couch. She merely acknowledged her husband's presence, and leaving her
+place vacant for him, took up a book.
+
+He said, "I did not know my wife was here. Were you and she talking?
+Shall I leave you?"
+
+Elizabeth smiled. "Then you must take your wife also, for I will not be
+the sundering of married people. But nonsense! Sit down both of you. We
+were speaking about Frederick. Has he written to you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"In this letter"--Nathanael's eyes fell on it and froze there--"he
+gives me no address. Agatha says he is living in Paris. Do you remember
+where?"
+
+"I do not.",
+
+"Perhaps your wife does."
+
+Agatha had a useful memory for such things. She repeated the address
+given by Mr. Trenchard, exactly.
+
+"Good child! When I write I shall tell Frederick how you remembered
+him. But he has been equally mindful of you. He asks many questions, and
+seems very anxious about you."
+
+"Does he? He is very kind," said Agatha, somewhat moved. She felt all
+kindness deeply now.
+
+"He is kind," Miss Harper continued, thoughtfully. "When he was a
+boy, there never was a softer heart. Poor Frederick!" And the name was
+uttered with a fondness that Agatha had never noticed in any other of
+Major Harper's family towards him. It led her to look sympathisingly
+towards Elizabeth.
+
+"Are you uneasy about him? Oh! I do hope nothing is wrong with poor
+Major Harper." And she almost forgot her own feelings in thinking
+how unbrotherly it was of Nathanael to sit there like a stone, saying
+nothing. Elizabeth also seemed hurt; the elder brother was clearly her
+favourite--clung to as sisters cling, through good report and evil. She
+looked gratefully at Agatha.
+
+"Thank you. You are a warm-hearted girl. But you ought to keep a warm
+heart for Frederick. You do not know how tenderly he always speaks of
+you."
+
+Agatha coloured, she hardly knew why, except because she saw her husband
+start and look at her--one of those keen, quick looks that only last a
+moment. Under it she blushed still deeper--to very scarlet.
+
+Mr. Harper stood up. "I think, Elizabeth, we must go now. Agatha shall
+come to you again in a day or two--and you and she can then talk over
+both your sisterly loves for Frederick."
+
+He spoke lightly, but Agatha heard a jarring tone--she was growing so
+familiar with his every tone now. Why did he thus speak, thus look,
+whenever she uttered or listened to his brother's name? Could it be
+possible that Emma had told him--No, she threw that thought from her in
+scorn--the scorn with which she had once met the insinuation that
+she had been "in love" with Major Harper. Emma could not have been so
+foolish, so wicked, or, if she had, any manly honour, any honest pride,
+would have made Nathanael speak of it before their marriage. Since, she
+felt certain that Mr. Harper had not interchanged a single word alone
+with Mrs. Thornycroft.
+
+In disgust and shame that her vanity--oh! not vanity, but a feeling
+that, holy as it was, her proud heart still denied--had led her to
+form the suspicion, Agatha cast it from her. She who had no secrets, no
+jealousies, felt it to be impossible that Nathanael should bury within
+his breast that foul thing--a secret jealousy of his brother.
+
+Especially now, when it seemed as if his love itself were dying or
+dead--when on quitting Elizabeth's room, he walked with her, silent, or
+making smooth brief speeches, as he would to any other lady--any lady he
+had met for the first time, and was handing courteously down to dinner.
+Her heart boiled within her! Was she to pour it out before him in
+complaint--repentance? Was she to accuse him of jealousy, and be met
+with a calm contemptuous smile?--to betray the growing passion of her
+heart, in order to light up the few stray embers that might yet be
+lingering feebly in his? Never! She walked on haughtily, carelessly,
+dumb.
+
+The evening slid on, hardly noticed by her. Night came; when, after
+many ceremonious family adieux, which she responded to without ever
+hearing--after one frantic rush along the dim passages to Elizabeth's
+door, where she drew back and left the tearful good-bye unspoken, for
+_he_ was standing there--after all this the Squire put her into the
+family coach, with Mrs. Dugdale at her side and Nathanael opposite.
+Bidding her farewell, the old man gave, with less stateliness than
+tenderness, his fatherly blessing upon her and her new home. They
+reached it. Again she laid her head upon a strange pillow in a strange
+room, and slept, as she always did when very wretched, the heavy,
+stupifying sleep which lasts from night till morning--deadening all
+care, but making the waking like that of one waking in a tomb.
+
+Agatha woke with the sunshine full in her eyes, and the early
+church-bells ringing.
+
+"Oh, where am I? What day is this? Where is my husband?"
+
+The new maid, Nathanael's foster-sister, was standing by, smiling all
+respectful civilities, informing her in broad Dorset that it was Sunday,
+time for "missus" to get up, and that "master" was walking in the
+garden.
+
+They "mistress" and "master," head and guide of their own
+household!--they, two young creatures, who so little time ago had been a
+youth and a girl, each floating adrift on life, without duties or ties.
+It had seemed very strange, very solemn, under any circumstances, but
+now--
+
+"God help me, poor helpless child that I am! Oh, what shall I do?"
+
+Such was the inward sob of Agatha's heart. She almost wished that she
+could have turned her face again on the pillow, and slept there safely
+for eternity.
+
+But the matin church-bells ceased--it was nine o'clock. She must rise,
+and appear below for the first time as mistress in her own house. Also,
+she remembered faintly something which Mrs. Dugdale had said about the
+custom at Kingcombe--an irrefragable law of country etiquette---of a
+bride's going to church for the first time, ceremoniously, in
+bridal dress. And no sooner had she descended--wrapped in the first
+morning-frock she could lay her hands upon, than Harrie entered.
+
+"So--I am your first visitor you see. Many welcomes to your new home!
+And may it prove as happy, as merry--and some day, as full--as ours.
+Bless you, my dear little sister!"
+
+She pressed Agatha in her arms with more feeling than Harrie usually
+showed. But, for Agatha's salvation, or she would have burst into sobs,
+it was only momentary.
+
+"Come, no sentiment! Call in Nathanael, and eat your breakfast quickly,
+you atrociously lazy folks! Don't you know you have only half-an-hour
+and you must go to church, or all Kingcombe would be talking."
+
+"I meant to go--I shall be ready in two minutes."
+
+"My patience! ready--in such a gown! Come here Nathanael. Are you aware
+it's indispensable for your wife to appear at church in wedding costume,
+just as she did on that blissful day, when"--
+
+"Hush! I'll do anything you like, only hush!" whispered Agatha. Harrie
+laughed, and said something about "sparing her blushes." There were none
+to spare--she was as pale as death. What, appear before her husband,
+dressed as on the morning when if not altogether a happy bride, she at
+least had the hope of making her bridegroom happy, and the comfort of
+believing that he loved her and would love her always! The mere thought
+of this sent a coldness through all her frame.
+
+Nathanael said, "You told me this before, Harriet. It is an idle custom;
+but neither my wife nor myself would wish to go against the world, or
+the ways of our own people. Arrange it, as Agatha says, according as you
+like."
+
+He had then heard her whisper--he had seen her paleness. How had he
+interpreted both?
+
+The church-bells began to ring again, and Harrie prepared to vanish,
+though not until she had dressed Agatha, scanned her from top to toe,
+vowed the bonnet did not become her a bit, and that she looked as
+white as if she were again about to go through the formidable
+marriage-service.
+
+"A sad pity!--because to-day you'll be looked at a great deal more than
+the clergyman. We are a terribly inquisitive town; and weddings are
+scarce at Kingcombe.--Take your wife, Nathanael. There you go--a very
+handsome, interesting young couple. Nay, don't cheat the townsfolk by
+taking the garden way."
+
+"Do, pray?" entreated Agatha of her husband. "Don't let the people see
+us."
+
+"You foolish child!" cried Harrie, as she made herself invisible through
+the front-door, throwing back her last words as an unconscious parting
+sting. "Folks will think you are ashamed of your husband."
+
+Agatha took no notice, nor did Nathanael. Silently they walked to
+church, the garden way, which led them out opposite the eastern door.
+Entering with his wife on his arm, his bare head erect, though the eyes
+were lowered, his whole face still and steadfast, but looking much
+older since his marriage.--Mr. Harper was a man of whom no one need
+be ashamed. His wife glanced at him, and, in spite of all her sorrow,
+walked proudly up the aisle--prouder far than on her wedding-day. She
+never thought of herself or of the people looking at her. And--Heaven
+forgive her, poor child!--for the moment she never thought of Whose
+temple she was entering, until the clergyman's serious voice arose,
+proclaiming those "sacrifices" which are "a broken spirit." Then her
+spirit sank down broken within her, and under her thick white veil, and
+upon her white velvet bridal Prayer-book, fell tears, many and bitter.
+The poorest charity-girl that stared at her from the gallery would not
+that day have envied the bride.
+
+Service over, out of the church they went as they had come, arm-in-arm;
+the congregation holding back; all watching, but from some mysterious
+etiquette which must be left to the Kingcombeites to elucidate, no one
+venturing to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper. The Squire's household
+did not attend this church, nor the Dugdales either; so that the young
+people walked home without speaking to a soul, and scarcely to each
+other. They were both very grave. A word, perhaps, from either would
+have unlocked a heart flood; but the word was not spoken. They met at
+the gate of the cottage Mrs. Dugdale and her boys. Soon all the solemn
+influences of the temple passed away. They were in the world once
+more--the hard, bitter, erring world.
+
+"We are come in to see Auntie Agatha and Uncle Nathanael," said Harrie,
+as the children stood rather awe-struck by Mrs. Harper's dazzling
+appearance. "And we are going to take both back with us for dinner, as
+you promised. Early country dinner, my dear, which can't by any means be
+eaten in those fine clothes."
+
+"I will take them off." And her foot was on the stairs.
+
+"Stay; don't you see your husband looking at you. Let me look too--we
+are never likely to see you dressed as a bride again."
+
+Agatha paused, but Mr. Harper had already turned away. His gaze--would
+she had seen it! but she did not--was ended.
+
+She ran up-stairs, she looked in the glass once more at the vision
+which, from the age of childhood, almost every girl beholds herself in
+fancy--the dazzling white silk, orange-flowers, and lace, trappings
+of a day, never to be again worn. Then she tore them off,
+wildly--desperately; wishing one minute that she could bury them in the
+earth out of her sight, and again wrapping them up tenderly, as we wrap
+up clothes that are now nothing but empty garments, from which the form
+that-filled them has vanished evermore.
+
+Afterwards she dressed herself in ordinary matronly garb, and came down
+with matronly aspect to Harry and the little boys.
+
+A mid-day country dinner, eaten in peace and quietness, where people
+keep Sunday in Christian fashion--at least externally--where no visitors
+come in, and no gay evening reunions put an unholy close to the holy
+day; when the father of the family gathers his children round him in
+the long, sleepy afternoons, or takes a walk with them in the
+summer-twilight while all the neighbours are safe in church; after
+which, as a great treat, the elder ones sit up to supper, and the little
+ones are put to bed by mamma's own hands; then pleasant weariness,
+perhaps some brief evening prayer, sincere without cant--the household
+separates--the house darkens--and the day of rest ends.
+
+This was the way they kept Sunday at the Dugdales'. It was something new
+to Agatha, and she liked it much. She threw herself into the domestic
+ways as if she had been used to them all her life, and specially made
+herself popular with the father and the little ones. Marmaduke looked
+benevolently upon his sister-in-law, seemed quite to forget she was "a
+young lady," and even was heard to call her "my child" four times,--at
+which she was very pleased and proud. Over and over again, with youth's
+wild thirst to be happy, she tried to forget the weight on her life,
+and plunge into a temporary gaiety. Sometimes she even caught herself
+laughing outright, as she played with the children; for no one can be
+miserable always, especially at nineteen. But whenever she looked up,
+or was silent, or paused to think, the image of her husband came like a
+cloud between her and her mirth. No--she never could be really happy.
+
+Nathanael was all day very quiet and abstracted. He did not romp with
+his little nephews, and only smiled when Harrie teased him for this
+unusual omission of avuncular privilege. Once, Agatha saw him sitting
+with the youngest little girl fast asleep against his shoulder, he
+looking over her baby-curls with a pensive, troubled eye, an eye which
+seemed gazing into the future to find there--nothing! A strange thrill
+quivered through Agatha's heart to see him so sitting with that child.
+
+After tea Mrs. Dugdale proposed turning out of doors all the masculine
+half of the family, except the infant Brian, before whom loomed the
+terrific prospect of bed. So off they started. Gus being seen to snatch
+frantically at Pa's hand, and Fred, sublime in his first jacket, walking
+alongside with an air and grace worthy of the uncle whose name he bore.
+
+"There they go," cried Mrs. Dugdale, looking fondly after them. "Not
+bad-looking lads either, considering that Pa isn't exactly a beauty. But
+pshaw! what does that signify? I think my Duke's the very nicest face I
+know. Don't you, Agatha?"
+
+Agatha warmly acquiesced. She had entirely got over the first impression
+of Duke's plainness. And moreover she was learning day by day that
+mysterious secret which individualises one face out of all the world,
+and makes its very deficiencies more lovely than any other features'
+charm. She could fully sympathise with Harrie's harmless weakness, and
+agreed--looking at Brian, who in fact strongly resembled his father,
+angelicised into childhood, keeping the same beautiful expression, which
+needed no change--that if Mr. Dugdale's sons grew up like him in all
+points, the world would be none the worse, but a great deal the better.
+
+Thus talking--which little Brian seemed actually to understand, for he
+stood at her knee gazing up with miraculously merry eyes--Agatha watched
+her sister-in-law's Sunday duty, religiously performed, of putting the
+younger two to bed, while the nurses went to church, or took walks with
+their sweethearts. For, as Harrie sagely observed, "'the maidens' as
+we call them in Dorsetshire, 'the maidens' will fall in love as well as
+we."
+
+So chattering merrily--while she dashed water over Miss Baby's white,
+round limbs, and let Brian caper wildly about the nursery, clad in all
+sorts of half-costumes, or no costume at all--Mrs. Dugdale
+initiated Agatha into various arcana belonging to motherhood and
+mistress-of-a-family-hood. The other listened eagerly, so eagerly that
+she could have laughed at herself, remembering what she was six months
+before. To think that to-morrow she must begin her house-keeping--she,
+who knew no more of such things than a child! She snatched at all sorts
+of knowledge, talked over butchers, and bakers, and house expenses, and
+Kingcombe ways of marketing, taking an interest in the most commonplace
+things. For pervading everything was the consciousness, "It is _his_
+home I have to make comfortable." That thought sanctified and beautified
+all.
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," said Harrie, pausing in her walk up and
+down, patting and singing to Baby, who stared with open eyes over her
+shoulder, and obstinately declined going to sleep. "You will turn out a
+notable woman, I see. It's a curious and melancholy fact, which we don't
+ever learn till we are married, that all the love in the world is thrown
+away upon a man unless you make him comfortable at home. A neat house
+and a creditable dinner every day go more to his heart than all the
+sentimental devotion you can give. It's all very well for a man in love
+to live upon roses and posies, and kisses and blisses, but after he is
+married he dearly likes to be comfortable."
+
+Agatha was silent for a moment, hardly venturing to believe, and yet
+afraid she must. "I heard Miss Valery once say that no man's love after
+marriage is exactly as it was before it; that the thing attained soon
+loses its preciousness, and that the wife has to assume a new character,
+and win another kind of love. I wonder if this is true. I wonder"--and
+suddenly she changed her seriousness for the tone of raillery she always
+used with Harrie Dugdaie--"I wonder whether our husbands adore us first,
+and afterwards expect us to adore them."
+
+"So they do; I assure you they do! And a pretty amount of adoring
+and waiting upon your husband will require. I wouldn't for the whole
+universe have my Duke such an awfully exacting, particular, provoking,
+disagreeably good, or inexplicably naughty animal as my brother
+Nathanael."
+
+"Mrs. Dugdaie!" Agatha hardly knew whether to laugh or to be indignant.
+She only knew that she felt ready to spring up like a chained tigress
+when anybody said a word against Mr. Harper.
+
+"There now, don't waken the baby. Keep yourself quiet, do. See, there's
+its husband coming down the street to comfort it. He is looking up here,
+too. Run down, do'ee now; and if she'll be a good girl she shall
+have the neatest household and the best husband in Kingcombe--always
+excepting mine."
+
+Agatha did not run down; but she leant over the landing, and heard the
+footsteps and voices in the hall--steps and voices which always seem to
+put new life into a house where its ruler is dear to the hearts of wife
+and children. Troubled as she was--laden with even a new weight since
+the talk with Mrs. Dugdale--Agatha listened, and felt that in spite of
+all, the house seemed brighter for the entrance of _her_ husband. She
+tried to catch what he was saying, but only heard the voice of Mr.
+Dugdaie.
+
+"Of course, as you say, it's necessary. But really tomorrow--so
+soon--and for such a long time too! Couldn't both go together?"
+
+Nathanael made some inaudible reply.
+
+"To be sure, you know best. But--poor young thing!--I wonder what my
+Harrie would have said to me. Poor, pretty little thing!"
+
+The words, the manner, startled Agatha; She could not make them out. She
+descended, looking alarmed, uneasy--a look which did not wear off all
+the rest of the evening.
+
+In leaving she wondered why Mr. Dugdale woke from his dreaminess to bid
+her good-night with a fatherly air, addressing her more than once by his
+superlative of kindness, "My child." When she took her husband's arm
+to go out of the lighted hall-into the night, Agatha trembled, as if
+something were going to happen--she knew not what.
+
+The street was very dark, for Kingcombe people were economisers in gas;
+and besides kept such primitive hours, that at ten o'clock you might
+walk from one end of the town to the other and not see a light in any
+house. There was not a soul abroad except these two, and their feet
+echoed loudly along the pavement. At first Agatha, blinded by coming out
+of light into darkness, saw nothing, but stumbled on, clinging tightly
+to her husband. At length she perceived whereabouts they were--the
+black, quaintly-gabled houses, the market-cross, and, far above the
+sleepy town and its deserted streets, the bright wonderfully bright
+stars.
+
+Agatha took comfort when she saw the stars.
+
+"Have we far to go? I am rather tired," she said to her husband, chiefly
+for the sake of saying something.
+
+"Tired, are you? Then you must have a quiet day tomorrow. It will be
+very quiet, I doubt not;" and he sighed.
+
+"Why so? What is to be done to-morrow? Shall you have to ride over to
+Thornhurst?"
+
+"No; I saw Anne Valery yesterday. I shall not see her again for a good
+while."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"There is business requiring me in Cornwall. To-morrow I am going away."
+
+"Going away!" The words were little more than a sigh. She felt all cold
+and numb for the moment. Then a sudden flood of the old impetuous pride
+came over her. Going away! Leaving his young wife! Leaving her alone in
+her new home--alone the second day, to be wondered at, and pointed
+at, and pitied! Perhaps he did it to humble and punish her. It was
+cruel--cruel! And again the demon or angel--which took such various
+forms that she hardly knew the true one--rose up rampant within her.
+
+"Mr. Harper, this is sudden--will look strange. You ought to have told
+me before."
+
+"I did not know it myself until last night. That my going to Cornwall is
+necessary, on business grounds, I have already made clear to Marmaduke.
+He will tell his wife, and Harriet will tell all the world. I have so
+arranged that you will have no difficulty of any kind. This house will
+go on as usual, or you can visit at Thornhurst and at my father's. There
+will be no loss to you of anything or anybody--except one, whose absence
+must be welcome." "Welcome!" she repeated in an accent of bitter scorn.
+
+"You said so yourself. Hush! do not say it again. When we part, let it
+be in peace!"
+
+He spoke in a smothered, exhausted voice, and holding the gate open
+for her to pass, leaned upon it as if he could hardly stand. But Agatha
+perceived nothing--she was dizzy and blind.
+
+"Peace?" she repeated, driven mad by the mockery of the word. She
+saw the door half-open, the warm light glimmering within the hall--so
+soft--so home-like. The torture was too strong--her senses began to give
+way.
+
+Without knowing what she did, without any settled purpose except to
+escape from the misery of that sight, Agatha pushed her husband from
+her, turned and fled--fled anywhere, no matter where, so that it was
+into night and darkness, away from her home and from him.
+
+She did not know the way; she only knew that she ran up one street and
+down another like the wind. Her state of mind was bordering on insanity.
+At length she paused from sheer exhaustion, and leaned against a
+doorway--like any poor outraged homeless wretch.
+
+The good man of the house came softly out to look up into the quiet
+night before he bolted his door. He stood musing, contemplating the
+stars. It was a minute or more before he noticed the bowed human form
+beside him. When he did, there was no mistaking the compassionate voice.
+
+"Eh, poor soul! What's wrong wi'ee?"
+
+Agatha sprang up with a cry. There were two standing by her, from whose
+presence she would gladly have run to the world's end--Mr. Dugdale and
+her husband. The one remained petrified with astonishment--the other
+said but three words, in a dull mechanical voice, as if every feeling
+had been struck out of the man by some thunderbolt of doom.
+
+"Agatha, come home."
+
+Again she tried to burst from him and fly, but her arm was caught, and
+Marmaduke Dugdale's grave look--the look he fixed upon his own
+children when they erred, constraining them always into repentance and
+goodness--was reading her inmost soul.
+
+"Go home, poor child! I'll not tell of you or him. Go home with your
+husband."
+
+She felt her hand laid, or grasped--she knew not which--in that of
+Nathanael; who held it with invincible firmness. There was no resisting
+that clasp. She rose up and followed him, as if led by an invisible
+chain. Her madness had passed, and left only a dull indifference to
+everything. The die was cast; she had laid open the miseries of their
+home, had disgraced him and herself before the world. It signified
+little where she went or what she did; they were utterly separated now.
+
+Without again speaking, or taking notice of Mr. Dugdale, she suffered
+Nathanael to lead her away, passing swiftly down the silent streets.
+Neither husband nor wife uttered a single word.
+
+The moment she entered the house she walked up-stairs, slowly, that he
+might not see her tottering; went into her own room, and locked her
+door with a loud, fierce turning of the key, that seemed to shriek as it
+turned.
+
+There, for almost an hour, she sat motionless. The maid, half asleep,
+came to the door with a light, but Agatha bade her set it down, and sat
+in the dark. Dark--altogether dark, within and without; with no hope
+or repentance, or even the heroism of suffering; wrathful, sullen,
+miserable; wronged--yet conscious that she had sinned as much as she
+was sinned against; seeing her husband and herself stand as it were
+on either edge of a black gulf, hourly widening, yet neither having
+strength to plunge it to the other's side.
+
+Here she sat, upright and still, body and soul wrapped in a leaden,
+shroud-like darkness, until gradually a stupor possessed her brain.
+
+"I am so tired," she murmured, "I must go to sleep. He will not leave
+till to-morrow. But it does not signify. Nothing signifies. I must go to
+sleep."
+
+She unlocked the door and drew in the candle, flaring in its socket.
+She had to press her fingers on her eyeballs before they could bear the
+light, all was so very dark. She Sotted her hair up anyhow, took off her
+clothes, and crept to bed, almost as if she were creeping to her tomb.
+The fragment of candle went out, sinking instantaneously, like a soul
+quenched out of existence, and all was total darkness. In that darkness
+a heavy hand seemed to lay itself on Agatha's brain, and press down her
+eyelids. Scarcely two minutes after, she was asleep.
+
+Hour after hour of the night went by, and there was not a sound, not
+a breath in the room. The late moon rose, and gave a little glimmer of
+light through the curtains. Now and then there was a faint noise of some
+one moving in the house, but Agatha never stirred. She slept heavily as
+some people invariably sleep under the pressure of great pain.
+
+Towards morning, when moonlight and dawn were melted together, and the
+room was growing light enough to discern faces, there was a step at the
+door, and a ray flashing through the opening, for Agatha had left it
+ajar.
+
+Nathanael set down the candle outside and came in softly. He was dressed
+for a journey--evidently just ready to start. He looked very ill,
+sleepless, and worn.
+
+Standing a minute at the door, he listened to his wife's breathing, low
+and regular as that of a child. Nature and repose had soothed her; she
+slept now as quietly and healthfully as if she had never known trouble.
+Her husband crept across the room very carefully, and remained watching
+her. Oh! the contrast between the one who _watched_ and the one who
+slept!
+
+At first he stood perfectly upright, rigid, and motionless.
+
+Then his hands twisted themselves together, and his eyes grew hot,
+bursting. His lips moved as in speaking, though with never a sound. It
+was the dumbness--the choking dumbness of that emotion which made it
+so terrible. Such silence could not last--he seemed to feel it could
+not--and so moved backward out of hearing. There he stood for a little
+while, leaning against the wall, his hand bound tightly over his
+forehead, and sighing, so bitterly sighing!--that gasp which bursts from
+men who have no tears.
+
+At length he became calmer, but still stood without the door. He even
+moved the candle further off, as though afraid its glare, might disturb
+the sleeper--forgetful that the room was now growing all bright with
+daybreak. At this moment the clock striking in the hall below made him
+start.
+
+Hastily he took out a paper that he had hid somewhere about him. It
+was in his own handwriting, all sealed and endorsed. "Not to be opened
+except in case of my death." Nevertheless he tore it open--tore likewise
+an under-cover addressed to his wife, and began to read:
+
+"I know you never loved me. From something I overheard on our
+marriage-day--from other words afterwards let fall in anger by my
+brother, I also know that you loved"--
+
+He crushed the paper, his eyes seeming literally to flame. Then all the
+fury died out of them, and left nothing but tenderness. He listened for
+the soft breathing within--soft and pure.
+
+"No!" he murmured. "I will not leave her honour to the chance of written
+words. No other human being must ever know what I knew. If I live, it
+is not worse than it was before; and should any harm come to me, let her
+think I died in ignorance. Better so."
+
+He tore the paper into small strips, and deliberately burnt them one
+by one in the candle, making a little pile of the ashes, but afterwards
+scattering them about the fireplace. Then putting out the light--for
+the house was now filled with the soft grey dawn--Nathanael stepped once
+more into his wife's room.
+
+And still she was sleeping--sleeping at the very crisis of her fate. Her
+face was composed and sweet, though her hands were still clenched, and
+one of them almost buried in her loose hair.
+
+Her husband stood and looked at her, trying long to keep himself firm
+and self-restrained, as though she were aware of his presence. But at
+last the holy helplessness of sleep subdued him. From standing upright
+he sank gradually down--down--till he was crouching on his knees.
+Shudder over shudder came over him--sigh after sigh rose up, and was
+smothered again in his breast. At last even the strong man's strength
+gave way, and there fell a heavy, silent, burning rain.
+
+And all the while the wife slept, and never knew how he loved her!
+
+After a while this ceased. Nathanael opened his eyes and tried to look
+once more calmly on his wife. She stirred a little in sleep, and began
+to smile--a very soft, meek, innocent smile, that softened her lips into
+infantine sweetness. She was again Agatha, the merry Agatha, as she had
+been when he first saw her, before he wooed her, and shook her roughly
+from her girlish calm into all the struggles of life. He could have
+cursed himself--and yet--yet he loved her!
+
+Kneeling, he put his arm softly over her. Another moment and he would
+have yielded to the frantic impulse, and snatched her to his heart for
+one--just one embrace--heedless of her waking. But how would she wake?
+only to hate and reproach him. He had better leave her thus, and carry
+away in his remembrance that picture of peace, which blotted out all
+her bitter words, all her cruel want of love--made him forget everything
+except that she had been the wife of his bosom and his first love.
+
+He drew back his arm, gradually and noiselessly. He did not attempt to
+kiss her, not even her hand, lest he should disturb her; but kneeling,
+laid his hand on the pillow by hers, and pressed his lips to her hair.
+
+"I am glad she sleeps--yes, very glad! She is quite content now, she
+will be quite happy when I am gone, God love thee and take care of
+thee--my darling--my Agatha."
+
+[Illustration: A husband's farewell  p280]
+
+Kissing her hair once again, he rose up and went away.
+
+As he departed, the first sunbeam came in and danced upon the bed,
+showing Agatha fast asleep, sleeping still. She never woke until it had
+been broad day for a long time, and the sun creeping over her pillow
+struck her eyes.
+
+Then she started up with a loud cry--she had been dreaming. Tears were
+wet upon her cheek. She called wildly for her husband. It was too late.
+
+He had been gone at least three hours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"Mrs. Harper--Missus--there's a carriage at the door."
+
+"Say I am not at home."
+
+She had given the same sullen answer to every visitor for four weeks,
+shutting herself up in stern seclusion, determined that, whatever cruel
+comments they made, the neighbourhood should have no power of spying
+into the mystery of "that poor Mrs. Locke Harper who did not live happy
+with her husband." For so she felt sure had been the result of that
+fatal betrayal to her brother-in-law. Since, as Harrie had once said,
+"Duke never could keep a secret in his life!" But even his own wife
+could not thoroughly fathom the good heart of Marmaduke Dugdale.
+
+"Not at home?" repeated Dorcas, who had been very faithful to her young
+mistress. "Not when it's Miss Valery, who has been so ill? Oh, Missus,
+do'ee see Miss Valery."
+
+Mrs. Harper hesitated, and during that time her visitor entered
+uninvited.
+
+"So, Agatha, as you did not come to see me, I have come at last to see
+you."
+
+"I am sorry"--
+
+"What, to see me?" said Anne, smiling. But the voice was weak, and the
+smile had a sickly beauty. Agatha was struck by a change, slight, yet
+perceptible, which had come over Miss Valery.
+
+"I hear you have been ill--will you take the arm-chair? Are you better
+to day?"
+
+"Oh yes," returned Anne, briefly; she was never much in the habit of
+talking about herself. "But you, my dear, how have you been this long
+time? Come and let me look at you."
+
+"It is not worth while. Never mind me. Talk of something else."
+
+"Of your husband, then. When did you hear from him?"
+
+"Last week."
+
+"And is he quite well? Will you give a message to him from me when you
+write again?"
+
+"I never write."
+
+Miss Valery looked surprised, pained. Evidently to her sick-room had
+reached the vaguest possible hints of what had happened. Or else Anne
+must have refused to hear or credit what she was persuaded was an
+impossible falsehood. In all good hearts scandal unrepeated, unbelieved,
+dies a natural death.
+
+To Mrs. Harper's brief, sharp sentence there was no reply; her guest
+turned to other topics.
+
+"Harriet Dugdale comes home to-morrow. It is not often she takes it into
+her head to pay a three weeks' visit from home. You must have missed her
+a good deal."
+
+"No, I did not. I have never been outside the garden."
+
+"Was that quite right, my dear? And your sisters-in-law complain
+bitterly that you will not go to Kingcombe Holm."
+
+"They should have taken more trouble in coming to ask me.
+
+"Nay, in this world we should not judge too harshly. We cannot see into
+any one's motives. There may have been reasons. I know the Squire has
+not been at all well; and Mary has spent her whole time in watching him,
+and in coming to Thornhurst to nurse me."
+
+"Have you been so very ill, then? I wish--I wish--"
+
+"That you also had come to see me? Well, you will come now. Not to-day;
+for I am going to use this lovely autumn morning in taking a journey."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To Weymouth, opposite the Isle of Portland."
+
+After this answer both were silent. Agatha was thinking of the night
+when her husband rode to Weymouth. Anne was thinking--of what?
+
+At length she put her thoughts aside, and turned to watch the young
+wife, who had fallen into a sullen, absent mood.
+
+"Does your house please you, Agatha? It is very pretty, I think."
+
+"Yes, very. I do not complain. Would you like to look over it? Or shall
+I give you some cake and wine? That is the fashion, I believe, when a
+visitor first comes to see a bride in her new home."
+
+The bitterness, the sarcasm of her manner were pitiful to see. Anne
+Valery watched her, sadly, yet not hopelessly. There was in the calm of
+that pale face a clearness of vision which pierced through many human
+darknesses to the light behind.
+
+She only said, "Thank you, I will take some wine; I like to keep up
+good old customs,"--and waited while Mrs. Harper, with a quick excited
+manner, and a countenance that changed momentarily, did the first
+honours of her household. So sad it was to see her doing it all alone!
+More widow-like than bride-like.
+
+As she came up with the wine-glass, Miss Valery caught her hand, holding
+it firmly in defiance of Agatha's slight effort to get free.
+
+"Wait a minute for my good wishes to the bride. May God bless you! Not
+with fortune, which is oftentimes only a curse"--
+
+"That is true," muttered Agatha, bitterly.
+
+"Not with perfect freedom from care, for that is impossible, or, if
+possible, would not be good for you. Every one of us must bear our own
+burden; and we can bear it, if we love one another."
+
+Agatha's lips were set together.
+
+"If," continued Anne, firmly--"If we love any one with sincerity and
+faithfulness, we are sure to reap our reward some time. If any love us,
+and we believe it and trust them, they are sure to come out clear from
+all clouds, our own beloved, true to the end. Therefore, Agatha, above
+all blessings, may God bless you with _love_! May you be happy in your
+husband, and make him happy! May you live to see your home merry
+and full--not silent!--may you die among your children and your own
+people--not alone!"
+
+The sudden solemnity of this blessing, enhanced by the feebleness of
+the voice that uttered it, awoke strange emotions in Agatha. She threw
+herself on her knees by the armchair, where Anne lay back--now faint and
+pale.
+
+"Oh, if you had been near me--if I had known you always, and you had
+brought me up, and made a good woman of me."
+
+"Perhaps I ought," murmured Anne, thoughtfully. "But, just then, it
+would have been so hard--so hard!"
+
+"What are you saying? Say it again. All your words are good words. Tell
+me."
+
+"Nothing, dear. Except"--here Miss Valery raised herself with a sudden
+effort mental and bodily--"Agatha, will you go with me to Weymouth?"
+
+"If you like. Anywhere to be with you. I am sick of myself."
+
+"We all are at times, especially when we are young, and do not quite
+understand ourselves or others. The feeling passes away. But as to
+Weymouth--do you still dislike to go near the sea?"
+
+"Yes--no! I will try to bear it; I think I could, by your side. And you
+shall not go alone on any account."
+
+"Thank you," said Anne, taking her hand. So they went.
+
+An innocent line of railway darted past Kingcombe, in the vain hope of
+waking that somnolent town. It was a pleasant whirl across the usual
+breezy flats of moorland, by some meadows where a network of serpentine
+streams flashed in the sun. Agatha felt more like her own self; with
+her, the spirit of Nature was always an exorciser of internal demons;
+and Anne's conversation aided the beneficent work.
+
+At Dorchester they took a carriage, and drove across the country to
+Weymouth.
+
+"Are you not getting weary? you looked so but lately," said Agatha to
+Miss Valery.
+
+"Not at all, I feel strong now." Her eyes and cheeks were indeed very
+bright; she leaned forward and gazed eagerly around.
+
+"This Weymouth seems familiar to you, Miss Valery?"
+
+"Yes; we used to come here every summer--Mr. and Mrs. Harper and the
+children and I, until she died. She was as good as a mother, or an elder
+sister"--here Anne hesitated, but repeated the words--"like an elder
+sister--to me. We were all very happy in those times. It is a great
+blessing, Agatha, to have had a happy childhood. Where did you spend
+yours?"
+
+Agatha looked uneasy. "Chiefly in London--I told you."
+
+"But before then, when you were a very little girl?"
+
+"I do not know. Don't let us talk about that."
+
+"Not if you do not wish it." Anne's eyes, which had watched her closely,
+turned away, and after a few minutes were riveted on a line of blue sea
+sweeping round a distant headland, and curving off to the horizon. As
+she looked she became very pale, and shivered. Agatha hardly noticed
+her, being so busy examining the new regions into which they now
+entered--the ordinary High Street of an ordinary country town. The sea
+view had vanished.
+
+Suddenly the carriage turned a corner, and they burst upon the shore of
+Weymouth Bay. A great, blue, glittering bay, with two white headlands
+shutting it in; the tide running high, the waves dashing themselves
+furiously against the sea-wall of the esplanade, breaking into showers
+of spray, and curling back into the foaming whirl below.
+
+Agatha started, and put her hands before her eyes. "I know that sight--I
+remember that sound. Oh! where is this place? why did you bring me
+here?"
+
+At this cry Miss Valery, roused from her momentary fit of abstraction,
+took hold of Agatha's hand. The girl was trembling violently.
+
+"My dear, I did not expect this, or you should not have come here. This
+is Weymouth. Now do you remember?"
+
+"How should I? Was I ever here before?" She peered from under her hand at
+the sparkling sea. "No, it is not like that sea; it is too bright. Yet I
+hear the same roll against the same wall. It is very foolish, but I wish
+we could get away."
+
+"Presently," said Anne's soothing voice. "We must drive along this
+shore, and then we will get out at an inn I know, and rest."
+
+Her manner, her expression, as she fixed her eyes full upon her, struck
+Agatha with an indescribable feeling. She looked eagerly at Miss Valery,
+trying to read in that worn face some likeness to the one which had
+impressed her childish memory with almost angelic beauty.
+
+"Tell me--you say you have been often here--did you ever one stormy day
+follow a ship that was outward bound? You were in a little boat, and the
+ship was standing out to sea, round that point--and"--
+
+She stopped, for Anne's face was livid to the very lips. Agatha forgot
+her own question and its purport.
+
+"Stop the carriage. Let me hold you. Dear--dear Miss Valery, you are
+worn out--you are fainting."
+
+"No--I never faint--I am only tired. Don't speak to me for a minute or
+two, and I shall be well."
+
+With a long sigh she forcibly brought life back to her cheeks--a feeble
+life at best. Agatha, watching her, was smitten by a dread which
+now entered her mind for the first time, driving thence all personal
+feelings, and making her gaze with sorrowful anxiety on the friend
+beside her who had been all day so cheerful and kind. And she thought
+with a remorse amounting to positive horror, that she herself during
+that day had more than once spoken sharply even to Anne Valery.
+
+A great awe came upon her, reflecting how often we unconsciously walk
+hand-in-hand, and talk of our own petty earthly trials, with those whose
+souls' wings are already growing, already stirring with the air that
+comes to bear them to the unseen land.
+
+It was a relief indescribable, when leisurely strolling along the
+pavement, she saw among many strange faces one that seemed familiar. The
+hands knotted loosely at his back, the light hair straggling out from
+under the hat, that was pushed far up from the forehead--no, she could
+not be mistaken. She uttered a cry of pleasure.
+
+"Look, look! there he is; I am certain it is he."
+
+Anne started violently.
+
+"Mr. Dugdale, Mr. Dugdale!" Agatha called out.
+
+He came up to the carriage with the most lengthened "E--h!" that she had
+ever heard him utter. "What brought you two here? This bleak day too.
+Very wrong of Anne!"
+
+"But she would come. She said she wanted a breath of sea-air, and I
+think, besides, she has business."
+
+"No," interrupted Anne, "no business, except bringing Agatha to see
+Weymouth. Now shall we rest, and have some tea at the inn. You'll come
+with us, Mr. Dugdale?"
+
+"Yes, I want to speak to you, Anne. I've got news about--that little
+affair you know of. That was why I came to Weymouth to-day. Eh,
+now--just look there!"
+
+With a countenance brimful of pleasure he came to Miss Valery's side,
+and pointed to a steamer that lay in the offing.
+
+"It's the _Anna Mary_. She made the passage from New York in no time.
+I've been aboard her already. I fancied I might find him there. Now,
+what do you think, Anne?"
+
+"Is he come?" said Anne, in a steady voice. She had quite recovered
+herself now.
+
+"No--not this time. But he will sail, for certain, by the next New York
+packet to Havre."
+
+"Thank God!" It was a very low answer--just a sigh, and nothing more.
+
+"And we have satisfactorily ended all that business which you first put
+into my head," continued Duke, rubbing his hands with great glee. "It
+was a risk certainly, but then it was for him. My children will never be
+a bit the poorer."
+
+"No," murmured Anne Valery to herself.
+
+"And think what an election we shall have! With him to make speeches for
+Trenchard, and argue in this wonderful way about Free-trade, and tell
+the farmers all about Canadian wheat! Glorious!"
+
+"What are you both talking about?" cried Agatha, who had been
+considerably puzzled. "Do let me hear, if it is not a secret."
+
+"No secret," said Anne, turning round, speaking clearly and composedly,
+and not at all like a sick person. "Mr. Brian Harper is coming home."
+
+Agatha clapped her hands for joy.
+
+When they dismounted from the carriage, and had ordered tea at the
+inn, Anne still seemed quite strong. She said it was the sea-breeze that
+brought life to her, and stood at the open window gazing over the bay.
+Agatha thought she had never seen Miss Valery's face so near looking
+beautiful as now; it was the faint reflex of girlhood's brightness, like
+the zodiacal light which the sun casts on the sky long after he has gone
+down.
+
+After tea,--at which meal Mr. Dugdale did not appear, a fact that nobody
+wondered at, since he was left to wander about Weymouth at his own sweet
+will, without Harrie to catch him and remind him that there was such
+a thing as time, likewise such sublunary necessities as eating and
+drinking--after tea Miss Valery and Mrs. Harper sat at the window
+together.
+
+It was only an inn-window, the panes scribbled over with many names, and
+it lighted an ordinary inn-parlour, looking on the esplanade. Yet it
+was a pleasant seat; quiet, too, for the town was almost deserted as
+winter-time came on. The bay, smoothed by the ebbing tide, lay like
+crystal under a sky where sunset and moonlight mixed. Agatha ventured to
+look at the sea now. She beheld with a curious interest a sight till now
+so unfamiliar, taking a childish pleasure in watching the great white
+arm of moon-rays stretch further and further across the water, changing
+the ripples into molten silver, and making ethereal and ghostlike every
+little boat that glided through them.
+
+By-and-by came a group of wandering musicians, playing very respectably,
+as German street-musicians always do. They converted the dark esplanade
+and the shabby inn-parlour into a fairy picture of visible and audible
+romance.
+
+"It is quite like a scene in a play," said Agatha, laughing and
+trying to make Miss Valery laugh. She could not see her clearly in the
+moonlight, but she did not like her sitting so quiet and silent.
+
+"Yes, very like a play, with '_Herz, mein Herz,_' for a serenade. What a
+sweet old tune it is!"
+
+"I used to sing it once." And Agatha began following the instruments
+with her voice. "No, I can't sing. I could sooner cry."
+
+"Why? Are you sorrowful?"
+
+"No--happy. Yet all feels strange, very strange." She crept to Miss
+Valery, wrapped her arms round her waist, and laid her head timidly on
+her shoulder. Anne drew her nearer, with a more caressing manner than
+she ever used to any one. Agatha Harper seemed that night of all nights
+to lie very near her heart.
+
+"_Herz, mein Herz,_" died faintly away down the esplanade; there was
+nothing but the glitter of the bay, and the moon climbing higher and
+higher above the Isle of Portland.
+
+Anne spoke at last, amidst the half-playful, half-tender caresses that
+were so dear to Agatha, who had never known what it was to be calmly and
+safely in a mother's arms. Lying thus seemed most like it.
+
+"Do you think I care for you, Agatha, my child?"
+
+"I cannot tell. Perhaps not, for I am not good enough to deserve it."
+
+"Do you know what first made me care for you?"
+
+"No--unless it was for the sake of my husband."
+
+Anne gave no reply, and her husband's name plunged Agatha into such a
+maze of painful thought, that she was for a long time altogether silent.
+
+"Shall I tell you a story, Agatha?"
+
+"Anything--anything, to keep me from thinking."
+
+"If I do, it is one you must not tell again, unless to Nathanael, for I
+would put no secrets between husband and wife."
+
+"Ah, that is right--that is kind. Would that _he_ had thought the same!"
+
+"What did you say, dear?"
+
+"Nothing! Nothing of any consequence. Don't mind me. Go on."
+
+"It is a history which I think it right and best to tell you. You will
+both need to keep it sacred for a little while--not for very long."
+
+As she spoke, a shudder passed through Anne's frame. Was it the
+involuntary shrinking of mortality in sight of immortality?
+
+Shortly afterwards she began to talk in her usual sweet tone--perhaps a
+shade more serious.
+
+"'There were once two _friends_--three I should say, but the third far
+less intimate than the other two. Something happened--it is now too long
+ago to signify what--which made the elder of the first two angry with
+his dearest friend and the other. He went away suddenly, writing word to
+his friend--his own--that he should sail next day, leaving England for
+ever."
+
+"That was wrong!" cried Agatha. "People ought never to be passionate and
+unjust in friendship. It was very wrong."
+
+"Hush! you do not know all the circumstances; you cannot judge," Anne
+answered hastily. "His friend, who greatly honoured him, and knew what
+pain his loss would bring to many, wished to prevent his going. She"--
+
+"It was a woman, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And were they _only_ friends?"
+
+"They were friends," repeated Miss Valery, in a tone which, doubtful as
+the answer was, made Agatha feel she had no right to inquire further.
+
+"She never knew how much he cared for her until that last letter he
+wrote, just after he had gone away. On receiving it, she followed
+him--which she had a right to do--to the place he mentioned, a seaport
+from which he was to sail. When she reached it, the vessel had already
+heaved anchor and was standing out to sea. She saw it--the very ship he
+was on board--in the middle of the bay."
+
+"The bay! Was it then"--
+
+"Hush, dear, just for a little,--I cannot speak long. It was a stormy
+day, and few boats would go out. However, there was on the beach a woman
+who was also very eager to catch the vessel. Together they managed to
+get a boat, and embarked--this lady I speak of--the woman and a little
+girl."
+
+Agatha listened with painful avidity.
+
+"It was not the woman's own child, or she could not have been so
+careless of it It was tossed into the bottom of the boat, and lay there
+crying. The lady felt sorry for it, and took it in her arms. They had
+gone but a little way from the shore when it was playing about her,
+quite happy again. While playing--she looking at the ship, and not
+watching the little thing as she ought to have done--the child fell
+overboard."
+
+A loud sob burst from Agatha.
+
+"Hush, still hush, my darling! The child was saved. The ship sailed
+away, but the child--you _know_ that she was saved. I am thankful to God
+it was so!"
+
+Anne wrapped her arms tightly round the sobbing girl, and after a few
+moments she also wept.
+
+"I remember it all now," cried Agatha, as soon as she found words--"the
+shore, the headlands, the bay. I was that little child, and it was you
+who saved me!"
+
+Anne made no answer but by pressing her closer.
+
+"I felt it the first moment I ever saw you. I never forgot you--never!
+But how did you know me?"
+
+"Was I likely ever to lose sight of that little child? And also, years
+before, I had once or twice met your father--though this would have
+been nothing. But from that day I felt that you belonged to me. And now,
+since you are become a Harper, you do."
+
+Agatha embraced her, and then suddenly looked mournful.--"But yourself?
+Tell me, did you ever again meet your--your friend?"
+
+No answer. A slight movement of the lips sufficed to explain the whole.
+
+"And it was all through me," cried Agatha, to whom that soft smile was
+agony. "And what have I done in requital? I have lived a useless, erring
+life; I have suffered--oh, how I have suffered! Far better I had been
+left lying at the bottom of that quiet bay. Why did God let you save
+me?"
+
+"That you might grow up a good and noble woman, fulfilling worthily the
+life He spared, and giving it back into His hands, in His time, as a
+true and faithful servant. Dare not to murmur at His will--dare not to
+ask why He saved you, Agatha Harper."
+
+Saying this, as sternly as Anne Valery could speak--she tried to put
+Agatha from her breast, but the girl held her too fast.
+
+"Oh, do not cast me away. I have nobody in the world but you. Forgive
+me! Guide my life which I owe you, and make it worth your saving. Love
+me--teach my husband to love me. If you knew how miserable I am, and may
+be always."
+
+"No one is miserable always," returned Anne faintly, as she leaned back,
+her hands dropping down cold and listless. "We grow content in time. We
+shall all be--very happy--some day."
+
+She spoke with hesitation and difficulty. The next minute, in spite
+of her declaration that she never fainted, Miss Valery had become
+insensible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"What, up and dressed already, without sending for me? Did you not
+promise last night that I should do everything for you just as if I were
+your child? How very naughty you are, Miss Valery."
+
+Agatha spoke rather crossly; it was a relief to speak so. Anne turned
+round--she was sitting at the window of the inn bed-chamber looking on
+Weymouth Bay.
+
+"Am I naughty? And you have assumed the right to scold me? That is quite
+a pleasure. I have had no one to scold me for a great many years."
+
+There was a certain pathos running through her cheerfulness which made
+Agatha's heart burst. She had lain awake half the night thinking of Anne
+Valery, and had guessed, or put together many things, which made her
+come with uncontrollable emotion into the presence of her whose fate had
+been so knotted up with her own. For that this circumstance had in
+some way or other brought about Anne's fate--the one fate of a woman's
+life--Agatha could not doubt. Neither could she doubt who was this
+"friend." But she said nothing--she felt she had no right.
+
+"Don't look at the sea, please. Look at me. Tell me how you feel this
+morning."
+
+"Well--quite well. We will go home to-day. What did you tell Mr. Dugdale
+last night?"
+
+"Only what you desired me--that, being wearied, you felt inclined to
+stay the night at Weymouth."
+
+"That was right.--Look, Agatha, how beautiful the sea is. I must teach
+you not to be afraid of it any more. Next year"--
+
+She paused, hesitated, put her hand to her heart, as she often did, and
+ceased to speak; but Agatha eagerly continued the sentence:
+
+"Next year we will come and stay here, you and I; or perhaps, as a very
+great favour, we'll admit one or two more. Next year, when you are quite
+strong, remember. We will be very happy, next year."
+
+She repeated the words strongly, resolutely, dinning them into Miss
+Valery's ear, but she only won for answer that silent smile which went
+to her heart like an arrow. She rushed for safety to the commonplaces of
+life, to the quick, hasty speeches which relieved her. She began to be
+very cross about some delay in breakfast.
+
+"Never mind me, dear," said Anne's quieting tones. "I am quite well, and
+want nothing. Only let us sit still, and look at the sea." And she drew
+her from her eager bustling about the inn-parlour to the place where
+they had both sat the previous night. Agatha balanced herself on the arm
+of the chair, determined she would not be serious for an instant, and
+would not let Anne talk. Yet both resolutions were broken ere long.
+Perhaps it was the bright stillness of the sea view, sliding away round
+the headland into infinity, which impressed her in spite of herself.
+Still she struggled against her feelings.
+
+"I will not have you so grave, Miss Valery. Mind, I will not."
+
+"Am I grave? Nay, only quiet; and so happy! Do you know what it is to be
+quite content with everything in one's life--past, present, and to come,
+knowing that all is overruled for good, forgiving everybody and loving
+everybody?"
+
+Agatha linked her arms tighter round Miss Valery's neck.
+
+"Don't talk in that way, or look in that way--don't. Be wicked! Speak
+cross! I will not have you an angel. I will not feel your wings growing.
+I'll tear them out. There."
+
+She laughed--laughed with brimming eyes--until she sobbed again. Her
+feelings had been on the stretch for hours, and now gave way. Anne bent
+down from her serenity to notice and soothe the wayward child.
+
+"Poor little thing, she wants taking care of as much as anybody. When
+will her husband come home?"
+
+"Never--never!" cried Agatha, hardly knowing what she said. "I shall
+lose him--you--all."
+
+Miss Valery smiled--the composed smile of one who ascending a mountain,
+sees the lowland mazes around laid out distinct and clear, and looks
+over them to their ending.
+
+"Yes, my child, he will come back. Absence breaks slender ties, but it
+rivets strong ones. Have faith in him. People like him, if they once
+love, love always. He will come back."
+
+There was a great light in Miss Valery's countenance, which irresistibly
+attracted Agatha. She dried her eyes, forgot her own personal cares, and
+listened to the comforter.
+
+"Think how much we love those that are away. Once perhaps we used to
+vex and slight them and be cross with them, but now we carry them in our
+hearts always. We forget everything bitter, and remember only the sweet;
+how good they were, and how dearly we loved them. Our thoughts and
+prayers follow them continually, flying over and about them like
+wandering angels, that must be laden with good. And all this loving--all
+this waiting--all this praying, year after year--I mean day after
+day"--she suddenly turned to Agatha. "Be content, my child. He will come
+back."
+
+Agatha made no reply. She was not thinking of herself just then. She
+was thinking of the life, compared to which her own nineteen commonplace
+years sank into nothingness; of the love beside which that feeling she
+had so called, looked mean and poor; of the patient endurance--what was
+her patience? And yet she had fancied that never was woman so tried as
+Agatha Harper.
+
+With a resolve as sudden as brave, and in her present state of mind
+to be brave at all it must needs be sudden, Agatha determined to put
+herself and her troubles altogether aside, and think only of those whom
+she loved.
+
+"Come," she said, and rose up strong in the courage of self-denial. "We
+will indulge in no more dreariness; it is not good for you, and I won't
+allow it, my patient. You shall be patient, in every sense, for a little
+while longer, and then we'll all be very happy--_all_, I say, next
+year."
+
+With this declaration she made ready to carry her friend off to
+Kingcombe--to her own little house--where she was bent on detaining Anne
+prisoner. Miss Valery declared herself quite willing to be thus bound
+for a day or two, until she was strong enough to go to Kingcombe Holm.
+
+"But I'll not let you go--I'll be jealous. Why must you be wandering off
+to that dreary place?"
+
+"Its not dreary to me; I always loved Kingcombe Holm; and I must pay it
+one last visit before--before winter."
+
+"But there is plenty of time," returned Agatha, hastily. "Why go just
+now?"
+
+"Because"--Miss Valery spoke after a moment's pause, very
+steadfastly--"Because I have reasons for so doing. My old friend, Mr.
+Harper, has a few strong prejudices, some of them to the hurt of his
+brother, and I wish to talk to him myself before Mr. Brian Harper comes
+home."
+
+While Miss Valery said this name, Agatha had carefully bent her eyes
+seaward. In answering, her colour rose--her manner was more troubled and
+hesitating by far than that of her companion.
+
+"Go, then. I will not hinder you. Nobody can feel more interest than I
+do in Uncle Brian. When do you think he will be here?"
+
+"In three weeks, most likely."
+
+Anne made no other remark, nor did Agatha. In a short time they were
+driving homeward along the margin of the bay. That well-remembered bay,
+the sight of which even now made Agatha feel as if she were dreaming
+over again the one awful event of her childhood. And Anne--what felt
+she? No wonder that she did not talk.
+
+They came to a spot where the formal esplanade merged into a lonely
+sea-side walk, leading towards the widening mouth of the bay, and
+commanding the farthest view of the Channel as it curved down westward
+into the horizon. Agatha turned pale.
+
+"I remember it--that line of coast with the grey clouds over it. I lay
+on these sands, and afterwards when you fell, I sat and cried over
+you. This was the place, and it was over that point that the ship
+disappeared."
+
+Anne was speechless.
+
+Agatha clasped her hand:--they understood one another. The next minute
+the carriage turned. Miss Valery breathed a quick sigh, and bent
+hurriedly forward; but the glitter of the ocean had vanished--she had
+seen the last of Weymouth Bay.
+
+It was a weary journey, for Anne seemed very feeble. Her young nurse was
+thankful when the flashing network of streams told how near they were
+whirling towards Kingcombe. As the train stopped, Mrs. Dugdale was
+visible on the platform; Duke also, not at the station--that being a
+degree of punctuality quite impossible--but a little way down the road.
+
+"Well, Miss Anne Valery and Mrs. Locke Harper! To be gallivanting about
+in this way! I declare it's quite disgraceful. What have you to say for
+yourselves? Here have I been running up to every train to meet you, and
+tell you"--
+
+"What?" Agatha's cheek flushed with expectation. Anne grew very white.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Harper, you need not be so hasty--'tisn't your husband.
+A great blessing if it were. All the town is crying shame on him for
+staying away so long."
+
+Agatha threw a furious look at her sister, and dragged Miss Valery
+along, nor stopped till she saw the latter could hardly breathe or
+stand.
+
+"Stay, my child. Harriet, you should not say such things. Nathanael is
+only absent on business--my business; he will come home soon."
+
+These words, uttered with difficulty, calmed the rising storm. Harrie
+laughingly begged pardon, and was satisfied.
+
+"Well, the sooner Nathanael comes, the better. There was a gentleman
+last night wanting him."
+
+"What gentleman?"
+
+"Can't tell. He left no name. A little wiry shrimp of a fellow who
+seemed to know all about our family, Fred included; so Duke, in his
+ultra hospitality, took the creature in for the night, and this morning
+drove him over to Kingcombe Holm. There, don't let us bother ourselves
+about him. How do you feel now, Anne? Quite well, eh?"
+
+"Quite well," Anne echoed in her cheerful voice that never had a tone
+of pain or complaining. But it seemed to strike Mr. Dugdale, who had
+lounged up to her side. His peculiarly gentle and observant look rested
+on her for a moment, and then he offered her his arm, an act of courtesy
+very rare in the absent Duke Dugdale. Agatha walked on her other hand;
+Harrie fluttering about them, and talking very fast, chiefly about the
+wonderful news of yesterday, which her husband had just communicated.
+
+"And a great shame not to tell me long before. As if I did not care
+for Uncle Brian as much as anybody does. What a Christmas we shall
+have--Uncle Brian, Nathanael, and Fred."
+
+"Is Major Harper coming?" The question was from Anne.
+
+"Elizabeth hopes so. He surely will not disappoint Elizabeth. And he
+must come to see Uncle Brian; they were such friends, you know. All the
+middle-aged oddities in Kingcombe are on the _qui vive_ to see
+Uncle Brian and Fred. They two were the finest young fellows in the
+neighbourhood, people say, and to think they should both come back
+miserable old bachelors! Nobody married but my poor Duke! Hurra!"
+
+So she rattled on until they reached Agatha's door. One of the Kingcombe
+Holm servants stood there with the carriage. Mrs. Locke Harper was
+wanted immediately, to dine at her father-in-law's.
+
+"I will not go. I will not leave Miss Valery. They don't often ask
+me--indeed, I have never been since--No, I will not go," she added
+obstinately.
+
+"Do!" entreated Anne, who had sat down, faint with a walk so short that
+no one thought of its fatiguing her--not even Agatha.
+
+"T' Squire do want'ee very bad, Missus. Here!" And the old coachman,
+almost as old as his master, gave to Mrs. Harper a note, which was only
+the second she had ever received from her husband's father. It was a
+crabbed, ancient hand, blotted and blurred, then steadied resolutely
+into the preciseness of a school-boy--one of those pathetic fragments of
+writing that irresistibly remind one of the trembling failing hand--the
+hand that once wrote brave love-letters.
+
+"You are highly favoured; my father rarely writes to any one. What does
+he say?" cried Harrie, rather jealous.
+
+Agatha read aloud:
+
+     "My dear Daughter-in-law,
+
+     "Will you honour me by dining here to-day, without fail?
+
+     "I remain, always your affectionate Father,
+
+     "Nathanael Harper."
+
+"'Your affectionate Father,'" repeated Mrs. Dugdale. "He hardly ever
+signed that to me in his life, though I am his very own daughter, and
+his eldest too. He never signed so to anybody but Fred. Bah! what a big
+blot He is almost past writing, poor dear man! Come, Agatha, you cannot
+refuse; you must go."
+
+"She must indeed," echoed Anne Valery.
+
+"Even though the Squire has been so rude as never to ask me or Duke,
+though Duke saw him this very morning, when he rode over to Kingcombe
+Holm to tell the news about Uncle Brian.--Bless us, Anne, don't look
+so. Is there anything astonishing in my father's letter? How very queer
+everybody seems to-day!"
+
+Agatha felt Miss Valery draw her aside.
+
+"You will surely go, my dear, since he wishes it."
+
+"But if I don't wish it--if I had far rather stay with you! Why are you
+so anxious for my leaving you?"
+
+"Are you angry with me again, my child?"--Agatha clung to her fondly.
+"Then go. Behave specially well to your husband's father. And stay--say
+I am coming to see him to-morrow."
+
+"But you cannot--you are not strong."
+
+"Oh yes, very strong," Anne returned hastily. "Only go. I will stay
+contentedly with Dorcas."
+
+Agatha went, very much against her will She had shut herself up entirely
+for so long. It was a torment to see any one, above all her husband's
+family, who of course were constantly talking and inquiring about him.
+The stateliness of Kingcombe Holm chafed her beyond endurance; Mary's
+good-natured regrets, and Eulalie's malicious prying condolings; worst
+of all the penetration of Elizabeth. She fancied that they and all
+Kingcombe were pointing the finger at "poor Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+Pondering over all these things during the solitary drive, her good
+resolutions faded out from her, and her heart began to burn anew. It was
+so hard!
+
+She crossed the hall--the same hall where she had alighted when
+Nathanael first brought her home. It looked dusky and dim, as then.
+She almost expected to see him appear from some corner, with his light,
+quick step and his long fair hair.
+
+It was hard indeed--too hard! She hurried through, and never looked
+behind.
+
+Eulalie and Mary were sitting solemnly in the drawing-room.
+
+"So you are come, Mrs. Harper. We never thought you would come again. We
+thought you would sit for ever pining in your cage till your mate came
+back again. What a naughty wandering bird he is!"
+
+"Don't, Eulalie. No teasing. I am sure we were all very sorry for your
+loneliness, dear Agatha."
+
+"Thank you for giving yourselves that trouble."
+
+"Oh, no trouble at all," said the well-meaning and simple Mary. "And we
+would have come to see you or fetched you here, but I had to go so
+much to Thornhurst while Anne was ill, and Eulalie--somehow--I don't
+know--but Eulalie is always busy."
+
+Eulalie, whose hardest toil was looking in the glass, and patting her
+dog's ears, assented apologetically. Perhaps she read something in her
+sister-in-law's face which showed her that Agatha was not to be trifled
+with.
+
+"Will you go up and see Elizabeth? She has often asked for you."
+
+"Has she? I will go after dinner," briefly answered Agatha She would not
+be got rid of in that way.
+
+"Shall we sit and talk then, till my father comes in with that queer
+little man who has been with him all day? about whom Mary and I have
+been vainly puzzling our brains. Such an ugly little fellow, and,
+between you and me, not _quite_ a gentleman. I wonder at papa's asking
+him to stay and dine. I shan't do the civil to him; you may."
+
+"Thanks for the permission."
+
+"Perhaps that is the very reason Papa sent for you," continued Eulalie,
+stretching herself out on the sofa. "The person said he knew you,
+and asked Mary where you were living, and whether you were very happy
+together, you and your husband."
+
+Agatha rose abruptly, dashing down a heavy volume that lay on her
+knee--she certainly had not a mild temper. While she wavered between
+reining in her anger as she had last night vowed, and pouring upon
+Eulalie all the storm of her roused passions--the door opened, and Mr.
+Harper entered with his much-depreciated guest.
+
+The old gentleman was dressed with unusual care, and walked with even
+more of slow stateliness than ordinary. He met Agatha with his customary
+kindness.
+
+"Welcome. You have been somewhat of a stranger lately. It must not
+happen again, my dear." And drawing her arm through his, he faced the
+"little ugly fellow" of Eulalie's dislike.
+
+"Mr. Grimes, let me present you to my son's wife, Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+"You forget, sir," interrupted Grimes, importantly; "I have long ago had
+that honour, through Major"--
+
+The old Squire started, put his hand to his forehead--"Yes, yes, I did
+forget. My memory, sir--my memory is as good as ever it was."
+
+The sharp contradictory ending of his speech, the colour rising to the
+old man's cheek and forehead, whence it did not sink, but lay steadily,
+a heavy, purple blotch, attracted Agatha's notice--certainly more than
+Mr. Grimes did.
+
+"I had the honour, Mrs. Harper," said the latter, bowing, "to be present
+when your marriage settlement was signed. I had likewise the honour of
+preparing the deed, by the wish and according to the express orders of
+Major Har"--
+
+"That is sufficient," interrupted the Squire. "Sir, I never burden
+ladies with the wearisomeness of legal discussion.--Did you drive or
+ride here, Agatha?"
+
+"If you remember, you sent the carriage for me."
+
+"Yes, yes--of course," returned the old man. "It was a pleasant drive,
+was it? Your husband enjoyed it too?"
+
+"My husband is in Cornwall"
+
+"Certainly. I understand."
+
+Which was more than Agatha did. She could not make him out at all. The
+wandering eye, dulled with more than mere age--for it had been his pride
+that the Harper eye always sparkled to the last; the accidental twitches
+about the mouth, which hung loosely, and seemed unable to control its
+muscles; above all, the extraordinary and sudden lapse of a memory
+which had hitherto been wonderful for his years. There was something not
+right, some hidden wheel broken or locked in the mysterious mechanism
+that we call human life.
+
+Agatha felt uneasy. She wished Nathanael had been at home: and began to
+consider whether some one--not herself--ought not to write and hint that
+his father did not seem quite well.
+
+Meanwhile, she closely watched the old man, who seemed this day to show
+her more kindness and attention than ever,--there was no mistaking that.
+He kept her constantly at his side, talking to her with marked courtesy.
+Once she saw his eyes--those poor, dull, restless eyes, fixed on her
+with an expression that was quite unaccountable. Going in to dinner, his
+step, which began measured and stately, suddenly tottered. Agatha caught
+his arm.
+
+"You are not well--I am sure of it."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mr. Grimes, who was following close behind, with the very
+reluctant Miss Mary towering over his petty head. "No wonder that Mr.
+Harper is not quite well to-day."
+
+The Squire swerved aside, like an old steed goaded by the whip, then
+rose to his full height, which was taller than either of his sons--the
+Harpers of ancient time were a lofty generation.
+
+"Mr. Grimes, I assure you I am quite well. Will you do me the honour to
+cease your anxiety about me, and lead in my daughter to her seat?"
+
+Grimes passed on--quenched. There was something in "the grand old
+name of gentleman" that threw around its owner an atmosphere in which
+plebeian intruders could not breathe.
+
+"A person, Agatha," whispered the Squire, as his eyes, bright with
+something of their old glow, followed the evidently objectionable
+guest--"A person to whom I show civility for the sake of--of my
+family."
+
+Agatha assented, though not quite certain to what. Scanning Mr.
+Grimes more narrowly, she faintly remembered him, and the unpleasant,
+nasal-toned voice which had gabbled through her marriage settlement. She
+wondered what he had come to Nathanael for?--why Nathanael's father paid
+him such attention?
+
+On her part, the sensation of dislike, unaccountable yet instinctive
+dislike, was so strong, that it would have been a real satisfaction to
+her mind if the footmen, instead of respectfully handing Mr. Grimes his
+soup, had handed himself out at the dining-room window.
+
+The dinner passed in grave formality. Even Mr. Grimes seemed out of
+his element, being evidently, as Eulalie had said, "not _quite_ a
+gentleman," either by birth or breeding, and lacking that something
+which makes the grandest gentlemen of all--Nature's. He tried now and
+then to open a conversation with the Miss Harpers, but Eulalie sneered
+at him aside, and Mary was politely dignified. Agatha took very little
+notice of him--her attention was absorbed by her father-in-law.
+
+Mr. Harper looked old--very old. His hands, blanched to a yellowish
+whiteness, moved about loosely and uncertainly. Once the large diamond
+mourning ring which the widower always wore, "In memory of Catherine
+Harper," dropped off on the table-cloth. He did not perceive the loss
+until Agatha restored it, and then his fingers seemed unable to slip it
+on again, until his daughter-in-law aided him. In so doing, the clammy,
+nerveless feel of the old man's hand made her start.
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Harper," he said, acknowledging her assistance with
+his most solemn bend. "And Catherine--Agatha, I mean, if you would be so
+kind--that is"--
+
+"Yes? observed Agatha, inquiringly, as he made a long pause.
+
+"To--remind me after dinner, my dear. I have duties now--important
+duties.--My friends!" Here he raised himself in his chair, looked round
+the dessert-laden table with one of his old smiles, half condescending,
+half good-humoured, then vainly put his hand on the large claret jug,
+which Agatha had to lift and guide to her glass--"My friends, I am
+delighted to see you all. And on this happy occasion let me have the
+honour of giving the first toast. The Reverend Frederick Harper and
+Mistress Mary Harper."
+
+Mary and Eulalie drew back. "That is grandfather and grandmother--dead
+fifty years ago. What does papa mean?"
+
+But the whisper did not reach the old man, who drank the toast with
+all solemnity. Mr. Grimes did the same, repeating it loudly, with the
+addition of "long life, health, and happiness." The daughters each cast
+down strange, shocked looks upon her untouched glass. No one spoke.
+
+"Do you make a long stay in Dorsetshire?" observed the Squire,
+addressing himself courteously to his guest.
+
+"That depends," Grimes answered, with a meaning twinkle of the eye--an
+eye already growing moistened with too good wine.
+
+"Did you not say," Mary Harper continued, fancying her father looked at
+her to sustain the conversation--"did you not say you were intending to
+visit Cornwall?"
+
+"No ma'am. Would rather be excused. As Mr. Harper knows, the place would
+be too hot to hold _me_ after certain circumstances."
+
+"Sir!" The old man tried hard to gather himself up into stern dignity,
+and collect the ideas that where fast floating from him. "Sir," he
+repeated, first haughtily, and then with a violence so rare to
+his rigidly gentlemanly demeanour that his daughters looked
+alarmed--"Sir--at my table--before my family--I beg--I"--Here he
+suddenly recovered himself, changed his tone, and bowed--"I--beg your
+pardon."
+
+"Oh, no offence, Squire; none meant, none taken. I came with the best
+of all intentions towards you and yours. And if things have turned out
+badly"--
+
+"Did you not say you were acquainted with Cornwall?" abruptly asked
+Agatha, to prevent his again irritating her father-in-law, who had
+leaned back, sleepily. He would not close his eyes, but they looked
+misty and heavy, and his fingers played lazily with one another on the
+arm of his chair; Agatha laid her own upon them--she could not help
+it. She lost her fear of the repellent Mr. Harper in the old man, so
+helpless and feeble. She wished she had come oftener to Kingcombe Holm,
+and been more attentive and daughter-like to Nathanael's father.
+
+"As to Cornwall," said Grimes, in a confidential whisper, "between you
+and me, Mrs. Harper, mum's the word."
+
+Agatha drew herself up haughtily; but looked at the old Squire and
+grew patient. She even tried to eke out the flagging conversation, and
+luckily remembered the news which Duke Dugdale had that morning ridden
+over to communicate. She could not help thinking it very odd that no one
+in the house had hitherto mentioned Mr. Brian Harper's expected return.
+
+"Shall you not be very glad, Mary, to see Uncle Brian. You have heard,
+of course, how soon he will be here?"
+
+"Uncle Brian here!--And nobody told us. Only think, papa"--
+
+"My dear Mary!" There was a gentleness in the Squire's voice more
+startling even than his violence.
+
+"Did you know, papa, that Uncle Brian is coming home?"
+
+"I think--I--Yes"--with a struggle at recollection--"my son-in-law told
+me that some commercial business which Brian is transacting for him will
+bring my brother home. I shall be very happy to see him. You, too, will
+all be delighted to see your Uncle Brian."
+
+"An uncle? The usual rich uncle from abroad, eh?" whispered Mr. Grimes
+to Agatha. "I ask merely for your own sake, ma'am, and that of my friend
+Nathanael."
+
+Agatha curled her lip. That the fellow should dare to speak of "my
+friend Nathanael!" She glanced at Mary that they might leave the
+drawing-room, when seeing her father-in-law was about to speak she
+paused.
+
+The old Squire rose in his customary manner of giving healths. His voice
+was quavering but loud, as if he could scarcely hear it himself, and
+tried to make it rise above a whirl of sounds that filled his brain. "My
+friends and children--my"--here he looked uncertainly at Agatha--"Yes,
+I remember, my daughter-in-law--allow me to give one toast more--Health,
+long life, and every blessing to my son--my youngest, worthiest, _only_
+remaining son and heir, Nathanael."
+
+"_Only_ son!"--Every one recoiled. The worn-out brain had certainly
+given way. Mary and Eulalie exchanged frightened glances. Agatha alone,
+touched by the unexpected tribute to her husband, did not notice the one
+momentous word.
+
+"Now, Squire, that's hardly fair," cried Mr. Grimes, bursting into a
+hoarse vinous laugh. "A man may go wrong sometimes, but to be thrown
+overboard for it, and by one's father, too--think better of it,
+old fellow. And ladies by way of an antidote, allow me to give a
+toast--Success to my worthy and honourable--_exceedingly_ honourable
+client, Major Frederick Harper."
+
+The old Squire leaped up in his chair, with eyes starting from their
+sockets. His lips gurgled out some inarticulate sound scarcely human;
+his right arm shook and quivered with his vain efforts to raise it;
+still it hung nerveless by his side. Consciousness and will yet lingered
+in his brain, but physical life and speech had gone for ever. He
+fell down struck by that living death--that worse than death, of old
+age--paralysis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+The whole household was in terror and disorder. Eulalie had rushed
+screaming from the room--Mary went about, trembling like a leaf, trying
+to get restoratives--Agatha knelt on the floor, supporting the old
+man's head in her lap, speaking to him sometimes, as by the motion
+and apparent intelligence of his eyes she fancied he might possibly
+understand her.
+
+"Oh, he is dead, he is dead!" cried Mary, as she took up the senseless
+hand, and let it fall again with a burst of tears.
+
+"No, he is not dead--he hears you;--take care," said Agatha, putting
+the frightened daughter aside with a firmness which rose in her, as in
+similar characters it does rise, equal to the necessity. She looked on
+the trembling Mary--on the servants gathering round with silent horror,
+and saw there were none who, so to speak, "had their wits about them,"
+except herself. Scarcely knowing how she did it, she instinctively
+assumed the rule. She, the young girl of nineteen, who had never till
+then been placed in any position of trial.
+
+"Send all these people away. Quick Mary! Bring some one who can carry
+him to his room. And--stay, Eulalie, sit down there and be quiet. Don't
+let any one go and alarm Elizabeth."
+
+She gave these orders and everybody listened and obeyed; people are so
+ready to obey any guiding spirit at such a crisis. Then she bent down
+again over the poor corpselike figure that rested against her knee,
+kissed the old man's forehead, and tried to comfort him. She had heard
+of cases, when though deprived of speech and motion, the sufferer was
+still conscious of all passing around him. Therefore she wished as soon
+as possible to remove her father-in-law out of the way of the terrified
+household.
+
+He was carried to his room through the hall where he had lately trod
+so stately,--the poor old man now helpless as the dead. Leaving the
+dining-room, Agatha thought she saw his eyes turn back, as if he knew
+that he was crossing the doorway he would never cross more, and
+wanted to take a last look at the familiar things. Otherwise he seemed
+continually watching herself. She walked beside him till he was
+laid upon his bed, and then tried again to speak to him. She did it
+caressingly, as though the old dying man had been a sick child.
+
+"Be content, now--quite content. I will take care of you, and see that
+all is done right. I shall, not be away two minutes; I am only going to
+send for help--your own doctor from Kingcombe. We must try to get you
+well. Lie here quiet."
+
+Quiet! It was like enjoining stillness to a corpse! Agatha shuddered
+when she had used the word. For a moment the dread of her position rose
+upon her. In that lonely house, at night too, with no help nearer than
+Kingcombe: and even then no husband, no friend--for she dared not send
+to poor, sick Anne Valery! And she so young, so inexperienced.--But
+no matter! She would try to meet everything--do everything. She felt
+already calm and brave.
+
+The first thing necessary was to send for medical aid. This she did;
+having the forethought to write a few clear lines, lest the messenger
+should fail. She despatched word likewise to the Dugdales. She felt
+quite composed; everything right to be remembered came clearly into
+her head. It was the grand touch-stone of her character; the crisis
+of danger which shows whether a woman has that presence of mind which
+exalts her into a domestic heroine, an angel of comfort; or the weakness
+which sinks her into a helpless selfish fool.
+
+The latter was hardly likely to become a true picture of Agatha Harper.
+
+She went about with Mary, giving some orders to the servants, for
+sickness always comes startingly upon an unprepared and unaccustomed
+house; and tried to find a few soothing words for the terrified Eulalie,
+who clung crying about them both, forgetting all her affectations. If
+the Beauty had any love left in her, it was for her father. Lastly,
+Agatha took a light, and went swiftly along the passages to the distant
+wing of the house which Elizabeth occupied.
+
+"Miss Harper," her maid said, "had gone quietly to rest, and was then
+fast sleeping."
+
+Poor Elizabeth! this seemed the hardest point of all.
+
+"When did she see her father?"
+
+"This morning. The master always comes up every morning after breakfast
+to see Miss Harper."
+
+And they would never see one another again, this helpless father and
+daughter--never, till they met bodiless, in the next world!
+
+For the moment Agatha felt her courage fail She glided quickly from the
+door, but came back again. Elizabeth had waked, and called her.
+
+"What is the matter? I know something is the matter."
+
+"Do tell her," whispered the maid, "She'll find it out anyhow--she finds
+out everything. And she has been so ill all day."
+
+Agatha entered. There was no deceiving those eyes.
+
+"Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth--your father--it is very hard, but--your
+father"--She hesitated; it was so difficult to convey, even in gentlest
+words, the cruel truth. Miss Harper regarded her keenly. The bearer
+of ill-tidings is always soon betrayed, and Agatha's was not a face to
+disguise anything. Elizabeth's head dropped back on the pillow.
+
+"I perceive. He is an old man. He has gone home before me. My dear
+father!"
+
+The perfect composure with which she said this astonished Agatha. She
+did not understand how near Elizabeth always lived to the unknown world,
+and how welcome and beautiful it was in her familiar sight.
+
+"No; he is alive still. But, if he should not come in to see you
+to-morrow-morning"--
+
+"I shall go unto him; he shall not return unto me," murmured Elizabeth,
+as her eyelids fell, and a few tears dropped through the lashes. "Tell
+me the rest, will you?"
+
+"He has been seized with paralysis, I think; he cannot speak or move,
+but seems still conscious. I do not know how it will end."
+
+"One way--only one way; I feared this long. My grandfather died so.
+Agatha"--calling after her, for she was stealing away, she could not
+bear it--"Agatha, you will take care of him?"
+
+"I will as his own daughter."
+
+"And, if possible"--here Elizabeth's voice faltered a little--"give my
+love to my dear father."
+
+Agatha fled away. She hid herself in the recess close by "Anne's
+window," as it was called, and for a minute or two cried violently.
+It did her good. With those tears all the selfishness, anger, and pain
+flowed out of her heart, leaving it purer and more peaceful than it had
+been for a long time. It was not a foolish, miserable girl, but a brave,
+tenderhearted, sensible woman, who entered the door of the sick-chamber
+where the poor old man lay.
+
+No one was there but the coachman who had carried his master up-stairs.
+Many servants hovered about the door, but none dared enter. Either
+they were afraid of the Squire--afraid even now, or else the motionless
+figure that lay within the bed-curtains was too like death. Old John sat
+beside it, with tears running down his cheeks.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Harper, look at th' Master. He be all alive in's mind. He do
+want bad to speak to we. Look at 'un, Missus!"
+
+"Give me your place, John. I will try to understand him. Father!"--She
+faltered a little over the word, but felt it was the right word,
+now. The old man moved his head towards her with a feeble smile. The
+expression of his face was clearer and more natural, only for that
+terribly painful inarticulate murmur, which no one could comprehend.
+
+"I have done all I could think of," Agatha continued, speaking softly
+and cheerfully. "The doctor will be here soon; Mary and Eulalie are
+down-stairs. I have myself told Elizabeth that you are ill;--she is
+composed, and sends her love to her dear father. Was all this right?"
+
+Mr. Harper appeared to assent.
+
+"I will sit beside you till the doctor comes, and then I will write to
+my husband. You would like him to come home?"
+
+He seemed slow of comprehension, troubled, or excited. Agatha vainly
+tried to analyse the dumb expression of the features. With all her
+quickness she could not make out what he wanted. At last, a thought
+struck her. His eldest son, his favourite--
+
+"Would you like me to send for Major Harper?"
+
+No words could tell the change which convulsed the old man.
+Abhorrence--anger--fear--all were written in his countenance. He rolled
+his head on the pillow, he struggled to gasp out something--what, his
+daughter-in-law could not guess. She was inexpressibly shocked. One
+thing only seemed clear, that for some cause or other the mere mention
+of Frederick's name worked up the father into frenzy.
+
+"Hush! do not try to speak. I will send for no one but Nathanael. Will
+that content you?"
+
+He made a motion of satisfaction, and became quiet. His features
+gradually composed themselves, and, he sank into torpor.
+
+Agatha still sat by the bed, holding his wrist, for she knew not moment
+by moment how soon the pulse might stop. The old man's own daughters
+were too terrified to approach him. They came on tiptoe to the door,
+looked in, shuddered, and went back. No one stayed in the room but the
+old coachman, who had been Mr. Harper's servant since they were both
+boys; and he sat in a corner crying like a child, though silently.
+Agatha might as well have sat there quite alone, the atmosphere around
+her was so still and solemn.
+
+She had never before been in her father-in-law's room---the state
+bedroom, in which for centuries the Harper family had been born and
+died. The great mahogany bed itself was almost like a bier, with its
+dark velvet hangings, and dusty plumes. Everything around was dusty,
+gloomy, and worn out; the Squire would have nothing changed from the
+time when the last Mrs. Harper died there. In a little curtained alcove
+the lace hung yellow and dusty over her toilet-table, just as she had
+left it when she laid herself down to the pains of motherhood and
+death. Her portraits--one girlish, another matronly, but still merry
+and fair--hung opposite the bed. Between them was a longitudinal
+family-group, in the very lowest style of art--a string of children,
+from the big boy to the tottering baby, in all varieties of
+impossible attitudes. Their names were written under (not
+unnecessarily)--Frederick, Emily, Harriet, Mary, Eulalie. The only names
+missed were Nathanael and "poor Elizabeth."
+
+Mechanically Agatha observed all these things during the first half-hour
+of her vigil; involuntarily her mind floated away to musings concerning
+them, until she forcibly impelled it back to consider the present. It
+was in vain. Innumerable conjectures flitted through her brain, but not
+one which she could catch hold of as a truth. Of one thing only she felt
+sure, that something very serious must have happened--some great mental
+shock, too powerful for the Squire's feeble old age. And this shock was
+certainly in some way or other connected with Major Harper.
+
+An hour later, when she was beginning to count every beat of the old
+man's pulse, and look forward with dread to a midnight vigil beside that
+breathing corpse, the doctor came.
+
+Agatha waited for his dictum--it needed very little skill to decide
+that. A few questions--a shake of the head--a solemn condolatory sigh;
+and all knew that the old Squire's days were numbered.
+
+"How long?" whispered Mrs. Harper, half closing the door as they came
+out.
+
+"I cannot say. Some hours--days--possibly a week. We never know in these
+cases. But, I fear, certainly within a week."
+
+_What_ would be "within a week?" Why is it that every one dreads to say
+the simple word "_die_?"
+
+Agatha paused. She had never yet stood face to face in a house
+with death. The sensation was very awful. She glanced within at the
+heavy-curtained bed, and then at the fair, girlish portrait which
+peered through the folds at its foot--the painted eyes, eternally young,
+seeming to keep watch smilingly. The old man and his long-parted wife,
+to be together again--"within a week." It was strange--strange.
+
+"His sons should be sent for," hinted the doctor. "Mr. Locke Harper is
+in Cornwall, I believe; but the other--Major Harper"----
+
+"Frederick--Yes, we must send for Frederick," sobbed Mary. "My father
+cares more for him than for any of us. Oh, poor Frederick!"
+
+"But," Eulalie said--they were all whispering together at the door--"I
+don't think any one of us, not even Elizabeth, knows Frederick's address
+just now. A week ago he was passing through London, but he does make
+such a mystery of his comings and goings. Oh, if he were only here!"
+
+"Ask my father," cried Mary--"ask him if he would like to see
+Frederick."
+
+As she said this rather too loudly, there was a strange smothered sound
+from the bed. Agatha ran. The old Squire was gasping, choking, with the
+frightful effort to speak. His face was purple--his eyes wild--yet the
+poor bound tongue refused to obey his will.
+
+"Hush! be composed," said his daughter-in-law, soothingly. "You shall
+see no one. No one shall be sent for. Will that do?"
+
+He grew calmer, but restless still.
+
+"Shall my husband come? He will do you good--he does everybody good.
+Would you like to see Nathanael?"
+
+A faint assent--scarcely intelligible--and then the Squire dropped
+off again into sleep. Agatha left him and went to his daughters, who
+lingered outside.
+
+"I think Major Harper has somehow vexed him. He will only see my
+husband. A messenger must be sent to Cornwall. Who will write?"
+
+"Who but yourself," said Eulalie, hardly able even then to repress a
+look, beneath which Agatha's cheek glowed fiery red; "who so fit as
+yourself to tell this to your husband?"
+
+"You are right;" and she smothered down her swelling heart into a grave
+dignity. "Get the messenger ready--I will write here--in this room."
+
+She turned-within--closed the door--looked once more at the old man,
+trying by that mournful sight to still the earthly anger that was again
+rising in her heart,--and sat down to write.
+
+It was a hard task. She scribbled the date, and paused. This, strangely
+enough, was the first letter she had ever written to him. She did not
+know how to begin it. Her heart beat--her fingers trembled. To tell such
+news to the dearest friend and husband that ever woman had, would be a
+difficult and painful thing, and for her to tell it to him, as they were
+now! For the first letter he ever had from her to be this! And how could
+she write it?--she who till to-day would almost have cut off her right
+hand rather than have humbled herself to write to him at all. Yet now
+all the wrath was melting out of her, and tenderness swelling up afresh.
+We always feel so tender over those that are in trouble.
+
+"Yes, I will do it," muttered Agatha. And she wrote firmly the
+words--"_My dear husband_" They seemed at the same time to imprint
+themselves on her heart as a truth--invisible sometimes, yet when
+brought near to the fire of strong emotion or suffering, found
+ineffaceably written there.
+
+The letter was a mere brief explanation and summons; but it bore the
+words, duty-words certainly--yet which no duty would have forced Agatha
+to write had they been untrue--"_My dear husband_"--"_Your affectionate
+wife._"
+
+She despatched it, and re-entered the sick-room. All was quiet
+there--the very hopelessness of the case produced quiet. There was
+nothing to be done, watched, or waited for. Doctor Mason sat by his
+patient, as he had declared his intention of doing through the night.
+He sat mournfully, for he was a kind, good man--the family doctor for
+thirty years.
+
+"Let all go to bed," he said to Agatha, seeming to understand at once
+that she was the moving spirit in the family. "Make the house perfectly
+quiet, and then"--
+
+"I will come and sit up with you."
+
+Doctor Mason looked compassionately at the slight girlish figure, and
+the face already wan with the re-action after excitement. "My dear Mrs.
+Harper, would not a servant do as well?"
+
+"No, I am his son's wife. What should I say to my husband if--if
+anything happened, and he not there, nor I?"
+
+"Good. Then stay," said the doctor, kindly grasping her hand. He was a
+man of few words.
+
+It took some time and patience to quiet the house, and persuade Mary and
+Eulalie to retire. When all was done, and Agatha passed swiftly, lamp in
+hand, through the dark, solitary rooms, she felt frightened. The house
+seemed so silent--already so full of death.
+
+There was one thing more to be done--to write a line ready for Anne
+Valery's waking, otherwise she would expect her home, as she had
+promised, in the early morning. How would she tell all these horrors,
+even in the gentlest way, to the feeble Anne, for whom, however
+unknown to others, and disguised by the invalid herself, Agatha felt an
+ever-present dread that she in vain tried to believe was only born of
+strong attachment. We never deeply love anything for which we do not
+likewise continually fear. Agatha almost recoiled from the idea of
+mentioning danger or death to Anne Valery.
+
+She went into the dining-room to write. Everything there appeared
+just as when this great shock struck the household into confusion; the
+dessert was not removed--the wine in which he had drunk Nathanael's
+health, remained yet in Mr. Harper's glass. Agatha shrank back. She half
+expected to see some shadowy form--not himself but Death, rise and sit
+in the arm-chair whence the old man had fallen.
+
+Brave she was, but she was still a girl, and a girl of strong
+imagination. Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle
+of the room, where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the
+last flicker of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to
+burn out in their sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and
+tried to think connectedly of all that had happened this night.
+
+Something touched her. She leaped up--would have screamed, but that
+she remembered the room overhead--the room. She crouched down--again
+covering her eyes.
+
+Another touch, and a stirring in the window-curtain near which she
+sat. There was something--every one knows that horrible
+sensation--_something_ else in the room besides herself.
+
+"Who is it?" she said, still not looking up, frightened at her own
+voice.
+
+"It's me, ma'am--only me."
+
+Everybody in the house had forgotten Mr. Grimes.
+
+Half-intoxicated at the time of Mr. Harper's seizure, he had stayed
+behind in the dining-room, drunk himself stupid, and slept himself
+sober--or partly so. They say drink is a great unfolder of truth; if
+so, the old lawyer's sharp face betrayed that, in spite of all his past
+civility, he had not the kindest feeling in the world towards the Harper
+family.
+
+"So, young lady, I frightened you? You did not expect to find me here."
+
+"I did not, indeed; I had quite forgotten your very existence," said
+Mrs. Harper, point-blank. She had conceived a great dislike to Mr.
+Grimes, and Agatha was a girl who never took much trouble to disguise
+her aversions.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am. You are polite, like the rest of the Harpers. But
+words, fair or foul, won't pay anything. Where's the Squire? He and I
+have not yet settled the little business I came about."
+
+"Mr. Grimes, perhaps you are not aware that my father-in-law is
+dangerously ill--can enter upon no business, and see no person."
+
+"In-deed?" His thorough insolence of manner brought Agatha's dignity
+back. She remembered that she was a lady belonging to the house, and
+that this fellow, whose behaviour made his grey hairs so little worthy
+of respect, was her father-in-law's invited guest.
+
+"Sir," she said, drawing up her little figure, and trying to look as
+much Mrs. Locke Harper as possible, "you must be aware that in the
+present state of the house a stranger's presence is undesirable. It is
+not too late to order the carriage. Will you favour me by going to sleep
+at Kingcombe?"
+
+Mr. Grimes looked disposed to object; but she had her hand on the bell,
+and her manner, though perfectly civil, was resolute--so resolute, that
+he became humble.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Harper, I'm willing to oblige a former client, but I should
+like to put to you a few questions before leaving."
+
+"Put them."
+
+"First--what's wrong with the old gentleman?"
+
+"He has had a paralytic stroke--probably caused, the doctor says, by
+some great shock, which was too much for him, being an old man."
+
+The other old man looked uneasy, as though some touch of nature smote
+him for the moment.
+
+"You don't think"--here he crept backward, shambling and cowardly--"you
+don't think I had any hand in causing this--this very melancholy
+occurrence."
+
+"You?" There was undisguised scorn in Agatha's lip. As if any Mr. Grimes
+could do harm to a Harper! "Nothing of the kind--pray do not disquiet
+your conscience unnecessarily."
+
+"But I did bring him unpleasant news, for which I'm rather sorry now.
+I had much better have told his son. When shall I be likely to see my
+friend Nathanael?"
+
+His friend Nathanael! Agatha could have crushed him and stamped upon
+him, had he been worth it.
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper," she said, trying hard to keep her temper--"Mr. Locke
+Harper will be at home to-morrow night. You can then make to him any
+communications you please. At the present, the greatest benefit you can
+confer on this sad house is to absent yourself from it."
+
+"'Pon my life, Mrs. Harper, you might waste a little more breath on me,
+lest I might think it worth while to spend a little too much breath on
+you and yours. Do you know what claim I have upon your family?"
+
+"That of being Major Harper's lawyer, I believe, and possibly mine
+before my marriage. It is not likely that my husband has continued to
+use your services afterwards."
+
+Agatha said this sharply, for she was annoyed to feel herself in such
+total darkness regarding her husband's affairs. For a moment she felt
+half alarmed at the expression, "My friend Nathanael." Could they be
+allied, he and this disagreeable man? Could Grimes have acquired any
+power over him, that he was smiling in such a sinister, mysterious way?
+
+"My services? Really, Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must
+be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's
+services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out
+of nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left"--
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"My dear young lady, is it possible you don't know the unfortunate
+circumstance, at least one of the unfortunate circumstances which
+brought me here? Why, Mr. Locke Harper knew it months ago. He and I had
+several conferences together on the subject. But we husbands are
+obliged to be uncommunicative, as my wife would tell you, if you had the
+pleasure of knowing Mrs. Grimes"--
+
+"Will you keep to the point, sir?" said Agatha, sternly. She felt
+very stern--very bitter. The old wound was reopening sorer than ever.
+Nathanael had "held conferences" with this fellow--confided to him
+secrets which he had not told to her--his own wife! Here was a new
+pang--a new indignity. In its sharpness she forgot everything else; even
+the silent room overhead. She had just self-possession and pride enough
+not to question; she would have been more than human had she not paused
+to hear.
+
+"Well, Mr. Grimes!" she said, confronting him, her hand still on the
+door, where she had placed it as a mute signal which he refused to
+understand.
+
+"I own, Mrs. Harper, it is a hard case. At the time I really felt as
+sorry for you as if you had been my own daughter. All to happen so soon
+after your marriage, too! Some persons might blame me for consenting to
+keep back the facts, but I assure you Major Harper compelled me to draw
+up the settlement exactly according to his orders."
+
+"Sir--will you hasten--my time is occupied."
+
+"So is mine, madam; fully occupied. I shall waste no more of it in
+giving advice to young women who are as proud as peacocks, and as poor
+as church-mice. If it wasn't for that highly respectable young man, your
+husband, I should say it served you right."
+
+"What?" said Agatha, beneath her breath.
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper found out, a month after his marriage, that somebody
+had made ducks and drakes of all his wife's property. So, as I hear,
+the poor young man has had to turn land-steward just to keep his kitchen
+fire burning. That's all. Very odd you don't know it."
+
+"I do now."
+
+"Well, you take it quietly enough. You seem quite satisfied."
+
+"I am so."
+
+Mr. Grimes regarded her in perfect bewilderment. She showed no token of
+dismay or grief, but stood calmly by the open door.
+
+"I'm not satisfied though," cried he, at last growing heated--"I'm
+not going to have shareholders coming down upon me, and be hunted from
+London and from my profession, just because Major Harper"--
+
+"I would rather not hear of Major Harper, or any one else, to-night.
+Once more--will you oblige me by leaving?"
+
+Her thorough self-possession, her air of command--controlled the man in
+spite of himself. He moved away, bidding her a civil good-night.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Grimes; I will light you to the door."
+
+"Ugh!" He gave a grunt--seemed inclined to hesitate--looked up at Mrs.
+Harper, and--obeyed.
+
+Agatha came slowly back through the hall, feeling all stunned and
+stupified. She sat down, smoothed her hair back with her hands, heaved
+one or two weary sighs, and tried to think what had happened to her.
+
+"So, I am no heiress. I have lost all my money, and am quite poor. He
+knows it--knew it a long time ago, and did not tell me. Why did he not
+tell me, I wonder?"
+
+Here was a pause. For a moment she felt inclined to doubt the fact
+itself; truthful people have little suspicion of chicanery or falsehood,
+and when she came to think, innumerable circumstances confirmed Grime's
+statement. Yes, it must be true. This, then, was Nathanael's secret. Why
+had he kept it from her.
+
+"As if he thought I cared for money! As if"--and a choking filled her
+throat--"as if I would have minded being ever so poor did he only love
+me!"
+
+The thought burst out naturally, like water forcing its way through
+muddy reeds--showing how, deep down, there lay the living spring.
+
+"Now, let me consider. He must have had some strong reason for keeping
+this secret. It cost him much; he said so. But I never heeded that.
+How I wearied him about not taking the house; how angry I was at his
+acceptance of the stewardship. And it was for me he wished to toil--for
+me, and for our daily bread! Yet he would not tell me. And all the while
+he must have had numberless cares and anxieties without, and his
+own wife blindly tormenting him at home. Last of all I called him
+_mercenary_. And what did he answer? Nothing! Not one reproach--not one
+word of anger. Yet still--he kept his secret Why?"
+
+Here she paused again. All was mystery.
+
+"It might have been through tenderness--to save me pain. Yet no--for he
+could not but see how his silence stung me. Then since he kept not this
+secret for love of me--and I am hardly worth such loving--it must have
+been from some motive, perhaps higher than love--some bond of honour
+which he could not break. Did he not say something to that effect once?
+Let me think."
+
+Again she sat down, and so far as her excited feelings would allow,
+tried to recall the story of their acquaintance, courtship, marriage--a
+six-month's tale--how brief, yet how full. Amidst its confusion,
+amidst all the variations of her own feelings, stood out one steadfast
+image--her husband.
+
+His character was peculiar--very peculiar. Its strength, reticence,
+power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension;
+but its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour--she could
+understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral
+right that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of
+wounding the wife he loved--if he ever had loved her.
+
+For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on
+this one point of torture--then it settled. "_God knows I did love
+you, Agatha_." He had said so--he who never uttered a falsehood. It was
+enough.
+
+"Yet he '_did_' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied
+him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last
+insulting wrong. I--to tell him he 'married me for my money'--when all
+the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word. Oh,
+no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never
+can love me any more."
+
+She burst into a passion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a
+sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright,
+clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous attitude of a child.
+
+"There is a better thing than love--goodness. And whether he loves me or
+not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have
+been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My noble
+husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!"
+
+She said this in a delirium of joy--a woman's pure joy, when she can set
+aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of
+the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her
+features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her.
+
+Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face.
+
+Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the
+house--misfortune following--and she had given way to that burst of joy!
+
+She drew her hand across her forehead--sat down at the table--wrote the
+three lines she had intended to Anne Valery, and then went her way, to
+watch all night long beside her husband's father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A night and a day had passed, and the household had grown somewhat
+accustomed to the cloud that hung over it. It was but natural. How soon
+do most families settle themselves after a great shock!--how easily-does
+any grief become familiar and bearable! Likewise, saddest thought
+of all--how seldom is any one really missed from among us, painfully
+missed, for longer than a few days--a few hours!
+
+By evening, when all Kingcombe was yet talking over the "shocking event"
+at Kingcombe Holm, the "afflicted family" had subsided into its usual
+ways--a little more grave perhaps, but still composed. Some voluble
+fresh grief arose when Anne Valery came--Anne, ever foremost in entering
+the house of mourning--and took her place among the daughters of the
+family, ready to give sympathy, counsel, and comfort. It was all she was
+strong enough to do now. The chief position in the household was still
+left to Agatha.
+
+Dr. Mason gave his directions and went away. There was nothing more to
+be done or hoped for. The form which lay in the Squire's bedroom might
+lie there for days, weeks, months--without change. The old coachman and
+his wife watched their master alternately; but he took little notice
+of them. In every conscious moment his whole attention was fixed upon
+Agatha. His eyes followed her about the room; when she talked to him he
+feebly smiled. She could not imagine why this should be, but she felt
+glad. It was so sweet to know herself in any way a comfort to the father
+of Nathanael.
+
+She sat for hours by the old man's bedside, trying to think of nothing
+but him. What were all these worldly things, loss of fortune or youth,
+or even love itself, to the spirit that lay on the verge of a closed
+life--passing swiftly into eternity?
+
+So she sat and strove to forget all that had happened, or was happening
+to herself; ay, though every now and then she would start, fancying
+there was a voice in the hall, or a step at the door. And she would
+hesitate whether to run away and hide herself from her husband's
+presence or wait and let him find her in her right place--beside his
+dying father.
+
+And then--how would he meet her? how look--how speak? Yet these
+conjectures were selfish. Most likely he would scarcely notice her--his
+heart would be so full of other thoughts. What right had she, his erring
+wife, to obtrude herself upon his feelings at such a time? She could
+only look at him, and watch him, and silently help him in everything.
+Alas, she might not even dare to comfort him!
+
+Towards evening the suspense of expectation grew less, from the mere
+fact of its having lasted so many hours. Agatha went down in the course
+of dinner. The dining-table looked as usual, only fuller, from the
+presence of the Dugdales and Miss Valery. Mary had of necessity taken
+her father's place, but not his chair--it was put aside against the
+wall, and nobody looked that way.
+
+Agatha seated herself next to Miss Valery, quietly--they were all so
+very quiet. Anne whispered, "How is he?" and the rest listened for the
+answer--the usual answer, which all foreboded. Then Harriet made an
+attempt to speak of other things--of how the rain pattered against the
+window-panes, and what an ill night it was for Nathanael's journey. She
+even began to doubt whether he would come.
+
+"He is sure to come," said Miss Valery.
+
+And while she was yet speaking there swept round the house a wild burst
+of storm, in the midst of which were faintly discerned the sound of a
+horse's feet. They all cried out--"He is here!"
+
+A minute more and he was in the room--drenched through--flushed with
+riding against wind and rain. But it was himself, his own self, and his
+wife saw him.
+
+When those who are much thought of return from absence, for the first
+minute they almost always seem unlike the image in our hearts.--It
+was not thus that Agatha had remembered her husband. Not thus--abrupt,
+agitated: anything but the calm and grave Nathanael.
+
+He looked eagerly round the room--all rose: but Miss Valery was the
+first to take his hand.
+
+"Thanks, Anne, I knew you would be with them. Is he"--
+
+"Just the same--no change."
+
+The young man breathed hard. "Are you all here?" He took his three
+sisters and kissed them one after the other, silently, brotherly--Anne
+likewise. There was one left out--his wife, who had hidden behind the
+rest. But soon she heard her name.
+
+"Is Agatha with you?"
+
+She approached. Her husband took her hand--paused a moment--and then
+touched her cheek with his lips, as he had done to his sisters. He did
+not look at her or speak--it seemed as if he were not able.
+
+They drew round Nathanael, nearly all weeping. There was, as is natural
+at such times, an unusual outburst of family tenderness. And, as was
+natural also, no one seemed to think of the young wife--the stranger in
+the circle. Agatha slid away from the group and disappeared.
+
+Shortly after, she had taken her usual place in the sickroom. It had
+struck her that the old man ought to be prepared for his son's coming,
+so she had at once proceeded to his bedside. But it was useless--he was
+sleeping. She sat down noiselessly in her old seat, and watched, as she
+had done for many an hour in this long day, the smiling portrait at the
+foot of the bed--her husband's mother, whom he never saw.
+
+While she sat, footsteps entered the room. Agatha turned quickly round
+to motion the intruder to silence, and perceived that it was Nathanael.
+
+She fancied--nay, was sure--that he started when he saw her. Still, he
+came forward. She rose, and would have given him her seat, but he put
+his hand on her shoulder, and gently pressed her down again. The old
+servant who watched near her went respectfully to the further end of the
+room.
+
+It was a solemn scene; the dim light--the total silence, broken only by
+the feeble breathing of the old man, who lay passive as death, without
+death's sanctity of calm. Over all, that gay youthful portrait which
+the lamp-light, excluded from the bed, kindled into wonderfully vivid
+life--far more like life than the sleeper below.
+
+The young man stood mournfully watching his father, until startled by
+a flash of fire-light on the canvas, his eyes wandered to the painted
+smile of his unknown mother, and then turned back again to the
+pillows--the same pillows where she died.. His fingers began to twitch
+nervously, though his features remained still. Slowly, Agatha saw large
+tears rise and roll down his cheeks. Her heart yearned over her
+husband, but she dared not speak. She could but weep--not outwardly, but
+inwardly, with exceeding bitter pangs.
+
+At length the old man stirred. Agatha remembered her duty as nurse, and
+hastily whispered her husband:
+
+"I think you should move aside for a minute. Don't let him see you
+suddenly--it will startle him."
+
+"That is thoughtful of you. But who will tell him?"
+
+"I will--he is used to me. Are you awake, father?"
+
+Nathanael caught the word, and looked surprised.
+
+"Dear father," she continued, soothingly, "will you not try to wake now?
+Here is some one come to see you--some one you will be glad to see."
+
+The Squire's eyes grew wild; he uttered a thick, painful murmur.
+
+"Some one who was sure to come when he knew you were ill--your son."
+She paused, shocked at the frenzied expression of the old man's face.
+"Nay--your younger son--Nathanael--may he come?"
+
+She perceived some faint assent, beckoned to her husband, saw him take
+her place at the bedside, and then stole away, leaving the son alone
+with his father.
+
+Agatha rejoined the rest of the family. They were all sitting talking
+together as Nathanael had left them. After her leaving, they said, he
+had hardly spoken at all, but had gone up directly after her.
+
+In about half-an-hour he re-appeared--greatly agitated. His sisters all
+turned to him as he entered, but he avoided their eyes. Agatha never
+lifted hers; she sat in a dim corner behind Miss Valery.
+
+"What do you think of him, Nathanael?" asked Mary, in a low voice.
+
+"I cannot yet tell; I want to hear how he was seized. Which of you saw
+most of him yesterday?"
+
+"No one, unless it was Agatha. He was shut up in his study until she
+came."
+
+"And who has been most with him since?"
+
+"Agatha."
+
+A soft expression dawned in the young man's eyes as they sought the dim
+corner.
+
+"Will Agatha tell me what _she_ thinks of my father's state?"
+
+This appeal, so direct--so unexpected--could not be gainsaid.
+
+Yet, when Nathanael addressed her, Agatha's agitation was so visible
+that it attracted observation--especially Mrs. Dugdale's.
+
+"Poor child!" said Harrie, compassionately, "how pale she looks!"
+
+"No wonder," Mary added. "She is more worn out than any of us. She sat
+up all last night."
+
+Nathanael's eyes were on his wife again, full of ineffable gentleness.
+"Agatha, come over and rest in this armchair. I want to talk to you
+about my father."
+
+She obeyed. He spoke in a low voice:
+
+"I feel deeply your having been so kind to him."
+
+"It was right. I was glad to do it."
+
+"What do you think caused his illness?"
+
+"Doctor Mason said it was probably some severe mental shock."
+
+Nathanael looked alarmed. "Indeed! and did the rest of the family know
+anything?--guess anything?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Her husband fixed on her a penetrating gaze; she returned it steadily.
+
+"Agatha," he hurriedly said, "you are a sensible girl--more so than any
+of my sisters. I want to consult with you alone. Come and walk up and
+down the room with me where they cannot overhear us."
+
+She did so. How strange it was!
+
+"Do you think my father had any sudden ill news? Did he see any person
+yesterday?"
+
+"A stranger came to him. Your brother's lawyer, Mr. Grimes."
+
+"Grimes? Oh, my poor father!"
+
+He sat down abruptly. Agatha wondered at his mingling the two names.
+What should Grimes have to do with his father?
+
+"Did any one else see Grimes?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"What did he say to you? Was it"--he dropped his head, and spoke half
+inaudibly--"Was it anything about my brother?"
+
+Agatha marvelled, even with a sort of pain. Father, brother, every one
+before her! "He never named Major Harper, that I can remember. But he
+said"--
+
+"What?"
+
+Agatha drew back. How could she speak of such petty things as money and
+fortune then! She answered softly, and with a full heart:
+
+"Never mind. It was a mere trifle, not worth telling, or even thinking
+of now. Another time."
+
+Nathanael regarded his wife doubtfully, but she bore the look. She was
+speaking the simple truth. Loss of fortune did seem "a mere trifle" now,
+when he was safe back again, and she sat in his presence, he talking to
+her as gently as in the olden time. Her simplicity in worldly things
+was so extreme that even Nathanael passed it over as impossible. He only
+said:
+
+"Well, all must come out ere long. We cannot think of it now. Tell me
+more about my poor father."
+
+"There is little more to tell. His manner was rather strange, I thought,
+all dinner-time. He drank healths as usual--especially yours. His mind
+was wandering then, for he called you his _only_ son. Then Mr. Grimes
+gave another toast--Major Harper. At that moment your father fell from
+his chair."
+
+Nathanael started up--"I knew it would be so. He could not bear such
+shame--my poor old father!"
+
+"Nathanael," cried Harrie, from the fireside group, "come and give us
+your opinion. I say that he ought to be sent for at once."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Frederick"
+
+Nathanael cried out violently, as if self-control were no longer
+possible.
+
+"Never! Here have I used every effort, smothered every feeling, made
+every sacrifice, to save my poor father from knowing all this--and in
+vain! You may talk as you like, but I say Frederick shall never enter
+these doors. He is as good as his father's murderer."
+
+"Hush!" cried Anne Valery, going to him while the others stood aghast.
+She only knew what fearful storms can be roused in these quiet natures.
+
+"I will not hush. I have been silent too long over his wrong-doing."
+
+"But some"--breathed Anne scarce audibly--"some whom he wronged have
+been silent for a lifetime."
+
+Nathanael paused; Anne's reasoning was from facts unknown to him; but he
+saw the agony in her face. She continued in a whisper:
+
+"Be slow to judge him, if only for his sisters' sakes--his dead
+mother's--the honour of the family."
+
+"I have thought only too much of all these things."
+
+"Then, for his father's sake--his father, who is going away to the
+other world leaving a son unforgiven. Beware how you not only take your
+brother's birthright, but seal your brother's curse."
+
+"God forbid. Oh, Anne--Anne!"
+
+He pressed his hand over his eyes, and leaned back a moment--leaning,
+though he did not know it, against his wife, who had stolen behind his
+chair. No one else came near; they all shrank from their brother as if
+he were suddenly gone mad. Looking up, he saw only Miss Valery.
+
+"Forgive me, Anne; I cannot control myself as I used to do: I have been
+very ill lately, but don't tell my wife."
+
+Anne took no notice; perhaps she wished the wife should learn the
+husband's real heart as she--his old friend--knew it.
+
+"Don't think I would harm Frederick. Not for worlds. Do you know," and
+his voice lowered, "I dare not trust myself even to be just over his
+misdeeds, lest I should be slaying my enemy."
+
+"Your enemy? It is too hard a word."
+
+"No! it is true." He glanced round, perceiving no one near but Miss
+Valery. "Anne," he whispered, "do you remember the parable of Nathan?
+Why did he do it--the cruel rich man who had enjoyed so much all his
+life? Why did he steal my one little ewe-lamb?"
+
+"Stay!" cried Anne, with a sudden suspicion waking in her. "I don't
+clearly understand. Tell me again."
+
+"No, no," he said recovering himself. "I have nothing to tell--But we
+are wasting time. Anne, it shall be as you say." And he drew a long hard
+breath. "Which of us had best write to my brother?"
+
+Rising, he found out who had been behind him. He looked horrified.
+
+"Agatha!--did you overhear me?"
+
+The suspicion wounded her to the core. Her pride and sense of justice
+were alike roused.
+
+"Have no fear, Mr. Harper," said she; "I shall not betray your secrets.
+I do not even comprehend them; except that I think it very wicked for
+brothers to be such enemies."
+
+He made no answer.
+
+"And," continued Agatha, growing bolder, as she was prone to do on the
+side of the mysteriously wronged, "I would have sent for Major Harper
+myself, had not your father seemed unwilling. But the eldest son ought
+to be here."
+
+"He shall be--your husband will write," interposed Miss Valery.
+
+The husband moved away. He had thoroughly frozen up again into the
+Nathanael of old, whose coldness jarred against every ardent impulse of
+Agatha's temperament--rousing, irritating her into opposition.
+
+"There is no need for him to trouble himself. What was right to be done
+has luckily not waited for _his_ doing it. Elizabeth herself informed
+her brother."
+
+"When?"
+
+"This afternoon. I sent the letter myself to Mr. Trenchard's, where I
+found out he had been staying."
+
+As Mrs. Harper said this, her husband's eyes literally glared.
+
+"You knew where he was staying?--Agatha--Agatha?"
+
+But Agatha's look was fixed on the door, to which her sisters-in-law had
+gathered hastily. There was a talking outside--a welcome as it seemed.
+She forgot everything except her sense of right and justice to one
+unwarrantably and unaccountably blamed.
+
+"It is surely he," she cried, and ran eagerly forward.
+
+"Nathanael!"
+
+"Frederick!"
+
+The two brothers, elder and younger, stood confronting each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"Elizabeth sent for me--Elizabeth only showed me that kindness. Oh, it
+was very cruel of you all--you should have told me my father was dying."
+
+It must have been a hard heart that could have closed itself altogether
+against Frederick Harper now.
+
+He leant against the doorway, the miserable ghost of his gay self. Born
+only for summer weather, on him any real blast of remorse or misfortune
+fell suddenly, entirely, overthrowing the whole man.
+
+"Elizabeth says it happened yesterday; and must have been
+because--because Grimes--Oh, God forgive me! it is I that have killed my
+father!"
+
+Every one shrank back. None of his sisters understood what he meant; but
+the mere expression seemed to draw a line of demarcation between them
+and the self-convicted man. Agatha only approached him--she felt so very
+sorry for her old friend.
+
+"You must not talk in this way, Major Harper. If you did vex him in any
+way, it is very sad; but he will forgive you now. You cannot have done
+any real harm to your father."
+
+Her kind voice, her perfectly guileless manner, struck each of the
+brothers with various emotion. The eyes of both met on her face:
+Frederick dropped his, and groaned; Nathanael's brightened. For the
+first time he addressed his brother:
+
+"Frederick, she is right; you must not talk thus. Compose yourself."
+
+It was in vain; his easy temperament was plunged into depths of childish
+weakness. "Oh, what have I done? You said truly, it would kill him to
+hear _that_. And my heedlessness drove Grimes to go and tell him. Yes,
+your prophecy was true: I have been the disgrace of our house--the
+destruction of my father. What shall I do, Nathanael?"
+
+And he held out his hands to his younger brother in the helplessness of
+despair.
+
+"The first thing, Frederick, is for you to be silent Anne, take my
+sisters away; my brother and I have something to say to one another.
+What? no one will go? Then, brother, come with me."
+
+The other rose mechanically; Agatha likewise. She began to put
+circumstances together, and guess darkly at what was amiss. Probably she
+herself had to do with it. She remembered in what strict honour the
+old Squire held the duty of a guardian, as he had shown in what he said
+about his own relation to Anne Valery. Perhaps some carelessness of his
+son's had caused her own loss of fortune. Yet that was not a thing to
+break his father's heart, or harden his brother's against him. Mere
+chance it must have been; ill-luck, or at the worst carelessness. There
+could not be any real dishonour in Major Harper. And after all what was
+money, when they could be so much happier without it? She determined to
+go to her husband and openly say so, telling all that had come to her
+knowledge of their secrets. They should no longer be angry with one
+another--if it were on her account.
+
+So she followed after them, with her soft, noiseless step; and when the
+two brothers stood together in their father's deserted study, there she
+was between them.
+
+"Agatha!" They both uttered her name--the elder in much confusion. He
+had seemed all along as though he could scarcely bear the sight of her
+innocent face.
+
+"Don't send me away," she said, laying a hand on either. "I know I am
+a young ignorant thing, and you are wise men; but perhaps a
+straightforward girl may be as wise as you. Why are you angry with one
+another?"
+
+Both looked uncomfortable. Major Harper tried to throw the question off.
+
+"Are we angry with one another? Nay, I am sure"--
+
+"Don't deceive me--this is no time for making pretences of any kind.
+What is this quarrel between you two?" And she turned from one to the
+other her fearless eyes.
+
+Major Harper could not meet them; Nathanael did, calmly, but
+sorrowfully.
+
+"Agatha, I cannot tell you."
+
+"But I can tell _you_; and I will, for it is right. Major Harper, do not
+be unhappy. Believe me, I care not one jot for all the money I ever
+had. If you have lost it, I am sure it was accidentally. You would not
+wilfully wrong me of a straw."
+
+Again Major Harper groaned. Nathanael stood speechless with amazement.
+At length he said, very gently:
+
+"How did you find this out, Agatha?"
+
+"Mr. Grimes told me."
+
+"Was that all he told?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Major Harper looked relieved. Nathanael watched him sternly. After a
+while he said:
+
+"Frederick, this is the right time to explain all. Do not start; you
+need not fear _me_; in any case I shall hold to my promise. But if you
+would explain--for my sake, for others' sake"--
+
+The other shrank away. "No, not now," he whispered; "oh! brother, not
+now. Give me a little time. Don't disgrace me before her--before them
+all."
+
+Nathanael's stature rose. Without again speaking, he shook his brother's
+hand from off his shoulder with a gesture, slight yet full of meaning,
+and turned towards Agatha. He seemed to yearn over her, though he
+checked every expression of feeling except the softness of his voice.
+
+"I am glad you have found out we are poor--that in some things my wife
+may see I have not been so cruel to her as she thought."
+
+Agatha's cheeks crimsoned with emotion. Why--why were they not alone
+that she need not have smothered it down, and stood so quiet that he
+believed she did not feel? He went on, rather more sadly:
+
+"But this is not a time to talk of our own affairs; you shall know all
+ere long. Will you be content until then?" And he held out his hand.
+
+She took it, looking eagerly into his face. There was something there
+so intrinsically noble and true! Though his conduct yet seemed
+strange--unreasonable towards her, harsh towards his brother, still,
+in defiance of all, there was that in his countenance which compelled
+faith. And there was that in her own heart, a something neither reason
+nor conviction, but transcending both, which leaped to him as through
+intervening darkness light leaps to light. She felt that she must
+believe in her husband.
+
+He seemed partly to understand this, and smiled--a pale, faint smile,
+that quickly vanished.
+
+"Now, Agatha," he said, opening the door for her, "go and see how my
+father is, and then you must go to bed. I will sit up with him to-night.
+I cannot have my poor wife killing herself with watching."
+
+His voice sunk tenderly; he even put out his hand, as if to stroke her
+hair after his old habit, but drew it back--Major Harper was looking on.
+Again the dark fire, lit so fatally on his marriage-day, and since then
+sometimes fiercely raging, sometimes smothered down to a mere spark,
+yet never wholly extinguished, rose up in the young man's strong,
+self-contained, strangely silent heart. Would his pride never let it
+burst forth, that, mingling with the common air, it might burn itself to
+nothingness! But how many a whole life has been tortured and consumed
+by just such a little flame, a mere spark, let fall by some evil tongue
+which is set on fire of hell.
+
+While they paused--the wife waiting, she knew not for what, except that
+it seemed so easy to follow and so hard to quit her husband--there was a
+cry heard on the staircase at the foot of which they stood. Mrs. Dugdale
+came running down in terror.
+
+"Nathanael--Agatha--I have told my father that Fred is here. Oh, come to
+him, do come!"
+
+No time for pitiful earthly passions, jealousies, and regrets. Nathanael
+ran quick as lightning, his wife following. But at the door of the
+sick-room even she recoiled.
+
+The old man sat up in bed, raised on pillows; either the paralysis
+had not been so entire as was at first supposed, or he had slightly
+recovered from it. His right arm moved feebly; his tongue was loosed,
+though only in a half-intelligible jabber. But his countenance showed
+that, however lay the miserable body, the poor old man was in his right
+mind. Alas! that mind was not at peace, not lighted with the holy glow
+cast on the dying by the world to come, It was filled with rage and
+torment.
+
+Nathanael ran to him, "Father, father, you will destroy yourself. What
+is it you want?"
+
+The answer was unintelligible to his son, but Agatha gathered from it
+that the chamber-door was to be shut and bolted. She did so; yet even
+then the sick man's fury scarce abated. Broken words--curses that the
+helpless lips refused to ratify; terrible outbursts of wrath, mingled
+with the piteous moan of senility. Last of all came the name, once given
+proudly by the young father to his first-born, and now gasped out with
+maledictions from the same father's dying lips--"Frederick."
+
+Nathanael and Agatha looked at one another with horror. They both knew
+that the old Squire was bent on driving from his death-bed his own, his
+first-born son.
+
+Agatha instinctively held down the palsied hands, which were trying to
+lift themselves towards heaven--not in prayers!
+
+"Father, don't say--don't even think such terrible things. Whatever he
+has done, forgive him!--for the love of God, forgive him!"
+
+The old man regarded her, and his excitement seemed redoubled. Agatha
+fancied it was the father's pride, dreading lest she, a stranger, knew
+the cause of his anger.
+
+"No, no!" she cried, "I scarcely understand anything; my husband would
+not tell me. Whatever has happened can all be hushed up. We would
+forgive anything to a brother--oh, would we not?" And she appealed to
+Nathanael, who stood motionless, great drops lying on his forehead,
+though his features were so still.
+
+"It is true, father," he whispered. "No one knows anything but me, and I
+have kept your honour safe that he might redeem it some time. Perhaps he
+may. And remember, he is your son--the first-born of his mother. Hush,
+Agatha!" Nathanael continued, as he saw a sudden change come over
+the old man's face. "Don't say any more now. Leave me to talk with my
+father."
+
+With the grave tenderness that he always showed her, he took his wife by
+the hand, led her to the door, and closed it. Greatly moved, yet
+feeling satisfied he would do what was right, Agatha obeyed and went
+down-stairs.
+
+The sisters and brother were assembled in the study. Marmaduke was there
+too, but took little part in the family lamentation, except in keeping a
+perpetual tender watch over the grief of his own Harrie. Anne Valery was
+absent.
+
+Frederick Harper sat apart. A sullen gloom had succeeded to his
+misery--with him no feeling ever lasted long, at least in the same form.
+Harriet and Eulalie were inspecting with great curiosity their elder
+brother, whose presence among his long-estranged household seemed
+accompanied with such a mysterious discomfort. They eyed him doubtfully,
+as if he had done something very wrong that nobody knew of. Mary only,
+who was next eldest to himself, ventured to address some kind words, and
+bestir herself about his comfort.
+
+Thus the family sat, Agatha among them, for more than an hour. No one
+thought of going to bed. All remained together, in a strangely quiet,
+subdued state, Major Harper being with them all the time, though he
+hardly spoke, or they to him. He seemed a stranger in his father's
+house.
+
+Once when he had gone for a few minutes to Elizabeth's room--he had been
+with Elizabeth long before his coming was known to any of the rest, it
+was believed--Mary began in her lengthy wandering way to tell anecdotes
+of his boyish doings; how handsome he was, and how naughty too; and
+how, when he got into disgrace, she, by the scheming of Elizabeth, used
+secretly to carry bread-and-honey and apples to his bedroom. And she
+wiped her eyes, the good, plain-looking sister Mary, saying over and
+over again,
+
+"Poor Fred!" She never thought of him, like the world, as "Major
+Frederick Harper," but only as "Poor Fred!"
+
+Several times Agatha stole up-stairs to the door of the room which
+enclosed the sorrow-mystery of the house. It was always shut, but she
+could hear Nathanael's voice within--his soft, kind voice, talking
+quietly by the bedside.
+
+"I never see anything like 'un," said the coachman's wife, who sat
+without the door. "He do manage th' Squire just as the poor dear
+Missus did. He do talk just like his mother." And that was evidently the
+perfection of everything in the old woman's eyes.
+
+Agatha sat down beside her on the staircase, listening to the wind
+without, that swept fiercely over the hollow in which Kingcombe Holm
+lay, as if ready to bear away on its pinions a departing soul. It was
+an awful night to die in. Agatha listened, sensitive to every one of its
+terrors. But above them all--above the shadow of coming death, fear of
+the future, anxiety in the present--rose one thought--the thought of her
+husband.
+
+It gave her no pain--it gave her no joy--yet there it was, a visible
+image sitting strong and calm in the half-lighted chamber of her heart,
+every feeling of which crept to its feet and lay there, like priestesses
+in the twilight before a veiled god.
+
+Nathanael at last opened the door. He looked like one who has struggled
+and conquered not only with things without, but things within. His face
+had all the pallor, but likewise all the peace of victory. Agatha rose
+to meet him.
+
+"Have you been waiting for me this long while? Good child!" And he
+smiled, but solemnly, as with an inward sense of the Presence which
+makes all things equal--softens all asperities and calms all passions.
+
+"Do you know where my brother is?" asked Nathanael.
+
+"Down-stairs, with the rest."
+
+"Will you go and fetch him?"
+
+Agatha looked up at her husband half incredulously. "Have you then
+succeeded? Is all made right?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, how good--how good you are!" She grasped his hands and kissed them,
+her eyes floating in tears; then, lest he should be displeased, ran
+quickly away.
+
+Miss Valery met her at the stairhead, coming from the gallery where were
+Elizabeth's rooms. They exchanged the usual question, "How is he now?"
+and then Agatha said:
+
+"Be glad with me! I am sent to fetch Major Harper."
+
+Anne pressed her hand. "Go and tell him. He is with Elizabeth."
+
+And there Agatha found him overcome with grief--the gay, handsome Major
+Harper! steadfast neither in good nor evil. He sat, his head bent, his
+hair falling disordered, its greyness showing, oh! so plain. Plainer
+still were the wrinkles which a life of smiles had carved only the
+deeper round the mouth--token of how near upon him was creeping a
+desolate unhonoured age. By his side, talking softly, with his hand
+in hers, lay the crippled sister, perhaps the only living creature who
+really loved him.
+
+"Major Harper," Agatha spoke softly, laying her hand upon his shoulder.
+The poor broken-down man, dropping into old age! there was no fear of
+his thinking she was in love with him now.
+
+"Well, what do you want?"
+
+"I am sent to fetch you to your father."
+
+He looked incredulous;--Agatha repeated her message.
+
+"My husband sent me. Your father wishes very much to see you. Come."
+
+"Elizabeth!" He turned to her as if she could make him understand this
+incomprehensible news.
+
+Elizabeth clasped his hand and loosed it. She said nothing, but Agatha
+saw she was weeping for joy. Her brother rose and went through the long
+gallery they passed, his sister-in-law carrying the light, and leading
+him. He had quite forgotten his courteous manners now. Agatha thought of
+the days in London--when he had escorted her to operas, and murmured
+over her in drawing-rooms, making her so happy and honoured in his
+notice. Poor Major Harper! How vain were all the shows of his brilliant
+life, the men who had courted him, the women who had flattered and
+admired him! Agatha forgave him all his follies--ay even all the hearts
+he had broken. There was not one of those poor hearts, not one, on which
+he could rest his tired head now!
+
+At the door of their father's room Nathanael met him, a new and more
+righteous Jacob dealing with a more desolate Esau. And like Esau's was
+the cry that broke from Frederick Harper as he went in and flung himself
+on his knees by the bed.
+
+"_Bless me--even me also--O' my father._"
+
+There was no answer. The words of forgiveness were denied his hearing.
+The old Squire could but look at his son, and move his lips in an
+articulate murmur.
+
+Agatha ran to Major Harper's side. It was pitiful to see the shock he
+had received, and the frenzied way in which he called upon his father to
+speak--if only one word.
+
+"He cannot speak, you know, but he does indeed forgive you. Be sure that
+he forgives you!"
+
+Her husband drew her away to the little curtained alcove which had
+been Mrs. Harper's dressing-room. There they stood, close together--for
+Nathanael did not let her go, and she clung to him in tears--while the
+father and son had their reconciliation.
+
+It was silent throughout, for after the first burst, Major Harper was
+not heard to speak. Now and then came a sound like the smothered sob of
+a boy. No one saw the faces of father and son; they were bent together,
+just as when, years upon years ago, the proud father had sometimes
+condescended to let his baby son, his first-born and heir, go to sleep
+upon his shoulder.
+
+Thus, after many minutes, Nathanael found them lying.
+
+He held the curtain aside to see his father's countenance; it was very
+peaceful now, though with a dimness gathering in the open eyes. Agatha
+had never before seen that look--the unmistakable shadow of death. She
+shrank back, trembling violently. Her husband put his arm round her.
+
+"Do not be afraid, my child," he whispered, using the old word and tone.
+She rested on him, and was quieted.
+
+"I think we had better call them all in now."
+
+"Shall I fetch them?" said his wife, and went out, flitting once more
+through the still, ghostly house. But she thought of her husband, of his
+last word and look, and had no fear.
+
+They came in, all that were now living of the old man's children--save
+one--the poor Elizabeth. They stood round the bed, a full circle, his
+two sons, his three daughters, his son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and
+lastly Anne Valery. She was the palest and most serene of all.
+
+Thus for an hour or more they waited--so slow was the last closing
+of the long-drawn-out life. There was no pain or struggle; merely the
+ebbing away of breath. The palsied hands, white and beautiful to the
+last, lay smooth on the counterpane; and when occasionally one or other
+of his daughters knelt down and kissed him, the old man feebly smiled.
+But whenever he opened his eyes, they travelled no farther than to the
+face of his eldest son--rested there, brightened and closed.
+
+And thus, lying quietly in the midst of his children, at daybreak the
+old Squire died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The old man was gathered to his fathers.
+
+It was the day after that on which he had been borne to the place
+appointed for all living. A new coffin rested beside that of Catherine
+Harper in the family vault; the portrait still smiled, but on an empty
+bed. There was no separation now.
+
+At Kingcombe Holm the house had awakened from its sleep of mourning;
+the shutters were opened, and the sunshine came in familiarly on the
+familiar rooms--where was missed the presence of him who had abided
+there for threescore years and ten. But what were they? Counted only as
+"labour and sorrow"--they had all passed away, and he was gone.
+
+The family met--a large table circle. They looked melancholy, all
+in their weeds, but otherwise were as usual. A certain gravity and
+under-tone in speaking alone remained. Mary had again begun to busy
+herself over her housekeeping; and Eulalie, looking prettier than ever
+in her black dress, was listening with satisfaction to the Reverend
+Mr. Thorpe, a worthy, simple young man, who had come at once to pay the
+family of his affianced the respect of attending the funeral, and
+to plan another ceremony, when the decent term of mourning should be
+expired.
+
+Major Harper, now recovering something of his old elasticity of
+manner, took the place at the foot of the breakfast-table, whence
+Mary, presiding as usual, cast over to him glances sometimes of pride,
+sometimes of doubtful curiosity, as if speculating on what sort of a
+ruler the future head of the house would be.
+
+A very courteous and graceful one, most surely!--to judge by the way in
+which he was doing the agreeable to his sister-in-law. Quite harmlessly,
+only it seemed as necessary for Major Harper to warm himself in the fair
+looks of some woman or other, as for a drenched butterfly to dry its
+wings in the sunshine. He was indeed a poor helpless human butterfly,
+not made for cloudy weather, storm, or night!
+
+But he fluttered in vain; Agatha took no notice of him whatsoever. Her
+whole nature had deepened down to other things--things far beneath the
+shallow ken of Major Harper.
+
+During this week, when the numerous duties of the brothers of the family
+left its womenkind nearly alone, shut up in the house of mourning, with
+nothing outwardly to do or to think of beyond the fold of crape or a
+gown, or the make of a bonnet--Agatha had learnt strange secrets. They
+were not of Death, but of Love.
+
+She had seen very little of her husband. Either by necessity or design,
+he had been almost constantly away; at Thornhurst, arranging business
+for Miss Valery, who had gone home; sometimes at Kingcombe, in his
+own house--his lonely house; and for two days and nights, to the
+astonishment and slight scandal of his sisters, he had been absent in
+Cornwall. But wherever he was, or whatever he had to do, he either saw
+or wrote to his wife every day; kind, grave words, or kinder letters;
+brother-like in their wisdom and tenderness--just the sort of tenderness
+that he seemed to believe she would wish for from him.
+
+Agatha accepted all--these brief meetings--these constant letters; saw
+the wounding curiosity of his sisters relax, and even Harriet Dugdale
+acknowledged how mistaken had been her former notions, and on what
+excellent terms her brother and his wife now evidently were; she really
+never thought Nathanael would have made such an attentive, affectionate
+husband! And Agatha smiled outwardly a proud satisfied smile; while
+inwardly---oh, what a crushed, remorseful, passionate heart was there!
+
+A heart which now began to know itself--at once its fulness and its
+cravings. A heart thirsting for that love, wanting which, marriage is
+but a dead corrupting body without the soul--love, the true life-union,
+consisting of oneness of spirit, sympathy, thought, and will--love which
+would have been the same had they lived twenty thousand miles apart, ay,
+had they never married at all, but waited until eternity united those
+whom no earthly destinies could altogether put asunder. Now out of her
+own soul she learnt--what not one human being in a million learns,
+and yet the truth remains the same--the unity, the immortality, the
+divineness of Love, to which the One Immortal and Divine gave His own
+name.
+
+She sat in her usual quiet mood, she did everything in such a quiet,
+self-contained fashion now--sat, idly talked to by Major Harper, whom
+she did not hear at all. She only heard, at the further end of the
+table, Nathanael talking to Mary. Sometimes she stole a glance, and
+thought how cordial his manner to his sister was, and how tender his
+eyes could look at times. And she sighed. At her sigh, her husband would
+turn, see her listening to Frederick with that absent downcast look--and
+become silent.
+
+Not an angry jealous silence now--his whole manner showed how much he
+honoured and trusted his wife--but the hush of a deep, abiding pain, a
+sense of loss which nothing could ever reveal or remove.
+
+But men must keep up worldly duties; it is only women, and not all of
+these, who can afford the luxury of a broken heart. Mr. Harper rose,
+nerved for the day's task--a painful one, as all the family knew. The
+elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who
+in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this
+had fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish
+looks. As he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the
+aspect of middle age.
+
+"It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers
+in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come.
+You are quite sure there was a will?"
+
+"Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking
+there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him
+to dinner, but his back was turned, and I could not make him
+understand--poor father!"
+
+Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and
+her grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael,
+going away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between
+them, though smooth, was invariably formal and rare.
+
+"You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?--you do not wish to
+share it?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny
+window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away
+the bare thought of death and the grave.
+
+Nathanael went out--but ere he had closed the door a little hand touched
+him.
+
+"What do you want, Agatha?"
+
+"I should like to go with you, if you would allow--that is, if you would
+not forbid me."
+
+"Forbid you? Nay! But"--
+
+"I want--not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets--but just to
+sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house now!" And
+she shivered.
+
+Her husband sighed. "Poor child--such a child to be in the midst of us
+and our trouble! Come with me if you will." And he took her into the
+study.
+
+No one had been there since the father died; directly afterwards some
+careful hand had locked the door, and brought the key to Nathanael;
+and it was the only room in the house whose window, undarkened, had met
+during all that week the eye of day. It felt close with sunshine and
+want of air. Mr. Harper opened the casement, and placed an arm-chair
+beside it, where Agatha might look out on the chrysanthemum bed, and the
+tall evergreen, where a robin sat singing. He pointed out both to her,
+as if wishing to fortify her with a sense of life and cheerfulness, and
+then sat down to the gloomy task of looking over his father's papers.
+
+They were very few--at least those left open in the desk; merely
+accounts of the estate, kept with brevity and with much apparent labour;
+sixty years ago literature, nay, education, were at a low ebb among
+English country gentlemen. But all the papers were so carefully
+arranged, that Nathanael had nothing to do but to glance over them and
+tie them up--simple yearly records of the just life and honest dealings
+of a good man, who transferred unencumbered to his children the trust
+left by his ancestors.
+
+"I think," said Nathanael--breaking the dreary silence--"I think there
+never was one of the Harper line who lived a long life so stainlessly,
+so honourably, as my father."
+
+And somehow, as he tied up the packets, his finger slightly trembled.
+Agatha came and stood by him.
+
+"Let me help you; I have ready hands."
+
+"But why should I make use of them?"
+
+"Have you not a right?" she said, smiling.
+
+"Nay, I never claim as a right anything which is not freely given."
+
+"But I give it. It pleases me to help you," said Agatha, in a low tone,
+afraid of her own voice. She took the papers from him, and tried to make
+herself busy, in her innocent way. It cheered her.
+
+Nathanael watched her for a minute. "You are very neat-handed, Agatha,
+and it is kind of you to help me."
+
+"Oh, I would help any one." Foolish, thoughtless words! He said no more,
+but went and looked over the cabinet.
+
+This was a sadder duty. There were letters extending over more than a
+half century. The Squire received so few that he seemed never to have
+burnt one. The oldest--fifty years old--were love-letters, of the time
+when people wrote love-letters beginning "Honoured Miss," and "Dear
+and respected Sir," overlaying the plain heart-truth with no
+sentimentalisms of the pen. The signatures, "Catherine Grey," and
+"Nathanael Harper," in round, formal, girl and boy hand, told how young
+they were when this correspondence began;--young still, when its sudden
+ceasing showed that courtship had become marriage. From that time,
+for nearly twenty years, there was scarcely a letter signed Catharine
+Harper.
+
+"This looks," said Agatha, who unconsciously to both had come to stand
+by her husband and share in his task--"this looks as if they were so
+rarely parted that they had no need for letter-writing."
+
+"It was so: I believe my father and mother lived very happily together."
+
+"I should like to read these letters all through, if I might? They are
+the only love-letters I ever saw."
+
+"Are they, indeed?"
+
+The sharp questioning look startled Agatha. She remembered that first
+letter of Nathanael's--perhaps he was vexed that she had apparently
+forgotten it--the letter which had been such a solemn epoch in her young
+life. She coloured vividly and painfully.
+
+"I mean--that is"--
+
+Her husband looked another way. "You shall have these letters if you so
+much desire it."
+
+"Thank you. I would like to keep something of your mother's. And she was
+indeed so happy in her marriage?"
+
+"Very happy, Anne Valery says. My father's was not a perfect temper,
+but she understood him thoroughly, and he trusted her. He had need; he
+knew--what is a rare thing in marriage now-a-days--that he had been his
+wife's first love."
+
+Agatha made no reply, and the conversation dropped.
+
+Next to Mrs. Harper's letters, and preserved with almost equal care, was
+another packet. It began with a child's scrawl--double-lined, upright
+and stiff:
+
+
+"My dear Father,
+
+"Uncle Brian has ruled me this paper, and ruled Anne another. We are
+all very merry at Weymouth. We don't want to come home, except to
+see"--(here a word, apparently "_ponies_" had been carefully altered, by
+a more delicate hand, into something like "_Papa_")--"Anne's love, and
+everybody's, from your dutiful son,
+
+"Frederick."
+
+
+"'_Frederick?_'--I thought the letter was yours."
+
+"No, if he had kept any it was sure to be my brothers. Frederick must
+have them back."
+
+"Let me tie them up," said Agatha stretching out her hand.
+
+"No--no--are they so very precious? Why do you want to touch them?" said
+he, sharply, drawing them out of her reach.
+
+"Only that I might help you."
+
+Mr. Harper regarded her a moment, and then put back the letters into
+her lap. "Forgive me, I did not mean to be cross with you. But this task
+confuses me."
+
+He leaned his elbow on the cabinet, covering his eyes, and stood
+thus for two or three minutes. Agatha remained silent--who could have
+intruded on the emotion of a son at such a time? None but a wife who
+could have stolen into his heart with a closer, dearer claim, and she,
+alas! _she_ dared not. Weeks ago--when she believed herself wronged--it
+would have been far easier. The higher he rose, the lower she sank,
+weighed down by the bitter humility that always comes with fervent love.
+She watched him--her heart throbbing, bursting, yearning to cast itself
+at his feet--yet she dared not.
+
+"Now let us look over some other letters. I wonder whether Mary was
+right, and it is here we shall find the will!"
+
+He, then, was only thinking of letters and wills! Agatha turned away,
+and went to sit by the window and watch the chrysanthemums.
+
+At last she was attracted back by her husband's voice.
+
+"This is the will, I see, by the endorsement. Take it, Agatha; we will
+not touch it till the Dugdales come. And here are more letters to my
+father. Do you think I ought to burn them or look them over first?"
+
+The confidential tone in which he spoke soothed Agatha. It was a sort of
+tacit acknowledgment of her wifely rights to his trust.
+
+"I think, suppose you look them over"--
+
+"I cannot," said he, wearily. "Will you?" And he gave her a handful in
+her lap. Agatha felt pleased; she thanked him, and turned them over one
+by one.
+
+"Here is a hand which looks like Miss Valery's."
+
+"It is hers. Set them by."
+
+She opened another, in a careless and very illegible hand, which she
+could not recognise at all:
+
+
+"My dear Brother,
+
+"The approaching marriage in your family, of which you inform me,
+unfortunately cannot alter my plans. I must recover my lost fortunes
+abroad.
+
+"Frederick told me yesterday his certainty of being accepted by Miss
+Valery. He might have told me sooner, but perhaps thought me too much of
+a crusty old bachelor to sympathise with his felicity. Possibly I am.
+
+"You ask if Anne has communicated to me the coming change in her life?
+No.
+
+"Farewell, brother, and God bless you and yours.
+
+"B. L. H."
+
+
+"Why, this is Uncle Brian!" cried Agatha, giving the letter to her
+husband. He read it, laid it aside without comment, and sat thinking.
+She did the same. Turning, their eyes met; and they understood each
+other's thoughts, but apparently neither liked to speak. At last
+Nathanael said:
+
+"It must have been so, though I never guessed it before."
+
+"But I did, though she never openly told me."
+
+"Well, it is a strange world!" mused the young man. "Poor Uncle Brian!"
+
+"When do you expect him home?"
+
+"Any day, every day. Thank God!"
+
+"Did you not think she seemed a little better yesterday," said Agatha
+hesitatingly. "Just a very little, you know."
+
+"A little better; is she ill? What, very ill?"--Agatha's mute answer was
+enough. "Oh, poor, poor Anne! And he is coming home!"
+
+"Perhaps," said Agatha, shocked to see her husband's emotion--"perhaps
+if we take great care, and she is very happy,--people must live when
+they are happy"--
+
+"Few would live at all then," was the answer, unwontedly bitter. "Better
+not--better not; poor Anne! It is a hard, cruel, miserable world."
+
+"Why do you say that, Nathanael?"
+
+He started, and Agatha too, for opening the door, with a bright, clear
+look, was she of whom they were just talking--Anne Valery.
+
+"I knew I might come in. I heard what you were doing here," and a slight
+sadness crossed her face. "Is it all done, now?"
+
+"Nearly," and Mrs. Harper hurriedly folded the letter, which lay still
+on her lap. Miss Valery's eye caught the writing; Nathanael gave it to
+her.
+
+Anne read it; at first with a natural womanly feeling--nay, even
+agitation. Soon this ceased, absorbed in the infinite peace and content
+of her whole mien. "I knew all this long ago," she said calmly. "It was
+a--a _mistake_ of Frederick's."--Then, still calmly; "What do you think
+I have just heard from Marmaduke!--He"--there could be but one she
+meant--"he has safely landed at Havre."
+
+"Uncle Brian!" the young people both cried, and then instinctively
+repressed the joy. It seemed too sacred to be expressed in ordinary
+fashion. And passing naturally from one thought to another, Nathanael
+glanced round the room; the unused desk, the scattered papers left to be
+examined by the unfamiliar hands of a younger generation. Had the
+absent one come but a little sooner! "Alas!" he said, "it seems as if the
+world's universal sorrow lay in those words, '_Too late.'_"
+
+Miss Valery sank on a chair, her temporary strength departing. Her hands
+dropped into that fold that was peculiar and habitual to them--a simple
+attitude, not unlike Chantrey's "Resignation."
+
+"You speak truly, Nathanael. But 'our times are in _His_ hand.'"
+
+She said no more, and shortly Mr. Harper, taking with him the sealed
+packet that was endorsed "_My Will_" led the way to where the family
+were assembled. In doing so there grew over him the hard silence always
+visible when he was much affected. But Agatha was not surprised or hurt:
+she began to understand him better now.
+
+In the dining-room were only the immediate family. Every one knew the
+probable purport of the will, and how simple a document it was likely to
+be; for the patriarchal old Squire hated the very mention of law, and
+it had been his pride that, though not entailed, the inheritance of
+Kingcombe Holm had descended for centuries unbroken by a single legal
+squabble. Therefore they all waited indifferently, merely to go through
+a necessary form; Harriet Dugdale and her husband, Eulalie and her
+_fiancé_, and the solitary Mary. Major Harper alone was rather restless,
+especially when the three others came in from the study. It was
+noticeable that, with all his smooth manner, Frederick never seemed
+quite at ease in the presence of Miss Valery. Nevertheless he tried, and
+successfully, to assume his position as elder brother and present head
+of the family. He gave Anne a gracious welcome.
+
+"I scarcely expected you would have honoured us so far. This is entirely
+a family meeting."
+
+"Shall I leave?"
+
+"Oh, no," cried everybody at once, "Anne is so thoroughly one of the
+family."
+
+"Certainly," responded Major Harper, bowing though his brows were knit.
+He waited till Anne took her seat, and then sat down, silent. Many
+changes, vivid, and various, passed over his flexible mouth. At last,
+leaning forward, he hid it with his hand. There was a brief hush in
+the men, of solemnity--in the women, of mourning. More than one tear
+splashed on the black dress of the tender-hearted Mary.
+
+Nathanael stood--the will in his hand--hesitating.
+
+"It seems to me, that as this is a family meeting, we might--not
+necessarily, but still out of kindness and respect--postpone it for a
+few days, that the only remaining member of the family may be present."
+
+"Who is that?" said the elder brother.
+
+"Uncle Brian."
+
+One or two voices, especially the Dugdales, seconded this, and eagerly
+proposed to wait for Uncle Brian.
+
+"Impossible!" Major Harper said, hastily. "I have engagements. I cannot
+wait for any one."
+
+"But"--
+
+"Nathanael--don't argue. Remember, I am the elder brother. Give me my
+father's will." Nathanael paused a moment, and gave it. "The seal has
+been broken and re-fastened," Frederick added, breaking it with rather
+nervous hands. He tried to glance over it, but his eyes wandered
+unsteadily. "There, take it and read. I hate business."
+
+And he threw himself back in his seat, which happened to be the old
+Squire's especial chair. Agatha thought it was thoughtless of him to use
+it.
+
+Nathanael read the will aloud. It was dated ten years back, and was in
+the Squire's own hand, drawn up simply, but with perfect clearness. The
+division of fortune was as they all expected: a moderate funded sum to
+each of the daughters and to Nathanael; the estate, with all real and
+personal property, to go to the eldest son. There were a few small
+bequests to servants, and one gift of the late Mrs. Harper's jewels.
+
+"I meant them," the old man wrote, "for my eldest son's wife.
+Disappointed in this, I leave them to Anne Valery."
+
+Major Harper moved restlessly in his chair. Anne sat quiet. The young
+Agatha looked at them, and wondered if people grew callous as they grew
+old.
+
+"Is it all read?" said Frederick.
+
+"Yes. Stay, here are a few lines; a codicil, I fancy, affixed with seals
+to the body of the will I can hardly make it out."
+
+And as Mr. Harper perused it, his wife observed his countenance change.
+He let the paper drop, and sat silent.
+
+"What is it? Read,", cried Harrie Dugdale.
+
+"I cannot--Anne, will you? God knows, brothers and sisters"--and he
+looked all round the circle with an eagerly appealing gaze--"God knows
+I never knew or dreamed of this. Anne, read."
+
+"Shall I read, Major Harper?"
+
+He was gazing out of the window with an absent air. At the sound of her
+voice he started, and gave some mechanical assent.
+
+Anne read the date--of only twelve days back.
+
+"That was the very day that he was taken ill, you know," whispered Mary.
+
+The codicil began:
+
+"I, Nathanael Harper, being in sound mind and body, do hereby make
+my last will and testament, utterly revoking all others, in so far
+as relates to my two sons. I leave to my younger son, Nathanael Locke
+Harper, all my landed, real, and personal estate, praying that he may
+long live and maintain our name in honour at Kingcombe Holm. To my
+eldest son--having no desire to expose to ruin the family estate, or
+link the family name with more dishonour than it already bears--to my
+eldest son, Frederick Harper, I leave the sum of One Shilling."
+
+Anne's reading ceased. Dead silence, utter, frightened silence,
+followed. Then arose a chorus of women's voices--"Oh, Frederick!--oh,
+Frederick!"
+
+Frederick rose, feebly smiling. "It is a mistake--all a mistake. My
+father was not in his right mind."
+
+The sisterly tide turned. "Oh, hush, Frederick! How wicked of you to say
+so!"
+
+"Well read it over again," said Marmaduke Dugdale, waking up into the
+interests of the world around him. Anne gave him the paper, and he read
+it with his ponderous, manly voice, rounding out every bitter word which
+Anne had softened down. All was undoubtedly legal, signed in his own
+hand, and witnessed by two of his servants. There could be no doubt it
+was done immediately before the paralytic attack, when he was perfectly
+in his senses; indeed, he could not be said ever to have lost them.
+
+The family sat, awed by their father's deed; to question which never
+struck them for a moment--legal chicanery was not rife at Kingcombe
+Holm. They looked at the disinherited brother with a sort of shrinking
+wonder, as if he had done some great unknown wickedness. He might have
+sat there ever so long, conscience-stricken and stupified, but this
+family gaze stung him into violence.
+
+"I say it is a cheat--how or by whom contrived I know not--but it is a
+cheat. My father loved me--the only one of you who ever did. If there
+was a coolness between us, he forgave me when he died. You all saw
+that."
+
+There was no denying it. Every one remembered how the father's last
+dying look of love had been on his eldest son. Again the tide of family
+feeling changed. They threw doubtful glances towards Nathanael, except
+his wife. But she drew closer to him, and trembled and doubted no more.
+
+He stood, meeting the eyes of all his family. In his aspect was great
+distress, but entire composure--not a shadow of hesitation or confusion.
+Nor, on the other hand, was there any triumph. When he spoke--they
+seemed expecting him to speak--his voice was low and steady:
+
+"You know, brother, and all the rest of you know, that I have had no
+hand in this matter."
+
+"I know nothing of the sort," cried Frederick. "I only know that I have
+been defrauded--disgraced.--Not by any act of my father's, or he would
+not lie quiet in his grave. My father always loved me." And the quick
+feeling natural to Major Harper made him hesitate--unable to proceed.
+But soon he continued, vehemently:
+
+"I will find out this. Evil speakers, malicious, underhand hypocrites,
+have turned my father against me. I declare to Heaven that I never
+wronged any"--
+
+Frederick stopped--interrupted not by words, for there was perfect
+silence--but by a certain quiet look of Anne Valery's, which fastened on
+his face. He turned crimson--he had so much of the woman in him, though
+of womanhood in its weakest form. He glanced from Miss Valery to Agatha,
+and then back again.
+
+"Anne--Anne Valery, tell me do you know anything?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"You--even you!" For the moment, he cowered in such emotion as was
+pitiful to see; but it passed and he grew desperate.
+
+"I say, I will contest this will. It shall be proved invalid. My lawyer
+Grimes"--
+
+"Mr. Grimes has been here, and is now gone to America," Anne whispered.
+"I urged and assisted him to go, that he should not throw disgrace on
+the family."
+
+Again Frederick cowered down, then rose, goaded to the last degree.
+"Nevertheless, this will shall not stand. I will throw it into Chancery.
+I will leave for London this very day."
+
+"Stay," said Nathanael, starting from deep thought, and intercepting him
+as he was quitting the room. "One word, Frederick."
+
+"Not one! You are all against me, but I will brave you all. I will have
+my rights--ay, even if I plead my father's insanity."
+
+"Oh, horrible!" cried his sisters.
+
+"Frederick, you know that to be impossible," said Nathanael, sternly.
+
+"Then I will plead what may prove a deeper disgrace to the family
+than madness, or even--what I am supposed to have done," catching his
+brother's arm, and hissing out the words in his face--"I will plead
+that the will is _a forgery_."
+
+Nathanael wrenched away his hold, thereby throwing Frederick back almost
+to the floor. The two stood for a moment glaring at one another, in that
+deadly animosity, most deadly when it arises between brothers,--and then
+the younger recovered himself. It might be because, instantaneously as
+the struggle had begun and ended, he had heard a woman's cry of terror,
+and the name uttered was not "Frederick," but "Nathanael." Also, as he
+stood, he felt two little hands steal from behind and tighten over his
+own. He grew very calm then.
+
+"Frederick, you must unsay that word. There are some things which a man
+cannot bear even from his brother. No doubt can exist that this is my
+father's own writing, and no forgery. You know that as well as I do."
+
+"As well as you do! Exactly what I meant to observe," said Major Harper,
+with his keenest and politest sneer.
+
+Nathanael moved back. A man's roused passions are always terrible;
+but there is something ten times more awful in fury that is altogether
+calm--molten down as it were to a white heat. Never but once--that
+uneffaceable _once_--had Agatha seen her husband look as he looked now.
+
+"Pause one minute, Frederick. If you had waited and heard me speak"----
+
+"I dare you to speak!"
+
+"It would be better not to dare me. I am at my last ebb of patience.
+I have kept faithfully my promise to you. None of our family know--not
+even my own wife--all that is known by you and me, and our father whom
+we buried yesterday. I would have saved him from the knowledge if I
+could, but it was not to be. Now, take care. If you drive me to it"--
+
+He hesitated. Agatha felt his hand--the thin boyish hand--grow cold as
+ice and rigid as iron. She uttered a faint cry.
+
+"Agatha, my wife," with the old sweetness in the whisper, "go and sit
+down. Leave me to reason with my brother."
+
+"No, let _me_ do that," said one coming between. It was Anne Valery.
+
+She had risen from the chair where, during almost all this time, she
+had sat like a statue, only none watched her, not even Agatha. When she
+rose, it was with a motion so slow and gliding, her soft black dress
+scarcely rustling as she moved, that Frederick Harper might well start,
+thinking a supernatural touch was on his arm.
+
+"Anne, is it you? I had forgotten you. No"--he muttered, half to
+himself, turning from the contest with his brother to gaze on her--"no,
+I never did--never do forget you."
+
+"I believe that. Come and speak to me here."
+
+Unresisted, she put her arm in his, and led him away to the deep
+bay-window, circled with a low-cushioned sill, such as delights
+children. Anne sat down.
+
+"Are you determined on this cruel course?"
+
+"I must recover my rights," was the sullen answer. "Any man would."
+
+"And when you have done this--supposing it practicable--what further do
+you purpose?"
+
+"What further?" He looked puzzled, but at last perceived her meaning.
+With an impulse eagerly caught, as Major Harper caught all impulses,
+good and ill, he cried--"Yes, I understand you. My first act, on coming
+to my property shall be to right poor Agatha."
+
+"I thought so," said Anne, kindly. "But you will not be able. There
+are others whose claims will be upon you the instant you have money
+to satisfy them--the shareholders. They know nothing of Agatha Bowen.
+Remember you expended her fortune as you worked the mine--_in your own
+name._"
+
+Major Harper looked confounded with shame. "And you knew all this,
+Anne--you! For how long?"
+
+"For some months--ever since I bought Wheal Caroline."
+
+"And you never betrayed me!"
+
+"We were playfellows, Frederick." She spoke softly, and turned her face
+to the other side of the bay-window.
+
+He forgot she was old now--he remembered only the familiar voice and
+attitude, the same as when in her girlish days she used to sit on the
+cushioned window-sill and talk with him for hours.
+
+"Playfellows! Was that all, Anne? Only playfellows?"
+
+"Only playfellows," she repeated firmly. "Never anything more. You
+knew that always." And, perhaps unconsciously, Anne looked down on a
+ring--plain, not unlike a childish keepsake--which she always wore on
+the wedding-finger of her left hand.
+
+Major Harper sighed, not one of his sentimental sighs, but one from the
+deeps of his heart. A smile, hollow and sad, followed it. "I suppose it
+is idle talking now, but--but--you were my first-love, Anne! If things
+had gone differently, I might have been a different man."
+
+"Not so. God ordained your fate, not I. No man need be ruined for life
+because a woman cannot love him. Human beings hang not on one another
+in that blind way. We have each an individual soul; on another soul
+may rest all its hopes and joys, but on God only rests its worth,
+its duties, and its nobility. We may live to do His work, and rejoice
+therein, long after we have forgotten the very sound of that idle
+word--happiness."
+
+She paused.
+
+"Go on; you talk as you always used to do."
+
+"Not quite," said Anne, with a faint smile; "I am hardly strong enough.
+Frederick," and her eyes had their former lovely, earnest look--earnest
+almost to tears, save that girl-tears had from them long been
+dried,--"Frederick, for the sake of our olden days--of your mother whom
+we both loved--of your father who has gone to her--listen to me for a
+little. Trust to your brother--he will not act unjustly. Do not create
+dissensions in your family; do not let people say that the moment Mr.
+Harper's head was laid in the grave his children quarrelled over his
+property."
+
+"I do not quarrel--I but take my right," cried Major Harper, becoming
+again the "man of the world," as he saw, the curious glances that from
+time to time reached the bay-window. "Thank you for this good advice;
+for which my brother owes you even more than I. But I am not a child
+now, nor a boy in love, to be talked over by a woman."
+
+Miss Valery rose, rather proudly. "Nor am I that woman, Major Harper.
+But I have been so long united in affection with your family; I could
+not bear to think it would be brought to dishonour. Surely--surely _you_
+will not be the one to do it."
+
+Again as he turned to go, she drew him back by those earnest eyes.
+
+"Frederick, it would grieve me so, ay, break my heart, to see them
+brought into open shame, the old familiar home, and the name--the dear,
+dear name."
+
+Major Harper's bitter tongue burst its control and stung. "I now see
+your motive. Everybody knows how very dearly Anne Valery has all her
+life loved the Harper name."
+
+Anne rose to her full height, and a blush, vivid as a girl's, dyed her
+cheek. "I have," she said--"I have loved it, and I am not ashamed."
+
+The blush paled--she sank back on the window-sill. Major Harper was
+alarmed.
+
+"Anne--how ill you look! What have I done to you?"
+
+"Nothing," she answered; and, catching his arm, drew herself upright
+once more.
+
+"Frederick, we were children together, and you loved me; some day you
+will remember that. Afterwards we grew up young people, and, still
+thinking you loved me--but it was only vanity then--you did me a great
+wrong; I will not say how, or when, or why, and no one knows the fact
+save me--but you did it. You did the same wrong to another lately."
+
+"How--how?"
+
+"You said to Mrs. Thornycroft--you see I have learnt all, for I wrote
+and asked her--you said that you 'feared' poor little Agatha loved you,
+and"--
+
+"I know--I know."
+
+"You know, too, that vanity misled you; that it was not true. But it was
+a wicked thing to say; trifling with a woman's honour--torturing those
+who loved her--bringing on her worlds of suffering. Still, she is young,
+and her suffering may end in joy;--mine"--
+
+Anne paused; the human nature struggled hard within her breast--she was
+not quite old yet. At length it calmed down--that last anguished cry of
+the soul against its appointed destiny.
+
+She took her old playmate by the hand, saying gently,
+
+"I am going away soon--going _home_. Before I go, I would like to say,
+as I used to do when you were unkind to me as a child, 'Good-night, and
+I forgive Fred everything.'"
+
+"Oh, Anne--Anne." He kissed her hand in strong emotion.
+
+"Hush! I cannot talk more," she went on quickly. "You will do as I ask?
+You will wait until--until"--
+
+She stopped speaking, and put her handkerchief to her lips. Slowly,
+slowly, red drops shone through its folds. Major Harper called wildly
+for his sisters.
+
+"I knew how it would be," cried Mary Harper. "It has happened twice
+before, and Doctor Mason said if it happened again"--
+
+"Oh, God forgive me!" groaned Frederick, as his brother carried Anne
+Valery away. "She will die--and I shall have killed her!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Anne Valery did not die. Agatha had said she would not; and the young
+heart's creed was true. It had its foundation in a higher law than that
+of physical suffering.
+
+After a few days she was able to be moved to her own house, according to
+her earnest desire; after a few more, the energy of her mind seemed to
+put miraculous strength into her feeble body.
+
+"I knew you would get well," said Agatha joyfully, as she watched her
+patient returning to ordinary household ways; only lying down a little
+more than Anne was used to do, and speaking seldom and low always, for
+fear of the bleeding at the lungs. "I knew you must get well, but I
+never saw anybody get well so fast as you."
+
+"I had need," Anne answered. "I have so much to do."
+
+"That you always have. What a busy rich life--rich in the best
+sense--yours has been! How unlike mine!"
+
+"I hope so--in many things," said Anne, to herself. "But I must not
+speak much. I talked my last talk with poor Frederick in the bay-window.
+Where is Frederick?"
+
+"He has been riding up and down the country day after day--he seems to
+find no rest."
+
+Anne looked sorry. "And we are so quiet here!"
+
+It was indeed very quiet, that sombre house at Thorn-hurst, through
+whose wintry rooms no one wandered but Agatha, excepting the old,
+attached servants. Yet this was of her own will. She had been jealous
+that any one should attempt to nurse Anne but herself. She left even her
+own home to do it. Yet--the bitter thought followed her ever--this last
+was small renunciation. No one would miss her there!
+
+During the days when Miss Valery lay ill, the world without had been
+shut from Agatha's view. Woman-like, she lived within the four walls and
+beside the sick couch, and had only seen her husband for a few minutes
+each day, when, though he talked to her only of Anne, his manner had a
+soft, reverent tenderness, and a troubled humility, as if he began to
+see a different image in his young wife. She was different, and he too.
+Neither knew how or when the change came--but it was there.
+
+She did so miss him, when, having taken them safe to Thornhurst, and
+told her "that she might stay there as long as Anne needed her, but no
+longer"--ah, that happy "but!"--he went away to his own little house at
+Kingcombe, and busied himself there for three days.
+
+"Do you think Nathanael will come and see us this morning?" said Anne,
+looking up from the papers with which she was occupied, towards Agatha,
+who stood at the window watching down the road.
+
+"Did you want my husband!"
+
+"Oh, no! I can do my business myself now. But I think he will come."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Why?--Child, come here." And as Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss Valery
+leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over
+her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can
+condescend to at times, especially when recovering from sickness.
+
+"She is a foolish child! Did she fancy nobody loved her? Did she think
+everybody believed she was wicked (and so she was, now and then, very
+wicked). Does she suppose nobody sees her poor little goodnesses? Oh,
+but they do! They will find all out without my telling. It is best to
+leave things alone."
+
+"You must not speak; it will do you harm."
+
+"Not thus whispering. Nay, lay the head down again. Imagine it only a
+little bird in the air talking to my child. Some kind of characters--I
+once knew the like well!"--and Anne's whisper came through a half
+sigh--"are very proud and jealous over the thing they love. They
+cannot bear a breath to rest on it, or to go from it to any other than
+themselves. They are very silent, too; would die rather than complain.
+They are strong-willed and secret--and as for persuading them to
+anything against their will, you might as well attempt to cleave with
+your little hand to the heart of a great oak. You must shine over it,
+and rain softly on it, and cling close round it, and it will take
+you into its arms, and support you safe, and hang you all round with
+beautiful leaves. But you must always remember that it is a noble
+forest-oak, and that you are only its dews, or its sunshine, or its ivy
+garland. You must never attempt to come between it and the skies."
+
+Anne ceased. Agatha looked up with moistened eyelids.
+
+"I understand; I will try--if you will stay with me. I cannot do
+anything right without you."
+
+Anne smiled. "Poor little Agatha! Not even with the help of her
+husband?"
+
+"My husband! Oh, teach me to be a good wife, such a wife as you would
+have been--as you may be"--
+
+Agatha felt a soft finger closing her lips, and knew that on _that_
+subject there must still be, as ever, total silence. She hid her face,
+and obeyed.
+
+At length Miss Valery started. "There is a horse coming down the road, I
+think. Go, look. It may be your husband."
+
+Agatha rose, and ran to the window.
+
+Anne half rose too. "I fancy I hear two horses. Is anybody with
+Nathanael?"
+
+"Only Mr. Dugdale."
+
+"Ah! well!" There was the slightest possible compression of eyelids and
+mouth, and Anne resumed her place again. "It is very kind of Marmaduke."
+
+The visitors came in softly. Duke Dugdale was the kindest, gentlest
+soul to any one that was ill--wise as a doctor, merry as a child. But
+now--though he strove to hide it--his countenance was overcast.
+
+"It's no use, Anne," he said, after a brief greeting, during which
+he felt her pulse in quite a professional way, and pronounced it
+"stronger--much stronger--and too quick almost."
+
+"What is of no use?"
+
+"Brian Harper won't come home! All his abominable, con--yes, I'll out
+with it--his confounded pride." And Duke tried to look very savage, but
+couldn't manage it.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Somewhere near Havre; we can't make out where. He will not write. Ask
+Nathanael."
+
+"I am afraid it is too true," said Nathanael, leaving his wife, to whom
+he had been talking by the window. "I shall have to hunt him out, and
+use all my persuasions before he will come home; because he is too proud
+to return poor as he went out. What shall I say to him, Anne? I shall
+start to-morrow."
+
+Agatha turned quickly round. Her husband did not see her anxious
+look--he was watching Miss Valery.
+
+"Tell him, Nathanael, that his brother is dead, and his presence needed
+in the family. Once make him understand that it is right to come, and he
+will come. No one was ever more able to do or to suffer _for the right_,
+than Brian Harper."
+
+Marmaduke shook her hand heartily. "Anne, you are as wise as a man,
+and as faithful as a woman. If poor Brian were going to be hanged for
+murder, I do believe-his old friend would find a good word to say for
+him!"
+
+"Well," said Nathanael, after a silence, "I shall go to Havre to-morrow.
+You can spare me, Anne? And for my wife"--
+
+Agatha hung her head. A vague dread smote her. She would have given
+worlds to have courage enough to beg him not to go.
+
+"Havre is across the sea," she murmured. "Surely Uncle Brian would come
+home in time, if you waited."
+
+Waited! she caught a sight of Anne's bent profile, marble-like, with the
+shut eyes. Waited!
+
+Agatha crept to her husband's side. "No--no waiting," she whispered.
+"Go. I would not keep you back an hour. Bring him. Quick--quick."
+
+Could Anne have heard, that she wakened up into such a life-like smile?
+"No, dear, you must not send your husband away so hastily. Let him
+sail from Southampton to-morrow; that will do. He wants to talk to you
+to-day."
+
+Nathanael looked surprised. "It is true, I did; and I told my brother to
+meet me here this afternoon. Did you know that too?"
+
+"I guessed it. You are doing right, quite right. I knew you would. I
+knew _you_, Nathanael."
+
+She held out her hand to him, warmly.
+
+"Dear Anne! But you forget--it is not I only who have to do it."
+
+"Not a word! Go and tell her all. Let her be the first to hear it. Away
+with you! the sun is coming out. Run and talk in the garden-alleys,
+children!"
+
+Her manner, so playful, yet full of keen penetration, drove them away
+like a battery of sunbeams.
+
+"What does she mean?" said Agatha, looking up puzzled, as they stood in
+the hall.
+
+"She reads people's minds wonderfully clear; she always did, but clearer
+than ever now. It is strange. Agatha, do you think"--
+
+"I think all sorts of things about her--different and contrary every
+hour. But the chief thought of all is, that you must go to Havre at
+once. I long for Uncle Brian's coming. How soon can you return?"
+
+"As soon as practicable, you may be sure of that. But you must relax
+your interest even in Uncle Brian just now; I want to talk to you. Shall
+we go, as Anne said, into the garden-alleys?"
+
+"Anywhere that is sunny and warm," said Agatha, with a light shiver. Her
+husband regarded her with that serious pathetic smile which was one of
+his frequent moods.
+
+"Must you always have sunshine, Agatha? Could you not walk a little
+while in the shade? Not if I were with you?"
+
+She cast her eyes down, trembling with a vague apprehension of ill; then
+gazed in the kind face that grew kinder and dearer every day. She put
+her hand in her husband's without speaking a word. He folded it up
+close, the soft little hand, and looked pleased.
+
+"Come now, let us go into the garden."
+
+Agatha wrapped a shawl about her, gipsy-fashion, and met him there. It
+was one of those mild days that sometimes come near upon Christmas, as
+if the year had repented itself, and just before dying, was dreaming of
+its lost springtide. The arbutus-trees were glistening with sunshine,
+and under the high wall a row of camellias, grown in great bushes in
+the open air, the pride of Anne's gardener and of the whole county of
+Dorset, were beginning to show buds, red, white, and variegated, as
+beautiful as summer roses.
+
+"I used to be so fond of this walk when I was a little lad," said
+Nathanael, "I remember, after I had the scarlet-fever, being nursed well
+here; and how every day when my brother came, he used to carry me up and
+down this sunny walk on his back. Poor Fred! he was the kindest fellow
+to children."
+
+"Kindness seems his nature. I think that if your brother did any harm
+it would never be through malice or intention, but only weakness of
+character."
+
+"I perceive," Mr. Harper said, abruptly--"you have no bitter feeling
+against my brother Frederick."
+
+"How could I? He never did me wrong. Except, perhaps, it was his
+carelessness that made me poor." Here Agatha hesitated, for she was
+touching upon a dangerous subject--one so fraught with present emotion
+and with references to past suffering, that hitherto both husband
+and wife had by tacit consent abstained from it. There had been no
+confidential talk of any kind between them.
+
+"Go on," her husband said; "we must speak of these things some time; why
+not now?"
+
+"Though he made me poor," she continued, "it was probably through
+accident. And I have no fear of poverty"--how simply and ignorantly she
+pronounced that terrible word!--"I do not mind it in the least, if you
+do not."
+
+"Was there any need for that _if_, Agatha?"
+
+"No," she replied, and was silent. Shame and remorse gathered over her
+like a cloud. She thought of those wicked words she had spoken--words
+which to this day he had neither answered nor revenged. He had even
+suffered the smooth surface of daily kindnesses to grow over that gaping
+wound of division. Was it there still? Did he remember it? Could she
+dare to allude to it, if only to implore him to forgive her? She would
+in a little time--perhaps when they were by themselves in their
+own house, when she would throw herself at his knees and weep out a
+confession that was beyond all words--words could but insult him the
+more. There are some wounds that can only be healed by love and silence.
+
+"I think it is time," said the husband--"full time that you heard all,
+or nearly all, connected with this painful matter. It is mere business,
+which I will try to make intelligible if possible. You ought not to
+be quite so ignorant of worldly matters as you are, since, if anything
+happened to me--But I have provided against almost everything."
+
+"What are you talking of?" said Agatha, holding him tight, with a faint
+intuition of his meaning.
+
+"Of nothing painful. Do not be afraid. Only that I think it right to
+explain to you what has occurred to us since our marriage--in worldly
+things I mean."
+
+"Yes. I am listening."
+
+"Before we married," he continued, distinctly, and rather proudly, "I
+knew nothing whatever of your fortune--not even its amount. I made no
+inquiries, interfered in no way, except reading the settlement I signed.
+The settlement stated that your property was safe in the Funds. This
+was a"--his brow darkened--"it was--_not true_. The whole had been taken
+out, contrary to your father's expressed will, and embarked in a mining
+speculation in Cornwall."
+
+"Those miners whom Miss Valery aided? Was it my money that was wasted
+at Wheal Caroline? Was it me from whom the poor miner came to seek
+redress?"
+
+"No; the transaction was more blameable even than that. It was all
+carried on in my brother's name. He was made what they call 'managing
+director' of the company: Grimes being solicitor. There were a few
+shareholders--his clients--widows and unmarried women who had put by
+their savings, and such like poor people who wanted large interest,
+and some richer ones, important enough to make public their ruin--for
+everybody lost all."
+
+"But the poorer shareholders--the widows--the old maids?"
+
+"Ay, there's the pity--there's the wickedness," said Nathanael, beneath
+his breath. "People tell me such things are common in England, but I
+would have starved rather than have been mixed up in such a transaction,
+even in the smallest way, and with property that was bona fide my own."
+
+"And," said Agatha, slowly understanding, "this property was not Major
+Harper's own. Also, his doing the thing secretly afterwards, and leading
+you to believe what was--not quite true. I must say it, I think it was
+very wrong of your brother."
+
+"Don't let us talk of him more than we can help. Remember--a brother,
+Agatha!"
+
+More light dawning on his strange conduct, his self-command, his secrecy
+even with her. His wife clung to his arm, her heart brimming with
+emotion that she dared not pour out. For he seemed inclined to be
+reserved even now.
+
+"You see," he added, as they walked along, "I have had some few things
+to try me."
+
+Agatha pressed his arm. Oh that she could break through that awe of him
+and his goodness, that shame of her own foolish erring self!
+
+"Agatha," he said, stopping suddenly, "the thing that hurt me was my
+father. If only he had died a month ago, and never heard of this!"
+
+If only now Agatha could speak! But she felt choking. They walked past
+the windows and looked in. "There is Anne sitting by herself as she used
+to sit, watching Fred and me in the garden. He was such a handsome,
+gay young man. I felt so proud of being his little brother. And my poor
+father--he had not a hope in the world that did not rest on Frederick."
+
+He walked on rapidly back into the shadiest and darkest walk. There
+he stopped. "Agatha," taking both her hands, and reading her features
+closely--"Agatha, would you be very unhappy if we went back and lived,
+poor, in the little cottage?"
+
+"Unhappy? I?"
+
+"I would try that you should not be. I can earn quite enough to give
+you many comforts. We should not be any more content if we claimed our
+rights and lived in prosperity at Kingcombe Holm."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Besides, I am not sure that these are our rights, morally speaking. I
+think, if my father had lived long enough, he would have undone what he
+did in a moment of passion, and let the first will stand. This is what I
+have said to myself, when considering that I have duties towards my wife
+as well as towards others, and that this would restore what was taken
+from her. 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But, Agatha, we
+would not urge that law?"
+
+"Never! God forbid! And Major Harper was so kind to me when I was an
+orphan."
+
+"_Only_ kind? Did he never--No, I am getting foolish. Say on, Agatha.
+Come, sit here; we can talk, and nobody can see or hear us." And he led
+his wife to a sheltered arbutus-bower. "Well, was my brother so kind to
+you?"
+
+"He was, indeed. For the sake of that time I would forgive him anything;
+I have already forgiven him a good deal."
+
+"Indeed? Tell me or not, as you choose; I urge no right to pry into your
+secrets."
+
+"Oh, don't look, don't speak in that way! Why should I not tell you?
+I would have told you before, had you asked. It was nothing--indeed
+nothing. But I was a proud girl, and he made me angry with him."
+
+"For what cause?"
+
+She grew confused--hesitated; the shamefacedness of girlhood came over
+her. "I will tell you," she said at last boldly. "It is surely no
+harm to tell anything to my husband:--Major Harper once said to Emma
+Thornycroft, that he thought I was 'in love' with him."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"It was cruel, it was wicked, it insulted my pride. And more than
+that--it wounded me to the heart that _he_ should say so."
+
+"Was it--don't speak if you don't like--was it _true_?"
+
+"No," cried Agatha, the blood rushing in a torrent over her face. "No,
+it was not true. I liked, I admired him, in a free girlish way; but I
+never, never loved him."
+
+There was a minute's hush in the arbutus-bower, and then Nathanael sank
+down to his wife's side--down, lower yet, to her very feet. He wrapped
+his arms round her waist, laying his head in her lap. His whole frame
+shook convulsively.
+
+"Oh Heaven! You surely did not think _that?_" cried Agatha, appalled.
+
+"I did, ever since the day we were married. I heard him say so in the
+church.--He repeated it to me afterwards.--And it was a lie! Curse"--
+
+"No, no, forgive him!" And Agatha sobbed on her husband's neck, clasped
+by him as she never thought he would clasp her in this world.
+
+At last he rose, pale and sad. "There is other forgiveness needed. I
+have been very cruel to you, Agatha. I had made him a promise, and to it
+I sacrificed myself and you too, without remorse. But now you see how it
+was. I could have judged my brother that I loved; I dared not _slay my
+enemy._"
+
+The only answer was a soft hand-pressure.
+
+"I hardly know what I am about, Agatha,--not even whether or no my wife
+loves me; she did not when we were first married, I fear?"
+
+Agatha drooped her head.
+
+"Never mind, she shall love me yet; I am quite fearless now." He stood
+up, holding her tight in his arms, as if daring the whole world to wrest
+her from him. His whole aspect was changed. It was like the breaking up
+of an Arctic winter, when the trees bud, and the rivers pour sounding
+down, and the sun bursts out, reigning gloriously. For a long time they
+remained thus, clasped together, so motionless that the little robin of
+the arbutus-trees hopped on to a bough near them and began a song.
+
+"We must go in now," said Agatha.
+
+"Ay; we must not forget Anne, or anybody. One can do so much good when
+one is happy!"
+
+"I feel so." She rose, hanging on his arm, but trembling still, almost
+frightened by the insanity of his joy, whirled dizzily in the torrent of
+his overwhelming love.
+
+"You understand now what I had to say to you! You can guess how I mean
+to act as regards my brother?"
+
+"I think I can."
+
+"And you will give your consent? Without it I would have done nothing. I
+would not have taken from my wife these worldly goods, and left her only
+me and my love, unless she willed it so."
+
+"I do will it."
+
+"God bless her." He lifted Agatha from her feet, rocking her in his
+arms like a baby. "I always said God bless her! even when I was most
+wretched--most mad. I knew she was one of His angels--a woman worthy of
+all love, though she had none for me. I was not very cruel to her, was
+I?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"I will never be cruel to her any more. I will smother down all my
+pride, my reserve, the horrible suspiciousness which is rooted in my
+nature. I will never doubt or wound her--only love her--only love her."
+
+Breathless, Agatha trembled to her feet again. Her husband stood by her
+side--calmer now, and radiant in the beauty of his youth. Manly as he
+was, there was something about him which could only be expressed by the
+word "beautiful"--a something that, be he ever so old, would keep up his
+boyish likeness--his look of "the angel Gabriel."
+
+"Let us go into the house now."
+
+They went--those two young hearts thrilling and bounding with life and
+joy--into the darkening house, the hushed presence of Anne Valery.
+
+She was lying on her sofa, very still and death-like. The white cap tied
+under her chin, the hands folded--the perfect silence in and about the
+room--it was like as if she had lain down to rest, calmly and alone, in
+her solitary house, and in her sleep the spirit had flown away;--away
+into the glorious company of angels and archangels, never to be alone
+any more.
+
+But it was not so. Hearing footsteps, Anne opened her eyes, and
+roused herself quickly. She looked from one to the other of the young
+people--at the first glance she seemed to understand all A great joy
+flashed across her; but she said nothing. She as well as they were long
+used to that peculiarity of nature--which especially belonged to
+the Harper family--a conviction of the uselessness of talk and the
+sacredness of silence.
+
+"Has my brother arrived?" said Nathanael.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Marmaduke is gone?"
+
+"Yes; he wanted to get up a Free-trade dinner for the welcoming"--here
+she smiled--"of one whom he says all Dorset will be delighted to
+welcome--your Uncle Brian. Worthy Duke! It is his hobby, and one likes
+to indulge him in it."
+
+"Most certainly. And where is the dinner--Uncle Brian's grand dinner--to
+take place?"
+
+"I persuaded him to change it into a public meeting, and give the
+clay-cutters--many of them Mr. Locke Harper's former people, and some
+now old and poor--a New Year's feast instead. You will see to
+that, Nathanael?" And she laid her hand on his arm with rather more
+earnestness than the simple request warranted.
+
+Nathanael assented hastily, and spoke of something else.
+
+"I am rather sorry I asked my brother to meet me here; I forgot he has
+not been to Thornhurst for so many years."
+
+"It is time then that he came," said Anne, gently. "I shall be very glad
+to see him."
+
+While she was speaking, her old servant entered, with the announcement
+of "Major Harper."
+
+Just the Major Harper of old--well-dressed, courtly, with his singularly
+handsome face, and his short dark moustache, sufficient to mark the
+military gentleman without degrading him into the puppy; Major
+Harper with his habitual good-natured smile and faultless bearing, so
+gracefully welcomed, so gaily familiar in London drawing-rooms.--But
+here?--
+
+He paused at the door, glanced hastily round the old familiar room, with
+the known pictures hanging on the walls, and the windows opening on the
+straight alley of arbutus-trees. His smile grew rather meaningless--he
+hesitated.
+
+"Will you come to this chair near me? I am very glad to see you, Major
+Harper."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Valery."
+
+He crossed the room to her sofa, Nathanael making way for him. He
+just acknowledged his brother's presence and Agatha's, then took Miss
+Valery's extended hand, bowing over it with an attempt at his former
+grace.
+
+"I hope I find your health quite re-established? This change to your
+own pleasant house--pleasant as ever, I see"--he once more glanced round
+it--paused--then altogether broke down. "It seems but a day since we
+were children, Anne," he said, in a faltering voice.
+
+Agatha and her husband moved away. They respected the one real feeling
+which had outlasted all his sentimentalism. For several minutes they
+stood at the far window apart. When Anne called them back, Major Harper
+had recovered himself, and was sitting by her.
+
+"Nathanael, our old friend here says you wished to speak with me?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Make haste, then, for I am going to London to-night I have made up my
+mind. I cannot settle here in Dorsetshire."
+
+"Not if it were your father's wish--his last longing desire?"
+
+"Anne, for God's sake don't speak of my father." He leant his elbow on
+the table and covered his eyes.
+
+Nathanael and Agatha exchanged looks, then both smiled--the happy smile
+of a clear conscience and a heart at rest. "Tell him now," whispered the
+wife to her husband.
+
+"Brother!"
+
+Major Harper lifted up his head.
+
+"My elder brother!" And Nathanael offered the hand of peace, which, in
+spite of all outward and necessary association, neither had offered or
+grasped since Frederick's return to Dorset.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you are my elder brother--my father's favourite always. If
+he had lingered but another day he would doubtless have proved that, and
+have done--what I intend to do, just as if he had himself accomplished
+it. Do you understand me?"
+
+"No!" And Major Harper looked thoroughly amazed.
+
+"Do you see this? which you, either from forgetfulness, or trust in
+me--I had rather believe the latter--left in my hands on that day."
+And he drew from his pocket the will which had been read. "You spoke
+of throwing it into Chancery, and there would be scope for a century of
+Chancery business here. But I choose rather to respect the honour and
+unity of the family. Therefore, with my wife's entire consent in her
+presence, Anne's and yours, I here do what my father, had he lived,
+would certainly have done."
+
+He took up the codicil, separated it from the will to which it was
+fastened by seals, and quietly, as if it had been a fragment of
+worthless paper, put it into the fire.
+
+"Now, Frederick, the original will stands."
+
+Frederick sat motionless. He seemed hardly to believe the evidence of
+his own eyes. He watched the curling, crackling paper with a sort of
+childish curiosity. When at last it was completely destroyed, he shut
+his eyes with a great sigh of satisfaction.
+
+Miss Valery softly touched him. "Major Harper, every brother would not
+have acted thus."
+
+"No, indeed. Just Heavens, no!" he cried, as the whole fact burst on
+him, touching his impressible nature to the quick. "My dear Nathanael!
+My dear Agatha! God bless you both."
+
+He wrung their hands fervently, and walked to the window, strongly
+affected. The husband and wife remained silent. Anne Valery lay on her
+sofa, and smoothed her thin fingers one over the other with a soft,
+inward smile.
+
+"How nobly you both act towards me! and I--how have I acted towards
+you?" said the elder brother, in deep and real compunction. "I would
+give half I possess to undo what has been done, and all through my
+cursed folly and weakness. Do you know that I have lost every penny of
+your fortune, Agatha?"
+
+"Mr. Grimes told me so lately."
+
+"What, only lately? Did you not know before? Did not your husband"--
+
+"No," she cried, eagerly. "My husband never betrayed you, even by a
+single word. I am glad he did not. I had far rather he had broken my
+heart than his own honour."
+
+Anne turned to look at the young face, flushed with feeling; and her
+own, caught something of the glow, though still she spoke not.
+
+"But," said Major Harper, eagerly, addressing his sister-in-law--for
+Nathanael sat in one of those passive moods which those who knew him
+well alone could interpret--"but my honour must not be broken either. I
+must redeem all I lost; and I will, to the very last farthing. Only wait
+a little, and you shall have no cause to blame me, my poor Agatha!"
+
+"Nay, _rich_ Agatha," was the murmur that Nathanael heard, as two little
+hands came from behind and alit on his shoulders, like two soft white
+doves. He caught them, and rose contented, cheerful and brave.
+
+"No, Frederick, you must dismiss that idea. It is untenable, at least
+for a long time. My wife and I are going to play at poverty." He smiled,
+and drew her nearer to him.
+
+"Besides," said Miss Valery, putting in her quiet voice, to which every
+one always listened now, "I think there are perhaps stronger claims than
+Agatha's on Major Harper."
+
+"Indeed? Anne, tell me what I can do. Anything," he added, much moved,
+"so that my old friends may think well of me. Speak!"
+
+She did so, raising herself, though with some exertion, and re-assuming
+the sensible, straightforward, business-like ways which through her long
+life of solitary independence had caused Anne Valery to be often called,
+as Duke Dugdale called her, "such a wise woman!"
+
+"I should like very much to see all things settled in the Harper family.
+Your sisters are provided for; Eulalie will be married next year; and
+you will keep Mary and Elizabeth always with you at Kingcombe Holm.
+Promise that, Frederick."
+
+He assented most energetically.
+
+"There is no need to fear for these," looking affectionately at
+Nathanael and his wife. "Work is good for young people; and I--or
+others--will always see that they have work enough supplied to bring in
+wherewithal to keep the wolf from their door. For the present, they are
+a great deal better poor than rich."
+
+"Thank you, prudent Miss Valery," said Nathanael laughing.
+
+She responded cheerfully, and then turning to Major Harper, went on with
+seriousness:
+
+"In other instances, much suffering has been caused by your means; and
+I would not have it said that any suffered through the Harper family.
+I have done what I could to prevent this. Matters are mending at Wheal
+Caroline. Nathanael tells me I shall have--that is, there will be--a
+fine flax-harvest there next year."
+
+Speaking of "next year," Anne's voice faltered, but the momentary
+feebleness passed.
+
+"Still, there is one thing, Frederick, which nobody can do but you; and
+it is necessary not only to save yourself but to redeem the honour of
+your house. It will not cost you much--only a few years' retrenchment,
+living with your sisters at Kingcombe Holm."
+
+Again Major Harper protested there was nothing in the world he would not
+do for the sake of virtue, and Anne Valery. She drew her desk to her,
+and gave him paper and pen.
+
+"Write here, that you will pay gradually to certain shareholders I know
+of, the money they lost through trust in your name, and in that of the
+family. It is hardly a legal claim, or if it be, they are too poor to
+urge it--but I hold it as a bond of honour. Will you do this, Frederick?
+Then I shall be happy, knowing there is not a single stain on the Harper
+name."
+
+In speaking, she had risen and come beside him, looking faded, wan, and
+old, now that she stood upright, in her black dress, and close cap. Her
+beauty was altogether of the past, but the moral influence remained.
+
+Frederick Harper took the pen, hesitated, and laid it down. "I do not
+know what to write."
+
+Anne wrote for him a few plain words, such as a man of honour must
+inevitably hold as binding. He watched idly the movement of the hand
+that wrote, and the written lines.
+
+"You have the same slender fingers, Anne, and your writing looks just as
+it used to do," he said, in a subdued voice.
+
+"There, now--sign."
+
+"Sign!--It is like witnessing a will," said Major Harper, laughing.
+
+"I wish you to consider it so," returned Anne, in a low voice. "Consider
+it my last will--my last desire, which you promise to fulfil for me?"
+
+He looked at her, took the pen, and signed, his hand trembling; then
+kissed hers.
+
+"Anne, you know, you were my first love."
+
+The words--said half jesting, yet with a certain mourn-fulness--were
+scarcely out of his lips, than he had quitted the room. They soon heard
+the clatter of his horse along the avenue. Major Harper was gone out
+into the busy world again. He never set foot in quiet Thornhurst more.
+
+The three that were left behind breathed freer--perhaps they would
+hardly have acknowledged it, but it was so.
+
+"Well, now it is all done," said Nathanael, as he drew closer to
+the sofa where Anne lay--with Agatha performing all sorts of little
+unnoticed cares about her. "And now I must think about going."
+
+No one asked him where, but Agatha glancing out of the window, thought,
+with a shiver, of the dreadful sea curving over into boundlessness from
+behind those hills.
+
+"I find I must start at once," he continued, "if I would catch the next
+boat to Havre. It sails from Southampton to-morrow morning. I have just
+time to ride back to Kingcombe and catch the mail train. No, I'll
+not let you come home with me," he added, answering a timid look of
+Agatha's, which seemed to ask, should she come and help him? "No, dear, I
+can help myself--such a useful-handed fellow doesn't want a wife even to
+pack up for him. And, possibly, if you were with me, I should only find
+it the harder to go. It is rather hard."
+
+"But it is right"
+
+"I think," said Anne--they had not known she was listening--"I think it
+is right, or I would not let Nathanael go. And Heaven will take care of
+him, and bring him safe home to you, Agatha. Be content."
+
+"I was content," she said, somewhat lightly. It was a strange thing, but
+yet human nature, that her husband's fits of passionate tenderness only
+seemed to make her own feelings grow calm. Whether it was the shyness of
+her girlhood, or the variableness of a love not spontaneous but
+slowly responsive, or whether--a feeling wrong, yet alas! wondrously
+natural--it was the mere wilfulness of a woman who knows herself to be
+infinitely beloved, certain it was that Agatha appeared not quite the
+same as a few hours before. Affectionate still, and happy, happier
+than it is the nature of deep love to be; yet there was a something
+wanting--some strong stroke to cleave her heart, and show beyond all
+doubt what lay at its core. The heart often needs such teaching; and if
+so, surely--most surely it will come.
+
+Agatha followed her husband to the hall. He was grave with his
+leave-taking of Anne Valery, who had looked less cheerful, and had
+breathed rather than spoken the last "God bless you!--Come back soon."
+The young man did not again say, even to himself, anything about his
+journey being "hard."
+
+But as he stood in the hall with his wife, he lingered. Youth is youth,
+and love is love, and each seems so real--life's only reality while
+it lasts. No human being, while drinking the magic cup, ever looks or
+listens to those who have drank, and set it down empty. Be the history
+ever so sad, each one thinks, smiling, "Oh, but I shall be happier than
+these."
+
+Nathanael took his wife in his arms to bid her good-bye. She stood,
+looking down; bashful, reserved, but so fair! And so good likewise--all
+her girlish whims could not hide her heart-goodness. In her whole
+demeanour was the germ of that noble womanhood which every good man
+wishes his wife to possess, that she may become his heart of hearts,
+the desired and honoured of his soul, and remain such, long after all
+passion dies. There was one thing only wanting in her--the light which
+played waveringly in and out--sometimes flashing so true and warm and
+bright, and then disappearing into clouds and mist. The husband could
+not catch it--not though his eyes were thirsting for the blessed ray.
+
+"These few days will seem a long time, Agatha."
+
+"Will they?"
+
+Nathanael took the smiling face between his hands, and looked down, far
+down, into the brown depths of her eyes.
+
+"Do you"--He hesitated. "I never asked the question before, knowing it
+vain; but now, when I am going away--when"--
+
+He paused, the deep passion quivering through his voice.--"Do you love
+me, Agatha?"
+
+She smiled--some insane, wicked influence must have been upon her--but
+she smiled, hung her head in childish fashion, and whispered, "I don't
+quite know."
+
+"Well--well!" He sighed, and after a brief silence bade her good-bye,
+kissed her once, and went towards the door.
+
+"Ah--don't go yet. I was very foolish. I never, never can be half so
+wise as you. Forgive me."
+
+"Forgive you, my child? Ay, anything." And he received her as she ran
+into his arms, kissing her again tenderly, with a sad earnestness that
+almost increased his love.
+
+"Now I must go, my darling wife. Take care of yourself, and good-bye."
+
+So they parted. Agatha went in dry-eyed; then locked herself in the
+library, and cried violently and long.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+"They are sure to be home to-morrow; nothing can prevent their being
+home to-morrow," said Agatha, as she read over neither for the first
+time, nor the second, nor the third, her husband's letter, received from
+Havre.
+
+It was night now, and they were sitting by the fire in Miss Valery's
+dressing-room. It had been one of Anne's best days; a wonderfully good
+day; she had walked about the house, and given several orders to her
+delighted servants, who, old as they were, would have obeyed the most
+onerous commands for the pleasure of seeing their mistress strong enough
+to give them. Some, however, wondered why she should be so particular
+about the order of a house that never was in disorder, and especially
+why various furniture arrangements which had gradually in the course of
+time been altered, should be pertinaciously restored, so that all things
+might look just as they did years and years ago. Also, though it was
+a few days in advance of the orthodox day, she would have the house
+adorned with "Christmas," until it looked a perfect bower.
+
+"It do seem, Mrs. Harper," said the old housekeeper, confidentially--"it
+do seem just as on the last merry Christmas, afore the family was broke
+up, and Mr. Frederick turned soldier, and Mr. Locke Harper--that's his
+uncle--went away with little Master Nathanael, Mr. Locke Harper as is
+now."
+
+And Agatha had laughed very heartily at the idea of her husband being
+"little Master Nathanael;" but she had not told this conversation to
+Anne Valery.
+
+All afternoon the house had been oppressively lively, thanks to a visit
+from the Dugdale children; which little elves were sent out of the way
+while their mother performed the not unnecessary duty of putting her
+establishment in order. For Harrie was determined that her house,
+and none other, should have the honour of receiving Uncle Brian. As
+Nathanael had taken for granted the same thing, and as Mary Harper had
+likewise communicated her opinion, that it was against all etiquette for
+her poor father's only brother to be welcomed anywhere but at Kingcombe
+Holm, there seemed likely to be a tolerable family fight over the
+possession of the said Uncle Brian.
+
+The little Dugdales had talked of him incessantly all day, communicating
+their expectations concerning him in such a funny fashion that Agatha
+was ready to die with laughing, and even Anne, who had insisted on
+having the children about her, was heard to laugh sometimes. She let
+little Brian climb about her sofa, and answered all sorts of eccentric
+questions from the others, never seeming weary. At last, when the sound
+of merry, young voices had died out of the house, and its large, lofty
+rooms grew solemn with the wailing of the wind, Anne had retreated to
+her dressing-room, where she sat watching the fire-light, or answering
+in fragments to Agatha's conversation.
+
+This conversation was wandering enough; catching up various topics, and
+then letting them drop like broken threads, but all winding themselves
+into one and the same subject "They will be home to-morrow."
+
+"I hope, nay, I am sure of it, God willing!" said Anne, softly. "He
+often puts hindrances in our way, but in the end He always works things
+round, and we see them clearly afterwards. Still we ought hardly to
+say even of the strongest love or dearest wish we have, 'It _must_
+be!' without also saying 'God willing.'"
+
+Agatha replied not. This was a new doctrine for her. How rarely in her
+young, passionless, sorrowless life, she had thought of the few words,
+oft used in cant, and Agatha hated all cant--"the will of God." She
+pondered over them much.
+
+"What sort of a night is it" said Anne, at length.
+
+"Very dreary and rainy, and the wind is high."
+
+"No matter, it will not reach them. The _Ardente_ will be safe in
+Southampton-water by this time."
+
+Agatha recurred to the perpetual letter; "Yes, so my husband tells me
+here."
+
+"And therefore," Miss Valery continued, laying her hand over the paper,
+"his good little wife shall fold up this, and not weary herself any more
+with anxiety about him. Those who love ought above all others to trust
+in the love of God."
+
+After this they sat patient and content--nay, oftentimes quite merry,
+for Agatha strove hard to amuse her companion. And the wind sang its
+song without--not threateningly, but rather in mirth; and the fire
+burnt brightly, within. And no one thought of them but as friends and
+servants--the terrible Wind, the devouring Fire.
+
+It was growing late, and Agatha began to use the petty tyranny with
+which Miss Valery had invested her, insisting on her friend's going to
+bed.
+
+"I will presently; only give me time--a little time. I am not so young
+as you, my child, and have not so many hours to waste in sleeping. There
+now, I'll be good. Wait--you see I am already pulling down my hair."
+
+She did so, rather feebly. It fell on her shoulders longer and thicker
+than any one would have believed--it was really beautiful, except for
+those broad white streaks.
+
+"What soft fine hair," cried Agatha, admiringly. "Ah, you shall go
+without caps in the spring--I declare you shall."
+
+"Not at my age."
+
+"That cannot be so very ancient. I shouldn't mind asking you the direct
+question, for I am sure you are not one of those foolish women who are
+ashamed to tell their age, as if any number of years matters while we
+keep a young warm heart."
+
+"I am thirty-nine or forty, I forget which," said Anne, as she drew
+her fingers through the long locks, gazing down on them with some
+pensiveness. "I myself never liked hair of this colour, neither brown
+nor black; but mine was always soft and smooth, and some people used to
+think it _pretty_ once."
+
+"It is pretty now. You will always be beautiful, dear, dear Anne! I
+will call you Anne, for you are scarcely older than I, except in a few
+contemptible years not worth mentioning," continued the girl, sturdily.
+"And I will have you as happy, too, as I."
+
+Anne sat silent a minute or two, the hair dropping over her face. Then
+she raised it and looked into the fire with a calm sweet look that
+Agatha thought perfectly divine.
+
+"I have been happy," she said. "That is I have not been unhappy--God
+knows I have not. I have had a great deal to do always, and in all my
+labour was there profit. It comforted me, and helped to comfort others;
+it made me feel that my life was not wholly thrown away, as many an
+unmarried woman's is, but as no one's ever need be."
+
+"But some are. Think of Jane Ianson, of whom Emma wrote me word
+yesterday. If ever any woman spent a mournful, useless life, and died of
+a broken heart, it was poor Jane Ianson."
+
+"Her story was pitiful, but she somewhat erred," Anne answered,
+thoughtfully. "No human being _ought_ to die of a 'broken heart' (as the
+phrase is) while God is in His heaven, and has work to be done upon His
+earth. There are but two things that can really throw a lasting shadow
+over woman's existence--an unworthy love, and a lost love. The first
+ought to be rooted out at all risks; for the other--let it stay! There
+are more things in life than mere marrying and being happy. And for
+love--a high, pure, holy love, held ever faithful to one object,"--and
+as she spoke, Anne's whole face lightened and grew young--"no fortune or
+misfortune--no time or distance--no power either in earth or heaven can
+alter _that_."
+
+There was a pause, during which the two women sat silent and grave. And
+the wind howled round the house, and the fire crackled harmlessly in the
+chimney, but they noticed neither--the fierce Wind--the awful Fire.
+
+"It is a wild night," said Agatha at last. "But they are landed at
+Southampton long ago. Last night was lovely--such a moon! and they were
+sure to sail, because the _Ardente_ only plies once a week, and there
+is no other boat this winter-time. Oh, yes! they are quite safe in
+Southampton. I shouldn't wonder if they were both here to breakfast
+to-morrow."
+
+And Agatha, with her little heart beating quick, merrily, and fast,
+never thought to look at her companion. Anne's eyes were dilated, her
+lips quivering--all her serenity was gone.
+
+"To-morrow--to-morrow," she murmured, and as with a sudden pain, put
+her hand to her chest, breathing hard and rapidly. "Agatha, hold me
+fast--don't let me go--just for a little while.--I _cannot_ go!"
+
+She clung to the young girl with a pallid, frightened aspect, like one
+who looks down into a place of darkness, and shudders on its verge.
+Never before had that expression been seen in Anne Valery. Slowly it
+passed away, leaving the calmness that was habitual to her. Agatha hung
+round her neck, and kissed her into smiles.
+
+"Now," she said, rising, "let us both go to bed. You look tired, my
+child, and we must have your very best looks when you make breakfast for
+_them_ in the morning. That is, if they both come here."
+
+"They will come--my husband says so. He knows, and is determined that
+Uncle Brian shall know--everything."
+
+Anne sat still--so still, that her young companion was afraid she had
+vexed her.
+
+"No, dear--not vexed. But no human being can know everything! It lies
+between him and me--and God."
+
+So saying, she rose, fastened up the long hair in which the last
+lingering beauty of her youth lay--put on her little close cap, and was
+again the composed gentle lady of middle age.
+
+She rung for the housekeeper, and gave various orders for the morning,
+desiring a few trivial additions to the breakfast, which would have made
+Agatha smile, but that she noted a slight hesitation in the voice that
+ordered them.
+
+"Is there anything your husband would like especially? I don't quite
+understand his ways."
+
+Agatha blushed as she answered--"Nor I."
+
+"You will not answer so in a few months hence," said Anne, when they
+were alone. "It is a very unromantic doctrine, but few young wives know
+how much the happiness of a home depends on little things--that is, if
+anything can be little which is done for _his_ comfort, and is pleasant
+to _him_. There's a lecture for you, Mistress Agatha. Now go to bed, and
+rise in the morning to begin a new era, as the happiest and best wife in
+all England."
+
+"I will," cried Agatha, laughing, though with a tear or two in her eyes.
+To think how much Anne had guessed of the wretched past, yet, with true
+delicacy, how entirely she had concealed that knowledge!
+
+They embraced silently, and then Miss Valery went into her own room,
+where, year after year, when all the duties and cheerfulness of the day
+were done, the solitary woman had shut herself in--alone with her own
+heart and with God. The young wife stood and looked with thoughtful
+reverence at the closed door of that room.
+
+It was eleven o'clock, yet somehow Mrs. Harper did not feel inclined to
+go to bed. She had too many things to think of, too many plans to make
+and resolutions to form. Her life must settle itself calmly now. Its
+trouble, tumult, and uncertainty were over. She felt quite sure of her
+husband's goodness--of his deep and tender love for herself--nay, also
+of her own for him--only that was a different sort of feeling. She
+thought less on this than on the other side of the subject--how sweet it
+was to be so dear to him. She would try and deserve him more--be to him
+a faithful wife and a good house-wife, and make herself happy in his
+devotion.
+
+She smiled as she passed through the hall where he had stood and said,
+"Do you love me?" She wished she had frankly answered "Yes," as was
+indeed the truth; only his strong love had lately made her own seem so
+poor and weak.
+
+Lingering on the spot which his feet had last pressed, she tried to
+fancy him beside her, and acted the scene over again, "making believe,"
+childish fashion, that she stood on tiptoe attempting to reach up to
+his mouth--a very long way!--and there breathing out the "Yes" in a
+perfectly justifiable and unquestionable fashion. And then she laughed
+at her own conceit--the foolish little wife!--and tripped off into the
+drawing-room, lest the old butler, who always went round the house at
+midnight to see that all was safe, might catch her at her antics.
+Still, were they not quite natural? Was she not a very happy and
+fondly-worshipped wife? and was not her husband coming home the next
+morning?
+
+Entering the drawing-room, her high spirits were somewhat sobered
+down; its atmosphere felt so gloomy and cold. The fire had nearly died
+out--the ill-natured fire, that did not know there was a cheerful little
+woman coming to sit beside it and dream of all sorts of pleasant things.
+
+"I wish fires would never go out," said Agatha, rather crossly; and
+she stirred it, and blew it, and cherished it, as if it were the only
+pleasant companion in this dreary room.
+
+"How I do love fire," she said at last, as she sat down on the
+hearth-rug and warmed her little feet and hands by the blaze, and would
+not look in the dark corners of the room, but kept her face turned from
+them, as during her life she had kept it turned away from all gloomy
+subjects. Passionate anguish of her own making, she had known; but that
+stern, irremediable sorrow which comes direct from the unseen Mover of
+all things and lays its heavy hand on the sufferer's head, saying, "Be
+still, and know that I am God"--this teaching, which must come to every
+human soul that is worth its destiny, had never yet come to Agatha
+Harper.
+
+Was it this unknown something even now tracking her, that made her long
+for the familiar daylight, and feel afraid of night, with its silence,
+its solitude, and its dark?
+
+"I will go to bed and try to sleep," she said. "It is but a few hours.
+My husband is certain to be here in the morning."
+
+She rose, laughed at herself for starting on some slight noise in the
+quiet house--old Andrews locking up the front door, probably--snuffed
+her candle to make it as bright as possible, and prepared to go
+up-stairs.
+
+A light knock at the door.
+
+"Come in, Andrews. The fire is all safe, and I shall vanish now."
+
+She said this without looking round. When she did look she was somewhat
+surprised to see, not the butler, but Marmaduke Dugdale. It was odd,
+certainly, but then Duke had such very odd ways, and was always turning
+up at impossible hours and in eccentric fashion. He looked eccentric
+enough now, being thoroughly drenched with rain, with a queer, scared
+expression on his face.
+
+Agatha was amused by it. "Why, what a late visitor! The children are
+gone home hours ago, though they waited ever so long for 'Pa.' Have you
+been all this while at Mr. Trenchard's?"
+
+"I haven't been there at all."
+
+Agatha smiled.
+
+"Don't'ee laugh--now don't'ee, Mrs. Harper." And Duke sat down, pushing
+the dripping hair from his forehead, pulling his face into all sorts of
+contortions, until at last it sunk between his hands, and those clear,
+honest, always beautiful eyes, alone confronted her. There was that in
+their expression which startled Agatha.
+
+"What did you come for so late, Mr. Dugdale?"
+
+"What did I come for?" he vaguely repeated. "Now don't'ee tremble so. We
+must hope for the best, my child."
+
+Agatha felt a sudden stoppage at the heart which took away her.
+breath. "Tell me--quick; I shall not be frightened;--he is coming home
+to-morrow."
+
+"My dear child!" muttered Duke again, as he held out his hands to her,
+and she saw that tears were dropping over his cheeks.
+
+Agatha clutched at the hands threateningly--she felt herself going wild.
+"Tell me, I say. If you don't--I'll"------
+
+"Hush--I'll tell you--only hush!--think of poor Anne! And there's hope
+yet. Only they have not come into Southampton-roads--and last night
+there was a fire seen far out at sea--and it might have been a ship, you
+know."
+
+Thus disconnectedly Marmaduke broke his terrible news. Agatha received
+them with a wild stare.
+
+"It's impossible--totally impossible," she cried, uttering sounds
+that were half shrieking, half laughter. "Absolutely, ridiculously
+impossible. I'll not believe it--not a word. It's impossible--
+_impossible!_"
+
+And gasping out that one word, over and over again, fiercely and fast,
+she walked up and down the room like one distraught. She was indeed
+quite mad. She had not any sense of anything. She never once thought
+of weeping, or fainting, or doing anything but shriek out to earth
+and Heaven that one denunciation--that such a thing was and must
+be--"_impossible!_"
+
+Marmaduke caught her--she flung him aside.
+
+"Don't touch me--don't speak to me! I say it's _impossible!_"
+
+"Child!" And his look became more grave and commanding than any one
+would have believed of the Dugdale. "Dare not to say impossible! It is
+sinning against God."
+
+Agatha stopped in her frenzied walk. Of a sudden came the horrible
+thought that _it might be_--that the hand might have been lifted--have
+fallen, striking the whole world from her at one blow.
+
+"Oh God!--oh merciful God!"
+
+In that cry, scarcely louder than a moan, yet strong and wild enough to
+pierce the heavens, Agatha knew how she loved her husband. Not calmly,
+not meekly, but with that terrible love which is to the heart as life
+itself.
+
+Of the next few minutes that passed over her no one could write--no one
+would dare. It was utter insanity, yet with a perfect knowledge of
+its state. Madness, stone-blind, stone-deaf--that uttered no cry, and
+poured out no tears. She walked swiftly up and down the room, her hands
+clenched, her features rigid as iron. Mr. Dugdale and old Andrews could
+only watch pitifully, saying at times--which may all good Christians say
+likewise!--"God have mercy upon her."
+
+No one else came near--the servants were all asleep, and Miss Valery's
+room was in another part of the house. Possibly she slept too--poor
+Anne!
+
+"Now," said Agatha, in a cold, hard voice, clutching Marmaduke's arm,
+"I want to know all about it. I don't believe it, mind you!--not one
+word--but I would like to hear. Just tell me. How did you get the news?"
+
+"From Southampton, to-night. It happened last night A steamer saw the
+burning ship, and went, but the fire had already reached to the water's
+edge. There was not a soul in or near the wreck when it went down."
+
+Agatha shuddered, and then said, in the same hard voice: "It was some
+other ship--not the _Ardente_."
+
+Marmaduke shook his head, drearily. "They found a spar with 'Ardente'
+upon it. But they saw no boats, and some people think, as there were but
+few passengers, they all got safe off, and may reach the shore."
+
+"Of course they will!--I was sure of that;" returned Agatha, in the same
+wild, determined tone. "Let me see! it was a quiet night. I stood a long
+time looking at the moon--Ah!"
+
+The ghastly thought of her standing there looking up at the moon, and
+the pitiless moon looking down on the sea and on him! Agatha's senses
+reeled--she burst into the most awful laughter.
+
+Marmaduke held her fast--the whimsical absent Marmaduke--now roused into
+his true character, kind, as any woman, and wiser than most men.
+
+"Agatha, you must be quiet. It is wicked ever to despair. There is a
+chance--more than a chance, that your husband has been saved. He has
+infinite presence of mind, and he is a young, strong, likely lad. But
+Brian--poor Brian! my dear old friend!"
+
+Duke Dugdale's bravery gave way--he was of such a gentle, tender heart.
+The sight of his emotion stilled Agatha's frenzy, and made it more like
+a natural grief, though it was hard yet--hard as stone.
+
+"Come," she said, taking his hand, and smiling piteously--"come--don't
+cry. I can't!--not for the world. Let us talk. What are you going to
+do?"
+
+"I am going right off to Southampton--whence they have sent steamers out
+in all directions to pick up the boats, if they are drifting anywhere
+about the Channel. Fancy--to be out in the open sea, this winter-time,
+with possibly no clothes or food!"
+
+"Hush!"--shuddered Agatha's low voice--"hush! or I shall go quite mad,
+and I would rather not just yet--_afterwards_, I shall not mind."
+
+"Poor child!"
+
+"Don't now," and she shrank from him. "Never think of me--_that_ does
+not signify. Only something must be done. No weeping--no talking--_do_
+something!"
+
+"I told you I should. I am going"--
+
+"Go then!" Her quick speech--the wild stamp of her foot--poor child, how
+mad she was still!
+
+Mr. Dugdale took no notice except by a compassionate look--perhaps
+he, too, felt there was no time to lose. He went towards the door--she
+following.
+
+"I am off now--I shall catch the train in two hours," said he,
+springing on his horse in the dark wet night. "Harrie will be with you
+directly--only she thought I had better come first. Go in--go in--my
+poor child."
+
+Agatha obeyed mechanically, for the moment She walked about the house,
+in at one room and out at another, meeting no person--for Andrews had
+gone to call up some of the servants. The heavy quiet around stifled
+her. Faster and faster she walked--clutching her hands on her throat for
+breath--sometimes uttering, with a sort of laughing shriek, the one word
+in which seemed her only salvation--"Impossible!--utterly and entirely
+impossible!"
+
+She sat down for a moment, trying to think over more clearly the chances
+of the case--but to keep still was beyond her power. She resumed that
+rapid walk as if she were flying through an atmosphere of invisible
+fiends. It felt like it.
+
+Once, by a superhuman effort, she drove her mind to contemplate the
+_possible_--the winds, the flames, the waves, and him struggling among
+them. She saw the face which she had last seen so life-like--as a _dead
+face_, with its pale, pure features and fair hair. And even that face
+never to be again seen by her through any possible chance! For him to
+be blotted out altogether from the world, and she left therein! "Oh,
+God--oh, God!" The despairing, accusing shriek that she sent up to His
+mercy!--May His mercy have received and forgiven it!
+
+She began to count up the hours that must pass before she could receive
+any tidings, good or ill. To stay quietly in the house and wait for
+them!--you might as well have told a poor wretch to sit still and wait
+for the bursting of a mine. No rest--no rest. The very walls of the
+house seemed to press upon her and hem her in. She saw a bonnet and
+shawl hanging up in the hall, caught both, and ran out at the front
+door.
+
+Out--out under the stars. She walked with her face lifted right up to
+them, her eyes flashing out an insane defiance to their merciless calm.
+The rain fell down thick, and it was very cold, but she never thought
+of putting on the bonnet or the shawl; or, if she thought at all, it was
+with a sort of longing that the rain might come and cool her through and
+through, or the sharp wind pierce to her breast and kill her. Once she
+had a thought of running a mile or two across the hills, and leaping
+from some cliffs into the sea; so that, whichever way this suspense
+ended, she might be safely dead beforehand--dead, too, in the same
+ocean, washed by the same wave. All the foolish Romeo-and-Juliet-like
+traditions of people killing themselves on some beloved's tomb, seemed
+to her now perfectly real, possible, and natural. Nothing was unnatural
+or impossible--save living.
+
+How to live, even for a day, an hour, in this horrible, deathly
+stagnation, she did not know. At last, walking on blindly through the
+night, she came to the termination of the Thornhurst estate. Was she to
+go back and lull herself into the stupor of patience?--to be kissed
+and wept over, and preached resignation to?--left to sit mutely in
+that quiet house, while he was dashed about, fighting with the sea for
+life?--or watching the clock's travelling round hour after hour, not
+knowing but that every peaceful minute might be the terrible one in
+which he died?
+
+"No," she said to herself, while the awful but delirious joy which has
+struck many in a similar position, struck her suddenly, "he is not dead.
+If he had died, he would have told me--me whom he so loved He could
+not die anywhere, or at any time, but in some way or other I should
+certainly have known it."
+
+And as she stood in the dark road--quite alone with the hills and stars,
+calmed down into a supernatural awe, Agatha almost expected to see her
+husband stand before her in the old familiar likeness. She would not
+have been afraid.
+
+But no apparition came. All nature, visible and invisible, was silent
+to her misery. If she went back to the house, all there would be silent
+too.
+
+She took her resolution--though it could hardly be called a resolution,
+being merely the blind impulse of despair. She climbed over the
+gate--she had not wit enough to unfasten it--and ran, swift and silent
+as some wild animal, along the road to Kingcombe.
+
+The rain ceased, and her dripping clothes dried of themselves, so as not
+to encumber her movements. By some happy chance her feet were well shod,
+and now, gathering her wits as she went, she put on the shawl--not the
+bonnet, her head burned so, and felt so wild Just then, far into the
+darkness, she heard wheels rolling and rolling. It was Mrs. Dugdale
+driving along rapidly towards Thornhurst--but without one slash of the
+whip or one word of conversation with Dunce. When she stopped to open a
+gate the glare of the chaise-lamps showed the little black figure by the
+roadside. Harrie screamed--she thought it was a ghost.
+
+"Any news? any news?"
+
+"Gracious! is it you, child? No news--none! Get up, quick, and come
+home."
+
+But Agatha fled on and on, noticing nothing, except once, when with a
+start she saw the great black outline of Corfe Castle looming against
+the night-sky.
+
+[Illustration: Along the road page 394]
+
+When she reached Kingcombe, it was still dark. She could not even have
+found her way, save for the faint sky brightness lent by the overcast
+moon; and the distance she had traversed was all but miraculous.
+It seemed as if she had not walked by natural feet, but some unseen
+influence had drawn and lifted her the whole way. When she stood in
+Kingcombe streets she hardly believed her senses--save that nothing
+was hard of belief just then, except the one horror--incredible,
+unutterable.
+
+Mr. Dugdale was walking up and down Kingcombe railway station, waiting
+for the early train. One or two sleepy porters were eyeing him with
+a sort of pitying curiosity, for ill news spreads fast in a country
+neighbourhood. There was no one else about. Nobody perceived a little
+figure creeping up the road and coming on the platform. Even Marmaduke
+did not lift his eyes or relax his melancholy walk until something
+touched him on the arm. He stood astonished.
+
+"It is I, you see. You are not gone yet."
+
+"How did you come--you poor child?"
+
+"From Thornhurst--I walked. But how soon shall you start?"
+
+"Walked from Thornhurst!--at this time of night!" said one of the
+railway-men, who knew the family--as indeed did every one in the
+neighbourhood. "Lord help us--it's that poor Mrs. Harper!"
+
+Mr. Dugdale tried to remove Agatha from the platform, but she resisted.
+
+"I am come to go with you to Southampton."
+
+"What need of that? Go back to my house, poor child. If anything is to
+be done I can do it. If nothing--why"--
+
+"I _will_ go."
+
+The determination was so calm, the grasp of the little hand so strong,
+that her brother-in-law urged no more. He went in his quiet way to take
+her ticket, the railway folk moving respectfully aside, and whispering
+among themselves something about "poor Mrs. Harper, that was going to
+Southampton to see after her husband."
+
+Coming back, Duke attempted not to talk to her, but stood by her
+side--she would stand--sometimes feeling at her damp shawl, or wrapping
+her up in the tender careful fashion that he used to his own little
+ones. At last the great fiery eye, accompanied by the iron beast's
+snorting gasps, appeared far in the dark. Agatha drew a long breath,
+like a sob.
+
+Mr. Dugdale lifted her in the carriage, almost without a word. One of
+the railway-men brought from somewhere--nobody ever learned where--a rug
+for her feet, and a pillow for her head to lean on. A minute more, and
+they were whirled away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Every one knows that story, perhaps the most terrible of its kind for
+many years--and Heaven grant! for many more to come--when a noble ship,
+with her full complement of human beings, fought at once with winds, and
+waves, and fire, until came down upon it, and upon all the homes which
+that one hour desolated, the certain doom. One shudders even at writing
+of such things, save that they must of necessity happen, and not rarely.
+But for one such tale as that of the _Amazon_, which convulses a whole
+kingdom with horror, there must be many unknown chronicles of equal
+dread, save that the little vessel sinks unnoticed into its sea grave,
+and the destruction carried with it passes not beyond its own immediate
+sphere. Such was the case with the Ardente.
+
+When the train neared Southampton it was already bright morning.
+Everybody was moving about on the solid, safe, sunshiny earth--nobody
+thought of shipwrecks and disasters at sea. Many a one looked lazily
+at the glittering Southampton-water; no one dreamed how, far beyond the
+curving line of horizon, human beings--husbands and brothers--might be
+floating about without food or water, frozen, thirsting, dying or dead,
+under the same sunny sky.
+
+Passing the spot where the wide reach of bay opens, Marmaduke quickly
+drew down the carriage-blind. He would not for worlds that the poor
+Agatha should look at that merry-glancing, cruel sea. She seemed to
+notice the movement, and stirred from the corner where she had sat
+during all the journey, motionless, save for her perpetually open eyes.
+
+"How light it is! quite morning!"
+
+Marmaduke turned, felt her pulse, and began softly chafing her cold
+hand.
+
+"Don't, now," she said piteously. "Don't be kind to me--please don't!
+Talk a little. Tell me what you think it best to do first."
+
+The sharp-lined, worn face, not pallid, or without consciousness--some
+people, to their misery, never can lose consciousness--mournfully did
+worthy Duke regard it! But he did not say a word of sympathy; he knew
+she could not bear it. Her physical powers were so tightly strung that
+the least soft touch would make them give way altogether.
+
+Mr. Dugdale stated briefly, and as if it had been the most
+matter-of-fact thing in the world, how he meant to go to the owners of
+the _Ardente_ and get the first tidings of her there; how, if neither
+that nor any rumours he could catch in and about the docks, were
+satisfactory, he should hire a small steamer and beat up and down
+Channel, calling in at all the ports where it was likely boats might
+have been picked up.
+
+"They would be, probably, in twenty-four hours or so. If we don't hear
+in three days--three days at this time of year"--he stopped with a
+perceptible shudder--"then, Agatha," and Duke's gentle voice grew
+gentler, and solemn like a psalm, "then, my child, we'll go home."
+
+Agatha bowed her head. Bodily exhaustion calmed her mind, and soothed
+her into a feeling which made even the last dread alternative less
+fearful. She felt a conviction that such "going home" would only be a
+prelude to the last going home of all, when she should never part from
+her husband more. She did not much mind now, even if all were to end so.
+Perhaps it would be best.
+
+They got out of the carriage. All her limbs were cramped--she could
+hardly stand. Mr. Dugdale took her unresisting, to a quiet inn he knew,
+and there made her lie down and take food. Somehow, even in the last
+extremity, Duke Dugdale could win people over to do his pleasure, which
+was always for their own good.. He sat by her and talked, but only for
+a few minutes--he had no thought of wasting even in kindness the time on
+which might hang life or death.
+
+"I am going now, and you must stay here till my return, which is sure
+not to be for at least two hours."
+
+"Two hours!--Oh, take me with you!"
+
+Duke shook his head. "You would only hinder me, I fear. See there, now!"
+
+Trying to rise and cross the parlour, she had nearly fallen. A drowsy
+weakness stole over her--she let her good brother have his own way
+entirely. Very soon she found herself alone in the parlour, lying in the
+dusky light of closed blinds, with the dull murmur creeping up from the
+street--lying quietly in a state of passive patience.
+
+No human brain can endure a great strain of mental anguish long. A
+merciful numbness usually seizes it, in which everything grows hazy
+and unreal, and consequently painless. Agatha felt convinced she was
+half-asleep, and that she should wake up in her own room at Thorn-hurst
+or at Kingcombe, and find out everything to be a dream. Or even granting
+its reality, she seemed to view the whole story like some unconcerned
+person, or some being from whom this troubled world had passed away, and
+grown less than nothing and vanity. She gazed down upon herself as it
+were from a great height, thinking how sad a story it was, and how
+it would have grieved herself to hear it of any one else. But all her
+thoughts were disconnected and unnatural. The only tangible feeling
+was a sort of comfort in remembering the last day they had spent
+together--in thinking how he loved her, and that, living or dying, he
+would know how she loved him now.
+
+In this state she lay for an indefinite time--a period that had no human
+measurement. It seemed at once a day and a moment. No counted time could
+ever appear so like eternity.
+
+At last there was a hand upon the door. Mr. Dugdale had come back.
+Agatha started up, and sat frozen. For her life she could not have
+uttered a sound. He took her hand, saying, gently:
+
+"My dear child!"
+
+Surely he could not have spoken so, if--No, in that case his lips would
+have been paralysed, like her own.
+
+"We must bear up yet, little sister. There is a chance."
+
+The flood broke forth. Agatha flung herself on the sofa-cushions,
+sobbing, weeping, and laughing at once. Duke patted her on the shoulder,
+walked round her, stood eyeing her with his mild, investigating look, as
+if he were pondering some great new problem in human nature. Finally, he
+sat down beside her, and cried likewise.
+
+Agatha for the first time spoke naturally. "Thank you, brother--you are
+a very good brother to me. Now, tell me everything."
+
+"Everything is but little. It's like hanging on a thread--but we'll hold
+on."
+
+"We will," said Agatha, setting her lips together, and sitting down
+firmly to listen. She was in her right senses now. She had undergone the
+shock, and risen from it another woman.
+
+"I wish you would make haste and tell me. You don't know how quiet I am
+now, nor how much I can bear--only tell me."
+
+Marmaduke began, speaking in fragments hurriedly put together, looking
+steadily down on his hands, using a brief business tone--just as if
+every syllable had not been planned by him on his way back, so that the
+tidings might fall most gradually on the poor wife's ear.
+
+"It was indeed the Ardente. Four sailors were picked up yesterday, in
+one of her boats. They say it's likely that others may have got off in
+the same way."
+
+"Ah!" That wild sob of thanksgiving! Marmaduke seemed to dread it more
+than despair. He hastily added:
+
+"But they had many things against them. The fire happened at midnight.
+When it broke out there was no one on deck but one passenger, walking
+up and down. He was a young man, the sailors say, tall, with long light
+hair."
+
+The speaker's voice faltered; he could not bear to see the misery he
+inflicted. At last Agatha motioned to hear more.
+
+"One sailor remembers him particularly, because during all the tumult he
+was almost the only person who seemed to have his wits about him. He was
+seen everywhere--getting out the boats, quieting the passengers--doing
+it all, the man says, as steadily as if he had been in his own house on
+shore, instead of in a burning ship. If there was any one likely to have
+saved his own life and the lives of others, the sailors think it must be
+that young man."
+
+"When did they see him last?"
+
+"Not five minutes before the ship went down. He was in a boat with
+several more. They think it was he because of his light hair. He was
+leaning over towards a floating spar, helping in a woman and child."
+
+"Ah, then it was he! It was my husband!" cried Agatha, clasping her
+hands, while her countenance glowed like that of some Roman wife, who,
+dearer even than his life, esteemed her husband's honour.
+
+"I believe," she said, as that rapture faded, and the natural pang
+returned--"I firmly believe that he has been saved. God would not let
+him perish. He must have got safe off from the wreck in that boat. Don't
+you think he has?"
+
+Duke could not meet those eager eyes; he fidgeted in his seat, looked
+down on his hands, and told them over, finger by finger. At last
+he said, with that peculiar upward look which, amidst all his
+eccentricities, showed the beautiful serenity of a righteous man--a man
+who "walked with God:"
+
+"Child, we can none of us be certain either way. We can only do all that
+lies in human power, and leave the event in the hand of One who is wiser
+and more loving than us all."
+
+Agatha bowed her head, and her heart with it, almost to the dust. She
+remembered Anne Valery's saying--how much those who loved have need to
+trust in God. Poor Anne! Never until this minute had any one thought of
+Anne at home at Thornhurst. Shocked at the selfishness that often comes
+with great misery, Agatha cried eagerly:
+
+"Did you hear anything about Uncle Brian?"
+
+"No--nothing." The quick, husky tone, as Marmaduke turned and walked
+away, betrayed how keenly the good man suffered, though he never spoke
+of any sufferings but Agatha's. She was deeply touched.
+
+"Take hope," she said earnestly. "He will be saved. My husband would
+never forsake Uncle Brian."
+
+"I know that; but then Nathanael is young, and has something to live
+for, while Brian is getting on in years--older than I am.--I should like
+to have seen him again, and have shown him little Brian; but--well
+it's a strange world! Heaven's mercy is sure to give us a life to come,
+perhaps many lives--if only to make clear the hard mysteries of this. I
+should like to have talked that matter over once again with poor Brian."
+
+And Duke seemed wandering into his mild, dreamy philosophies, till
+Agatha recalled him.
+
+"Now, what is to be done? You said, if we heard nothing, the boats must
+be drifting about somewhere in the Channel"--she shivered--"and then we
+would take a little steamer, and go and look for them?"
+
+"I know. She's getting ready."
+
+"That is right. Then we will go on board at once," said Agatha, with
+decision. She, who a week ago would have been terrified at the bare
+thought of setting her foot on the deck of any vessel!
+
+"Poor little delicate thing," muttered Duke, watching her. "It will be
+a rough sea to-night, and we may be a day or two in getting round the
+coast. You had better go home, Agatha."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Somebody once told me you had never been at sea in your life; and in
+winter-time this Dorset coast is rough always, sometimes dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous! and he is there!" She began tying on her bonnet, hastily,
+but steadily, as steadily as if preparing for an every-day walk. "Now, I
+am quite ready. Let us start."
+
+Her brother made no more objections, but took her through the busy
+Southampton streets. Once, on the quay, two lounging sailors touched
+their hats to Mr. Dugdale, and Agatha heard a whisper of "Belongs to
+some o' the poor fellows as went down in the _Ardente_." She shuddered,
+as if there were already upon her the awful sign of widowhood.
+
+--The wide Southampton harbour, with the crafts of all nations gliding
+to and fro upon it--the bustle of the landing and embarking place--the
+hurrying crowd, eager after their own business, none thinking of the
+one little vessel suddenly whelmed in that wondrous sea-highway, ever
+thronged, yet ever lonely, or of the wrecked crew drifting hither and
+thither, no one knew where. The tale had been a day's talk, a day's
+pity--then forgotten.
+
+Agatha stood in the midst of all, but saw nothing. Nothing but the grey,
+bleak, merciless sea, howling and dancing to her feet like a victorious
+enemy, or sweeping off into the silence of the wintry horizon, there
+grimly folding up its mystery, as if to say, "Of me thou shalt know
+nothing." But Agatha felt as if, to win that secret, she was ready to
+pierce into nethermost hell.
+
+"Quick, let us go," she said, and almost bounded into the little vessel.
+She stood on the deck, trembling with excitement, watched the paddles
+crash into obedience the cruel waves, ride over them, on--on--to the
+mouth of the bay. And now for the first time she was out on the open
+sea.
+
+It was one of those gloomy winter days when the whole ocean looks
+sullen--heavy with brooding storms. No blue foamy sweeps, no lovely
+sea-green calms; nothing but leaden-coloured hills of water, swelling
+and sinking, with black valleys between. Agatha remembered a story she
+had read or heard in her childish days, of some wrecked sailor lad,
+doomed to death by his mates because the boat was too full for safety,
+who asked leave to sit on the gunwale until after the curl of the wave,
+and then quietly dropped off into the smooth hollow below.
+
+It was horrible! She could not look at the sea--it made her mad. She
+could only look skywards, and try to find a break in the dun clouds; or
+else over to the horizon, to see something--ever so faint and small a
+something--breaking the line of water and sky.
+
+The men on board apparently knew Mr. Dugdale, and he them. They worked
+with a respectful solemnity, as if aware of their sad errand. The boat
+was a little steam-tug, and she cut her way over the heavy seas like
+a bird. Two men, and Marmaduke, kept watch constantly with the glass,
+shorewards and seawards. Sometimes they went so far out that the hazy
+coast-line almost vanished, and then again they ran in-shore under the
+gigantic cliffs that lock the south of England coast.
+
+Hour after hour, the poor wife remained on deck, sometimes walking about
+restlessly, sometimes lying wrapped in sails and rugs, her face turned
+seaward in a dumb hopelessness that was more piteous than any moans. The
+seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe,
+mingled with that compassionate gentleness which sailors almost always
+show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her
+food, or put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the
+sheltering of "the poor lady."
+
+Late at night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again.
+She found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compass and the telescope.
+He had slept by snatches where he sat, never giving up his watch for a
+single hour.
+
+"E--h!" he said, when she came and touched him. "I was dreaming of the
+Missus and the little ones at home!"
+
+"Do you want to go home?"
+
+"No--no!--not while there's a hope. Keep heart, my child!"
+
+But they looked at each other's faces in the dawn, and saw how pale and
+disconsolate both were. And still the little lonely boat kept rocking
+over the sea--the pitiless sea, that returned neither answer nor sign.
+
+Another day--another night: just the same. Once or twice they came on
+the track of some vessel; a ship outward or homeward bound, and told
+their story; shouting it out, in brief business-like words--how horrible
+they sounded! And the ship's people would be seen to come to her side,
+stand a while looking at the melancholy little steamer on its
+hopeless search--then pass on. All the world seemed passing on slowly,
+slowly--leaving them to that blank sea and sky, and to their own
+despair.
+
+On the evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for
+several hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at
+the stern, looking shorewards at two columns of rock, which the watery
+wear of ages had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright in
+the sea, a little distance from one another, with the breakers boiling
+between.
+
+"There's 'Old Harry and his wife,' as the Dorset people call them. We
+are near home now, Agatha."
+
+"Home!" She gasped the word in an agony, and turned her face again
+seawards--towards the grey desolate line where the Channel melted away.
+
+"The steamer can't run on much longer without putting in-shore," said
+Duke, after an interval.
+
+Agatha almost shrieked; "You are not going to land? We have been out
+such a little--little while! And you said yourself the boats would live
+a long time in the open Channel."
+
+"But that was three days ago."
+
+"Three days--oh, Heaven!--three days."
+
+And the black, black cloud fell over her; the near vision of an
+existence wherein _he_ was not--the going home a widow--or worse,
+because she could never have the certainty of widowhood. To be
+incessantly watching by day, and starting up at night, with the thought
+that he was come! Never to know when, where, or in what manner he died;
+to have no last blessing--no last kiss! At the moment, Agatha would have
+given her whole future life--nay, her immortal soul--to cling for one
+minute round her husband's neck and tell him how she loved him--with
+the one perfect love which nothing now could ever alter, weaken, or
+estrange.
+
+Mr. Dugdale moved aside. He knew that for this burst of anguish there
+was no consolation. After a time, he came and said those few soothing
+words which are all that people can say, without being those "miserable
+comforters" who only torture the more.
+
+Even then, in that last moment of anguish, there was power in the good
+and soothing influence so peculiar to Marmaduke Dugdale. Agatha grew
+calmer--at least more passive. Soon, she saw that the little steamer's
+head was turned to the shore. A convulsion passed over her, but she did
+not rebel.
+
+"There is a faint hope even yet," said Duke, with a melancholy voice
+that almost gave the lie to his words. "They may have drifted safe
+ashore somewhere--though it would be almost a miracle. Or they may have
+been carried far out to sea, and been picked up by some outward-bound
+ship. It's just a chance--but"--
+
+Agatha understood that "but" Nothing but strong conviction would have
+forced it from her brother-in-law's lips. Her last hope died.
+
+An hour or two more they spent in gliding up the narrow channel of that
+salt-water swamp, which at high tide appeared so glittering from the
+Thornhurst road. When approached, it was a muddy chaos, desolate as an
+uninhabited world.
+
+They went as far up-stream as the little steamer could run, and then
+landed on the bank which abutted on some rushy meadows. It was a dark
+winter's night--there was not a soul abroad, though some faint light
+showed they were near the town. The bells of Kingcombe Church were
+ringing merrily through the mist.
+
+"I had quite forgotten," muttered Duke to himself. "This must be
+Christmas-eve."
+
+What a Christmas-eve!
+
+He half led, half lifted Agatha through the wet fields and along the
+road.
+
+"You will go to my house, and let the Missus and me take care of you, my
+child?"
+
+"No, no; I will go home!"
+
+So, without any further argument, he took her to her own gate. There
+it was, the familiar gate, with its shiny evergreens glittering in the
+lamp-light; beyond it, the dusky line of Kingcombe Street.. The cottage
+within was all dark, except for the faintest ray creeping under the
+hall-door. Marmaduke opened it, and called Dorcas. She came, and when
+she saw them, rushed forward sobbing.
+
+"Oh, missus, missus--is it my missus?"
+
+It was indeed the sorrowful mistress, who stood like a spectre in her
+desolate home. But Dorcas dragged her in, and opened the parlour-door.
+
+There was an odour of warmth--bright light, which so dazzled Agatha that
+at first she saw nothing. Then she saw some one lying on the sofa.
+And lo! there--half-buried in pillows, haggard and death-like, yet
+alive--was a face she knew--a calm, sleeping face--falling round it the
+long light hair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+It was Christmas morning. All the good people of Kingcombe were going
+to church. One only household did not go to church--there was hardly
+need, when all their life henceforward would be one long grateful psalm.
+
+Agatha came down much as she had done on her first Sunday morning in
+the same house, and made breakfast in the little parlour. There was a
+strange hush about her--a joy too solemn for outward expression. When
+she had finished all her preparations, she stood by the window, looking
+on the sunny little garden, and listening to the Christ-mas-bells. The
+tears sprang faster--faster--her lips moved. What she was uttering no
+ear heard--save One. Whatever the good Kingcombe people thought, He
+to whom the whole earth is a temple, and all time a long Sabbath of
+praise--would forgive her that she did not go to church that day.
+
+She heard a foot on the stairs, and ran thither like lightning.
+
+Nathanael appeared. He was extremely feeble--every motion seemed to give
+him pain;--and his whole appearance was that of one rescued from the
+very jaws of the grave. But he looked so happy--so infinitely happy!
+
+Agatha half-scolded him. "Why did you not call me? Why not let me help
+you to walk? I can do it, I know." And creeping under his arm, she tried
+to convert her little self into a marvellously strong support.
+
+Her husband only smiled, allowing himself to be led to the sofa, laid
+down, and made comfortable with countless pillows. Then she stood and
+looked at him.
+
+"Are you content?"
+
+"Quite content," he murmured. "So content, that I want nothing in this
+wide world."
+
+And by his look his wife knew that this was true.
+
+"Agatha, darling, you have been crying? Come and sit here."
+
+She came--making a minute's pretence of smiles, and then fell on his
+neck, weeping,
+
+"Oh! I don't deserve to be so happy--so very happy!"
+
+"Child," he answered, with a grave tenderness, "if we went by desert,
+who among us would deserve anything? Should I, who was so hard and cold
+towards my poor little wife, when, if I had said one word out of my real
+heart, and not kept it down so proudly--Ah! I was very wicked. I, too,
+did not deserve that God should save me from death, and bring me home to
+my dear wife's love. Darling! don't let us talk of deservings; only let
+us try to be good, and always, always love one another."
+
+Oh, the heavenly silence of that embrace, the life of life, that was in
+it! Now for the first time the bond of full and perfect love was drawn
+round the husband and wife, sacredly shutting them in from the world
+without, which could never more come between them, or intermeddle with
+their sorrows or their joys.
+
+At length Agatha freed herself gently from his clasp, saying, after
+her old habit of hiding emotion under a jest, something about the
+impossibility that the mistress of a household could idle away her time
+in this way. She made her husband's breakfast, and insisted on watching
+him finish it.
+
+Drinking, he said with a shudder, "Oh, Agatha, you don't know what it is
+to be thirsty! The hunger was nothing to it."
+
+"Don't talk of that, don't," murmured she, turning pale.
+
+"I will not, dear. But was it not strange that we should have drifted
+ashore at Weymouth?"
+
+"Very strange."
+
+"Have you sent over the way this morning, to see after Uncle Brian?"
+
+"Not yet; but Harrie will take care of him. He is not near so much hurt
+as you, and I must look after my own husband first." And once again
+wistfully gazing at him, she threw her arms round his neck, murmuring,
+"My own--my own!"
+
+The church-bells ceased, the breakfast was removed, and the husband and
+wife sat together.
+
+"Somebody," said Nathanael, suddenly--"somebody ought to go and see
+Anne Valery this Christmas-day.
+
+"Does she know?"
+
+"She knew last night. Marmaduke said he should ride over and tell her."
+
+"What news for her to hear--dear, dear Anne!"
+
+And they fell into a silence.
+
+Agatha said at last, "When am I to see Uncle Brian?"
+
+"Very soon, dear. Yet--stay--is not that some one at the door?"
+
+It certainly was. People walked into one another's houses so very
+unceremoniously at Kingcombe. This visitor, however, paused in the hall,
+and then opened the parlour-door.
+
+He was a remarkably tall man, with grey hair, and features not unlike
+Nathanael's, being regular and delicate. But their expression was much
+harsher, and indicative of a strong will and a settled bitterness, which
+only passed over when he smiled. This smile was very beautiful, and
+seemed to steal from his worn and hard-lined aspect at least ten years.
+Agatha knew who he was immediately.
+
+"Uncle Brian!" Nathanael sprang up, despite his weakness, and they
+grasped one another's hands as heartily as if they had not met for
+years.
+
+"Is this your wife?"
+
+"It is indeed; my own dear wife."
+
+"God bless her." Mr. Locke Harper took Agatha by the hand, and looked at
+her keenly. The peculiar expression either of bitterness or melancholy
+came over his face, but as he watched her it gradually faded off. There
+seemed an enchantment in the young wife's sweet looks.
+
+"You two are very happy?"
+
+They exchanged a glance, which needed no words of confirmation; but
+Agatha said, with a shy blush, and a womanly grace that made her
+sweeter-looking than ever.
+
+"We are all the happier now Uncle Brian has come home."
+
+"Thank you, my dear. Thank your husband too, for me. I would have been
+lying 'full fathom five' in the Channel now, if it were not for that
+boy."
+
+"That boy" sounded oddly enough, save for the world of tenderness in the
+phrase, and the look which accompanied it. Any one could see at once the
+strong attachment subsisting between the uncle and nephew. No more was
+betrayed, however, and they soon began a conversation as natural and
+unconcerned as if they had gone through no peril, and suffered no
+emotion. Certainly, however strong their feelings, the Harpers were not
+a "sentimental" family.
+
+Agatha thought, as like a dutiful wife she sat still and listened, that
+she had never seen any man--saving her husband of course--whose mien was
+so simple, yet so truly noble, as Brian Locke Harper's. She watched him
+with a pathetic curiosity, thinking what he must have been as a young
+man, with many other thoughts besides, which came from the very depths
+of her woman's heart.
+
+Uncle Brian talked, though in a rather fragmentary and brief fashion, of
+Kingcombe and of the changes he found. He never by any chance mentioned
+any other place than Kingcombe, until Nathanael happened to ask him
+where Duke was this morning?
+
+"He has ridden out."
+
+"But I wanted to see him, and thank him for being so kind to my poor
+little wife. Where has he gone?"
+
+"To Thornhurst." The word came out sharp, low, yet with a certain
+tone that made it unlike other words. After saying it, Uncle Brian sat
+moodily looking at the fire from under his eyebrows, until Agatha, with
+womanly wisdom, broke the silence, by speaking to her husband.
+
+"I think some time this afternoon I ought to go and see Anne Valery."
+
+"You shall go, dear."
+
+Uncle Brian observed, never moving his eyes from the fire, "Harriet said
+that she--Miss Valery--was not quite strong this winter. Was that true?"
+
+Agatha answered, "That it was only too true."
+
+Something in her manner seemed to startle Mr. Locke Harper; he threw
+towards her one of his flashing, penetrating looks.
+
+"We have indeed been very anxious about poor Anne," she answered. "But
+winter is a trying season, and we hope, in the spring"--
+
+"Yes, in the spring," repeated Uncle Brian, hastily. "What a gay garden
+you have for Christmas." He opened the glass door, and immediately
+went out. They saw him walking about, backwards and forwards, among
+chrysanthemum beds and arbutus-trees, passing hurriedly, and with a
+bent-down, abstracted gaze, which beheld nothing.
+
+"Does he know about her?" said Agatha to her husband. "You said you
+would tell him."
+
+"I could not, his mood was too bitter. And there are some things in
+which not even I dare break upon the reserve of Uncle Brian. He is as
+secret and as proud--as I am."
+
+"Ah, but"--
+
+"I understand that 'but' my child. I know how much both he and I have
+often erred."
+
+His wife pressed his hand fondly, to indicate how love had sealed its
+kiss of forgiveness upon all things. Nathanael smiled, and continued:
+
+"I found Uncle Brian in such a strange mood at Havre. I dared not speak
+of anything just then, but thought the fit time would be when we came
+near the Dorset coast, and his heart was softened at the sight of home.
+I was walking on deck, pondering how to tell him, when the fire began."
+
+"Ah, don't." And Agatha forgot everything--it was natural she should--in
+rejoicing once more over the beloved saved. Suddenly, there was heard
+a fluttering, and a chattering with Dorcas in the hall, marking an
+unmistakable approach--Mrs. Dugdale with her young flock.
+
+Harrie was in the best of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that
+may be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been
+seen either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced
+Agatha warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother
+Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fortitude, but shook his hair
+after it, like a boy who has been petted against his will. However, he
+kissed his little nephews good-humouredly, let Brian sit astride on
+his sofa-pillows, benignly assured Fred's inquiring mind that Uncle
+Nathanael had not been to the bottom of the sea and up again--and
+answered Gus with a more serious voice, that it was not exactly "funny"
+to be drowned.
+
+"Funny? No, indeed," exclaimed the mother. "I am sure the shock was
+dreadful to us all. I don't know when _I_ shall get over it And that
+reminds me that Duke thinks it had been too much for poor Anne. She is
+worse,--keeping her bed. I don't understand sick people much, but if
+Agatha could go--Oh, there you are, Uncle Brian! Duke sent a message to
+you. He says, he is afraid it will be some days before you can see your
+old friend Anne: she is very ill indeed."
+
+Brian stood silent, resting his hand on the glass-door. The colourless
+face, void of any expression, excepting the eyes, and they--never, while
+she lived, did Agatha forget the look of those eyes! She whispered,
+passing him by,
+
+"I am going to her now--I shall send word soon;" and left the room.
+
+There was a slight difficulty about her being driven to Thornhurst, as
+she insisted on her husband's keeping quiet at home. Harrie made a
+dozen plans and counter-plans, until they were all frustrated by Brian
+Harper's rising from the corner, where he had sat motionless.
+
+"If you will allow me, I will drive you there."
+
+"Thank you." There was no more said about it; they started.
+
+Mr. Locke Harper scarcely spoke to his niece all the way, until just
+as they were passing the gate where, on that awful walk, Agatha had
+startled Mrs. Dugdale.
+
+"I hear you came all these miles on foot, in the middle of the night. It
+was a very brave thing for a woman to do. I did not think any woman
+could have love enough in her to do it."
+
+"I know several who would do much more."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Harrie Dugdale, probably; and for certain, Anne Valery."
+
+Brian said no more until they reached the gates of Thornhurst. There
+he helped her to descend, reins in hand, and waited. Just as Agatha was
+going he touched her arm:
+
+"Ask how she is, will you?"
+
+Agatha sent the message up-stairs, and remained with him for a minute
+or two. He stood motionless by the horse, his hat pulled down over his
+brows--nothing visible but the sharp profile of his mouth. Old Andrews
+called him "that gentleman"--eyed him with some curiosity, then bowed,
+and wished him a "merry Christmas, sir," country fashion.
+
+The answer about the mistress of Thornhurst was brief; she was "much the
+same;" the servants did not seem to apprehend any danger.
+
+Brian shook his niece's hand. "I shall go back across the moors to
+Kingcombe. Tell her, if, at any time, she would like to see an old
+friend"--
+
+He stopped, threw down Dunce's reins, and started off towards the high
+ground, striding over heather and furze, with his free backwoodsman's
+step.
+
+Andrews looked after him. "If that be any man alive it be Mr. Locke
+Harper! O Lord! and I didn't know 'un--my dear old master! Mr. Harper!
+Sir! Mr. Locke Harper." He ran a little way in vain pursuit of the
+retreating figure; then Agatha saw him sit down on a stone, hide his
+face in his shaking old hands, and cry for joy.
+
+While, far over the hill-side, in very sight of the closed blinds of
+Anne's room, the returned wanderer strode away, and disappeared.
+
+It was some time before Agatha could summon courage to walk up-stairs.
+All things seemed so strange. She could hardly realise the fact that she
+had been driven from Kingcombe by Uncle Brian's own self, and that she
+was now going to tell Anne Valery that he was here.
+
+At last, calmed by faith in heaven, and in that next holiest faith,
+love, she opened the door of Anne's bedroom.
+
+It was silent, solemn, and peaceful. There was a prayer-book by the
+bedside, open at one of the Christmas-day psalms. No one lingered in the
+room, or about the couch, with sisterly or friendly care; all was serene
+but lonely, as Anne's whole life had been. At the opening of the door, a
+faint voice asked, "Who is there?"
+
+"Only I! Oh, Anne, dearest Anne!"
+
+There was a pause of weeping silence, though one only wept. Miss Valery
+soothed the girl in all sorts of tender ways.
+
+"You have suffered much, my poor child, but it is over now. Forget it.
+You will be very happy now."
+
+"And you too--you too, Anne! But why do you lie here so drearily, with
+no one near you?"
+
+"I like it."
+
+"But you will rise soon? You must get well now they are come home. You
+little think how anxious all are about you."
+
+"That is kind. Everybody was always very kind to me."
+
+After a few moments, during which Anne lay with her eyes shut, and
+Agatha watched, with an unaccountable dread, the wonderful, spiritual
+calm of her features, she suddenly said:
+
+"You have seen him, have you not?"
+
+"Uncle Brian? Yes."
+
+"How does he look? Was he harmed by that--that awful three days at sea?
+
+"No; he seems quite well. He drove me to Thornhurst."
+
+"Then he is here?" And there came a slight trembling over the placid
+face.
+
+"He had to go back to Kingcombe, I believe," said Agatha, hesitating.
+"But he told me to say, if you liked to see an old friend--He does not
+know how ill you have been," she added, with irrepressible vexation, "or
+else I should have felt very, very angry, even with Uncle Brian."
+
+"Hush! You do not understand him yet," said Anne, gently, as she once
+more closed her eyes. Many thoughts seemed to sweep over her, but none
+left a trace of bitterness behind. She was past all restlessness or
+suffering now.
+
+"How are you all going to keep Christmas, Agatha? You ought to be very
+happy. After such a week as this has been, everything seems happiness
+now."
+
+"Not everything--when you are not with us, Anne--I mean, not with us
+to-day."
+
+"But I shall be with you, to-day and every day. I believe I shall never
+be far away from Thornhurst and Kingcombe, and Kingcombe Holm."
+
+She said this more to herself than to Agatha, who listened, her throat
+choking; then answered abruptly, "You are talking too much--you must be
+quiet."
+
+Anne smiled--one of her old smiles, so full of cheerfulness. "I think I
+am quiet enough already, but I will obey."
+
+She turned her face to the pillow, and lay for a long time without
+moving. At length she said:
+
+"Agatha, I want you to do something for me."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I would like to see your husband, and my old friend, Mr. Brian Harper.
+Will you go and fetch them?"
+
+"I will to-morrow, but"--
+
+"No--dear, not to-morrow; I must see them to-day--this very
+Christmas-day. Go--you will not be away long. And we will send the
+carriage, so that the journey can do Nathanael no harm."
+
+"You are always thinking of every one," said Agatha, as she turned
+to obey. She felt it was a solemn mission. All her bright plans about
+Thornhurst grew dim; she could not look forward. Yet, warm in the
+strength of youth and love, she cherished a faint hope still.
+
+When she reached Kingcombe, Brian had not come home. They sent
+messengers for him in all directions, but in vain. At last they were
+forced to drive back without him--hopelessly peering through the dusk
+to see if they could discern his tall figure across the moors. When they
+were dashing at full speed through Thornhurst-gate, some one rose up
+from the hedge beside it, and stopped the horses.
+
+"Is anything the matter at the house? Speak, can't you, fellow?"
+
+The voice hoarse and commanding--the tall, spare figure, the grey
+hair--it could be none other than Brian Harper.
+
+Nathanael called to him. "Uncle Brian, we have been looking for you
+everywhere. Anne wants to see you. Come."
+
+"I will." He walked away and was lost in the furze-bushes; but when the
+carriage drove up to the door they found him already standing there.
+They all entered the house together.
+
+Anne's maid met them with a delighted countenance. Her mistress was so
+well--thank God! She was up, and sitting in the drawing-room!
+
+There in truth she was, in her usual seat, wearing her ordinary dress.
+She had taken off the invalid-cap, and her soft hair was arranged as
+carefully as if no white lines marred its brownness. She looked less
+old than usual--nay, almost beautiful--so exquisitely peaceful was the
+expression of her countenance.
+
+Nathanael and his wife hung back, letting Mr. Harper meet her first.
+
+She rose and held out both hands to him. "Welcome home again--welcome
+home!"
+
+He said nothing, but grasped the hands, and retained them fast. There
+was a long, long look, eye to eye, face to face,--a look, in which
+were gathered and summed up all the years since they were young,
+together,--and then the two old friends sat down side by side. Agatha
+thought it strange that they should meet in such a calm, commonplace
+way--but then she was young. She did not know how quietly flows
+the outward surface of a tide that has flowed on, deep, solemn, and
+changeless, for five-and-twenty years.
+
+In a little while they were all sitting round the fire--the merry
+Christmas fire with its blazing pine-log--talking just as naturally and
+familiarly as though no emotion had stirred them. Anne Valery, resting
+in her arm-chair, looked on and smiled. She talked little, but listened
+to the rest, and by an inexplicable sweet calmness, made them all so
+much at ease, that it seemed to Agatha as if they four had known one
+another for a whole lifetime, and been always as happy as now.
+
+As the evening advanced, the Christmas dinner was announced.
+
+"I am sorry I cannot sit at the head of my own table to-day, but"--and
+Miss Valery gently laid her hand on Brian's arm--"you will take my
+place, old friend?"
+
+He made some unintelligible answer, and they all left the drawing-room.
+It was a rather silent dinner; yet, somehow, no one looked sad. No one
+could, with Anne's cheerful influence pervading the whole house.
+
+Agatha soon rose and rejoined her. She was sitting just as they had left
+her--but whether it was through the light being dimmer, or through a
+certain thoughtfulness in her face, Agatha thought she did not look
+quite the same.
+
+"Are you well?" Are you sure you are not tired? And"--here Agatha
+ventured to wrap her arms round her and gaze up in her eyes with a
+fulness of meaning--are you happy?"
+
+"Ay, happy! perfectly happy!" The look and tone were such as Agatha
+never forgot. They expressed a bliss that of its intensity could not
+necessarily endure for more than the briefest time in this changing
+world. It belonged to the world everlasting.
+
+"Will you go back, dear, and ask Brian to come to me? I would like to
+talk a little, alone, with my old friend."
+
+Agatha obeyed. When she had delivered her message, Mr. Locke Harper rose
+without speaking. She saw him go into the drawing-room and close the
+door; then she came back to her husband.
+
+For more than two hours Agatha and Nathanael sat, not liking to go in
+without being summoned. At last they ventured to pass the door. The
+silence within was so death-like that it half frightened them.
+
+"I wish she would call," Agatha whispered. "She looked so strangely
+white when she spoke to me. Hush! is not that some one stirring? I must
+knock."
+
+She did so, but there was no answer. At last, trembling all over, she
+caught hold of her husband's hand and made him enter.
+
+The room was quite still--dimly-lighted--for the fire had been suffered
+to burn itself almost out. Anne sat in her arm-chair, with Brian
+kneeling beside her, his arms clasping her waist, and hers linked behind
+his neck. Neither moved, or seemed to notice anything; and the two
+young people, greatly moved by the scene, were gliding away, when a last
+glimmer of the fire showed them Anne Valery's face. They saw it--grasped
+one another's hands with an awe-struck meaning--and stayed.
+
+In a minute or two Anne faintly spoke.
+
+"I think there is some one near? Is it Agatha?"
+
+The young girl flung herself on Anne's hand.--"It is I--and my husband.
+May we stay? We, too, loved you, dear, dear Anne?"
+
+"I know that! One minute, just one minute, Brian."
+
+She loosed her clasp of him a little; the other two came near, she
+kissed them both, and bade "God bless them." Then raising herself up and
+speaking with all her strength, she said,
+
+"You will bear witness, and say to them all, that if I had married, none
+but Brian Locke Harper would ever have been my husband: and therefore I
+have left to him Thornhurst, and all I have in the world, in token of my
+love and reverence--just as if--I had been--his wife."
+
+With the last words, uttered very feebly, Anne sank back into her old
+attitude. She lay there many minutes, her face beautiful in its perfect
+rest. The other face--his face--was altogether hidden. But they saw
+that, as his arms grasped her round, every muscle was quivering. The
+convulsion grew so strong that even Anne felt it. She opened her eyes,
+and tried to speak again.
+
+"Brian, poor Brian? Be content! it is not for long--not for very long."
+
+Her fingers began to flutter feebly on his neck. She fringed the grey
+locks round them in a childish, absent way, muttering to herself.
+
+"How very soft it feels still! He used to have such beautiful hair!"
+
+Then, as if she felt her mind wandering, and strove to recall it, that
+to the very last moment it might rest on him, she again forcibly opened
+her eyes and fixed them on Brian's face. They never left it afterwards.
+The whole world seemed to have faded from her except that face. For
+a minute or two longer she lay looking at him, her countenance all
+radiant, until, gradually and softly, her eyes closed.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Nathanael, as he drew his weeping wife closer to his
+bosom, and pointed out the beatitude of that dying smile. "Hush--she is
+quite happy. She has gone home!"
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by 
+Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA'S HUSBAND ***
+
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diff --git a/old/21767-8.zip b/old/21767-8.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Agatha's Husband,
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    //
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by
+Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Agatha's Husband
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+Illustrator: Walter Crane
+
+Posting Date: March 13, 2009 [EBook #21767]
+Release Date: June 8, 2007
+Last Updated: March 6, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA'S HUSBAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="titlepage (32K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      AGATHA'S HUSBAND
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      A NOVEL <br /> <br /> BY THE AUTHOR OF <br /> 'JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN'
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      DINAH MARIA CRAIK
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      With Illustrations By Walter Crane
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h5>
+      Macmillan And Co.
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1875
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      INSCRIBED TO M. P., <br /> <br /> IN <br /> MEMORIAL OF THE FRIENDSHIP OF A
+      LIFETIME <br /> <br /> 1852.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="frontispiece-p280 (175K)" src="images/frontispiece-p280.jpg"
+       width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>AGATHA'S HUSBAND.</b></big> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <hr />
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>Illustrations</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0001"> She Began Leisurely to Read P036 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0002"> Will You Accept It, With My Love P090 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0003"> Arrival at Kingcombe Holm P148 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0004"> On Horseback P212 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0005"> A Husband's Farewell P280 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0006"> Along the Road Page P394 </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      AGATHA'S HUSBAND.
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;If there ever was a woman thoroughly like her name, it was Agatha
+      Bowen. She was good, in the first place&mdash;right good at heart, though
+      with a slight external roughness (like the sound of the g in her name),
+      which took away all sentimentalism. Then the vowels&mdash;the three broad
+      rich a's&mdash;which no one can pronounce with nimini-pimini closed lips&mdash;how
+      thoroughly they answered to her character!&mdash;a character in the which
+      was nothing small, mean, cramped, or crooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if we go on unfolding her in this way, there will not be the slightest
+      use in writing her history, or that of one in whom her life is beautifully
+      involved and enclosed&mdash;as every married woman's should be&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still in clouded mystery&mdash;an individual yet to be; and two
+      other individuals had been &ldquo;talking him over,&rdquo; feminine-fashion, in Miss
+      Agatha Bowen's drawing-room, much to that lady's amusement and
+      edification. For, being moderately rich, she had her own suite of rooms in
+      the house where she boarded; and having no mother&mdash;sorrowful lot for
+      a girl of nineteen!&mdash;she sometimes filled her drawing-room with very
+      useless and unprofitable acquaintances. These two married ladies&mdash;one
+      young, the other old&mdash;Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Thornycroft&mdash;had been
+      for the last half-hour vexing their very hearts out to find Agatha a
+      husband&mdash;a weakness which, it must be confessed, lurks in the heart
+      of almost every married lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had been laughing at it, alternately flushing up or looking
+      scornful, as her mouth had a natural propensity for looking; balancing
+      herself occasionally on the arm of the sofa, which, being rather small and
+      of a light figure, she could do with both impunity and grace; or else
+      rushing to the open window, ostensibly to let her black kitten investigate
+      street-sights from its mistress's shoulder. Agatha was very much of a
+      child still, or could be when she chose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Hill had been regretting some two or three &ldquo;excellent matches&rdquo; of
+      which she felt sure Miss Bowen had thrown away her chance; and young Mrs.
+      Thornycroft had tried hard to persuade her dearest Agatha how very much
+      happier she would be in a house of her own, than as a boarder even in this
+      excellent physician's family. But Agatha only laughed on, and devoted
+      herself more than ever to the black kitten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was, I fear, a damsel who rather neglected the <i>bienséances</i> of
+      life. Only, in her excuse, it must be allowed that her friends were doing
+      what they had no earthly business to do; since; if there is one subject
+      above all upon which a young woman has a right to keep her thoughts,
+      feelings, and intentions to herself, and to exact from others the respect
+      of silence, it is that of marriage. Possibly, Agatha Bowen was of this
+      opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Hill, you are a very kind, good soul: and Emma Thornycroft, I like
+      you very much; but if&mdash;(Oh! be quiet, Tittens!)&mdash;if you could
+      manage to let me and 'my Husband' alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the only serious words she said&mdash;and they were but half
+      serious; she evidently felt such an irresistible propensity to laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; continued she, turning the conversation, and putting on a dignified
+      aspect, which occasionally she took it into her head to assume, though
+      more in playfulness than earnest&mdash;&ldquo;now let me tell you who you will
+      meet here at dinner to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Harper, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not see the 'of course' Mrs. Thornycroft,&rdquo; returned Agatha, rather
+      sharply; then, melting into a smile, she added: &ldquo;Well, 'of course,' as you
+      say; what more likely visitor could I have than my guardian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trustee, my dear; guardians belong to romances, where young ladies are
+      always expected to hate, or fall in love with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha flushed slightly. Now, unlike most girls, Miss Bowen did not look
+      pretty when she blushed; her skin being very dark, and not over clear, the
+      red blood coursing under it dyed her cheek, not &ldquo;celestial, rosy red,&rdquo; but
+      a warm mahogany colour. Perhaps a consciousness of this deepened the
+      unpleasant blushing fit, to which, like most sensitive people at her age,
+      she was always rather prone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Thornycroft, watching her,&mdash;&ldquo;not that I think
+      any love affair is likely to happen in your case; Major Harper is far too
+      much of a settled-down bachelor, and at the same time too old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha pulled a comical face, and made a few solemn allusions to
+      Methuselah. She had a peculiarly quick, even abrupt manner of speaking,
+      saying a dozen words in the time most young ladies would take to drawl out
+      three; and possessing, likewise, the rare feminine quality of never saying
+      a word more than was necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, how funny you are!&rdquo; laughed her easily-amused friend. &ldquo;But, dear,
+      tell me who else is coming?&rdquo; And she glanced doubtfully down on a gown
+      that looked like a marriage-silk &ldquo;dyed and renovated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no ladies&mdash;and gentlemen never see whether one is dressed in
+      brocade or sackcloth,&rdquo; returned Agatha, rather maliciously;&mdash;&ldquo;only,
+      'old Major Harper' as you are pleased to call him, and&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I didn't call him very old&mdash;just forty, or thereabouts&mdash;though
+      he does not look anything like it. Then he is so handsome, and, I must
+      say, Agatha, pays you such extreme attention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha laughed again&mdash;the quick, light-hearted laugh of nineteen&mdash;and
+      her brown eyes brightened with innocent pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mrs. Thornycroft again looked down uneasily at her dress&mdash;not
+      from overmuch vanity, but because her hounded mind recurred instinctively
+      from extraneous or large interests to individual and lesser ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there really any one particular coming, my dear? Of course, <i>you</i>
+      have no trouble about evening dress; mourning is such easy comfortable
+      wear.&rdquo; (Agatha turned her head quickly aside.) &ldquo;That handsome silk of
+      yours looks quite well still; and mamma there,&rdquo; glancing at the
+      contentedly knitting Mrs. Hill&mdash;&ldquo;old ladies never require much dress;
+      but if you had only told me to prepare for company&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty company! Merely our own circle&mdash;Dr. Ianson, Mrs. Ianson, and
+      Miss Ianson&mdash;you need not mind outshining her now&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed! I am married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the 'company' dwindles down to two besides yourselves; Major Harper
+      and his brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! What sort of a person is the brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really don't know; I have never seen him. He is just come home from
+      Canada; the youngest of the family&mdash;and I hate boys,&rdquo; replied Agatha,
+      running the sentences one upon the other in her quick fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The youngest of the family&mdash;how many are there in all?&rdquo; inquired the
+      elder lady, her friendly anxiety being probably once more on matrimonial
+      thoughts intent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure, Mrs. Hill, I cannot tell. I have never seen any of them but
+      Major Harper, and I never saw him till my poor father died; all which
+      circumstances you know quite well, and Emma too; so there is no need to
+      talk a thing twice over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From her occasional mode of speech, some people might say, and did say,
+      that Agatha Bowen &ldquo;had a temper of her own.&rdquo; It is very true, she was not
+      one of those mild, amiable heroines who never can give a sharp word to any
+      one. And now and then, probably from the morbid restlessness of
+      unsatisfied youth&mdash;a youth, too, that fate had deprived of those
+      home-ties, duties, and sacrifices, which are at once so arduous and so
+      wholesome&mdash;she had a habit of carrying, not only the real black
+      kitten, but the imaginary and allegorical &ldquo;little black dog,&rdquo; on her
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was grinning there invisibly now; shaking her curls with short quick
+      motion, swelling her rich full lips&mdash;those sort of lips which are
+      glorious in smiles, but which in repose are apt to settle into a gravity
+      not unlike crossness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was looking thus&mdash;not her best, it must be allowed&mdash;when a
+      servant, opening the drawing-room door, announced &ldquo;Visitors for Miss
+      Bowen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first who entered, very much in advance of the other, appeared with
+      that easy, agreeable air which at once marks the gentleman, and one long
+      accustomed to the world in all its phases, especially to the feminine
+      phase; for he bowed over Agatha's hand, and smiled in Agatha's now
+      brightening face, with a sort of tender manliness, that implied his being
+      used to pleasing women, and having an agreeable though not an ungenerous
+      consciousness of the fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you better&mdash;really better? Are you quite sure you have no cold
+      left? Nothing to make your friends anxious about you?&rdquo; (Agatha shook her
+      head smilingly.) &ldquo;That's right; I am so glad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And no doubt Major Harper was; for a true kind-heartedness, softened even
+      to tender-heartedness, was visible in his handsome face. Which face had
+      been for twenty years the admiration of nearly every woman in every
+      drawing-room he entered: a considerable trial for any man. Now and then
+      some independent young lady, who had reasons of her own for preferring
+      rosy complexions, turn-up noses, and &ldquo;runaway&rdquo; chins, might quarrel with
+      the Major's fine Roman profile and jet-black moustache and hair; but&mdash;there
+      was no denying it&mdash;he was, even at forty, a remarkably handsome man;
+      one of the old school of Chesterfield perfection, which is fast dying out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody liked him, more or less; and some people&mdash;a few men and not
+      a few women, had either in friendship or in warmer fashion&mdash;deeply
+      loved him. Society in general was quite aware of this; nor, it must be
+      confessed, did Major Harper at all attempt to disprove or ignore the fact.
+      He wore his honours&mdash;as he did a cross won, no one quite knew how,
+      during a brief service in the Peninsula&mdash;neither pompously nor
+      boastingly, but with the mild indifference of conscious desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this could be at once discerned in his face, voice, and manner; from
+      which likewise a keen observer might draw the safe conclusion that, though
+      a decided man of fashion, and something of a dandy, he was above either
+      puppyism or immorality. And Agatha's rich Anglo-Indian father had not
+      judged foolishly when he put his only child and her property in the trust
+      of, as he believed, that rare personage, an honest man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the girl Agatha, who took honesty as a matter of course in every
+      gentleman, endowed this particular one with a few qualities more than he
+      really possessed, it was an amiable weakness on her part, for which, as
+      Major Harper would doubtless have said with a seriously troubled
+      countenance, &ldquo;no one could possibly blame <i>him.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In speaking of the Major we have taken little notice&mdash;as little,
+      indeed, as Agatha did&mdash;of the younger Mr. Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother, Miss Bowen. He came home when my sister Emily died.&rdquo; The
+      brief introduction terminated in a slight fall of voice, which made the
+      young lady look sympathisingly at the handsome face that took shades of
+      sadness as easily as shades of mirth. In her interest for the Major she
+      merely bowed to his brother; just noticed that the stranger was a tall,
+      fair &ldquo;boy,&rdquo; not at all resembling her own friend; and after a polite
+      speech or two of welcome, to which Mr. Harper answered very briefly, she
+      hardly looked at him again until she and her guests adjourned to the
+      family drawing-room of Dr. Ianson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, the Major happening to be engrossed by doing earnest politeness to
+      Mrs. Thornycroft and her mother, Agatha had to enter side by side with the
+      younger brother, and likewise to introduce him to the worthy family whose
+      inmate she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so, making the whole circuit of the room towards Miss Jane Ianson,
+      in the hope that he would cast anchor, or else be grappled by that young
+      lady, and so she should get rid of him. However, fate was adverse; the
+      young gentleman showed no inclination to be thus put aside, and Miss
+      Bowen, driven to despair, was just going to extinguish him altogether with
+      some specimen of the unceremonious manner which she occasionally showed to
+      &ldquo;boys,&rdquo; when, observing him more closely, she discovered that he could not
+      exactly come under this category.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fair face, fair hair, and thin, stripling-like figure, had deceived
+      her. Investigating deeper, there was a something in his grave eye and
+      firmly-set mouth which bespoke the man, not the boy. Agatha, who, treating
+      him with a careless womanly superiority that girls of nineteen use, had
+      asked &ldquo;how long he had been in Canada?&rdquo; and been answered &ldquo;Fifteen years,&rdquo;&mdash;hesitated
+      at her next intended question&mdash;the very rude and malicious one&mdash;&ldquo;How
+      old he was when he left home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was, as you say, very young when I quitted England,&rdquo; he answered, to a
+      less pointed remark of Miss Ianson's. &ldquo;I must have been a lad of nine or
+      ten&mdash;little more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha quite started to think of the disrespectful way in which she had
+      treated a gentleman twenty-five years old! It made her shy and
+      uncomfortable for some minutes, and she rather repented of her habit of
+      patronising &ldquo;boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, what was even twenty-five? A raw, uncouth age. No man was really
+      good for anything until he was thirty. And, as quickly as courtesy and
+      good feeling allowed her, she glided from the uninteresting younger
+      brother to the charmed circle where the elder was talking away, as only
+      Major Harper could talk, using all the weapons of conversation by turns,
+      to a degree that never can be truly described. Like Taglioni's <i>entrechats</i>,
+      or Grisi's melodious notes, such extrinsic talent dies on the senses of
+      the listener, who cannot prove, scarcely even explain, but only say that
+      it was so. Nevertheless, with all his power of amusing, a keen observer
+      might have discerned in Major Harper a want of depth&mdash;of reading&mdash;of
+      thought; a something that marked out the man of society in contradiction
+      to the man of intellect or of letters. Had he been an author&mdash;which
+      he was once heard to thank Heaven he was not&mdash;he would probably have
+      been one of those shallow, fashionable sentimentalists who hang like
+      Mahomed's coffin between earth and heaven, an eyesore unto both. As it
+      was, his modicum of talent made him a most pleasant man in his own sphere&mdash;the
+      drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; whispered the good, corpulent Dr. Ianson, who had been laughing
+      so much that he quite forgot dinner was behind time, &ldquo;my dear Miss Bowen,
+      your friend is the most amusing, witty, delightful person. It is quite a
+      pleasure to have such a man at one's table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite a pleasure, indeed,&rdquo; echoed Mrs. Ianson, deeply thankful to
+      anything or anybody that stood in the breach between herself, her husband,
+      and the dilatory cook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked gratified and proud. Casting a shy glance towards where her
+      friend was talking to Emma Thomycroft and Miss Ianson, she met the eye of
+      the younger brother. It expressed such keen, though grave observance of
+      her, that she felt her cheeks warm into the old, unbecoming, uncomfortable
+      blush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rather a satisfaction that, just then, they were summoned to
+      dinner; Major Harper, in his half tender, half paternal manner, advancing
+      to take her downstairs; which was his custom, when, as frequently
+      happened, Agatha Bowen was the woman he liked best in the room. This was
+      indeed his usual way in all societies, except when out of kindliness of
+      heart he now and then made a temporary sacrifice in favour of some woman
+      who he thought liked <i>him</i> best. Though even in this case, perhaps,
+      he would not have erred, or felt that he erred, in offering his arm to
+      Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked happy, as any young girl would, in receiving the attentions of
+      a man whom all admired; and was quite contented to sit next to him,
+      listening while he talked cheerfully and brilliantly, less for her
+      personal, entertainment than that of the table in general. Which she
+      thought, considering the dulness of the Ianson circle, and that even her
+      own kind-hearted, long-known friend, Emma Thomycroft, was not the most
+      intellectual woman in the world,&mdash;showed great good nature on the
+      part of Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the most silent person at table was the younger brother, whose
+      Christian name Agatha did not know. However, hearing the Major call him
+      once or twice by an odd-sounding word, something like &ldquo;Beynell&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;Ennell,&rdquo; she had the curiosity to inquire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it is N. L.&mdash;his initials; which I call him by, instead of the
+      very ugly name his cruel godfathers and godmothers imposed upon him as a
+      life-long martyrdom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What name is that?&rdquo; asked Agatha, looking across at the luckless victim
+      of nomenclature, who seemed to endure his woes with great equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He met her eye, and answered for himself, showing he had been listening to
+      her all the time. &ldquo;I am called Nathanael&mdash;it is an old family name&mdash;Nathanael
+      Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't look very like a Nathanael,&rdquo; observed his neighbour, Mrs.
+      Thornycroft, doubtless wishing to be complimentary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he does,&rdquo; said Agatha, kindly, for she was struck by the
+      infinitely sweet and &ldquo;good&rdquo; expression which the young man's face just
+      then wore. &ldquo;He looks like the Nathanael of Scripture, 'in whom there was
+      no guile.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A pause&mdash;for the Iansons were those sort of religious people who
+      think any Biblical allusions irreverent. But Major Harper said, heartily,
+      &ldquo;That's true!&rdquo; and cordially, nay affectionately, pressed Agatha's hand.
+      Nathanael slightly coloured, as if with pleasure, though he made no answer
+      of any kind. He was evidently unused to bandy either jests or compliments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If anything could be objected to in a young man so retiring and
+      unobtrusive as he, it was a certain something the very opposite of his
+      brother's cheerful frankness. His features, regular, delicate, and
+      perfectly colourless; his hair long, straight, and of the palest brown,
+      without any shadow of what painters would call a &ldquo;warm tint,&rdquo; auburn or
+      gold, running through it; his slow, quiet movements, rare speech, and a
+      certain passive composure of aspect, altogether conveyed the impression of
+      a nature which, if not positively repellant, was decidedly cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt it, and though from the rule of opposites, this species of
+      character awoke in her a spice of interest, yet was the interest of too
+      faint and negative a kind to attract her more than momentarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In her own mind she set down Nathanael Harper as &ldquo;a very odd sort of
+      youth&rdquo;&mdash;(<i>a youth</i> she still persisted in calling him)&mdash;and
+      turned again to his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had dined late,&mdash;and the brief evening bade fair to pass as
+      after-dinner evenings do. Arrived in the drawing-room, old Mrs. Hill went
+      to sleep; Miss Ianson, a pale young woman, in delicate health,
+      disappeared; Mrs. Ianson and Mrs. Thornycroft commenced a low-toned,
+      harmless conversation, which was probably about &ldquo;servants&rdquo; and &ldquo;babies.&rdquo;
+       Agatha being at that age when domestic affairs are very uninteresting, and
+      girlish romance has not yet ripened into the sweet and solemn instincts of
+      motherhood, stole quietly aside, and did the very rude thing of taking up
+      a book and beginning to read &ldquo;in company.&rdquo; But, as before stated, Miss
+      Agatha had a will of her own, which she usually followed out, even when it
+      ran a little contrary to the ultra-refined laws of propriety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The book not being sufficiently interesting, she was beginning, like many
+      another clever girl of nineteen, to think the society of married ladies a
+      great bore, and to wonder when the gentlemen would come up-stairs'. Her
+      wish was shortly gratified by the door's opening&mdash;but only to admit
+      the &ldquo;youth&rdquo; Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, partly for civility, and partly through lack of entertainment,
+      Agatha smiled upon even him, and tried to make him talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was not an easy matter, since in all qualities he seemed to be his
+      elder brother's opposite. Indeed, his reserve and brevity of speech
+      emulated Agatha's own; so they got on together ill enough, until by some
+      happy chance they lighted on the subject of Canada and the Backwoods.
+      Where is there boy or girl of romantic imagination who did not, at some
+      juvenile period of existence, revel in descriptions of American
+      forest-life? Agatha had scarcely passed this, the latest of her various
+      manias; and on the strength of it, she and Mr. Harper became more
+      sociable. She even condescended to declare &ldquo;that it was a pleasure to meet
+      with one who had absolutely seen, nay, lived among red Indians.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, and nearly died among them too,&rdquo; added Major Harper, coming up so
+      unexpectedly that Agatha had not noticed him. &ldquo;Tell Miss Bowen how you
+      were captured, tied to the stake, half-tomahawked, etc.&mdash;how you
+      lived Indian fashion for a whole year, when you were sixteen. Wonderful
+      lad! A second Nathaniel Bumppo!&rdquo; added he, tapping his brother's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man drew back, merely answered &ldquo;that the story would not
+      interest Miss Bowen,&rdquo; and retired, whether out of pride or shyness it was
+      impossible to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation, taken up and led, as usual, by Major Harper, became a
+      general disquisition on the race of North American Indians. Accidentally,
+      or not, the elder brother drew from the younger many facts, indicating a
+      degree of both information and experience which made every one glance with
+      surprise, respect, and a little awe, on the delicate, boyish-looking
+      Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, too, Agatha took her turn as an object of interest to the rest They
+      were all talking of the distinctive personal features of that strange
+      race, which some writers have held to be the ten lost tribes of Israel.
+      Agatha asked what were the characteristics of an Indian face, often stated
+      to be so fine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look in the mirror, Miss Bowen,&rdquo; said Nathanael, joining in the
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I mean, that were you not an Englishwoman, I should have thought you
+      descended from a Pawnee Indian&mdash;all except the hair. The features are
+      exact&mdash;long, almond-shaped eyes, aquiline nose, mouth and chin of the
+      rare classic mould, which these children of nature keep, long after it has
+      almost vanished out of civilised Europe. Then your complexion, of such a
+      dark ruddy brown&mdash;your&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop&mdash;stop!&rdquo; cried the Major, heartily laughing. &ldquo;Miss Bowen will
+      think you have learnt every one of her physical peculiarities off by heart
+      already. I had not the least idea you were gifted with so much
+      observation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, do let him go on; it amuses me,&rdquo; cried the young girl, laughing,
+      though she could not help blushing a' little also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Nathanael had &ldquo;shrunk into his shell,&rdquo; as his brother humorously
+      whispered to Agatha, and was not to be drawn out for the remainder of the
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Harpers left early, thus affording great opportunity for their
+      characters being discussed afterwards. Every lady in the room had long
+      since declared herself &ldquo;in love&rdquo; with the elder brother; the fact was now
+      repeated for the thousandth time, together with one or two remarks about
+      the younger Harper, who they agreed was rather nice-looking, but so
+      eccentric!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Bowen scarcely thought about Nathanael at all; except that, after she
+      was in bed, a comical recollection floated through other more serious
+      ones, and she laughed outright at the notion of being considered like a
+      Pawnee Indian!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of all the misfortunes incidental to youth (falling in love included),
+      there are few greater than that of having nothing to do. From this trial,
+      Agatha Bowen, being unhappily a young lady of independent property,
+      suffered martyrdom every day. She had no natural ties, duties, or
+      interests, and was not sufficiently selfish to create the like in and
+      about her own personality. She did not think herself handsome enough to be
+      vain, so had not that sweet refuge of feminine idleness&mdash;dress. Nor,
+      it must be dolefully confessed, was she of so loving a nature as to love
+      anybody or everybody, as some women can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kind to all, and liking many, she was apparently one of those characters
+      who only really <i>love</i> two or three people in the whole course of
+      their existence. To such, life is a serious, perilous, and often terrible
+      journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Tittens, I don't know, really, what we are to do with ourselves
+      this morning,&rdquo; said Agatha, talking aloud to her Familiar, the black
+      kitten, who shared the solitude of her little drawing-room. &ldquo;You'd like to
+      go and play downstairs, I dare say? It's all very nice for you to be
+      running after Mrs. Ianson's wools, but I can't see anything amusing in
+      fancy-work. And as for dawdling round this square and Russell Square with
+      Jane Ianson and Fido&mdash;pah! I'd quite as soon be changed into a
+      lapdog, and led along by a string. How stupid London is! Oh, Tittens, to
+      think that you and I have never lived in the country since we were born.
+      Wouldn't you like to go? Only, then we should never see anybody&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foolish girl paused, and laughed, as if she did not like to
+      soliloquise too confidentially, even to a kitten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which of them did you like the best last night, Tittens? One was not over
+      civil to you; but Nathanael&mdash;yes, certainly you and that juvenile are
+      great friends, considering you have met but four evenings. All in one
+      week, too. Our house is getting quite gay, Miss Tittens; only it is so
+      much the duller in the mornings. Heigho!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life's a weary, weary, weary, Life's a weary coble o' care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the other verse? And she began humming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man's a steerer, steerer, steerer, Man's a steerer&mdash;life is a pool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder, Tittens, how you and I shall steer through it? and whether the
+      pool will be muddy or clear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Twisting her fingers in and about her pet's jetty for, Agatha sat silent,
+      until slowly there grew a thoughtful shadow in her eyes, a forewarning of
+      the gradual passing away of that childishness, which in her, from
+      accidental circumstances, had lasted strangely long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, we won't be foolish, Tittens,&rdquo; cried she, suddenly starting up.
+      &ldquo;We'll put on our bonnets, and go out&mdash;that is, one of us will, and
+      the other may take to Berlin wool and Mrs. Ianson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bonnet was popped on quickly and independently&mdash;Miss Bowen
+      scorned to indulge in the convenience or annoyance of a lady's-maid.
+      Crossing the hall, the customary question, &ldquo;Whether she would be home to
+      dinner?&rdquo; stopped her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know&mdash;I am not quite sure. Tell Mrs. Ianson not to wait for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she passed out, feeling keener than usual the consciousness that
+      nobody would wait for her, or look for her, or miss her; that her comings
+      in and goings out were perfectly indifferent to every human being in the
+      house, called by courtesy her &ldquo;home.&rdquo; Perhaps this was her own fault, but
+      she could not help it. It was out of her nature to get up an interest
+      among ordinary people, where interests there were none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little more had she in the house whither she was going to pay one of her
+      extempore visits; but then there was the habit of old affection, begun
+      before characters develop themselves into the infinite variety from which
+      mental sympathy is evolved. She could not help liking Emma Thornycroft,
+      her sole childish acquaintance, whose elder sister had been Agatha's daily
+      governess, until she died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know Emma will be glad to see me, which is something; and if she does
+      tire me with talk about the babies, why, children are better than Berlin
+      wool. And there is always the piano. Besides, I must walk out, or I shall
+      rust to death in this horrible Bedford Square.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She walked on, rather in a misanthropic mood, a circumstance to her not
+      rare. But she had never known mother, sister, or brother; and the name of
+      father was to her little more than an empty sound. It had occasionally
+      come mistily over the Indian Ocean, in the shape of formal letters&mdash;the
+      only letters that ever visited the dull London house where she spent her
+      shut-up childhood, and acquired the accomplishments of her teens. Mr.
+      Bowen died on the high seas: and when his daughter met the ship at
+      Southampton, a closed black coffin was all that remained to her of the
+      name of father. That bond, like all others, was destined to be to her a
+      mere shadow. Poor Agatha!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quick exercise always brings cheerfulness when one is young, strong, and
+      free from any real cares; Agatha's imaginary ones, together with the vague
+      sentimentalisms into which she was on the verge of falling, yet had not
+      fallen, vanished under the influence of a cheerful walk on a sunny
+      summer's day. She arrived at Mrs. Thornycroft's time enough to find that
+      admirable young matron busied in teaching to her eldest boy the grand
+      mystery of dining; that is, dining like a Christian, seated at a real
+      table with a real silver knife and fork. These latter Master James
+      evidently preferred poking into his eyes and nose, rather than his mouth,
+      and evinced far greater anxiety to sit on the table than on the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, dear&mdash;so glad to see you!&rdquo; and Emma's look convinced even
+      Agatha that this was true. &ldquo;You will stay, of course! Just in time to see
+      James eat his first dinner, like a man! Now Jemmie, wipe his pretty mouth,
+      and then give Auntie Agatha a sweet kiss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha submitted to the kiss, though she did not quite believe in the
+      adjective; and felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the title of
+      &ldquo;Auntie&rdquo; was a mere compliment. She did not positively dislike children,
+      else she would have been only half a woman, or a woman so detestable as to
+      be an anomaly in creation; but her philoprogenitiveness was, to say the
+      least, dormant at present; and her sense of infantile beauty being founded
+      on Sir Joshua's and Murillo's cherubs, she had no great fancy for the ugly
+      little James.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid aside her bonnet, and smoothing her curls in the nursery mirror,
+      looked for one minute at her Pawnee-Indian face, the sight of which now
+      often made her smile. Then she sat down to lunch with Emma and the
+      children; being allowed, as a great favour, to be placed next Master
+      James, and drink with him out of his silver mug. Miss Bowen accepted the
+      offered honour calmly, made no remark, but&mdash;went thirsty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an hour or two she sat patiently listening to what had gone on in the
+      house since she was there&mdash;-how baby had cut two more teeth, and
+      James had had a new braided frock&mdash;(which was sent for that she might
+      look at it)&mdash;how Missy had been to her first children's party, and
+      was to learn dancing at Midsummer, if papa could be coaxed to agree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is Mr. Thornycroft?&rdquo; asked Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very well&mdash;papa is always well. I only wish the little ones took
+      after him in that respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, who was old enough to remember Emma engaged, and Emma newly
+      married, smiled to think how entirely the lover beloved and the
+      all-important young husband had dwindled into a mere &ldquo;Papa;&rdquo; liked and
+      obeyed in a certain fashion, for Emma was a good wife, but evidently made
+      a very secondary consideration to &ldquo;the children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl&mdash;as yet neither married, nor in love&mdash;wondered if
+      this were always so. She often had such wonderings and speculation when
+      she came to Emma's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was growing rather tired of so much domestic information, and had
+      secretly taken out her watch to see how many hours it would be to dinner
+      and to Mr. Thornycroft, a sensible, intelligent man, who from love to his
+      wife had been always very kind to his wife's friends&mdash;when there came
+      the not unwelcome sound of a knock at the hall-door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me; that is surely the Harpers. I had quite forgotten Major Harper
+      and the bears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An odd conjunction,&rdquo; observed Agatha, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Harper, who yesterday, for the fifth time, promised to take Missy
+      to the Zoological Gardens to see the bears. He has remembered it at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, he had not remembered it; it would have been a very remarkable
+      circumstance if he had; being a person so constantly full of engagements,
+      for himself and others. The visitor was only his younger brother, who had
+      often daundered in at Mrs. Thornycroft's house, possibly from a liking to
+      Emma's friendly manner, or because, cast astray for a fortnight on the
+      wide desert of London, he had, like Agatha, &ldquo;nothing to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Nathanael had other reasons, they, of course, never came near the
+      surface, but lay buried under the silent waters of his quiet mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was half pleased, half disappointed at seeing him. Mrs.
+      Thornycroft, good soul, was always charmed to have a visitor, for her
+      society did not attract many. Only betraying, as usual, what was uppermost
+      in her simple thoughts, she could not long conceal her regret concerning
+      little Missy and the bears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Agatha's great surprise, Mr. Harper, who she thought, in his dignified
+      gravity, would never have condescended to such a thing, volunteered to
+      assume his brother's duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For,&rdquo; said he, with a slight smile, &ldquo;I have had too many perilous
+      encounters with wild bears in America, not to feel some curiosity in
+      seeing a few captured ones in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will be charming,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Thornycroft, looking at him with a
+      mixture of respect and maternal benignity. &ldquo;Then you can tell Missy all
+      those wonderful stories, only don't frighten her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I might She seems rather shy of me.&rdquo; And the adventurous young
+      gentleman eyed askance a small be-ribboned child, who was creeping about
+      the room and staring at him. &ldquo;Would it not be better if&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If mamma went?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Missy, don't cry; mamma will go, and Agatha, too, if she would
+      like it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; Miss Bowen answered, with a mischievous glance at Nathanael.
+      &ldquo;I ought to investigate bears, if only to prove myself descended from a
+      Pawnee Indian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, once more, the heavy nut-brown curls were netted up into the crown of
+      her black bonnet, and her shawl pinned on carelessly&mdash;rather too
+      carelessly for a young woman; since that gracious adornment, neatness,
+      rarely increases with years. Agatha was quickly ready. In the ten minutes
+      she had to wait for Mrs. Thornycroft, she felt, more than once, how much
+      merrier they would have been with the elder than the younger brother. Also&mdash;for
+      Agatha was a conscientious girl&mdash;she thought, seriously, what a pity
+      it was that so pleasant and kind a man as Major Harper had such an
+      unfortunate habit of forgetting his promises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she regretted him&mdash;regretted his flow of witty sayings that
+      attracted the humorous half of her temperament, and his touches of
+      seriousness or sentiment which hovered like pleasant music round the
+      yet-closed portals of her girlish heart. Until suddenly&mdash;conscientiousness
+      again!&mdash;she began to be aware she was thinking a deal too much of
+      Major Harper; so, with a strong effort, turned her attention to his
+      brother and the bears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had leant on Mr. Harper's offered arm all the way to the Regent's
+      Park, yet he had scarcely spoken to her. No wonder, therefore, that she
+      had had time for meditation, or that her comparison between the two
+      brothers should be rather to Nathanael's disadvantage. The balance of
+      favour, however, began to right itself a little when she saw how kind he
+      was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and made
+      foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched over
+      little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile pertinacity,
+      would poke his small self into every possible danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sunken den, where the big brown bear performs gymnastic exercises
+      on a centre tree, Master Jemmie was quite in his glory. He emulated Bruin
+      by climbing from his feet into nurse's arms&mdash;thence into mamma's, and
+      lastly, much to her discomfiture, into Miss Bowen's. The attraction being
+      that she happened to stand close to the railing and next to Mr. Harper,
+      who, with a bun stuck on the end of his long stick, had coaxed Bruin up to
+      the very top of the tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There the creature swayed awkwardly, his four unwieldy paws planted
+      together, and his great mouth silently snapping at the cakes. Agatha could
+      hardly help laughing; she, as well as the children, was so much amused at
+      the monster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper, give Missy your cane. Missy would like to feed bear,&rdquo; cried
+      the mamma, now very bold, going with her eldest pet to the other side of
+      the den, and attracting the animal thither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At which little James, who could not yet speak, setting up a scream of
+      vexation, tried to stretch after the creature; and whether from his own
+      impetuosity or her careless hold, sprang&mdash;oh, horror!&mdash;right out
+      of Agatha's arms. A moment the little muslin frock caught on the railing&mdash;caught&mdash;ripped;
+      then the sash, with its long knotted ends, which some one snatched at&mdash;nothing
+      but the sash held up the shrieking child, who hung suspended half way over
+      the pit, in reach of the beast's very jaws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bear did not at once see it, till startled by the mother's frightful
+      cries. Then he opened his teeth&mdash;it looked almost like a grin&mdash;and
+      began slowly to descend his tree, while, as slowly, the poor child's sash
+      was unloosing with its weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A murmur of horror ran through the people near; but not a man among them
+      offered help. They all slid back, except Nathanael Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt his sudden gripe. &ldquo;Hold my hand firm. Keep me in my balance,&rdquo;
+       he whispered, and throwing himself over to the whole extent of his body,
+      and long right arm, managed to catch hold of James, who struggled
+      violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold me tight&mdash;tighter still, or we are lost,&rdquo; said he, trying to
+      writhe back again; his hand&mdash;such a little delicate hand it seemed
+      for a man&mdash;quivering with the weight of the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She grasped him frantically&mdash;his wrist&mdash;his shoulder&mdash;nay,&mdash;stretching
+      over, linked her arms round his neck. Something in her touch seemed to
+      impart strength to him. He whispered, half gasping,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold me firm, and I'll do it yet, Agatha.&rdquo; She did not then notice, or
+      recollect till long afterwards, how he had called her by her Christian
+      name, nor the tone in which he had said it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment afterwards, he had lifted the child out of the den, and poor
+      Jemmie was screaming out his now harmless terror safe in the maternal
+      arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, and not till then, Agatha burst into tears. Tears which no one saw,
+      for the mother, hugging her baby, was the very centre of a sympathising
+      crowd. Mr. Harper, paler than ordinary, leaned against the stone-work of
+      the den.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, from what have you saved me?&rdquo; cried Agatha, as after her thankfulness
+      for the rescued life, came another thought, personal yet excusable. &ldquo;Had
+      Emma lost the child, I should have felt like a murderess to the day of my
+      death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael shook his head, trying to smile; but seemed unable to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not hurt yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no. Very little. Only a strain,&rdquo; said he as he removed his hand from
+      his side. &ldquo;Go to your friend: I will come presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did come&mdash;though not for a good while; and Miss Bowen fancied from
+      his looks that he had been more injured than he acknowledged; but she did
+      not like to inquire. Nevertheless he rose greatly in her estimation, less
+      for his courage than for the presence of mind and common sense which made
+      it Valuable, and for the self-restraint and indifference which caused him
+      afterwards to treat the whole adventure as such a trifling thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, after all, nothing very romantic or extraordinary, and happened in
+      such a brief space of time, that probably the circumstance is not noted in
+      the traditionary chronicles of the Zoological Gardens, which contain the
+      frightful legend carefully related that day by several keepers to Mrs.
+      Thornycroft&mdash;how a bear had actually eaten up a child, falling in the
+      same manner into the same den.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the adventure, slight as it may appear, made a very great and sudden
+      difference in the slender tie of acquaintanceship, hitherto subsisting
+      between Agatha and Major Harper's brother. She began to treat Nathanael
+      more like a friend, and ceased to think of him exactly as a &ldquo;boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Master James's mamma, when she at last turned her attention from his
+      beloved small self, was full of thanks to his preserver. Mr. Harper
+      assured her that his feat was merely a little exertion of muscular
+      strength, and at last grew evidently uncomfortable at being made so much
+      of. Returning home with them, he would fain have crept away from the scene
+      of his honours; but the good-natured, motherly-hearted Emma implored him
+      to stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will nurse you if you are hurt, which I am afraid you must be&mdash;it
+      was such a dreadful strain! Oh, Jemmie, Jemmie!&rdquo; and the poor mother
+      shuddered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed you must come in,&rdquo; added Miss Bowen kindly, seeing that Emma's
+      thoughts were floating away, as appeared this time natural enough, to her
+      own concerns. &ldquo;You shall rest all the evening, and we will talk to you,
+      and be very, very agreeable. Pray yield!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael argued no more, but went in &ldquo;quite lamb-like,&rdquo; as Mrs.
+      Thornycroft afterwards declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This acquiescence in him was little rewarded, Agatha thought&mdash;for the
+      evening happened to be duller even than evenings usually passed at the
+      Thornycrofts'. The head of the household, being detained in the City, did
+      not appear; and Mrs. Thornycroft's tongue, unchecked by her husband's
+      presence, and excited by the event of the afternoon, galloped on at a
+      fearful rapidity. She poured out upon the luckless young man all the baby
+      biography of her family, from Missy's christening down to the infant
+      Selina's cutting of her first tooth. To all of which he listened with a
+      praiseworthy attention, giving at least silence, which was doubtless all
+      the answer Emma required.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Agatha, whose sympathy in these things was, as before said, at present
+      small, grew half ashamed, half vexed, and finally rather angry&mdash;especially
+      when she saw the pale weariness that gradually overspread Mr. Harper's
+      face. More than once she hinted that he should have the armchair, or lie
+      down, or rest in some way; but he took not the least notice; sitting
+      immovably in his place, which happened to be next herself, and vaguely
+      looking across the table towards Mrs. Thornycroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At nine o'clock, becoming paler than ever, he bestirred himself, and
+      talked of leaving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought to be going too. It is not far, and as our roads agree, I will
+      walk with you,&rdquo; said Agatha, simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed surprised&mdash;so much so, that she almost blushed, and would
+      have retracted, save for the consciousness of her own frank and kindly
+      purpose. She had watched him closely, and felt convinced that he had been
+      more injured than he confessed; so in her generous straightforward
+      fashion, she wanted to &ldquo;take care of him,&rdquo; until he was safe at his
+      brother's door, which she could see from her own. And her solitary
+      education had been conducted on such unworldly principles, that she never
+      thought there was anything remarkable or improper in her proposing to walk
+      home with a young man, whom she knew she could trust in every way, and who
+      was besides Major Harper's brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did even the matronly Mrs. Thornycroft object to the plan&mdash;save
+      that it took her visitors away so early. &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;you can't
+      be tired out already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had an ironical answer on the very tip of her tongue: but something
+      in the clear, &ldquo;good&rdquo; eye of Nathanael repressed her little wickedness. So
+      she only whispered to Emma that for various reasons she had wished to
+      return early.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, dear, since you must go, I am sure Mr. Harper will be most
+      happy to escort you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If not, I hope he will just say so,&rdquo; added Agatha, very plainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled; and his full, soft grey eye, fixed on hers, had an earnestness
+      which haunted her for many a day. She began heartily to like Major
+      Harper's brother, though only as his brother, with a sort of reflected
+      regard, springing from that she felt for her guardian and friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This consciousness made her manner perfectly easy, cheerful, and kind,
+      even though they were in the perilously sentimental position of two young
+      people strolling home together in the soft twilight of a Midsummer
+      evening: likewise occasionally stopping to look westward at a new moon,
+      which peered at them round street-corners and through the open spaces of
+      darkening squares. But nothing could make these two at all romantic or
+      interesting; their talk on the road was on the most ordinary topics&mdash;chiefly
+      bears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem quite familiar with wild beast life,&rdquo; Agatha observed. &ldquo;Were you
+      a very great hunter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly, for I never could muster up the courage, or the cowardice,
+      wantonly to take away life. I don't remember ever shooting anything,
+      except in self-defence, which was occasionally necessary during the
+      journeys that I used to make from Montreal to the Indian settlements with
+      Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian,&rdquo; repeated Agatha, wondering whether Major Harper had ever
+      mentioned such a personage, during the two years of their acquaintance.
+      She thought not, since her memory had always kept tenacious record of what
+      he said about his relatives&mdash;which was at best but little. It was one
+      of the few things in him which jarred upon Agatha's feelings&mdash;Agatha,
+      to whose isolation the idea of a family and a home was so pathetically
+      sweet&mdash;his seeming so totally indifferent to his own. All she knew of
+      Major Harper's kith and kin was, that he was the eldest brother of a large
+      family, settled somewhere down in Dorsetshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These thoughts swept through her mind, as Agatha, repeated interrogatively
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same who fifteen years since took me out with him to America; my
+      father's youngest brother. Has Frederick never told you of him? They two
+      were great companions once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed!&rdquo; And Agatha, seeing that Nathanael at least showed no
+      dislike, but rather pleasure, in speaking of his family, thought she might
+      harmlessly indulge her curiosity about the Harpers of Dorsetshire. &ldquo;And
+      you went away with Mr. Brian Harper, at ten years old. How could your
+      mother part with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was dead&mdash;she died when I was born. But I ought to apologise for
+      thus talking of family matters, which cannot interest you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary, they do&mdash;very much!&rdquo; cried Agatha; and then blushed
+      at her own earnestness, at which Nathanael brightened up into positive
+      warmth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How kind you are! how I wish you knew my sisters! It is so pleasant to me
+      to know them at last, after writing to them and thinking about them for
+      these many years. How you would like our home&mdash;I call it home,
+      forgetting that I have been only a visitor, and in a short time must go
+      back to my real home, Montreal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must you indeed!&rdquo; And Agatha felt sorry. She had been at once surprised
+      and gratified by the confidential way in which this usually reserved young
+      man talked to her, and her alone. &ldquo;Why do you live in America? I hate
+      Americans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo; said he, smiling, as if he read her thoughts. &ldquo;But I have
+      neither Yankee blood nor education. I was English born; brought up in
+      British Canada, and by Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke the latter words with a certain proud affection, as if his
+      uncle's mere name were sufficient guarantee for himself. Agatha secretly
+      wondered what could possibly be the reason that Major Harper had never
+      even mentioned this personage, whom Nathanael seemed to hold in such
+      honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;though I dearly like England, though&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      he sunk his voice a little&mdash;&ldquo;though now it will be doubly hard to go
+      away, I could never think of leaving Uncle Brian to spend his old age
+      alone in the country of his adoption.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; returned Agatha, absently, her thoughts still running on this
+      new Mr. Harper. &ldquo;What profession is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing now. He has led an unsettled life&mdash;always poor. But he took
+      care to settle me in a situation under the Canadian Government. We both
+      think ourselves well to do now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's sense of womanly decorum could hardly keep her from pressing her
+      companion's arm, in instinctive acknowledgment of his goodness. She
+      thought his face looked absolutely beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, restraining her quick impulses within the bounds of propriety,
+      she walked on. &ldquo;And so you will again cross that fearful Atlantic Ocean?&rdquo;
+       she said at length, with a slight shudder. The young man saw her gesture,
+      and looked surprised&mdash;nay, gladdened. But nevertheless he remained
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha did the same, for the mention of the sea brought back to her the
+      one only noteworthy incident of her life, which had given her this strange
+      antipathy to the sea and to the thought of traversing it. But this subject&mdash;the
+      horrible bugbear of her childhood&mdash;she rarely liked to recur to, even
+      now; so it did not mingle in her conversation with Mr. Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Nathanael said: &ldquo;I would it were possible&mdash;indeed I have
+      often vainly tried&mdash;to persuade Uncle Brian to come back to England.
+      But since he will not, it is clearly right for me to return to Canada.
+      Anne Valery says so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne Valery!&rdquo; again repeated Agatha, catching at this second strange name
+      with which she was supposed to be familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, did you never hear of her&mdash;my father's ward, my sister's chief
+      friend&mdash;quite one of the family? Is it possible that my brother never
+      spoke to you of Anne Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, certainly not. Agatha was quite sure of that. The circumstance of
+      Major Harper's having a friend who bore the very suspicious and
+      romantically-interesting name of Anne Valery could never have slipped Miss
+      Bowen's memory. She answered Nathanael's question in an abrupt negative;
+      but all the way through Russell Square she silently pondered as to who, or
+      what like, Anne Valery could be? finally sketching a fancy portrait of a
+      bewitching young creature, with blue eyes and golden hair&mdash;the style
+      of beauty which Agatha most envied, because it was most unlike herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ere reaching Dr. Ianson's door, her attention was called to Mr. Harper,
+      whose feet dragged so wearily along, that Agatha was convinced that, in
+      spite of his efforts to conceal it, he was seriously ill. Her womanly
+      sympathy rose&mdash;she earnestly pressed him to come in and consult Dr.
+      Ianson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no. Uncle Brian and I always cure ourselves. As he often says,
+      'A man after forty is either a doctor or a fool.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are only twenty-five.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, but I have seen enough to make me often feel like a man of forty,&rdquo;
+       said he, smiling. &ldquo;Do not mind me. That strain was rather too much; but I
+      shall be all right in a day or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; cried Agatha, anxiously; &ldquo;since, did you suffer, I should
+      feel as if it were all of my causing, and for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I should regret that?&rdquo; said the young man, in a tone so low,
+      that its meaning scarcely reached her. Then, as if alarmed at his own
+      words, he shook hands with her hastily, and walked down the square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha thought how different was the abrupt, singular manner of Nathanael
+      from Major Harper's tender, lingering, courteous adieu. Nevertheless, she
+      fulfilled her kind purpose towards the young man; and running to her own
+      window, watched his retreating figure, till her mind was relieved by
+      seeing him safely enter his brother's door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A week&mdash;nay, more than a week slipped by in the customary monotony of
+      that large, placidly genteel, Bedford Square house, and Agatha heard
+      nothing of the house round the corner, which constituted one of the faint
+      few interests of her existence. Sometimes she felt vexed at the lengthened
+      absence of her friend and &ldquo;guardian,&rdquo; as she persisted in considering him;
+      sometimes the thought of young Nathanael's pale face crossed her fancy,
+      awakening both sincere compassion and an uncomfortable doubt that all
+      might not be going on quite right within the half-drawn window-blinds, at
+      which she now and then darted a curious glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last her curiosity or interest rose to such a pitch, that it is to be
+      feared that Agatha in her independent spirit, and ignorance of, or
+      indifference to the world, might have committed the terrific impropriety
+      of making a good-natured inquiry at the door of this
+      bachelor-establishment. She certainly would, had it consisted only of the
+      harmless youth Nathanael; but then Major Harper, at the mention of whose
+      name Mrs. Ianson now began to smile aside, and the invalid Jane to dart
+      towards Agatha quick, inquisitive looks&mdash;No; she felt an invincible
+      repugnance to knocking, on any pretence, at Major Harper's door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, having nothing to do and little to think of, and, moreover, being
+      under the unwholesome necessity of keeping all her thoughts to herself,
+      her conjectures grew into such a mountain of discomfort&mdash;partly
+      selfish, partly generous, out of the hearty gratitude which had been
+      awakened in her towards the younger brother since the adventure with the
+      bear&mdash;that Miss Bowen set off one fine morning, hoping to gain
+      intelligence of her neighbours by the round-about medium of Emma
+      Thornycroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that excellent matron had had two of her children ill with some
+      infantine disease, and had in consequence not a thought to spare for any
+      one out of her own household. The name of Harper never crossed her lips
+      until Agatha, using a safe plural, boldly asked the question, &ldquo;Had Emma
+      seen anything of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Thorny croft could not remember.&mdash;Yes, she fancied some one had
+      called&mdash;Mr. Harper, perhaps; or no, it must have been the Major, for
+      somebody had said something about Mr. Nathanael's being ill or out of
+      town. But the very day after that the measles came out on James, and poor
+      little Missy had just been moved out of the night-nursery into the spare
+      bed-room, etc. etc. etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest of Emma's information concerning her babies was, as they say in
+      the advertisements of lost property, &ldquo;of no value to anybody but the
+      original owner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha bestowed a passing regret on young Nathanael, whether he were ill
+      or out of town; she would have liked to have seen more of him. But that
+      Major Harper should contrive to saunter up to the Regent's Park to visit
+      the Thornycrofts, and never find time to turn a street-corner to say &ldquo;How
+      d'ye do&rdquo; to <i>her</i>! she thought neither courteous nor kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was little inducement to spend the day with Emma, who, in her
+      present mood and the state of her household, was a mere conversational Dr.
+      Buchan&mdash;a walking epitome of domestic medicine. So Miss Bowen
+      extended her progress; took an early dinner with Mrs. Hill, and stayed all
+      the afternoon at that good old lady's silent and quiet lodgings, where
+      there was neither piano nor books, save one, which Agatha patiently read
+      aloud for two whole hours&mdash;&ldquo;The life of Elizabeth Fry.&rdquo; A volume
+      uninteresting enough to a young creature like herself, yet sometimes
+      smiting her with involuntary reflections, as she contrasted her own
+      aimless, useless existence with the life of that worthy Quakeress&mdash;the
+      prison-angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having tired herself out, first with reading and then with singing&mdash;very
+      prosy and lengthy ballads of the old school, which were the ditties Mrs.
+      Hill always chose&mdash;Agatha departed much more cheerful than she came.
+      So great strength and comfort is there in having something to do,
+      especially if that something happens to be, according to the old
+      nursery-rhyme&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not for ourself, but our neighbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another day passed&mdash;which being rainy, made the Doctor's dull house
+      seem more inane than ever to the girl's restless humour. In the evening,
+      at his old-accustomed hour, Major Harper &ldquo;dropped in,&rdquo; and Agatha forgot
+      his sins of omission in her cordial welcome. Very cordial it was, and
+      unaffected, such as a young girl of nineteen may give to a man of forty,
+      without her meaning being ill-construed. But under it Major Harper looked
+      pathetically sentimental and uncomfortable. Very soon he moved away and
+      became absorbed in delicate attentions towards the sick and suffering Jane
+      Ianson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha thought his behaviour rather odd, but generously put upon it the
+      best construction possible&mdash;viz. his known kind-heartedness. So she
+      herself went to the other side of the invalid couch, and tried to make
+      mirth likewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Asking after Mr. Harper, she learnt that her friend had been acting as
+      sick-nurse, to his brother for some days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow&mdash;he will not confess that he is ill, or what made him
+      so. But I hope he will be about again soon, for they are anxiously
+      expecting him in Dorsetshire. Nathanael is the 'good boy' of our family,
+      and as worthy a creature as ever breathed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha smiled with pleasure to see the elder brother waxing so generously
+      warm; but when she smiled, Major Harper sighed, and cast his handsome eyes
+      another way. All the evening he scarcely talked to her at all, but to Mrs.
+      and Miss Ianson. Agatha was quite puzzled by this pointed avoidance, not
+      to say incivility, and had some thoughts of plainly asking him if he were
+      vexed with her; but womanly pride conquered girlish frankness, and she was
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After tea their quartett was broken by a visitor, whom all seemed
+      astonished to see, and none more so than Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Nathanael, I thought you were safely disposed of with your sofa and
+      book. What madness makes you come out to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inclination, and weariness,&rdquo; returned the other, indifferently, as,
+      without making more excuses or apologies, he dragged himself to the
+      arm-chair, which Miss Bowen good-naturedly drew out for him, and slipped
+      into the circle, quite naturally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, wilful lads must have their way,&rdquo; cried his brother, &ldquo;and I am only
+      too glad to see you so much better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that the flow of the Major's winning conversation recommenced; in
+      which current all the rest of the company lay like silent pebbles, only
+      too happy to be bubbled round by such a pleasant and refreshing stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger Harper sat in his arm-chair, leaning his forehead on his hand,
+      and from under that curve now and then looking at them all, especially
+      Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a late hour the brothers went away, leaving Mrs. and Miss Ianson in a
+      state of extreme delight, and Miss Bowen in a mood that, to say the least,
+      was thoughtful&mdash;more thoughtful than usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that lively evening followed three dull days, consisting of a
+      solitary forenoon, an afternoon walk through the squares, dinner,
+      backgammon, and bed; the next morning, <i>de capo al fine</i>, and so on;
+      a dance of existence as monotonous as that of the spheres, and not half so
+      musical. On the fourth day, while Miss Bowen was out walking, Nathanael
+      Harper called to take leave before his journey to Dorsetshire. He stayed
+      some time, waiting Agatha's return, Mrs. Ianson thought; but finally
+      changed his mind, and made an abrupt departure, for which that young lady
+      was rather sorry than otherwise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fifth day, Emma Thornycroft appeared, and, strange to say, without any
+      of her little ones; still stranger, without many references to them on her
+      lips, except the general information that they were all getting well now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The busy woman evidently had something on her mind, and plunged at once <i>in
+      médias res</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, dear, I came to have a little talk with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Agatha smiling; calmly and prepared to give up her
+      morning to the discussion of some knotty point in dress or infantile
+      education. But she soon perceived that Emma's pretty face was too
+      ominously important for anything short of that gravest interest of
+      feminine life&mdash;matrimony; or more properly in this case&mdash;match-making.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, love,&rdquo; repeated Emma, with the affectionate accent that was
+      always quite real, but which now deepened under the circumstances of the
+      case, &ldquo;do you know that young Northen has been speaking to Mr. Thornycroft
+      about you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very sorry for it,&rdquo; was the short answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear, isn't it a great pity that you could not like the young
+      man? Such a good young man too, and with such a nice establishment
+      already. If you could only see his house in Cumberland Terrace&mdash;the
+      real Turkey carpets, inlaid tables, and damask chairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't marry carpets, tables, and chairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, you are <i>so</i> funny! Certainly not, without the poor man
+      himself. But there is no harm in him, and I am sure he would make an
+      excellent husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sincerely hope so, provided he is not mine. Come, Tittens, tell Mrs.
+      Thornycroft what <i>you</i> think on the matter,&rdquo; cried the wilful girl,
+      trying to turn the question off by catching her little favourite. But Emma
+      would not thus be set aside. She was evidently well primed with a stronger
+      and steadier motive than what usually occupied and sufficed her easy mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, how can you be so childish! But when you come to my age&rdquo;&mdash;-
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall, in a few more years. I wonder if I shall be as young-looking as
+      you, Emma?&rdquo; This was a very adroit thrust on the part of Miss Agatha, but
+      for once it failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope and trust so, dear. That is, if you have as good a husband as I
+      have. Only, be he what he may, he cannot be such another as my dear
+      James.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha internally hoped he might not; for, much as she liked and respected
+      Emma's good spouse, her ideal of a husband was certainly not Mr. James
+      Thornycroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; continued the anxious matron, keeping up the charge&mdash;&ldquo;tell
+      me, Agatha, do you ever intend to marry at all?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so; I can't say. Ask Tittens!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever think in earnest of marrying? And&rdquo;&mdash;here with an air of
+      real concern Emma stole her arm round her friend's waist&mdash;&ldquo;did you
+      ever see anybody whom you fancied you could like, if he asked you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha laughed, but the colour was rising in her brown cheek. &ldquo;Tut, tut,
+      what nonsense!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at me, dear, and answer seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, thus hemmed in, turned her face full round, and said, with some
+      dignity, &ldquo;I do not know, Emma, what right you have to ask me that
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, it is so; I feared it was,&rdquo; sighed Emma, not in the least offended.
+      &ldquo;I often thought so, even before he hinted&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who hinted&mdash;and what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't tell you; I promised not. And of course you ought not to know.
+      Oh, dear, what am I letting out!&rdquo; added poor Mrs. Thornycroft, in much
+      discomfiture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Emma, you will make me angry. What ridiculous notion have you got into
+      your head? What on earth do you mean?&rdquo; cried Miss Bowen, speaking quicker
+      than her usual quick fashion, and dashing the kitten off her knee as she
+      rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be vexed with me, my poor dear girl. It may not be so&mdash;I hope
+      not; and even if it were, he is so handsome, so agreeable, and talks so
+      beautifully&mdash;I am sure you are not the first woman by many a dozen
+      that has been in love with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With whom?&rdquo; was the sharp question, as Agatha grew quite pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must not say.&mdash;Ah, yes&mdash;I must. It may be a mere supposition.
+      I wish you would only tell me so, and set my mind at rest, and his too. He
+      is quite unhappy about it, poor man, as I see. Though, to be sure, he
+      could not help it, even if you did care for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him&mdash;what 'him?'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's storm of passion sank to a dead calm. She sat down again
+      composedly, turning her flushed cheeks from the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is a new and very entertaining story. You will be kind enough, Emma,
+      to tell me the whole, from beginning to end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all lies in a nutshell, my dear. Oh, how glad I am that you take it so
+      quietly. Then, perhaps it is all a mistake, arising from your hearty
+      manner to every one. I told him so, and said that he need not scruple
+      visiting you, or be in the least afraid that&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I was in love with him? He <i>was</i> afraid, then? He informed you
+      so? Very kind of him! I am very much obliged to Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now&mdash;off you go again. Oh, if you would but be patient&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Patient&mdash;when the only friend I had insults me!&mdash;when I have
+      neither father, nor brother,&mdash;nobody&mdash;nobody&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped, and her throat choked; but the struggle was in vain; she
+      burst into uncontrollable tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have me, Agatha, always me, and James!&rdquo; cried Emma, hanging about her
+      neck, and weeping for company; until, very soon, the proud girl shut down
+      the floodgates of her passion, and became herself again. Herself&mdash;as
+      she could not have been, were there a mightier power dwelling in her heart
+      than pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Emma, since you have seen how the thing has vexed me, though not&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      she laughed&mdash;&ldquo;not as being one of the many dozens of fools in love
+      with Major Harper&mdash;will you tell me how this amusing circumstance
+      arose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really cannot, my dear. The whole thing was so hurried and confused. We
+      were talking together, very friendly and sociably, as the Major and I
+      always do, about you; and how much I wished you to be settled in life, as
+      he must wish likewise, being the trustee of your little fortune, and
+      standing in a sort of fatherly relation towards you. He did not seem to
+      like the word; looked very grave and very&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Compassionate, doubtless! Said 'he had reason to believe, that is to
+      fear, I did not regard him quite as a father!' That was it, Emma, I
+      suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear, I am glad to see you laughing at it I don't remember his
+      precise words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably these: 'My dear Mrs. Thornycroft, I am greatly afraid poor
+      Agatha Bowen is dying for love of me.' Very candid&mdash;and like a
+      gentleman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you are too sarcastic; for he is a gentleman, and most kind-hearted
+      too. If you had only seen how grieved he was at the bare idea of your
+      being made unhappy on his account!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How considerate!&mdash;and how very confidential he must have been to
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, he hardly said anything plainly; I assure you he did not. Only
+      somehow he gave me the impression that he was afraid of&mdash;what I had
+      feared for a long time. For as I always told you, Agatha, Major Harper is
+      a settled bachelor&mdash;too old to change. Besides, he has had so many
+      women in love with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he count their names, one by one, on his fingers, and hang their
+      locks of hair on his paletot, after the Indian fashion Nathanael Harper
+      told us of?&mdash;Poor Nathanael!&rdquo; And on her excited mood that pale
+      &ldquo;good&rdquo; face rose up like a vision of serenity. She ceased to mock so
+      bitterly at Nathanael's brother and her own once-honoured friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like your abusing Major Harper in this way,&rdquo; said Emma, gravely;
+      &ldquo;we all know his little weaknesses, but he is an excellent man, and my
+      husband likes him. And it is nothing so very wonderful if he has been
+      rather confidential with a steady married woman like me&mdash;just the
+      right person, in short. It was for your good too, my dear. I am sure I
+      asked him plainly if he ever could think of marrying you. But he shook his
+      head, and answered, 'No, that was quite impossible.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite impossible, indeed,&rdquo; said Agatha, her proud lips quivering. &ldquo;And
+      should he favour you with any more confidences, you may tell him that
+      Agatha Bowen never knew what it was to be 'in love' with any man.
+      Likewise, that were he the only man on earth, she would not condescend to
+      fall in love with or marry Major Frederick Harper.&mdash;Now, Emma, let us
+      go down to lunch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They would have done so, after Mrs. Thornycroft had kissed and embraced
+      her friend, in sincere delight that Agatha was quite heart-whole, and
+      ready to make what she called &ldquo;a sensible marriage,&rdquo; but they were stopped
+      on the stairs by a letter that came by post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A strange hand,&rdquo; Miss Bowen observed, carelessly. &ldquo;Will you go
+      down-stairs, Emma, and I will come when I have read it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Agatha did not read it. She threw it on the floor, and turning the
+      bolt of the door, paced her little drawing-room in extreme agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad I did not love him&mdash;I thank God I did not love him,&rdquo; she
+      muttered by fits. &ldquo;But I might have done so, so good and kind as he was,
+      and I so young, with no one to care for. And no one cares for me&mdash;no
+      one&mdash;no one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young Northen&rdquo; darted through her mind, but she laughed to scorn the
+      possibility. What love could there be in an empty-headed fool?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never any but fools have ever made love to me! Oh, if an honest, noble
+      man did but love me, and I could marry, and get out of this friendless
+      desolation, this contemptible, scheming, match-making set, where I and my
+      feelings are talked of, speculated on, bandied about from house to house.
+      It is horrible&mdash;horrible! But I'll not cry! No!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She dried the tears that were scorching her eyes, and mechanically took up
+      her letter; until, remembering how long she had been upstairs, and how all
+      that time Emma's transparent disposition and love of talk might have laid
+      her and her whole affairs open before the Iansons, she quickly put the
+      epistle in her pocket unread, and went down into the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not till night, when she sat idly brushing out her long curls, and
+      looking at her Pawnee face in the mirror&mdash;alas! the poor face now
+      seemed browner and uglier than ever!&mdash;that Agatha recollected this
+      same letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may give me something to think about, which will be well,&rdquo; sighed she;
+      and carelessly pushing her hair behind her ears, she drew the candle
+      nearer, and began leisurely to read.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/p036.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="She Began Leisurely to Read  P036" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The commencement was slightly abrupt:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A month ago&mdash;had any one told me I should write this letter, I could
+      not have believed it possible. But strange things happen in our lives&mdash;things
+      over which we seem to have no control; we are swept on by an impulse and a
+      power which most often guide us for our good. I hope it may be so now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to England with no intention save that of seeing my family, and no
+      affection in my heart stronger than for them. Living the solitary life
+      that Uncle Brian leads, I have met with few women, and have never loved
+      any woman&mdash;until now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may think me a 'boy;' indeed, I overheard you say so once; but I am a
+      man&mdash;with a heart full of all a man's emotions, passionate and
+      strong. Into that heart I took <i>you</i>, from the first moment I ever
+      saw your face. This is just three weeks ago, but it might have been three
+      years&mdash;I know you so well. I have watched you continually; every
+      trait of your character&mdash;every thought of your mind. From other
+      people I have found out every portion of your history&mdash;every daily
+      action of your life. I know you wholly and completely, faults and all, and&mdash;I
+      love you. No man will ever love you more than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you should have the least interest in me now, is, I am aware,
+      unlikely; indeed, almost impossible; therefore I shall not expect or
+      desire any answer to this letter, sent just before I leave for
+      Dorsetshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On my return, a week hence, I shall come and see you, should you not
+      forbid it. I shall come merely as a <i>friend</i>, so that you need have
+      no scruple in my visiting you, once at least. If afterwards, when you know
+      me better, you should suffer me to ask for another title, giving to you
+      the dearest and closest that man can give to woman&mdash;then&mdash;oh!
+      little you think how I would love you, Agatha!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha read this letter all through with a kind of fascination. Her first
+      emotion was that of most utter astonishment. It had never crossed her mind
+      that Nathanael Harper was the sort of being very likely to fall in love
+      with anybody&mdash;and for him to love her! With such a love, too, that
+      despite its suddenness carried with it the impression of quiet depth,
+      strength, and endurance irresistible. It was beyond belief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She read over again fragments of his own words. &ldquo;I took you into my heart
+      from the first moment I ever saw you;&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I love you&mdash;no man will
+      ever love you more than I.&rdquo; &ldquo;Little you think how I would love you,
+      Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha&mdash;who a minute before had been pondering mournfully that no one
+      cared for her&mdash;that she was of no use to any one&mdash;and that no
+      living soul would miss her, were her existence blotted out from the face
+      of earth that very night!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to tremble; ay, even though she felt that Nathanael had judged
+      correctly&mdash;that she did not now love him, and probably never might&mdash;still,
+      overwhelmed with the sudden sense of <i>his</i> great love, she trembled.
+      A strange softness crept over her; and for the second time that day she
+      yielded to a weakness only drawn from her proud heart by rare emotions&mdash;Agatha
+      wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      To say that Agatha Bowen slept but ill that night would be unnecessary;
+      since there is probably no girl who did not do so after receiving a first
+      love-letter. And this was indeed her first; for the commonplace and
+      business-like episode of young Northen had not been beautified by any such
+      compositions. A second harmless adventure of like kind had furnished her
+      with a little amusement and some vexation,&mdash;but never till now had
+      her girlish heart been approached by any wooing which she could
+      instinctively feel was that of real love. It touched her very much; for a
+      time absorbing all distinct resolutions or intentions in a maze of
+      pleasant, tender pity, and wonderment not unmixed with fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half the night she lay awake, planning what she should do and say in the
+      future; writing in her head a dozen imaginary answers to Mr. Harper's
+      letter, until she recollected that he had expressly stated it required
+      none. Nevertheless, she thought she must write, if only to tell him that
+      she did not love him, and that there was not the slightest use in his
+      hoping to be anything more to her than a friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A friend!&rdquo; She recoiled at the word, remembering how sorely her pride and
+      feelings had been wounded by him she once held to be the best friend she
+      had. She never could hold him as such any more. Her impulsive anger
+      exaggerated even to wickedness the vanity of a man who fancied every woman
+      was in love with him. She forgot all Major Harper's good qualities, his
+      high sense of honour, his unselfish kindheartedness, his generous, gay
+      spirit She set him down at once as unworthy the name of friend. Then&mdash;what
+      friend had she? Not one&mdash;not one in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this strait, strangely, temptingly sweet seemed to come the words, &ldquo;<i>I
+      love you; no man will ever love you better than I.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To one whose heart is altogether free, the knowledge of being deeply
+      loved, and by a man whose attachment would do honour to any woman, is a
+      thought so soothing, so alluring, that from it spring half the marriages&mdash;not
+      strictly love-marriages&mdash;which take place in the world; sometimes,
+      though not always, ending in real happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha began to consider that it would seem very odd if she wrote to Mr.
+      Harper, in his home, among his family. Perhaps his sisters might notice
+      her handwriting&mdash;a useless fear, since they had never seen it; and at
+      all events it would be a pity to trouble his happiness in that pleasant
+      visit, by conveying prematurely the news of his rejection. She would wait,
+      and give him no answer for at least a day or two; it was such a bitter
+      thing to inflict pain on any human being, especially on one so gentle and
+      good as Nathanael Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this determination she went to sleep. She woke next morning, having a
+      confused sense that something had happened, that some one had grieved and
+      offended her; and&mdash;strange consciousness, softly dawning!&mdash;that
+      some one loved her&mdash;deeply, dearly, as in all the days since she was
+      born she had never been loved before. That even now some one might be
+      thinking of her&mdash;of her alone, as his first object in the world. The
+      sensation was new, inexplicable, but pleasant nevertheless. It made her
+      feel&mdash;what the desolate orphan girl rarely had felt&mdash;a sort of
+      tenderness for, and honouring of, herself. As she dressed, she once looked
+      wistfully, even pensively, in the looking-glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is certainly a queer, brown, Pawnee face! I wonder what he could see
+      in it to admire. He is very good, very! I wish I could have cared for
+      him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her heart trembled; all the woman in her was touched. But Agatha was
+      resolved not to be sentimental, so she fastened her morning-dress rather
+      more tastefully than usual, and descended to breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside her plate lay a letter, which was pretty closely eyed by the Ianson
+      family, as their inmate's correspondence had always been remarkably small.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A black edge and seal. No bad news, I hope, my dear Miss Bowen?&rdquo; said the
+      doctor's wife, sympathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha did not fear. Alas! in the whole wide world she had not a relative
+      to lose! And, glancing at the rather peculiar hand, she recognised it at
+      once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black seal, that one of
+      the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether from the spice of
+      malice in her composition she wished to disappoint the polite
+      inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous reasons of
+      her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the meal was done;
+      when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her own sitting-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not the slightest necessity for any such precaution, as the
+      missive contained merely these lines:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my letter of yesterday&mdash;which I doubt not you have received,
+      since I posted it myself&mdash;I omitted to say that not even my brother
+      is aware of it, or of its purport; as I rarely inform any one of my own
+      private affairs. Though, of course, I presume not to lay the same
+      restriction on you. God bless you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;God bless you!&rdquo; was added hastily in less neat writing, as if the
+      letter had been broken open to do it. The signature was merely his
+      initials, &ldquo;N. L. H.,&rdquo; and the date &ldquo;Kingcombe Holm,&rdquo; which Agatha supposed
+      was his father's house in Dorsetshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, even there, amidst his dear home circle, he had thought of her!
+      Agatha was more moved by that trifling circumstance, and by the
+      self-restraint and silence that accompanied it, than she would have been
+      by a whole quire of ordinary love-letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not write again during seven entire days, and while this pause
+      lasted she had time to think much and deeply. She ceased to play and talk
+      confidentially with Tittens, and felt herself growing into a woman fast.
+      Great mental changes may at times be wrought in one week, especially when
+      it happens to be one of those not infrequent July weeks, which seem as if
+      the sky were bent upon raining out at once the tears of the whole summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the Friday evening, when Miss Bowen, heartily tired of her
+      weather-bound imprisonment, stood at the dining-room window, looking out
+      on a hazy, yellow glow that began to appear in the west, sparkled on the
+      drenched trees of the square, and made little bright reflections on the
+      rain-pools of the pavement,&mdash;there appeared a gentleman from the
+      house round the corner, carefully picking his steps by the crossing, and
+      finally landing at Doctor Ianson's door. It was Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha instinctively quitted the window, but on second thoughts returned
+      thither, and when he chanced to look up, composedly bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was come to spend the evening as usual, and she must meet him as usual
+      too, otherwise he might think&mdash;supposing he had not yet seen Emma
+      Thornycroft, or even if he had,&mdash;might think&mdash;what made Agatha's
+      cheek burn like fire. But she controlled herself. The first vehemence of
+      her pride and anger was over now. She had discovered that the dawning
+      inclination on which she had bestowed a few dreamings and sighings,
+      trying, in foolish girlish fashion, to fan a chance tinder-spark into the
+      holy altar-fire of a woman's first love&mdash;had gone out in darkness,
+      and that her free heart lay quiet, in a sort of twilight shade, waiting
+      for its destiny; nor for the last few days had she even thought of
+      Nathanael. His silence had as yet no power to grieve or surprise her; if
+      it struck her at all, it was with the hope that perhaps his wooing might
+      die out of itself, and save her the trouble of a painful refusal. She had
+      begun to think&mdash;what girls of nineteen are very slow to comprehend&mdash;that
+      there might be other things in the world besides love and its ideal
+      dreams. She had read more than usual&mdash;some sensible prose, some
+      lofty-hearted poetry; and was, possibly, &ldquo;a sadder and a wiser&rdquo; girl than
+      she had been that day week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this changed mood, after a little burst of well-controlled temper, a
+      scornful pang, and a slight trepidation of the heart, Miss Agatha Bowen
+      walked up-stairs to the drawing-room to meet Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner in so doing was most commendable, and a worthy example to those
+      young ladies who have to extinguish the tiny embers of a month or two's
+      idle fancy, created by an impressible nature, by girlhood's frantic
+      longing after unseen mysteries, and by the terrible misfortune of having
+      nothing to do. But Miss Bowen's demeanour, so highly creditable, cannot be
+      set forward in words, as it consisted in the very simplest, mildest, and
+      politest &ldquo;How d'ye do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper met her with his accustomed pleasantly tender air, until
+      gradually he recollected himself, looked pensive, and subsided into
+      coldness. It was evident to Agatha that he could not have had any
+      communication from Mrs. Thornycroft. She was growing vexed again,
+      alternating from womanly wrath to childish pettishness&mdash;for in her
+      heart of hearts she had a deep and friendly regard for the noble half of
+      her guardian's character&mdash;when suddenly she decided that it was
+      wisest to leave the room and take refuge in indifference and her piano.
+      There she stayed for certainly an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, Major Harper came softly into her sitting-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't let me disturb you&mdash;but, when you have quite finished playing,
+      I should like to say a word to you.&mdash;Merely on business,&rdquo; he added,
+      with a slightly confused manner, unusual to the perfect self-possession of
+      Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha sat down and faced him, so frigidly, that he seemed to withdraw
+      from the range of her eyes. &ldquo;You do not often converse with me on
+      business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew back. &ldquo;That is true. But I considered that with so young a lady as
+      yourself it was needless.&mdash;And I hate all business,&rdquo; he added,
+      imperatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I regret that my father burdened you with mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No burden; it is a pleasure&mdash;if by any means I can be of use to you.
+      Believe me, my dear Miss Bowen, your advantage, your security, is my chief
+      aim. And therefore in this investment, of which I think it right to inform
+      you&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Investment?&rdquo; she repeated, turning round a childish puzzled face. &ldquo;Oh,
+      Major Harper, you know I am quite ignorant of these things. Do let us talk
+      of something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all my heart,&rdquo; he responded, evidently much relieved, and turned the
+      somewhat awkward conversation to the first available topic, which chanced
+      to be his brother Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot think how much I miss him in my rooms, even though he was such
+      a short time with me. An excellent lad is N. L., and I hear they are
+      making so much of him in Dorsetshire. They tell me he will certainly stay
+      there the whole three months of his leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed!&rdquo; observed Agatha, briefly. She hardly knew whether to be
+      pleased or sorry at this news, or by doubting it to take a feminine pride
+      in being so much better informed on the subject than the Harper family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No wonder he is so happy,&rdquo; continued the Major, with one of his
+      occasional looks of momentary, though real sadness. &ldquo;Fifteen years is a
+      long time to be away. Though I fear, I myself have been almost as long
+      without seeing the whole family together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they all together now?&rdquo;&mdash;Agatha felt an irresistible desire to
+      ask questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe so; at least my father and my three unmarried sisters. Old
+      bachelors and old maids are plentiful in the Harper family. We are all
+      stiff-necked animals; we eschew even gilded harness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's cheek glowed with anger at this supposed benevolent warning to
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say your sisters are very happy, nevertheless; marriage is not
+      always a 'holy estate,'&rdquo; said she carelessly. &ldquo;But there was some other
+      Dorsetshire lady whom Mr. Harper told me of. Who is Anne Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Frederick Harper actually started, and the deep sensitive colour,
+      which not even his forty years and his long worldly experience could quite
+      keep down, rose in his handsome face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So N. L. spoke to you of her. No wonder. She is an&mdash;an excellent
+      person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An excellent person,&rdquo; repeated Agatha mischievously. &ldquo;Then she is rather
+      elderly, I conclude?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elderly&mdash;Anne Valery elderly! By Heavens, no!&rdquo; (And the excited
+      Major used the solitary asseveration which clung to him, the last trace of
+      his brief military experience.) &ldquo;Anne Valery old! Not a day older than
+      myself! We were companions as boy and girl, young man and young woman,
+      until&mdash;stay&mdash;ten&mdash;fifteen years ago. Fifteen years!&mdash;ah,
+      yes&mdash;I suppose she would be considered elderly now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this burst, Major Harper sank into one of his cloudy moods. At last
+      he said, in a confidential and rather sentimental tone, &ldquo;Miss Valery is an
+      excellent lady&mdash;an old friend of our family; but she and I have not
+      met for many years. Circumstances necessitated our parting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Circumstances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha guessed the truth&mdash;or fancied she did; and her wrathful pride
+      was up again. More trophies of the illustrious Frederick's unwilling
+      slaughters&mdash;more heart's blood dyeing the wheels of this unconscious
+      Juggernaut of female devotees! Yet there he sat, looking so pathetically
+      regretful, as if he felt himself the blameless, helpless instrument of
+      fate to work the sentimental woe of all womankind! Agatha was absolutely
+      dumb with indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a little unjust, even were he erring. It is often a great
+      misfortune, but it is no blame to a good man that good women&mdash;more
+      than one&mdash;have loved him; if, as all noble men do, he hides the
+      humiliation or sorrow of their love sacredly in his own heart, and makes
+      no boast of it. Of this nobility of character&mdash;rare indeed, yet not
+      unknown or impossible&mdash;Frederick Harper just fell short. Kind,
+      clever, and amusing, he might be, but he was a man not sufficiently great
+      to be humble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No more was said on the mysterious topic of Miss Anne Valery. Agatha was
+      too angry; and the subject seemed painful to Major Harper. Though he did
+      what was not his habit&mdash;especially with female friends&mdash;he
+      endeavoured, instead of encouraging, to throw off his momentary
+      sentimentality, and become his usual witty, cheerful, agreeable self.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Bowen, even in her tenderest inclinings towards her guardian, had at
+      times thought him a little too talkative&mdash;a little too much of the
+      brilliant man of the world. Now, in her bitterness against him, his gaiety
+      was positively offensive to her. She rose, and proposed that they should
+      quit her own private room for the general drawing-room of the family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iansons were all there, even the Doctor being prone to linger in his
+      dull home for the pleasure of Major Harper's delightful company. There was
+      another, too, the unexpected sight of whom made both Agatha and her
+      companion start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she and the Major entered, there arose, almost like an apparition from
+      his seat in the window-recess, the tall, slight figure of Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;N. L.! Where on earth have you dropped from? What a <i>very</i>
+      extraordinary fellow you are!&rdquo; cried the elder brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps unwelcome also,&rdquo; said the quiet voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unwelcome&mdash;never, my dear boy! Only next time, do be a little more
+      confidential. Here have I been telling a whole string of apparent fibs
+      about your movements&mdash;have I not Miss Bowen? Do you not consider this
+      brother of mine the most eccentric creature in the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked up, and met the young man's eyes. Their expression could not
+      be mistaken; they were <i>lover's eyes</i>&mdash;such as never in her life
+      she had met before. They seemed constraining her to do what out of pity or
+      mechanical impulse she at once did&mdash;silently to hold out her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael took it with his usual manner. There was no other greeting on
+      his part or hers. Immediately afterwards he slipped away to the very
+      farthest corner of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be hard to say whether Agatha felt relieved or disappointed at
+      his behaviour; but surprised she most certainly was. This was not the sort
+      of &ldquo;lover's meeting&rdquo; of girlish imaginings; nor was he the sort of lover,
+      so perfectly unobtrusive, self-restrained, and coldly calm. She was glad
+      she had not been at the pains to write the romantically pitiful, tender
+      refusal, which she had concocted sentence by sentence in her
+      deeply-touched heart, during that first wakeful night He did not seem half
+      miserable enough to need such wondrous compassion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freed in a measure from constraint, she became her own natural self, as
+      women rarely, indeed never, are in the presence of those they love, or of
+      those by whom they believe themselves loved. Neither unpleasant
+      consciousness rested heavily on Agatha now; her demeanour was therefore
+      very sweet, candid, and altogether pleasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper even forgot his benevolent precautions on Miss Bowen's
+      account, and tried to render himself as agreeable as heretofore, talking
+      away at a tremendous rate, and with most admirable eloquence, while his
+      brother sat silent in a corner. The contrast between them was never so
+      strong. But once or twice Agatha, wearied out with laughing and listening,
+      stole a look towards the figure that she felt was sitting there; and
+      encountered the only sign Nathanael gave,&mdash;the unmistakeable &ldquo;lover's
+      eyes.&rdquo; They seemed to pierce into her heart and make it quiver&mdash;not
+      exactly with tenderness, but with the strange controlling sense by which
+      the love of a strong nature, reticent, and self-possessed even in its
+      utmost passion&mdash;at times appears to enfold a woman&mdash;and any true
+      affection, whether of lover or friend, to those who have never known it,
+      and are unconsciously pining for lack of it, comes at first like water in
+      a thirsty land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Bowen's frank gaiety died slowly away, and she fell into more than
+      one long reverie, which did not escape the benign notice of her guardian.
+      He grew serious, and made an attempt to remove from her his own dangerous
+      proximity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, N. L., it is time we vanished. You have never told me the least
+      fragment of news from home&mdash;that is, from Kingcombe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were too much engaged, brother. But we have plenty of time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kingcombe; is that the place your father lives at?&rdquo; said Mrs. lanson, who
+      took a patronising interest in the young man. &ldquo;What a pretty name! Were
+      you aware of it, Miss Bowen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, for her life, could not help changing colour as she answered
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; knowing perfectly well who was watching her the while, and that he
+      and she were thinking of the same thing, namely, the brief note whose date
+      was her only information as to the family residence of the Harpers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kingcombe is as pretty as its name,&rdquo; observed the elder brother,&mdash;&ldquo;a
+      name more peculiar than at first seems. It was given by a loyal Harper
+      during the Protectorate. It had been St. Mary's Abbey, but he, with
+      pretended sanctimoniousness, changed the name, and called it <i>Kingcombe
+      Holm</i>; as a gentle hint from the Dorsetshire coast to Prince Charles
+      over the water. Ah! a clever fellow was my great-great-grandfather,
+      Geoffrey Harper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All laughed at the anecdote, and the Iansons looked with additional
+      respect on the man who thus carelessly counted his grandfathers up to the
+      Commonwealth. But Mrs. Ianson's curiosity penetrated even to the Harpers
+      of Queen Victoria's day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed we can't let you two gentlemen away so early. If you have family
+      matters to talk over, suppose we send you for half-an-hour to Miss Bowen's
+      drawing-room! or, if they are not secrets, pray discuss them here. I am
+      sure we are all greatly interested; are we not, Miss Bowen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha made some unintelligible answer. She thought Nathanael's quick eyes
+      darted from her to Mrs. lanson and back again, as if to judge whether,
+      young-lady-like, she had told his secret to all her female friends. But
+      there was something in Agatha's countenance which marked her out as that
+      rare character, a woman who can hold her tongue&mdash;even in a love
+      affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a minute she looked at Mr. Harper gravely, kindly, as if to say,
+      &ldquo;You need not fear&mdash;I have not betrayed you;&rdquo; and meeting her candid
+      eyes, his suspicions vanished. He drew nearer to the circle, and began to
+      talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. lanson is very kind, but we need not hold any such solemn conclave,
+      Frederick,&rdquo; said he, smiling. &ldquo;All the news that I did not unfold in my
+      letter of yesterday, I can tell you now. I would like every one here to be
+      interested in our good sisters and in all at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;oh, yes,&rdquo; responded the other, mechanically. &ldquo;Any messages for
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father says he hopes to see you this autumn at Kingcombe. He is
+      growing an old man now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, indeed!&mdash;An admirable man is my father, Miss Bowen. Quite a
+      gentleman of the old school; but peculiar&mdash;rather peculiar. Well,
+      what else, Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth, since Emily's death, seems to have longed after you very much.&mdash;You
+      were the next eldest, you know, and she fancies you were always very like
+      Emily. She says it is so long since you have been to Kingcombe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is such a dull place. Besides I have seen them all elsewhere
+      occasionally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All but Elizabeth; and, you know, unless you go to Kingcombe, you never
+      can see Elizabeth,&rdquo; said the younger brother, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true!&mdash;Poor dear soul!&rdquo; Frederick answered, looking grave.
+      &ldquo;Well, I will go ere long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps at Eulalie's wedding, which I told you of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True&mdash;true. Eulalie is the youngest Miss Harper, as we should
+      explain to our kind friends here&mdash;whom I hope we are not boring very
+      much with our family reminiscences. And Eulalie, contrary to the usual
+      custom of the Harpers, is actually going to be married. To a clergyman, is
+      he not, N. L.?&mdash;late Curate of Kingcombe parish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;of Anne Valery's parish. By the way, you have not yet asked a
+      single question about Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major's aspect visibly changed. In all the years of his acquaintance
+      with the world he had not yet learnt the convenient art of being a
+      physiognomical hypocrite. &ldquo;Well, never mind&mdash;I ask a dozen questions
+      now. How could I forget so excellent a friend of the family?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is indeed,&rdquo; said Nathanael, earnestly, while a glow of pleasure or
+      enthusiasm dyed his pale features, and he even ceased his close watch over
+      Agatha. &ldquo;Though I was such a boy when I left, I find I have kept a true
+      memory of Anne Valery. She is just the woman I always pictured her, from
+      my own remembrance, and from Uncle Brian's chance allusions; though, in
+      general, it was little enough he said of England or home. I was quite
+      surprised to hear from Elizabeth what a strong friendship used to exist
+      between Uncle Brian, yourself, and Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper's restlessness increased. &ldquo;Really, we are indulging our
+      friends with our whole genealogy&mdash;uncles, aunts, and collateral
+      branches included&mdash;which cannot be very interesting to Mrs. and Miss
+      Ianson, or even to Miss Bowen, however kindly she may be disposed towards
+      the Harper family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iansons here made polite disclaimers, but Agatha said nothing.
+      Immediately afterwards, Nathanael's conversation likewise ebbed away into
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next time Agatha heard him speak was in answer to a sudden question of
+      his brother's as to what had made him return to London so unexpectedly. &ldquo;I
+      thought you would have stayed at least three months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said in a low tone; &ldquo;by that time I shall be far enough away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From circumstances which have lately arisen&rdquo;&mdash;he did not look at
+      Agatha, but she felt his meaning&mdash;&ldquo;I fear I must return to America at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said no more, for his brother asked no more questions. But the tidings
+      jarred painfully on Agatha's mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was then going away, this man of so gentle, true and noble nature&mdash;this,
+      the only man who loved her, and whom, while she thought of rejecting, she
+      had still hoped to retain as an honoured and dear friend. He was going
+      away, and she might never see him more. She felt grieved, and her lonely,
+      unloved position rose up before her in more bitterness and more fear than
+      it was wont to do. She became as thoughtful and silent as Nathanael
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper never attempted to address her or attract her attention during
+      all that strange, long evening, which comprised in itself so many slight
+      circumstances, so many conflicting states of feeling. Almost the only word
+      this very eccentric lover said to her was in a whisper, just as his hand
+      touched hers in bidding good-bye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I am leaving England so soon, may I come here again to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not to-morrow;&rdquo; and then, her kind heart repenting of the evident
+      pain she gave, she added, &ldquo;Well, the day after to-morrow, if you like.
+      But&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever that forbidding &ldquo;but&rdquo; was meant to hint, Nathanael did not stay
+      to hear. He was gone in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, that night a chance word of Mrs. Ianson's did more for the suit
+      of the unloved, or only half-loved lover, than he himself ever dreamed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said that lady, with sly, matronly smile, as, showing more
+      attention than usual, she lighted Agatha's candle for bed&mdash;&ldquo;Well, my
+      dear Miss Bowen, is the wedding to be at my house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What wedding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you know; you know! I have guessed it a long while, but to-night&mdash;surely,
+      I may congratulate you? Never was there a more charming man than Major
+      Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked furious. &ldquo;Has he then&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;told you the lie he told to
+      Emma&rdquo;&mdash;she was about to say, but luckily checked herself. &ldquo;Has he
+      then been so premature as to give you this information?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! oh, of course not. But the thing is as plain as light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken, Mrs. Ianson. He is one of my very kindest friends; but
+      I have never had the slightest intention of marrying Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that she took her candle, and walked slowly to her own room. There,
+      with her door locked, though that was needless, since there was no welcome
+      or unwelcome friendship likely to intrude on her utter solitude,&mdash;she
+      gave way to a woman's wounded pride. Added to this, was the terror that
+      seizes a helpless young creature, who, all supports taken away, is at last
+      set face to face with the cruel world, without even the steadfastness
+      given by a strong sorrow. If she had really loved Frederick Harper,
+      perhaps her condition would have been more endurable than now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, above the storm of passion there seemed floating an audible
+      voice, just as if the mind of him who she knew was always thinking of her,
+      then spoke to her mind, with the wondrous communication that has often
+      happened in dreams, or waking, between two who deeply loved. A
+      communication which appears both possible and credible to those who have
+      felt any strong human attachment, especially that one which for the sake
+      of its object seems able to cross the bounds of distance, time, life, or
+      eternity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a thing that neither then or afterwards could she ever account for,
+      and years elapsed before she mentioned the circumstance to any one. But
+      while she lay weeping across her bed, Agatha seemed to hear distinctly,
+      just as if it had been a voice gliding past the window, half-mixing with
+      the wind that was then rising, the words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I love you! No man will ever love you like me.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That night, before she slept, her determination was taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Miss Bowen astonished every one, and excited once more Mrs.
+      Ianson's incredulous smile, by openly desiring the servant who waited to
+      take a message for her to Major Harper's. It was to the effect that she
+      wished immediately to see that gentleman, could he make it convenient to
+      visit her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The message was given by her very distinctly, and with most creditable
+      calmness, considering that the destinies of her whole life hung on the
+      sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper appeared, and was shown into Miss Bowen's drawing-room. She
+      was not there, and the Major waited rather uneasily for several minutes,
+      unaware that half of that time she had been standing without, her hand on
+      the lock of the door. But her tremulousness was that of natural emotion,
+      not of fluctuating purpose. No physiognomist studying Agatha's mouth and
+      chin would doubt the fact, that though rather slow to will&mdash;when she
+      had once willed, scarcely anything had power to shake her resolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went in at last, and bade Major Harper good morning. &ldquo;I have sent for
+      you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to talk over a little business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business!&rdquo;&mdash;And the hesitation and discomfort which seemed to arise
+      in him at the mere mention of the word again were visible in Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not trust business&mdash;something quite different,&rdquo; said Agatha,
+      scarcely able to help smiling at the alarm of her guardian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then anything you like, my dear Miss Bowen! I have nothing in the world
+      to do to-day. That stupid brother of mine is worse company than none at
+      all. He said he had letters to write to Kingcombe, and vanished up-stairs!
+      The rude fellow! But he is an excellent fellow too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you have always said. He appears to love his home, and be much beloved
+      there. Is it so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly. Already they know him better than they do me, and care
+      for him more; though he has been away for fifteen years. But then he has
+      kept up a constant correspondence with them; while I, tossing about in the
+      world&mdash;ah! I have had a hard life, Miss Bowen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked so sad, that Agatha felt sorry for him. But his melancholy moods
+      had less power to touch her than of old. His gaiety so quickly and
+      invariably returned, that her belief in the reality of his grief was
+      somewhat shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused a little, and then recurred again, indifferently as it were, to
+      Nathanael&mdash;the one person in his family of whom Major Harper always
+      spoke gladly and warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to have a great love for your younger brother. Is he then so
+      noble a character?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you call a noble character, my dear young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The half-jesting, half-patronising manner irritated Agatha; but she
+      answered boldly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man honest in his principles, faithful to his word; just, generous, and
+      honourable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a category of qualities! How interested young ladies are in a pale,
+      thin boy! Well then&rdquo;&mdash;seeing that Agatha looked serious&mdash;&ldquo;well
+      then, I declare to Heaven that, even according to your high-flown
+      definitions, he is as noble a lad as ever breathed. I can find no fault in
+      him, except that, as I said, he is such a mere boy. Are you satisfied? Did
+      you want to try if I were indeed a heartless, unbrotherly,
+      good-for-nothing fellow, as you appear to think me sometimes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Agatha briefly, noticing with something like scorn the Major's
+      instinctive assumption that her questions must have some near or remote
+      reference to himself, while he never once guessed their real motive. That
+      answered, she changed the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After half-an-hour's chat, Major Harper delicately alluded to the supposed
+      business on which she had wished to see him, though in a tone that showed
+      him to be rather doubtful whether it existed at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha coloured, and her heart quailed a little, as any girl's would, in
+      having to speak so openly of things which usually reach young maidens
+      softly murmured amidst the confessions of first love, or revealed by
+      tender parents with blessings and tears. Life's earliest and best romance
+      came to her with all its bloom worn away&mdash;all its sacredness and
+      mystery set aside. For a moment she felt this hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished to inform you of something nearly concerning me, which, as the
+      guardian appointed by my father, it is right you should know. I have had&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      she tried to make her lips say the words without faltering&mdash;&ldquo;I have
+      had an offer of marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless my soul!&rdquo; stammered out Major Harper, completely thrown off his
+      guard by surprise. A very awkward pause ensued, until, his natural good
+      feeling conquering any other, he said, not without emotion, &ldquo;The fact of
+      your consulting me shows that this offer is&mdash;is not without interest
+      to you. May I ask&mdash;is it likely&mdash;that I shall have to
+      congratulate you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose up slowly, and walked to the window. Whether his sensations were
+      merely those of wounded vanity, or whether he had liked her better than he
+      himself acknowledged, certain it was that Major Frederick Harper was a
+      good deal moved&mdash;so much so, that he succeeded in concealing it. He
+      came back, very kind, subdued, and tender, sat down by her side and took
+      her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not wonder that I am somewhat surprised&mdash;nay, affected&mdash;by
+      these sudden tidings, viewing you as I have always done in the light of a&mdash;younger
+      sister&mdash;or&mdash;or a daughter. Your happiness must naturally be very
+      dear to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; murmured Agatha; and the tears came into her eyes. She felt
+      that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great
+      thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was free
+      and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of love, for Major
+      Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust the&mdash;the gentleman you allude to is of a character likely to
+      make you happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; returned Agatha, for she could only speak in monosyllables.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he&mdash;as your friend and guardian I may ask that question&mdash;is
+      he of good standing in the world, and in a position to maintain you
+      comfortably?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know&mdash;I have never thought about that,&rdquo; she cried,
+      restlessly. &ldquo;All I know is that he&mdash;loves me&mdash;that I honour him&mdash;that
+      he would take me&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;out of this misery,&rdquo; she was about to say, but
+      stopped, feeling that both the thought and the expression were unworthy
+      Nathanael's future wife, and unfit to be heard by Nathanael's brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he would take me,&rdquo; repeated she firmly, &ldquo;into a contented and happy
+      home, where I should be made a better woman than I am, and live a life
+      more worthy of myself and of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must then esteem him very highly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do&mdash;more than any man I ever knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major winced slightly, but quickly recovered himself. &ldquo;That is, I
+      believe, the feeling with which every woman ought to marry. He who wins
+      and deserves such an attachment is&rdquo;&mdash;and he sighed&mdash;&ldquo;is a happy
+      man!&mdash;Happier, perhaps, than those who have remained single.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there ensued a pause, until Major Harper broke it by saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is one more question&mdash;the last of all&mdash;which, after the
+      confidence you have shown me, I may venture to ask: do I know this
+      gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha replied by putting into his hands his brother's letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment she had done so she felt remorse for having betrayed her
+      lover's confidence by letting any eyes save her own rest on his tender
+      words. Had she loved him as he loved her, she could not possibly have done
+      so; and even now a painful sensation smote her. She would have snatched
+      the letter back, but it was too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper's eyes had merely skimmed down the page to the signature,
+      when he threw it from him, crying out vehemently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible! Agatha marry Nathanael&mdash;Nathanael marry Agatha!&mdash;He
+      is a boy, a very child! What can he be thinking of? Send his letter back&mdash;tell
+      him it is utter nonsense! Upon my soul it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper was very shortsighted and inconsiderate when he gave way to
+      this burst of vexation before any woman&mdash;still more before such a
+      woman as Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She let him go on without interruption, but she lifted the letter from the
+      floor, refolded it, and held it tenderly&mdash;more tenderly than she had
+      ever until now felt towards it or its writer. Something of the grave
+      sweetness belonging to the tie of an affianced wife began to cast its
+      shadow over her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Harper, when you have quite done speaking, perhaps you will sit
+      down and hear what I have to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Struck by her manner, he obeyed, entreating her pardon likewise, for he
+      was a gentleman, and felt that he had acted very wrongly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet surely,&rdquo; he began&mdash;until, looking at her, something convinced
+      him that his arguments were useless. He stretched out his hand again for
+      the letter, but with a slight gesture which expressed much, Agatha
+      withheld it. After a pause, he said, meekly enough, as if thoroughly
+      overcome by circumstances,&mdash;&ldquo;So, it is quite true? You really love my
+      brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I honour him, as I said, more than I do any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And love him&mdash;are you sure you love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one,&rdquo; she answered, deeply blushing&mdash;&ldquo;No one but himself has a
+      right to receive the answer to that question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True, true. Pardon me once more. But I am so startled, absolutely amazed.
+      My brother Nathanael&mdash;he that was a baby when I was a grown man&mdash;he
+      to marry&mdash;marrying you too&mdash;and I&mdash;&mdash;Well; I suppose I
+      am really growing into a miserable, useless old bachelor. I have thrown
+      away my life: I shall be the last apple left on the tree&mdash;and a
+      tolerably withered one too. But no matter. The world shall see the sunny
+      half of me to the last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed rather tunelessly at his own bitter jest, and after a brief
+      silence, recovered his accustomed manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So so; such things must be, and I, though a bachelor myself, have no
+      right to forbid marriages. Allow me to congratulate you. Of course you
+      have answered this letter? My brother knows his happiness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows nothing; but I wished that he should do so to-day, after I had
+      spoken to you. It was a respect I felt to be your due, to form no
+      engagement of this kind without your knowledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; he said in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been good and kind to me,&rdquo; continued Agatha, a little touched,
+      &ldquo;and I wished to have your approval in all things&mdash;chiefly in this.
+      Is it so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He offered his hand, saying, &ldquo;God bless you!&rdquo; with a quivering lip. He
+      even muttered &ldquo;child;&rdquo; as though he felt how old he was growing, and how
+      he had let all life's happiness slip by, until it was just that he should
+      no longer claim it, but be content to see young people rejoicing in their
+      youth. After a pause, he added, &ldquo;Now, shall I go and fetch my brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; replied Agatha, &ldquo;send for him, and do you stay here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you please,&rdquo; said Major Harper, a good deal surprised at this very
+      original way of conducting a love affair. After courteously offering to
+      withdraw himself to the dining-room, which Agatha declined, he sat and
+      waited with her during the few minutes that elapsed before his brother
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael looked much agitated; his boyish face seemed to have grown years
+      older since the preceding night. He paused at the door, and glanced with
+      suspicion on his brother and Miss Bowen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sent for me, Frederick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was I who sent for you,&rdquo; said Agatha. And then steadfastly regarding
+      him whom she had tacitly accepted as her husband, the guide and ruler of
+      her whole life&mdash;her self-possession failed. A great timidity, almost
+      amounting to terror, came over her. Vaguely she felt the want of something
+      unknown&mdash;something which in the whirl of her destiny she could grasp
+      and hold by, sure that she held fast to the right. It was the one emotion,
+      neither regard, liking, honour, or esteem, yet including and surpassing
+      all&mdash;the <i>love</i>, strong, pure love, without which it is so
+      dangerous, often so fatal, for a woman to marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, never having known this feeling, could scarcely be said to have
+      sacrificed it; at least not consciously. But even while she believed she
+      was doing right in accepting the man who loved her, and whom she could
+      make so happy, she trembled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper sat looking out of the window in an uncomfortable silence,
+      which he evidently knew not how to break. It was a very awkward and
+      somewhat ridiculous position for all three.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael was the first to rise out of it. Slowly his features settled
+      into composure, and his strong, earnest purpose gave him both dignity and
+      calmness, even though all hope had evidently died. He looked steadily at
+      his brother, avoiding Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, I think I understand now. She has been telling you all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was right she should. Her father left her in my care. She wishes you
+      to learn her decision in my presence,&rdquo; said Major Harper, unwittingly
+      taking a new and even respectful tone to the younger brother, whom he was
+      wont to call &ldquo;that boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael grasped with his slight, long fingers, the chair by which he
+      stood. &ldquo;As she pleases. I am quite ready. Still&mdash;if&mdash;yesterday&mdash;without
+      telling you or any one&mdash;she had said to me&mdash;But I am quite ready
+      to hear what she decides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Despite his firmness, the words were uttered slowly and with a great
+      struggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him everything, Miss Bowen; it will come better from yourself,&rdquo; said
+      Frederick Harper, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha rose likewise, walked across the room, and laid her hand in that of
+      him who loved her. The only words she said were so low that he alone could
+      hear them:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been very desolate&mdash;be kind to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael made no answer; indeed for the moment his look was that of a man
+      bewildered&mdash;but he never forgot those words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt her hand clasped&mdash;softly&mdash;but with a firm grasp that
+      seemed to bind it to his for ever. This was the only sign of betrothal
+      that passed between them. In another minute or two, unable to bear the
+      scene longer, she crept out of the room and walked up-stairs, feeling with
+      a dizzy sense, half of comfort, half of fear&mdash;yet, on the whole, the
+      comfort stronger than the fear&mdash;that the struggle was all over, and
+      her fate sealed for life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she descended, an hour after, the Harpers had gone; but she found a
+      little note awaiting her, just one line:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If not forbidden, I may come this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha knew she had no right to forbid, even had she wished it, now. So
+      she waited quietly through the long, dim, misty day&mdash;which seemed the
+      strangest day she had ever known; until, in the evening, her lover's knock
+      came to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sitting with Jane Ianson, near whom, partly in shy fear, partly
+      from a vague desire for womanly sympathy, she had closely kept for the
+      last hour. As yet, the Iansons knew nothing. She wondered whether from his
+      manner or hers they would be likely to guess what had passed that morning
+      between herself and Mr. Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an infinite relief to her when following, nay preceding, Nathanael,
+      there appeared his elder brother, with the old pleasant smile and bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But amidst all his assumed manner, Major Harper took occasion to whisper
+      kindly to Agatha; &ldquo;My brother made me come&mdash;I shall do admirably to
+      talk nonsense to the Iansons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he did, carrying off the restraint of the evening so ingeniously
+      that no one would have suspected any deeper elements of joy or pain
+      beneath the smooth surface of their cheerful group.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael sat almost as silent as ever; but even his very silence was a
+      beautiful, joyful repose. In his aspect a new soul seemed to have dawned&mdash;the
+      new soul, noble and strong, which comes into a man when he feels that his
+      life has another life added to it, to guard, cherish, and keep as his own
+      until death. And though Mr. Harper gave little outward sign of what was in
+      him, it was touching to see how his eyes followed his betrothed
+      everywhere, whether she were moving about the room, or working, or trying
+      to sing. Continually Agatha felt the shining of these quiet, tender eyes,
+      and she began to experience the consciousness&mdash;perhaps the sweetest
+      in the world&mdash;of being able to make another human being entirely
+      happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only sometimes, when she looked at her future husband&mdash;hardly able to
+      believe he was really such&mdash;and thought how strangely things had
+      happened; how here she was, no longer a girl, but a woman engaged to be
+      married, sitting calmly by her lover's side, without any of the
+      tremblingly delicious emotions which she had once believed would
+      constitute the great mystery, Love&mdash;a strange pensiveness overtook
+      her. She felt all the solemnity of her position, and, as yet, little of
+      its sweetness. Perhaps that would come in time. She resolved to do her
+      duty towards him whom she so tenderly honoured, and who so deeply loved
+      herself; and all the evening the entire gentleness of her behaviour was
+      enough to charm the very soul of any one who held towards her the relation
+      now borne by Nathanael Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length even the good-natured elder brother's flow of conversation
+      seemed to fail, and he gave hints about leaving, to which the younger
+      tacitly consented. Agatha bade them both good-night in public, and crept
+      away, as she thought, unobserved, to her own sitting-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There she stood before the hearth, which looked cheerful enough this wet
+      July night,&mdash;the fire-light shining on her hands, as they hung down
+      listlessly folded together. She was thinking how strange everything seemed
+      about her, and what a change had come in a few days, nay, hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a light touch was laid on her hand. It startled her, but she did
+      not attempt to shake it off. She knew quite well whose hand it was, and
+      that it had a right to be there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She half turned, and said once more &ldquo;Good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, <i>my</i> Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And for a minute he stood, holding her hand by the fire-light, until some
+      one below called out loudly for &ldquo;Mr. Harper.&rdquo; Then a kiss, soft and timid
+      as a woman's, trembled over Agatha's mouth, and he was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first time she had ever been kissed by any man. The feeling
+      it left was very new, tremulous, and strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury
+      Church&mdash;with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and
+      Jane's sickly unhappy face at the other&mdash;Agatha said her prayers in
+      due sabbatical form. &ldquo;Said her prayers&rdquo; is the right phrase, for trouble
+      had not yet opened her young heart to pray. Yet she was a good girl, not
+      wilfully undevout; and if during the long missionary-sermon she secretly
+      got her prayer-book and read&mdash;what was the most likely portion to
+      attract her&mdash;the marriage service, it was with feelings solemnised
+      and not unsacred. Some portions of it made her very thoughtful, so
+      thoughtful that when suddenly startled by the conclusion of the sermon,
+      she prayed&mdash;not with the clergyman, for &ldquo;Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
+      Heretics&rdquo;&mdash;but for two young creatures, herself and another, who
+      perhaps needed Heaven's merciful blessings quite as much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she rose up it was with moist eyelashes; and then she perceived what
+      until this minute she had not seen,&mdash;that close behind her, sitting
+      where he had probably sat all church-time, was Nathanael Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If anything can touch the heart of a generous woman, when it is still a
+      free heart, it is that quiet, unobtrusive, proudly-silent love which,
+      giving all, exacts nothing. Agatha's smile had in it something even of shy
+      tenderness when at the church-door she was met by Mr. Harper. And when,
+      after speaking courteously to the Iansons, he came, quite naturally as it
+      were, to her side, and drew her arm in his, she felt a strange sense of
+      calm and rest in knowing that it was her betrothed husband upon whom she
+      leant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door he seemed wishful enough to enter; but Mrs. Ianson invariably
+      looked very coldly upon Sunday visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And something questioning and questionable in the glances of both that
+      lady and her daughter was very painful to Miss Bowen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-day,&rdquo; she whispered, as her lover detained her hand. &ldquo;To-morrow I
+      shall have made all clear to the Iansons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you will! Nothing shall trouble you,&rdquo; said he, with a gentle
+      acquiescence, the value of which, alas! she did not half appreciate.
+      &ldquo;Only, remember, I have so few to-morrows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech troubled Agatha for many minutes, bringing various thoughts
+      concerning the dim future which as yet she had scarcely contemplated. It
+      is wonderful how little an unsophisticated girl's mind rests on the
+      common-sense and commonplace of marriage,&mdash;household prospects,
+      income, long or short engagements, and the like. When in the course of
+      that drowsy, dark Sunday afternoon, with the rain-drops dripping heavily
+      on the balcony, she took opportunity formally to communicate her secret to
+      the astonished Mrs. Ianson, Agatha was perfectly confounded by the two
+      simple questions: &ldquo;When are you to be married? And where are you going to
+      live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And oh! my dear,&rdquo; cried the doctor's wife, roused into positive sympathy
+      by a confidence which always touches the softest chord in every woman's
+      heart&mdash;&ldquo;oh, my dear, I hope it will not be a long engagement. People
+      change so&mdash;at least men do. You don't know what misery comes out of
+      long engagements!&rdquo; And, lowering her voice, she turned her dull grey eyes,
+      swimming with motherly tears, towards the corner sofa where the pale,
+      fretful, old-maidish Jane lay sleeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha understood a little, and guessed more. After that day, however
+      ill-tempered and disagreeable the invalid might be, she was always very
+      patient and kind towards Jane Ianson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After tea, when her daughter was gone to bed, Mrs. Ianson unfolded all to
+      the Doctor, who nearly broke Miss Bowen's fingers with his congratulatory
+      shake; John the footman, catching fragments of talk, probably put the
+      whole story together for the amusement of the lower regions; and when
+      Agatha retired to rest she was quite sure that the whole house, down to
+      the little maid who waited on herself, was fully aware of the important
+      fact that Miss Bowen was going to be married to Mr. Locke Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This annoyed her&mdash;she had not expected it. But she bore it stoically
+      as a necessary evil. Only sometimes she thought how different all things
+      were, seen afar and near; and faintly sighed for that long ago lost
+      picture of wakening fancy&mdash;the Arcadian, impossible love-dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat up till after midnight, writing to Emma Thorny-croft, the only
+      near friend to whom she had to write, the news of her engagement&mdash;information
+      that for many reasons she preferred giving by pen, not words. Finishing,
+      she put her blind aside to have one freshening look at the trees in the
+      square. It was quite cloudless now, the moon being just rising&mdash;the
+      same moon that Agatha had seen, as a bright slender line appearing at
+      street corners, on the Midsummer night when she and Nathariael Harper
+      walked home together. She felt a deep interest in that especial moon,
+      which seemed between its dawning and waning to have comprised the whole
+      fate of her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quietly opening the window, she leant out gazing at the moonlight, as
+      foolish girls will&mdash;yet who does not remember, half pathetically,
+      those dear old follies!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heigho! I wonder what will be the end of it all!&rdquo; said Agatha Bowen;
+      without specifying what the pronoun &ldquo;it&rdquo; alluded to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she stopped, hearing a footstep rather policeman-like passing up and
+      down the railing under the trees. And as after a while he crossed the
+      street&mdash;she saw that the &ldquo;policeman&rdquo; had the very unprofessional
+      appearance of a cloak and long fair hair:&mdash;Agatha's cheek burned; she
+      shut down the window and blind, and relighted the candle. But her heart
+      beat fast&mdash;it was so strange, so new, to be the object of such love.
+      &ldquo;However, I suppose I shall get used to it&mdash;besides&mdash;oh, how
+      good he is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the genuine reverence of her heart conquered its touch of feminine
+      vanity; which, perhaps, had he known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael would have done wiser in going to bed like a Christian, than in
+      wandering like a heathen idolater round his beloved's shrine. But, however
+      her pride may have been flattered, it is certain that Agatha went to sleep
+      with tears, innocent and tender enough to serve as mirrors for watching
+      night-angels, lying on her cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning she waited at home, and for the first time received her
+      betrothed openly as such. She was sitting alone in her little drawing-room
+      engaged at her work; but put it down when Mr. Harper entered, and held out
+      her hand kindly, though with a slight restraint and confusion. Both were
+      needless: he only touched this lately-won hand with his soft boyish lips&mdash;like
+      a <i>preux chevalier</i> of the olden time&mdash;and sat down by her side.
+      However deep his love might be, its reserve was unquestionable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while he began to talk to her&mdash;timidly yet tenderly, as
+      friend with friend&mdash;watching her fingers while they moved, until at
+      length the girl grew calmed by the calmness of her young lover. So much
+      so, that she even forgot he was a young man and her lover, and found
+      herself often steadfastly looking up into his face, which was gradually
+      melting into a known likeness, as many faces do when we grow familiar with
+      them. Agatha puzzled herself much as to who it could be that Mr. Harper
+      was like&mdash;though she found no nearer resemblance than a head she had
+      once seen of the angel Gabriel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She told him this&mdash;quite innocently, and then, recollecting herself,
+      coloured deeply. But Nathanael looked perfectly happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The likeness is very flattering,&rdquo; said he, smiling. &ldquo;Yet I would only
+      wish to be&mdash;what you called me once, the first evening I saw you. Do
+      you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;well&mdash;it was not probable you should,&rdquo; he answered, as if
+      patiently taking upon himself the knowledge which only a strong love can
+      bear&mdash;that it is <i>alone</i> in its strength. &ldquo;It was merely when
+      they were talking of my name, and you said I looked like a Nathanael. Now,
+      do you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and I think so still,&rdquo; she replied, without any false shame. &ldquo;I
+      never look at you, but I feel there is 'no guile' in you, Mr. Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; he said, with much feeling. &ldquo;Thanks&mdash;except for the last
+      word. How soon will you try to say 'Nathanael?'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A fit of wilfulness or shyness was upon Agatha. She drew away her hand
+      which he had taken. &ldquo;How soon? Nay, I cannot tell. It is a long name,
+      old-fashioned, and rather ugly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made no answer&mdash;scarcely even showed that he was hurt; but he
+      never again asked her to call him &ldquo;Nathanael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went on with her work, and he sat quietly looking at her for some
+      little time more. Any Asmodeus peering at them through the roof would have
+      vowed these were the oddest pair of lovers ever seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, rousing himself, Mr. Harper said: &ldquo;It is time, Agatha&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      paused, and added&mdash;&ldquo;dear Agatha&mdash;quite time that we should talk
+      a little about what concerns our happiness&mdash;at least mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him&mdash;saw how earnest he was, and put down her work. The
+      softness of her manner soothed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, dear Agatha, that it is very wrong in me; but sometimes I can
+      hardly believe this is all true, and that you really promised&mdash;what I
+      heard from your own lips two days ago. Will you&mdash;out of that good
+      heart of yours&mdash;say it again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What must I say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you love&mdash;no, I don't mean that&mdash;but that you care for me
+      a little&mdash;enough to trust me with your happiness? Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For all reply, Agatha held out the hand she had drawn back. Her lover kept
+      it tight in that peculiar grasp of his&mdash;very soft and still, but firm
+      as adamant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. You shall never regret your trust. My brother told me all you
+      said to him on Saturday morning. I know you do not quite love me yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha started, it was so true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, as you have loved no one else&mdash;you are sure of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She thought a minute, then lifted her candid eyes, and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, quite sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, watching her closely, betrayed himself so far as to give an inward
+      thankful sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, Agatha, since I love you, I am not afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; she answered, and a tear fell, for she was greatly moved. Her
+      betrothed put his arm round her, softly and timidly, as if unfamiliar with
+      actions of tenderness; but she trembled so much that, still softly, he let
+      her go, only keeping firm hold of her hand, apparently to show that no
+      power on earth, gentle or strong, should wrest that from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes after, he began speaking of his affairs, of which Agatha was
+      in a state of entire ignorance. She said, jestingly&mdash;for they had
+      fallen into quite familiar jesting now, and were laughing together like a
+      couple of children&mdash;that she had not the least idea whether she were
+      about to marry a prince or a beggar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered her lover, smiling at her unworldliness, and thereby
+      betraying that, innocent as he looked, his was not the innocence of
+      ignorance. &ldquo;No; but I am not exactly a prince, and as a beggar I should
+      certainly be too proud to marry <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I understand you are a very rich young lady (I don't know how
+      rich, for I never thought of the subject or inquired about it till
+      to-day), while I am only able to earn my income year by year. Yet it is a
+      good income, and, I earnestly hope, fully equal to yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what mine is. But why are you so punctilious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian, impressed upon me, from my boyhood, that one of the greatest
+      horrors of life must be the taunt of having married an heiress for her
+      money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he ever married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is he a very old man?&rdquo; Miss Bowen asked, less interested in money
+      matters than in this Uncle Brian, whose name so constantly floated across
+      his nephew's conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen years in the colonies makes a man old before his time. And he was
+      not very young, probably full thirty, when he went out But I could go on
+      talking of Uncle Brian for ever; you must stop me, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I&mdash;I like to hear,&rdquo; she answered, beginning to feel how sweet it
+      was to sit talking thus confidentially, and know herself and her words
+      esteemed fair and pleasant in the eyes of one who loved her. But as she
+      looked up and smiled, that same witching smile put an effectual stop to
+      the chronicle of Brian Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have to go back to Canada so soon!&rdquo; whispered Nathanael to himself,
+      as his gaze, far less calm than heretofore, fell down like a warm sunshine
+      over his betrothed, &ldquo;The time of my stay here will soon be over, and what
+      then&mdash;Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not wholly comprehend the question, and so let it pass. She was
+      quite content to keep him talking about things and people in whom her
+      interest was naturally growing; of Kingcombe Holm, the old house on the
+      Dorset coast, where the Harpers had dwelt for centuries; of its present
+      owner, Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of that venerable name so renowned in
+      Dorsetshire pedigrees, that one Harper had refused to merge it even in the
+      blaze of a peerage. Of the five Miss Harpers, of whom one was dead, and
+      another, the all-important &ldquo;married sister,&rdquo; Mrs. Dugdale, lived in a town
+      close by. Of Eulalie, the pretty <i>cadette</i> who was at some future
+      time going to disappear behind the shadows of matrimony; of busy,
+      housekeeping Mary, whom nobody could possibly do without, and who couldn't
+      be suffered to marry on any account whatever. Last of all, was the eye,
+      ear, and heart of the house, kept tenderly in its inmost nook, from which
+      for twenty years she had never moved, and never would move until softly
+      carried to the house appointed for all living&mdash;Elizabeth, the eldest&mdash;of
+      whom Nathanael's soft voice grew softer as he spoke. His betrothed
+      hesitated to ask many questions about Elizabeth. The one of whom she had
+      it in her mind always to inquire, and whose name somehow always slipped
+      past, was Miss Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this conversation&mdash;wherein the young lover bore himself much more
+      bravely than in regular &ldquo;love-making&rdquo;&mdash;a manufacture at which he was
+      not <i>au fait</i> at all, caused the morning to pass swiftly by. Agatha
+      thought if all her life were to move so smoothly and pleasantly, she need
+      never repent trusting its current to the guidance of Nathanael Harper. And
+      when, soon after he departed, Emma Thorny-croft came in, all smiles,
+      wonderings, and congratulations, Miss Bowen was in a mood cheerful enough
+      to look the happy <i>fiancée</i> to the life; besides womanly and tender
+      enough to hang round her friend's neck, testifying her old regard&mdash;until
+      Master James testified his also, and likewise his general sympathy in the
+      scene, by flying at them both with bread-and-buttery fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Agatha, there is nothing like being a wife and mother! you see what
+      happiness lies before you,&rdquo; cried the affectionate soul, hugging her
+      unruly son and heir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Bowen slightly shuddered; being of a rather different opinion; which,
+      however, she had the good taste to keep to herself, since occasionally a
+      slight misgiving arose that either she was unreasonably harsh, or that the
+      true type of infantile loveableness did not exist in the young
+      Thornycrofts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a private penance for possible injustice, and also out of the general
+      sunniness of her contented heart, she was particularly kind to Master
+      James that day, and moreover promised to spend the next at the Botanic
+      Gardens&mdash;not the terrific Zoological!&mdash;with Emma and the babies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; added the young matron, with a gracious satisfaction, &ldquo;you
+      understand, my dear, we shall&mdash;now and always&mdash;be most happy to
+      see Mr. Harper in the evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Whether Mr. Harper, being a rather proud and reserved individual, was not
+      &ldquo;so happy to be seen in the evening&rdquo; as an attendant planet openly
+      following his sphered idol, or whether, like all true lovers, he was very
+      jealous over the lightest public betrayal of love's sanctity, most
+      certainly he did not appear until he had been expected for at least two
+      hours. Even then his manner was somewhat constrained. Emma's smiling,
+      half-jesting congratulations were nipped in the bud; she felt as she
+      afterwards declared&mdash;&ldquo;quite frightened at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, too, met him rather meekly, fearing lest she had led him into a
+      position distasteful to his feelings. She was relieved when, taking little
+      notice of herself, he fell into conversation with Mr. Thornycroft&mdash;a
+      serious discussion on political and general topics. Once or twice,
+      glancing at him, and noticing how well he talked, and how manly and
+      self-possessed he looked, Agatha began to feel proud of her betrothed. She
+      could not have endured a lover who&mdash;in not unfrequent lover-like
+      fashion&mdash;&ldquo;made a fool of himself&rdquo; on her account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the two gentlemen still talked, Miss Bowen stood secretly listening,
+      but apparently watching the rich twilight that coloured the long sweep of
+      the Regent's Park trees&mdash;a pretty sight, even though in the land of
+      Cockayne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a carriage at our door!&rdquo; screamed Missy from the balcony,
+      receiving a hurried maternal reproof for ill-behaviour. Mrs. Thornycroft
+      wondered who the inopportune visitor could be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a lady, who gave no name, but wished to know if Mr. Locke Harper
+      were there, and if so, would he come to the carriage and speak to her a
+      moment?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael did so, looking not less surprised than the rest of the party.
+      After five minutes had elapsed, he was still absent from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very odd!&rdquo; observed Emma, half in jest, half earnest; &ldquo;I should inquire
+      into the matter if I were you. Let me see&mdash;I fancy the carriage is
+      still at the door. It would be rude to peep, you know, but we can inquire
+      of the maid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Agatha, gently removing Mrs. Thornycrofts hand from the bell;
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper will doubtless tell me all that is necessary. He is perfectly
+      able to conduct his own affairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was speech implying more indifference than she really felt, for this
+      mysterious interview did not quite please her. She tried vainly to go on
+      talking with Mrs. Thornycroft, and actually started when she heard the
+      carriage drive off, and Nathanael come up-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His countenance was a good deal troubled, but he did not give the
+      slightest explanation&mdash;not even when Mrs. Thornycroft joked him about
+      his supposed &ldquo;business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a lady, too! Not, I hope, a young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say?&rdquo; he asked, absently, his eyes fixed afar off on Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope your visitor in the carriage was not a young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo; The answer was in a tone that put an end to any more jesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael sat down, and tried to take up the thread of politics just
+      dropped with Mr. Thornycroft, but only for a few minutes. Then, stealing
+      round by Miss Bowen's side, he whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to speak to you: would you mind coming home soon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At once, if you wish it,&rdquo; she answered, perceiving that something was
+      wrong, and feeling towards him too much of kindness and too little of
+      jealous love, to be in any way displeased at his strange behaviour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you do it, then, dear Agatha? Do it for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was ill at contrivance, but she managed somehow to get away; and
+      before it was dark she and her betrothed were out in the broad terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said she, taking his arm kindly, &ldquo;if anything is amiss, you can
+      tell me all as we walk home. Better walk than ride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we must ride; I would not lose a minute,&rdquo; Nathanael answered, as he
+      hurried her into a conveyance, and gave the order to drive to Bedford
+      Square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Bowen felt a twinge of repugnance at this control so newly exercised
+      over the liberty of her actions; but her good-heartedness still held out,
+      and she waited patiently for her lover to explain. However, he seemed to
+      forget that any explanation was necessary. He leaned back in the corner
+      quite silent, with his hand over his eyes. Had she loved him, or not known
+      that he was her lover, Agatha would soon have essayed the womanly part of
+      comforter, but now timidity restrained her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length timidity was verging into distrust, when he suddenly said, just
+      as they were entering the square:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have used the dear right you lately gave me, in taking a strange
+      liberty with you and your house. I have appointed to meet me there
+      to-night one whom I must see, and whom I could not well see in any other
+      way&mdash;a lady&mdash;a stranger to you. But, stay, she is here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as they stopped at the door, where another carriage had stopped
+      likewise, Nathanael unceremoniously leaped out, and went to this
+      &ldquo;mysterious stranger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go in, dear Agatha,&rdquo; said he returning; &ldquo;go to your own sitting-room, and
+      I will bring her to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, half reluctant to be so ordered about, and thoroughly bewildered
+      likewise, mechanically obeyed. Nevertheless, with a sort of pleasure that
+      this humdrum courtship was growing into something interesting at last, she
+      waited for the intruding &ldquo;lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That she was a lady, the first glimpse of her as she entered the room
+      leaning rather heavily on Nathanael's arm, brought sufficient conviction.
+      She was tall, and a certain slow, soft way of moving, cast about her an
+      atmosphere of sweet dignity. Her age was not easily distinguishable, but
+      her voice, in the few words addressed to Mr. Harper, &ldquo;Is your friend
+      here?&rdquo; seemed not that of a very young woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In her presence, Miss Bowen instinctively rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she is here,&rdquo; said Nathanael, answering the stranger. &ldquo;You could not
+      have learnt what I wrote yesterday to my father and to Elizabeth. She is
+      Agatha Bowen, my&mdash;my wife that will be. Agatha, this lady is Miss
+      Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be hard to say which of the two thus suddenly introduced to each
+      other was most surprised. However, the elder lady recovered herself
+      soonest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not aware of this; but I am very glad. And I need not now apologise
+      for thus intruding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went up to the young betrothed, and took her by the hand warmly,
+      seeming at once and without further explanation to comprehend all; while
+      on Agatha's side, her look, her voice, her touch, communicated a sudden
+      trust and pleasure. It was one of those instinctive, inexplicable
+      attractions which almost every one has experienced more or less during
+      life. She could not take her eyes off Miss Valery; the face and manner
+      seemed at once familiar and strange. She had never been so impressed by
+      any woman before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To show all hospitable attentions, to place an arm-chair for her guest,
+      and even, as she appeared weary, to entreat her to put aside her bonnet
+      and mantle&mdash;seemed quite natural to Miss Bowen, just as if they had
+      been friends of years. Anne thanked her courteously, let her do what she
+      would&mdash;but all the while looked anxiously at Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know we have much to say. Is she aware of what I told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet; I could not tell her; it shocked me so. Oh, my poor uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, who was unfastening her guest's cloak, turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, your Uncle Brian? Has anything happened? You speak almost as if he
+      were dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne Valery shivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead! God forbid!&rdquo; cried the young man, more deeply moved than his
+      betrothed had ever seen him. &ldquo;But we have had ill news. He went as
+      interpreter on a Government mission, as he had often done before; he was
+      so popular among the Indians. But from some treachery shown them, the
+      tribe grew enraged and carried him off prisoner. Heaven only knows if they
+      have spared his life. But I think&mdash;I feel they will. He was so just
+      to the red men always. He is surely safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is safe,&rdquo; repeated Miss Valery, as if any alternative but that
+      were utterly incredible and impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael continued: &ldquo;The tidings reached Kingcombe yesterday, and our
+      friend here, coming to London, volunteered to bring them, and consult with
+      me. If there is any good deed to be done, it is sure to be done by Anne
+      Valery,&rdquo; added Nathanael, stretching out his hand to hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took it without speaking, being apparently much exhausted. And now
+      that her bonnet was off, and she sitting near the lamp, Agatha discerned
+      that Miss Valery was by no means young or beautiful. At all events, she
+      was at that time in an unmarried woman's life when it ceases to signify
+      whether she is handsome or not. Her hair at first seemed brown, but on
+      looking closer, there appeared on either side the parting broad silvery
+      lines, as if two snow-laden hands laid on the head had smoothed it down,
+      leaving it shining still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha turned from her passing examination of Miss Valery to the subject
+      in question, evidently so painful to her betrothed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You two wish to consult together? Do so. Pray stay here. I am very sorry
+      for your trouble, Mr. Harper. Anything that I can do for you or your
+      friend, you know&rdquo;&mdash;and her voice dropped softly&mdash;&ldquo;it is my duty
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael looked at her, as if longing to clasp her to his heart and say
+      how happy he was; but he restrained himself and let his eyes alone declare
+      what he felt. They were very eloquent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While this passed between the young people, the elder lady arose from her
+      chair; quietness seemed painful to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, every minute is precious to anxiety such as you must feel.
+      Have you thought what had better be done, since you are the right person
+      to do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As yet I have thought of nothing. And, alas! what <i>can</i> be done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, and let us consider,&rdquo; said she, laying her hand on his, with a
+      force soft yet steady as that of her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was gliding out of the room, but her lover's quick movement and
+      Miss Valery's look stopped her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not go, Miss Bowen; you are not so unknown to me as I am to you. I had
+      much rather you stayed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she took up her position a little distance off, and listened while the
+      two friends consulted; pondering the while on what a rare kind of man Mr.
+      Brian Harper must be to win such regard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say the news came accidentally?&rdquo; Mr. Harper observed. &ldquo;It may not be
+      true, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is. I had it confirmed to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went to the Colonial Office myself.&rdquo; (&ldquo;Kind Anne Valery!&rdquo; murmured the
+      young man.) &ldquo;It was best to do so before I told you anything. You, knowing
+      the whole facts, would then decide more readily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right and wise as ever. Now, tell me exactly what you heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While a treaty was going forward for the Government purchase of Indian
+      lands, there arose a quarrel, and two red men were upon slight grounds
+      punished cruelly. Then the whole tribe went off in the night, carrying as
+      prisoners two Englishmen&mdash;one by force. The other is believed to have
+      offered himself willingly as a hostage, until the reparation of what he
+      considered an injustice shown by his countrymen to the Indians. You may
+      guess who he was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian, of course,&rdquo; cried Nathanael, pacing the room. &ldquo;Just like
+      him! He would do the maddest things for the sake of honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne Valery's eyes flashed in the dark a momentary brightness, as if they
+      were growing young again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But his life is surely safe: all over the Indian country they respect the
+      very name of Brian Harper. No harm can touch him&mdash;it is quite
+      impossible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so too.&rdquo; And Miss Valery drew a long breath. &ldquo;Still, such danger
+      is very terrible&mdash;is it not?&rdquo; And she turned slightly, to include
+      Agatha in their conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, terrible!&rdquo; the girl cried, deeply interested. &ldquo;But could he not be
+      sought for&mdash;rescued? Could not a party be despatched after him? If I
+      were a man I would head one immediately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery, faintly smiling, patted Agatha's hand. It was easy to see
+      that this good heart opened itself at once to Nathanael's young betrothed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I had in my own mind, and should have spoken of to his
+      nephew here&mdash;a party of search which the Canadian Government, if
+      urged, would no doubt consent to. Nathanael could propose it&mdash;plan
+      it. He is both ingenious and wise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, he is; he seems to know everything!&rdquo; cried Agatha warmly. &ldquo;Surely,
+      Mr. Harper, you could think of something&mdash;do something?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could,&rdquo; said the nephew, slowly waking from a long interval of thought.
+      &ldquo;I could do&mdash;what perhaps I ought, and will&mdash;for him who has
+      been more than a father to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; Agatha asked, while Miss Valery regarded him silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To go back to America&mdash;head a search; or, if that is refused me,
+      search for him myself alone, and never give up until I find him&mdash;living
+      or dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, do so! that will be right, generous, noble&mdash;you could not fail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no saying, Agatha; only, if done, it must be done without delay.
+      I must start at once&mdash;in a week&mdash;nay a day&mdash;leaving
+      England, home, you, everything. That is hard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He uttered the last words inaudibly, and his left hand was suddenly
+      clenched, as he turned and walked once up the room and down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha knew not what to say. Only a great love conscious of the extent of
+      its own sacrifice, would have had boldness to urge the like sacrifice upon
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery's voice broke the troubled pause:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot start yet, Nathanael; you would have to apply to the
+      Government here. It would be impossible for you to leave under at least a
+      fortnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he sighed, momentarily relieved, which was but natural &ldquo;Yet, how
+      wrong I am! for my poor uncle's sake I ought not to lose a day. Surely
+      there would be some way of hastening the time, if inquiries were to be set
+      on foot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have made all that could be made; still, try yourself, though I fear it
+      is useless. The suspense is bitter, but what is inevitable must be borne,&rdquo;
+       said Anne, with the smile of one long used to the practice of that
+      doctrine. &ldquo;And in a fortnight&mdash;a fortnight is a long time, Miss
+      Bowen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smile, flitting to Agatha, took a cheerfulness which hitherto in the
+      sad subject of her talk Miss Valery had not displayed. A certain
+      benevolent meaning, which Agatha rather guessed at than discerned, was
+      likewise visible there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;for this night we can do nothing; but having settled
+      what we shall do, or rather what Mr. Harper will do, let us make ourselves
+      at rest. Be content, my dear Nathanael. Heaven will take care of him for
+      whom we fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice trembled, Agatha fancied; and the young girl thought how full
+      and generous was this kind woman's sympathy! likewise how good Nathanael
+      must be to have awakened so deep a regard in such an one as Miss Anne
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clock struck ten. &ldquo;We are early folk in Dorsetshire; but as my old
+      servant Andrews has secured my lodgings close by (I am a very independent
+      woman, you see, Miss Bowen), if you will allow me, I should like to sit
+      another half-hour, and become a little better acquainted with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha gave her a delighted welcome, and astonished the Ianson family by
+      ordering all sorts of hospitalities. The three began to converse upon
+      various matters, the only remarkable fact being that no one inquired for
+      or alluded to a person, doubtless familiar to all&mdash;Frederick Harper.
+      On Agatha's part this omission was involuntary; he had quietly slipped out
+      of her thoughts hour by hour and day by day, as her interest in him became
+      absorbed in others more akin to her true nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though every one tried to maintain the conversation on indifferent
+      topics, the feelings of at least two out of the three necessarily drew it
+      back to one channel. There they sat, running over the slight nothings,
+      probable and improbable, which in hard suspense people count up; though
+      still the worst Nathanael seemed to fear was the temporary hardship to
+      which his uncle would be exposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is not so young as he used to be. How often have I urged him to be
+      content with his poverty and come home. He <i>shall</i> come home now. If
+      once I get him out of these red fellows' hands, he shall turn his face
+      from their wild settlements for ever. He can easily do it, even if I must
+      stay in Canada.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked at his newly-betrothed wife, and looked away again.
+      It was more than he could bear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha,&rdquo; said Miss Valery, after a pause, during which she had closely
+      observed both the young people&mdash;&ldquo;I may call you <i>Agatha</i>, for
+      the sake of my friend here, may I not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; was the low answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, Agatha, shall you and I have a little talk? We need not mind
+      that foolish boy; he was a boy, just so high, when I first knew him. Let
+      him walk up and down the room a little, it will do him good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved to the sofa, and took Agatha by her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear&rdquo;&mdash;(there was a rare sweetness in the way Miss Valery said
+      the usually unsweet words <i>my dear</i>)&mdash;&ldquo;I need not say, what, of
+      course, we two both think, that she will be a happy woman who marries
+      Nathanael Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, with her eyes cast down, looked everything a young girl could be
+      expected to look under the circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your happiness, as well as your history, is to me not like that of an
+      entire stranger. I once knew your father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that accounts for all!&rdquo; cried Agatha, delighted to gain this
+      confirmation of her strange impression in favour of Miss Valery. &ldquo;When was
+      this, and where was I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither born nor thought of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's countenance fell. &ldquo;Then of course it was impossible&mdash;yet I
+      felt certain&mdash;I could even believe so now&mdash;that I have seen you
+      before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While the girl looked, a quick shadow passed over Anne Valery's still
+      features, for the moment entirely changing their expression. But soon
+      returned their ordinary settled calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We often fancy that strangers' faces are familiar. It is usually held to
+      be an omen of future affection. Let me hope that it will prove so now. I
+      have long wished, and am truly glad, heart-glad to see you, my dear
+      child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bent Agatha's forehead towards her, and kissed it. Gradually her lips
+      recovered their colour, and she began to talk again, showing herself
+      surprisingly familiar with the monotonous past life of the young girl, and
+      likewise with her present circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How kind of you to take such an interest in me!&rdquo; cried Agatha, her wonder
+      absorbed in pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was natural,&rdquo; Anne said, rather hastily. &ldquo;A woman left orphan from the
+      cradle as I was, can feel for another orphan. And though my acquaintance
+      with your father was too slender to warrant my intruding upon you&mdash;still
+      I never lost sight of you. Poor child, yours has been a desolate position
+      for so young a girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, very desolate,&rdquo; said Agatha; and suddenly the recollection crossed
+      her mind of how doubly she should feel that desolation when her betrothed
+      husband was gone, for how long, no one could tell! A regret arose, half
+      tenderness, half selfishness; but she deemed it wholly the latter, and so
+      crushed it down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long have you been engaged to Nathanael?&rdquo; asked Miss Valery, in a
+      manner so sweet as entirely to soften the abruptness of the question, and
+      win the unhesitating answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very short time&mdash;only a few days. Yet I seem to have known him for
+      years. Oh, how good he is! how it grieves me to see him so unhappy!&rdquo;
+       whispered Agatha, watching his restless movements up and down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be a hard trial for him, this parting with you. Men like
+      Nathanael never love lightly; even sudden passions&mdash;and his must have
+      been rather sudden&mdash;in them take root as with the strength of years.
+      I am very sorry for the boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Miss Valery's eyes glistened as they rested on him whom probably from
+      old habit she thus called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, have you done your little mysteries?&rdquo; said he, coming up to the
+      sofa, with an effort to be gay. &ldquo;Have you taken my character to pieces,
+      Anne Valery? Remember, if so, I have little enough time to recover it. A
+      fortnight will be gone directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, make room; I <i>will</i> have my place. I <i>will</i> sit beside
+      you, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sort of desperation in his &ldquo;I will&rdquo; that indicated a great
+      change in the reserved, timid youth. Agatha yielded as to an irresistible
+      influence, and he placed himself by her side, putting his arm firmly round
+      her waist, quite regardless of the presence of a third person&mdash;though
+      about Anne there was an abiding spirit of love which seemed to take under
+      its shadow all lovers, ay, even though she herself were an old maid. But
+      perhaps that was the very reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was doing you no harm, Nathanael,&rdquo; said she, smiling. &ldquo;And I was
+      thinking, like you, how soon a fortnight will be gone, and how hard it is
+      for you to part from this little girl that loves you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inference, so natural, so holy, which Miss Valery had unconsciously
+      drawn, Agatha had not the heart to deny. She knew it was but right that
+      she should love, and be supposed to love, her betrothed husband. And
+      looking at him, his suffering, his strong self-denial, she almost felt
+      that she did really love him, as a wife ought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said the soft voice of the good angel&mdash;&ldquo;if you had not known
+      each other so short a time, and been so newly betrothed, I should have
+      said&mdash;judging such things by what they were when I was young,&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      she momentarily paused&mdash;&ldquo;I should have said, Nathanael, that there
+      was only one course which, as regarded both her and yourself, was wisest,
+      kindest, best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; cried he, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To do a little sooner what must necessarily have been done soon&mdash;to
+      take one another's hands&mdash;thus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt strong, wild fingers grasping her own; a dizziness came over
+      her&mdash;she shrank back, crying, &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; and hid her face on Miss
+      Valery's shoulder. Nathanael rose up and walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, it was with his &ldquo;good&rdquo; aspect, tender and calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Anne, I was wrong even to think of such a thing. Assure her I will
+      never urge it. She is quite right in saying 'No'&mdash;What man could
+      expect such a sacrifice?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what woman would deem it such?&rdquo; whispered Miss Valery. &ldquo;But I know I
+      am a very foolish, romantic old maid, and view these things in a different
+      light to most people. So, my dear, be quite at rest,&rdquo; she continued,
+      soothing the young creature, who still clung to her. &ldquo;No one will urge you
+      in any way; <i>he</i> will not, he is too generous; and I had no right
+      even to say what I did, except from my affection for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked fondly at the young man, as if he had been still a little
+      child, and she saw him in the light of ancient days. These impelled her to
+      speak on earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another reason I had; because I am old, and you two are young. Often, it
+      seems as if the whole world&mdash;fate, trial, circumstance&mdash;were set
+      against all lovers to make them part. It is a bitter thing when they part
+      of their own free will. Accidents of all kinds&mdash;change, sorrow, even
+      death&mdash;may come between, and they may never meet again. Agatha,
+      Nathanael&mdash;believe one who has seen more of life than you&mdash;rarely
+      do those that truly love ever attain the happiness of marrying one
+      another. One half the world&mdash;the best and noblest half&mdash;thirst
+      all their lives for that bliss which you throw away. What, Agatha,
+      crying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she tried to lift up the drooping head, but could not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, dear, I was wrong to grieve you so. Please God, you two may meet
+      again, and marry and be happy, even in this world. Come, Nathanael, you
+      can say all this much better than I. Tell her you will be quite content,
+      and wait any number of years. And, as to this parting, it is a right and
+      noble sacrifice of yours; let her see how nobly you will bear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, Agatha, I will,&rdquo; said the young lover firmly, as he stood before her,
+      half stooping, half kneeling&mdash;though not quite kneeling, even then.
+      But his whole manner showed the crumbling away of that clear but icy
+      surface with which nature or habit had enveloped the whole man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha lifted her head, and looked at him long and earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; he repeated; &ldquo;I promise you I will. Only be content&mdash;and in
+      token that you are so, give me your hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him both, and then leaned back again on Miss Valery's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him&mdash;I will go with him&mdash;anywhere&mdash;at any time&mdash;if
+      it will only make him happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The same night, when Nathanael and Anne Valery had left her, Agatha sat
+      thinking, almost in a dream, yet without either sorrow or dread&mdash;that
+      all uncertainty was now over&mdash;that this day week would be her
+      wedding-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish, as I stated yesterday, that Miss Bowen's property should be
+      settled entirely upon herself. This is the only course which to my
+      thinking can reconcile a man to the humiliation of receiving a large
+      fortune with his wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An odd doctrine, truly! Where did you learn it?&rdquo; laughed Major Harper,
+      who was pacing the Bedford Square drawing-room with quick, uneasy steps;
+      while his brother stood very quiet, only looking from time to time at the
+      closed door. It was the Saturday before the marriage; and Agatha's trustee
+      had come to execute his last guardianship of her and her property. There
+      was lying on a corner-table, pored over by a lawyer-like individual&mdash;that
+      formidable instrument, a marriage-settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did I learn it?&rdquo; returned Mr. Harper, smiling. &ldquo;Why, where I
+      learned most of my opinions, and everything that is good in me&mdash;with
+      Uncle Brian. Poor Uncle Brian!&rdquo; and the smile faded into grave anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you really going on that mad expedition?&rdquo; said the elder brother,
+      with the air of a man who, being perturbed in his own mind, is ready to
+      take a harsh view of everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think it mad&mdash;and anything short of madness I ought to
+      undertake, and shall&mdash;for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; muttered the other, &ldquo;there it is, Brian always made everybody love
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; continued Nathanael, &ldquo;as I said last night to Miss Bowen, I shall
+      do nothing foolishly. We must hold ourselves prepared for the worst;
+      still, if better tidings should come&mdash;though that is scarcely
+      possible now&mdash;then perhaps&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not go!&rdquo; cried Major Harper, eagerly. &ldquo;Which would of course
+      delay your marriage. How very much better that would be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; said the bridegroom, with a piercing look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick appeared confused, but threw it off with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, women like a little longer courtship. They are never caught all in a
+      minute, unless they are quite indifferent as to who catches them. And even
+      then&mdash;'marry in haste'&mdash;you know the proverb&mdash;nay, don't be
+      angry,&rdquo; he added, as his brother turned abruptly away. &ldquo;I was only
+      jesting; and a happy fellow like you can afford to be laughed at by a
+      miserable old bachelor like me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The momentary annoyance passed. Nathanael was, indeed, too happy to be
+      seriously vexed at anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, for some reasons,&rdquo; continued Major Harper, &ldquo;I wish my fair ward
+      were not becoming my sister in such a terrible hurry. So much to be done
+      in one week, and by a man like me who hates the very name of business; it
+      is next to impossible but that some things should he slurred and hurried
+      over. For instance, there was no time, Grimes said, to draw up a long deed
+      of settlement, showing precisely where her money was invested.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you I wanted nothing of the kind. I scarcely understand your
+      English law. But can it not be stated in plain legal form&mdash;a dozen
+      lines would surety; do it&mdash;that every farthing Agatha has is settled
+      upon herself exclusively from the day she becomes my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is done. I&mdash;I&mdash;in fact, Mr. Grimes had already advised
+      such a course as being the shortest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what is the use of saying any more about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, brother,&rdquo; observed Major Harper, in whose manner was perceptible a
+      certain vague uneasiness, &ldquo;if&mdash;though I assure you Grimes has
+      transacted all these matters, and he is a sharp man of business, while I
+      am none&mdash;still, if it would be any satisfaction to you to know
+      particulars concerning where Miss Bowen's money is invested&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the funds; and to remain there by her father's will, to I think you
+      said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely. It <i>was</i> invested there,&rdquo; returned the brother, with an
+      accent so light on the past tense that Nathanael, preoccupied with other
+      things than money matters, did not observe it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, so let it stay. Don't let us talk any more about this matter.
+      I trust entirely to you. To whom should I trust, if not to my own
+      brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these hearty words Major Harper's face, quick in every mobile
+      expression of feeling, betrayed much discomposure. He walked the room in a
+      mood of agitation, compared to which the bridegroom's own restlessness was
+      nothing. Then he went to the farther end of the apartment, and hurriedly
+      read over the marriage-settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faugh, Grimes! what balderdash is this?&rdquo; he whispered angrily.
+      &ldquo;Balderdash?&mdash;nay, downright lies!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drawn up exactly as you desired, and as we arranged, Major Harper,&rdquo;
+       answered Mr. Grimes, formally. &ldquo;Settling upon the lady and her heirs for
+      ever all her property now in the 'Three per Cent. Consols.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just heavens! and there's not a penny of it there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there will be by the time the marriage is celebrated, or soon after&mdash;since
+      you are determined to sell out those shares.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could&mdash;I wish to Heaven I could!&rdquo; cried the poor Major, in
+      a despair that required all the warnings of his legal adviser to smother
+      it down, so as to keep their conference private. &ldquo;I've been driven nearly
+      mad going from broker to broker in the City to-day. I might as well
+      attempt to sell out shares in the Elysian Fields as in that confounded
+      Wheal Caroline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fluctuations, my dear sir; mere fluctuations! 'Tis the same in all
+      Cornish mines. Yet, as I said, both concerning your own little property
+      and Miss Bowen's afterwards, I would wish no better investment. I have the
+      greatest confidence in the Wheal Caroline shares.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confidence!&rdquo; echoed the Major, ruefully. &ldquo;But where is my brother's
+      confidence in me, when I tell him?&mdash;'Pon my life, I can't tell him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not the slightest need; I have accurate information from the
+      mine, which next week will raise the shares to ten per cent, premium, and
+      then, since you are so determined to sell out that most promising
+      investment&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, as sure as I live. I vow I'll never be trustee to any young lady
+      again, as long as my name is Frederick Harper. However, if this must
+      stand&rdquo;&mdash;and he read from the deed&mdash;&ldquo;'all property now invested
+      in the Three per Cents.'&mdash;Oh, oh!&rdquo; Major Harper shook his head, with
+      a deep-drawn sigh of miserable irresolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet there lay the parchment, sickening him with its prevaricating if not
+      lying face; and his invisible good angel kept pulling him on one side&mdash;nay,
+      at last pulled him halfway across the room to where, absorbed in a reverie&mdash;pardonable
+      under the circumstances&mdash;his brother sat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, pray get out of that brown study, and have five minutes' talk
+      with me. If you only knew the annoyance I have endured all this week
+      concerning Agatha's fortune! How thankful I shall be to transfer it from
+      my hands into yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; said the lover, rather absently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I hope it will give you less trouble and more reward than it has
+      given me,&rdquo; continued the elder brother, still anxiously beating about the
+      bush, ere he came to a direct confession. &ldquo;I declare, I have been as
+      anxious for the young lady's benefit as if I had intended marrying her
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bridegroom's quick, fiery glance showed Major Harper that he had gone
+      a little too far, even in privileged jesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But happily Nathanael had heard the door open. He hastily went forward and
+      met his bride. With her were Mr. and Mrs. Thornycroft, Dr. and Mrs.
+      Ianson, and another lady. The latter quickly passed out of the immediate
+      circle, and sat down in a retired corner of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked pale and worn out, which was no wonder, considering that for
+      several days she had endured, morning, noon, and night, all the wearisome
+      preparations which the kind-hearted Emma deemed indispensable to &ldquo;a really
+      nice wedding.&rdquo; But her betrothed noticed her paleness with troubled eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not ill, my darling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Agatha, abruptly, blushing lest any one should hear the tender
+      word, which none had ever used to her before, and blushing still deeper
+      when, meeting Major Harper's anxious looks fixed on them both, she fancied
+      he had heard. A foolish sensitiveness made her turn away from her lover,
+      and talk to the first person who came in her way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Thornycroft and Dr. Ianson, with a knowledge that time was
+      precious, had gone at once to the business of the meeting, and were deep
+      in perusal of the marriage-settlement of which they were to be witnesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Miss Bowen, you are a richer girl than I knew,&rdquo; said Emma's worthy
+      husband, coming forward, with his round pleasant face. &ldquo;I congratulate
+      you; at this particular crisis, when hundreds are being ruined by last
+      year's mania for railway speculation, it is most fortunate to have safe
+      funded property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper's conscience groaned within, and it was all over. He resigned
+      himself to stern necessity and force of circumstances&mdash;hoping
+      everything would turn out for the best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they all gathered round the table, and Mr. Grimes droned out the
+      necessary formalities. The bride-elect listened, half in a dream&mdash;the
+      bridegroom rather more attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you quite sure,&rdquo; said he, pausing, with the pen in his hand, and
+      casting his eyes keenly over the document&mdash;&ldquo;are you quite sure this
+      deed answers the purpose I intended? This is the total amount of property
+      which Mr. Bowen left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he looked from his brother to the lawyer with an anxiety which long
+      afterwards recurred bitterly to Agatha's mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Grimes bowed, and assured him that all was correct. So the young
+      bridegroom signed with a steady hand, and afterwards watched the rather
+      tremulous signature of his bride. Then an inexpressible content diffused
+      itself over his face. Putting her arm in his, he led her away proudly, as
+      though she were already his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Confused by her novel position, Agatha looked instinctively for some
+      womanly encouragement, but Emma Thorny-croft was busily engaged in
+      admiring observation of some wedding presents, and Mrs. Ianson was worse
+      than nobody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Valery!&mdash;what has become of Miss Valery? said the bride, her
+      eyes wandering restlessly around. Other eyes followed hers&mdash;Major
+      Harper's. Incredulously these rested on the silent lady in the background,
+      whose whole mien, figure, and attire, in the plain dark dress, and close
+      morning cap, marked her a woman undeniably and fearlessly middle-aged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Can that be Anne Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady arose, and met him with extended hand. &ldquo;It is Anne Valery, and
+      she is very glad to see you, Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands; his confused manner contrasting strongly with her
+      perfect serenity. After a moment Miss Bowen, who could not help watching,
+      heard him say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, too, am glad we have met at last. I hope it is as friends!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was never otherwise to you,&rdquo; she answered, gently; and joined the
+      circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This rather singular greeting, noticed by none but herself, awakened
+      Agatha's old wrath against Major Harper, lest, as her romantic imagination
+      half suggested, the secret of Anne Valery's always remaining Anne Valery,
+      was, that his old companion had been first on the illustrious Frederick's
+      long list of broken hearts. If so, never was there a broken heart that
+      made so little outward show, or wore such a cheerful exterior, as Miss
+      Valery's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Agatha's own heart was too full of the busy trembling fancies natural
+      to her position to speculate overmuch on the hearts of other people. Very
+      soon Major Harper quitted the house, and the Thornycrofts also. She was
+      left alone with her lover and with Anne&mdash;Anne, who ever since her
+      arrival had seemed to keep a steady watch over Nathanael's bride. They had
+      rarely met, and for brief intervals; yet Agatha felt that she was
+      perpetually under this guardianship, gentle, though strong&mdash;holding
+      her fluctuating spirit firm, and filling her with all cheerful hopes and
+      tender thoughts of her future husband. She seemed to grow a better woman
+      every time she saw Anne Valery. It was inexpressibly sweet to turn for a
+      few moments each day from the lace and the ribbons, the dresses and the
+      bridecake, and hear Anne talk of what true marriage really was&mdash;when
+      two people entirely and worthily loved one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only Agatha had not the courage to confess, what she began to hope was a
+      foolish doubt, that the &ldquo;love&rdquo; which Miss Valery seemed to take for
+      granted she felt towards Nathanael, was a something which as yet she
+      herself did not quite understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That Saturday afternoon, nevertheless, she was calmer and more at ease.
+      Signing the settlement had removed all doubts from her mind, and made her
+      realise clearly that she would soon be Mr. Harper's wife. And he was so
+      tender over her, so happy. Her marriage with him appeared to make every
+      one happy. That very day he had brought her a heap of letters from
+      Dorsetshire; her first welcome from his kindred&mdash;her own that would
+      be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They seemed to know all about her&mdash;from Anne Valery doubtless&mdash;and
+      to be delighted at Nathanael's choice. There was a kind but formal missive
+      from the old father, implying his dignified satisfaction that at last one
+      of his sons would marry to keep up the family name. From the daughters
+      there were letters varying in style and matter, but all cordial except,
+      perhaps, Eulalie's, who had years to wait before <i>she</i> married, and
+      was rather cross accordingly. One note, in neat and delicate writing, made
+      Agatha's heart beat; for it was signed, &ldquo;Your affectionate <i>sister</i>,
+      Elizabeth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She, who had longed for a sister all her life! Heaven was very good to
+      her, to give her all ties through one! It seemed, indeed, right and holy
+      that she should be married to Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One only unutterable terror she had, which by a fortunate chance was never
+      alluded to by any one, and she was too much occupied to have it often
+      forced on her mind. This was, the thought of having to cross the seas to
+      Canada.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she sighed, as she sat, with the letters on her lap, listening to
+      what her lover said of his sisters and his family&mdash;&ldquo;oh! that we could
+      do as your father seems to wish, and go and live in Dorsetshire, near
+      Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish it too, if it would please you, dear; but it seems impossible. How
+      could I live in England without a profession?&mdash;even supposing Uncle
+      Brian did consent to return and settle at home. Sometimes, but very
+      rarely, he has hinted at such a possibility.&mdash;He has indeed, Anne,&rdquo;
+       continued the young man, noticing how keenly Miss Valery's eyes were fixed
+      on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he always said he would never return till he was grown either very
+      rich or very old. Alas; the latter chance may come, but the former never!
+      Poor Uncle Brian! If he comes at all, it is sure not to be for many
+      years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for many years!&rdquo; repeated Miss Valery, who was crossing over to
+      Agatha's side with a piece of rich lace she had been unfolding. As she
+      walked, her hand was unconsciously pressed upon her chest, a habit she had
+      after any quick movement. And, leaning over Agatha, she breathed painfully
+      and hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear?&rdquo; The young girl looked up. &ldquo;Your sisters that are to be desired
+      me to give you from them a wedding-present. It was to be your veil. But I
+      had a whim that I would like to give you your veil myself. Here it is.
+      Will you accept it, with my love?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/p090.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="Will You Accept It, With My Love  P090 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      So saying, she laid over the bride's head a piece of old point lace,
+      magnificent in texture. Agatha had never seen anything like it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Miss Valery, to think of your giving me this! It is fit for a queen!&rdquo;
+       And she looked at Mr. Harper, hesitating to accept so costly a gift.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, take it,&rdquo; said he smiling. &ldquo;Never scruple at its costliness; it
+      cannot be richer than Anne's heart.&rdquo; And he grasped his old friend's hand
+      warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery continued, with a slight colour rising in her cheek. &ldquo;This was
+      given me twenty years ago for a wedding-veil. It has been wasted upon me,
+      you see, but I wish some one to wear it, and would like it to be worn by a
+      Mrs. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha blushed crimson. Nathanael looked delighted. Neither noticed Anne
+      Valery; who, her passing colour having sunk into a still deeper paleness,
+      quietly returned to her seat, and soon after quitted the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a most unconscionably early hour on the wedding morning when Mrs.
+      Thornycroft, who had insisted on mounting guard overnight in Bedford
+      Square, to see that all things were made ready to go off &ldquo;merry as a
+      marriage bell,&rdquo; came into Agatha's room and roused the bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never knew such a thing in all my life! Well, he is the most
+      extraordinary young man! What is to be done, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;what?&rdquo; said Agatha, waking, with a confused notion that
+      something very dreadful had happened, or was going to happen. She
+      recollected that this day on which she so early opened her eyes was some
+      day of great solemnity. It seemed so like that of her father's funeral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be frightened, love. Nothing has occurred; only there is Mr. Harper
+      in the parlour below, wanting to speak with you. I never heard of such a
+      request from a bridegroom. It is contrary to all rules of common sense and
+      decorum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Agatha, trying to collect her thoughts. &ldquo;Tell me exactly his
+      message.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he wished to speak with you at once, before you dress for church;
+      and will wait for you in the dining-room. What&mdash;you are not going to
+      do as he desires?&mdash;I wouldn't! One should never <i>obey</i> till
+      after marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha made no answer, but composedly began to dress. In a few minutes she
+      had once more put on the mourning, laid aside as she thought for ever the
+      night before, and had gone down-stairs to her bridegroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was standing in the only available corner of the room not occupied by a
+      chaotic mass of hymeneal preparations, and gazing vacantly out into the
+      square, where the trees cast the long shadows of early morning, while the
+      merry little sparrows kept up a perpetual din.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the door moved, Mr. Harper turned round. He had a sickly, worn look, as
+      if he had scarcely slept all night, and in his manner was a strange
+      mingling of trouble and of joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha&mdash;how kind! I ought to apologise,&rdquo; he began, taking both her
+      hands. &ldquo;But no! I cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing is wrong? No misfortune happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Misfortune? God forbid! Surely I do not look as if it were a misfortune?
+      I am only too glad&mdash;too happy. Whatever results from it, I am indeed
+      happy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then so am I, whatsoever it may be,&rdquo; returned Agatha, softly. &ldquo;Still, do
+      tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her bridegroom, as he pressed her to his bosom, looked as if he had for
+      the moment forgotten all about his tidings; but afterwards, when her
+      second entreaty came, he took out a letter and bade her read, holding her
+      fast the while with a light firm hand on her shoulder. He seemed almost to
+      fear that at the news he brought she would glide out of his grasp like
+      snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an odd hand&mdash;strange to me,&rdquo; said Agatha. &ldquo;Is it&rdquo;&mdash;and a
+      sudden thought struck her&mdash;&ldquo;is it&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;thank God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, then, he is safe&mdash;I am so glad&mdash;so glad!&rdquo; cried Agatha, in
+      the true sympathy of her heart. But her very gladness appeared to affect
+      contrariwise the troubled mood of her lover. His hand dropped
+      imperceptibly from her shoulder&mdash;he sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read the letter, which came late last night. I thought you would be
+      pleased&mdash;that was why I thus disturbed you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, who had not yet learned the joy or pain of reading momently the
+      changes of a beloved face, immediately perused the letter. It was rather
+      eccentric of its kind:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lodge of O-me-not-tua.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Boy,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever you get into the hands of those red devils, be not alarmed: it
+      isn't so bad as it seems. If you saw me now, in the big buffalo-cloak of a
+      medicine man, after smoking dozens of pipes of peace with every one of the
+      tribe, sitting at the door of my lodge, with miles of high prairie-grass
+      rolling in waves towards the sunset, you would rather envy me than
+      otherwise, and cry out, as I have often done, 'Away with civilisation!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not scalped&mdash;I thought I should not be; the tribe (it wastes
+      valuable paper to write their long name, but you will have heard it) the
+      tribe know me too well. I make a capital white medicine-man. I might have
+      escaped any day, but, pshaw! honour!&mdash;So I choose to see a little of
+      the great western forests, until I know how my two red friends have been
+      treated on Lake Winnipeg shore. But in no case is any harm likely to come
+      to me, except those chances of mortality which are common to all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will receive this (which a worthy psalm-singing missionary conveys to
+      New York) almost as soon as the news of our adventure reaches Europe. I
+      send it to relieve you, dear nephew, and all friends, if I have any left,
+      from further anxiety concerning me, and especially from useless search, as
+      under no circumstances whatever shall I consent to return to Montreal
+      until it seems to me good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Therefore, stay in Europe as long as, or longer than, you planned, and
+      God prosper you, Nathanael, my good boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your affectionate uncle,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brian Locke Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust earnestly that this scrawl will reach Kingcombe Holm. Possibly,
+      no more news of me may ever reach there.&mdash;Yet I fear not, for He who
+      is everywhere is likewise in the wild western prairies; and life is not so
+      sweet that I should dread its ending. Still, if it does end, remember me
+      to my brother, my nieces, and all old friends, including Anne Valery. If
+      living, I shall reappear sometime, somewhere. B. L. H.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is indeed happy news;&mdash;so far;&rdquo; said Agatha, &ldquo;though he seems
+      in no cheerful mood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Melancholy was always his way at times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a strange man he must be!&rdquo; she continued, still thinking more of the
+      letter than of anything else. &ldquo;But&rdquo;&mdash;and she turned to Nathanael&mdash;&ldquo;your
+      mind is now at rest? You will not need to go to America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not just yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him a moment in surprise, for there was something peculiar
+      in his manner. She felt half angry with him for sitting so still, and
+      speaking so briefly, while she herself was trembling with delight. &ldquo;Have
+      you told Miss Valery?&rdquo; He shook his head. &ldquo;Ah, then, go at once and tell
+      her, so happy as she will be! Do go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presently. Come and sit down here. I want to talk to you, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She let him place her by his side. He took her hands, and regarded her
+      earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember what day this was to have been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was to have been?&rdquo; she repeated, and instinctively guessed what he had
+      doubtless come to say. Her heart began to beat violently, and her eyes
+      dropped in confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say '<i>was</i>,' because, if you desire it, it shall not be. I see the
+      very idea is a relief to you. I saw it in your sudden joy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was amazed&mdash;she had till this moment never thought of such a
+      thing. Mr. Harper's whole manner of speech and proceeding was so very
+      incomprehensible&mdash;like a lover's&mdash;that she told the entire truth
+      in simply saying &ldquo;that she did not understand him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me repeat it in plainer words.&rdquo; But the plainer words would not come;
+      after one or two vain efforts, he sat with averted face, speechless. At
+      last he said abruptly, &ldquo;Agatha, do you wish to defer our marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, his grasp of her hand was so fierce that it positively hurt
+      her. &ldquo;Oh, let me go&mdash;you are not kind,&rdquo; she cried, shrinking from the
+      pain, which he did not even perceive he had inflicted&mdash;so strange a
+      mood was upon him. He loosed her hand at once, and stood up before her,
+      speaking vehemently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant to be kind&mdash;very kind&mdash;just in the way that I knew
+      would most please you. I meant to tell you that I wish you to hold
+      yourself quite free, both as to this day or any other days: that you have
+      only to say the word, and&mdash;What a fool I am making of myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Muttering the last words, he turned and walked quickly to the far end of
+      the room, leaving Agatha to meditate. It was a new thing to see such
+      passion in him; and while half frightened she was interested and touched.
+      She would have been more so, but for a certain something in him which
+      roused her pride, until she could not do as she had at first intended&mdash;follow
+      him, and ask why he was angry. The humility of love was not yet hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So she sat without moving, her eyes fixed on her hand, where the red mark
+      left by her lover's grasp was slowly disappearing; until a minute after,
+      he approached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that the mark of my fingers on your wrist? Did I hurt you, my poor
+      Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me!&rdquo; And sitting down beside her, he bent his lips to where his
+      rude grasp had been, kissing the little wrist over and over again, though
+      he did not speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His humility in this, the first ripple which had ever stirred their
+      calmest of all calm courtships, moved Agatha even more than his sudden
+      gust of passion. It is a curious fact, that some women&mdash;and they not
+      of the weaker or more foolish kind&mdash;like very much to be ruled. A
+      strong nature is instinctively attracted by one still stronger. Most
+      certainly Agatha had never so distinctly felt the cords&mdash;not exactly
+      of love, but of some influence akin thereto&mdash;which this young man had
+      netted round her, as when he began to draw them with a tight, firm hand,
+      less that of a submissive lover than of a dominant husband. She had never
+      liked him half so well as when, taking her hand once more into his
+      determined hold, he said&mdash;gently, indeed, but in a tone that would be
+      answered&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, tell me, what do you wish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I wish?&rdquo; echoed she, feeling as though some hard but firm support
+      were about to relax from her, leaving her trembling and insecure to the
+      world's open blasts. &ldquo;I do not know&mdash;I cannot tell. Talk to me a
+      little; that will help me to judge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye brightened, though faintly. &ldquo;I will speak, but you shall decide,
+      for all lies in your own hands. I thought this right, and came here
+      determined on telling you so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Agatha, expectantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You promised me this hand to-day, believing I was to leave England at
+      once. My not leaving frees you from that promise&mdash;at least at
+      present. If you would rather wait until you know me better, or love me
+      better, then&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will quite blot out this day&mdash;crush it&mdash;destroy it, no
+      matter what it was to have been. We will enter upon to-morrow, not as wife
+      and husband, but mere lovers&mdash;friends&mdash;acquaintances&mdash;anything
+      you like. Nay&mdash;I am growing a fool again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his hand to his forehead, sighed heavily, and then continued with
+      less violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this is what you wish&mdash;as from your silence I conclude it is&mdash;be
+      assured, Agatha, that I shall consent. I will take no wife against her
+      will. The kisses of her lips would sting me, if there were no love in her
+      heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was still silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, it must be so,&rdquo; said he, in slow, measured speech. &ldquo;I must go
+      away out of this house, for I am no bridegroom. You may tell the women to
+      put away this white finery till it is wanted&mdash;which may be&mdash;never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up questioningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I repeat&mdash;<i>never</i>. The currents of life, so many and so fierce,
+      may sweep us asunder at any moment. I may become mercenary, and choose a
+      richer wife even than yourself; or you may turn from me to some one more
+      pleasing, more winning&mdash;my brother, perhaps&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha recoiled, while the angry blood flashed from brow to throat. Her
+      lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze. But
+      immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of his own
+      creating, and continued with a softened manner:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or, if our own wills hold secure, many things may happen, as Anne Valery
+      forewarned us, to prevent our union. Even ere a month or two&mdash;for if
+      you are ever mine it must be as soon as then&mdash;but even within that
+      time one or other of us may have gone away where no loving, no regretting,
+      can ever call us back any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrible was the imagined solitude of a world from which had passed the
+      only being who cherished her&mdash;the only being whom she thoroughly
+      honoured. Agatha drew closer to Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, for all that,&rdquo; continued he, striving to keep even in his mind the
+      balance of honour and generous tenderness against the arguments of selfish
+      passion, &ldquo;if for any reason you wish to postpone this day for weeks,
+      months, or years, I will take the chance. All shall be as you deem best
+      for your own happiness. As for mine&mdash;I will try to be content.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a little, but it was a pause which no woman could misunderstand.
+      Then, turning back to her, he said in a low tone,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When am I to go away, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brow dropped slowly against his arm, as, much agitated, yet not
+      unhappy, she whispered the one word &ldquo;<i>Never</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For one moment Agatha felt against her own the loud convulsive throbs of
+      the heart that loved her&mdash;an embrace which, in its fierce rapture,
+      was like none that came before it, or after. When she learned to count and
+      chronicle such tokens of love, as one begins to count each wave when the
+      sand grows dry, this embrace remained to her as a truth, a reality, which
+      no succeeding doubts could explain away or gainsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It lasted, as such moments can but last, a space too brief to be reckoned,
+      dying out of its own intensity. Agatha slid from her lover's arms, and
+      swiftly passing out at the door, met Emma coming in. The unlucky
+      bridegroom was left to make his own explanation to Mrs. Thornycroft, and
+      how he performed that feat remains a mystery to this day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solemnly, and much affected, the bride went up-stairs to put on her
+      wedding-garments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne Valery had just arrived. She sat alone in Miss Bowen's dressing-room,
+      playing with the orange-wreath. Her face wore a thoughtful, sickly, sad
+      look, but the moment she heard some one at the door this expression
+      vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, my dear, you have a rather unconscionable bridegroom, Mrs.
+      Thornycroft tells me. He has been here already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly all that had happened recurred to Agatha. She forgot her own
+      agitation in the joy of being the first to bring good news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you little know why he came. Uncle Brian&mdash;there is a letter from
+      Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in her warm-heartedness of delight she threw her arms round Miss
+      Valery's neck. She was very much surprised that Anne did not speak a
+      single word, and that the cheek against which her young glowing one was
+      pressed felt as cold as marble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not glad, Miss Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very glad. Now will you go down-stairs and fetch me the letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, gently putting the young girl from her, Anne sat down! As Agatha left
+      the room, she fancied she heard a faint sound&mdash;a sigh or gasp; but
+      Miss Valery had not moved. She sat as at first&mdash;her hands clasped on
+      her lap, the veil of her bonnet falling over her face. And coming back
+      some minutes after, Agatha found her in precisely the same position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, dear.&rdquo; She held out her hand for the letter, and then retired
+      with it to a far window. It took a good while to read. All the time that
+      the young bride was being dressed by Emma and the maid, Miss Valery stood
+      in that recess, her back turned towards them, apparently reading or
+      pondering over that strange scrawl from the Far West.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Mrs. Thornycroft gently hinted that there was hardly time for her
+      to return home and dress for the wedding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dress for the wedding,&rdquo; repeated Anne, absently. &ldquo;Oh, yes; I remember, it
+      was to be early. No fear! I will be quite ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She crossed the room, walking slowly, but at the door turned to look at
+      the bride, on whose head Emma was already placing the orange-blossoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn't she look pretty?&rdquo; appealed the gratified matron-ministrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; very pretty.&mdash;God bless her!&rdquo; said Miss Valery, and kissed her
+      on the forehead. Agatha quite started&mdash;the lips were so cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; cried Emma Thornycroft, as the door closed, &ldquo;I do wish, my dear,
+      that little Missy had been grown up enough to be your bridesmaid instead
+      of that very quiet ordinary-looking old maid. But, after all, the contrast
+      will be the greater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At nine o'clock the bride's half of the wedding-party were all safely
+      assembled in Doctor Ianson's drawing-room, and everything promised to go
+      off successfully&mdash;to which result Emma, now all in her glory, prided
+      herself as having been the main contributor&mdash;and no doubt the kind,
+      active, sensible little matron was right.&mdash;When, lo!&mdash;there came
+      an unlucky <i>contretemps</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper, who of course was to give away the bride, sent word that on
+      account of sudden business he could not possibly be at the church before
+      eleven. At that hour he promised faithfully to meet his brother there. The
+      note which he sent over was a very hurried and disjointed scrawl. This was
+      all that the vexed bridegroom knew of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So for two long hours Agatha sat in her wedding-dress, strangely quiet and
+      silent&mdash;sometimes playing with the wreath of orange-blossoms which
+      her lover had sent her, and which, being composed of natural flowers,
+      according to a whim of Mr. Harper's, was already beginning to fade. Still
+      she refused to put it aside, though the prudent Emma warned her it would
+      be quite withered before she reached the church; &ldquo;as was sure to be the
+      case when people were so ridiculous as to wear real flowers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The good soul went about, half scolding, half crying; hoping nothing might
+      happen, or consoling herself with looking alternately at her pretty
+      peach-coloured dress, and her &ldquo;James,&rdquo; who walked about, indulging in gay
+      reminiscences of his own wedding, and looking the most comfortable
+      specimen imaginable of a worthy middle-aged &ldquo;family man.&rdquo; Nevertheless, in
+      spite of Mr. Thornycroft's efforts to cheer up the dreariness of the
+      group, it was a great relief to everybody when, at the earliest reasonable
+      time, the bride's small party started, and were at length assembled under
+      the dark arches of Bloomsbury Church&mdash;darker than usual today, for
+      the morning had gloomed over, and become close, hot, and thundery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Punctually at eleven, but not a minute before, which&mdash;Emma whispered&mdash;was
+      certainly not quite courteous in a bridegroom, Mr. Harper came in. There
+      was no one with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother not here?&rdquo; he said in anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one hinted that Major Harper was never very punctual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ought to be, this day at least,&rdquo; observed Mr. Thorny-croft. &ldquo;And I am
+      confident I saw him not half-an-hour ago walking homeward round the other
+      side of Bedford Square. Do not be alarmed about him, pray.&rdquo; This last
+      remark was addressed to Agatha, who, overpowered by the closeness of the
+      day, and by these repeated disasters, had begun to turn pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael watched her with a keen anxiety, which only agitated her the
+      more. Every one seemed uneasy and rather dull;&mdash;a circumstance not
+      very remarkable, since, in spite of the popular delusion on that subject,
+      very few ever really look happy at a wedding. It makes clearer to each one
+      the silent ghost sitting in every human heart, which may take any form&mdash;bliss
+      long desired, lost, or unfulfilled&mdash;or, in the fulfilling changed to
+      pain&mdash;or, at best, looked back upon with a memory half-pensive if
+      only because it is the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For forty interminable minutes did the little party wait in the dreary
+      church aisles, until the clock, and likewise the beadle, warned them it
+      was near the canonical hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are we to do?&rdquo; whispered the bridegroom, looking towards Anne
+      Valery. She took his hand, and drawing it towards Agatha's which hung on
+      her arm, said earnestly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait no longer&mdash;life's changes will not wait Marry her <i>now</i>&mdash;nothing
+      should come between lovers that love one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne's manner, so faltering, so different from her usual self,
+      irresistibly impressed the hearers. Silently the little group moved to the
+      altar; the clergyman, weary of delay, hurried the service, and in a few
+      minutes the young creatures who eight weeks before had scarcely heard each
+      other's names, were made &ldquo;not two, but one flesh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all like a dream to Agatha Bowen; she never believed in its reality
+      until, signing that name, &ldquo;Agatha Bowen,&rdquo; in the register-book, she
+      remembered she was so signing it for the last time. A moment after, Emma's
+      husband, who had assumed the office of father to the bride, cordially
+      shaking her hand, wished all happiness to <i>Mrs. Harper</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha started, shivered, and burst into tears. It was a natural thing,
+      after so many hours of overstrained excitement; nor were her tears those
+      of unhappiness, yet they seemed, every drop, to burn on her bridegroom's
+      heart. To crown all, while these unlucky tears were still falling, some
+      one at the vestry door cried out, &ldquo;There's Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed himself. He entered the church hurriedly&mdash;very pale&mdash;with
+      beads of dew standing on his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they married? Am I too late&mdash;are they married?&rdquo; cried he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some uncontrollable feeling made Nathanael move to his wife's side, and
+      snatch her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, meeting his brother's eye, &ldquo;we are married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper sank into one of the vestry-chairs, muttering something,
+      inaudible to all ears save those which seemed fatally gifted with
+      preternatural acuteness&mdash;the young bridegroom's. Nathanael fancied&mdash;nay,
+      was certain&mdash;that he heard his brother say, &ldquo;<i>Oh, my poor Agatha.</i>&rdquo;
+       He looked suddenly at his bride, whose weeping had changed into silent but
+      violent trembling. He dropped her hand, then with a determined air again
+      took possession of it, saying sharply to his brother:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the reason of all this? Is anything amiss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nothing&mdash;have I said anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why startle us thus? It is not right, Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush&mdash;perhaps he is ill,&rdquo; whispered Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper looked up, and among the many inquiring eyes, met hers. It
+      seemed to fix him, sting him, rouse him to self-command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite well,&rdquo; he cried, with a hoarse attempt at laughter. &ldquo;A gay
+      bachelor always feels doubly cheery at a wedding. So it is all over,
+      Nathanael? I beg your pardon for being too late; but I have been running
+      about town on important business, till I am half-dead. Still, let me offer
+      my congratulations to the bride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He came forward jauntily, seized Agatha's hand and was about to kiss it,
+      but for a slight shrinking on her part. The colour rushed to her face&mdash;his
+      darkened with an expression of uncontrollable pain. At least so it
+      appeared to one who never for a moment relaxed his watch&mdash;the younger
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; said Mr. Thornycroft, who, during the few minutes thus occupied,
+      had bustled in and out of the vestry&mdash;&ldquo;really, are we never intending
+      to come home? Somebody must make a diversion here. Major Harper, will you
+      take my wife? Miss Valery, allow me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This fortunate interference effected a change. All moved away a little
+      from the bridegroom, who was still standing by his wife's chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha&mdash;will you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She mechanically rose; Mr. Harper drew her arm in his, and led her down
+      the aisle. There were a few stray lookers-on at the church-door, who
+      peered at them curiously. An inexplicable shadow hung over them. Never
+      were a newly-married couple more silent or more grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only, as they stood on the entrance-steps that were wet with a past shower
+      of thunder-rain, and Agatha in her thin white shoes was walking right on,
+      her husband drew her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will not hurt me. Do let me go,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you must not; you are mine now,&rdquo; was the answer, with a look that
+      would have made the tone of control sound in any loving bride's ear the
+      sweetest ever heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left Agatha in the church, and hurried a little in advance. His brother
+      and Mrs. Thomycroft were standing at the porch outside, Emma laughing and
+      whispering. And while waiting for the carriage, it so chanced that
+      Nathanael caught what they were saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Major Harper, you look as dull as if you had been in love with
+      Agatha yourself! And after what you confessed to me, I did positively
+      believe she was in love with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha in love with me! really you flatter me,&rdquo; said Major Harper,
+      looking down and tapping his boot, with his own self-complacent, regretful
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did indeed think it, from her agitation when I hinted at such a thing.
+      And I never was more amazed in my life than when she told me she was going
+      to marry your brother. I do hope, poor dear Agatha&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't speak of her,&rdquo; cried Major Harper, in a burst of real emotion. &ldquo;And
+      she liked me so well, poor child! Oh, I wish to Heaven I had married her,
+      and saved her from&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a voice was heard calling &ldquo;Mr. Harper&mdash;Mr. Harper,&rdquo; but the
+      bridegroom was nowhere to be seen. Some one&mdash;not her husband&mdash;put
+      Agatha into the carriage. Several minutes after, Nathanael appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where have you been? Your wife is waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife?&rdquo; He looked round bewildered, as if the words struck him with the
+      awful irrevocable sense of what was done. Hurriedly he ran down the steps,
+      sprang into the carriage beside Agatha, and they drove away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through many streets and squares they passed, for the breakfast was to be
+      at Emma's house. Agatha sat for the first time alone with her husband. The
+      sun just coming out threw a soft crimson light through the closed carriage
+      blinds; the very air felt warm and sweet, like love. Agatha's heart was
+      stirred with a new tenderness towards him into whose keeping she had just
+      given her whole life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a little while she sat, her eyes cast down, wondering what he would
+      say or do, whether he would take her hand, or draw her softly to his
+      breast and let her cry her heart out there, as she almost longed to do&mdash;poor
+      fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless girl, who in her husband
+      alone must concentrate every earthly tie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he never spoke&mdash;never moved. He leaned back in the carriage as
+      pale as death, his lips rigidly shut together, his eyes shut too, except
+      that now and then they opened and closed again, to show that he was not in
+      a state of total unconsciousness. But towards his young wife no look ever
+      once wandered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length he started as from a trance and saw her sitting there, very
+      quiet, for the pride of her nature was beginning to rise at this strange
+      treatment from him to whom she had just given herself&mdash;her all. She
+      was nervously moving the fingers of her left hand, where the newly placed
+      ring felt heavy and strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael snatched the hand with violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha,&mdash;are you not my Agatha? Tell me the truth&mdash;the whole
+      truth. I will have it from you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper!&rdquo; she exclaimed, half frightened, half angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His long, searching gaze tried to read her every feature&mdash;her pale
+      cheeks&mdash;her lips proud, nay, almost sullen&mdash;her eyes, from which
+      the softness so lately visible had changed into inquietude and trouble.
+      There was in her all maidenly innocence&mdash;no one could doubt that; but
+      nothing could be more unlike the shy tenderness of a bride, loving, and
+      married for love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly, slowly, the young bridegroom's gaze fell from her, and his
+      thoughts settled into dull conviction. All his violence ceased, leaving an
+      icy composure, which in itself bore the omen of its lasting stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; he said, in a kind but cold voice, while his vehement grasp
+      relaxed into a loose hold. &ldquo;You are my dear wife now, and I will try to be
+      a good husband to you, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stooping forward, his lips just touched her cheek&mdash;which shrank from
+      him, Agatha scarcely knew why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see!&rdquo; he muttered to himself &ldquo;Well, be it so! and God help us both!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The carriage stopped. Honest Mr. James Thomycroft was at the door, bidding
+      a gay and full-hearted welcome to the bridegroom and bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a marriage-day!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Are you quite warm there, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, thank you, quite warm,&rdquo; she said, turning round a little, and then
+      turning back. She sat working, or seeming to work, at a large bay window
+      that fronted the sea at Brighton. Already there had come over her the
+      slight but unmistakable change which indicates the wife&mdash;the girl no
+      longer. She had been married just one week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband sat at a table writing, as was his habit during the middle of
+      the day, in order that they might walk out in the evening. He had often
+      been thus busy during the week, even though it was the first week of the
+      honeymoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The honeymoon! How different the word now sounded to Agatha! Yet she had
+      nothing to complain of. Mr. Harper was very kind; watchful and tender over
+      her to a degree which she felt even more than she saw. In the mornings he
+      read to her, or talked, chiefly upon subjects higher and withal pleasanter
+      than Agatha had ever heard talked of before; in the evenings they drove
+      out or walked, till far into the starry summer night. They were together
+      constantly, there never passed between them a quick or harsh word, and yet&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha vainly tried to solve the dim, cloudy &ldquo;yet&rdquo; which had no tangible
+      form, and only arose now that the first bewilderment of her changed
+      existence was settling into reality, and she was beginning to recognise
+      herself as Agatha Harper, no longer a girl, but a married woman. The sole
+      conclusion she could come to was, that she must be now learning what she
+      supposed every one had to learn&mdash;that a honeymoon is not quite the
+      dream of bliss which young people believe in, and that few married couples
+      are quite happy during the first year of their union.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mrs. Harper (or Mrs. Locke Harper, as her husband had had printed on
+      the cards, omitting the name which she had once stigmatised as &ldquo;ugly,&rdquo;)
+      was probably not altogether wide of the truth, though in this case she
+      judged from mistaken because individual evidence. It is next to impossible
+      that two lives, unless assimilated by strong attachment and rare outward
+      circumstances, if suddenly thrown together, should at once mingle and flow
+      harmoniously on. It takes time, and the influence of perfect love, to melt
+      and fuse the two currents into one beautiful whole. Perhaps, did all young
+      lovers believe and prepare for this, there would be fewer disappointed and
+      unhappy marriages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though sitting at the open window, with the sharp sea-breeze blowing in
+      upon her&mdash;it happened to be a sunless and gloomy day&mdash;Agatha had
+      answered that she was &ldquo;quite warm.&rdquo; Nevertheless her heart felt cold. Not
+      positively sad, yet void. A great deal of passionate devotion is necessary
+      to make two active human beings content with one another's sole company
+      for eight entire days, having nothing to occupy them but each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wanting this&mdash;yet scarcely conscious of her need&mdash;the young wife
+      sat, in her secret soul all shivering and a-cold. At last, wearied with
+      the long grey sweep of undulating sea, she closed the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought the breeze would be too keen for you,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, whom
+      her lightest movement always seemed to attract.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no; but I am tired of watching the waves. How melancholy it must be to
+      live here. I have a perfect terror of the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had I known that, I would not have proposed our coming to-day from
+      Leamington to Brighton. But we can leave to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not mean that,&rdquo; she answered quickly, dreading lest her husband
+      might have thought her speech ungracious or unkind. &ldquo;We need not go&mdash;unless
+      you wish it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bridegroom made no immediate reply: but there was a melancholy
+      tenderness in his eyes, as, without her knowing it, he sat watching his
+      young wife. At length he rose, and putting her arm in his, stood a long
+      time with her at the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, dear Agatha, that you are right. The sea is always sad. How
+      dreary it looks now&mdash;like a wide-stretched monotonous life whose
+      ending we see not, yet it must be crossed. How shall we cross it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked inquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sea I mean,&rdquo; he continued, with a sudden change of tone. &ldquo;Shall we go
+      over to France for a week or two?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no&rdquo;&mdash;and she shuddered. &ldquo;It would kill me to cross the water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked surprised at her unaccountable repugnance, which she had
+      scarcely expressed than she seemed overpowered by confusion. Her husband
+      forbore to question her further; but the next day told her that he had
+      arranged for their quitting Brighton and making a tour through the west of
+      England, proceeding from thence to London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&mdash;as my brother, or rather my brother's solicitor, writes me
+      word&mdash;some business about your fortune will require our return in
+      another fortnight. Are you willing, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes&mdash;quite willing,&rdquo; she cried; for now that her changed life was
+      floating her far away from her old ties, she began to have a yearning for
+      them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the honeymoon dwindled to three weeks, at the close of which Mr. and
+      Mrs. Locke Harper were again in London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed very strange to Agatha to come back to the known places, and
+      roll over the old familiar London stones, and see all things going on as
+      usual; while in herself had come so wide a gap of existence, as if those
+      one-and-twenty days of absence had been one-and-twenty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had become a little more happy lately; a little more used to her new
+      life. And day by day something undefinable began to draw her towards her
+      husband. It was in fact the dawning spirit of love, which should and might
+      have come before marriage, instead of being, as now, an after-growth.
+      Beneath its influence Nathanael's very likeness altered; his face grew
+      more beautiful, his voice softer. Looking at him now, as he sat by her
+      side, Mr. Harper hardly appeared to her the same man who, returning from
+      the church as her bridegroom, had impressed her with such shrinking awe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He too was more cheerful. All the long railway journey he had tried to
+      amuse her; the humorous half of his disposition&mdash;for Nathanael had,
+      like most good men, a spice of humour about him&mdash;coming out as it had
+      never done before. However, as they neared London, he as well as his wife
+      had become rather grave. But when, abruptly turning round, he perceived
+      her earnestly, even tenderly regarding him (at which Agatha was foolish
+      enough to blush, as if it were a crime to be looking admiringly at one's
+      husband), he melted into a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are in the old quarters, Agatha. The question is, Where shall we
+      go to, since we have no lodgings taken?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have let me write to Emma, as I wished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, shortly; &ldquo;it was a pity to trouble her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not have thought it so, poor dear Emma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you very intimate with Mrs. Thornycroft? Did you tell her everything
+      in your heart, as women do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was amused by the jealous searching tone and look, so replied
+      carelessly: &ldquo;Oh yes, all I had to tell, which was not much. I don't deal
+      in mysteries, nor like them. But the chief mystery now seems to be, where
+      are we to go? If Emma may not be troubled, surely Mrs. Ianson, or your
+      brother&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother is out of town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; And Agatha looked as she felt, neither glad nor sorry, but
+      purely indifferent. Her husband, observing it, became more cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, my dear Agatha, you shall not be inconvenienced. We will go first to
+      some quiet lodgings I know of, where Anne Valery always stays when she is
+      in London&mdash;though she has returned home now, I think. And afterwards,
+      if you find the evening very dull&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; exclaimed the young wife, smiling a beautiful negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will go and take a sentimental walk through those very squares we
+      strolled through that night&mdash;do you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How strange seemed that recollection!&mdash;how little she had then
+      thought she was walking with her future husband!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, when a few hours after she trod the well-known streets, with her
+      wifely feelings, sweet and grave, and thought that the arm on which she
+      now leaned was her own through life, Agatha Harper was not unhappy, nor
+      would she for one moment have wished to be again Agatha Bowen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, by the husband's express desire&mdash;the declaring of which
+      was a great act of self-denial on his part&mdash;word was sent to the
+      Thornycrofts of the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very trembling, shy, and bewitching the bride sat, waiting for the
+      meeting; and when Emma did really come, very tragico-comic, half pleasure,
+      half tears, was the hearty embrace between the two women. Mr. Harper stood
+      and looked on&mdash;he played the young husband as composedly as he had
+      done the lover and the bridegroom, except for a slight jealous movement as
+      he saw the clinging, the kisses, the tears, which, with the warmth of a
+      heart thrilled by new emotions and budding out into all manner of new
+      tendernesses, Agatha lavished on her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, whatever he felt, no one could observe but that Nathanael was
+      extremely polite and kind to Mrs. Thorny-croft. She on her part admired
+      him extremely&mdash;in whispers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How well he looks! Really quite changed! No one would ever think of
+      calling him a 'boy' now. You must be quite proud of your husband, my
+      dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha smiled, and a light thrill at her heart betrayed its answer. Very
+      soon she ceased to be shy and shame-faced, and sat talking quite at ease,
+      as if she had been Mrs. Locke Harper for at least a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emma Thornycroft was a person not likely to waste much time on the
+      sentimentalities of such a meeting; she soon dashed into the common-sense
+      question of what were their plans in London? and when they would come and
+      dine with herself and &ldquo;James&rdquo; &ldquo;Quite friendly. We will ask no one, except
+      of course Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is out of town,&rdquo; said Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a pity&mdash;Yet, no wonder; London is so terribly hot now. Is he
+      quite well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe so,&rdquo; Agatha answered for her husband, who had moved off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because James has met him frequently of late, rushing about the City as
+      pale as a ghost, and looking so miserable. We were afraid something was
+      wrong with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I hope not,&rdquo; exclaimed Agatha, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother is quite well,&rdquo; Mr. Harper again observed, from his outpost by
+      the window; and something in his tone unconsciously checked and changed
+      the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether by Agatha's real inclination, or by some unnoticed influence of
+      Nathanael's, who, gentle as his manners were, through a score of other
+      opposing wills seemed always silently to attain his own, Mrs.
+      Thornycroft's hospitable schemes were overruled. At least, the <i>venue</i>
+      was changed from Regent's Park to the Harpers' own temporary home&mdash;where,
+      as if by magic, a multitude of small luxuries had already gathered round
+      the young wife. She took all quite naturally, never pausing to think how
+      they came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a trepidation which had yet its pleasure, that she arrayed
+      herself for this, the first time of her taking her place at the head of
+      her husband's table. She put on a high white gown, which Mr. Harper had
+      once said he liked&mdash;she was beginning to be anxious over her dress
+      and appearance now. Glancing into the mirror, there recurred to her mind a
+      speech she had once heard from some foolish matron&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, it does not
+      signify what I wear, or how I look&mdash;I'm married!&rdquo; Agatha thought what
+      a very wrong doctrine that was! and laughed at herself for never having
+      much cared to seem pleasing until she had some one to please. Nay, now for
+      the first time she grumbled at the Pawnee-face, wishing it had been
+      fairer!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But fair or not, when it came timidly and shone over Nathanael's shoulder,
+      he sitting leaning thoughtfully on his hand, the result was such as
+      materially to relieve any womanly doubts about her personal appearance. He
+      kissed her in unwonted smiling tenderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like that dress; and your curls&mdash;softly touching them&mdash;your
+      curls fall so prettily. How well you look, Agatha! Happy, too! Is it
+      really so? Are you getting more used to me and my faults, dear?&rdquo; There was
+      something inexpressibly tender in the way he said &ldquo;Dear,&rdquo; the only
+      caressing word he ever used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your faults?&rdquo; re-echoed she in a merry incredulous tone. But before she
+      could say more, the guests most inopportunely arrived. And Agatha, very
+      naturally, darted from her husband to the other side of the room like a
+      flash of lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the Thornycrofts had expected to find a couple of turtle-doves cooing
+      in a cage, they were certainly disappointed. Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper had
+      apparently settled down into an ordinary husband and wife, resuming
+      serenely their place in society, and behaving towards each other, and the
+      world in general, just like sensible old married people. Their friends,
+      taking the hint, treated them in like manner; and thus, now and for ever,
+      vanished Agatha's honeymoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner, Emma, anxious about Agatha's proceedings, and still more
+      anxious to have a hand in the same, for she was never happy unless busy
+      about her own or other people's affairs, made inquiries as to the future
+      plans of the young couple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha could give no answer, for, to her great thankfulness, her husband
+      had hitherto avoided the subject. She looked at him for a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, Mrs. Thornycroft, it will probably be three months before I&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      smilingly corrected himself, and said &ldquo;<i>we</i> return to Canada.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what do you intend to do meanwhile? Of course, Agatha dear, you will
+      remain in London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; she replied, accustomed to decide for herself, and forgetting at
+      the moment that there was now another to whose decision she was bound to
+      defer. Blushing, she looked towards her husband, who was talking to Mr.
+      Thornycroft. He turned, as indeed he always did when he heard her
+      speaking; but he made no remark, and the &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; passed as their mutual
+      assent to Emma's question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know a place that would just suit you,&rdquo; pursued the latter; &ldquo;that is,
+      if you take a furnished house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like it much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is but a cottage&mdash;rather small, considering your means;
+      by-the-by, Agatha, how close our friend the Major kept all your affairs.
+      No one imagined you were so rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither did I, most certainly. But&mdash;the cottage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The prettiest little place imaginable. Such a love of a drawing-room! I
+      went there to call on young Northen's sister when she married, last year.
+      Poor thing&mdash;sad affair that, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Agatha, who now felt an interest in all stories of
+      marriages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It happened a fortnight ago, soon after your wedding. They quarrelled&mdash;she
+      got through a window, and ran away home to her father. It seems she had
+      never cared a straw for her husband, but had married him out of spite,
+      liking some one else better all the time. His own brother, too, they say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a wicked&mdash;wicked thing!&rdquo; cried Agatha warmly. So warmly, that
+      she did not see, close by her chair, her husband&mdash;watching her
+      intently, nay wildly. As she ceased, he rose from his stooping attitude.
+      His countenance became wonderfully beautiful, altogether glowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really you seem to have comprehended the matter at once,&rdquo; said Mr.
+      Thornycroft, startled in the winding-up of a long harangue about the Corn
+      Laws by the exceedingly bright look which his hearer turned towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think I shall soon comprehend everything,&rdquo; was the answer, as Mr.
+      Harper placed himself on the arm of his wife's chair in the gay attitude
+      of a very boy. She, moving a little, made room for him and smiled. Nay,
+      she even leant silently against his arm, which he had thrown round the
+      back of her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Agatha, I want to hear about that wonderful house which your friend
+      is persuading you to take. You know, I happen to have a little concern in
+      the matter likewise. Have I not, Mr. Thornycroft?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly; since you have turned out to be that no less wonderful
+      personage which my wife has been perpetually boring me about for the last
+      two years&mdash;Agatha's Husband,&rdquo; said Mr. Thornycroft, patiently
+      resigning the Corn Laws to their inevitable doom&mdash;oblivion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Emma, plunging gladly into her native element, discussed the whole
+      house from attic to kitchen. Mr. Harper listened with a complaisant and
+      amused look. Beginning to discern the sterling good there was in the
+      little woman, he passed over her harmless small-mindedness; knowing well
+      that in the wide-built mansion of human nature there must be always a
+      certain order of beings honourable, useful, and excellent in themselves,
+      to form the basement-story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twilight darkened while Emma talked, the faster perhaps that her
+      &ldquo;James,&rdquo; whose respected presence always restrained her tongue, was
+      discovered to be undeniably asleep. But the young couple were excellent
+      listeners. Nathanael still sat balancing himself on the arm of his wife's
+      chair; his hand having dropped playfully among her curls. He joined with
+      gaiety in all the discussions. More than once, in talking of the various
+      arrangements of their new household, his voice faltered, and the hearts of
+      the husband and wife seemed trembling towards one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation ended in Emma's receiving <i>carte-blanche</i> to take
+      the house, if practicable, that the Harpers might settle there for three
+      months certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, this is better than I expected,&rdquo; cried the worthy little woman. &ldquo;We
+      shall be neighbours, and I can teach Agatha house-keeping. She will have a
+      nice little <i>ménage</i>, and can give a proper 'At Home' and charming
+      wedding parties. Shall she not, Mr. Harper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she wishes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Agatha's whispered &ldquo;No,&rdquo; and kind pressure of the hand, brought to him
+      a most blissful conviction that she did <i>not</i> wish, and that she
+      would be, as she said, &ldquo;happier living quietly at home.&rdquo; <i>Home</i>! what
+      a word of promise that sounded in both their ears!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the lights came, Mr. Thornycroft woke up; with many apologies, poor
+      man; only, as his wife said, &ldquo;Everybody knew how hard James worked, and
+      how tired he was at night.&rdquo; The two gentlemen fraternised once more. They
+      began one of those general arguments on the history of the times, which
+      when spoken, are intensely interesting, and being written as intensely
+      prosy. The ladies listened in a most wife-like and pleased submission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How well my husband talks&mdash;doesn't he?&rdquo; whispered Emma, with
+      sparkling eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha agreed, and indeed Mr. Thornycroft's strong sense and acute
+      judgment were patent to every one. But when Mr. Harper spoke, his clear
+      views on every point, his trenchant but pleasant wit, by which he rounded
+      off the angularities of argument, and above all his keen, far-seeing
+      intellect, which dived into wondrous depths of knowledge, and invariably
+      brought something precious to light&mdash;these things were to the young
+      wife a positive revelation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat attentive, beginning to learn, what strange to say was no pain&mdash;her
+      own ignorance, and her husband's superior wisdom. She had never before
+      felt at once so humble and so proud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Thornycrofts departed, and Mr. Harper returned up-stairs from
+      bidding them good-bye, he found his wife in a thoughtful mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, dear, have you had a pleasant evening? Are you content with our
+      plans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;indeed, more so than I deserve. Oh, how good you are!&rdquo; she
+      whispered; and her shortcomings towards him grew into a great burden of
+      regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; he answered, smiling; &ldquo;we will not begin discussing one another's
+      goodness, or you know the subject would be interminable. And I would like
+      us to hold a little serious consultation before to-morrow. You are not
+      sleepy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stretch yourself out on the sofa, and let me sit beside you. There&mdash;are
+      you quite comfortable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; she said, and thought for the hundredth time how sweet it was
+      to have some one to take care of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my wife, listen! You seemed to long for that cottage very much, and
+      you shall have it. Nay, you ought, because at present you are the rich
+      lady; while I, so long as I remain in England, receive none of my salary
+      from Montreal, and am, comparatively speaking, poor. In fact, nothing but
+      that very secondary character, Agatha's Husband.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though he laughed, there was a little jarring tone in this confession; but
+      Agatha was too simple to notice it. He continued quickly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, this question is only temporary; I shall be quite your
+      equal in Canada.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Canada!&rdquo; she echoed dolefully. &ldquo;Oh, surely&mdash;surely we need not
+      go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am indeed,&rdquo; said she, gathering up courage to speak to him of what ever
+      since her marriage had been growing an inexpressible dread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I am afraid to tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I tell you? You cannot bear to leave your old friends? You fear to
+      go into a new country, entirely among strangers, with only your husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His suddenly suspicious tone stopped the frank denial that was bursting to
+      his wife's lips. She only said a little hurt, &ldquo;If that were true, I would
+      have told you. I always speak exactly what I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it so? is it indeed so?&rdquo; he cried, with a lightening of countenance as
+      sudden as its shade. &ldquo;Oh, Agatha, forgive me,&rdquo; and his heart seemed
+      melting before her. &ldquo;I am not good to you&mdash;but you do not quite
+      understand me yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel that. Yet what can I do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing! Only wait I will try to cure myself without paining you. But,
+      for the sake of our whole life's happiness, henceforward always be open
+      with me, Agatha! Don't hide from me anything! Set your frank goodness
+      against my wicked suspiciousness, and make me ashamed of myself, as now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not spoken so freely or with so much emotion since they were
+      married; and his wife was deeply touched. She made no answer, but half
+      raising herself, crept to his arms, almost as if she loved him. So she
+      truly did, in a measure, though not with the spontaneous, self-existent
+      love, which, once lit in a woman's breast, is like the central fire hidden
+      in the earth's bosom, enduring through all surface variations&mdash;through
+      summer and winter, earthquakes, floods, and storms&mdash;utterly
+      unchangeable and indestructible. And, however wildly extravagant this
+      simile may sound&mdash;however rare the fact it illustrates, nevertheless
+      such Love is a great truth, possible and probable, which has existed and
+      may exist&mdash;thank God for it!&mdash;to prove that He did not found the
+      poetry of all humanity upon a beautiful deceit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something of this mystery was beginning to stir in the wife's heart; the
+      girl-wife, married before her character was half formed&mdash;before the
+      perfecting of real love, which, taking, as all feelings must, the impress
+      of individual nature, was in her of slow development.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Agatha lay, her head hidden on her husband's shoulder, guessing out of
+      her own heart something of what was passing in his, there came to her the
+      first longing after that oneness of spirit, without which marriage is but
+      a false or base union, legal and sanctified before men, but, oh! how
+      unholy in the sight of God!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young wife felt as if now, and not until now, she could unfold to her
+      husband all the secrets of her heart, all its foolishness, ignorance, and
+      fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will listen to me, and not despise me very much, I will tell you
+      something that I have never told to any one until now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not imagine why, but at this soft whisper he trembled; however,
+      he bade her go on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wonder why it is I am so terrified at leaving England? It is not for
+      any of the reasons you said, but for one so foolish that I am half ashamed
+      to confess it. I dare not cross the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; Mr. Harper cried, and the unutterable dread which had
+      actually blanched his cheek disappeared instantaneously. He felt himself
+      another man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, and I'll tell you why this is,&rdquo; continued Agatha. &ldquo;When I was a
+      little child, somewhere about four years old, I was at some seaport town&mdash;I
+      don't know where nor ever did, for there was no one with me but my nurse,
+      and she died soon after. One day, I remember being in a little boat going
+      to see a large ship. There were other people with us, especially one lady.
+      Somehow, playing with her, I fell overboard.&rdquo; Here Agatha shuddered
+      involuntarily. &ldquo;It may be very ridiculous, but even now, when I am ill or
+      restless in mind, I constantly dream over again that horrible drowning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband drew her closer to him, murmuring, &ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I was indeed a poor child! When, after being brought to life again&mdash;for
+      I fancy I must have been nearly dead&mdash;my nurse forbade me ever to
+      speak of what had happened, no one can tell into what a terror it grew. I
+      never shall overcome it, never! The very sight of the sea is more than I
+      can bear. To cross it&mdash;-to be on it&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, dear, quiet yourself,&rdquo; said her husband, soothingly. &ldquo;Now, tell me
+      all you can remember about this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely anything more, except that when I came to myself I was lying on
+      the beach, with the stranger lady by me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not the slightest idea. Being so young, I recollect little about
+      her&mdash;in fact, only one thing: that just as she was leaving me to go
+      on in the little boat, my nurse called out, 'The ship is gone!' and the
+      lady fell flat down&mdash;dead, as I thought then. They carried me away,
+      and I never saw or heard of her again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; continued Agatha, gathering courage as she found her husband did
+      not smile at this story, and beginning to speak with him more freely than
+      she had ever done with any person in her life, &ldquo;but you have no idea what
+      a vivid impression the circumstance left on my mind. For years I made of
+      this lady&mdash;to whom I feel sure I owed in some way or other the saving
+      of my life&mdash;a sort of guardian angel I believe I even prayed to her&mdash;such
+      a queer, foolish child I was&mdash;oh, so foolish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely, dear; we all are,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, gaily. &ldquo;And you are
+      quite sure you never saw your angel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nor any one like her. The person most like, and yet very unlike, too,
+      in some things, was&mdash;don't laugh, please&mdash;was Miss Valery. That,
+      I fancy, was the reason why I liked her so from the first, and was ready
+      to do anything she bade me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then when you consented to be married it was not for love of me but of
+      Anne Valery?&rdquo; And beneath Nathanael's smile lingered a little sad earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife did not answer&mdash;even yet she was too shy to say the words,
+      &ldquo;I love you.&rdquo; But she took his hand, and reverently kissed it, whispering,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite content. I would not have things otherwise than they are. And
+      all I mean by telling such a long foolish story is this&mdash;teach me how
+      to conquer myself and my fears, and I will go with you anywhere&mdash;even
+      across the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own dear wife!&rdquo; His voice was quite broken; so sudden, so unexpected
+      was this declaration from her, and by the tremblings which shook her all
+      the while he saw how great her struggle had been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For many minutes, holding her little head on his arm, the young husband
+      sat silent, buried in deep thought; Agatha never saw the changes, bitter,
+      fierce, sorrowful, that by turns swept over the face under which her own
+      lay so calmly, with sweet shut eyes. Strange difference between the woman
+      and the man!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I have quite decided.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decided what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I will give up my office at Montreal, and we will live in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so astonished that at first she could not speak; then she burst
+      into joyful tears, and hung about him, murmuring unutterable thanks. For
+      the moment he felt as if this reward made his sacrifice nothing, and yet
+      it had cost him almost everything that his manly pride held dear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will not go? You will never cross the terrible Atlantic again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not promise that: for I must go, soon or late, if only to persuade
+      Uncle Brian to return with me to England.&mdash;Uncle Brian! what will he
+      say when he learns that I have given up my independence, and am living
+      pensioner on a rich wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; continued he, trying to make a jest of the matter, &ldquo;though I do
+      renounce my income in the New World, I am not going to live an idler on
+      your little ladyship's bounty. I intend to work hard at anything that I
+      can find to do. And it will be strange if, in this wide, busy England, I
+      cannot turn to some honourable profession. If not, I'd rather go into the
+      fields and chop wood with this right hand&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And suddenly dashing it down on the table, he startled Agatha very much;
+      so much that she again clung to him, and innocently begged him not to be
+      angry with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, once more, Nathanael took his wife in his arms, and became calm in
+      calming her. Thus they sat, until the silence grew heavenly between the
+      two, and it seemed as if, in this new confidence, and in the joy of mutual
+      self-renunciation, were beginning that true marriage, which makes of
+      husband and wife not only &ldquo;one flesh,&rdquo; but one soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It had been arranged with Emma Thornycroft that Mrs. Harper should take
+      the benefit of that lady's superior domestic and worldly experience&mdash;for
+      Agatha herself was a perfect child in such matters&mdash;and that they two
+      should go over the intended house together. Accordingly, in the course of
+      the following day Mrs. Thornycroft appeared to carry away the young wife,
+      and give her the first lesson in household responsibilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this important business, Mr. Harper was laughingly excluded, as being
+      only a &ldquo;gentleman,&rdquo; and required merely to pronounce a final decision upon
+      the niceties of feminine choice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In fact,&rdquo; said Emma, gaily assuming the autocracy of her sex, &ldquo;husbands
+      ought to have nothing at all to do with house-choosing or house-keeping,
+      except to pay the rent and the bills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha could not help laughing at this, until she saw that Mr. Harper was
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes before they started he took his wife aside, and showed her a
+      letter. It was the formal renunciation of the appointment he held at
+      Montreal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How kind!&rdquo; she cried in unfeigned delight. &ldquo;And how quickly you have
+      fulfilled your promise!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I have once decided I always like to do the thing immediately. This
+      letter shall go to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&mdash;let me post it,&rdquo; whispered Agatha, taking a wilful, childish
+      pleasure in thus demolishing every chance of the future she had so
+      dreaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! cannot you yet trust me?&rdquo; returned her husband. &ldquo;Nay, there is no
+      fear. What is done is done. But you shall have your way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And walking with them a little distance, he suffered Agatha with her own
+      hands to post the decisive letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he left them, she told Mrs. Thornycroft the welcome news, enlarging
+      upon Mr. Harper's goodness in resigning so much for her sake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Resigning?&rdquo; said Emma, laughing. &ldquo;Well, I don't see much noble
+      resignation in a young man's giving up a hardworking situation in the
+      colonies to live at ease on his wife's property in England. My dear,
+      husbands always like to make the most of their little sacrifices. You
+      mustn't believe half they say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband never said one word of his,&rdquo; cried Agatha, rather indignantly,
+      and repented herself of her frankness to one whose ideas now more than
+      ever jarred with her own. Three weeks' constant association with a man
+      like Nathanael had lifted her mind above the ordinary standard of
+      womanhood to which Emma belonged. She began to half believe the truth of
+      what she had once with great astonishment heard Anne Valery declare&mdash;ay,
+      even Anne Valery&mdash;that if the noblest moral type of man and of woman
+      were each placed side by side, the man would be the greater of the two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this thought she kept fondly to herself, and suffered Emma to talk on
+      without much attending to her conversation. It was chiefly about some City
+      business with which &ldquo;her James&rdquo; had been greatly annoyed of late&mdash;having
+      to act for a friend who had been ruined by taking shares in a bubble
+      company formed to work a Cornish mine. Agatha had often been doomed to
+      listen to such historiettes. Mrs. Thornycroft had a great fancy for
+      putting her harmless fingers into her husband's business matters, for
+      which the chief apology in her friend's eyes was the good little wife's
+      great interest in all that concerned &ldquo;my James.&rdquo; So Agatha had got into a
+      habit of listening with one ear, saying, &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Certainly;&rdquo;
+       while she thought of other things the while. This habit she to-day
+      revived, and, pondered vaguely over many pleasant fancies while hearing
+      mistily of certain atrocities perpetrated by &ldquo;City scoundrels&rdquo;&mdash;Emma
+      was always warm in her epithets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 'Company,' my dear, is a complete take-in&mdash;all sham names,
+      secretaries, treasurers, and even directors. The whole affair was got up
+      among two or three people in a lawyer's office; and who do you think that
+      lawyer is, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said Mrs. Harper, feeling as perfectly indifferent as if
+      he were the man in the moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure that I ought to tell you, for James only found it out, or
+      rather guessed it, this morning at breakfast-time. And if the thing can
+      only be proved, it will go very suspiciously against the people who have
+      been mixed up in the affair, and especially against this Mr. Grimes.&mdash;There,
+      I declare I've let the cat out of the bag at last, for all James cautioned
+      me not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, be content,&rdquo; said Agatha, awaking from a reverie as to how many
+      days her husband intended to stay at Kingcombe Holm, whither they were
+      this week going on a formal invitation, and whether the new house would be
+      quite ready on their return&mdash;&ldquo;Be content, Emma; I really did not
+      catch the name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm glad of it,&rdquo; said the gossiping little woman&mdash;though she looked
+      extremely sorry. &ldquo;Of course, if Major Harper had known&mdash;why, you
+      would have heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heard what&rdquo; asked Agatha, her curiosity at last attracted by her
+      brother-in-law's name. But now Emma seemed wilfully bent upon maintaining
+      a mysterious silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's exactly what I can't tell you, my dear, except thus much&mdash;that
+      my husband is afraid Major Harper has been losing a good deal of money,
+      since more than two-thirds of the shares in Wheal Caroline were in his
+      name, and now the vein has failed&mdash;that is, if ever there was a vein
+      or a mine at all&mdash;and the other shareholders declare there has been a
+      great deal of cheating somewhere&mdash;and&mdash;you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha did not understand one jot. All she drew from this confused
+      volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for
+      which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or
+      business matters the term &ldquo;losing money&rdquo; bore very little meaning.
+      However, she recurred with satisfaction to her own reputed wealth, and
+      thought if Major Harper were in any need he would of course tell his
+      brother, and she and Nathanael could at once supply what he wanted. She
+      determined to speak to her husband the first opportunity, and so dismissed
+      the subject, as being not half so interesting as that of &ldquo;the new house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the gate of this the two ladies now stood, and Emma, with a matronly
+      importance, introduced the gratified young wife to all its perfections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to spring
+      up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and happy feelings,
+      it is the sense of home&mdash;of pleasant domestic sway and domestic
+      comfort&mdash;the looking forward to &ldquo;a house of one's own.&rdquo; Many ordinary
+      girls marry for nothing but this; and in the nobler half of their sex even
+      amidst the strongest and most romantic personal attachment there is a
+      something&mdash;a vague, dear hope, that, flying beyond the lover and the
+      bridegroom, nestles itself in the husband and the future home.&mdash;The
+      home as well as the husband, since it is given by him, is loved for his
+      sake, and made beautiful for his comfort, while he is the ruler, the
+      guide, and the centre of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Harper, as she went through the rooms of this, the first house she
+      had ever looked on with an eye of interest, admiring some things,
+      objecting to others, and beginning to arrange and decide in her own mind,&mdash;felt
+      the awakening of that feeling which philosophers call &ldquo;the domestic
+      instinct&rdquo;&mdash;the instinct which makes of women good wives, fond
+      mothers, and wise mistresses of pleasant households. She wondered that, as
+      Agatha Bowen, she had thought so little of these things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said she, brightening up as she listened to Emma's long-winded
+      discourse upon furniture and arrangements, and learning for the first time
+      to appreciate the capital good sense of that admirable domestic oracle and
+      young housekeeper's guide&mdash;&ldquo;Yes, I think this will just do. And, as
+      you say, we easily manage to buy it, furniture and all, so as to make what
+      improvements we choose. Oh, how delicious it will be to have a house of
+      one's own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the tears almost came into her eyes at thought of that long vista of
+      future joy&mdash;the years which might pass in this same dwelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband,&rdquo; she said to the person who showed them over the place&mdash;and
+      her cheeks glowed, and her heart dilated with a tender pride as she used
+      the word&mdash;&ldquo;my husband will come to-morrow and make his decision. I
+      think there is very little doubt but that we shall take the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So anxious was she to conclude the matter and let Mr. Harper share in all
+      her pleasant feelings, that she excused herself from staying at Emma's
+      until he came to fetch her, and determined to walk back to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, with nobody to take care of you?&rdquo; said Emma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The idea of anybody's taking care of me! We never thought of such a thing
+      three months ago. I used to come and go everywhere at my own sweet will,
+      you know.&rdquo; Nevertheless, it was a sweet thought that there <i>was</i>
+      somebody to take care of her. Her high spirit was beginning to learn that
+      there are dearer pleasures in life than even the pleasure of independence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pondering on these things&mdash;and also on the visit to Kingcombe Holm
+      which her husband had that morning decided&mdash;she walked through the
+      well-known squares, her eyes and her veil lowered, her light springy step
+      restrained into matronly dignity. Agatha had a wondrous amount of dignity
+      for such a little woman. Her gait, too, had in it something very peculiar&mdash;a
+      mixture of elasticity, decision, and pride. Her small figure seemed to
+      rise up airily between each footpress, as if unaccustomed to creep. There
+      was a trace of wildness in her motions; hers was anything but a dainty
+      tread or a lazy drawing-room glide; it was a bold, free, Indian-like walk&mdash;a
+      footstep of the wilderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one who had once known her could ever mistake Agatha, be she seen ever
+      so far off; and as she went on her way, a gentleman, crossing hastily from
+      the opposite side of the square, saw her, started, and seemed inclined to
+      shrink from recognition. But she, attracted by his manner, lifted up her
+      eyes, and soon put an end to his uncertainty. Though a good deal surprised
+      by the suddenness of the <i>rencontre</i>, there was no reason on earth
+      why Mrs. Harper should not immediately go up and speak to her husband's
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so, holding out her hand frankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper's response was hesitating to a painful degree. He looked, in
+      the common but expressive phrase, &ldquo;as if he had seen a ghost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who would have thought of meeting you here, Miss Bowen&mdash;Mrs. Harper
+      I mean?&rdquo; he added, seeing her smile at the already strange sound of her
+      maiden name. What could have possessed Major Harper to be guilty of such
+      uncourteous forgetfulness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You evidently did not think I was my real self, or you would not have
+      been going to pass me by; I&mdash;that is, <i>we</i>&rdquo;&mdash;-at the word
+      Nathanael's wife cast off her shyness, and grew bravely dignified&mdash;&ldquo;we
+      came back to London two days ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your brother,&rdquo; she had not yet quite the courage to say &ldquo;my husband,&rdquo;
+       when speaking of him, especially to Frederick Harper&mdash;&ldquo;your brother
+      thought you were out of town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&mdash;yes&mdash;no. No, it was a mistake. But are you not going in?
+      Good morning!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his confusion of mind he was handing her up the steps of Dr. Ianson's
+      door, which they were just passing. Agatha drew back; at first surprised,
+      then alarmed. His strange manner, his face, not merely pale but ghastly,
+      the suppressed agitation of his whole aspect, seemed forewarnings of some
+      ill. It was her first consciousness that she was no longer alone, in
+      herself including alike all her pleasure and all her pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, tell me,&rdquo; she cried, catching his arm, &ldquo;is there anything the matter?
+      Where is my husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The quick fear, darting arrow-like to her heart, betrayed whose image lay
+      there nearest and dearest now. Major Harper looked at her, looked and&mdash;sighed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be afraid,&rdquo; he said kindly; &ldquo;all is well with your husband, for
+      aught I know. He is a happy fellow in having some one in the world to be
+      alarmed on his account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha blushed deeply, but made no reply. She took her brother-in-law's
+      offered arm, offered with a mechanical courtesy that survived the great
+      discomposure of mind under which he evidently laboured, and turned with
+      him towards home. She was at once puzzled and grieved to see the state he
+      was in, which, deny it and disguise it as he would&mdash;and he tried hard
+      to do so&mdash;was quite clear to her womanly perception. His laugh was
+      hollow, his step hurried, his eyes wandering from side to side as if he
+      were afraid of being seen. How different from his old cheerful lounge,
+      full of a good-natured conceit, apparently content with himself, and
+      willing that the whole street should gaze their fill at Major Frederick
+      Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So old he looked, too; as if the moment his merry mask of smiles was
+      thrown off, the cruel lurking wrinkles appeared. Agatha pitied him, and
+      felt a return of the old liking, warm and kind, such as it was before the
+      innuendoes of foolish friends had first lured her to distrust the nature
+      of her own innocent feelings, and then changed them into positive contempt
+      and aversion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, with an air of gentle matronly freedom, half sisterly, too, and
+      wholly different from the shy manner of Agatha Bowen to Major Harper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come home with me. I fear you are ill, or in anxiety. Why did
+      you not tell your brother?&rdquo; And suddenly she thought of Emma's statement
+      of the morning. But Agatha, in her unworldliness, never supposed such a
+      trivial loss as that of money could make any man so miserable as Major
+      Harper seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ill? I anxious? I tell my brother?&rdquo; he repeated, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, as you will. Only do come to us. He will be so glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad to see me?&rdquo; He again repeated her words, as though he had none of
+      his own, or were too bewildered to use them. Nevertheless, through a
+      certain playful influence which Agatha could exert when she liked, making
+      almost everybody yield to her, Major Harper suffered himself to be led
+      along; his companion talking pleasantly to him the while, lest he might
+      think she noticed his discomposure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arrived at home, they found that Nathanael had walked to the Regent's Park
+      to fetch his wife, according to agreement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Harper looked sorry. She had already learned one little secret of her
+      husband's character&mdash;his dislike to any unpunctuality, any altered
+      plans or broken promises. &ldquo;Still, you must come in and wait for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait for whom?&rdquo; said Major Harper, absently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother!&mdash;I, wait to see my brother! Impossible&mdash;I&mdash;I'll
+      write. Good morning&mdash;good morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was leaving the hall&mdash;more hurried and agitated than ever&mdash;when
+      Mrs. Harper, now really concerned, laid her hand upon his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not let you go. Come in, and tell me what ails you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The soft whisper, the eyes of genuine compassion&mdash;womanly compassion
+      only, without any love&mdash;were more than Major Harper could resist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Better tell it to you than to my brother.&rdquo; And
+      he followed her up-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cool shadow of the room seemed to quiet his excitement; he drank a
+      glass of water that stood by, and became more like himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, with some return of the paternal
+      manner of old times, &ldquo;when did you come back to London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two days since, as I told you. And, as you will soon hear, your brother's
+      plans are all changed&mdash;we are going to live in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To live in London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has given up his appointment at Montreal. We have taken a house, or
+      shall take it to-day, and settle here. He intends entering at the bar, or
+      something of the sort; but you must persuade him not. What is the use of
+      his toiling, when I&mdash;that is we&mdash;are so rich?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Agatha thus talked, chiefly to amuse her brother-in-law and make him
+      feel that she was really his sister, one and the same in family interests&mdash;while
+      she talked, she was astonished to see Major Harper's face overspread with
+      blank dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;Nathanael has really given up his appointment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has, and for my sake. Was it not good of him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was madness! Nay&mdash;it is I that have been the madman&mdash;it is I
+      that have done it all Agatha, forgive me! But no&mdash;you never can!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they stood together by the fireplace he snatched her hand, gazing down
+      upon her with unutterable remorse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Bowen's daughter that he trusted to me! Such a mere child too! Oh,
+      forgive me, Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She thought some extraordinary delusion had come upon him&mdash;perhaps
+      the forerunner of some dreadful illness. She tried to take her hand away,
+      though kindly, for she firmly believed him to be delirious. Nothing could
+      really have happened to herself that Mr. Harper did not know. With him to
+      take care of her, she was quite safe. And in that moment&mdash;for all
+      passed in a moment&mdash;Nathanael's wife first felt how implicitly she
+      was beginning to put her trust in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While she remained thus&mdash;her hand still closed tightly in her
+      brother-in-law's grasp, half terrified, yet trying not to show her terror&mdash;the
+      door opened, and her husband entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Mr. Harper seemed petrified with amazement; then he turned deadly
+      white. Crossing the room, he laid a heavy hand on his brother's shoulder:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, you forget yourself; this is my wife,&mdash;Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The searching agony of that one word, as he turned and looked her full in
+      the face, was unutterable. She scarcely perceived it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am so glad you are come,&rdquo; was all she said. He drew her to his side&mdash;indeed,
+      she had sprung there of her own accord&mdash;and wrapped his arms tightly
+      round her, as if to show that she was his possession, his own property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, brother, whatever you wished to say to my wife, say it to us both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper could not speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was waiting to see you; he is ill&mdash;very ill, I think,&rdquo; whispered
+      Agatha to her husband. &ldquo;Shall I leave you together?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered, releasing her, but only to draw her back again, with
+      the same wildly questioning look, the meaning of which was to her
+      innocence quite inexplicable.&mdash;&ldquo;My wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear husband!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that whisper, which burst from her full heart in the comfort of seeing
+      him and of knowing that he would take on himself the burden of all her
+      anxiety, Nathanael let her go. She crept away, most thankful to get out of
+      the room, and leave Major Harper safe in his brother's hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when a quarter of an hour&mdash;half-an-hour&mdash;passed by, and
+      still the two gentlemen remained shut up together, without sending for her
+      to join their conference, or, as she truly expected, to tell her that poor
+      Major Harper must be taken home in the delirium of brain fever&mdash;Agatha
+      began rather to wonder at the circumstance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She apprehended no evil, for her even course of existence had never been
+      crossed by those sudden tragedies, the impression of which no one ever
+      entirely overcomes, which teach us to walk trembling along the ways of
+      life, lest each moment a gulf should open at our feet. Agatha had read of
+      such misfortunes, but believed them only in books; to her the real world,
+      and her own fate therein, appeared the most monotonous thing imaginable.
+      It never entered her mind to create an adventure or a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited another fifteen minutes&mdash;until the clock struck five, and
+      the servant came up to her to announce dinner, and to know whether the
+      same information should be conveyed to the gentlemen in the drawing-room.
+      Servants seem instinctively to guess when there is something extraordinary
+      going on in a house, and the maid&mdash;as she found her mistress sitting
+      in her bed-chamber, alone and thoughtful&mdash;wore a look of curiosity
+      which made Mrs. Harper colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go down and tell your master&mdash;no, stay, I will go myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited until the maid had disappeared, and then went down-stairs, but
+      stopped at the drawing-room door, on hearing within loud voices, at least
+      one voice&mdash;Major Harper's. He seemed pleading or protesting
+      vehemently: Agatha might almost have distinguished the words, but&mdash;and
+      the fact is much to her credit, since her brother-in-law's apparently sane
+      tones having suppressed her fears, she was now smitten with very natural
+      curiosity&mdash;but she stopped her ears, and ran up-stairs again. There
+      she remained, waiting for a lull in the dispute&mdash;in which, however,
+      she never caught one tone of Nathanael's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, feeling rather humiliated at being thus obliged to flutter up and
+      down the stairs of her own abode, and crave admittance into her own
+      drawing-room, Mrs. Harper ventured to knock softly, and enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick Harper was sitting on the sofa, his head crushed down upon his
+      hands. Nathanael stood at a little distance, by the fireplace. The
+      attitude of the elder brother indicated deep humiliation, that of the
+      younger was freezing in its sternness. Agatha had never seen such an
+      expression on Nathanael face before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you want?&rdquo; he said abruptly, thinking it was the servant who
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not imagine what made him start so, nor what made the two
+      brothers look at her so guiltily. The fact left a very uncomfortable
+      impression on her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only came&rdquo;&mdash;she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter, dear.&rdquo; Her husband walked up to her, speaking in a low voice,
+      studiously made kind, she thought &ldquo;Go away now&mdash;we are engaged, you
+      see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But dinner,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;Will not your brother stay and dine with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper turned with an imploring look to his brother's wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper emphatically; held the door open for Agatha to
+      retire, and closed it after her. Never in all her life had she been
+      treated so unceremoniously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The newly-married wife returned to her room, her cheeks burning with no
+      trifling displeasure. She began to feel the tightening pressure of that
+      chain with which her life was now eternally bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after five minutes of silent reflection, she was too sensible to
+      nourish serious indignation at being sent out of the room like a mere
+      child. There must have been some good reason, which Mr. Harper would
+      surely explain when his brother left. The whole conversation was probably
+      some personal affair of the Major's, with which she had nothing to do. Yet
+      why did her brother-in-law regard her so imploringly? It was, after all,
+      rather extraordinary. So, genuine female curiosity getting the better of
+      her, never did Blue Beard's Fatima watch with greater anxiety for &ldquo;anybody
+      coming&rdquo; than did Agatha Harper watch at her window for somebody going&mdash;viz.,
+      Major Harper. She was too proud to listen, or to keep any other watch, and
+      sat with her chamber-door resolutely closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length her vigil came to an end. She saw her late guardian passing down
+      the street&mdash;not hastily or in humiliation, but with his usual
+      measured step and satisfied air. Nay, he even crossed over the way to
+      speak to an acquaintance, and stood smiling, talking, and swinging his
+      cane. There could not be anything very wrong, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha thought, having been once sent out of the room, she would not
+      re-enter it until her husband fetched her&mdash;a harmless ebullition of
+      annoyance. So she stood idly before the mirror, ostensibly arranging her
+      curls, though in reality seeing nothing, but listening with all her ears
+      for the one footstep&mdash;which did not come. Not, alas! for many, many
+      minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was still standing motionless, though her brows were knitted in deep
+      thought, and her mouth had assumed the rather cross expression which such
+      rich, rare lips always can, and which only makes their smiling the more
+      lovely&mdash;when she saw in the mirror another reflection beside her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband had come softly behind her, and put his arms round her waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think I was a long time away from you? I could not help it, dear.
+      Let us go down-stairs now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was surprised that, in spite of all the tenderness of his manner,
+      he did not attempt the slightest explanation. And still more surprised was
+      she to find her own questions, wonderings, reproaches, dying away
+      unuttered in the atmosphere of silentness which always seemed to surround
+      Nathanael Harper. This silentness had from the very beginning of their
+      acquaintance induced in her that faint awe, which is the most ominous yet
+      most delicious feeling that a woman can have towards a man. It seems an
+      instinctive acknowledgment of the much-condemned, much-perverted, yet
+      divine and unalterable law given with the first human marriage&mdash;&ldquo;<i>He
+      shall rule over thee</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After all that Agatha had intended to say, she said&mdash;nothing. She
+      only turned her face to her husband, and received his kiss. Very soft it
+      was&mdash;even cold&mdash;as though he dared not trust himself to the
+      least expression of feeling. He merely whispered, &ldquo;Now, come down with
+      me;&rdquo; and she went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the staircase she could not forbear saying, &ldquo;I thought you two
+      would never have done talking. Is it anything very serious? I trust not,
+      since your brother walked down the street so cheerfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he?&mdash;and&mdash;were you watching him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; returned Agatha, for she had no notion of doing anything
+      that she would be afterwards ashamed to confess. &ldquo;But what put him into
+      such a state of mind, and made him behave to me so strangely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dared he behave?&rdquo; asked the husband, with quickness, then stopped.
+      &ldquo;Forgive me. You know, I have never inquired&mdash;I never shall inquire
+      about anything.&rdquo;&mdash;Again he paused, seeing how his mood alarmed her.
+      &ldquo;Do not be afraid of me! Poor child&mdash;poor little Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting for no reply, he led her in to dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the servants waited, Mr. Harper scarcely spoke, except when
+      necessary. Only in his lightest word addressed to Agatha was a certain
+      tremulousness&mdash;in his most careless look a constant tender
+      observance, which soothed her mind, and quite removed from thence the
+      impression of his hasty and incomprehensible words. She laid all to the
+      charge of Major Harper and his unpleasant business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At dessert, Nathanael sat varying his long silences with a few commonplace
+      remarks which showed how oblivious he was of all around him, and how
+      sedulously he tried to disguise the fact, and rise to the surface of
+      conversation. Agatha's curiosity returned, not unmingled with a feeling
+      tenderer, more woman-like, more wife-like, which showed itself in stray
+      peeps at him from under the lashes of net brown eyes. At length she took
+      courage to say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now&mdash;since we seem to have nothing better to talk about, will you
+      tell me what you and your brother were plotting together, that you kept
+      poor little me out of the room so long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plotting together? Surely, Agatha, you did not mean to use that word?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had used it according to a habit she had of putting a jesting form of
+      phrase upon matters where she was most in earnest. She was amazed to see
+      her husband take it so seriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, blot out the offending word, and put in any other you choose; only
+      tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you wish to know, little Curiosity?&rdquo; said he, recovering himself,
+      and eagerly catching the tone his wife had adopted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? Because I am a little Curiosity, and like to know everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is both presumptuous and impossible, your ladyship! If one-half the
+      world were always bent on knowing all the secrets of the other half, what
+      a very uncomfortable world it would be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not see that, even if the first half included the wives, and the
+      second the husbands; which is apparently what you mean to imply.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not plead guilty to anything by implication.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went on a few moments longer in this skirmish of assumed gaiety, when
+      Agatha, pausing, leant her elbows on the table, and looked seriously at
+      her husband,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know we are two very foolish people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wherefore?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are pretending to make idle jests, when all the time we are both of us
+      very much in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true!&rdquo; And he sighed, though within himself, as though he did not
+      wish her to hear it. &ldquo;Agatha, come over to me.&rdquo; He held out both his
+      hands; she came, and placed herself beside him, all her jesting subdued.
+      She even trembled, at the expectation of something painful or sorrowful to
+      be told. But her husband said nothing&mdash;except to ask if she would
+      like to go anywhere this evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt annoyed. &ldquo;Why do you put me off in this manner, when I know
+      you have something on your mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I?&rdquo; he said, half mournfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then tell it to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay. I always thought it was wisest, kindest, for a man to bear the
+      burden of his own cares.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael had spoken in his most gentle tone, and slowly, as if impelled
+      to what he said by hard necessity. He was not prepared to see the sudden
+      childish burst of astonishment, anger, and resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From this, I understand, what you might as well have said plainly, that I
+      am not to inquire what passed between you and your brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He moved his head in assent, and then sunk it on his left hand, holding
+      out the other to his wife, as though talking were impossible to him, and
+      all he wished were silence and peace. Agatha was too angry for either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if I do not choose at nineteen to be treated like a mere child&mdash;if
+      I ask, nay, <i>insist</i>&rdquo;&mdash;She hesitated, lest the last word might
+      have irritated him too far. Vague fears concerning the full meaning of the
+      word &ldquo;obey&rdquo; in the marriage service rushed into her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael sat motionless, his fingers pressed upon his eyelids. This
+      silence was worse than any words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear.&rdquo; And the grave, sad eyes&mdash;and without any displeasure&mdash;were
+      turned upon her. Agatha felt a sting of conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not mean to speak rudely to my husband; but I had my own reasons
+      for inquiring about Major Harper, from something Emma said to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How eager you look! Nay, I can keep a secret too. But no, I will not.&rdquo;
+       And the generous impulse burst out, even accompanied by a few childish
+      tears and childish blushes. &ldquo;She told me he had probably lost money. I
+      wished to say that if such a trifle made him unhappy he might take as much
+      as he liked of mine. That was all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband regarded her with mingled emotions, which at last all melted
+      into one&mdash;deep tenderness. &ldquo;And you would do this, even for him?
+      Thank God! I never doubted your goodness, Agatha. And I <i>trusted</i> you
+      always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wondering, yet half-pleased, to see him so moved, Agatha received his
+      offered hand. &ldquo;Then all is settled. Now tell me everything that passed
+      between you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gentle as the tone was, there was something in it which implied that to
+      strive with Nathanael would be like beating against a marble wall. A great
+      terror came over Agatha&mdash;she, who had lived like a wild bird, knowing
+      no stronger will than her own. Then all the combativeness of her nature,
+      hitherto dormant because she had known none worthy to contend against,
+      awoke up, and tempted her to struggle fiercely with her chain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She unloosed her hands and sprang from him. &ldquo;Mr. Harper, you are teaching
+      me early how men rule their wives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only ask my wife to trust me. She would, if she knew how great was the
+      sacrifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sacrifice? How many more mysteries am I to be led through
+      blindfold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And her crimson cheek, her quick wild step across the room, showed a new
+      picture to the husband's eyes&mdash;a picture that all young wives should
+      be slow to let any man see, for it is often a fatal vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael closed his eyes&mdash;was it to shut it out?&mdash;then spoke,
+      steadily, sorrowfully:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have scarcely been married a month. Are we beginning to be angry with
+      one another already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made him no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you listen to me&mdash;if for only two minutes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt his step approaching, his hand fastening on hers, and replacing
+      her in her chair. Resistance was impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, had I trusted you less than I do, I might easily have put off
+      your questions, or told you what was false. I shall do neither. I shall
+      tell you truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all I wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael said, with a visible effort, &ldquo;To-day I learnt from my brother
+      several rather painful circumstances&mdash;some which I was ignorant of&mdash;one&rdquo;&mdash;his
+      voice grew cold and hard&mdash;&ldquo;one which I already knew, and knew to be
+      irremediable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife looked much alarmed; seeing it, he forced a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what is irremediable can and must be borne. I can bear things better,
+      perhaps, than most people. The other cares may be removed by time and&mdash;silence.
+      To that end I have promised Frederick to keep his confidence secret from
+      every one, even from my own wife, for a year to come. A sacrifice harder
+      than you think; but it must be made, and I have made it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha turned away, saying bitterly; &ldquo;Your wife ought to thank you! She
+      was not aware until now how wondrously well you loved your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a heavy silence, and then Mr. Harper said, in a hoarse voice,
+      &ldquo;Did you ever hear the story of a man who plunged into a river to save the
+      life of an enemy, and when asked why he did it, answered, 'It was because
+      he <i>was</i> an enemy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not understand you,&rdquo; cried Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&rdquo;&mdash;her husband returned, hastily&mdash;&ldquo;better not. A foolish,
+      meaningless story. What were we talking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He&mdash;when her heart was bursting with vexation and wounded feeling&mdash;he
+      pretended to treat all so lightly that he did not even remember what they
+      were saying! It was more than Agatha could endure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he been irritated like herself&mdash;had he shown annoyance, pain&mdash;had
+      they even come to a positive quarrel&mdash;for love will sometimes
+      quarrel, and take comfort therein&mdash;it would have been less trying to
+      a girl of her temperament. But that grave superior calm of unvarying
+      kindness&mdash;her poor angry spirit beat against it like waves against a
+      shining rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were talking of what, had I considered the matter a month ago, I might
+      possibly have saved myself the necessity of discussing or practising&mdash;a
+      wife's blind obedience to her husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I married,&rdquo; she recklessly pursued, &ldquo;I did not think what I was
+      doing. It is hard enough blindly to obey even those whom one has known
+      long&mdash;trusted long&mdash;loved long&mdash;but you&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. Hush! there needs not another word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha began to hesitate. She had only wished to make him feel&mdash;to
+      shake him from that rigid quietude which to her was so trying. She had not
+      intended to wound him so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you angry with me?&rdquo; she asked at length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not angry. No reproaches of yours can be more bitter than my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was just about to ask him what he meant&mdash;nay, she even considered
+      whether her woman's pride might not stoop to draw aside the tight-pressed
+      hands, entreating him to look up and forgive her and love her, when in
+      burst Mrs. Thornycroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;so glad to catch you&mdash;have not a minute to spare, for James
+      is waiting. Where is your husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper had risen, and stood in the shadow, where his face was not
+      easily visible. Agatha wondered to see him so erect and calm, while her
+      own cheeks were burning, and every word she tried to utter she had to gulp
+      down a burst of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper, it was you I wanted&mdash;to ask your decision about the
+      house. A mere formality. But I thought I would just call as we went to
+      grandmamma's, and then I can settle everything for you to-morrow morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind, but&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, perhaps you would rather see the house yourself! Quite right. Of
+      course you will take it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, as well as Mrs. Thornycroft, was so utterly astonished, that
+      neither of them could make any observation. To give up the house, and all
+      her dear home-visions! She was aghast at the idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me, what does your husband mean? Mr. Harper, what possible
+      objection?&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, except we have changed our plans. It is quite uncertain how long we
+      may stay at Kingcombe Holm, or where we may go from thence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to America, surely? You would not break your word to poor dear
+      Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never break my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Harper, I declare I can't understand you,&rdquo; cried Emma, sharply.
+      &ldquo;I only hope that Agatha does. Is all this with your knowledge and
+      consent, my poor child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this, eyeing the husband with doubt and the wife with curiosity,
+      as if disposed to put herself in the breach between the two, if breach
+      there were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha heard Nathanael's quick breathing&mdash;caught her friend's look of
+      patronising compassion. Something of the dignity of marriage, the shame
+      lest any third party should share or even witness aught that passes
+      between those two who have now become one&mdash;awoke in the young girl's
+      spirit. The feeling was partly pride, yet mingled with something far
+      holier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She put Emma gently aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whatever my husband's decision may be, I am quite satisfied therewith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Thornycroft was mute with amazement However, she was too good-natured
+      to be really angry. &ldquo;Certainly, you are the most extraordinary,
+      incomprehensible young couple! But I can't stay to discuss the matter.
+      Agatha, I shall see you to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I will bring her to you to-morrow,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, cheerfully, as
+      their visitor departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The husband and wife regarded one another in silence. At last he said,
+      taking her hand:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I owe you thanks, Agatha, for&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For doing my duty. I hope I shall never forget that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the word &ldquo;duty,&rdquo; so coldly uttered, Mr. Harper had let her hand fall He
+      stood motionless, leaning against the marble chimney-piece, his face as
+      white as the marble itself, and, in Agatha's fancy, as hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you, then, quite decided against our taking the house?&rdquo; she asked at
+      length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find it will be impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so? But I forget; it is useless to ask <i>you</i> questions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon my inquiry, but do you still keep to your plan of leaving next
+      week for Dorsetshire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are willing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I willing?&rdquo; And she thought how, two hours before, she had rejoiced in
+      the prospect of seeing her husband's ancestral home&mdash;her
+      father-in-law&mdash;her new sisters. Her heart failed her&mdash;the poor
+      girlish heart that as yet knew not either the world or itself. She burst
+      into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly Mr. Harper caught her in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Agatha, forgive me!&mdash;Have patience with me, and we may still be
+      happy; at least, you may. Only trust your husband, and love him a little&mdash;a
+      very little&mdash;as much as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I trust you, whom I do not thoroughly understand? how can I&mdash;love&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hesitation&mdash;her pride warring with the expression of that feeling
+      which her very anger taught her was there&mdash;seemed to pierce her
+      husband to the soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; he said, mournfully. &ldquo;We are both punished, Agatha; I for the
+      selfishness of my love towards you, and you&mdash;Alas! how can I make you
+      happier, poor child?&rdquo; Her tears fell still, but less with anger than
+      emotion. &ldquo;I know now, we ought never to have been married. Yet, since we
+      are married&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, since we are married, let us try to be good to one another, and bear
+      with one another. I will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed his hand, which held up her drooping head, and Nathanael
+      pressed his lips on her forehead. So outward peace was made between them;
+      but in sadness and in fear, like a compact sealed tremblingly over a
+      newly-closed grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is Dorsetshire! What a sharp bleak wind!&rdquo; said Agatha,
+      shivering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband, who was driving her in a phaeton which had met them at the
+      railway station, turned to wrap a cloak round her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except in the height of summer it is always cold across these moors. But
+      we shall soon be safe at Kingcombe Holm. Are you very tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered &ldquo;No,&rdquo; which was hardly the truth. Yet her heart was more
+      weary than her limbs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the few days that elapsed between Major Harper's visit and their
+      quitting London, she had scarcely seen her husband. He had been out
+      continually, coming home to dinner tired and exhausted, though afterwards
+      he always tried to talk and be cheerful. To her surprise, Major Harper
+      never again called, nor, except in the brief answer to her question, &ldquo;that
+      Frederick was gone from home,&rdquo; did Nathanael ever mention his brother's
+      name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Kingcombe,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, as they drove through a little town,
+      which Agatha, half blinded by the wind, scarcely opened her eyes to look
+      at. &ldquo;My sister, Mrs. Dugdale, lives here. I thought they might have met us
+      at the station; but the Dugdales are always late. Ah, there he is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother-in-law, Marmaduke Dugdale&mdash;or 'Duke Dugdale,' as
+      everybody about here calls him. Holloa, Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Agatha, through her blue veil, &ldquo;was ware,&rdquo; as old chronicles say, of a
+      country-looking gentleman coming down the street in a mild, lazy, dreamy
+      fashion, his hat pushed up at a considerable elevation from his forehead,
+      leaving a mass of light hair straggling out at the back, his eyes bent
+      thoughtfully on the pavement, and his hands crossed behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holloa, Duke!&rdquo; cried Nathanael, for the second time, before he caught the
+      attention of this very abstracted personage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh&mdash;is it you? You don't say so! E&mdash;h!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was amused by the long, sweet-sounding drawl of the last
+      monosyllable, which seemed formed out of all the five vowels rolled into
+      one. It was said in such a pleasant voice, with such a simple, child-like
+      air of delighted astonishment, that Agatha, conquering her shyness at this
+      first meeting with one of her husband's family, peeped behind Nathanael's
+      shoulder at Mr. Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw&mdash;what to her keen sense of beauty was a considerable shock&mdash;the
+      very plainest man she thought she had ever beheld!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dugdale&mdash;my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Very glad to see her.&rdquo; And Agatha who was intending merely to
+      bow, felt her hand buried in another thrice its size, which gave it a shy,
+      gentle, but thoroughly cordial shake. &ldquo;And really, now I think of it, I
+      was coming to meet you. The Missus told me to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is 'the Missus?'&rdquo; asked Mr. Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well&mdash;they're all waiting for you. So make haste&mdash;the
+      Squire is very particular as to time, you know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nodding to them both with a smile which diffused such an extraordinary
+      light over the uncomely face that Agatha was quite startled and began to
+      reconsider her first impression regarding it,&mdash;&ldquo;Duke&rdquo; Dugdale turned
+      to walk on; but just as the horse was starting, came back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, you are here just in time&mdash;general election coming.
+      You're a Free-trader of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I never thought much about the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh!&mdash;What a pity! But we'll convert you, and you shall convert your
+      father. Ah, yes&mdash;I think we'll get the Squire on our side at last
+      Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is 'the Missus' and who is 'the Squire'&rdquo; asked Agatha, as they drove
+      off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The Missus' is his wife&mdash;my sister Harriet, and 'the Squire' is my
+      father,&rdquo; said Nathanael, smiling. His face had worn a pleasant look ever
+      since he caught sight of Duke Dugdale's. &ldquo;When I first came home I was as
+      much amused as yourself at these queer Dorsetshire phrases, but I like
+      them now; they are so simple and patriarchal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha agreed; yet she could hardly help laughing. But though this
+      brother-in-law of Mr. Harper's&mdash;and she suddenly remembered that he
+      was her own brother-in-law too&mdash;used provincial words, and spoke with
+      a slight accent, which she concluded was &ldquo;Dorset,&rdquo;&mdash;though his dress
+      and appearance had an anti-Stultzified, innocent, country look, still
+      there was something about Marmaduke Dugdale which bespoke him unmistakably
+      the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad we met him,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, looking back down the street.
+      &ldquo;There he is, talking to a knot of people at the market-hall&mdash;farmers,
+      no doubt, whom he will try to make Free-traders of, and who would listen
+      to him affectionately, even if he tried to make them Mahometans. The good
+      soul! There isn't a better man in all Dorsetshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that Nathanael greatly liked &ldquo;Duke Dugdale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha would have asked a score of questions; about his age, which defied
+      all guessing, and might have been anything from thirty to fifty-five&mdash;also
+      about his &ldquo;Missus,&rdquo; for he looked like a man who never could have made
+      love, or thought of such a thing, in all his life. But her curiosity was
+      restrained, partly by that of the old servant behind, who kept up a close
+      though reverential observance of all the sayings and doings of
+      &ldquo;Ma-a-ester&rdquo; Nathanael's wife. She did not like even accidentally to
+      betray how very little of Kingcombe her reserved husband had told her, and
+      how she knew scarcely more of his family than their names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having parted from his brother-in-law, and gradually lost the benign
+      influence which Duke Dugdale seemed to impart, Mr. Harper's face
+      re-assumed that gravity, almost sadness, which, except when talking with
+      herself, his wife now continually saw it wear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They drove on, pushing against a fierce wind, that appeared like an
+      invisible iron barrier to intercept their way. Every now and then, Agatha
+      could not help shivering and creeping closer to her husband; whenever she
+      did so, he always turned round and wrapped her up with most sedulous care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a dreary day for you to see our county for the first time, Agatha.
+      If the sun were shining, these wide bleak sweeps of country would look all
+      purple with heather, and that dun-coloured, gloomy range of hills;&mdash;we
+      must call them hills out of compliment, though they are so small&mdash;would
+      stand out in a clear line against the sky. Beyond them lies the British
+      Channel, with its grand sea-coast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sea&mdash;ah! always the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, dear, don't be afraid, how don't'ee&mdash;as we Dorset people would
+      say. Kingcombe Holm lies in a valley. You would never know you were so
+      near the ocean. It is the same at Anne Valery's house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is that!&rdquo; said Agatha, brightening up at the mention of the name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, this animal seems inclined to show me&mdash;even if I did not know
+      it of long habit,&rdquo; answered Mr. Harper, bestowing a little less of his
+      attention on his wife, and more on the obstreporous pony, who, in regard
+      to a certain turn of the road, had grown peculiarly wrong-headed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't'ee give in, sir! T'Squire bought he o' Miss Valery, and she do gi'
+      un their own way, terrible bad,&rdquo; hinted the groom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unfortunately, his own way happens to be a wrong one,&rdquo; said Nathannael,
+      quietly, as he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which it
+      takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse.
+      Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a case
+      being no bad criterion of a man's character, &ldquo;lose your temper, and you'll
+      lose your beast,&rdquo; ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain. She was
+      considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from the
+      struggling animal to her husband, in whose fair face the colour had risen,
+      while the boyish lips were set together with a will, fierce, rigid, and
+      man-like. She could hardly take her eyes from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, are you afraid? Will you descend?&rdquo; asked he, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I will stay with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the
+      end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to
+      Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear,&rdquo; she said&mdash;when he tried to draw her out of her
+      contemplative mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees,
+      almost the only trees that grow in this region&mdash;standing in black
+      clumps on the hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used
+      to encamp there&mdash;&ldquo;I fear you have made <i>me</i> as much in awe of
+      you as you have the pony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled, and was quoting something about &ldquo;love casting out fear,&rdquo; when
+      he suddenly corrected himself, and grew silent. In that silence they swept
+      on to the gates of Kingcombe Holm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a place&mdash;more like an ancient manorial farm than a gentleman's
+      residence&mdash;nestled snugly in one of those fairy valleys which are
+      found here and there among the bleak wastes of Dorsetshire coast scenery&mdash;the
+      richer for the barrenness of all around. Before and behind the house rose
+      sudden acclivities, thick with autumn-tinted trees. On another side was a
+      smooth, curving, wavy hill, bare in outline, with white dots of grazing
+      sheep floating about upon its green. The Holm, with its garden and park,
+      lay on a narrow plain of verdurous beauty, at the bottom of the valley.
+      Nothing was visible beyond it, save a long, bare, terraced range of hill,
+      and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in sight, except a
+      tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three labourers'
+      cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed children stood,
+      poking their fingers in their mouths, and staring intensely at Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a delicious nest,&rdquo; she cried&mdash;overcome with excitement at
+      her first view of Kingcombe Holm, where, however, there was not a creature
+      visible but the great dog, that barked a furious welcome from the
+      courtyard, and the peacock, that strutted to and fro before the blank
+      windows, sweeping his draggled tail. &ldquo;Are they at home, I wonder? Will
+      they all be waiting for us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the drawing-room, most likely. It is my father's way. He receives
+      there all strangers&mdash;new-comers, I mean. We shall see nobody till
+      then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be too sure of that, brother Nathanael,&rdquo; said a quick, lively
+      voice. &ldquo;So, ho! Dunce, hold still, do'ee! You used to be as precise as the
+      Squire himself, bless his heart! Now then, N. L. Jump down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The speaker of all this had come flying out of the hall-door&mdash;a
+      vision of flounces, gaiety, and heartiness, had given the pony a few pats,
+      or rather slaps, <i>en passant</i>, and now stood balancing herself on one
+      of the spokes of the wheel, and leaning over into the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/p148.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="Arrival at Kingcombe Holm  P148 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Harrie? Agatha, this is my sister Mrs. Dugdale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Agatha found herself face to face (literally speaking, too, for
+      &ldquo;Harrie&rdquo; kissed her) with a merry-looking, pretty woman, of a style a
+      little too <i>prononcée</i> perhaps, for her features were on a similar
+      mould to Major Harper's. Still, there could be no doubt as to the
+      prettiness, and the airy, youthful aspect&mdash;younger, perhaps, than her
+      years. Agatha was perfectly astounded to find in this gay &ldquo;Harrie&rdquo; the
+      wife of the grave and middle-aged Duke Dugdale!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my dear&mdash;ahem! what shall I call you?&mdash;that I can't be
+      formal and polite, and it's no use trying. So I just left my father
+      sitting stately in the drawing-room with Mary on one side, as mistress of
+      the household; Eulalie on the other, looking as bewitching and effective
+      as she can, and both dying with curiosity to run out and see you. But I'm
+      not a Miss Harper now; so, while they longed to do it, I&mdash;did it.
+      Here I am! Welcome home, Mrs. Locke Harper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; stammered the young bride, hardly knowing whether to laugh or
+      to cry. Her husband was scarcely less agitated than herself, but showed it
+      only in the nervous trembling of his upper lip, and in the extreme brevity
+      of his words. He lifted his wife down from the carriage, and Mrs. Dugdale,
+      throwing back the blue veil, peered curiously into the face of her new
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;E&mdash;h!&rdquo; she said, in that long musical ejaculation just like her
+      husband&mdash;the only thing in which she was like him. Never was a pair
+      who so fully exemplified the theory of matrimonial opposites. &ldquo;E&mdash;h,
+      Nathanael!&rdquo; And her quick glance at her brother indicated undisguised
+      admiration of &ldquo;the Pawnee-face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He himself looked restless, uncomfortable, as if his sister slightly
+      fidgeted him; she had indeed, with all her heartiness, a certain
+      quicksilverishness of manner, jumping here, there, and everywhere like
+      mercury on a plate, in a fashion that was very perplexing at first to
+      quiet people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, my dear,&rdquo; continued Harrie, tucking the young wife under her
+      arm&mdash;&ldquo;come and beautify a little&mdash;the Squire likes it. And run
+      away to your father, N. L., my boy!&rdquo; added she to her younger brother&mdash;younger&mdash;as
+      a closer inspection of her fresh country face showed&mdash;possibly by
+      some five or six years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper assented with as good a grace as he could, and resigned his
+      wife to his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the next ten minutes Agatha had a confused notion of being taken
+      through many rooms and passages, hovered about by Mrs. Dugdale, her
+      flounces, and her lively talk&mdash;of trying to answer a dozen questions
+      per minute, and being so bewildered, that she succeeded in answering none,
+      save that she had met Mr. Dugdale&mdash;that she did <i>not</i> think him
+      &ldquo;a beauty,&rdquo; and (she hastily and in terror added this fact) that there was
+      not the least necessity for his being so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the least, my dear. I always thought the same! You'll love him
+      heartily in a week&mdash;I did! Bless him for a dear, good, ugly,
+      beautiful old soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Agatha, who stood listening, and nervously arranging the long curls
+      that <i>would</i> fall uncurled and untidy, felt a renewal of her old
+      girlish enthusiasm for all true things; her eyes brightened, and her heart
+      warmed towards &ldquo;Harrie.&rdquo; She would have liked to stay talking longer, but
+      for a vision of Mr. Harper waiting uncomfortably down-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you have finished adorning, and want to go! You can't bear to be ten
+      minutes away from your husband, that's clear! Well, my dear, you'll get
+      wiser when you have been married as long as I have. But I don't know,&rdquo;
+       added Mrs. Dugdale laughing; &ldquo;I'm always glad enough to get rid of Duke
+      for an hour or two; yet somehow, when he is away, I'm always wanting him.
+      By-the-by, did he happen to say what time he was coming over here&mdash;only
+      to see you, you know? He has quite enough of 'the Missus.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha laughingly asked how long &ldquo;the Missus&rdquo; had borne that title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't possibly count! Look at Gus and Fred in jacket and trousers, and
+      little Brian learning to ride. Frightful antiquity! And yet when I married
+      I was a girl like you; only ten times wilder&mdash;the greatest
+      harum-scarum in the county! I often wonder poor Duke was not afraid to
+      marry me! Heigho! Well, here we are down-stairs, and here&mdash;take your
+      wife, most solemn brother Nathanael! If you were but a little more like
+      Frederick! By the way, have you seen Fred lately?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has left town,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, shortly, as he drew his young wife's
+      arm through his own, and led her to his father's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was conscious of a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman&mdash;not
+      unlike Major Harper frozen into stately age&mdash;who rose and came to
+      meet her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am most happy to welcome my son's wife to Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt the withered fingers touching her own&mdash;the kiss of
+      welcome formally sealed on her forehead. She trembled exceedingly for a
+      moment, but recovered herself, and met old Mr. Harper's keen observant
+      gaze with one as clear and as composed as his own. One glance told her
+      that he was not the sort of man into whose fatherly arms she could throw
+      herself, and indulge the emotion brimming over in her heart. But his
+      examination of her was evidently favourable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are most welcome, believe me. And my daughters&rdquo;&mdash;here he turned
+      to two ladies, of whom Agatha at first distinguished nothing, save that
+      one was very pretty, the other much older, and plain&mdash;&ldquo;my daughters,
+      receive your new sister.&rdquo; Here the ladies aforesaid approached and shook
+      hands, the plain one very warmly.&mdash;&ldquo;You also can tell her how truly
+      glad we are to receive&mdash;Mrs. Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated a little before the latter word, and pronounced it with some
+      tremulousness, as though the old man were thinking how many years had
+      passed since the name &ldquo;Mrs. Harper&rdquo; had been unspoken at Kingcombe Holm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His daughters looked at one another&mdash;even Harriet observing a grave
+      respect No one spoke, or took outward notice of the circumstance; but from
+      that time the subject of much secret conjecture was set at rest, and
+      Agatha was called by every one &ldquo;Mrs. Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During the somewhat awkward quarter of an hour that followed, in which the
+      chief conversation was sustained by &ldquo;the Squire,&rdquo; and occasionally by
+      Nathanael&mdash;Mrs. Dugdale having vanished&mdash;the young girl observed
+      her two sisters-in-law. Neither struck her fancy particularly, perhaps
+      because there was nothing particular to strike it. The Misses Harper were,
+      like most female branches of &ldquo;county families,&rdquo; vegetating on their
+      estates from generation to generation in uninterrupted gentility and
+      uniformity. Of the two, Agatha liked Mary best; for there was great
+      goodnature shining through her fearless plainness&mdash;a sort of placid
+      acknowledgment of the fact that she was born for usefulness, not ornament.
+      Eulalie, on the contrary, carried in her every gesture a disagreeable
+      self-consciousness, which testified to her long assumption of one
+      character&mdash;the beauty of the family. Despite Agatha's admiration of
+      handsome women in general, she and the youngest Miss Harper eyed one
+      another uncomfortably, as if sure from the first that they shall never
+      like one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this while Nathanael spoke but little to his wife, apparently leaving
+      her to nestle down at her own will among his family. But he kept
+      continually near her, within reach of a word or glance, had she given him
+      either; and she more than once felt his look of grave tenderness reading
+      her very soul. She could not think why, in spite of all his efforts to the
+      contrary, he should be continually so serious, while she was quite ready
+      to be happy and at ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one thing, however, which gave her keen satisfaction&mdash;the
+      great honour in which her husband was evidently held by his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very soon a heterogeneous post-prandial repast was announced for the
+      benefit of the travellers; to which Mr. Harper graciously bade them retire&mdash;even
+      leading his daughter-in-law to the dining-room door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll not come further in,&rdquo; whispered Mrs. Dugdale, who made herself most
+      active about Agatha. &ldquo;You arrived at seven, and my father would as soon
+      think of changing his six o'clock dinner hour as he would of changing his
+      politics; for all Duke says to the contrary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was not sorry, since the idea of dining under the elaborate
+      kindness and dignified courtliness of old Mr. Harper was rather alarming.
+      Besides, she was so hungry!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came
+      gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every
+      possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She
+      had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about&mdash;rattling
+      on like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging away <i>bon mots</i>
+      and witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a &ldquo;wonderfully clever
+      woman,&rdquo;&mdash;the very last character which this light-spirited
+      country-lady would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had
+      relaxed into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being
+      of sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her
+      much but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane
+      beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness
+      not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted
+      among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the
+      intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In quitting the dining-room&mdash;where Agatha, irresistibly led on by
+      Mrs. Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had
+      laughed till she was fairly tired out&mdash;he said, in a half whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was
+      another sister&mdash;in truth, the Miss Harper of the family&mdash;Mary,
+      its head and housekeeper, being properly only &ldquo;Miss Mary.&rdquo; She noticed
+      that as Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself
+      doubtfully, as if to inquire how much she knew&mdash;and anxiously, as
+      though there were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's
+      first seeing Elizabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Harper felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm in
+      her husband's, and said, &ldquo;I should much like to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other
+      two moving away into the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to
+      quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and his
+      sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what sort
+      of person she was going to see&mdash;for all she had heard was that from
+      some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room&mdash;made
+      the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her
+      husband perceived it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, you need not mind,&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;You will see nothing to pain you.
+      We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy&mdash;poor
+      Elizabeth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase
+      into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room&mdash;made scrupulously
+      pleasant, Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things,
+      engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper on
+      the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate and careful
+      choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its arrangements, or
+      have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the sense of æsthetic
+      fitness is its native element.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a sofa&mdash;though
+      so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form&mdash;she saw what
+      seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the face was no
+      child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at middle age. Many
+      wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in soft, close bands, was
+      quite grey. The only thing notable about the countenance was a remarkable
+      serenity, which in youth might have conveyed that painful impression of
+      premature age often seen in similar cases, but which now in age made it
+      look young. It was as if time and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this
+      sad victim of Nature's unkindness&mdash;had passed by and left her to keep
+      something of the child's paradise about her still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the
+      silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so
+      shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see
+      her easily without turning round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful,
+      smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called &ldquo;poor Elizabeth.&rdquo; Such
+      thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It took
+      away all the painful constraint which most people experience on first
+      coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus; and made
+      Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that poor
+      distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is just what I thought,&rdquo; said a voice, thin, but not unmusical. &ldquo;You
+      described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of all
+      greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least of its
+      sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith, looking more
+      like himself than he had done since they entered his father's doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all sat down and talked for a long time, Elizabeth more cheerfully
+      than any. She appeared completely versed in the affairs of the whole
+      family, as though her mind were a hidden gallery in which were clearly
+      daguerreotyped, and faithfully retained, all impressions of the external
+      world. She seemed to know everybody and everybody's circumstances&mdash;to
+      have ranged them and theirs distinctly and in order, in the wide, empty
+      halls of her memory, which could be filled in no other way. For, as Agatha
+      gradually learned, this spinal disease, withering up the form from
+      infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute physical
+      pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex.
+      It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved
+      sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human
+      existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it
+      had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only possession was the
+      loving heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked an infinitude of questions, her bright quick eyes seeming to
+      extort and gain more than the mere verbal answers. She talked a good deal,
+      throwing more light than Agatha had ever before received on the manners,
+      characters, and history of the Harper family, the Dugdales, and Anne
+      Valery. But there was in her speech a certain reticence, as though all the
+      common gossip of life was in her clear spirit received, sifted, purified,
+      and then distributed abroad in chosen portions as goodly and pleasant
+      food. She seemed to receive the secrets of every one's life and to betray
+      none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha now learnt why there had been such a mystery of regret, reverence,
+      and love hanging over the very mention of the eldest Miss Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the tumult of this strange day had resolved itself into silence,
+      Agatha, believing her husband fast asleep, lay pondering over it,
+      wondering why he had not asked her what she thought of his family&mdash;wondering,
+      above all, what was the strange weight upon him which he tried so hard to
+      conceal, and to appear just the same to every one, especially to her. Her
+      coming life rose up like a great maze, about which all the characters now
+      apparently mingled therein wandered mistily in and out. Among them, those
+      which had gained most vivid individuality in a fancy not prone to catch
+      quick interests, affecting her alternately with a sense of pensive ideal
+      calm, and cheerful healthy human liking, were Elizabeth Harper, the
+      &ldquo;Missus,&rdquo; and Duke Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Likewise, as an especial pleasure, she had discovered the one to whom she
+      clung as to a well-known friend among all these strangers, lived within
+      eight miles of Kingcombe Holm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&rdquo;&mdash;she kept recurring to a fact spread abroad in the house just
+      before bed-time, and apparently diffusing universal satisfaction&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      Anne Valery is sure to be here to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the morning&mdash;her first morning at Kingcombe Holm&mdash;Mrs. Harper
+      woke refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was
+      pencilled distinctly against the bluest of blue skies, which hung like a
+      tent over the shut-up valley. She stood at the window looking at it, while
+      Mary Harper made the breakfast and Eulalie curiously examined Agatha's
+      dress, supposed to be the latest bridal fashion from London. Nathanael sat
+      writing letters until breakfast was ready, and then took his father's
+      place at the foot of the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth bade me ask you,&rdquo; said Mary, addressing him, &ldquo;if you had any
+      letters this morning from Frederick? You know she likes to look at all
+      family letters&mdash;they amuse her. Shall I take this one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael put his hand upon a heap, among which was plainly
+      distinguishable Major Harper's writing. &ldquo;No, Mary&mdash;not now. If
+      necessary, I will read part of it to Elizabeth myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, who had before vainly asked the same question, was annoyed by her
+      husband's reserve. His silence in all his affairs, especially those
+      relating to his brother, was impenetrable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was rousing in her, day by day, a strong spirit of opposition.
+      Had not the presence of his sisters restrained her, for her external
+      wifely pride grew as much as her inward antagonism&mdash;she would have
+      again boldly put forward her claim to read the letter. As it was, she had
+      self-control enough to sit silent, but her mouth assumed that peculiar
+      expression which at times revealed a few little mysteries of her nature&mdash;showing
+      that beneath the quietude and simplicity of the girl lay the strong,
+      desperate will of a resolute woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After breakfast, when Mr. Harper, with some slight apology, had gone to
+      his letters again, she rose, intending to stroll about and explore the
+      lawn. She had never been used to ask any one's permission for her
+      out-goings and in-comings, so was departing quite naturally, when Mary
+      stopped her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you will not mind it, but we always stay in the house until my
+      father comes down-stairs. He likes to see us before he begins the day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha submitted&mdash;with a good grace, of course; though she thought
+      the rule absolute was painfully prevalent in the Harper family. But as
+      half-an-hour went by, and the morning air, so fresh and cool, tempted her
+      sorely, she tried to set aside this formal domestic regulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary looked quite frightened at her overt rebellion.&mdash;&ldquo;My dear Mrs.
+      Harper&mdash;indeed we never do it. Do we, Nathanael?&rdquo; said she,
+      appealingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He listened to the discussion a moment.&mdash;&ldquo;My dear wife, since my
+      father would not like it, you will not go, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tone was gentle, but Agatha would as soon have thought of overleaping
+      a stone wall as of opposing a desire thus expressed. She sat quietly down
+      again&mdash;or would have done so, but that she saw Eulalie smile
+      meaningly at her sister. Intercepting the young wife, the smile changed
+      into affected condolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as a
+      little boy,&rdquo; and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically. &ldquo;Really,
+      as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did their lady
+      loves know them only half as well as their sisters do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; said the good-natured Mary, &ldquo;but Harrie also says that men, like
+      wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not too much
+      shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very disagreeable
+      boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no need; I am quite satisfied,&rdquo; said Mrs. Harper, with no small
+      dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He entered dressed for riding&mdash;looking somewhat younger than the
+      night before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately.
+      He saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious
+      solemnity, patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of
+      a good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret
+      pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with &ldquo;my son Nathanael,&rdquo; and
+      threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two daughters
+      listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was the same
+      benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate of reserve
+      and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as Nathanael
+      Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either his mind or
+      his body to appear <i>en déshabille</i>. Agatha wondered how he could ever
+      have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man wooing; nay,
+      more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she noticed the extreme
+      feebleness which his dignity but half disguised), how he would ever stoop
+      to the last levelling of all humanity&mdash;the grave-clothes and the
+      tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride to
+      Kingcombe?&rdquo; said he, looking round the circle with a patronising interest,
+      which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the kindly
+      expression of the old man's eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie &ldquo;&mdash;here
+      Eulalie looked affectedly conscious&mdash;&ldquo;no others, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except one to Nathanael from Frederick,&rdquo; observed the Beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little graver&mdash;a
+      little statelier. He said coldly, &ldquo;Nathanael, I hope you have pleasant
+      news from your brother. Where is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He is
+      not really gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more&mdash;but certainly a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his
+      riding-whip. &ldquo;If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the
+      respect of informing <i>him</i> first. Excuse me if I doubt whether my
+      son's plans are quite decided.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are indeed, sir,&rdquo; said Nathanael gently. &ldquo;And I was aware of, indeed
+      advised, this journey. He bids me explain to you that when this letter
+      arrives he will be already gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The father started&mdash;and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood
+      a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like a
+      cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's ready
+      hand&mdash;thanked him&mdash;bade good morning to the womenkind all round,
+      and left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I ride with you, father?&rdquo; said Nathanael, following him to the
+      hall-door, with a concerned air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-day&mdash;I thank you! Not to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. &ldquo;This will be a sad blow to papa,&rdquo;
+       said the former. &ldquo;Frederick was always a great anxiety to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha inquired wherefore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished his
+      eldest son to settle down in the county. I know&mdash;though he says
+      nothing&mdash;that this has been a sore point between them for nearly
+      twenty years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I know,&rdquo; added Eulalie, mysteriously, &ldquo;that papa was going to make a
+      last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A pretty
+      fight there would have been&mdash;papa and Frederick against Marmaduke and
+      his pet candidate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best,&rdquo; said Mary,
+      sagely. &ldquo;But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or he
+      would say we had been gossiping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life,
+      from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were
+      wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared,
+      riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up
+      one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can
+      drive, and make herself independent of everybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Anne Valery!&rdquo; was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the
+      door&mdash;Agatha being the first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear&mdash;my dear!&rdquo; murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little
+      carriage to pat the brown curls. &ldquo;Are you quite well?&mdash;quite happy?
+      And your husband?&rdquo; She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry.
+      &ldquo;Is all well, Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought, as
+      usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly, &ldquo;Yes,
+      Anne, all is well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage.
+      Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright colour
+      which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she came
+      into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even so
+      healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago&mdash;the last time they
+      had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire&mdash;and
+      my own. May I, Mary?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering and
+      longing after you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not been well. London never suits me,&rdquo; said Anne carelessly. &ldquo;But
+      come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day. In the
+      first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen yet,
+      Eulalie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of
+      Elizabeth's &ldquo;hard days,&rdquo; when she could not talk much to any one till
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne continued, after a pause&mdash;&ldquo;I want to drive over to Kingcombe
+      about some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr.
+      Wilson's death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne's steward,&rdquo; whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law.
+      &ldquo;You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?&rdquo; And Agatha noticed,
+      with some amusement, what an extreme deference was infused into the
+      usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?&rdquo;
+       asked Mr. Harper suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a
+      woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would wish him
+      always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but undoubtedly a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting
+      her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in a
+      low tone, &ldquo;Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk with
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She assented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand
+      Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no further
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, for the third important business which should be done to-day, and
+      perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm Hill,
+      and show her the view of the Channel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha drew back from the window. &ldquo;Ah, not the sea!&mdash;I cannot bear
+      the sea.&rdquo; Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you ever on the sea, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once, long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your
+      bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace&mdash;do you see it?&mdash;with
+      Nathanael and me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will be tired,&rdquo; Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to
+      resist Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength&mdash;health. I hardly live
+      when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they soon
+      started&mdash;they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and
+      the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew
+      clusters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must be
+      in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving only the
+      short grass cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the
+      furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove
+      along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight of
+      Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as though the
+      sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose leaving the
+      carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse of the
+      Channel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed
+      over to his wife. &ldquo;There, Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They
+      stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of
+      moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between
+      the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay. Parallel
+      to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace&mdash;until it likewise reached
+      the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs, against which
+      the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain. Beyond all,
+      motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away in a mist of
+      brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide, immeasurable sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with her
+      former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is always
+      given by the sight of the ocean&mdash;that ocean which One &ldquo;holdeth in the
+      hollow of his hand.&rdquo; Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she was able to
+      look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and there on the
+      dazzling sheet of waves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There go the ships,&rdquo; said Nathanael. &ldquo;See what numbers of them&mdash;numbers,
+      yet how few they seem!&mdash;are moving up and down on this highway of all
+      nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping in the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember Tennyson's lines?&mdash;they reached Uncle Brian and me
+      even in the wild forests of America:
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail Which brings our friends
+        up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That
+        sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'&rdquo;
+       </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! it is gone now,&rdquo; cried Agatha, almost with a sense of loss. She
+      felt Anne Valery's fingers tighten convulsively over her arm, and saw her
+      with straining eyes and quivering lips watching the vanishing&mdash;nay,
+      vanished&mdash;ship, as if all her soul were flying with it to the &ldquo;under
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight was so startling, so moving&mdash;especially in a woman of Miss
+      Valery's mature age and composed demeanour&mdash;that Nathanael's wife
+      instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two
+      Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as
+      before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook,
+      where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as
+      summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of scenery&mdash;especially
+      the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line of coast sweeps on
+      ruggedly westward to the Land's End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I believe,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that there is nowhere a grander coast than we
+      have here&mdash;not even in Cornwall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speaking of Cornwall,&rdquo; Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael, &ldquo;I
+      lately heard a sad story about some mines there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper seemed restless. &ldquo;The speculation had failed, having been
+      ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had
+      property near in the county&mdash;what, did you not know that, Nathanael&mdash;I
+      was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal Caroline.
+      Have you heard the name, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the
+      lovely view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know all,&rdquo; he said hastily. &ldquo;It is a sad history&mdash;too sad to be
+      talked of here. Another time&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye met hers&mdash;and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little
+      apart, enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea&mdash;vague
+      object of nameless terror&mdash;could ever appear so beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo; murmured Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Anne!&rdquo; Nathanael whispered, so imploringly&mdash;nay, commandingly,
+      that Anne was startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How like you are to&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were you saying?&rdquo; asked Agatha, turning at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was saying,&rdquo; Miss Valery replied hastily&mdash;&ldquo;I was saying how like
+      Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell you,
+      <i>as he ought</i>,&rdquo; added Anne pointedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely I will, one day,&rdquo; said Nathanael. &ldquo;But in this case, as in many
+      others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best,
+      wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the wrong
+      has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face that
+      seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was
+      marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; continued Mr. Harper, &ldquo;while I am alone with you and my wife&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean against his
+      knee, his arm shielding her from the wind&mdash;&ldquo;I wanted to talk with
+      you, Anne, about some plans I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have given up&mdash;as Agatha wrote you word&mdash;all idea of our
+      settling at Montreal. It is necessary that I should at once find some
+      employment in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet&mdash;not just yet,&rdquo; said his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must, dear. It is right&mdash;it is necessary. Anne herself would say
+      so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery assented, much to Agatha's surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only question then is&mdash;what can I do? Nothing in the professions&mdash;for
+      I have acquired none; nothing in literature&mdash;for I am not a genius;
+      but anything in the clear, straightforward, man-of-business line&mdash;Uncle
+      Brian used to accuse me of being so very practical.&mdash;Anne,&rdquo; he added,
+      smiling, &ldquo;I wish, instead of having to puff off myself thus, Uncle Brian
+      were here to advertise my qualifications.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Qualifications for what?&rdquo; inquired Agatha, Miss Valery being silent
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For obtaining from my friend here what I would at once have applied for
+      to any stranger; poor Wilson's vacant post as her overseer, land-agent,
+      steward, or whatever the name may be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Steward!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Harper. &ldquo;Surely you would never dream of being a
+      steward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not? Because I am unworthy of the situation, or&mdash;as I fear my
+      proud little wife thinks&mdash;because the situation is not worthy of me?
+      Nay, a man never loses honour by earning his bread in honourable fashion;
+      and Miss Valery herself said that for this office she required both a
+      gentleman and a friend. Will she accept me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he extended, proudly as his father might&mdash;yet with a frank
+      independence nobler than the pride of all the Harpers&mdash;his honest
+      right hand. Anne Valery took it, the tears rising in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could never have offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so
+      steadfast, so wise&mdash;&mdash;Yes! it is indeed, considering all things,
+      the wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless
+      your wife consents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not consent,&rdquo; said Agatha, determinedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an uncomfortable pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see in your plan no reason&mdash;no right,&rdquo; continued she, forgetting
+      in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of
+      conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. &ldquo;Why was I never
+      told this before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I never thought of it myself until this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many
+      more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is, Agatha&mdash;I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both
+      love&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that was
+      rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is necessary,&rdquo; Mr. Harper went on&mdash;&ldquo;imperatively so, for my
+      comfort&mdash;that I should at once do something. And in choosing one's
+      work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the rule&mdash;'Whatsoever
+      thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many things I could not do;
+      this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will find. Nor need I feel
+      ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. &ldquo;But your
+      father&mdash;your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling near
+      him in Dorsetshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Dorsetshire!&rdquo; echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her
+      last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's
+      county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable
+      equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if my
+      wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first
+      dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either
+      she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured her
+      to believe him in the right. She listened&mdash;only half-convinced, yet
+      still she listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only
+      continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm
+      affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead
+      likeness revived in a living face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, when he had expressed all he could&mdash;everything except
+      entreaty or complaint&mdash;Mr. Harper paused. &ldquo;Now, Agatha, speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She
+      had been so unused to control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have consulted with me&mdash;have explained more of your
+      reasons, which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously
+      anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?&rdquo; His accent was that of unutterable
+      pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! no! that you never are! Only&mdash;I suppose because I am young and
+      lately married&mdash;I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss
+      Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne looked from one to the other&mdash;Nathanael, who, as was his habit
+      in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard&mdash;and
+      Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet half
+      repentant all the while. &ldquo;What must you do? You must try to learn the
+      lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she loves&mdash;to
+      have faith in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We women,&rdquo; she continued softly, &ldquo;the very best and wisest of us, cannot
+      enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only love him.
+      That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly knowing
+      that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite
+      understand, we must, as I said, <i>have faith in him</i>. I have heard of
+      some women whose faith has lasted all their life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which
+      vaguely turned seaward&mdash;though apparently looking at nothing&mdash;made
+      a deep impression on the young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered, thoughtfully, &ldquo;I believe in my husband too, otherwise I
+      would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to clash,
+      and he is the older and the wiser&mdash;let him decide as he thinks best&mdash;I
+      will try to 'have faith in him.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak&mdash;it seemed impossible
+      to him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy
+      terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either,
+      excepting only&mdash;for one lingering, parting glance&mdash;Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to
+      Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house suitable
+      for the young couple. They had not said a word to either of the Miss
+      Harpers concerning this sudden arrangement, agreeing that the father of
+      the household ought to be shown the respect of receiving the first
+      information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; said Nathanael, &ldquo;I trust mainly to Anne Valery to overcome his
+      scruples. Anne can do anything she likes with my father. Don't you
+      remember,&rdquo; he continued, leaning over to the front seat where the two
+      ladies were, and looking quite cheerful, as though a great load had been
+      taken off his mind&mdash;&ldquo;don't you remember&mdash;I do, though I was such
+      a little boy&mdash;how there was one day a grand family tumult because
+      Frederick wanted his commission, and my father refused it&mdash;how you
+      walked up and down the garden, first with one and then with the other,
+      persuading everybody to be friends, while Uncle Brian and I&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, that will do,&rdquo; said Miss Valery. &ldquo;Never mind old times, but let us
+      look forward to the future. Here we are at Kingcombe. Agatha, how do you
+      like the place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Agatha, on this glowing autumn afternoon, eagerly examined her future
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a rather noteworthy country town; small, clean, with an air of
+      sober preservation, reminding one of a well-kept, dignified, healthy old
+      age. It wore its antiquity with a sort of pride, as if its quaint streets,
+      intersecting one another in cruciform shape, still kept the impress of
+      mediaeval feet, baron's or priest's, in the days when Kingcombe had
+      sixteen churches and a castle to boot&mdash;as if the Roman walls which
+      enclosed it lay solemnly conscious that, at night, ghosts of old Latin
+      warriors glided over the smooth turf of those great earthen mounds where
+      the town's-children played. Even the very river, which came up to the town
+      narrow and slow, with perhaps one sailing-barge on it visible far across
+      the flat country, and looking like a boat taking an insane pedestrian
+      excursion over the meadows&mdash;even the river seemed to run silently, as
+      if remembering the time when it had floated up Danish ships with their
+      fierce barbarian freight, and landed them just under that red sand-cliff,
+      where the lazy cows now stood, and the innocent blackberry-bushes grew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a curious place Kingcombe, or so Agatha thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange it is,&rdquo; Mr. Harper observed. &ldquo;All these old spots seem to me
+      like places beheld in a dream. Uncle Brian often used to talk about them.
+      I think to this day he remembers everything and everybody about
+      Kingcombe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that some day or other he will come back again I do most firmly
+      believe. Do not you, Anne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; As she spoke, her hand involuntarily was pressed upon her side.
+      Agatha wondered she responded so coldly and with so melancholy a look, to
+      such a joyous prospect as Uncle Brian's return would surely be to all the
+      family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here they were in Kingcombe streets&mdash;very quiet, sleepy streets,
+      which seemed to have taken an undisturbed doze for a few centuries, to
+      atone for the terrible excitements there created successively by Danish,
+      Roman, Saxon, and baronial ruffians. The poor little town seemed
+      determined to spend its old age in peace and solitude, for you might have
+      planted a cannonade at the market-place, and swept down East Street, West
+      Street, North Street, and South Street, without laying more than a dozen
+      official murders on your soul. There was indeed great reason for Mrs.
+      Harper's innocent inquiry&mdash;&ldquo;Where are all the people gone to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except on market-days, we rarely see more street passengers than now in
+      Kingcombe,&rdquo; Aline Valery answered, smiling. &ldquo;You will get accustomed to
+      that and many other things when you are a country lady. Now, shall we
+      drive to the Dugdales, or look first at the two houses I told you of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper preferred the latter course, under fear, his wife merrily
+      declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and sister,
+      she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire and water,
+      since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably &ldquo;put out&rdquo; the other.
+      They did not squabble&mdash;Nathanael Harper never squabbled&mdash;but
+      they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals.
+      Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always
+      occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft
+      would have phrased it, &ldquo;a love of a place!&rdquo; Dining-room, drawing-rooms,
+      conservatory, gardens&mdash;quite a gentleman's mansion. Agatha set her
+      heart upon it at once, and it blotted out even her lingering regret over
+      the lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee
+      of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it,
+      giving her this thing and that thing necessary to its beautification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He patted her cheek with a pleased yet sad look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear, I will give you all I can; be quite sure of that. But&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, no buts; I must have this house. Besides, Miss Valery says it is the
+      only house to let in Kingcombe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except the one I showed you as we passed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that mean little cottage&mdash;impossible. We could never think of
+      living there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, let us look at it. You know we are but just beginning the
+      world, and 'small beginnings make great endings' as Uncle Brian would
+      sagely observe. Come along, my little wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to slip from his hand and appeal to Miss Valery, but Anne had
+      moved forward, and left them alone. There was no resource; and even while
+      Agatha's spirit was rather restive under the coercion, she could not but
+      acknowledge the pleasantness with which it was enforced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll go with you, but I hereby declare rebellion. I will not have
+      that miserable nutshell of a house,&rdquo; said she, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet it was a pretty nutshell&mdash;quite after the &ldquo;love in a cottage&rdquo;
+       fashion&mdash;though adorned and perfected by the late Mr. Wilson, an old
+      bachelor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he die here?&rdquo; asked Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; in Cornwall,&rdquo; Anne answered. &ldquo;He had gone over to look at some
+      property I have lately bought there. The people on it, miners thrown out
+      of work, gave him more anxiety than he could bear, for he was not strong.
+      He said their misery broke his heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery spoke softly, but the words caught Nathanael's ear. He looked
+      greatly shocked&mdash;and said, in a low tone, &ldquo;Anne, don't talk of this.
+      If I live, the wrong shall be atoned for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha wondered for the moment what wrong there was which made her husband
+      look so pained and humbled. But she forbore to ask questions, and again
+      turned her attention to the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been a charming nest for an old bachelor, and I would have
+      liked it very much myself had I been an old maid. But it would never do
+      for <i>us</i>, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael smiled, so loth to contradict her, or thwart her pretty ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you see, Miss Valery;&rdquo; Agatha continued, gathering apprehensions
+      from his silence, smiling though it was&mdash;&ldquo;Don't you see how different
+      the cases are? This little house might do very well for Mr. Wilson, but
+      then if my husband takes his place as your steward, it is only for
+      amusement. We are rich people, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor child!&rdquo; began Anne Valery, looking regretfully, nay,
+      reproachfully at Mr. Harper. But he whispered as he passed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet, Anne&mdash;for my father's sake&mdash;the whole family's&mdash;nay,
+      her own. Not just yet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was his earnestness, such his air of command, that, for the second
+      time, Anne, looking in his face and reading the old likeness there&mdash;obeyed
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, wondering, uncomfortable, recommenced what she jestingly called
+      &ldquo;her little rebellion.&rdquo; &ldquo;I see, Mr. Harper, your heart is inclining to
+      this place, though why or wherefore I cannot tell. But do incline it back
+      again! We must have the other house&mdash;that delicious Honeywood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear little wife! Nobody could live at Honeywood under a thousand a
+      year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and have we not that? I am sure I thought I had more money than
+      ever I could do with. How much have I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated&mdash;she fancied it was at the thoughtless &ldquo;I,&rdquo; and
+      generously changed the expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much have <i>we?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough&mdash;I will make it enough&mdash;to keep you from wanting
+      anything, and give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not
+      enough to warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it&mdash;not even
+      for your sake, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not see the matter as you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing&mdash;when, on
+      various accounts, I can judge better than she can&mdash;will not my wife
+      trust me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, &ldquo;Trust him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more
+      bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband and
+      Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You expect too much,&rdquo; she said, sharply. &ldquo;I cannot trust, even though I
+      may be compelled to obey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. &ldquo;Agatha, what must&mdash;what can I do?
+      No,&rdquo; he muttered to himself, &ldquo;I can do nothing.&rdquo; He walked to the window,
+      and stood looking out mutely on the little garden&mdash;tiny, but so
+      pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees serving
+      as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia,
+      woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and
+      singing over the few fallen leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of
+      draperies to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha&mdash;Anne! How d'ye
+      do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were coming directly,&rdquo; Agatha said. &ldquo;But how did you find out we were
+      at Kingcombe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne
+      Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke
+      Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily
+      circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know, the
+      grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid told it
+      to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss Trenchard, who was
+      coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the children their dinner,
+      and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as one of Nathanael's Red
+      Indians. And here I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in
+      all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured, that
+      her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha&mdash;more especially as, for a
+      great wonder, she asked no questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty place,
+      isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would not let it
+      go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house, with all the
+      furniture just as it was. How melancholy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said &ldquo;How melancholy!&rdquo; just in the tone that she would have said &ldquo;How
+      entertaining!&rdquo; From circumstances, or from natural peculiarity&mdash;that
+      light easy temper which dances like a feather over the troubled waters of
+      life&mdash;she had evidently never learnt the meaning of the word sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now,&rdquo; Harriet continued, &ldquo;what I come for, is to carry you all off to
+      lunch&mdash;the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your
+      nephews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And such boys!&rdquo; Miss Valery added, interposing. &ldquo;'The Missus' has good
+      right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie succeeds
+      better than another, it is in the management of her children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature,&rdquo; cried Mrs.
+      Dugdale; but her eye&mdash;the mother's eye&mdash;twinkled with pleasure
+      all the time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She
+      walked off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed
+      behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr.
+      Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I declare there is Duke!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. &ldquo;Just look at him,
+      meandering up and down the town.&rdquo; (Agatha laughed at the word;
+      &ldquo;meandering&rdquo; seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) &ldquo;But my
+      husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does yours?
+      I beg your pardon&mdash;since you are watching him as if you thought he
+      were running away. Nonsense, Agatha&mdash;(I always call everybody by
+      their Christian names)&mdash;Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his
+      brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at the
+      door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and earnestly,
+      as men will do&mdash;Nathanael having apparently forgotten the bitter
+      cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's heart. At
+      least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither spoke to their wives&mdash;being busy laying their heads together
+      over a newspaper&mdash;until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at
+      her husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At
+      last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage, mild
+      Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young kitten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, now, Missus&mdash;don't'ee, love; I'm busy.&mdash;And you see,
+      Nathanael, as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and
+      as Mr. Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't
+      you think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard
+      wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn't he?&rdquo; said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician,
+      who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At which
+      unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with &ldquo;Vote for
+      Trenchard!&rdquo; stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!&mdash;and give us a
+      shilling! Amen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see now what comes of your politics,&rdquo; cried his wife, trying to pull
+      him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a perplexed
+      expression troubling his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny for
+      drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what it
+      is, Nathanael,&rdquo; and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always
+      broadened when he was very earnest, &ldquo;those lads drink because they are
+      starving&mdash;drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be
+      starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore, hurrah
+      for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling! Only don't'ee
+      let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no bribery money o'
+      Mr. Trenchard's, its <i>mine</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!&rdquo; shouted
+      the men as they staggered off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile which
+      made his ugly face quite beautiful&mdash;at least Agatha thought so;&mdash;which
+      was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least notice of her
+      all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh&mdash;what, Missus? did you say Mrs. Harper was here?&rdquo; He shook hands
+      with her, looking in another direction;&mdash;then again turned to
+      Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Utterly useless!&rdquo; cried Harrie, laughing. &ldquo;He's more misty than usual
+      to-day. Let us leave the men alone, stupid bears as they are! and come
+      up-stairs to the children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time no one asked or looked for Miss Valery, who had lingered
+      behind, bidding them go forward. It seemed the habit of the family that
+      she should be left to go about in her own fashion, interfered with by
+      nobody, and attended by nobody, save when she came among them to do them
+      good. It was not wonderful; since, having passed that time of youth when a
+      pleasant woman is everybody's petted darling, she had lived to feel
+      herself alone in the world&mdash;wife, sister, and child to no one. It
+      always takes a certain amount of moral courage to meet that destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aided by the beneficial influence of dinner, which in the Dugdales' house
+      seemed to have the mysterious property of extending over an indefinite
+      time, Agatha had succeeded in making friends with her &ldquo;nephews&rdquo; to say
+      nothing of a lovely little niece, who would persist in putting chubby arms
+      round &ldquo;Pa's&rdquo; neck, and dividing his attention sorely between Free-trade
+      and rice-pudding. Mr. Harper had taken another child on his knee, and was
+      cutting oranges and doing &ldquo;Uncle Nathanael&rdquo; to perfection. His wife stole
+      beside him with affection. Why would he not be always as now? Why was he
+      so good, so gentle to others, yet so hard to be understood by her? Was it
+      her own fault? She almost believed so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this group, all happy, all united together by those lovely links in the
+      chain of happiness&mdash;little children&mdash;Anne Valery entered. She
+      passed round the table, having a word, or smile, or kiss for all. Then she
+      went to an arm-chair, looking tired, though joining all the while in the
+      conversation, particularly with Mr. Dugdale, who seemed to have a great
+      regard for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Miss Valery, I wish you were a man, and could vote for us!&rdquo; said he,
+      peering from underneath the baby-hands which made a pointed Norman arch
+      over &ldquo;Pa's&rdquo; eyes. &ldquo;You'd be sure to vote on the right side. Didn't we make
+      a convert of you, Brian and I, years before people talked of Free-trade;
+      long before he went out, and I got married to mamma there? Eh, Brian, my
+      lad&rdquo;&mdash;and he patted his youngest boy, throned on Mr. Harper's knee&mdash;&ldquo;if
+      you only grow up such a wise man as your grand-uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was amused to see how the idea and recollection of Uncle Brian had
+      permeated through every branch of the Harper family. Almost every family
+      has some such personage, mythical, sublime, exciting the wonder and
+      hero-worship of all the young people. Little Brian opened wide his large
+      grey eyes at the mention of his honoured namesake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But while he gazed, his papa's pudding-laden spoon stopped half-way on its
+      journey to the baby-mouth that was waiting for it&mdash;Duke Dugdale was
+      in a reverie. He did not even hear the little clamourer on his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, now, that's very odd, very odd indeed.&rdquo; And he felt anxiously in
+      his pocket. &ldquo;No, I had another coat on that day&mdash;mamma, where's my
+      grey overcoat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duke&mdash;what on earth are you talking about? Now, Agatha, confess&mdash;isn't
+      my husband the very vaguest, mistiest man you ever knew? Oh, you dear old
+      visionary, what do you want with grey overcoats at dinner-time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled patiently&mdash;perhaps he did not even hear&mdash;put down his
+      little girl, and walked out of the room, his wife anxiously jumping up and
+      following with some pathetic exclamation about &ldquo;Duke's being so cross!&rdquo;
+       Which seemed to Agatha the most amusing exaggeration possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a minute or two this most opposite couple&mdash;opposite, but fitting
+      like a dovetailed joint&mdash;came in merrily together, Harrie holding a
+      letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you believe, he got it last week, has been carrying it about ever
+      since, and never thought of it! There, Nathanael, it's yours! Devour it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Uncle Brian!&rdquo; cried the young man. At which name there ran a great
+      sensation throughout the family, in all but Miss Valery, who still kept
+      her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;News! news!&rdquo; cried Harrie, Agatha and the boys gathering round. Mr.
+      Dugdale walked up and down the room&mdash;his hands behind him&mdash;smiling
+      in benevolent content at everybody and at nobody. Brian and his tiny
+      sister consoled themselves for the little attention they got by slily
+      climbing on the table and embedding their fingers in the rice-pudding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael read the letter aloud, as seemed to be the family custom with
+      Uncle Brian's correspondence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Boy,&rdquo; I find the Western solitudes are no nearer heaven than
+      civilisation. My two red friends having escaped and got back, which they
+      did on purpose to tomahawk me&mdash;I gave the tribe the slip, and am here
+      in New York. There I accidentally received your letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a foolish boy. When I was young, I think I would rather have died
+      than have married a rich woman, even if she loved me, which no woman ever
+      did. Nevertheless, I hope you will fare better than you deserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall you ever come back to America? Not on my account, I pray, though I
+      miss you, and am getting old and lonely. Perhaps it is as well that you
+      left me, and have married and settled. That seems to me now the happier,
+      worthier life for a man to lead. I should like to come and see you, if I
+      could come not quite the beggar I am now. Therefore, I often think I shall
+      go to California.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was
+      found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's
+      shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it with
+      him. She moved her head in thanks, and he continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a little
+      of that cursed&mdash;I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in
+      England. Till then&mdash;or till death&mdash;which seems equally likely, I
+      remain,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your affectionate Uncle,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brian Locke Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New
+      York. Tell my old friend Duke that I congratulate him on having given up
+      merchandising, so that my brother at Kingcombe Holm can no longer reproach
+      him with being the only one of the Harper connection who <i>earns</i> a
+      livelihood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter, which was trying to read, being sharp and stinging on many
+      points to more than one person present, Nathanael went steadily through,
+      though several times his colour changed. No one made any comment except
+      Agatha, who observed &ldquo;that Uncle Brian must be rather bitter and sarcastic
+      at heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;not bitter,&rdquo; Anne Valery said,&mdash;&ldquo;only sorrowful. It is
+      often so, when after a hard life men feel themselves growing old. What
+      shall you do, Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About what? His going to California? Nay, I cannot prevent that. What use
+      in my writing when he gives me such lectures about my marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not if he knew Agatha. Besides, in this doctrine he is a little
+      wrong. It is of small moment on which side lies the wealth;&mdash;love
+      makes all things even.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had
+      already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that at
+      the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim her
+      right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys
+      were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian would
+      not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject Nathanael
+      was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory information.
+      Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden behind, where
+      Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling up and down in
+      close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha noticed that. Anne
+      Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr. Dugdale's &ldquo;mistiness&rdquo;
+       of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was shaking his companion
+      warmly by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in
+      coming into <i>my</i> head. And it's just the very thing. It will give him
+      occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      a sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      shouldn't wonder if it brought him home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by, Anne&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man&mdash;&ldquo;what a help he would
+      be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn't <i>he</i> see the blessing
+      of Free-trade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and they
+      stepped in at the window;&mdash;Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away,
+      lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was
+      doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell as
+      abundant and unnoticed as rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now&rdquo;&mdash;and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little
+      rosy chin and kissing him&mdash;&ldquo;now, who will come back with us to that
+      grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt Mary
+      is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will, by
+      her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a
+      helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them
+      on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving
+      that she had reached home alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody asked what
+      she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly suspected he
+      had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes of her Kingcombe
+      tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and Free-trade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table
+      was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His
+      grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only
+      enriched his courtesies, like the &ldquo;body&rdquo; in mellow old wine. He leaned
+      graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long
+      table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most of
+      them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary, taking
+      the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black velvet
+      dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of the family;
+      while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side of the host,
+      and were duly honoured by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked
+      very pretty, her girlish <i>abandon</i> of manner softened by a certain
+      wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position
+      well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her
+      husband to see if he were satisfied with her&mdash;a fact which no one but
+      herself could doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my children,&rdquo; said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn, and
+      dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he was so
+      fond&mdash;&ldquo;now, my children&mdash;I may call you all so?&rdquo; and he smiled
+      at Anne Valery&mdash;&ldquo;let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and
+      especially the youngest of you&rdquo;&mdash;here he softly patted Agatha's hand,
+      on the table. &ldquo;And since we always drink healths here&mdash;a good old
+      fashion that I should be loth to renounce&mdash;let me give you the first
+      toast&mdash;Mr. and Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear, hear!&rdquo; said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table, at
+      which indecorum&mdash;probably occasioned by a county meeting that was
+      running in his head&mdash;his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But
+      the severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round.
+      After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne&mdash;my wife and I thank you
+      all&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'&rdquo; said the Squire,
+      turning to his daughter-in-law. &ldquo;A remnant of my young days, when every
+      lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every
+      gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table, Anne,
+      where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the pleasure
+      of giving yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite with
+      the old gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with this
+      lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held over her
+      the right which I understand my eldest son&rdquo;&mdash;he paused a moment&mdash;&ldquo;which
+      Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her grandfather left me his
+      executor and sole guardian of his infant heiress. I was a young man then,
+      but I tried to deserve his trust. Did I, Anne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she smiled&mdash;most affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest
+      heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me
+      infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred
+      trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne&mdash;let us
+      drink his memory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the glass to his lips&mdash;a
+      glass filled with only water&mdash;he never took wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost or
+      absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and of old
+      times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable pleasant
+      recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our guests at
+      Kingcombe Holm.&mdash;Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but met
+      nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought&mdash;remembering her own
+      few ties&mdash;that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one nearest
+      to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave &ldquo;Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one applauded&mdash;the Squire graciously acknowledging the
+      compliment to his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much
+      regarded by me,&rdquo; he explained to his daughter-in-law. &ldquo;In spite of the
+      great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our
+      characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian.&rdquo; And
+      hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read
+      aloud by his son&mdash;saving the wise omission of the postscript.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to California?&rdquo; said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. &ldquo;I do not
+      like that&mdash;it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and
+      daring enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so,
+      Anne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before he
+      left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get some ice
+      for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl.&rdquo; It was
+      touching to hear him call Miss Valery a &ldquo;girl&rdquo;&mdash;she whom the young
+      Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And though he did leave us so abruptly&mdash;wherefore, remains to this
+      day a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change&mdash;still
+      I have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper,&rdquo; continued the Squire, who
+      seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brian Harper!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;Brian
+      would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His
+      judgment was always as sound as his politics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was your remark, Marmaduke&rdquo; said the old Squire, testily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, nothing&mdash;nothing, father!&rdquo; Harrie quickly answered, with a half
+      merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up again
+      into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl in his
+      keeping&mdash;the undoubted value of which there is no need either to put
+      forward or to defend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into a
+      merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of
+      unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be
+      called even by those that loved her, &ldquo;an old maid.&rdquo; And when at last the
+      Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated
+      away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as
+      though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business, and
+      of thinking and judging for everybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be the
+      strange influence which always made her take delight in watching Anne
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman
+      occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself. It
+      is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of love&mdash;in
+      its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its hopeless
+      doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this reason, it
+      generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love, the drawing of
+      the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which makes&mdash;according
+      to the Platonic doctrine&mdash;a perfect being. Of course, this theory
+      would be almost universally considered &ldquo;sentimentalism&rdquo;&mdash;Agatha's
+      little infatuation being included therein; but the frequency of such
+      infatuations existing in the world around us argues some truth at their
+      origin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the young girl&mdash;still so girlish, though she was married&mdash;there
+      was an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very
+      sweep of her dress across the floor&mdash;her slow soft motions, which
+      might have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and
+      self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and
+      looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from
+      sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy
+      nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way,
+      so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards&mdash;all filled
+      Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she
+      had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago&mdash;or that
+      her own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser
+      and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman
+      as Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she
+      wished to appropriate her&mdash;and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so
+      long discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging
+      to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs.
+      Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the part
+      of the Beauty&mdash;which had reference to a certain &ldquo;Edward&rdquo;&mdash;about
+      whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to
+      Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they two&mdash;Mrs.
+      Harper and herself&mdash;should go and visit Elizabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly,
+      stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over
+      the hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we do
+      when we are young!&rdquo; The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over her
+      quiet face like a cloud over the moon&mdash;surprised and touched Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since I
+      was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for stopping
+      here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let us pass
+      on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a
+      pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and it
+      was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking fingers
+      could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind&mdash;clear, delicate,
+      well-arranged, exact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad,
+      you are aware?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?&rdquo; said
+      Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both answered in the negative&mdash;Miss Valery saying, with attempted
+      gaiety, &ldquo;You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael.
+      He can be both deaf and dumb.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out
+      that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever
+      she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen
+      Nathanael when he came down to us that week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he do?&rdquo; the young wife asked, not without some painful curiosity&mdash;for
+      sometimes, in the moments when she could not &ldquo;make out&rdquo; her husband's
+      rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered that perhaps Mr.
+      Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion was too sudden to
+      be a lasting reality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he do?&mdash;Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very
+      self-possessed. You could hardly tell he was in love at all. Nobody ever
+      guessed it but I&mdash;not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he
+      was determined to have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing&mdash;Oh,
+      I knew you would be married to him! You could not help it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor did she wish&mdash;nor need she,&rdquo; said Anne, gently, as she saw
+      Agatha's confusion. &ldquo;But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I
+      hear that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family.
+      Edward Thorpe has got the living&mdash;the richest one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, of course, Eulalie will marry him.&rdquo; The deduction reached Agatha as
+      rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her
+      own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual
+      plain speeches:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said,
+      &ldquo;Answer that question, Anne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the
+      man she is to marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well
+      for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as a
+      matter of necessity. As for love&mdash;have you noticed, Agatha, how many
+      women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long
+      life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real
+      meaning of the word?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen. The
+      subject came home to her. &ldquo;Will Eulalie be one of these?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will never
+      know what is real love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, what is that sort of love&mdash;the right love&mdash;which one
+      ought to bring to one's husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. &ldquo;Are you
+      seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost every human being loves in a different way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, your way I mean.&rdquo; But noticing the momentary reticence which
+      Anne's manner showed, she added, &ldquo;I mean the kind of love you have most
+      sympathy with in other people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that Anne
+      Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker (not
+      match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is
+      pleasant to see young people loving one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, you have not told me what <i>you</i> call loving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really wish to hear?&rdquo; said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a low
+      voice, she added: &ldquo;I would have every woman marry, not merely liking a man
+      well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly, that,
+      wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none other's, to the
+      end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his little faults
+      (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet would as soon
+      think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to look up to heaven
+      because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true, and so fond, that she
+      needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor burden him with her love,
+      since both are self-existent, and entirely independent of anything he
+      gives or takes away. Thus she will marry neither from liking, esteem, nor
+      gratitude for his love, but from the fulness of her own. If they never
+      marry, as sometimes happens&rdquo;&mdash;and Anne's voice slightly faltered&mdash;&ldquo;God
+      will cause them to meet in the next existence. They cannot be parted&mdash;they
+      belong to one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All were silent&mdash;these three women&mdash;one to whom love must have
+      been only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk
+      of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat
+      thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which
+      brought with it her own condemnation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it
+      romance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would they? And do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like
+      perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find
+      approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too old
+      for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite all I
+      have seen&mdash;the false, foolish, weak attachments&mdash;the unholy
+      marriages&mdash;the after-life of marriage made unholier still by
+      struggling against what was inevitable&mdash;still I believe in the one
+      true love which binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life
+      and, God grant it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this&mdash;little
+      wife? You do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha tried to smile&mdash;to conceal the pain rising in her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come then, I will teach you how to love him&mdash;in better words than
+      mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her
+      poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any woman would,&rdquo; answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book which
+      Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which &ldquo;poor Elizabeth&rdquo;
+       looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there,&rdquo; said
+      Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was
+      not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice was
+      hardly like itself&mdash;at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard it&mdash;when
+      she began to read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth, and
+      breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the
+      ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's
+      Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men
+      strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise: I love
+      thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's
+      faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints; I
+      love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God
+      choose, I shall but love thee better after death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh
+      behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in, no
+      one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were
+      closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a lost
+      or impossible paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha!&rdquo; She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest
+      aspect&mdash;that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling
+      within her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression&mdash;scarcely
+      meant to pass her lips&mdash;and inaudible to all save him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, why&mdash;why did I marry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but
+      Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he
+      seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you come to talk with us, or to fetch your wife away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither,&rdquo; he said, bitterly. But recovering himself&mdash;&ldquo;Nay, Anne, I
+      came for you. My father wishes to see you. He will hear nothing I can
+      urge. You must come down and talk with him, or I do not know what will be
+      done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had until now forgotten that her husband had intended after dinner
+      to tell his father his plans concerning the stewardship. It had been
+      apparently a harder task than he thought, to strive with the old Squire's
+      prejudices. Seeing his extreme perturbation, Agatha repented herself
+      deeply of any unkindness towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to his side. &ldquo;What is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; he echoed; then added, with an accent studiously kind, &ldquo;Thank you,
+      Agatha. You are very good always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He let her take his arm and stand talking with himself and Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feared it would be so,&rdquo; the latter said. &ldquo;Your father has a strong
+      will; still he can be persuaded. We must try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But only persuasion&mdash;no reasons. Understand me, Anne&mdash;no
+      reasons!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery looked at the young man very earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, if I did not know you well, and know too whose guidance formed
+      your character, it would be hard to trust you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne!&rdquo; Again the peculiar manner which sometimes appeared in him, making
+      him seem much older than his years, had its strange influence with Miss
+      Valery, guiding her by an under-current deeper even than her judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; she said in a whisper, &ldquo;I will trust you. Let us go down.&rdquo; And she
+      turned with him to say good-bye to Miss Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of talking had been too much for &ldquo;poor Elizabeth.&rdquo; One of
+      her &ldquo;dark hours&rdquo; was upon her. The eyes were closed, and the face
+      sharpened under keen physical pain. Agatha could hardly bear to see her;
+      but Nathanael bent over his sister with that soothing kindness which in a
+      man is so beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we stay with you? at least, shall I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth motioned a decided negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; Miss Valery said, apart, &ldquo;she had rather be alone. No one can do
+      her good, and it is too much for this child, who is not used to it as we
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Calling Elizabeth's maid from the inner room, Anne hurried Agatha away.
+      She, clinging to her husband's arm, heard him say, half to himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet we think life hard, and murmur at that we have, and grieve for
+      that we have not! We are very wicked, all of us. Poor Elizabeth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The three went very silently down-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the dining-room door Mrs. Harper let go her husband's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why are you leaving me, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I thought&mdash;I imagined, perhaps you wished&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to have you with me always. Anne knows,&rdquo; and he looked pointedly
+      at Miss Valery, &ldquo;that I shall never respond to, and most certainly never
+      volunteer, any confidence to either her or my father that I do not share
+      with my wife. She has the first claim, and what is not hers no other
+      person shall obtain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne looked puzzled. At last she said, in an under tone, &ldquo;I think I
+      understand, and you are quite right. I shall remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Squire was sitting in his arm-chair, the dessert and wine still
+      before him. The cheerfulness of the dinner-circle over, he looked very
+      aged now&mdash;aged and lonely too, being the only occupant of that large
+      room. He raised his head when Miss Valery entered, but seemed annoyed at
+      the entrance of his daughter-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Harper! I did not mean to encroach on <i>your</i> leisure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, father; it was I who wished her to come. Forgive me, but I could not
+      bring Miss Valery into our family councils and exclude my own wife. She is
+      not a stranger now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saying this, Nathanael placed Agatha in a chair and stood beside her,
+      taking her cold hand, for with all her power she could not keep herself
+      from trembling. She had never known anything of those formidable affairs
+      which are called &ldquo;family quarrels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, father,&rdquo; he continued in a straightforward but respectful manner,
+      &ldquo;Anne will answer any question to prove what I have already told you&mdash;that
+      it is at my own request she takes me for her steward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her friend and adviser,&rdquo; Anne interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never doubted, Nathanael, that it was at your own request. Otherwise it
+      were impossible that Miss Valery would so far have insulted my family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words Anne coloured, and moved a step or two with something of
+      the pride of her young days. &ldquo;I did not think, Mr. Harper, that it would
+      have been either an insult to offer, or a disgrace to accept, the position
+      which your son desires to hold. Far be it from me in any way to wrong any
+      member of your family, especially the son whom your wife left in my arms&mdash;and
+      Brian's&mdash;when she died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had never before heard Miss Valery say &ldquo;Brian.&rdquo; She was evidently
+      speaking as people do when much moved, using a form of phrase and alluding
+      to things not commonly referred to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Squire sat silent a minute, and then stretched out his hand. &ldquo;I
+      know your goodness, Anne! But I cannot renounce all my rights. Even a
+      younger son must not throw discredit on his family. Except in one brief
+      instance, for centuries there has never been a Harper who worked for his
+      living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, father, let me be the first to commence that act of inconceivable
+      boldness and energy,&rdquo; said Nathanael, with a good-humoured persuasive
+      smile. &ldquo;Let me, being likewise a younger son, take a leaf out of Uncle
+      Brian's book, and try to labour, as he once did, in my own county, with
+      the honour of my own race about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what did he effect? Was he not looked down upon, humiliated, cheated?
+      I never ride past his old deserted clay-pits without being thankful that
+      he went to Canada, rather than have disgraced us by what his folly must
+      have come to at last. He would have lost the little he had&mdash;have been
+      bankrupt, perhaps dishonoured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper!&rdquo;&mdash;Anne rose from her chair&mdash;&ldquo;I think you speak
+      rather hardly of your brother. It never could be said, or will be said,
+      that Brian Harper was <i>dishonoured.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words, spoken with unusual warmth, Nathanael gratefully clasped
+      her hand. The Squire observed, with added dignity, that no one could be
+      more sensible than himself of his brother's merit, and that he thanked
+      Miss Valery for extending her kind interests to every branch of the Harper
+      family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;we will cease this conversation. My son knows my
+      sentiments, and will doubtless act upon them. I never maintain arguments
+      with my children.&rdquo; And the sentence implied that what &ldquo;I never do,&rdquo; was
+      consequently a thing unnecessary and impossible to be done. The old
+      gentleman leant on each arm of his chair, and feebly tried to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; cried Nathanael, detaining him, &ldquo;I would do much rather than try
+      you thus; but it cannot be helped. I must work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not see the necessity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if there be a necessity; if my own feelings, my conscience&mdash;other
+      reasons, which here I cannot urge&rdquo;&mdash;and involuntarily his eye glanced
+      towards his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An instinct of delicacy brightened the old man's perceptions. He bowed to
+      Agatha. &ldquo;We need not apologise for these discussions before a lady who has
+      done my son the honour of uniting her fortune to his ancient family.&rdquo; (And
+      he evidently thought the honour bestowed was quite as much on the Harper
+      side.) &ldquo;She, I am sure, will agree with me that this proceeding is not
+      necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha hesitated. Much as she longed to do it, a sense of right prevented
+      her from openly siding against her husband. She kept silence; Nathanael
+      answered with the tone of one who sets a strong guard upon his lips,
+      almost stronger than he can bear:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have already told my wife all the reasons I have just given you, that,
+      since I am resolved to be independent, there is no way but this. I have
+      been brought up abroad, and have learnt no profession; my health is not
+      robust enough for a town life, or for hard study. Many, almost all the
+      usual modes in which a man, born a gentleman, can earn his living are thus
+      shut out from me. What Anne Valery offers me I <i>can</i> do, and should
+      be content in doing. Father, do not stand in the way of my winning for
+      myself a little comfort&mdash;a little peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Through his entreaty, earnest and manly as it was, there ran a sort of
+      melancholy which surprised and grieved Agatha. Could this be the lover on
+      whom, in giving him herself, she believed she had bestowed entire
+      felicity? Had he too, like herself, found a something wanting in marriage,
+      a something to fill up which he must needs resort to an active career of
+      worldly toil? Would she never be able to make either him or herself truly
+      happy? and if so, what was the cause?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Squire keenly regarded his son, who stood before him in an attitude so
+      respectful yet so firm. Something seemed to strike him in the pale,
+      delicate, womanish features; perhaps he saw therein the wife who had died
+      when Nathanael was born, and whose death, people said, had chilled the
+      father's heart strangely against the poor babe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have been away from me nearly all your life&mdash;and
+      where I have given little, I can require little. But I am an old man. Do
+      not let me feel that you too are setting yourself against my grey hairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God knows, father, I would not for worlds! But what can I do? Anne, what
+      can I do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne rose, and leant over Mr. Harper's chair, like a privileged eldest
+      daughter who secretly strengthened with her judgment the wisdom that was
+      growing feeble through old age; doing it reverently, as we all would wish
+      our children to do when our own light grows dim. For, alas! the wisest and
+      firmest of us may come one day to mutter in the ears of a younger
+      generation the senile cry, &ldquo;I am old and foolish&mdash;old and foolish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear friend&mdash;if Nathanael follows out this plan, it will be for the
+      comfort and not the disquiet of your grey hairs. Think how pleasant always
+      to have a son at hand, and a young, pretty Mrs. Harper to brighten
+      Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a wise thrust&mdash;the old gentleman looked in his
+      daughter-in-law's fair face, and bowed complacently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, too, your son will live in the country, lead the life that he
+      loves, and that you love&mdash;the very life which all these years you
+      have been vainly planning for his brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Squire turned sharply round. &ldquo;On that subject, if you please, we will
+      be silent. Anne, Anne,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;do you want again to turn my plans
+      aside? Would you take from me my other son also?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back, much wounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, my dear, I did not mean that. It was not your fault&mdash;you two
+      were not suited for each other. Nevertheless, in spite of your wilfulness,
+      in nothing but the name did I lose a daughter. Forgive me, Anne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear old friend,&rdquo; she whispered, and stole her fingers into the
+      withered palm of the Squire. He kissed them with the grace of an old
+      courtier: the tenderness of a father. She, though moved at his kindness,
+      betrayed no stronger emotion; and Agatha, who had watched intently this
+      little episode, confirmatory of an old suspicion of her own, was
+      considerably puzzled thereby. If Anne Valery's life contained any sad
+      secret, it was evidently not this. She had not remained an old maid for
+      love of Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael,&rdquo; said the old man, returning with dignity to the former
+      conversation, &ldquo;I would not be harsh or unjust. There is but one way to
+      reconcile our opposing wills, since you are determined on this scheme of
+      independence. You have told me your plan&mdash;will you accept mine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me hear it, father,&rdquo; answered Nathanael respectfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have hitherto had nothing from me&mdash;your Uncle Brian insisted on
+      that&mdash;nor will you ever have much; I must keep my property intact for
+      the next heir of Kingcombe Holm. Nothing shall alienate the rights of my
+      eldest son, with whom rests the honour of our family and name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha noticing the determined pride with which her father-in-law said
+      this, wondered that her husband listened with a lowered aspect and made no
+      response. She thought it unbrotherly, unkind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; continued Mr. Harper, &ldquo;though the chief of all I possess must
+      remain secure for Frederick, I have a little besides, saved for my
+      daughters' portions. If, with their consent, I lend you this, and you will
+      embark in some profession&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, father, no! I will never take one farthing from you or my sisters! I
+      will not again be burdened with other people's property! Oh for the days
+      when I earned my own solitary bread from hand to mouth, and was free and
+      at rest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke excitedly, and was only conscious of the extent of what he had
+      said by feeling his wife's hand drop slowly from his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, Agatha, I did not mean&rdquo;&mdash;and he tried to draw it back again.
+      &ldquo;Forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps we have both need to forgive one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one heard this mournful whisper between the young husband and wife;
+      they stood as if it had not been uttered&mdash;for both their consciences
+      felt duty to be a bond as strong as love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten heavy
+      strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time&mdash;too
+      swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her
+      pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time has
+      not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any of us.
+      Let Agatha decide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a
+      compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride
+      of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will which
+      any father looking into Nathanael's face could see was not to be
+      threatened into concession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Pas aux dames,</i>&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air.
+      Then more seriously: &ldquo;My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you
+      stand between your husband and his father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, thrust into so new and important a position, felt a rush of
+      temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss
+      Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her
+      husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain
+      desperation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful
+      child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of what
+      I shall say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly
+      judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and a
+      better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward and
+      forward the still unfamiliar wedding-ring, until in accidentally feeling
+      the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a wife,&rdquo; she thought. &ldquo;Under <i>all</i> circumstances I will do a
+      wife's duty.&rdquo; And with that determination all the pleasant little follies
+      and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left her&mdash;as
+      one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing else&mdash;resolute
+      and at ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said very simply&mdash;almost childishly&mdash;taking her
+      father-in-law's hand the while, &ldquo;If you please, and if you would not be
+      angry, I would rather do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes
+      after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire had
+      walked off, not angrily, but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss Valery's
+      arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So here is the result of family dinner-parties, and family-talks kept up
+      till midnight!&rdquo; said Mary Harper, with a little natural acerbity. &ldquo;It is
+      provoking for the mistress of a precise household to sit waiting breakfast
+      for a whole hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mary, be charitable! We did not know you were ready, and we were so busy
+      in my room. No laziness, was it, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed: I think Miss Valery is the very busiest woman I ever knew.
+      How can she get through it all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only by first making up my mind, and then acting upon it. Your husband's
+      plan, too, I see. He and I shall get on as if we had worked together all
+      our lives. Shall we not, my 'right-hand' Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered pleasantly; he looked quite a new man this morning. &ldquo;Yes: I
+      seem to understand your ways already. My first half-hour's business in the
+      memorable 'Anne's room' at Kingcombe Holm has been like a return of old
+      times. What a woman you are! You might have been brought up as I was by
+      Uncle Brian. You have just his ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne smiled: and with a jest about the treble compliment he had contrived
+      to pay, let the conversation slip past to other things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary and Eulalie talked excessively. They were both much scandalised by
+      their brother's new position and intended course of life, to be put in
+      practice immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both the Miss Harpers were that sort of feminine minds which are like some
+      kinds of flower-bells&mdash;the less fair the wider they open. Agatha
+      wondered to see how very patient Miss Valery was over Mary's mild
+      platitudes and Eulalie's follies. But Anne's good heart seemed to cast a
+      shield of tenderness over everybody that bore the name of Harper. At
+      length the young wife got tired of the after-breakfast discussion, which
+      consisted of about a dozen different plans for the day&mdash;severally put
+      up and knocked down again&mdash;each contradicting the other. The mild <i>laissez-faire</i>
+      of country life in a large family was quite too much for her patience; she
+      longed to get up and shake everybody into common-sense and decision. But
+      her husband and Miss Valery took everything easily&mdash;they were used to
+      the ways at Kingcombe Holm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, if your sister Harriet would but come in, or Mr. Dugdale!&rdquo; she
+      whispered to her husband, &ldquo;surely they would settle something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all; they would only make matters worse. And, look!&mdash;'speaking
+      of angels, one often sees their wings.'&mdash;Is that you, Marmaduke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale walked in composedly through the sash-window, beaming around
+      him a sort of general smile. He never attempted any individual greeting,
+      and Agatha offering her hand, was met by his surprised but benevolent
+      &ldquo;Eh!&rdquo; However, when required, he gave her a hearty grasp. After which,
+      peering dreamily round the room, he pounced upon a queer-looking folio,
+      and buried himself therein, making occasional remarks highly interesting
+      of their kind, but slightly irrelevant to the conversation in general.
+      Agatha amused herself with peeping at the title of the book&mdash;some
+      abstruse work on mechanical science&mdash;and then watched the reader,
+      thinking what great intellectual power there was in the head, and what
+      acuteness in the eye. Also, he wore at times a wonderfully spiritual
+      expression, strangely contrasting with the materiality of his daily
+      existence. No one could see that look without feeling convinced that there
+      were beautiful depths open only to Divinest vision, in the silent and
+      abstracted nature of Marmaduke Dugdale. Nevertheless, he could be
+      eminently practical now and then, especially in mechanics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, Nathanael! just look here. This is the very contrivance that
+      would have suited Brian in his old clay-pits. See!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he began talking in a style that was Greek itself to Agatha, but to
+      which Nathanael, leaning over his chair-back, listened intelligently. It
+      was very nice to see the liking between the two brothers-in-law&mdash;the
+      young man so tender over the oddities of the elder one, who seemed such a
+      strange mixture of the philosopher and the child. These were the sort of
+      traits which continually turned Agatha's heart towards her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talking of clay-pits,&rdquo; said Duke, with a gleam of recollection, &ldquo;I've
+      something for you here!&rdquo; He drew out of the voluminous mass of papers that
+      stuffed his pockets one more carelessly scrawled than the rest. &ldquo;It's a
+      plan of my own, for giving a little help to our own clay-cutters and to
+      the stone-cutters in the Isle of Portland, who are shockingly off in the
+      winter sometimes. Here's Trenchard's name down for a good sum&mdash;it
+      will make him and Free-trade popular, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Dugdale smiled with the most amiable and innocent
+      Machiavellianism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael shook his head mischievously, greatly to the amusement of his
+      wife, who had stolen up to see what was going on, and stood hanging on his
+      arm and peeping over at the illegible paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellent plan, Marmaduke&mdash;very long-headed. You give them Christmas
+      dinners, and they give you&mdash;votes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless you, no! That would be bribery. We&rdquo;&mdash;he reflected a minute&mdash;&ldquo;Oh,
+      we will only help those who have got no votes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the voters will all be against you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale, much puzzled, pushed up his hair until it stood right aloft
+      on his forehead. Soon a dawn of satisfaction reappeared. &ldquo;All against us?
+      Dear me, no! They would be pleased to see their poor neighbours helped on
+      in the world, as you or I would, you know. They'd side at once with
+      Trenchard and Free-trade. Come now, Nathanael, you'll assist? By the way,
+      somebody told me you were very rich&mdash;or at least that your wife was
+      an heiress. She looks a kind little soul She'll put her name down under
+      Anne Valery's here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he turned to Agatha with that air of frank goodness by which Marmaduke
+      Dugdale could coax everybody round to his own ends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, that we will, though I suppose I am not so rich as Miss Valery.
+      Still, we have enough to help poor people&mdash;have we not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She appealed gaily to Mr. Harper, but he replied nothing. She persisted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We need not give much, since Mr. Trenchard and Miss Valery are both on
+      the list before us. We'll give&mdash;let me see&mdash;fifty pounds. Ah,
+      now, just go up-stairs and fetch me down fifty pounds!&rdquo; said she, hanging
+      caressingly on her husband's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked down on her, and looked away. He had become very grave. &ldquo;We will
+      talk of this some other time, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But another time will not do. I want it now. I fear,&rdquo; she whispered,
+      blushing&mdash;&ldquo;I fear, before I married, I was very thoughtless and
+      selfish. I would like to cure myself, and spend my money usefully, as Anne
+      Valery does. Charity is such a luxury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too dear a luxury for every one,&rdquo; said Nathanael sighing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up, scarcely believing him to be in earnest. Her open-hearted,
+      open-handed nature was much hurt. She said, with a bitter meaning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know I had such a very prudent husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took no notice, but addressed himself to Mr. Dugdale. &ldquo;Nay, Duke, you
+      and your benevolences are too hard upon us young married people. We must
+      tighten our purse-strings against you this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's cheek flamed. &ldquo;But if <i>I</i> wish it&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear, it cannot be, we cannot afford it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha moved angrily from his side, and soon after, though not so soon as
+      to attract notice to him or herself, she quitted the room. Scarcely had
+      she reached her own when she heard a step behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you angry with me, my wife, and for such a little thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael stood there, holding both her hands, and looking down upon her
+      with a face so kind, so regretful, so grave, that she felt ashamed of the
+      quick storm which had ruffled her own spirit The cause of this did seem
+      now a very &ldquo;little thing.&rdquo; She hung her head, child-like, and made no
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is it,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, putting his arm round her&mdash;&ldquo;why is it
+      that we are always having these 'little things' rising up to trouble us?
+      Why cannot we bear with one another, and take the chance-happiness that
+      falls to our lot? It is not much, I fear&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, perhaps that is chiefly my fault. I often wish Heaven had given you
+      a better husband, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And his countenance was so softened, mournful, and tender, that Agatha's
+      affection returned. There was something childish and foolish in these
+      small wranglings. They wore her patience away. For the twentieth time she
+      vowed not to make herself unhappy, or restless, or cross, but to take
+      Nathanael's goodness as she saw it, believing in it and him. Since
+      according to that wise speech of Harriet&mdash;which even Anne Valery
+      smiled at and did not deny&mdash;the best of men were very disagreeable at
+      times, and no man's good qualities ever came out thoroughly until he had
+      been married for at least a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a tear in her eye and a quiver on her lip, Agatha held up her young
+      face to her husband. He kissed her, and there was peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though he had made this concession, and made many others in the course
+      of the next hour, to remove from her mind every thought of pain, still he
+      showed not the slightest change of will regarding the cause of dispute.
+      And perhaps in her secret heart this only caused his wife to respect him
+      the more. It is usually the weak and erring who vacillate. Firmness of
+      purpose, mildly carried out, implies a true motive at the root. Agatha
+      began to think whether her husband might not have some reason for his
+      conduct; probably the very simple one of disliking to see his name or her
+      own paraded in a subscription-list, or mixed up with a political clique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, he puzzled her. She could not think why, with all his
+      tenderness, he so often put his will in opposition to her own, and
+      prevented her pleasure; why he was so slow in giving her his confidence;
+      why he more than once plainly stated that there was &ldquo;a reason&rdquo; for various
+      disagreeable whims, yet had not told her what that reason was. All these
+      were trivial things&mdash;yet in the early sunrise of married life the
+      least molehill throws a long black shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be a wise woman. I will not disquiet myself in vain,&rdquo; said the
+      little wife to herself, as her husband left her, in answer to repeated
+      calls from some feminine voice which had just entered the house, and was
+      immediately audible half over it. Harriet Dugdale's, of course. To her&mdash;sharp-sighted
+      and merry-tongued woman that she was&mdash;Agatha would not for worlds
+      have betrayed anything; so, dashing cold water on her forehead to hide the
+      very near approach to tears, she quickly descended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrie was in a state of considerable indignation, mixed with laughter. &ldquo;I
+      never knew such people as you are! and certainly never was there the like
+      of my Duke there. He set off to fetch you all to Corfe Castle&mdash;his
+      own proposition. I waited an hour and a half&mdash;then I took the pony to
+      see after you&mdash;and lo!&mdash;there he is, sitting quite at his ease.
+      Oh, Duke&mdash;Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her riding-whip at him twice before she disturbed him from his
+      book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh, Missus&mdash;what do'ee want, my child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Want? Don't you see what a passion we're all in? Abuse him, Anne&mdash;Agatha&mdash;Nathanael!
+      Do! I've no patience with him. Didn't he say himself that he would take us
+      all to Corfe Castle? Oh, you&mdash;you&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash; And Harrie looked
+      unutterable things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale gazed round placidly. &ldquo;Really, now, that's a pity! Never mind,
+      Missus! I only forgot.&rdquo; And patting her hand with ineffable gentleness and
+      good-humour, he opened his book again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you&mdash;you&rdquo;&mdash;here she put on a melodramatic scowl&mdash;&ldquo;you
+      inconceivably provoking, misty, oblivious, incomprehensible old darling!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And springing upon the back of his chair, Harrie hugged him to a degree
+      that compelled the unfortunate philosopher to renounce his book. He took
+      the caresses very patiently, and smiled with superior love upon his merry
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That'll do, Missus! Eh&mdash;and before folk, too! Now don't'ee, my
+      child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And shaking himself, hair and all, into something like order, he picked up
+      the folio, tucked it under his arm, and wended his way through the window
+      slowly down the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha glanced at her husband, who stood talking to Miss Valery. She
+      wondered what Nathanael would say if <i>she</i> were to take a leaf out of
+      his sister's book, and treat her own liege lord after the unceremonious
+      fashion of Harrie Dugdale!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&mdash;off he goes, quite cross, no doubt.&rdquo; (He was smiling as
+      benevolently as if he could embrace the whole world.) &ldquo;But we must catch
+      him at the stables. I brought White-star galloping after me, and Duke will
+      rouse up when he sees his beloved horse. You shall take my pony, Agatha.
+      Of course you can ride?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha could&mdash;in a London riding-school and London parks. She had her
+      doubts about the country, but felt strongly inclined to try; for Mrs.
+      Dugdale had entered Kingcombe Holm like a breath of keen fresh air,
+      putting life and spirit into everybody. Nathanael made no opposition, only
+      he insisted on Mary's quiet grey mare being substituted for Harrie's
+      skittish pony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall ride with you part way,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and then leave you in Mr.
+      Dugdale's charge, while I stay at Kingcombe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have business there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still the same weary &ldquo;business&rdquo; which he never explained or talked about,
+      yet which always seemed to rise up like a bugbear on their pleasures,
+      until Agatha was sick of the sound of the word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away, and put herself altogether under Mrs. Dugdale's care to
+      be equipped for the ride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne Valery, coming in with her quiet common sense, succeeded in making up
+      the party, which, with one exception, Harrie had left to make itself up
+      according to its own discretion. When Mrs. Harper descended, she found all
+      settled for the spending of a day at Corfe Castle, in picnic style&mdash;glorious
+      and free&mdash;with a moonlight canter home in the evening. No one was
+      omitted except the Squire, who with considerable dignity declined such <i>al
+      fresco</i> amusements; and Anne Valery, who promised to peep in upon them
+      as she passed the Castle on her way to her own house, after spending a few
+      hours with Elizabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had never been on horseback since she was married. It made her feel
+      like a girl again, and brought back all the wild spirits of her youth, now
+      repressed in propriety by her changed life&mdash;until sometimes she
+      hardly knew herself, or fancied she was growing into that object of her
+      former scorn, an ordinary young lady. She cast the subdued and meek &ldquo;Mrs.
+      Locke Harper&rdquo; to the winds, and dashed wildly back for this day at least
+      into &ldquo;Agatha Bowen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband, putting her on her horse, with many injunctions, was
+      surprised to see her give him a careless nod and dart off delightedly, as
+      if she and the grey mare had wings. The Dugdales followed, a wild pair,
+      for Marmaduke was quite another being on horseback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at him, Agatha,&rdquo;&mdash;and Harrie's laugh ringing on the wind caused
+      the mild grey mare to seem rather restless in her mind. &ldquo;Did you think my
+      Duke could ride as he does? He never looks so well as on horseback. He is
+      a perfect Thessalian!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was amused to find classic lore in Harrie Dugdale, and she gave
+      most cordial admiration to Duke. &ldquo;He is a magnificent rider; he sits the
+      horse just as if he were born to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless him! so he was. He rode his father's horses at four years old, and
+      went hunting at fourteen. And he has such a beautiful temper, and such a
+      firm will besides&mdash;that he could manage the wildest brute in the
+      county. See there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      White-star had become rather obstreperous, showing his spirit; his master
+      carelessly lent down, giving him a box on each ear, just as if the stately
+      blood horse had been a naughty child; then composedly rode him back to the
+      two ladies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harrie! Missus! do'ee come on! Nathanael is behind, all right. Come
+      along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave his wife's pony a switch, and off they dashed, she laughing
+      merrily, and he galloping away with such ease and grace that Agatha could
+      not take her eyes off him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked after them with a vague sense of envy,&mdash;this odd married
+      pair, in whose union so many things appeared unequal and peculiar, except
+      for one thing&mdash;the love which hallowed and perfected all. When her
+      own husband came up, she, unwilling to talk, and dreading above all that
+      his quick eye should detect anything amiss in her, pushed her horse
+      forward, and calling to Nathanael to follow, rode on after the Dugdales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ere they had ridden far, all her wild spirits came back again, and all her
+      wifely feelings too, for her husband seemed as happy as herself, and
+      entered into all her frolics. They swept along like two children, across
+      the breezy moors, purple and fragrant, down by the hilly sheep-paths,
+      lying bare in autumn sunshine. Nathanael proved himself almost as good a
+      horseman as Duke Dugdale: a great pleasure to Agatha, for of all things
+      women do like a man to be manly. Nay, once, in the descent of a hill so
+      steep, that a Cockney equestrian would have been frightened out of his
+      seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief
+      that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he snatched little
+      Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been
+      awakened towards him. She hinted this, and said how pleasant it was to
+      feel that one's husband was, as she expressed it, &ldquo;a man that could take
+      care of one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how very foolish and helpless townfolk&mdash;drawing-room gentlemen,
+      appear in the country! I wonder,&rdquo; and she could not help telling him the
+      comical idea, though not very complimentary to her husband's brother&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      wonder how Major Harper would look on horseback?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say? The wind blew that sentence away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hardly liked to repeat it exactly, but said something about Major
+      Harper and his coming down to Dorset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael spurred his horse forward without replying. A minute afterwards
+      he returned to his wife's side, bringing her a great bunch of heather,
+      with yellow gorse mixed, and made jokes about the Dorsetshire saying,
+      &ldquo;When gorse is out of bloom kissing's out of season.&rdquo; And evermore he
+      looked secretly at her, to notice if she laughed and was happy, had roses
+      on her cheeks, and pleasure in her eyes. Seeing this, the husband appeared
+      contented and at ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They and the Dugdales rode merrily into Kingcombe, much to that good
+      town's astonishment. The equestrian quartette at Marmaduke's door was a
+      sight that the worthy inhabitants of that sleepy street would not get over
+      for a week. Everybody gathered at doors and windows, and a small group of
+      farmers at the market quadrangle stared with all their eyes. The sensation
+      created was enormous, and likewise the crowd,&mdash;almost as dense as a
+      wandering juggler gathers in a quiet suburban London street! Agatha,
+      passing through it, laughed till she could laugh no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband, pleased at her gaiety, came to lift her off her horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit of it!&rdquo; Mrs. Dugdale cried. &ldquo;Keep your seat, Agatha; no time to
+      lose; on we go in a minute, when Duke has been to get his letters. Here,
+      Brian, my pet.&rdquo;&mdash;There had rushed out round her horse a cluster of
+      infantine Dugdales.&mdash;&ldquo;Lift Brian up here, Uncle Nathanael, and I'll
+      give him a canter. Bravo! He's Pa's own boy, born for a rider! Come along,
+      Auntie Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha would willingly have followed down the street. She was amused by
+      the daring of the mother and the boy, and amused especially by her new
+      title of &ldquo;Auntie Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do let me go, Mr. Harper; I don't want to dismount, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have something to say to you&mdash;just a few words. We must decide
+      to-day about the house, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind the house; I had rather not think about it.&rdquo; And the mere
+      shadow of past vexation still vexed her. &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she added, entreatingly,
+      &ldquo;do be good to me&mdash;do let me enjoy myself for once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would not prevent you for the world.&rdquo; He dropped her bridle with a
+      sigh, and turned back among his little nephews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fred had coaxed the horse from the groom, and Gus was bent on mounting;
+      there was a dreadful struggle, and angry cries for Uncle Nathanael. In the
+      midst of it Uncle Nathanael appeared, like an angel of peace, and setting
+      the boys one behind another on his horse's back, led the animal up and
+      down carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked after them, thinking how kind and good her husband was. She
+      wished she had not refused so hastily such a simple request; she began to
+      think herself a wretch for ever contradicting him in anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little party started again, increased by the arrival of the family
+      carriage from Kingcombe Holm, wherein sat Mary and Eulalie. To these were
+      speedily added the three young Dugdales, all in high glee. And it spoke
+      well for the Miss Harpers, whom Agatha was disposed to like least of her
+      husband's relatives, that they made very lenient and kindly aunts to those
+      obstreperous boys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was crossing the bridge which bounded South Street, trying to make
+      her horse stand still while Mr. Dugdale pointed out the identical red
+      cliff where the Danes drew up their ships, and laughing with Harrie at the
+      notion of how terribly frightened the quiet souls in Kingcombe would be at
+      such an incursion now, when Nathanael came on foot to his wife's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you start without speaking to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not help it; I thought you were gone. You will come after us
+      soon?&rdquo; And she felt angry with herself for having momentarily forgotten
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come when I have settled this business of the house. You
+      understand, Agatha, I am obliged to decide to-day? You will not blame me
+      afterwards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;no!&rdquo; His extreme seriousness of manner jarred with her
+      youthful spirits. She did not think or care about what he did, so that for
+      this day only he let her be gay and happy. From some incomprehensible
+      cause, his very love seemed to hang over her like a cloud, and so it had
+      been from the beginning. She did so long to dash out into the sunshine of
+      her careless, girlish life, and scamper over the beautiful country with
+      Harrie Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; she repeated only wishing to satisfy him. &ldquo;Take any house you
+      like, and come onward soon; and oh, do let us be cheerful and merry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will!&rdquo; His bright look as she patted his shoulder&mdash;a very
+      venturesome act&mdash;-gave her much cheer; and when, after she had
+      cantered a good way down the road, she turned and saw him still leaning on
+      the bridge looking after her, her heart throbbed with pleasure. Despite
+      all his reserves and peculiarities, and her own conscious failings, there
+      was one thing to which she clung as to a root of comfort that would never
+      be taken away, and would surely bear blossom and fruit afterwards&mdash;the
+      belief that her husband truly loved her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/p212.jpg" width="100%" alt="On Horseback  P212 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If so,&rdquo; she thought, &ldquo;I suppose all will come right in time, and Agatha
+      Harper will be as happy as, or happier than, Agatha Bowen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So on she went, yielding to the delicious excitement of being on
+      horseback. She was also much interested by the country round about, which
+      appeared to her as old, desolate, and strange as if she had been a Thane's
+      daughter riding across the moors to the gates of that renowned castle
+      which, as Harrie declared, putting on the physiognomy of some school-child
+      drawling out a history-lesson, &ldquo;was celebrated for being the residence of
+      the ancient Saxon kings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this was the place,&rdquo; continued she in the same tone, pointing to an
+      old gate-post&mdash;&ldquo;this was the place where His Majesty's most
+      illustrious horse did stop when His Majesty's most sainted body was
+      dragged along by the leg, in the stirrup, on account of the wound given
+      him when he was a-drinking at the castle-door, by his stepmother, Queen
+      Elfrida. All of which is to be seen to the present day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha first laughed at this comical view of the subject, then she felt a
+      little repugnance at hearing that stern old tragedy so lightly treated. As
+      she walked her horse along the road which might have been, and probably
+      was, the very same Saxon highway as in those times, she thought of the
+      wounded horseman dashing out from between those green hills and of the
+      murdered body dropping slowly, slowly from the saddle, dragged in dust,
+      and beat against stones, until the woman that loved him&mdash;for even a
+      king might have had some woman that loved him&mdash;would not have known
+      the face she thought so fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an idle fancy, but beneath it her tears were rising; chiefly for
+      thinking, not of &ldquo;The Martyr,&rdquo; but of the woman&mdash;whoever she was&mdash;(Agatha
+      had not historical erudition enough to remember if King Edward had a wife)&mdash;to
+      whom that day's tragedy might have brought a lifetime's doom. She began to
+      shudder&mdash;to feel that she too was a wife&mdash;to understand dimly
+      what a wife's love might come to be&mdash;also something of a wife's
+      terrors. She wished&mdash;it was foolish enough, but she did wish that
+      Nathanael had not been riding on horseback, or else that, in picturing to
+      herself the dead head of the Martyr dragged along the road, she did not
+      always see it with long fair hair. And then she wondered if these horrible
+      fancies indicated the dawning of that feeling which she had deceived
+      herself into believing she already possessed. Was she beginning to find
+      out the difference between that quiet response to secured affection, that
+      pleasant knowledge of being loved, and the strong, engrossing,
+      self-existent attachment which Anne Valery described&mdash;the passion
+      which has but one object, one interest, one joy, in the whole wide world?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was she beginning really <i>to love</i> her husband?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer to that question involved so much, both of what had been, and
+      what was yet to come, that Agatha dared not ponder over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Harper! Mrs. Harper!&rdquo; She mused no longer, but hurried on after the
+      Dugdales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not to point out the Castle that Harrie had been so vociferous, but
+      to show a place which she evidently deemed far more interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you see that white house far among the trees? That's where my Duke was
+      born. He lived there in peace and quietness till he got acquainted with
+      Uncle Brian, and came to Kingcombe Holm and fell in love with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he do it? I want to know what is the fashion of such things in
+      Dorset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did Duke fall in love with me? Really I can't tell. I was fifteen or
+      so&mdash;a mere baby! He first gave me a doll, and then he wanted to marry
+      me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how did he make love, or 'propose' as they call it?&rdquo; persisted
+      Agatha, to whom the idea of Marmaduke Dugdale in that character was
+      irresistibly funny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make love? Propose? Bless you, my dear, he never did either! Somehow it
+      all came quite naturally. We belonged to one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The very phrase Anne Valery had used! It made Nathanael's wife rather
+      thoughtful. She wondered what was the feeling like, when people &ldquo;belonged
+      to one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she had no time for meditation; for now the great grey ruin loomed in
+      sight, and everybody, including the shouting boys in the carriage behind,
+      was eager to point it out, especially when Agatha made the lamentable
+      confession that she had never seen a ruined castle in her life before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you might go all over England and not find such another as this,&rdquo;
+       said Mr. Dugdale, riding up to her with a smile of great satisfaction.
+      &ldquo;Nobody thinks much of it in these parts, and few antiquarians ever come
+      and poke about it. Perhaps it's as well. They couldn't find out more than
+      we know already. But no!&rdquo;&mdash;and his eye, taking in the noble old ruin
+      arched over by the broad sky, assumed its peculiar dreamy expression&mdash;&ldquo;We
+      don't know anything. Nobody knows anything about this wonderful world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked around. On the top of a smooth conical hill, each side of
+      which was guarded by other two hills equally smooth and bare, rose the
+      wreck of the magnificent fortress, enough of the walls remaining to show
+      its extent and plan. Its destroyer had been&mdash;not Father Time, who
+      does his work quietly and gracefully&mdash;but that worse spoiler, man.
+      Huge masses of masonry, hurled from the summit, lay in the moat beneath,
+      fixed as they had been for centuries, with vegetation growing over them.
+      Some of the walls, undermined and shaken from their foundations, took
+      strange, oblique angles, yet refused to fall. Marks of cannon-balls were
+      indented on the stonework of the battered gateway, which still remained a
+      gateway&mdash;probably the very same under which Queen Elfrida, &ldquo;fair and
+      false,&rdquo; had offered to her son the stirrup-cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general impression left on the mind was not that of natural decay,
+      solemn and holy, but of sudden destruction, coming unawares, and struggled
+      against, as a man in the flower of life struggles with mortality. There
+      was something very melancholy about the ruined fortress left on the
+      hill-top in sight of the little town close below, where its desolation was
+      unheeded. Agatha, sensitive, enthusiastic, and easily impressed, grew
+      silent, and wondered that her companions could laugh so carelessly, even
+      when passing under the grey portal into the very precincts of the deserted
+      castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall not find a soul here,&rdquo; said Harrie; &ldquo;scarcely anybody ever comes
+      at this season, except when our Kingcombe Oddfellows' Club have a picnic
+      on this bowling-green; or schoolboys get together and climb up the ivy to
+      frighten the jackdaws&mdash;my husband has done it many a time&mdash;haven't
+      you, Duke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see mamma,&rdquo; vaguely responded Duke, who was busy lifting his boys down
+      from the carriage, with a paternal care and tenderness beautiful to see.
+      He then, with one little fellow on his shoulder, another holding his hand,
+      and a third clinging to his coat-tails, strode off up the green ascent,
+      without paying the slightest attention to Mrs. Harper. Which dereliction
+      from the rules of politeness it never once came into her mind to notice or
+      to blame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There they go! Nobody minds me; it's all Pa!&rdquo; said Mrs. Dugdale, with an
+      assumption of wrath; a very miserable pretence, while her look was so
+      happy and fond. &ldquo;You see, Agatha, what you'll come to&mdash;after ten
+      years' matrimony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's heart was so full, she could not laugh but sighed, yet it was not
+      with unhappiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He and Harrie wandered over the castle together, for the two Miss Harpers
+      did not approve of climbing. The little boys and &ldquo;Pa&rdquo; reappeared now and
+      then at all sorts of improbable and terrifically dangerous corners, and
+      occasionally Mrs. Dugdale made frantic darts after them. Especially when
+      they were all seen standing on one of the topmost precipices, the father
+      giving a practical scientific lesson on the momentum of falling bodies; in
+      illustration of which Harrie declared he would certainly throw little
+      Brian out of his arms, in a fit of absence of mind, thoroughly believing
+      the child was a stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, when their excitement had fairly worn itself out, and even Mrs.
+      Dugdale's energetic liveliness had come to a dead stop in consequence of a
+      fit of sleepiness and crossness on the part of Brian&mdash;Agatha roamed
+      about the old castle by herself; creeping into all the queer nooks with a
+      childish pleasure, mounting impassable walls so as to find the highest
+      point of view. She always had a great delight in climbing, and in feeling
+      herself at the top of everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was such a strange afternoon too, grey, soft, warm, the sun having long
+      gone in and left an atmosphere of pleasant cloudiness, tender and dim, the
+      shadowing over of a fading day, which nevertheless foretells no rain, but
+      often indicates a beautiful day to-morrow. Somehow or other, it made
+      Agatha think of Miss Valery; nor was she surprised when, as suddenly as if
+      she had dropped out of the sky, Anne was seen approaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me help you up these stones. How good of you to come, and how tired
+      you seem!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, I shall be rested in a minute. But I am not quite so young as you,
+      my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came up and leaned against the ivy-wall that Agatha had climbed, which
+      was on the opposite side of the hill to the bowling-green, the
+      gathering-spot of the little party. It was a nook of thorough solitude and
+      desolation, nothing being visible from it but the widely extended flat of
+      country, looking seaward, though the sea itself was not in view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you climb so high?&rdquo; said Agatha, as, earnestly regarding her
+      friend, she perceived more than ever before the difference in their years,
+      and felt strongly tempted to wrap her strong young arms round Miss
+      Valery's waist, and support her with even a daughter's care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be well presently,&rdquo; Anne repeated, with cheerfulness. &ldquo;I have not
+      climbed up to this spot for many years. I thought I would like to come
+      here once again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down on a flat stone raised upon two others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a comfortable seat! It might have been made on purpose for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it was&mdash;long ago. No one has disturbed it since. Come, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew Agatha beside her&mdash;there was just room for two; and they sat
+      in silence, looking at the view, except that Agatha sometimes cast her
+      eyes about rather restlessly. It was a magical answer to her thoughts when
+      Anne observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I met your husband as I drove through Kingcombe. He desired me to tell
+      you he was detained a little, but would be here ere long. How very
+      thoughtful and good he is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha said &ldquo;Yes&rdquo;&mdash;a mere &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; quiet and low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery made no further remark, but sat a long time, absently gazing
+      over the low-lying sweep of country which gradually melted into a greyness
+      that looked like sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it the sea?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it lies yonder, behind the hill opposite&mdash;where there is the
+      smoke of the furze burning. From that spot I should think one could trace
+      the line of coast almost to Weymouth. Do you remember ever seeing
+      Weymouth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! how could I?&rdquo; returned Agatha, surprised by the suddenness of the
+      question, and its form. &ldquo;I never was in Dorsetshire before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne said something, either in jest or earnest, about one's often fancying
+      one has seen places in a previous existence, and changed the theme by
+      pointing out the view on the other hand. &ldquo;My house, Thornhurst, lies in
+      that direction. You must come and see me soon, and we will talk more
+      pleasantly than I can do to-day. It is so strange to be sitting here with
+      Mrs. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so? What makes you so often call me by that name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only a whim I have. But is it not a good name&mdash;a beautiful name? Ah,
+      you child!&mdash;you poor little one! To think of <i>you</i> becoming Mrs.
+      Locke Harper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pathos&mdash;a kind of tender retrospection in Anne Valery's
+      manner as she touched the brown curls and smoothed the neat dress, which&mdash;riding
+      hat and skirt having been laid aside or tucked up&mdash;made a pretty
+      mountain-maiden out of Nathanael's wife. Agatha never could understand the
+      peculiar fondness with which Miss Valery sometimes regarded her&mdash;to-day
+      especially. She seemed constantly on the point of saying something&mdash;which
+      she never did say. At last she rose from the stone seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will talk another day. We must go now.&rdquo; Yet she lingered. &ldquo;Just let us
+      stand here, in this exact spot; and look at the view.&rdquo; She looked&mdash;her
+      eyes absorbing it from every point, as one drinks in, for the last time, a
+      long-familiar draught of landscape beauty.. &ldquo;My dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whisper was strangely soft&mdash;even solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will remember, dear, it was I that brought you here first. You'll
+      come here sometimes, will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very often indeed! It is a delicious place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought so when I was your age. And you'll not forget the stone seat,
+      Agatha? I hope no one will disturb it. Good-bye! poor old stone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saying this in a whisper, she stooped and patted it with her hand&mdash;the
+      thin white hand that might once have been so round, pretty, and young. The
+      act, natural even to childishness, might have made Agatha smile, but for a
+      certain something about Miss Valery that invested with dignity even her
+      simplicities. So, merely echoing &ldquo;Goodbye, old stone!&rdquo; she followed Anne
+      down the slope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a loud-lamenting adieu, especially from the Dugdale boys, Miss
+      Valery mounted her little carriage and drove away into the gathering
+      shadow&mdash;Agatha knew not where.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a good woman she is! I wish we were all like her!&rdquo; she said,
+      thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, nobody can be, especially with a husband and four children. It
+      is a blessing to society in general that Anne Valery never married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But people do marry late in life sometimes. So may she. Do you think she
+      will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't say! Don't know! Very mysterious!&rdquo; ejaculated Harrie. &ldquo;My brother
+      Fred once hinted&mdash;and Fred was a very fascinating young fellow when I
+      was a child&mdash;But all that belongs to the year One. I'll hold my
+      tongue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had too much delicacy to inquire further. Still, it seemed very odd
+      that there should be a general impression of Anne's early attachment to
+      Major Harper, in contradistinction to the old Squire's regretful hint that
+      she had refused his eldest son. But these scraps of romance, so far back
+      in the past, were useless searching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An excellent woman is Anne Valery,&rdquo; continued Harrie&mdash;&ldquo;really
+      excellent: but sometimes rather a bore to her friends who have families.
+      My Duke often forgets he has four children to provide for, when he listens
+      to her charitable schemes. 'Twas but the other day he and she were mad
+      about some starving Cornish miners that she sent poor Mr. Wilson to look
+      after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I remember,&rdquo; cried Agatha, now interested in things which she had
+      before heard indifferently. She was thirsting for some opportunity of
+      doing good&mdash;of redeeming the long waste of idle years and unemployed
+      fortune. &ldquo;Do tell me about those miners.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little to tell, my dear. Only philanthropic ideas about helping poor
+      wretches that had been thrown out of work by some cheating speculators
+      shutting up the mines. Anne sent Wilson to find out who the man was, and
+      what could be done. After that I never heard any more of it, nor did my
+      husband either.&mdash;Stop&mdash;don't run and question him! For goodness'
+      sake let the nonsense drop out of his poor dear head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, thus rebuffed, ceased her inquiries, but she inwardly resolved to
+      find out all about the Cornish miners, and consult with her husband about
+      assisting them. He could not object to this good deed&mdash;it should be
+      done as privately as ever he liked&mdash;she would take care not even to
+      make mention of it before anybody, as in the matter of the subscription.
+      And surely, though he was strange and had his peculiar notions, Nathanael
+      was generous at heart, and would not thwart her in anything really
+      essential, especially when she only wished to follow in the steps of Anne
+      Valery, and use worthily her large fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these thoughts elevating and cheering her mind, she sat and watched
+      for her husband until he came. She was so glad to see him that she quite
+      forgot to inquire about the house. He seemed at first expectant of her
+      questions, and rather grave, but at last gave himself up to the general
+      merry mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once only, when they were riding homeward side by side, the fading sunset
+      before them, and the low moon hiding herself behind the great black hill
+      of Corfe, Nathanael suddenly said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Agatha, perhaps you would like me to tell you&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she cried, with a quick instinct of reluctance. &ldquo;Tell me nothing
+      to-night. Let us be happy for this one day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband sighed, and was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, will you come out and walk with me?&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not see it is raining?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not indeed, though he had stood at the window in meditation ever
+      since breakfast-time. As for Agatha, she had been so tired with her
+      excursion the previous day that she had done nothing but sleep, and had
+      scarcely opened her lips to her husband or to any one. Now, on this rainy
+      day, she felt the reaction of her high spirits&mdash;was dull, dreamy;
+      wished her husband would come and talk to her, and &ldquo;make a baby&rdquo; of her.
+      She could not think why he stood at that odious window, pondering,
+      counting rain-drops apparently, and then made the unaccountable
+      proposition of a walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Raining, is it?&rdquo; He looked up at the murky sky. &ldquo;What a change from last
+      night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know you were so subject to elemental influences?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all are, more or less; but I was just then thinking about other things
+      than what I spoke of. My dear wife, I want to talk to you very much. Where
+      shall we go, so as not to be interrupted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anywhere you like,&rdquo; said she, resigning herself to her fate and to a long
+      argument, which she supposed was about the new house. She did not remember
+      about it clearly, but she had a floating suspicion that Nathanael was
+      determined to settle the matter soon, and that she should have a hard
+      struggle between the pretty house she liked, and Mr. Wilson's cottage,
+      which her husband so unaccountably preferred. This was a matter in which
+      she could not yield, come what might. Therefore the &ldquo;anywhere you like&rdquo;
+       was in rather an ungracious manner. He seemed determined not to observe
+      this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose we go into the conservatory;&mdash;you have never seen it. But
+      put on something to keep you warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrapped Mary's crimson garden-shawl over her head&mdash;clumsily
+      enough, for Mr. Harper was not a &ldquo;ladies' man;&rdquo; his whole character and
+      habits of life being in curious opposition to the extreme delicacy which
+      Nature had externally stamped upon his appearance. Pausing, he held his
+      wife at arm's length, gazing at her admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will that do? What a gipsy you look, with your red shawl and brown face!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pawnee-face, you know! Do you remember how you once called me so, and how
+      your brother&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, let us go,&rdquo; he said abruptly, and hurried her through the
+      drawing-rooms. Agatha was rather hurt that his aspect should change so
+      cloudily, and that he should thus quench her little reminiscences of
+      courtship-days, so dear to every happy wife, and gradually becoming dearer
+      even to herself. As they entered the conservatory, she shivered with an
+      uncomfortable sense of gloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a large, bare place! Even the vines look cheerless&mdash;and where
+      have they put all the flowers? What a shame to send them away, and turn it
+      into a billiard-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was done years ago, to please&mdash;my brother&rdquo;&mdash;(Agatha was
+      amazed at the hard tone of that tender fraternal word&mdash;so can the
+      sense of words alter in the saying)&mdash;&ldquo;and my father will not have it
+      removed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have been very fond of your brother,&rdquo; said Agatha, as, with a
+      woman's natural leaning to the injured side, she thought of Major Harper&mdash;his
+      gaiety and his good-nature. She wondered why Nathanael was so rigid and
+      cold in his forced and rare mentioning of his brother's name. As she
+      pondered, her eyes took a serious shadow in their depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you thinking about, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The suddenness of the question&mdash;the consciousness that she might vex
+      Nathanael did she answer it&mdash;made her hesitate, blushing vividly&mdash;nay,
+      painfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, don't tell me. I want to hear nothing, nothing, Agatha. I have before
+      told you so. Do not be afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange you are! What should I be afraid of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. Forget I said anything. You are my wife now&mdash;mine&mdash;mine!&rdquo;
+       and for a moment he pressed her hand tightly. &ldquo;In time&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      relinquished his hold with a sad smile&mdash;&ldquo;in time, Agatha, I hope we
+      shall become used to one another; perhaps even grow into a contented,
+      sedate married couple.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think so?&rdquo; Alas! far more than this had been her thought&mdash;the
+      thought which had dawned when she paused, shuddering over the tale of King
+      Edward the Martyr and the woman that loved him&mdash;the dim hope, daily
+      rising, of an Eden not altogether lost, even though she had married so
+      rashly and blindly&mdash;a hope that this might have been only the burying
+      of her foolish girlish dream of love, which must needs die in order to be
+      raised up again in a different form and in a new existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhat heavy-hearted, Agatha sat down on a raised bench that looked down
+      on the battered and decaying billiard-table, listening to the rain that
+      pattered on the glass roof above the vine-leaves&mdash;wondering how old
+      were the ragged-looking, flowerless, fruitless orange-trees that were
+      ranged on either side, the only other specimens of vegetation left.
+      Evidently nobody at Kingcombe Holm cared much for flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we will quit this dull place. You do not seem to like it,
+      Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I like it well enough. I like the rain falling, falling, and the
+      vine-branches crushing themselves against the panes. They'll never ripen,
+      never&mdash;poor things! They are dying for sun, and it will not&mdash;will
+      not shine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, what do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't clearly know what I mean. Never mind. Talk to me about&mdash;whatever
+      it was that you brought me to unfold. Be quick&mdash;I have not a large
+      stock of patience, you know of old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not laugh, for I am serious. I wanted to talk to you about our new
+      house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our new house! Where and what like is it to be, I wonder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not recollect?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; the two we looked at would not do,&rdquo; said Agatha, determinedly. She
+      guessed what was coming&mdash;that the discussion about Wilson's cottage,
+      which Nathanael seemed so to have set his heart upon, was about to be
+      renewed. But she would never consent to that&mdash;never! &ldquo;The house I
+      liked you did not approve of,&rdquo; she continued, observing her husband's
+      silence. &ldquo;The other I could not think of for a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But supposing there was no alternative, since we must settle at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the first time you have condescended to inform me of that
+      necessity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; he went on, taking no notice of her sharp speech, but speaking with
+      the extreme gentleness of one who himself feels tenfold the pain he is
+      compelled to inflict&mdash;&ldquo;if, as I told you yesterday, we ought to form
+      our plans immediately; and since, Kingcombe being such a small place,
+      there is at present no choice left us but those two houses&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Build one! We are rich enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite.&rdquo; His eyes dropped, almost like those of guilt. After a pause,
+      he cried out violently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, a secret at one's heart is ten times worse to the keeper of it
+      than it can be to any one else. Have pity for me, have patience with me,
+      just for a little while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking about? What have you done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Nothing to harm your peace, my little wife. Believe
+      me, I have committed no greater crime, than&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Than having taken Wilson's cottage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried by smiling to teach her to make light of it&mdash;perhaps because
+      it was a thing so light to him. But Agatha was enraged beyond endurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have absolutely taken it&mdash;that mean, wretched hovel that I told
+      you I hated;&mdash;taken it secretly, without my knowledge or consent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake there. I told you we were obliged to decide yesterday; you
+      were unwilling to consult with me, and at last&mdash;do you remember? you
+      left the decision in my hands. I merely believed your own words, and
+      knowing the necessity of acting upon them, did so. I cannot think I was
+      wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no! Not at all!&rdquo; cried Agatha, laughing wildly. &ldquo;It was only like you&mdash;under-handed
+      in stealing my few pleasures&mdash;very frank and open when you can rule.
+      Never honest or candid with me, except to my punishment. A kind, generous
+      husband, truly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These and a torrent more of bitter words she poured out. She never knew
+      till now the passion, the galling sarcasm, there was in her nature. She
+      felt a longing to hate&mdash;a wish to wound. Every time she looked at her
+      husband, there seemed a demon rising up within her&mdash;that demon which
+      lurks strangely enough in the heart's closest and tenderest depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cannot you speak!&rdquo; she cried, going up to him. &ldquo;Anything is better than
+      that wicked silence. Speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I'll not hear you. See what you have done&mdash;how you have
+      made me disgrace myself&rdquo; and she almost sobbed.&mdash;&ldquo;Never in my life
+      was I in a passion before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it my fault then?&rdquo; said he, mournfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yours. It is you who stir up all these bad feelings in me.. I was a
+      good girl, a happy girl, before you married me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it so? Then you shall be held blameless. Poor child&mdash;poor
+      child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His unutterable regret, his entire prostration, stung her to the heart,
+      and silenced her for the moment; but speedily she burst out again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You call me a child&mdash;so perhaps I am, in years; but you should have
+      thought of that before. You married me, and made me a woman. You took away
+      my gay childish heart, and yet in all humiliating things you still treat
+      me like a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I?&rdquo; He answered mechanically, out of thoughts that lay deep down, far
+      below the surface of his wife's bitter words. These last awoke in him not
+      one ray of anger&mdash;not even when at last, in a fit of uncontrollable
+      petulance, she tore his hand from before his eyes, bidding him look at her&mdash;if
+      he dared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I dare.&rdquo; And the look she courted, arose steady, sorrowful, like
+      that of a man who turns his eyes upward, hopeless yet faithful, out of a
+      wrecked ship. &ldquo;Whatever has been, or may come, God knows that, from the
+      first, I did love you, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wherefore had he used the word &ldquo;did!&rdquo; Why could she not smother down the
+      unwonted pang, the new craving? Or rather, why could she not throw herself
+      in his arms and cry out, &ldquo;Do you love me&mdash;do you love me now?&rdquo; Pride&mdash;pride
+      only&mdash;the restless wild nature upon which his reserve fell like water
+      upon fire, without the blending spirit of conscious love which often makes
+      two opposite temperaments result in closest union.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, she was somewhat soothed, and began to compress the mass of
+      imaginary wrongs into the one little wrong which had originated it all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What made you take a liking to that miserable house? I hate small rooms&mdash;I
+      cannot breathe in them&mdash;I have never been used to a little house. Why
+      must I now? I am not going to be extravagant&mdash;nobody could be if they
+      tried, in a poor place like Kingcombe. Since you <i>will</i> insist on our
+      living there, and <i>will</i> carry out your cruel pride of independence&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cruel&mdash;oh, Agatha!&rdquo; He absolutely groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wishing no extravagance, I do wish for comfort&mdash;perhaps some little
+      elegance&mdash;as I have had all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have it still, Agatha,&rdquo; her husband muttered. &ldquo;I will coin my
+      heart's blood into gold but you shall have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you are talking barbarously! Or else&mdash;how very very wrong am I!
+      What can be the reason that we torture each other so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fate!&rdquo; he cried, pacing wildly up and down. &ldquo;Fate! that has netted us
+      both to our own misery&mdash;nay, worse&mdash;to make us the misery of one
+      another. Yet how could I know? You seemed a young simple girl, free to
+      love&mdash;I felt sure I could make you love me. Poor dupe that I was! Oh,
+      why did I ever see you, Agatha Bowen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He snatched his wife on his knee, and kissed her repeatedly&mdash;madly&mdash;just
+      as he had done on the morning of their wedding-day; never since! Then he
+      let her go&mdash;almost with coldness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&mdash;I will not vex you. I must not be foolish any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Foolish! He thought it foolish to show that he loved her! Without
+      replying, Agatha sat down on the bench where her husband placed her. He
+      might say what he liked: she was very patient now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to explain his reasons for taking the house; that he had
+      naturally more acquaintance with worldly matters than she had; that
+      whatever their income, it was advisable for young people to begin
+      housekeeping prudently, since it was easy to increase small beginnings,
+      while of all outward domestic horrors there was nothing greater than the
+      horror of running into debt. When he talked thus, at once with wisdom and
+      gentleness, Agatha began to forgive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; said she, brightening, &ldquo;your prudence&mdash;which I might
+      call by a harder word, but I'll be good now&mdash;your prudence is only
+      restraining me in my little pleasures, and I don't much mind. But if you
+      ever tried to restrain me in a matter of kindness, as you did yesterday,
+      only I guessed the motive&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&mdash;don't look so startled and displeased. I saw you did not like
+      the <i>éclat</i> of political charities. But another time, if I want to do
+      good&mdash;like Anne Valery, only in a very, very much smaller way&mdash;Hark!
+      what is that noise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a decent-looking working-man, standing out in the pouring rain,
+      watching them through the panes, and rattling angrily at the locked
+      conservatory-door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a fierce eye! It looks quite wolfish. What can he want with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go and see. Some labourer wanting work, probably; but the fellow
+      has no business to come beckoning and interrupting. Stay here, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I will come with you.&rdquo; And she tripped after her husband, the
+      momentary content of her heart creating a longing to do good&mdash;a sort
+      of tithe of happiness thankfully paid to Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael unfastened the glass-door, not without annoyance; for, unlike
+      his wife, <i>his</i> joy-tithe was not yet due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want, my good fellow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some o' th' Harpers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Are you after work? You don't look like one of the clay-cutters.
+      Where do you come from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I be Darset, I be; but I comed fra Carnwall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From where?&rdquo; asked Agatha, puzzled by the provincialism, and attracted at
+      once by the man's intelligent face, and by a keen, misery-stricken, hungry
+      look, which she had truly called &ldquo;wolfish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I be comed fra the miners in Carnwall,&rdquo; reiterated the man, raising his
+      voice threateningly. &ldquo;They sent I back to Darset to see some o' th'
+      Harpers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must go in, Agatha; it is cold. I cannot have you standing here. Go&mdash;quick.&rdquo;
+       And Agatha was astonished to see how pallid and eager her husband looked,
+      and how anxious he seemed to get her out of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you. I am not cold at all. I want to hear this man. Perhaps he
+      is one of the poor miners Miss Valery spoke of at Wheal&mdash;what was
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I be comed fra Wheal Caroline, Missus, and I do want one o' th' Harpers.
+      There be the old 'un at the window! Thick's the man for we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he was hurrying off to the bow-window of the Squire's room, which was
+      alongside of the conservatory. But Nathanael called him back imperatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay, friend. My father has nothing to do with the mines&mdash;it is I.
+      I'll speak to you presently.&mdash;Some business of Anne's,&rdquo; he explained
+      hastily to his wife. &ldquo;Leave us, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you make me go in? I want to hear about the poor miners; I want to
+      help them, as well as Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do'ee help we, Missus!&rdquo; implored the man, softened by a woman's kind
+      looks. &ldquo;Do'ee give we some'at to keep 'un fra starving!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Starving!&rdquo; cried Agatha in horror. And even her husband's anxiety was for
+      the moment quelled in the deep pity which overspread his countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It be nigh that, I tell'ee. Us be no cheats&mdash;there be other folk as
+      has cheated we. Fine grand folk as knew nowt o' the mines, but shut 'un
+      up, and paid no money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How wicked!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I be come to find 'un out,&rdquo; cried the man fiercely, as his eye lit on
+      Nathanael. &ldquo;For I do know thick fine folk. And I tell'ee&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence! you forget you are speaking before a lady. Wait for me, and I
+      will talk with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will'ee, Mister? Don't'ee cheat, now!&rdquo; said the miner, with a rude
+      attempt at a sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man's cheek flushed, but he said very quietly&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise you, I will speak with you here in half-an-hour. I am Nathanael
+      Harper&mdash;Mr. Harper's youngest son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a minute's keen observation, the miner pulled off his cap
+      respectfully. &ldquo;Thank'ee, sir! You bean't <i>he</i>, I see. But you be th'
+      old Squire's son, and&mdash;I be Darset, I be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another bow&mdash;the involuntary respect to the ancient county family
+      from honest labour born upon its ancestral sod, and the man leaned
+      exhausted against the ragged stem of one of the old vines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Missus,&rdquo; he said, looking up hungrily&mdash;at the lady this time&mdash;
+      &ldquo;Missus, do'ee gie 'un a bit o' bread!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha, full of compassion, was eager to send the servants or take him
+      into the kitchen, or even fetch him his dinner with her own hands. Mr.
+      Harper interfered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will bring him some food myself. Stay here, my man; don't stir hence.
+      Remember, you have nothing to do with my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a warning severity in the tone which annoyed Agatha. Why did her
+      husband speak harshly to the poor miner?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still she obeyed Mr. Harper's evident wish that she should go away; and
+      spent the time in Elizabeth's room, telling her of this little incident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harper listened with all the quick intelligence of her bright eyes.
+      The only remark she made was:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could have led this miner to come back to Dorsetshire after our
+      family?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had never thought of this, indeed she did not want to think. Her
+      heart was brimming with charity. She longed to empty it out in a torrent
+      of benefactions, to which even Anne Valery's constant stream of good deeds
+      appeared measured and slow. Elizabeth watched her with a strange piercing
+      expression&mdash;Elizabeth, who from her silent nest seemed to behold all
+      things clearer, like a spirit sitting halfway in upper air, to whose
+      passionless wide vision distant mazes take form and proportion. Often,
+      there was something almost supernatural in Elizabeth and her attentive
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; she said at last, when Agatha paused for a response to her own
+      enthusiasm, &ldquo;Man proposes&mdash;God disposes! Go and talk over these
+      things with your husband first.&rdquo; Agatha went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She met Nathanael on the staircase, going up to their own room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah; is it you? I am so glad. Come and tell me what has been done about
+      the poor miner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is gone. I have sent him back to Cornwall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, so soon? Not to starve at that Wheal&mdash;Wheal something or other&mdash;I
+      always forget the name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do forget it. Don't let the matter trouble my little wife. Let her run
+      down-stairs and think of something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He patted her head with assumed carelessness, and was passing her by; but
+      she stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! there it is&mdash;I am always to be a child! I am to run down-stairs
+      and think of something else, while you go and shut yourself up to ponder
+      over this affair. But I will not be shut out; I will go with you;&mdash;come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In playful force she drew him to their room, and closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, sit down, and tell me the whole story. Why, how grave and pale it
+      has made you look! But never mind; we'll find out a plan to help the poor
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave some inarticulate assent, which checked her by its coldness, sank
+      on the chair she placed, and folded his fingers tightly in one another, so
+      that Agatha could not even strengthen herself in the bold projects she was
+      about to communicate, by stealing her own into her husband's hand.
+      However, she placed herself on the floor at his feet, in the attitude of a
+      Circassian beauty; or&mdash;she accidentally thought&mdash;not unlike a
+      Circassian slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Begin, please! I must hear about these mines.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if you could understand,&mdash;at least with the few explanations
+      I am able to give you at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, I'll try. Why are the poor men starving in this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard but now. Because the mines were first opened on a speculation,
+      worked carelessly&mdash;dishonestly I fear&mdash;till the speculator's
+      money failed, and the vein stopped. Then the miners being thrown out of
+      employ were reduced to great distress, as this man tells me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why should he have come here after your father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; continued Nathanael, in a quick and rather inexplicable
+      correlative, &ldquo;the mines were lately sold as waste land. Anne Valery bought
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did she do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of charity; that she might begin some employment&mdash;flax-growing,
+      I think&mdash;to find food for the poor people. There the tale's ended, my
+      Lady Inquisitive. Will you go down to my sisters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet. I want to talk to you a little&mdash;a very little longer. May
+      I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she drooped her head, blushing as the young will blush over the same
+      charitable feeling which the old and hardened ostentatiously parade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper gazed hopelessly around, as if longing any means of escape and
+      solitude. His wife saw him and was pained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;are you tired of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, dear, Only I am so busy&mdash;and have so many things to think
+      about just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me some of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;tell you all my business mysteries,&rdquo; he returned, playfully.
+      &ldquo;Didn't you say to me once, before we were married, that you hated
+      secrets, and never could keep one in your life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true&mdash;quite true. I do hate them,&rdquo; cried Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And for all your smiling, I know you are keeping back something from me
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foolish little wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foolish&mdash;but still a wife. Look at me and tell the truth. Is there
+      anything in your heart which I do not know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Agatha, several things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden change from jest to deep earnest startled the wife so much that
+      she was struck dumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Circumstances may happen,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;which a husband cannot always
+      tell to his wife, especially a man of my queer temper and lonely ways. I
+      always knew that the woman I married would have much to bear from me. Did
+      I not tell her so, poor little Agatha?&rdquo; And he tried to take her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are talking in this way to soothe me, but I know well what you mean.
+      No husband ever really thinks himself in fault, but his wife. Emma always
+      said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper dropped the unwilling hand; but the next moment, by a strong
+      effort, reclaimed it firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, are we beginning again to be angry with one another? Is there
+      never to be peace between us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace&rdquo; only? Nothing closer, dearer? Yet what was it that, as Agatha
+      looked at her husband, made her think even his &ldquo;peace&rdquo; better than any
+      other's love?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she murmured, after watching him long in silence&mdash;&ldquo;yes, there
+      shall be peace. Whatever I am, I know how good you are. And,&rdquo; she added,
+      gaily, &ldquo;now let me unfold a plan of mine for proving how good we both
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want some money&mdash;a good deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper turned away. &ldquo;Wherefore?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cannot you guess? I thought you would at once&mdash;nay, that you would
+      be the first to propose it. I am glad I am first. Now, do guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had rather not, if it is a serious matter. If otherwise, I am hardly
+      quite merry enough for jests to-day. Tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very simple thing, though it has cost me half-an-hour's puzzling.
+      I never thought so much about business in all my life. Well,&rdquo;&mdash;she
+      hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want&mdash;it must come out&mdash;I want you to take half or all of my&mdash;<i>our</i>
+      money which is in the Funds (as I believe Major Harper said, though I have
+      not the least idea what Funds are)&mdash;and with it to buy a new mine,
+      and set the poor miners all working again; they'll like it a great deal
+      better than flax-growing. And perhaps we could afterwards build schools
+      and cottages, and do oceans of good. Oh! how glad I am I was born an
+      heiress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose, her eyes brightening; her little figure dilated; she had never
+      looked so lovely&mdash;so loveable. And yet the husband sat as it were
+      stone blind and dumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot have any objection to this, I know,&rdquo; Agatha went on. &ldquo;It is
+      not like giving money openly away&mdash;making a show of charity. Nobody
+      need know but that we do it on our own account&mdash;just to increase our
+      riches;&rdquo; and she laughed merrily at the idea. &ldquo;Think now&mdash;how much
+      money would it take?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great deal, probably, since you look so serious over it,&rdquo; said the
+      wife, a little vexed. &ldquo;Perhaps my plan is foolish in some things; but I
+      think it is right, and I am very firm&mdash;firmer than you imagine&mdash;when
+      I feel I am in the right. Surely, living so cheaply in that tiny house&mdash;and
+      we will live cheaper still if you choose&mdash;we shall have plenty to
+      spare. We must do this. Say that we shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually the blush of enthusiasm deepened into that of annoyance&mdash;real
+      anger. &ldquo;Mr. Harper, I wait until you answer me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she turned away, Nathanael looked after her. Such a flood of
+      tenderness, reverence, sorrow, passion, rarely swept over a human face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he rose, paced up the room in his usual fashion, and down again;
+      pausing once at the window (a strange thing for him to notice just then)
+      to let out a brown bee that, having come in for shelter from the rain,
+      wanted to go out again with the sunshine. At last he came to Agatha's
+      side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear wife, it grieves me to pain you by a refusal&mdash;grieves me
+      more than you can tell; but the plan you propose is utterly
+      impracticable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; Her colour flashed, darkened of a stormy red, and paled. She was
+      exercising very great self-restraint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will ask less,&rdquo; she resumed, bitterly. &ldquo;I had forgotten the extreme
+      prudence of your character. Give me just what <i>you</i> think is
+      sufficient for charity.&rdquo; And her lip tried not to curl&mdash;her heart
+      tried not to despise her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael gave no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper, three&mdash;four times lately you have denied me what I
+      asked. Thrice it was merely my own pleasure&mdash;which I relinquished.
+      This time it is a matter of principle, and I will not yield. Will you&mdash;since
+      I have made you master of my fortune&mdash;will you allow me enough out of
+      it for my own slight gratification? That at least is but justice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Justice!&rdquo; echoed Nathanael, his features sinking gradually into the
+      rigidity they sometimes wore&mdash;a warning of how much the gentleness of
+      his nature could bear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear me for one minute, Agatha. I know this is hard, very hard for you. I
+      have prevented your living in London; I have taken a smaller house than
+      you like; I have restricted you in acts of charity. But for all these
+      things I have reasons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you tell me those reasons?&rdquo; It was a tone, not of entreaty, but of
+      threatening&mdash;such as a man rarely hears from a woman without all the
+      pride within him recoiling into obstinacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper grew yet paler, though still his answer was soft&mdash;&ldquo;Agatha,
+      do not ask me. I cannot tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dare not! You are ashamed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked away from her. When he returned, it was less the lover that
+      spoke than the man. &ldquo;I am not ashamed of anything I do, and I have clear
+      motives for all. I only desire my wife to have patience for awhile, and
+      trust her husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust my husband!&rdquo; she cried, in violent passion&mdash;&ldquo;When he acts
+      outrageously, unjustly, insultingly&mdash;binds me hand and foot like a
+      child, and then smiles and tells me 'to be patient!' When he has secrets
+      from me&mdash;when, for all I know, his whole conduct may have been one
+      long deceit towards me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, Agatha.&rdquo; The words were said between his teeth, and then the
+      lips closed in that strong straight line which made his face look all
+      iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say it may have been&mdash;I have heard of such things&rdquo;&mdash;and she
+      laughed fearfully at the horrible thought a tempting devil was putting
+      into her mind&mdash;&ldquo;I have heard of young girls&mdash;poor desolate
+      creatures, cursed with riches, and having no one to guard them&mdash;of
+      some stranger coming and marrying them hastily, but not for love&mdash;oh,
+      not for love!&rdquo; And her laughter grew absolutely frightful in its mockery.
+      &ldquo;How do I know but that you thus married me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her wild eyes fixed themselves on her husband. She saw his face change to
+      very ghastliness, and guilt itself could not have trembled more than the
+      shudder which ran through his frame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was right,&rdquo; she gasped, her passion subdued into cold horror&mdash;&ldquo;you
+      did marry me for my money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No answer&mdash;not a breath&mdash;only an incredulous stare. Once more
+      Agatha's passion rose, a sea of wrath, misery, despair, that dashed her
+      blindly on, she recked not where.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see it all now&mdash;all your wickedness. You never loved me, you only
+      loved my riches. You have them now, and so you can stand there and gaze at
+      me, as hard, as dumb as a stone. But I will make you hear&mdash;I will
+      shriek it into your silence again&mdash;again&mdash;You married me for my
+      money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still no word. The silence she spoke of was awful. Nathanael stood
+      upright, his hands knotted together, the lids dropping over his eyes. He
+      neither looked at her nor at anything. There was not the slightest
+      expression in his face&mdash;it might have been carved in granite. When at
+      last almost to see if he were living man, Agatha clutched his arm, it also
+      felt hard, immoveable, like a granite rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper!&rdquo; she cried, terror mingling with the outburst of her rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He merely lifted his eyes and looked at the door.&mdash;Not once&mdash;oh!
+      never once at her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, I will go,&rdquo; she answered&mdash;&ldquo;most gladly, most thankfully! I will
+      run anywhere to escape your presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She crossed the room and tried to unfasten the door, which she had herself
+      bolted a little while before, out of play; but her trembling fingers were
+      useless. She was obliged to call her husband's help, and he came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfectly silent, without a single glance towards her, he undid the
+      fastening, and set the door open for her to pass. A pang of fear, nay
+      remorse, came over Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak,&rdquo; she cried&mdash;&ldquo;if only one word, speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His lips moved, as though framing an inarticulate &ldquo;No,&rdquo; and then closed
+      again in that iron line. He still stood holding the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hardly knowing what she did, Agatha sprang past the threshold and tottered
+      a few steps on. Then turning, she saw the door shut behind her, slowly,
+      noiselessly, but <i>it was shut</i>. She felt as if the door of hope had
+      been shut upon her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned again, and fled away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was late afternoon. The rain had ceased, and glowed into one of those
+      soft October days, so exquisitely sunny and fair. The light glimmered
+      through the closed Venetian blinds of &ldquo;Anne's room,&rdquo; and danced on the
+      carpet and about Agatha's feet as she sat, quiet at last, and tried to
+      remember how she had come and how long she had been there. She had seen no
+      one; nobody ever came into &ldquo;Anne's room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dressing-bell rang&mdash;the only sound she had heard in the house for
+      hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She started up, waking to the frightful certainty that all was real&mdash;that
+      the ways of the household were going on just as usual&mdash;that she must
+      rouse up, no matter staggering under what burden of misery, and go through
+      her daily part, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was about to
+      happen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing? when this day, perhaps this same hour, must decide one of two
+      things&mdash;whether she were a wretched wife, bound for life to a man who
+      married her solely for mercenary motives, or whether she were a wife&mdash;perhaps
+      in this even more wretched&mdash;who had so wronged and insulted her
+      husband that nothing ever could win his forgiveness or restore his love.
+      His love, which, as she now dimly began to see, and shuddered in the
+      seeing, was becoming to her the most precious thing in existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never, until she sat there, quite alone, and feeling what it was to be
+      left alone, after being so watched and cherished&mdash;-never until now
+      had she understood what the world would be to her if doomed to question
+      her husband's honour or to outlive her husband's love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been all a dream,&rdquo; she said, moving her cold fingers to and
+      fro over her forehead. &ldquo;He never could have wronged me so, or I him. He
+      must surely explain, and I will ask his pardon for what I said in my
+      passion&mdash;Unless, indeed, my accusation were true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she could not think of that possibility now&mdash;it maddened her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall meet him soon. I wonder how he will meet me. That will decide
+      all.&mdash;Hark!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She listened&mdash;with a vague expectation of footsteps at the door. But
+      no one came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose he is in his room still&mdash;our room.&rdquo; And all the solemn
+      union of married life&mdash;the perpetual presence, the never parting
+      night nor day, which makes estrangement in that tie worse than in any
+      other human bond&mdash;rushed upon her with unutterable terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he has deceived and wronged me, how shall I endure the sight of him?
+      If I have outraged him, and he will not forgive me&mdash;oh, what will
+      become of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She heard various bells ringing throughout the house, and knew that she
+      had no time to lose. She rose up feebly, with that aching numbed feeling
+      which strong agitation leaves in the whole frame, and tottered to the
+      mirror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must look at myself, to see that there is nothing strange about me, in
+      case I meet any one in the passages.&mdash;Oh, what a face!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was sallow, blanched, with dark shadows round the eyes, and dark lines
+      drawn everywhere. That first storm of wild passion&mdash;that agony of
+      remorse following, had left indelible marks. She seemed ten years older
+      since she had last beheld herself, which was when she pulled out her long
+      curls in the morning. She pulled them out mechanically now, trying to make
+      of them a screen to hide the poor face that she had used to fancy they
+      adorned. Then she flew like a frightened creature along the passages, and
+      without meeting any one, reached her chamber-door. It was a little way
+      open; she need not knock then&mdash;knock and wait trembling for the
+      answer. Perhaps Mr. Harper was not there, and so for a few minutes she was
+      safe from the dreaded meeting. She went in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was empty, but her husband's handkerchief and riding-gloves were
+      lying about; he had apparently just gone down-stairs. Nevertheless, though
+      a relief, it was rather a shock to her to find the room deserted. She felt
+      a weight in its silence, forewarning her of she knew not what; she looked
+      round inquiringly, as if the walls could tell her what had passed within
+      them since she left. At last she took up her husband's gloves and laid
+      them by with a care foreign to her general habit, and with a strange
+      tenderness. When Mary's maid answered her summons, she could not forbear
+      asking, carelessly, but with an inward heart-beat&mdash;&ldquo;Where was Mr.
+      Harper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Locke Harper, ma'am, is sitting reading to master in the library.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then could sit and read quietly to his father. With him, too, all
+      household ways went on unaltered&mdash;with her only was the tempest&mdash;the
+      despair. Her remorse ebbed down&mdash;her pride and anger rose. Light&mdash;a
+      fierce flashing light&mdash;came to her eyes, and crimson roses to her
+      cheeks. She dressed herself with care, and went down&mdash;though not
+      until the last minute&mdash;to the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary met her at the door. &ldquo;I was just coming to fetch you. Nathanael said
+      you had been sitting in Anne's room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How could he know? Had he watched her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered flippantly, &ldquo;'Tis very true. I have been enjoying my own
+      company. Very good company too. Have I detained you, though? Is everybody
+      here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody was here. <i>He</i> was here. Though she never glanced that way,
+      she saw him, and the look he wore. To others it might seem his ordinary
+      look, a little paler, a little more reserved, but she knew what it meant.
+      She knew likewise, now that her passion had subsided, how his whole life&mdash;his
+      stainless life&mdash;gave the lie to the accusation she had cast upon him.
+      She had outraged him in the keenest point where a proud honourable man can
+      be outraged by his wife; her own hand had cleft a gulf between them which
+      might never close.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the thought her heart seemed dropping down&mdash;down in her bosom,
+      like a bird whose wing is broken, it knows not how. Sick, giddy, she clung
+      to Mary's arm for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, look here. What is the matter with your wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; Agatha cried. &ldquo;I have only stupified myself with&mdash;with
+      thinking. I will think no more&mdash;no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tossed her head back with a fierce laugh. Her husband, who had
+      half-risen at Mary's call, resumed his seat, making no remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had never been used to show her much fondness or attention before his
+      family, so it did not appear strange that in the few minutes before dinner
+      he should talk to his sisters, and leave his wife to the courtesies of his
+      father. For it was now an acknowledged fact at Kingcombe Holm that the
+      Squire was growing very fond of Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dinner came, the long, dreadful dinner, with the brilliant light
+      glimmering in her face, and showing every expression there; with old Mr.
+      Harper leaning forward to address her every time she relapsed into
+      silence; with the consciousness upon her that there was no medium course,
+      that she must talk and laugh, fast and recklessly, or else fall into
+      tears; with the knowledge, worst of all, that there was one sitting at the
+      bottom of the table whom she dared not look at, but whom nevertheless she
+      perpetually saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband had taken his usual place, and sustained it in his usual
+      manner. There was the same brotherly chat with Mary and Eulalie, the same
+      answers to his father, and when once, in the dinner-table courtesies, he
+      addressed his wife, the tone was precisely as it had ever been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha could have shrieked back her answer, betraying him to all the
+      household! This smooth outside of daily life&mdash;and with what below? It
+      was horrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she felt herself powerless to burst through it. His perfect silence,
+      leaving his honour, the honour of both, in her hands, was like a chain of
+      iron wrapped round her; however she writhed and dashed herself against it,
+      there it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Squire seemed to remain at table longer than ever to-day. He would not
+      let his woman-kind depart. He had many toasts to give, and various old
+      reminiscences to unfold to his daughter-in-law. She heard all in a misty
+      dream, and kept on vaguely smiling. At last the purgatory was ended, and
+      they rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael held the door open for his wife and sisters to retire&mdash;things
+      went on so formally even in the every-day life at Kingcombe Holm. In
+      passing, Agatha felt as if she must burst through that icy barrier he had
+      drawn; she <i>must</i> meet her husband's look, and compel him to meet
+      hers. She gave him a look, proud, threatening, yet full of hidden misery.
+      He would surely answer that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No! No response&mdash;not even anger. Some sorrow perhaps, but a sorrow
+      that was stern, hopeless, undemonstrative, as was his own nature. If any
+      wreck had been, it had already sank down into those deep waters, of which
+      the surface appeared perpetually calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha threw him back another look. Scorn was there and hatred&mdash;she
+      felt as though she did really hate him at that moment. Her heart gave a
+      leap, like a smitten deer, and then a &ldquo;laughing devil&rdquo; seemed to enter
+      therein, and dash her on&mdash;anywhere&mdash;to anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Mary&mdash;come Eulalie, we must be very merry tonight, and my
+      husband must join, for all his solemnity. Shake it off quick, Mr. Harper,
+      or we'll call you a deciever&mdash;a smooth-faced, smiling cheat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Laughing out loud&mdash;she caught his hand, wrung it violently, and
+      struck it aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How comical you are!&rdquo; said the languid Eulalie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; whispered sensible Mary, &ldquo;are you quite sure Nathanael liked the
+      joke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who cares?&rdquo; Yet Agatha looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had merely drawn his hand in again to the other, and his colour faintly
+      rose. Otherwise the poor, mad, passionate girl might as well have dashed
+      herself against a rock. She grew still again, with a kind of fear. Her
+      very limbs tottered as she went towards the drawing-room, and all the time
+      that she lay there on the sofa, Mary bustling about her and chattering all
+      kinds of domestic nothings, Agatha saw, as in a vision, her husband's
+      face, so beautiful in its very sternness, so pure and righteous-looking,
+      whilst she felt herself so desperately, daringly wicked. All the &ldquo;black,
+      ingrained spots,&rdquo; which had become visible in her soul, and she knew
+      herself to be worse than any one knew her&mdash;appeared gathering in one
+      cloud, until she sickened at her own likeness. For beside it rose another
+      image&mdash;and such an one! Yet there was a time when she had thought it
+      a great sacrifice and condescension that Nathanael should be allowed to
+      love her. Now&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, she dared not hear the cry of her heart. She dared not do anything but
+      hate him, as he must surely hate her. Had he stood before her that minute,
+      she would have flung away this softness, made her flashing eyes burn up
+      their tears, and appeared all indifference. He might if he chose be as
+      cold as ice, as proud as Lucifer;&mdash;she would be the same. She would
+      never once let him suspect that which this day's misery had shown her was
+      kindling in her heart. A something, before which the pleasant little
+      vanity of being adored, the content of an easy unexacting liking in
+      return, fell like straws in a flame. A something which she tried to call
+      wrath and hate, but which was truly the avenging angel, Love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed an age before Mr. Harper came up-stairs. When he did, his father
+      was leaning on his arm. The old gentleman looked tired, as if they had
+      been talking much, yet seemed to regard with a lingering tenderness his
+      son, once so little of a favourite. Why did he? Why did Nathanael soon or
+      late win every one's attachment? And how could he show that reverent
+      attention to his father, that cheerful kindness to his sisters, while <i>she</i>
+      sat there, jealous of every look and word? Each time he addressed any of
+      these three, Agatha felt as if some unseen power were lashing her into
+      fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a strange and terrible thing, but nevertheless true, that a good
+      man, a kind man, a generous man, may sometimes quite unconsciously drive a
+      woman nearly mad; make her feel as though a legion of fiends were
+      struggling for possession of her soul, goad her weakness into acts which
+      torture alone causes, and the after-blackness of which, presented to her
+      real self, creates a humiliation which only drives her madder still. Men,
+      that is, good men, who are stronger and better able to do and to bear&mdash;ought
+      to be very gentle, very wise, in the manner they deal towards women. No
+      short-coming or wrong, however great, from the weaker to the stronger, can
+      merit an equal return; and according to the law that the more delicate the
+      mental and physical organisation, the keener is the power of suffering; so
+      no man, be he ever so wise or tender-hearted, can rightly estimate the
+      depth of a woman's agony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha rose, and went away by herself into a smaller room that led out of
+      the other, not unlike her own pet sitting-room in her maiden days&mdash;the
+      room where she had once stood by the firelight, and Nathanael had come in
+      and given her the first trembling, thrilling love-kiss. She stood in the
+      same attitude now. Did she remember it? Was she, in that shadowy corner,
+      with glimpses of light and fragments of talk pouring in from the other
+      room, dreaming over that old time&mdash;old, though it happened scarcely
+      three months ago&mdash;dreaming it over, with oh! what different emotions!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when she heard a step&mdash;her ears were very quick now. Did she
+      turn, and think to see her lover of old&mdash;so little loved? Alas!
+      without lifting her eyes, she felt the presence was no longer that of her
+      timid young lover, but of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper came in, and for the first time since that fearful minute when
+      she quitted him, the husband and wife were alone. Not quite so, for he had
+      left the door wide open&mdash;purposely, she thought. There was a full
+      vision of Mary playing chess with her father, and of Eulalie lounging on
+      the sofa, gazing now and then with idle curiosity into the little room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was insulting! Why, if he came to speak healing words, did he let his
+      whole family peer into the mysteries which ought to be strictly sacred
+      between the two whom marriage had made one? If only he had shut the door!
+      If only she could do it, and then turn and cling round his neck, or even
+      weep at his knees&mdash;for that frantic desire did strike her for a
+      moment&mdash;anything, to win from him pardon and peace!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, are you quite at leisure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To dream of answering such a tone with a flood of tears! or of clinging
+      round a neck that lifted itself up in such a marble pride! It was
+      impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite at leisure, Mr. Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At such a crisis, and between two such characters, the fate of a lifetime
+      may depend upon the first word. The first word had been spoken, and
+      answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha turned to the fire again, and her husband to the shadow. Either it
+      was fancy, or the effect of natural contact, but the one face seemed to
+      flame, the other to darken&mdash;suddenly, hopelessly&mdash;as when the
+      last glimmer of light fades out upon a wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you speak with me for a few moments?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. Shall it be here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha sat down; smoothed her dress, and held her folded hands tight upon
+      her knees, lest he should see how they were trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper resumed. His tone was gentle, though with a certain strangeness
+      in it, a want of that music which runs through all deep-toned low voices,
+      and which in his was very peculiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It appears to me&mdash;though nothing shall be done against your decision&mdash;that,
+      considering all things, it would be better that our stay in my father's
+      house were made as short as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes.&rdquo; Two long pausing words, said beneath her breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Accordingly I rode to Kingcombe this afternoon, and find that we can
+      enter the cottage on Saturday. To-day is Thursday&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it?&mdash;Oh yes. I beg your pardon. Proceed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it would be agreeable and convenient to you, I think we had better
+      arrange matters so. I have already told my father it was probable we
+      should leave on Saturday. Are you willing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite willing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is settled then. On Saturday evening we go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Go home! To their first home! To that new bridal nest, which, be it the
+      poorest dwelling on earth, seems&mdash;or should seem&mdash;holy, happy,
+      and fair! What a coming home it was! Better, she thought, that he had cast
+      her adrift, or torn himself from her and placed the wide world between
+      them. Rather any open separation than the mockery of such a union.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I will not go&mdash;I cannot. Oh, not home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To a house, then&mdash;call it by what name you please. To your own
+      house, which we will merely <i>say</i> is mine. Your comfort&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      stopped a little&mdash;&ldquo;must always be the first consideration of your
+      husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband!&rdquo; she repeated, almost in a shriek&mdash;and the old fit of
+      fierce laughter was coming back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Eulalie's curious eyes were seen turning towards the little
+      room. Nathanael moved so as to shield his wife from them. &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; he said,
+      sorrowfully, even with a sort of pity&mdash;&ldquo;hush, Agatha. We are married.
+      Between us two there must be, under all circumstances, honour and
+      silence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner was so solemn, free from bitterness or anger, that Agatha's
+      passion was quelled. She was awed as by the sight of some dead face,
+      wronged grievously in life, but which now only revenges itself by the
+      hopelessness of its mute perpetual smile. She remained staring blankly
+      into the fire, plaiting and unplaiting the sash of her dress with heedless
+      fingers. Eulalie might peer safely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was another thing,&rdquo; resumed Nathanael, &ldquo;which, before telling the
+      rest of the household, I wished to say to you. I had business in Weymouth
+      to-morrow; and&mdash;if&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well? I listen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If&mdash;I were to ride there to-night&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go.&rdquo; A soft, quick word&mdash;a mere motion of the lips&mdash;and yet it
+      was the one word of doom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that, without saying more, Mr. Harper walked back slowly into the
+      drawing-room, and Agatha sat by the fireside alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She heard the rest talking&mdash;complaining&mdash;reasoning&mdash;heard
+      one or two persuasive calls for &ldquo;Agatha&rdquo;&mdash;but she never moved. Then
+      came the bell hastily pulled, and the old Squire's testy summons for &ldquo;Mr.
+      Locke Harper's horse,&rdquo; and &ldquo;was it a fine night, and the moon risen?&rdquo; Then
+      the drawing-room door opened and closed. No&mdash;he was not gone&mdash;not
+      without saying adieu. He would surely pay his wife that deference. Outside
+      the wall she heard his foot ascending the staircase, slowly, with heavy
+      pauses between each step. She crept close to the farther door&mdash;behind
+      the curtain, and listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha&mdash;where is she gone to?&rdquo; said Mary, peeping carelessly into
+      the dark room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she has followed her husband up-stairs, of course. Think of all the
+      charges and farewells&mdash;the kissing and the crying. 'Tis a wonder she
+      did not insist on riding with him across the country, and coming back at
+      midnight, as I suppose Nathanael will do. La? what's to become of these
+      very devoted husbands and wives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha crushed her hands against the wall She felt as if she could almost
+      have torn Eulalie's heart out&mdash;if she had a heart. While in her own
+      bosom, leaping up in all its strength, ready at once for heroism, love,
+      and fury&mdash;for any nobleness or any crime&mdash;was that fountain of
+      all her sex's actions, that mainspring of all her life&mdash;the fatal
+      woman-heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited until she heard Nathanael descend the stairs, and then, as he
+      passed into the drawing-room to his sisters, she, by the little curtained
+      door, passed out into the hall. There she remained until the rest came;
+      the sisters trooping after Nathanael, and the old Squire following
+      likewise, to see that his son had the best and steadiest horse for a
+      night-ride, which ride, he took care to observe, pointedly, was a most
+      uncourteous proceeding, and warranted by nothing, save the fact of its
+      being performed on the especial service of Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha&mdash;where is Agatha hiding herself?&rdquo; said Mary. &ldquo;She ought not
+      to keep her husband waiting a minute.''
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no?&rdquo; And the little figure, all in white, glided out from some queer
+      corner of the hall, and stood like a ghost in the moonlight. &ldquo;Good night&mdash;good
+      night.&rdquo; She threw out her hand with those of the others&mdash;threw it&mdash;not
+      gave it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael took the hand, but did not say good night&mdash;indeed he never
+      spoke at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, are you not going to embrace one another, stage-fashion? Don't let
+      Mary and me interrupt you, pray.&rdquo; And the two Miss Harpers drew back a
+      little from the young couple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper bent coldly over his wife's brow, hid under the shadow of her
+      heavy hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; not that,&rdquo; Agatha whispered, recoiling from his touch. &ldquo;Never
+      that again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened the hall-door&mdash;saying adieu to neither father nor sisters&mdash;leaped
+      on his horse, and was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, Agatha; where are you running? He is far down the road by this
+      time. Come in, do! Are you so very reluctant to be left for a few hours
+      alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no! Oh, no!&rdquo; And Agatha went back to the drawing-room with her
+      sisters-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alone! The word she had repudiated rose up like a spirit, everywhere, all
+      over the house. Not a room but what seemed empty, strange. Fast and busily
+      the Miss Harpers talked&mdash;yet all around was, oh! such silence. The
+      silence that we feel in a house when some voice and step has gone out of
+      it, which no one misses except we, and which we miss as we should miss the
+      daylight or the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When all grew quiet, and Agatha sat in her own room&mdash;expecting
+      nothing, for she knew he would not come&mdash;but still sitting, with her
+      hair falling damp about her, and her eyes fixed on the mirror for company,
+      yet half growing frightened as if it were a strange object on which she
+      gazed&mdash;then, indeed, there was silence&mdash;then, indeed, she was <i>alone</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper did not ride home by midnight, as his wife was well assured he
+      would not do, though with some idle hope put into her mind by Eulalie, she
+      sat at the window until the stars whitened in the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At noon&mdash;which seemed to come slowly, every hour a day&mdash;Mr.
+      Dugdale appeared with a message, which by some wondrous good fortune he
+      remembered to deliver&mdash;that Nathanael had returned from Weymouth to
+      Kingcombe, and was waiting there. Agatha gathered with difficulty that her
+      husband wished her to return with Mr. Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right! I wouldn't do it upon any account,&rdquo; said Eulalie, with not
+      the kindest of laughs. &ldquo;I wouldn't be sent for like a school-girl. Let
+      Nathanael come himself and fetch you. What a rude fellow he is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eulalie!&mdash;You forget you are speaking of your brother and my
+      husband. I will be ready in five minutes, Mr. Dugdale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Duke lifted his placid but observant eyes, and smiled. &ldquo;That's good. Come
+      along, my child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had never spoken so kindly to her before. It was as if he read her
+      trouble. Her anger faded&mdash;she was near bursting in tears. In a little
+      while she had taken the good man's arm&mdash;which Eulalie pointedly
+      informed her was not the fashion at Kingcombe&mdash;and was walking with
+      him to meet her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke talked but little; marching on leisurely in a meditative mood,
+      and leaving his young sister-in-law to follow his example. Once or twice
+      she felt stealing down upon her one of his kindly, paternal glances, and
+      heard him saying to himself his usual winding-up of every mental
+      difficulty:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh!&mdash;We know nothing! Nobody knows anything. But everything always
+      comes clear sometime.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the verge of the town, apparently coming to meet them, she saw
+      Nathanael&mdash;saw him a long way off. Her heart leaped at the first
+      vision of the tall slender figure and light hair; but when he approached
+      she was walking steadfastly along. Her eyes lowered, and her mouth firm
+      set. He came up, silently gave her his arm, and she took it as silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale and her husband immediately began to talk, so there was no
+      need for Agatha to do anything but walk on, trying to remember where she
+      was, and what course of conduct she had to pursue; trying above all to
+      repress these alternate storms of anger and lulls of despair, and deport
+      herself not like a passionate child, but a reasonable woman&mdash;a woman
+      who, after all, might have been heavily wronged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes she essayed to consider this&mdash;to recall, as is so difficult
+      always, the original cause of difference, the little cloud which had
+      produced this tempest&mdash;but everything was in an inextricable maze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ere long, Nathanael's silence warned her that they two were alone, Mr.
+      Dugdale having made himself absent, and being seen afar off, diving into a
+      knot of market-politicians. Arm-in-arm the husband and wife passed on
+      through the street. Agatha pulled her veil down, and caught more steadfast
+      hold of her husband's arm&mdash;he was her husband, and she would maintain
+      their honour in the world's sight. She felt how many curious eyes were
+      watching them from windows&mdash;how many gossiping tongues would be
+      passing comment on the looks and demeanour of Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we go over the house now, or would you like to call for my sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;we will go at once,&rdquo; returned Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steadfastly&mdash;mechanically&mdash;the young husband and wife looked
+      over their future home, which was all but ready for habitation. It was not
+      a mean abode now; to Mr. Wilson's furniture had been added various
+      comforts and luxuries. Agatha asked no questions&mdash;scarcely noticed
+      anything. She merely moved about, trying to sustain her position in the
+      eyes of the work-people that showed her round the house; stopping a minute
+      to speak kindly to the servant who was already installed there, and who,
+      dropping a dozen respectful curtsies, explained that she was the daughter
+      of &ldquo;Master Nathanael's&rdquo; nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything seemed arranged for Mrs. Harper's comfort, as by invisible
+      hands. She never inquired, or even thought, who was the origin of it all.
+      She could not believe she was in her own home;&mdash;her married home;&mdash;she
+      felt as if each minute she should wake and find herself Agatha Bowen, in
+      the old rooms in Bedford Square, with all things else a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that it were,&rdquo; she sighed within herself. &ldquo;Oh that I had never&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused here&mdash;she could not wish that she had never seen
+      Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They quitted the cottage and went out into the street, for country and
+      town blended together in tiny Kingcombe. Mr. Harper closed the
+      wicket-gate, and looked back upon the little house. There was an unquiet
+      glitter in his eye, and his chest heaved violently for a few moments.
+      Then, with all outward observance, he linked his wife's arm in his, and
+      they proceeded onwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of East Street they met Harriet Dugdale&mdash;the Dugdales
+      seemed always wandering about Kingcombe after one another, and turning up
+      at intervals at odd corners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here you both are! I was looking for my husband. Has anybody seen Duke.
+      Oh, where on earth is Duke gone to? He said he would be back in five
+      minutes&mdash;which means five hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I left him at the market-place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's an hour ago. He has been home two or three times since then. Do
+      you think he could get on for a whole hour without wanting the Missus? Oh,
+      there he is. Stop, and I'll catch him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was caught, and led forward prisoner by his pretty wife, who never once
+      let him go, lest he should slide away again, and become absorbed in the
+      mysterious electioneering groups that haunted the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now&mdash;Harrie&mdash;Missus, just wait&mdash;I'll be back in a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a minute! Anne has sent word that she wants you directly&mdash;you
+      and Nathanael. You'll go, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Thornhurst, to meet Mr. Trenchard and some other folk. You must start
+      immediately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper glanced towards his wife, who had dropped his arm; not
+      pointedly, but as though release were welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, couldn't it leave its pet again?&rdquo; cried Harrie, laughing. &ldquo;Bless
+      it, nobody demands that terrible sacrifice. Do you think Anne would invite
+      husbands without their wives? We are all to go&mdash;if you agree,
+      Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; It was quite indifferent to her where she went, or what she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So they all four started in one of those inimitable conveyances called
+      dog-carts, which seem to offer every facility for &ldquo;accidental death,&rdquo;
+       either by flying over the horse's head, tumbling under the wheels, or
+      slipping off behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where will you sit, my dear? Beside your husband, I suppose? Mine
+      drives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha answered by springing up beside Mr. Dugdale, with some vague jest
+      about husbands being no company at all. The dark fit had passed, and she
+      was now in a mood of desperation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They dashed on quickly; Marmaduke was a daring driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes Agatha even thought he would overturn them in the road. Little
+      she cared! She was in that state of excitement when the utmost peril would
+      only have made her laugh. Passing under the three hills, and looking up at
+      the old castle, silent and grey, the daylight shining through the fissured
+      apertures that had been windows, she turned round and recklessly proposed
+      to Harrie their scrambling up the green slope and rolling down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;E&mdash;h, my child!&rdquo; said Duke Dugdale, turning his mild benevolent
+      looks on the flushed face beside him. &ldquo;Don't'ee try that, don't'ee, now!
+      When people once set themselves rolling down-hill they never stop till
+      they get to the bottom. It's always so in this world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha laughed more loudly. She wished her husband to hear how merry she
+      was. She talked incessantly to Mr. Dugdale or Harrie, and held herself
+      very upright, so that Nathanael, who sat behind her, might not even feel
+      the touch of her shoulder. She, who had hitherto been so indifferent to
+      everybody, so mild in her likings and dislikes&mdash;never till now had
+      she felt such strange emotions. Yet each and all carried with them a
+      fierce charm. It was like a person learning for the first time what thirst
+      was, and drinking fire, because, in any case, he must drink. And with all
+      her wrath there seemed a spell over heart, brain, and senses, which never
+      for a moment allowed her to cease thinking of her husband. Every movement
+      he made, every word he uttered, she distinctly felt and heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The way grew unfamiliar; they were passing through a track of country,
+      wilder, and more peculiar than any Mrs. Harper had yet seen in Dorsetshire&mdash;a
+      road cut through furzy eminences, looking down on deep, abrupt valleys,
+      that might have been the bed of dried-up lakes or bays; long heathery
+      sweeps of undulating ground, with great stones lying here and there;
+      cultivation altogether ceasing&mdash;even sheep becoming rare; and ever
+      when they chanced to rise on higher ground, a sharp, salt, sea-wind
+      blowing, not a human being to be seen for miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's the gate. I'll open it. Now we get into Anne Valery's property,&rdquo;
+       said Harrie, as she leaped down and leaped up again, mocking Nathanael's
+      &ldquo;brown study.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a change!&rdquo; Agatha cried. &ldquo;I have not seen such trees in
+      Dorsetshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They seem indeed to have grown on purpose for Anne. Her grandfather built
+      Thornhurst. A queer desolate spot to choose, but it's a perfect little
+      nest of beauty. There!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The road opened upon a semicircular green plane, levelled among the hills,
+      as it were on purpose, and planted round with a sheltering bulwark of
+      trees&mdash;lime, chestnut, oak&mdash;rising higher and higher, until at
+      the summit, where the sea-breeze caught them, grew nothing but the
+      perpetual Dorsetshire fir. On the edge of the semicircle stood the house,
+      this green plane before it, behind, a wide stretch of country, where the
+      tide, running for miles inland, made strange-shaped lakes and broad
+      rivers, spread out glistening in the afternoon sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne, must always be near the sea. I don't think she would live even here
+      unless she knew that just climbing those rocks would bring her in sight of
+      the Channel. She has quite an ocean-mania.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll learn it from her. I want a convenient little mania. Suppose I cure
+      myself of my old grudge against the sea, and go from hatred into love, or
+      from love back again into hatred&mdash;as people do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a comical girl you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very. Stay now. Wait till the horse is quiet, and I'll take a leap down&mdash;just
+      like a person leaping into&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold, Agatha&rdquo;&mdash;and she felt her arm caught by her husband. It was
+      the first time he had touched or addressed her since they left Kingcombe.
+      &ldquo;Don't spring down&mdash;it is not safe. Stay till I lift you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not want your help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, you do; you are not used to this sort of carriage.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand aside&mdash;I <i>will</i> jump down,&rdquo; she cried, roused by the
+      contest, slight as it was, but enough to show the clashing of the two
+      wills. &ldquo;Stand aside,&rdquo; she repeated, leaning forward with glittering eyes,
+      giddy, and in so great confusion of mind as to be in real danger&mdash;&ldquo;we
+      will see who gives way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest?&rdquo; Nathanael whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite. Go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would go if it were play. But when I see my wife about to do any
+      frantic thing to her own injury, I shall restrain her&mdash;thus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Balancing himself on the carriage-step, he clasped the little figure in
+      his arms&mdash;tight&mdash;strangely tight and close. Before Agatha could
+      resist, he had lifted her safely down, and set her free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood passive&mdash;astonished. What could it be in that firm will, in
+      that sudden clasp, which made her feel&mdash;was it anger? No not anger,
+      though her cheeks glowed and her breast heaved. Why was it, that as
+      Nathanael walked onward towards the house, his wife looked after him with
+      such a mingling of attraction and repulsion? What could it be, this
+      strange power which gave him the preeminence over her&mdash;which taught
+      her, without her knowing it, the mystery that causes man to rule and woman
+      to obey; Very thoughtful&mdash;even unmoved by Harrie's loud laughter at
+      the &ldquo;excellent joke&rdquo;&mdash;Mrs. Harper suffered herself to be led on by
+      her sister-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense, child, don't look so serious. Men will have their way&mdash;especially
+      husbands. Mine gets obeyed as little as any one; but now and then, when it
+      comes to the point&rdquo;&mdash;here Harrie looked astonishingly grave, for her&mdash;&ldquo;I'm
+      obliged to give in to Pa; and somehow Pa's always right, bless him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How every word of one happy wife went like a dagger into the other wife's
+      heart! But there was no shield. Here they were in Anne Valery's house,
+      obliged to appear as cheerful guests, especially the newest guest, the
+      bride. Agatha tried, and tried successfully, to play her part:&mdash;misery
+      makes such capital hypocrites!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't this a large house for a single woman?&rdquo; said Mrs. Dugdale, as the
+      two ladies passed up-stairs. &ldquo;Yet Anne constantly manages to fill it,
+      especially in summer-time. The dozens of sick friends she has staying here
+      to be cured by sea-breezes! the scores of young people that come and make
+      love in those green alleys down the garden! But then in the lulls of
+      company the house is dull and silent&mdash;as now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very silent, though not with the desolation which often broods over
+      a large house thinly inhabited. The room&mdash;Anne's bedroom&mdash;lay
+      westward, and a good deal of sunshine was still glinting in. A few late
+      bees were buzzing about the open window, cheated perhaps by the feathery
+      seeds of the clematis, which had long ceased flowering. There was no other
+      sound. But many fine prints, a few painted portraits, and several
+      white-gleaming statuettes, seemed as the sunlight struck them to burst the
+      silence, with mute speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you are looking at Anne's 'odds and ends' as I call them. Rather a
+      contrast, her walls and ours. I don't see the use of prints and plaster
+      images&mdash;always in the way where there are children. But Anne is so
+      dreadfully fond of pretty things. She says they're company. No wonder! A
+      solitary old maid must find herself very dull at times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must she?&mdash;then she is the more glad to see her visitors&rdquo;&mdash;a
+      pleasant voice, a silken-rustling step, which in Agatha's fancy seemed
+      always to enter like daylight into a dusky room&mdash;and Miss Valery came
+      to welcome her guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She addressed Mrs. Harper first, and then Harrie, who looked confused for
+      the moment. But it was not a trifle that could upset the equanimity of the
+      honest-speaking Harrie Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless us, Anne, how softly you walk!' Listeners,' etc.&mdash;You know the
+      saying! But you might listen at every door in Dorsetshire, and never hear
+      worse of yourself than I said just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. When I want a good character I shall be sure to come to
+      Harriet Dugdale.&mdash;And now, what is the news with the little wife!
+      whom I have yet to bid welcome to Thornhurst. Welcome Mrs. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+       Anne said the name, as she often did, with a peculiar under-tone of
+      hesitation and tenderness; then, according to her frequent habit, she put
+      her hand on her favourite's shoulder, and began to play with the brown
+      curls. &ldquo;Have you been quite well and happy since I saw you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question, so simple, so full of kindness, pierced Agatha's soul. Alas?
+      how much had happened since she sat on the stone seat at Corfe Castle, and
+      looked over the view with Anne Valery! How little did Anne or any one know
+      that she was wretched&mdash;maddened&mdash;hating herself and the whole
+      world&mdash;believing in nothing good, nothing holy&mdash;not even in her
+      who spoke. The words, the smile, appeared the mocking hypocrisy of one who
+      had persuaded her to marry, and must ere long know of that hasty marriage
+      the miserable result This thought steeled her heart even against Anne
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She burst into a sharp laugh. &ldquo;Well! Happy! Cannot you see? You are the
+      best person to answer your own question.&rdquo; And she moved away out of the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne looked after her, thoughtfully, rather sadly. Perhaps she was used to
+      have her pets glide from her, dancing out indifferently into the merry
+      world. She made no attempt to follow Agatha, but led the way down-stairs
+      into the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Trenchard, come and let me introduce you to Mrs. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Miss Valery said this, an elderly gentleman, dapper, dandy, and small,
+      escaped from under the hands of Duke Dugdale&mdash;those big earnest hands
+      that were laid upon him in all the apostleship of sincere argument&mdash;and
+      came, nothing loth, as his eager bow showed, to do the polite to the young
+      bride who had been lately brought to the county. For Mr. Trenchard,
+      besides the wondrously sweetening power of his candidateship, came of a
+      very ancient name in Dorsetshire. He was evidently a beau too&mdash;one of
+      those harmless general adorers whom the influence of a graceful woman
+      touches even unto old age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha saw in his first look that he admired her, and she was in that
+      proud desperate mood when a girl is ready to catch hold of the attentions
+      or conversation of any one&mdash;even an elderly gentleman. She was very
+      gracious to Mr. Trenchard&mdash;nay, altogether bewitching&mdash;though
+      for the first ten minutes she herself saw and heard nothing save a thing
+      in black with white hair, talking to her of the beauties of Dorsetshire.
+      More distinctly than aught he said, she heard what was passing in the
+      group at the other end of the room&mdash;especially her husband's voice,
+      so quiet and deep, always a tone deeper than any other voices, falling
+      through all the rest like a note of music. And she soon found out that
+      Anne was listening also&mdash;to Nathanael, of course. She always did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Trenchard followed the direction of the two ladies' eyes, and
+      ingeniously took up the text.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you, Mrs. Harper, it is a pleasure to all the neighbourhood that
+      your husband has come back from America. I remember him quite a child, and
+      his uncle a young man. And really, how like he is, in both feature and
+      voice, to what his uncle used to be at that time. As he stands there
+      talking, I could almost fancy it was Mr. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Locke Harper,&rdquo; repeated Agatha. &ldquo;Was that the name Uncle Brian went
+      by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, save with those privileged people who called him Brian. But they
+      were few. He had not the fortune or misfortune of possessing a thousand
+      and one intimate friends. Yet all respected him, and remember him still.
+      It will be a real satisfaction to have in the country a second Mr. Locke
+      Harper,&mdash;Dear me, how like he is! Don't you see it, Miss Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a general likeness running through all the Harper family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except the eldest son, though even to him I can trace some resemblance
+      here&rdquo;&mdash;and he bowed to Mrs. Dugdale. &ldquo;And this reminds me that I knew
+      beforehand I should probably have the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Harper in
+      Dorsetshire. Only two days ago I saw at Paris Major Frederick Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Major Harper at Paris?&rdquo; eagerly cried Agatha, caught by the name,
+      which had so soon passed out of the daily interests of her life, that its
+      sound was already quite strange. It reached her now like a comforting
+      breath of old times&mdash;a something to catch hold of in the wide, dreary
+      maze around her. Her former guardian seemed to rise up before her; with
+      all his cheery, good-natured ways; his compassion when she had been newly
+      made an orphan; his kindness of manner that remained&mdash;ay, to the very
+      last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a rush of many feelings that softened her voice to positive tenderness,
+      she cried, &ldquo;Oh do tell me all about Major Harper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And this time she did not notice that, in the political discussion going
+      forward, it was Mr. Dugdale who spoke, his brother-in-law having ceased
+      the argument and become silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; returned the candidate, with a smile&mdash;perhaps a little too
+      meaning a smile&mdash;&ldquo;I will, with pleasure, tell you everything. I
+      guessed from his anxious questions concerning you, and whether I had met
+      you in Dorsetshire, that before he was your brother-in-law Major Harper
+      had the happiness of being an intimate friend of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was my guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That fact he did not inform me of. Indeed we had little time for
+      conversation. We merely dined together, and parted almost immediately. He
+      seemed in the midst of a whirl of pleasant engagements, as Major Harper
+      invariably is. Charming, agreeable man! An immense favourite with all
+      ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha answered &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; rather coldly. Her attention was wandering; she had
+      missed the sound of her husband's voice altogether. But the next moment
+      she heard him behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Trenchard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear sir? Are you also come to ask questions about your brother,
+      whom, as I have been telling Mrs. Harper, I had the pleasure to meet in
+      Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have just heard you say. Where, and how was he living?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha thought this a strange question for Nathanael to put to a third
+      party concerning his own brother. She was glad to hear Miss Valery
+      observe, with genuine tact, that Major Harper was always careless in the
+      matter of giving addresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was living&mdash;let me see&mdash;at 102 Rue&mdash;, one of the
+      handsomest and pleasantest streets in Paris. I remember he said he was
+      obliged to take this <i>appartement</i> for three months, after which he
+      was going to act the hermit and economise. Very unlikely that, I should
+      think, for a man of Major Harper's social habits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very,&rdquo; Agatha said, being looked to for a response. She was much
+      surprised to learn this of her brother-in-law; still more did she wonder
+      at the rigid silence with which her husband heard the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, Mrs. Harper, we may safely say that his determination will not
+      last. A mere fit of misanthropy after rather too much gaiety. In such a
+      pleasant fellow as Frederick Harper we must excuse a few broken
+      resolutions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We ought,&rdquo; said Anne Valery, with that rare gentleness which makes men
+      listen to a woman even when she &ldquo;preaches.&rdquo; &ldquo;It is a very hard trial for
+      any one to be thrown into the world with so many gifts as Major Harper. A
+      man whom all men like, and not a few women are prone to love, goes through
+      an ordeal so fierce, that if he withstand it he is one of the greatest
+      heroes on earth. If he fall&rdquo;&mdash;and Anne lowered her voice so that
+      Agatha could scarcely hear, though she felt sure Nathanael did&mdash;&ldquo;if
+      he fall, we ought, through all the wrong, clearly to discern the
+      temptation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a new doctrine, the last Agatha would have expected to hear on the
+      lips of such a sternly good woman as she had painted Miss Valery. She said
+      so, adding, with her usual plainness, &ldquo;I thought, somehow, that you did
+      not like Major Harper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, we were young together. But hush, my dear, your husband is
+      speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was saying, with quite an altered expression, something about &ldquo;my
+      brother Frederick.&rdquo; But after that mention Major Harper's name died out of
+      the conversation, as out of Agatha's memory. Alas, not the unfrequent fate
+      of the Major Harpers of society&mdash;meteors, never thought of but while
+      they are shining, and forgotten as soon as they have burnt themselves out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time the two or three stray visitors&mdash;gentlemen-farmers,
+      Anne's tenants, as Mrs. Dugdale whispered&mdash;had disappeared, and Mr.
+      Trenchard was the sole stranger left in the drawing-room. Miss Valery did
+      the honours of her house with a remarkably simple grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I give no state dinner parties,&rdquo; she said, smiling, to Mr. Trenchard. &ldquo;It
+      is a whim of mine that I never could see the use of friends meeting
+      together merely to eat and drink, or of offering them more and richer fare
+      than is customary or necessary. But if you will stay and dine with me, and
+      with these my own people, country fashion, even though you have been a ten
+      years' resident in London&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But have never forgotten Dorset, and good Dorset ways,&rdquo; said the old
+      gentleman, as he bowed over the hostess's hand. Then, obeying Anne's
+      signal, he offered his arm to Mrs. Harper to lead her in to dinner;&mdash;the
+      innocent daylight dinner, with real China-roses looking in at the window,
+      and an energetic autumn-robin singing his good-night before the sun went
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha could have been happy, merry&mdash;she was still so young, and the
+      weight on her heart was the first that ever had fallen there. At intervals
+      she struggled to forget it&mdash;almost succeeded; and then the first
+      glimpse of her husband's face, the first tone of his voice, brought the
+      burden back again. Her spirits grew wilder than ever, lest any one should
+      guess she was so very, very miserable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner, dreading Anne's eyes, she rushed off into the garden with
+      Harrie Dugdale; tossing back her hair, and inhaling by gasps the cold
+      evening wind, that it might bring calm and clearness to her brain. Even
+      yet she felt as though she were dreaming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning, she found lights in the drawing-room. Mr. Trenchard, in a
+      patient attitude, was listening to Marmaduke Dugdale; some distance off,
+      Nathanael sat talking to Miss Valery. Anne was leaning back in an
+      arm-chair: the lamp shining full on her face showed how very pale and worn
+      it was. Her voice, too, sounded feeble, as Agatha caught the words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In two months, you think? That is a long time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot be sooner, Marmaduke says. I met him on board the ship at
+      Weymouth; when he told me of this innocent little scheme he was
+      transacting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will not tell&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian? No, of course not. Yet I think it would do Uncle Brian good
+      to know how dearly Marmaduke and all his friends here care for him. Yet he
+      might not believe it&mdash;I think he never did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He used to say,&rdquo; continued Nathanael, who was sitting where he could not
+      see his wife, and for once heard not her soft step over the carpet&mdash;&ldquo;Uncle
+      Brian used to say, that it was wisest neither to love nor need love. I
+      think different. It is a cruel, hardening, embittering thing for a man to
+      feel that no one loves him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&ldquo;Love&mdash;love! Have you two sage ones been discussing that
+      folly? Now, may I have the honour to hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Anne will talk; I have done speaking,&rdquo; said Mr. Harper, as he gave
+      Agatha his chair, and slowly moved away to the other circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, ever thus, he went from her, escaping the chance of either being
+      wounded or healed. Agatha was nearly wild. With all her might she flung
+      herself into conversation with Mr. Trenchard, and tried to conjugate that
+      verb&mdash;hitherto a mystery to her innocent mind&mdash;<i>to flirt</i>.
+      She wished to make herself beautifully hateful&mdash;bewitchingly foul; or
+      rather she did not care what she made herself, if she only made <i>him</i>&mdash;who
+      had now in her thoughts sank to the namelessness, which proves that one
+      name is fast filling up the whole world&mdash;made him stir from that
+      mountain height of impassive calm&mdash;melted him into repentance&mdash;shook
+      him into frenzied jealousy. Anything&mdash;anything&mdash;so that he no
+      longer should stand before her like a serene Alp, which nothing human
+      could disturb, and which&mdash;ah, in all her madness, she saw that but
+      too clearly!&mdash;which had always such a heavenly light shining on its
+      forehead&mdash;a purity &ldquo;God-given,&rdquo; like his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His name, which she had once so disliked, but which now caught a strange
+      beauty. Lately, she had looked out its meaning in a list of Bible names;
+      and many a time, the night before, she had said it to herself, crying it
+      out into the dark, until its soft Hebrew vowels grew musical, and its holy
+      Hebrew meaning grew divine. &ldquo;Nathanael&mdash;Nathanael&mdash;<i>God-given</i>.&rdquo;
+       Might he not indeed be a husband given unto her of God&mdash;to lead her
+      in the right way, and make a true noble woman of her; such as a woman is
+      always made by the love of, and the loving of, a noble man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these were sacred night-time thoughts which vanished in the daylight,
+      or only came in snatches and rifts, careering through the blackness that
+      surrounded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And still she talked to the fortunate Mr. Trenchard; made herself more
+      agreeable than she had ever believed possible. The elderly beau was
+      fascinated, and even Mr. Dugdale turned from election-papers, to look at
+      his fair sister-in-law with genuine admiration&mdash;now and then nodding
+      to Harrie, as if to see what she thought of this new light that had shot
+      across their country hemisphere. At which Mrs. Dugdale once or twice
+      pretended to be mightily jealous, until her husband, with his
+      inconceivable sweet smile, his way of patting her knees with his big
+      gentle hand, and the utterly inexpressible tone of his &ldquo;Nay, now Missus&rdquo;
+       made matters quite straight, and plunged back into his politics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this while Anne Valery sat in her arm chair&mdash;speaking little,
+      looking from one to the other of her guests with a wandering, thoughtful
+      eye, that, for once, noticed little the things around her, because her
+      mental vision was afar off.&mdash;Whither&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Marmaduke went on with his benevolent schemes for improving
+      Dorsetshire and the world; and his Harrie had her dreams too&mdash;possibly
+      about the advantage an M.P.'s interest might prove in future days to &ldquo;the
+      children;&rdquo; and the young couple, in all the whirl of their misery, still
+      clung to hope and youth and life, so little of which way they had trod,
+      and so much of which lay before them. No one thought of her who sat apart,
+      looking smilingly on them all, but to whom they and the things surrounding
+      them were day by day growing more dim&mdash;who was fading, fading, even
+      while she smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When, late at night, the party reached Kingcombe, it was resolved that the
+      Harpers should remain there until morning. Agatha, worn out with bodily
+      fatigue and the great tension of her mind during so many hours, laid her
+      head down on her pillow, closed her aching eyes, and never opened them
+      till near upon broad noon. Then she found breakfast was long over in the
+      early house of the Dugdales, and that Nathanael had left her and gone out
+      some hours before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not let me come and wake you&mdash;he said you slept so heavily
+      and looked so tired. Certainly, he is the very kindest husband! Who ever
+      would have believed that stiff, cold disagreeable Nathanael, who came home
+      from America some months ago, puzzling us all, would have turned out so
+      well. It is your ladyship's doing, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So ran on Mrs. Dugdale, nor noticed how beneath her words her
+      sister-in-law writhed, as though they had been sharp swords. Harrie was
+      not a penetrating woman; Agatha had already discerned that, and thought,
+      with a bitter smile, that it was well they were coming to live at
+      Kingcombe, and that Mrs. Dugdale would be a very safe and amusing
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, what is to be done to-day?&rdquo; said she, as she ate the breakfast which
+      Harrie brought her, and looked round the strange bed-room, which made her
+      feel more bewildered than ever. So many phases, so many lives did she seem
+      to have passed through since she was married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first thing to be done, my dear, is to take you back to Kingcombe
+      Holm, to do respectful to your papa-in-law. Very punctilious is the
+      Squire. If Nathanael had not ridden over there at some unearthly hour this
+      morning, he never would have forgiven your not returning at night&mdash;the
+      last night too, for I see your husband is determined to be settled at the
+      cottage this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is well.&rdquo; Agatha breathed more freely. She was so glad to hide
+      herself under any roof that was her own. And perhaps a vague thought crept
+      up, that some time&mdash;not for days yet, but when she could bend her
+      pride to soften him&mdash;when they were living quite alone together&mdash;all
+      might be gradually explained, nay, healed, between her and her husband.
+      She was on the whole not sorry to go &ldquo;home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you two are quite agreed,&rdquo; laughed Harrie. &ldquo;Marvellous union, Mrs.
+      Locke Harper. You'll be really a pattern couple soon, and throw Duke and
+      me cruelly in the shade. Now, dress like lightning, and I'll drive you and
+      the children over to grandpapa's. Most likely well meet Pa and Nathanael
+      somewhere about the town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, with the general vagueness of the Dugdale habits, that meeting did
+      not arrive, nor was Mr. Harper anywhere to be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say he is at the cottage, where I was bid not to take you upon any
+      account. Charming little mysteries, I suppose, attendant on bringing home
+      the bride. Very nice. Heigh-ho! I remember how happy I was when my poor
+      dear Duke brought me home for the first time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was that?&rdquo; They were dashing over the moors, Agatha sitting rather
+      silent, and Harrie's tongue galloping as fast as Dunce, her steed. Little
+      Brian was perched on his mother's knee, holding the reins&mdash;a baby
+      Phaeton, though with small danger of setting the world on fire&mdash;at
+      least just yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was it, my dear? Why, to the same old house we live in, empty and
+      gloomy then, though it's full enough now. And I had been married&mdash;(hold
+      your tongues, Fred and Gus! you can't have the whip, simpletons!)&mdash;married
+      only three weeks, and it was queer coming back to my native place; and my
+      father was rather cross that I had married Duke at all, and&mdash;I was
+      foolish enough to cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Harrie laughed, and gave Dunce a lash that quite discomposed his pony
+      faculties, and made Brian scream with delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what did your husband say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say? Nothing. He never speaks when he's vexed or hurt; only, a little
+      while afterwards he came beside me, and said something about my being such
+      a young girl, so gay-hearted and pretty&mdash;(bah!&mdash;though I was
+      pretty then)&mdash;too young, he said, to marry such an elderly man, etc.
+      etc. etc.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what did <i>you</i> say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Likewise nothing. I just jumped on his knee, and took him round the neck,
+      and&mdash;But that isn't of the slightest consequence to anybody. Tuts! On
+      with you, Dunce!&rdquo; And Harrie leaned forward, her eyelashes glittering wet
+      in spite of her fun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know I don't deserve him,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;I never did. Nobody could.
+      There are a lot of bad men in the world, but when a man is really good,
+      there's hardly a woman alive that is good enough for him. And I'm not half
+      good enough for Duke&mdash;but&mdash;I love him! That's all. Bless thee,
+      Brian! thee is Pa's own boy all over!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Harrie kissed the little fellow passionately, with something more even
+      than a mother's love.&mdash;Agatha could have lifted up her arms and
+      shrieked with misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a strange long day at Kingcombe Holm; many things to be arranged,
+      many questions to be parried, many prying eyes to be avoided. But the
+      general conclusion seemed to be, that this sudden movement was a
+      mysterious whim of Nathanael&mdash;and Nathanael was supposed by one-half
+      of his family to be mightily prone to mysteries and whims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, when the day was nigh spent, and Agatha had dressed for the
+      last of those formal dinners to which she had never been able quite to
+      reconcile herself, she took refuge in Elizabeth's room. Thither she had of
+      late absented herself; there was something so formidable in the keenness
+      of Elizabeth's silent eyes. Hesitating before the door, she remembered
+      when she had last quitted it. It required all her bravery to cross the
+      threshold once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in. I hear your foot, Agatha.&rdquo; There was no stepping back now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same atmosphere of peace and sanctity pervading the pretty room; the
+      same lights dancing through the painted window on the silk coverlet; the
+      same face, which had all the colourless reality of death, without any of
+      its ghastliness&mdash;a smiling repose, such as is seen only at the
+      beginning and end of life's tumult&mdash;in the cradle and in the coffin.
+      Its effect upon Agatha was instantaneous. Her trembling ceased; she
+      stepped lightly, as one does in entering a holy place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth!&rdquo; It seemed a beautiful name, a saint's name, and as such came
+      quite naturally, though she had rarely before been so familiar with any
+      one of her new sisters. She kneeled down and kissed Elizabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is right. You are good to come. And where have you been, my little
+      sister?&mdash;I have not seen you for three days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it so long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;though it may seem longer to me here. You remember you came and
+      told me a long story about a Cornish miner. How did the tale end? What, no
+      answer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      None. She tried to hide herself&mdash;crush herself into the very floor
+      where she sat, out of reach of Elizabeth's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well, dear! I shall not ask.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps my husband will tell you some day. Talk to me of something else,
+      Elizabeth. And oh! however I may look and speak, don't notice me. Let me
+      feel that I need not make pretences with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need not. Nothing that happens here goes beyond these four walls.
+      Everybody tells me everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth might well say this. There was that about her which made people
+      fearless and free in their confidence; it did not seem like talking to a
+      mortal woman, mixed up continually in the affairs of life, but to one
+      removed to a different sphere, where there was no chance of betrayal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her room was a safe confessional, and she was a sort of general conscience
+      in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everybody tells you everything,&rdquo; repeated Agatha. &ldquo;Does my husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet; at least not in words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will not. Only let me come here, and&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She covered her face, and for a few moments wept fully and freely, as one
+      weep's before one's own heart and before God. Then she dried her eyes, and
+      the storm was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth only said, &ldquo;Poor child&mdash;poor child. Wait!&rdquo; But the one word
+      struck like a sun-ray through darkness. No one ever &ldquo;waited&rdquo; but had some
+      hopeful ending to wait for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Agatha, overcoming her weakness&mdash;&ldquo;now let us talk. What
+      have you been doing all day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little else than read this, and think over it. You know Frederick's hand,
+      I see? He does not usually write such long letters, even to me. All is not
+      right with him, I fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;&mdash;and Agatha met unsuspiciously the keen look of Elizabeth.
+      &ldquo;Yet he is well and in the midst of gaieties; Mr. Trenchard said so
+      yesterday. They met in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did they?&rdquo; Elizabeth lay musing for a good while; then suddenly said,
+      observing her young sister, &ldquo;Agatha, you are listening? There's some one
+      at the door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Nathanael. Any one might have known that by the quick flush that
+      swept over his wife's features. But when this passed she was again
+      composed&mdash;not at all like the young creature who had wept by
+      Elizabeth's couch. She merely acknowledged her husband's presence, and
+      leaving her place vacant for him, took up a book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said, &ldquo;I did not know my wife was here. Were you and she talking? Shall
+      I leave you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth smiled. &ldquo;Then you must take your wife also, for I will not be
+      the sundering of married people. But nonsense! Sit down both of you. We
+      were speaking about Frederick. Has he written to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this letter&rdquo;&mdash;Nathanael's eyes fell on it and froze there&mdash;&ldquo;he
+      gives me no address. Agatha says he is living in Paris. Do you remember
+      where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps your wife does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha had a useful memory for such things. She repeated the address given
+      by Mr. Trenchard, exactly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good child! When I write I shall tell Frederick how you remembered him.
+      But he has been equally mindful of you. He asks many questions, and seems
+      very anxious about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he? He is very kind,&rdquo; said Agatha, somewhat moved. She felt all
+      kindness deeply now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is kind,&rdquo; Miss Harper continued, thoughtfully. &ldquo;When he was a boy,
+      there never was a softer heart. Poor Frederick!&rdquo; And the name was uttered
+      with a fondness that Agatha had never noticed in any other of Major
+      Harper's family towards him. It led her to look sympathisingly towards
+      Elizabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you uneasy about him? Oh! I do hope nothing is wrong with poor Major
+      Harper.&rdquo; And she almost forgot her own feelings in thinking how
+      unbrotherly it was of Nathanael to sit there like a stone, saying nothing.
+      Elizabeth also seemed hurt; the elder brother was clearly her favourite&mdash;clung
+      to as sisters cling, through good report and evil. She looked gratefully
+      at Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. You are a warm-hearted girl. But you ought to keep a warm
+      heart for Frederick. You do not know how tenderly he always speaks of
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha coloured, she hardly knew why, except because she saw her husband
+      start and look at her&mdash;one of those keen, quick looks that only last
+      a moment. Under it she blushed still deeper&mdash;to very scarlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper stood up. &ldquo;I think, Elizabeth, we must go now. Agatha shall
+      come to you again in a day or two&mdash;and you and she can then talk over
+      both your sisterly loves for Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke lightly, but Agatha heard a jarring tone&mdash;she was growing so
+      familiar with his every tone now. Why did he thus speak, thus look,
+      whenever she uttered or listened to his brother's name? Could it be
+      possible that Emma had told him&mdash;No, she threw that thought from her
+      in scorn&mdash;the scorn with which she had once met the insinuation that
+      she had been &ldquo;in love&rdquo; with Major Harper. Emma could not have been so
+      foolish, so wicked, or, if she had, any manly honour, any honest pride,
+      would have made Nathanael speak of it before their marriage. Since, she
+      felt certain that Mr. Harper had not interchanged a single word alone with
+      Mrs. Thornycroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In disgust and shame that her vanity&mdash;oh! not vanity, but a feeling
+      that, holy as it was, her proud heart still denied&mdash;had led her to
+      form the suspicion, Agatha cast it from her. She who had no secrets, no
+      jealousies, felt it to be impossible that Nathanael should bury within his
+      breast that foul thing&mdash;a secret jealousy of his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Especially now, when it seemed as if his love itself were dying or dead&mdash;when
+      on quitting Elizabeth's room, he walked with her, silent, or making smooth
+      brief speeches, as he would to any other lady&mdash;any lady he had met
+      for the first time, and was handing courteously down to dinner. Her heart
+      boiled within her! Was she to pour it out before him in complaint&mdash;repentance?
+      Was she to accuse him of jealousy, and be met with a calm contemptuous
+      smile?&mdash;to betray the growing passion of her heart, in order to light
+      up the few stray embers that might yet be lingering feebly in his? Never!
+      She walked on haughtily, carelessly, dumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evening slid on, hardly noticed by her. Night came; when, after many
+      ceremonious family adieux, which she responded to without ever hearing&mdash;after
+      one frantic rush along the dim passages to Elizabeth's door, where she
+      drew back and left the tearful good-bye unspoken, for <i>he</i> was
+      standing there&mdash;after all this the Squire put her into the family
+      coach, with Mrs. Dugdale at her side and Nathanael opposite. Bidding her
+      farewell, the old man gave, with less stateliness than tenderness, his
+      fatherly blessing upon her and her new home. They reached it. Again she
+      laid her head upon a strange pillow in a strange room, and slept, as she
+      always did when very wretched, the heavy, stupifying sleep which lasts
+      from night till morning&mdash;deadening all care, but making the waking
+      like that of one waking in a tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha woke with the sunshine full in her eyes, and the early church-bells
+      ringing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, where am I? What day is this? Where is my husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The new maid, Nathanael's foster-sister, was standing by, smiling all
+      respectful civilities, informing her in broad Dorset that it was Sunday,
+      time for &ldquo;missus&rdquo; to get up, and that &ldquo;master&rdquo; was walking in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They &ldquo;mistress&rdquo; and &ldquo;master,&rdquo; head and guide of their own household!&mdash;they,
+      two young creatures, who so little time ago had been a youth and a girl,
+      each floating adrift on life, without duties or ties. It had seemed very
+      strange, very solemn, under any circumstances, but now&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God help me, poor helpless child that I am! Oh, what shall I do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the inward sob of Agatha's heart. She almost wished that she
+      could have turned her face again on the pillow, and slept there safely for
+      eternity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the matin church-bells ceased&mdash;it was nine o'clock. She must
+      rise, and appear below for the first time as mistress in her own house.
+      Also, she remembered faintly something which Mrs. Dugdale had said about
+      the custom at Kingcombe&mdash;an irrefragable law of country etiquette&mdash;-of
+      a bride's going to church for the first time, ceremoniously, in bridal
+      dress. And no sooner had she descended&mdash;wrapped in the first
+      morning-frock she could lay her hands upon, than Harrie entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So&mdash;I am your first visitor you see. Many welcomes to your new home!
+      And may it prove as happy, as merry&mdash;and some day, as full&mdash;as
+      ours. Bless you, my dear little sister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed Agatha in her arms with more feeling than Harrie usually
+      showed. But, for Agatha's salvation, or she would have burst into sobs, it
+      was only momentary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, no sentiment! Call in Nathanael, and eat your breakfast quickly,
+      you atrociously lazy folks! Don't you know you have only half-an-hour and
+      you must go to church, or all Kingcombe would be talking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant to go&mdash;I shall be ready in two minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My patience! ready&mdash;in such a gown! Come here Nathanael. Are you
+      aware it's indispensable for your wife to appear at church in wedding
+      costume, just as she did on that blissful day, when&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I'll do anything you like, only hush!&rdquo; whispered Agatha. Harrie
+      laughed, and said something about &ldquo;sparing her blushes.&rdquo; There were none
+      to spare&mdash;she was as pale as death. What, appear before her husband,
+      dressed as on the morning when if not altogether a happy bride, she at
+      least had the hope of making her bridegroom happy, and the comfort of
+      believing that he loved her and would love her always! The mere thought of
+      this sent a coldness through all her frame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael said, &ldquo;You told me this before, Harriet. It is an idle custom;
+      but neither my wife nor myself would wish to go against the world, or the
+      ways of our own people. Arrange it, as Agatha says, according as you
+      like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had then heard her whisper&mdash;he had seen her paleness. How had he
+      interpreted both?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church-bells began to ring again, and Harrie prepared to vanish,
+      though not until she had dressed Agatha, scanned her from top to toe,
+      vowed the bonnet did not become her a bit, and that she looked as white as
+      if she were again about to go through the formidable marriage-service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sad pity!&mdash;because to-day you'll be looked at a great deal more
+      than the clergyman. We are a terribly inquisitive town; and weddings are
+      scarce at Kingcombe.&mdash;Take your wife, Nathanael. There you go&mdash;a
+      very handsome, interesting young couple. Nay, don't cheat the townsfolk by
+      taking the garden way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do, pray?&rdquo; entreated Agatha of her husband. &ldquo;Don't let the people see
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You foolish child!&rdquo; cried Harrie, as she made herself invisible through
+      the front-door, throwing back her last words as an unconscious parting
+      sting. &ldquo;Folks will think you are ashamed of your husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha took no notice, nor did Nathanael. Silently they walked to church,
+      the garden way, which led them out opposite the eastern door. Entering
+      with his wife on his arm, his bare head erect, though the eyes were
+      lowered, his whole face still and steadfast, but looking much older since
+      his marriage.&mdash;Mr. Harper was a man of whom no one need be ashamed.
+      His wife glanced at him, and, in spite of all her sorrow, walked proudly
+      up the aisle&mdash;prouder far than on her wedding-day. She never thought
+      of herself or of the people looking at her. And&mdash;Heaven forgive her,
+      poor child!&mdash;for the moment she never thought of Whose temple she was
+      entering, until the clergyman's serious voice arose, proclaiming those
+      &ldquo;sacrifices&rdquo; which are &ldquo;a broken spirit.&rdquo; Then her spirit sank down broken
+      within her, and under her thick white veil, and upon her white velvet
+      bridal Prayer-book, fell tears, many and bitter. The poorest charity-girl
+      that stared at her from the gallery would not that day have envied the
+      bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Service over, out of the church they went as they had come, arm-in-arm;
+      the congregation holding back; all watching, but from some mysterious
+      etiquette which must be left to the Kingcombeites to elucidate, no one
+      venturing to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper. The Squire's household
+      did not attend this church, nor the Dugdales either; so that the young
+      people walked home without speaking to a soul, and scarcely to each other.
+      They were both very grave. A word, perhaps, from either would have
+      unlocked a heart flood; but the word was not spoken. They met at the gate
+      of the cottage Mrs. Dugdale and her boys. Soon all the solemn influences
+      of the temple passed away. They were in the world once more&mdash;the
+      hard, bitter, erring world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are come in to see Auntie Agatha and Uncle Nathanael,&rdquo; said Harrie, as
+      the children stood rather awe-struck by Mrs. Harper's dazzling appearance.
+      &ldquo;And we are going to take both back with us for dinner, as you promised.
+      Early country dinner, my dear, which can't by any means be eaten in those
+      fine clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will take them off.&rdquo; And her foot was on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay; don't you see your husband looking at you. Let me look too&mdash;we
+      are never likely to see you dressed as a bride again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha paused, but Mr. Harper had already turned away. His gaze&mdash;would
+      she had seen it! but she did not&mdash;was ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She ran up-stairs, she looked in the glass once more at the vision which,
+      from the age of childhood, almost every girl beholds herself in fancy&mdash;the
+      dazzling white silk, orange-flowers, and lace, trappings of a day, never
+      to be again worn. Then she tore them off, wildly&mdash;desperately;
+      wishing one minute that she could bury them in the earth out of her sight,
+      and again wrapping them up tenderly, as we wrap up clothes that are now
+      nothing but empty garments, from which the form that-filled them has
+      vanished evermore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards she dressed herself in ordinary matronly garb, and came down
+      with matronly aspect to Harry and the little boys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mid-day country dinner, eaten in peace and quietness, where people keep
+      Sunday in Christian fashion&mdash;at least externally&mdash;where no
+      visitors come in, and no gay evening reunions put an unholy close to the
+      holy day; when the father of the family gathers his children round him in
+      the long, sleepy afternoons, or takes a walk with them in the
+      summer-twilight while all the neighbours are safe in church; after which,
+      as a great treat, the elder ones sit up to supper, and the little ones are
+      put to bed by mamma's own hands; then pleasant weariness, perhaps some
+      brief evening prayer, sincere without cant&mdash;the household separates&mdash;the
+      house darkens&mdash;and the day of rest ends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the way they kept Sunday at the Dugdales'. It was something new
+      to Agatha, and she liked it much. She threw herself into the domestic ways
+      as if she had been used to them all her life, and specially made herself
+      popular with the father and the little ones. Marmaduke looked benevolently
+      upon his sister-in-law, seemed quite to forget she was &ldquo;a young lady,&rdquo; and
+      even was heard to call her &ldquo;my child&rdquo; four times,&mdash;at which she was
+      very pleased and proud. Over and over again, with youth's wild thirst to
+      be happy, she tried to forget the weight on her life, and plunge into a
+      temporary gaiety. Sometimes she even caught herself laughing outright, as
+      she played with the children; for no one can be miserable always,
+      especially at nineteen. But whenever she looked up, or was silent, or
+      paused to think, the image of her husband came like a cloud between her
+      and her mirth. No&mdash;she never could be really happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael was all day very quiet and abstracted. He did not romp with his
+      little nephews, and only smiled when Harrie teased him for this unusual
+      omission of avuncular privilege. Once, Agatha saw him sitting with the
+      youngest little girl fast asleep against his shoulder, he looking over her
+      baby-curls with a pensive, troubled eye, an eye which seemed gazing into
+      the future to find there&mdash;nothing! A strange thrill quivered through
+      Agatha's heart to see him so sitting with that child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After tea Mrs. Dugdale proposed turning out of doors all the masculine
+      half of the family, except the infant Brian, before whom loomed the
+      terrific prospect of bed. So off they started. Gus being seen to snatch
+      frantically at Pa's hand, and Fred, sublime in his first jacket, walking
+      alongside with an air and grace worthy of the uncle whose name he bore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There they go,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Dugdale, looking fondly after them. &ldquo;Not
+      bad-looking lads either, considering that Pa isn't exactly a beauty. But
+      pshaw! what does that signify? I think my Duke's the very nicest face I
+      know. Don't you, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha warmly acquiesced. She had entirely got over the first impression
+      of Duke's plainness. And moreover she was learning day by day that
+      mysterious secret which individualises one face out of all the world, and
+      makes its very deficiencies more lovely than any other features' charm.
+      She could fully sympathise with Harrie's harmless weakness, and agreed&mdash;looking
+      at Brian, who in fact strongly resembled his father, angelicised into
+      childhood, keeping the same beautiful expression, which needed no change&mdash;that
+      if Mr. Dugdale's sons grew up like him in all points, the world would be
+      none the worse, but a great deal the better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus talking&mdash;which little Brian seemed actually to understand, for
+      he stood at her knee gazing up with miraculously merry eyes&mdash;Agatha
+      watched her sister-in-law's Sunday duty, religiously performed, of putting
+      the younger two to bed, while the nurses went to church, or took walks
+      with their sweethearts. For, as Harrie sagely observed, &ldquo;'the maidens' as
+      we call them in Dorsetshire, 'the maidens' will fall in love as well as
+      we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So chattering merrily&mdash;while she dashed water over Miss Baby's white,
+      round limbs, and let Brian caper wildly about the nursery, clad in all
+      sorts of half-costumes, or no costume at all&mdash;Mrs. Dugdale initiated
+      Agatha into various arcana belonging to motherhood and
+      mistress-of-a-family-hood. The other listened eagerly, so eagerly that she
+      could have laughed at herself, remembering what she was six months before.
+      To think that to-morrow she must begin her house-keeping&mdash;she, who
+      knew no more of such things than a child! She snatched at all sorts of
+      knowledge, talked over butchers, and bakers, and house expenses, and
+      Kingcombe ways of marketing, taking an interest in the most commonplace
+      things. For pervading everything was the consciousness, &ldquo;It is <i>his</i>
+      home I have to make comfortable.&rdquo; That thought sanctified and beautified
+      all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quite right, my dear,&rdquo; said Harrie, pausing in her walk up and
+      down, patting and singing to Baby, who stared with open eyes over her
+      shoulder, and obstinately declined going to sleep. &ldquo;You will turn out a
+      notable woman, I see. It's a curious and melancholy fact, which we don't
+      ever learn till we are married, that all the love in the world is thrown
+      away upon a man unless you make him comfortable at home. A neat house and
+      a creditable dinner every day go more to his heart than all the
+      sentimental devotion you can give. It's all very well for a man in love to
+      live upon roses and posies, and kisses and blisses, but after he is
+      married he dearly likes to be comfortable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was silent for a moment, hardly venturing to believe, and yet
+      afraid she must. &ldquo;I heard Miss Valery once say that no man's love after
+      marriage is exactly as it was before it; that the thing attained soon
+      loses its preciousness, and that the wife has to assume a new character,
+      and win another kind of love. I wonder if this is true. I wonder&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      suddenly she changed her seriousness for the tone of raillery she always
+      used with Harrie Dugdaie&mdash;&ldquo;I wonder whether our husbands adore us
+      first, and afterwards expect us to adore them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So they do; I assure you they do! And a pretty amount of adoring and
+      waiting upon your husband will require. I wouldn't for the whole universe
+      have my Duke such an awfully exacting, particular, provoking, disagreeably
+      good, or inexplicably naughty animal as my brother Nathanael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Dugdaie!&rdquo; Agatha hardly knew whether to laugh or to be indignant.
+      She only knew that she felt ready to spring up like a chained tigress when
+      anybody said a word against Mr. Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now, don't waken the baby. Keep yourself quiet, do. See, there's
+      its husband coming down the street to comfort it. He is looking up here,
+      too. Run down, do'ee now; and if she'll be a good girl she shall have the
+      neatest household and the best husband in Kingcombe&mdash;always excepting
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha did not run down; but she leant over the landing, and heard the
+      footsteps and voices in the hall&mdash;steps and voices which always seem
+      to put new life into a house where its ruler is dear to the hearts of wife
+      and children. Troubled as she was&mdash;laden with even a new weight since
+      the talk with Mrs. Dugdale&mdash;Agatha listened, and felt that in spite
+      of all, the house seemed brighter for the entrance of <i>her</i> husband.
+      She tried to catch what he was saying, but only heard the voice of Mr.
+      Dugdaie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, as you say, it's necessary. But really tomorrow&mdash;so soon&mdash;and
+      for such a long time too! Couldn't both go together?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael made some inaudible reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure, you know best. But&mdash;poor young thing!&mdash;I wonder
+      what my Harrie would have said to me. Poor, pretty little thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words, the manner, startled Agatha; She could not make them out. She
+      descended, looking alarmed, uneasy&mdash;a look which did not wear off all
+      the rest of the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In leaving she wondered why Mr. Dugdale woke from his dreaminess to bid
+      her good-night with a fatherly air, addressing her more than once by his
+      superlative of kindness, &ldquo;My child.&rdquo; When she took her husband's arm to go
+      out of the lighted hall-into the night, Agatha trembled, as if something
+      were going to happen&mdash;she knew not what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The street was very dark, for Kingcombe people were economisers in gas;
+      and besides kept such primitive hours, that at ten o'clock you might walk
+      from one end of the town to the other and not see a light in any house.
+      There was not a soul abroad except these two, and their feet echoed loudly
+      along the pavement. At first Agatha, blinded by coming out of light into
+      darkness, saw nothing, but stumbled on, clinging tightly to her husband.
+      At length she perceived whereabouts they were&mdash;the black,
+      quaintly-gabled houses, the market-cross, and, far above the sleepy town
+      and its deserted streets, the bright wonderfully bright stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha took comfort when she saw the stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have we far to go? I am rather tired,&rdquo; she said to her husband, chiefly
+      for the sake of saying something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tired, are you? Then you must have a quiet day tomorrow. It will be very
+      quiet, I doubt not;&rdquo; and he sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so? What is to be done to-morrow? Shall you have to ride over to
+      Thornhurst?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I saw Anne Valery yesterday. I shall not see her again for a good
+      while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is business requiring me in Cornwall. To-morrow I am going away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going away!&rdquo; The words were little more than a sigh. She felt all cold
+      and numb for the moment. Then a sudden flood of the old impetuous pride
+      came over her. Going away! Leaving his young wife! Leaving her alone in
+      her new home&mdash;alone the second day, to be wondered at, and pointed
+      at, and pitied! Perhaps he did it to humble and punish her. It was cruel&mdash;cruel!
+      And again the demon or angel&mdash;which took such various forms that she
+      hardly knew the true one&mdash;rose up rampant within her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Harper, this is sudden&mdash;will look strange. You ought to have
+      told me before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know it myself until last night. That my going to Cornwall is
+      necessary, on business grounds, I have already made clear to Marmaduke. He
+      will tell his wife, and Harriet will tell all the world. I have so
+      arranged that you will have no difficulty of any kind. This house will go
+      on as usual, or you can visit at Thornhurst and at my father's. There will
+      be no loss to you of anything or anybody&mdash;except one, whose absence
+      must be welcome.&rdquo; &ldquo;Welcome!&rdquo; she repeated in an accent of bitter scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said so yourself. Hush! do not say it again. When we part, let it be
+      in peace!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a smothered, exhausted voice, and holding the gate open for
+      her to pass, leaned upon it as if he could hardly stand. But Agatha
+      perceived nothing&mdash;she was dizzy and blind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace?&rdquo; she repeated, driven mad by the mockery of the word. She saw the
+      door half-open, the warm light glimmering within the hall&mdash;so soft&mdash;so
+      home-like. The torture was too strong&mdash;her senses began to give way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without knowing what she did, without any settled purpose except to escape
+      from the misery of that sight, Agatha pushed her husband from her, turned
+      and fled&mdash;fled anywhere, no matter where, so that it was into night
+      and darkness, away from her home and from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not know the way; she only knew that she ran up one street and
+      down another like the wind. Her state of mind was bordering on insanity.
+      At length she paused from sheer exhaustion, and leaned against a doorway&mdash;like
+      any poor outraged homeless wretch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good man of the house came softly out to look up into the quiet night
+      before he bolted his door. He stood musing, contemplating the stars. It
+      was a minute or more before he noticed the bowed human form beside him.
+      When he did, there was no mistaking the compassionate voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh, poor soul! What's wrong wi'ee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha sprang up with a cry. There were two standing by her, from whose
+      presence she would gladly have run to the world's end&mdash;Mr. Dugdale
+      and her husband. The one remained petrified with astonishment&mdash;the
+      other said but three words, in a dull mechanical voice, as if every
+      feeling had been struck out of the man by some thunderbolt of doom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, come home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she tried to burst from him and fly, but her arm was caught, and
+      Marmaduke Dugdale's grave look&mdash;the look he fixed upon his own
+      children when they erred, constraining them always into repentance and
+      goodness&mdash;was reading her inmost soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go home, poor child! I'll not tell of you or him. Go home with your
+      husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt her hand laid, or grasped&mdash;she knew not which&mdash;in that
+      of Nathanael; who held it with invincible firmness. There was no resisting
+      that clasp. She rose up and followed him, as if led by an invisible chain.
+      Her madness had passed, and left only a dull indifference to everything.
+      The die was cast; she had laid open the miseries of their home, had
+      disgraced him and herself before the world. It signified little where she
+      went or what she did; they were utterly separated now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without again speaking, or taking notice of Mr. Dugdale, she suffered
+      Nathanael to lead her away, passing swiftly down the silent streets.
+      Neither husband nor wife uttered a single word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment she entered the house she walked up-stairs, slowly, that he
+      might not see her tottering; went into her own room, and locked her door
+      with a loud, fierce turning of the key, that seemed to shriek as it
+      turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, for almost an hour, she sat motionless. The maid, half asleep, came
+      to the door with a light, but Agatha bade her set it down, and sat in the
+      dark. Dark&mdash;altogether dark, within and without; with no hope or
+      repentance, or even the heroism of suffering; wrathful, sullen, miserable;
+      wronged&mdash;yet conscious that she had sinned as much as she was sinned
+      against; seeing her husband and herself stand as it were on either edge of
+      a black gulf, hourly widening, yet neither having strength to plunge it to
+      the other's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here she sat, upright and still, body and soul wrapped in a leaden,
+      shroud-like darkness, until gradually a stupor possessed her brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so tired,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;I must go to sleep. He will not leave till
+      to-morrow. But it does not signify. Nothing signifies. I must go to
+      sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She unlocked the door and drew in the candle, flaring in its socket. She
+      had to press her fingers on her eyeballs before they could bear the light,
+      all was so very dark. She Sotted her hair up anyhow, took off her clothes,
+      and crept to bed, almost as if she were creeping to her tomb. The fragment
+      of candle went out, sinking instantaneously, like a soul quenched out of
+      existence, and all was total darkness. In that darkness a heavy hand
+      seemed to lay itself on Agatha's brain, and press down her eyelids.
+      Scarcely two minutes after, she was asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hour after hour of the night went by, and there was not a sound, not a
+      breath in the room. The late moon rose, and gave a little glimmer of light
+      through the curtains. Now and then there was a faint noise of some one
+      moving in the house, but Agatha never stirred. She slept heavily as some
+      people invariably sleep under the pressure of great pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards morning, when moonlight and dawn were melted together, and the
+      room was growing light enough to discern faces, there was a step at the
+      door, and a ray flashing through the opening, for Agatha had left it ajar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael set down the candle outside and came in softly. He was dressed
+      for a journey&mdash;evidently just ready to start. He looked very ill,
+      sleepless, and worn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Standing a minute at the door, he listened to his wife's breathing, low
+      and regular as that of a child. Nature and repose had soothed her; she
+      slept now as quietly and healthfully as if she had never known trouble.
+      Her husband crept across the room very carefully, and remained watching
+      her. Oh! the contrast between the one who <i>watched</i> and the one who
+      slept!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he stood perfectly upright, rigid, and motionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his hands twisted themselves together, and his eyes grew hot,
+      bursting. His lips moved as in speaking, though with never a sound. It was
+      the dumbness&mdash;the choking dumbness of that emotion which made it so
+      terrible. Such silence could not last&mdash;he seemed to feel it could not&mdash;and
+      so moved backward out of hearing. There he stood for a little while,
+      leaning against the wall, his hand bound tightly over his forehead, and
+      sighing, so bitterly sighing!&mdash;that gasp which bursts from men who
+      have no tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length he became calmer, but still stood without the door. He even
+      moved the candle further off, as though afraid its glare, might disturb
+      the sleeper&mdash;forgetful that the room was now growing all bright with
+      daybreak. At this moment the clock striking in the hall below made him
+      start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hastily he took out a paper that he had hid somewhere about him. It was in
+      his own handwriting, all sealed and endorsed. &ldquo;Not to be opened except in
+      case of my death.&rdquo; Nevertheless he tore it open&mdash;tore likewise an
+      under-cover addressed to his wife, and began to read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you never loved me. From something I overheard on our marriage-day&mdash;from
+      other words afterwards let fall in anger by my brother, I also know that
+      you loved&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He crushed the paper, his eyes seeming literally to flame. Then all the
+      fury died out of them, and left nothing but tenderness. He listened for
+      the soft breathing within&mdash;soft and pure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;I will not leave her honour to the chance of written
+      words. No other human being must ever know what I knew. If I live, it is
+      not worse than it was before; and should any harm come to me, let her
+      think I died in ignorance. Better so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tore the paper into small strips, and deliberately burnt them one by
+      one in the candle, making a little pile of the ashes, but afterwards
+      scattering them about the fireplace. Then putting out the light&mdash;for
+      the house was now filled with the soft grey dawn&mdash;Nathanael stepped
+      once more into his wife's room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And still she was sleeping&mdash;sleeping at the very crisis of her fate.
+      Her face was composed and sweet, though her hands were still clenched, and
+      one of them almost buried in her loose hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband stood and looked at her, trying long to keep himself firm and
+      self-restrained, as though she were aware of his presence. But at last the
+      holy helplessness of sleep subdued him. From standing upright he sank
+      gradually down&mdash;down&mdash;till he was crouching on his knees.
+      Shudder over shudder came over him&mdash;sigh after sigh rose up, and was
+      smothered again in his breast. At last even the strong man's strength gave
+      way, and there fell a heavy, silent, burning rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And all the while the wife slept, and never knew how he loved her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while this ceased. Nathanael opened his eyes and tried to look
+      once more calmly on his wife. She stirred a little in sleep, and began to
+      smile&mdash;a very soft, meek, innocent smile, that softened her lips into
+      infantine sweetness. She was again Agatha, the merry Agatha, as she had
+      been when he first saw her, before he wooed her, and shook her roughly
+      from her girlish calm into all the struggles of life. He could have cursed
+      himself&mdash;and yet&mdash;yet he loved her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kneeling, he put his arm softly over her. Another moment and he would have
+      yielded to the frantic impulse, and snatched her to his heart for one&mdash;just
+      one embrace&mdash;heedless of her waking. But how would she wake? only to
+      hate and reproach him. He had better leave her thus, and carry away in his
+      remembrance that picture of peace, which blotted out all her bitter words,
+      all her cruel want of love&mdash;made him forget everything except that
+      she had been the wife of his bosom and his first love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew back his arm, gradually and noiselessly. He did not attempt to
+      kiss her, not even her hand, lest he should disturb her; but kneeling,
+      laid his hand on the pillow by hers, and pressed his lips to her hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad she sleeps&mdash;yes, very glad! She is quite content now, she
+      will be quite happy when I am gone, God love thee and take care of thee&mdash;my
+      darling&mdash;my Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/frontispiece-p280.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="A Husband's Farewell  P280 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Kissing her hair once again, he rose up and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he departed, the first sunbeam came in and danced upon the bed, showing
+      Agatha fast asleep, sleeping still. She never woke until it had been broad
+      day for a long time, and the sun creeping over her pillow struck her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she started up with a loud cry&mdash;she had been dreaming. Tears
+      were wet upon her cheek. She called wildly for her husband. It was too
+      late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been gone at least three hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Harper&mdash;Missus&mdash;there's a carriage at the door.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say I am not at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had given the same sullen answer to every visitor for four weeks,
+      shutting herself up in stern seclusion, determined that, whatever cruel
+      comments they made, the neighbourhood should have no power of spying into
+      the mystery of &ldquo;that poor Mrs. Locke Harper who did not live happy with
+      her husband.&rdquo; For so she felt sure had been the result of that fatal
+      betrayal to her brother-in-law. Since, as Harrie had once said, &ldquo;Duke
+      never could keep a secret in his life!&rdquo; But even his own wife could not
+      thoroughly fathom the good heart of Marmaduke Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at home?&rdquo; repeated Dorcas, who had been very faithful to her young
+      mistress. &ldquo;Not when it's Miss Valery, who has been so ill? Oh, Missus,
+      do'ee see Miss Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Harper hesitated, and during that time her visitor entered uninvited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, Agatha, as you did not come to see me, I have come at last to see
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, to see me?&rdquo; said Anne, smiling. But the voice was weak, and the
+      smile had a sickly beauty. Agatha was struck by a change, slight, yet
+      perceptible, which had come over Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear you have been ill&mdash;will you take the arm-chair? Are you
+      better to day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; returned Anne, briefly; she was never much in the habit of
+      talking about herself. &ldquo;But you, my dear, how have you been this long
+      time? Come and let me look at you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not worth while. Never mind me. Talk of something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of your husband, then. When did you hear from him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Last week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is he quite well? Will you give a message to him from me when you
+      write again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery looked surprised, pained. Evidently to her sick-room had
+      reached the vaguest possible hints of what had happened. Or else Anne must
+      have refused to hear or credit what she was persuaded was an impossible
+      falsehood. In all good hearts scandal unrepeated, unbelieved, dies a
+      natural death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Mrs. Harper's brief, sharp sentence there was no reply; her guest
+      turned to other topics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harriet Dugdale comes home to-morrow. It is not often she takes it into
+      her head to pay a three weeks' visit from home. You must have missed her a
+      good deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I did not. I have never been outside the garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that quite right, my dear? And your sisters-in-law complain bitterly
+      that you will not go to Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They should have taken more trouble in coming to ask me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, in this world we should not judge too harshly. We cannot see into
+      any one's motives. There may have been reasons. I know the Squire has not
+      been at all well; and Mary has spent her whole time in watching him, and
+      in coming to Thornhurst to nurse me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been so very ill, then? I wish&mdash;I wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you also had come to see me? Well, you will come now. Not to-day;
+      for I am going to use this lovely autumn morning in taking a journey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Weymouth, opposite the Isle of Portland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this answer both were silent. Agatha was thinking of the night when
+      her husband rode to Weymouth. Anne was thinking&mdash;of what?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length she put her thoughts aside, and turned to watch the young wife,
+      who had fallen into a sullen, absent mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does your house please you, Agatha? It is very pretty, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very. I do not complain. Would you like to look over it? Or shall I
+      give you some cake and wine? That is the fashion, I believe, when a
+      visitor first comes to see a bride in her new home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bitterness, the sarcasm of her manner were pitiful to see. Anne Valery
+      watched her, sadly, yet not hopelessly. There was in the calm of that pale
+      face a clearness of vision which pierced through many human darknesses to
+      the light behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She only said, &ldquo;Thank you, I will take some wine; I like to keep up good
+      old customs,&rdquo;&mdash;and waited while Mrs. Harper, with a quick excited
+      manner, and a countenance that changed momentarily, did the first honours
+      of her household. So sad it was to see her doing it all alone! More
+      widow-like than bride-like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she came up with the wine-glass, Miss Valery caught her hand, holding
+      it firmly in defiance of Agatha's slight effort to get free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute for my good wishes to the bride. May God bless you! Not
+      with fortune, which is oftentimes only a curse&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; muttered Agatha, bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not with perfect freedom from care, for that is impossible, or, if
+      possible, would not be good for you. Every one of us must bear our own
+      burden; and we can bear it, if we love one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's lips were set together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; continued Anne, firmly&mdash;&ldquo;If we love any one with sincerity and
+      faithfulness, we are sure to reap our reward some time. If any love us,
+      and we believe it and trust them, they are sure to come out clear from all
+      clouds, our own beloved, true to the end. Therefore, Agatha, above all
+      blessings, may God bless you with <i>love</i>! May you be happy in your
+      husband, and make him happy! May you live to see your home merry and full&mdash;not
+      silent!&mdash;may you die among your children and your own people&mdash;not
+      alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden solemnity of this blessing, enhanced by the feebleness of the
+      voice that uttered it, awoke strange emotions in Agatha. She threw herself
+      on her knees by the armchair, where Anne lay back&mdash;now faint and
+      pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, if you had been near me&mdash;if I had known you always, and you had
+      brought me up, and made a good woman of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I ought,&rdquo; murmured Anne, thoughtfully. &ldquo;But, just then, it would
+      have been so hard&mdash;so hard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying? Say it again. All your words are good words. Tell
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, dear. Except&rdquo;&mdash;here Miss Valery raised herself with a
+      sudden effort mental and bodily&mdash;&ldquo;Agatha, will you go with me to
+      Weymouth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you like. Anywhere to be with you. I am sick of myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all are at times, especially when we are young, and do not quite
+      understand ourselves or others. The feeling passes away. But as to
+      Weymouth&mdash;do you still dislike to go near the sea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;no! I will try to bear it; I think I could, by your side. And
+      you shall not go alone on any account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said Anne, taking her hand. So they went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An innocent line of railway darted past Kingcombe, in the vain hope of
+      waking that somnolent town. It was a pleasant whirl across the usual
+      breezy flats of moorland, by some meadows where a network of serpentine
+      streams flashed in the sun. Agatha felt more like her own self; with her,
+      the spirit of Nature was always an exorciser of internal demons; and
+      Anne's conversation aided the beneficent work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Dorchester they took a carriage, and drove across the country to
+      Weymouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not getting weary? you looked so but lately,&rdquo; said Agatha to Miss
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, I feel strong now.&rdquo; Her eyes and cheeks were indeed very
+      bright; she leaned forward and gazed eagerly around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This Weymouth seems familiar to you, Miss Valery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; we used to come here every summer&mdash;Mr. and Mrs. Harper and the
+      children and I, until she died. She was as good as a mother, or an elder
+      sister&rdquo;&mdash;here Anne hesitated, but repeated the words&mdash;&ldquo;like an
+      elder sister&mdash;to me. We were all very happy in those times. It is a
+      great blessing, Agatha, to have had a happy childhood. Where did you spend
+      yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked uneasy. &ldquo;Chiefly in London&mdash;I told you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But before then, when you were a very little girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know. Don't let us talk about that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you do not wish it.&rdquo; Anne's eyes, which had watched her closely,
+      turned away, and after a few minutes were riveted on a line of blue sea
+      sweeping round a distant headland, and curving off to the horizon. As she
+      looked she became very pale, and shivered. Agatha hardly noticed her,
+      being so busy examining the new regions into which they now entered&mdash;the
+      ordinary High Street of an ordinary country town. The sea view had
+      vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the carriage turned a corner, and they burst upon the shore of
+      Weymouth Bay. A great, blue, glittering bay, with two white headlands
+      shutting it in; the tide running high, the waves dashing themselves
+      furiously against the sea-wall of the esplanade, breaking into showers of
+      spray, and curling back into the foaming whirl below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha started, and put her hands before her eyes. &ldquo;I know that sight&mdash;I
+      remember that sound. Oh! where is this place? why did you bring me here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this cry Miss Valery, roused from her momentary fit of abstraction,
+      took hold of Agatha's hand. The girl was trembling violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, I did not expect this, or you should not have come here. This is
+      Weymouth. Now do you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I? Was I ever here before?&rdquo; She peered from under her hand at
+      the sparkling sea. &ldquo;No, it is not like that sea; it is too bright. Yet I
+      hear the same roll against the same wall. It is very foolish, but I wish
+      we could get away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presently,&rdquo; said Anne's soothing voice. &ldquo;We must drive along this shore,
+      and then we will get out at an inn I know, and rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner, her expression, as she fixed her eyes full upon her, struck
+      Agatha with an indescribable feeling. She looked eagerly at Miss Valery,
+      trying to read in that worn face some likeness to the one which had
+      impressed her childish memory with almost angelic beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me&mdash;you say you have been often here&mdash;did you ever one
+      stormy day follow a ship that was outward bound? You were in a little
+      boat, and the ship was standing out to sea, round that point&mdash;and&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped, for Anne's face was livid to the very lips. Agatha forgot her
+      own question and its purport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop the carriage. Let me hold you. Dear&mdash;dear Miss Valery, you are
+      worn out&mdash;you are fainting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I never faint&mdash;I am only tired. Don't speak to me for a
+      minute or two, and I shall be well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a long sigh she forcibly brought life back to her cheeks&mdash;a
+      feeble life at best. Agatha, watching her, was smitten by a dread which
+      now entered her mind for the first time, driving thence all personal
+      feelings, and making her gaze with sorrowful anxiety on the friend beside
+      her who had been all day so cheerful and kind. And she thought with a
+      remorse amounting to positive horror, that she herself during that day had
+      more than once spoken sharply even to Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great awe came upon her, reflecting how often we unconsciously walk
+      hand-in-hand, and talk of our own petty earthly trials, with those whose
+      souls' wings are already growing, already stirring with the air that comes
+      to bear them to the unseen land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a relief indescribable, when leisurely strolling along the
+      pavement, she saw among many strange faces one that seemed familiar. The
+      hands knotted loosely at his back, the light hair straggling out from
+      under the hat, that was pushed far up from the forehead&mdash;no, she
+      could not be mistaken. She uttered a cry of pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, look! there he is; I am certain it is he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne started violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dugdale, Mr. Dugdale!&rdquo; Agatha called out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came up to the carriage with the most lengthened &ldquo;E&mdash;h!&rdquo; that she
+      had ever heard him utter. &ldquo;What brought you two here? This bleak day too.
+      Very wrong of Anne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she would come. She said she wanted a breath of sea-air, and I think,
+      besides, she has business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; interrupted Anne, &ldquo;no business, except bringing Agatha to see
+      Weymouth. Now shall we rest, and have some tea at the inn. You'll come
+      with us, Mr. Dugdale?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I want to speak to you, Anne. I've got news about&mdash;that little
+      affair you know of. That was why I came to Weymouth to-day. Eh, now&mdash;just
+      look there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a countenance brimful of pleasure he came to Miss Valery's side, and
+      pointed to a steamer that lay in the offing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the <i>Anna Mary</i>. She made the passage from New York in no time.
+      I've been aboard her already. I fancied I might find him there. Now, what
+      do you think, Anne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he come?&rdquo; said Anne, in a steady voice. She had quite recovered
+      herself now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;not this time. But he will sail, for certain, by the next New
+      York packet to Havre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God!&rdquo; It was a very low answer&mdash;just a sigh, and nothing more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And we have satisfactorily ended all that business which you first put
+      into my head,&rdquo; continued Duke, rubbing his hands with great glee. &ldquo;It was
+      a risk certainly, but then it was for him. My children will never be a bit
+      the poorer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; murmured Anne Valery to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And think what an election we shall have! With him to make speeches for
+      Trenchard, and argue in this wonderful way about Free-trade, and tell the
+      farmers all about Canadian wheat! Glorious!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you both talking about?&rdquo; cried Agatha, who had been considerably
+      puzzled. &ldquo;Do let me hear, if it is not a secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No secret,&rdquo; said Anne, turning round, speaking clearly and composedly,
+      and not at all like a sick person. &ldquo;Mr. Brian Harper is coming home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha clapped her hands for joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they dismounted from the carriage, and had ordered tea at the inn,
+      Anne still seemed quite strong. She said it was the sea-breeze that
+      brought life to her, and stood at the open window gazing over the bay.
+      Agatha thought she had never seen Miss Valery's face so near looking
+      beautiful as now; it was the faint reflex of girlhood's brightness, like
+      the zodiacal light which the sun casts on the sky long after he has gone
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After tea,&mdash;at which meal Mr. Dugdale did not appear, a fact that
+      nobody wondered at, since he was left to wander about Weymouth at his own
+      sweet will, without Harrie to catch him and remind him that there was such
+      a thing as time, likewise such sublunary necessities as eating and
+      drinking&mdash;after tea Miss Valery and Mrs. Harper sat at the window
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only an inn-window, the panes scribbled over with many names, and
+      it lighted an ordinary inn-parlour, looking on the esplanade. Yet it was a
+      pleasant seat; quiet, too, for the town was almost deserted as winter-time
+      came on. The bay, smoothed by the ebbing tide, lay like crystal under a
+      sky where sunset and moonlight mixed. Agatha ventured to look at the sea
+      now. She beheld with a curious interest a sight till now so unfamiliar,
+      taking a childish pleasure in watching the great white arm of moon-rays
+      stretch further and further across the water, changing the ripples into
+      molten silver, and making ethereal and ghostlike every little boat that
+      glided through them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By-and-by came a group of wandering musicians, playing very respectably,
+      as German street-musicians always do. They converted the dark esplanade
+      and the shabby inn-parlour into a fairy picture of visible and audible
+      romance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is quite like a scene in a play,&rdquo; said Agatha, laughing and trying to
+      make Miss Valery laugh. She could not see her clearly in the moonlight,
+      but she did not like her sitting so quiet and silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very like a play, with '<i>Herz, mein Herz,</i>' for a serenade.
+      What a sweet old tune it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to sing it once.&rdquo; And Agatha began following the instruments with
+      her voice. &ldquo;No, I can't sing. I could sooner cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? Are you sorrowful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;happy. Yet all feels strange, very strange.&rdquo; She crept to Miss
+      Valery, wrapped her arms round her waist, and laid her head timidly on her
+      shoulder. Anne drew her nearer, with a more caressing manner than she ever
+      used to any one. Agatha Harper seemed that night of all nights to lie very
+      near her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Herz, mein Herz,</i>&rdquo; died faintly away down the esplanade; there was
+      nothing but the glitter of the bay, and the moon climbing higher and
+      higher above the Isle of Portland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne spoke at last, amidst the half-playful, half-tender caresses that
+      were so dear to Agatha, who had never known what it was to be calmly and
+      safely in a mother's arms. Lying thus seemed most like it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I care for you, Agatha, my child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell. Perhaps not, for I am not good enough to deserve it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what first made me care for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;unless it was for the sake of my husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne gave no reply, and her husband's name plunged Agatha into such a maze
+      of painful thought, that she was for a long time altogether silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I tell you a story, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything&mdash;anything, to keep me from thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I do, it is one you must not tell again, unless to Nathanael, for I
+      would put no secrets between husband and wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is right&mdash;that is kind. Would that <i>he</i> had thought
+      the same!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing! Nothing of any consequence. Don't mind me. Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a history which I think it right and best to tell you. You will
+      both need to keep it sacred for a little while&mdash;not for very long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke, a shudder passed through Anne's frame. Was it the
+      involuntary shrinking of mortality in sight of immortality?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly afterwards she began to talk in her usual sweet tone&mdash;perhaps
+      a shade more serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'There were once two <i>friends</i>&mdash;three I should say, but the
+      third far less intimate than the other two. Something happened&mdash;it is
+      now too long ago to signify what&mdash;which made the elder of the first
+      two angry with his dearest friend and the other. He went away suddenly,
+      writing word to his friend&mdash;his own&mdash;that he should sail next
+      day, leaving England for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was wrong!&rdquo; cried Agatha. &ldquo;People ought never to be passionate and
+      unjust in friendship. It was very wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! you do not know all the circumstances; you cannot judge,&rdquo; Anne
+      answered hastily. &ldquo;His friend, who greatly honoured him, and knew what
+      pain his loss would bring to many, wished to prevent his going. She&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a woman, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And were they <i>only</i> friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were friends,&rdquo; repeated Miss Valery, in a tone which, doubtful as
+      the answer was, made Agatha feel she had no right to inquire further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She never knew how much he cared for her until that last letter he wrote,
+      just after he had gone away. On receiving it, she followed him&mdash;which
+      she had a right to do&mdash;to the place he mentioned, a seaport from
+      which he was to sail. When she reached it, the vessel had already heaved
+      anchor and was standing out to sea. She saw it&mdash;the very ship he was
+      on board&mdash;in the middle of the bay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bay! Was it then&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, dear, just for a little,&mdash;I cannot speak long. It was a stormy
+      day, and few boats would go out. However, there was on the beach a woman
+      who was also very eager to catch the vessel. Together they managed to get
+      a boat, and embarked&mdash;this lady I speak of&mdash;the woman and a
+      little girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha listened with painful avidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not the woman's own child, or she could not have been so careless
+      of it It was tossed into the bottom of the boat, and lay there crying. The
+      lady felt sorry for it, and took it in her arms. They had gone but a
+      little way from the shore when it was playing about her, quite happy
+      again. While playing&mdash;she looking at the ship, and not watching the
+      little thing as she ought to have done&mdash;the child fell overboard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud sob burst from Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, still hush, my darling! The child was saved. The ship sailed away,
+      but the child&mdash;you <i>know</i> that she was saved. I am thankful to
+      God it was so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne wrapped her arms tightly round the sobbing girl, and after a few
+      moments she also wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember it all now,&rdquo; cried Agatha, as soon as she found words&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      shore, the headlands, the bay. I was that little child, and it was you who
+      saved me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne made no answer but by pressing her closer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I felt it the first moment I ever saw you. I never forgot you&mdash;never!
+      But how did you know me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was I likely ever to lose sight of that little child? And also, years
+      before, I had once or twice met your father&mdash;though this would have
+      been nothing. But from that day I felt that you belonged to me. And now,
+      since you are become a Harper, you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha embraced her, and then suddenly looked mournful.&mdash;&ldquo;But
+      yourself? Tell me, did you ever again meet your&mdash;your friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No answer. A slight movement of the lips sufficed to explain the whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it was all through me,&rdquo; cried Agatha, to whom that soft smile was
+      agony. &ldquo;And what have I done in requital? I have lived a useless, erring
+      life; I have suffered&mdash;oh, how I have suffered! Far better I had been
+      left lying at the bottom of that quiet bay. Why did God let you save me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you might grow up a good and noble woman, fulfilling worthily the
+      life He spared, and giving it back into His hands, in His time, as a true
+      and faithful servant. Dare not to murmur at His will&mdash;dare not to ask
+      why He saved you, Agatha Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saying this, as sternly as Anne Valery could speak&mdash;she tried to put
+      Agatha from her breast, but the girl held her too fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do not cast me away. I have nobody in the world but you. Forgive me!
+      Guide my life which I owe you, and make it worth your saving. Love me&mdash;teach
+      my husband to love me. If you knew how miserable I am, and may be always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one is miserable always,&rdquo; returned Anne faintly, as she leaned back,
+      her hands dropping down cold and listless. &ldquo;We grow content in time. We
+      shall all be&mdash;very happy&mdash;some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke with hesitation and difficulty. The next minute, in spite of her
+      declaration that she never fainted, Miss Valery had become insensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, up and dressed already, without sending for me? Did you not promise
+      last night that I should do everything for you just as if I were your
+      child? How very naughty you are, Miss Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha spoke rather crossly; it was a relief to speak so. Anne turned
+      round&mdash;she was sitting at the window of the inn bed-chamber looking
+      on Weymouth Bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I naughty? And you have assumed the right to scold me? That is quite a
+      pleasure. I have had no one to scold me for a great many years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a certain pathos running through her cheerfulness which made
+      Agatha's heart burst. She had lain awake half the night thinking of Anne
+      Valery, and had guessed, or put together many things, which made her come
+      with uncontrollable emotion into the presence of her whose fate had been
+      so knotted up with her own. For that this circumstance had in some way or
+      other brought about Anne's fate&mdash;the one fate of a woman's life&mdash;Agatha
+      could not doubt. Neither could she doubt who was this &ldquo;friend.&rdquo; But she
+      said nothing&mdash;she felt she had no right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't look at the sea, please. Look at me. Tell me how you feel this
+      morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;quite well. We will go home to-day. What did you tell Mr.
+      Dugdale last night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only what you desired me&mdash;that, being wearied, you felt inclined to
+      stay the night at Weymouth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was right.&mdash;Look, Agatha, how beautiful the sea is. I must
+      teach you not to be afraid of it any more. Next year&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused, hesitated, put her hand to her heart, as she often did, and
+      ceased to speak; but Agatha eagerly continued the sentence:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next year we will come and stay here, you and I; or perhaps, as a very
+      great favour, we'll admit one or two more. Next year, when you are quite
+      strong, remember. We will be very happy, next year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She repeated the words strongly, resolutely, dinning them into Miss
+      Valery's ear, but she only won for answer that silent smile which went to
+      her heart like an arrow. She rushed for safety to the commonplaces of
+      life, to the quick, hasty speeches which relieved her. She began to be
+      very cross about some delay in breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind me, dear,&rdquo; said Anne's quieting tones. &ldquo;I am quite well, and
+      want nothing. Only let us sit still, and look at the sea.&rdquo; And she drew
+      her from her eager bustling about the inn-parlour to the place where they
+      had both sat the previous night. Agatha balanced herself on the arm of the
+      chair, determined she would not be serious for an instant, and would not
+      let Anne talk. Yet both resolutions were broken ere long. Perhaps it was
+      the bright stillness of the sea view, sliding away round the headland into
+      infinity, which impressed her in spite of herself. Still she struggled
+      against her feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not have you so grave, Miss Valery. Mind, I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I grave? Nay, only quiet; and so happy! Do you know what it is to be
+      quite content with everything in one's life&mdash;past, present, and to
+      come, knowing that all is overruled for good, forgiving everybody and
+      loving everybody?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha linked her arms tighter round Miss Valery's neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk in that way, or look in that way&mdash;don't. Be wicked! Speak
+      cross! I will not have you an angel. I will not feel your wings growing.
+      I'll tear them out. There.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed&mdash;laughed with brimming eyes&mdash;until she sobbed again.
+      Her feelings had been on the stretch for hours, and now gave way. Anne
+      bent down from her serenity to notice and soothe the wayward child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little thing, she wants taking care of as much as anybody. When will
+      her husband come home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never&mdash;never!&rdquo; cried Agatha, hardly knowing what she said. &ldquo;I shall
+      lose him&mdash;you&mdash;all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery smiled&mdash;the composed smile of one who ascending a
+      mountain, sees the lowland mazes around laid out distinct and clear, and
+      looks over them to their ending.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my child, he will come back. Absence breaks slender ties, but it
+      rivets strong ones. Have faith in him. People like him, if they once love,
+      love always. He will come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a great light in Miss Valery's countenance, which irresistibly
+      attracted Agatha. She dried her eyes, forgot her own personal cares, and
+      listened to the comforter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think how much we love those that are away. Once perhaps we used to vex
+      and slight them and be cross with them, but now we carry them in our
+      hearts always. We forget everything bitter, and remember only the sweet;
+      how good they were, and how dearly we loved them. Our thoughts and prayers
+      follow them continually, flying over and about them like wandering angels,
+      that must be laden with good. And all this loving&mdash;all this waiting&mdash;all
+      this praying, year after year&mdash;I mean day after day&rdquo;&mdash;she
+      suddenly turned to Agatha. &ldquo;Be content, my child. He will come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha made no reply. She was not thinking of herself just then. She was
+      thinking of the life, compared to which her own nineteen commonplace years
+      sank into nothingness; of the love beside which that feeling she had so
+      called, looked mean and poor; of the patient endurance&mdash;what was her
+      patience? And yet she had fancied that never was woman so tried as Agatha
+      Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a resolve as sudden as brave, and in her present state of mind to be
+      brave at all it must needs be sudden, Agatha determined to put herself and
+      her troubles altogether aside, and think only of those whom she loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, and rose up strong in the courage of self-denial. &ldquo;We
+      will indulge in no more dreariness; it is not good for you, and I won't
+      allow it, my patient. You shall be patient, in every sense, for a little
+      while longer, and then we'll all be very happy&mdash;<i>all</i>, I say,
+      next year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this declaration she made ready to carry her friend off to Kingcombe&mdash;to
+      her own little house&mdash;where she was bent on detaining Anne prisoner.
+      Miss Valery declared herself quite willing to be thus bound for a day or
+      two, until she was strong enough to go to Kingcombe Holm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I'll not let you go&mdash;I'll be jealous. Why must you be wandering
+      off to that dreary place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Its not dreary to me; I always loved Kingcombe Holm; and I must pay it
+      one last visit before&mdash;before winter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is plenty of time,&rdquo; returned Agatha, hastily. &ldquo;Why go just
+      now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&rdquo;&mdash;Miss Valery spoke after a moment's pause, very steadfastly&mdash;&ldquo;Because
+      I have reasons for so doing. My old friend, Mr. Harper, has a few strong
+      prejudices, some of them to the hurt of his brother, and I wish to talk to
+      him myself before Mr. Brian Harper comes home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Miss Valery said this name, Agatha had carefully bent her eyes
+      seaward. In answering, her colour rose&mdash;her manner was more troubled
+      and hesitating by far than that of her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, then. I will not hinder you. Nobody can feel more interest than I do
+      in Uncle Brian. When do you think he will be here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In three weeks, most likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne made no other remark, nor did Agatha. In a short time they were
+      driving homeward along the margin of the bay. That well-remembered bay,
+      the sight of which even now made Agatha feel as if she were dreaming over
+      again the one awful event of her childhood. And Anne&mdash;what felt she?
+      No wonder that she did not talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came to a spot where the formal esplanade merged into a lonely
+      sea-side walk, leading towards the widening mouth of the bay, and
+      commanding the farthest view of the Channel as it curved down westward
+      into the horizon. Agatha turned pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember it&mdash;that line of coast with the grey clouds over it. I
+      lay on these sands, and afterwards when you fell, I sat and cried over
+      you. This was the place, and it was over that point that the ship
+      disappeared.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne was speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha clasped her hand:&mdash;they understood one another. The next
+      minute the carriage turned. Miss Valery breathed a quick sigh, and bent
+      hurriedly forward; but the glitter of the ocean had vanished&mdash;she had
+      seen the last of Weymouth Bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a weary journey, for Anne seemed very feeble. Her young nurse was
+      thankful when the flashing network of streams told how near they were
+      whirling towards Kingcombe. As the train stopped, Mrs. Dugdale was visible
+      on the platform; Duke also, not at the station&mdash;that being a degree
+      of punctuality quite impossible&mdash;but a little way down the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Miss Anne Valery and Mrs. Locke Harper! To be gallivanting about in
+      this way! I declare it's quite disgraceful. What have you to say for
+      yourselves? Here have I been running up to every train to meet you, and
+      tell you&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; Agatha's cheek flushed with expectation. Anne grew very white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mrs. Harper, you need not be so hasty&mdash;'tisn't your husband. A
+      great blessing if it were. All the town is crying shame on him for staying
+      away so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha threw a furious look at her sister, and dragged Miss Valery along,
+      nor stopped till she saw the latter could hardly breathe or stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay, my child. Harriet, you should not say such things. Nathanael is
+      only absent on business&mdash;my business; he will come home soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words, uttered with difficulty, calmed the rising storm. Harrie
+      laughingly begged pardon, and was satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the sooner Nathanael comes, the better. There was a gentleman last
+      night wanting him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't tell. He left no name. A little wiry shrimp of a fellow who seemed
+      to know all about our family, Fred included; so Duke, in his ultra
+      hospitality, took the creature in for the night, and this morning drove
+      him over to Kingcombe Holm. There, don't let us bother ourselves about
+      him. How do you feel now, Anne? Quite well, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well,&rdquo; Anne echoed in her cheerful voice that never had a tone of
+      pain or complaining. But it seemed to strike Mr. Dugdale, who had lounged
+      up to her side. His peculiarly gentle and observant look rested on her for
+      a moment, and then he offered her his arm, an act of courtesy very rare in
+      the absent Duke Dugdale. Agatha walked on her other hand; Harrie
+      fluttering about them, and talking very fast, chiefly about the wonderful
+      news of yesterday, which her husband had just communicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a great shame not to tell me long before. As if I did not care for
+      Uncle Brian as much as anybody does. What a Christmas we shall have&mdash;Uncle
+      Brian, Nathanael, and Fred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Major Harper coming?&rdquo; The question was from Anne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth hopes so. He surely will not disappoint Elizabeth. And he must
+      come to see Uncle Brian; they were such friends, you know. All the
+      middle-aged oddities in Kingcombe are on the <i>qui vive</i> to see Uncle
+      Brian and Fred. They two were the finest young fellows in the
+      neighbourhood, people say, and to think they should both come back
+      miserable old bachelors! Nobody married but my poor Duke! Hurra!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she rattled on until they reached Agatha's door. One of the Kingcombe
+      Holm servants stood there with the carriage. Mrs. Locke Harper was wanted
+      immediately, to dine at her father-in-law's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not go. I will not leave Miss Valery. They don't often ask me&mdash;indeed,
+      I have never been since&mdash;No, I will not go,&rdquo; she added obstinately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do!&rdquo; entreated Anne, who had sat down, faint with a walk so short that no
+      one thought of its fatiguing her&mdash;not even Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;T' Squire do want'ee very bad, Missus. Here!&rdquo; And the old coachman,
+      almost as old as his master, gave to Mrs. Harper a note, which was only
+      the second she had ever received from her husband's father. It was a
+      crabbed, ancient hand, blotted and blurred, then steadied resolutely into
+      the preciseness of a school-boy&mdash;one of those pathetic fragments of
+      writing that irresistibly remind one of the trembling failing hand&mdash;the
+      hand that once wrote brave love-letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are highly favoured; my father rarely writes to any one. What does he
+      say?&rdquo; cried Harrie, rather jealous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha read aloud:
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;My dear Daughter-in-law, &ldquo;Will you honour me by dining here to-day,
+        without fail? &ldquo;I remain, always your affectionate Father, &ldquo;Nathanael
+        Harper.&rdquo;
+       </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Your affectionate Father,'&rdquo; repeated Mrs. Dugdale. &ldquo;He hardly ever
+      signed that to me in his life, though I am his very own daughter, and his
+      eldest too. He never signed so to anybody but Fred. Bah! what a big blot
+      He is almost past writing, poor dear man! Come, Agatha, you cannot refuse;
+      you must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She must indeed,&rdquo; echoed Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even though the Squire has been so rude as never to ask me or Duke,
+      though Duke saw him this very morning, when he rode over to Kingcombe Holm
+      to tell the news about Uncle Brian.&mdash;Bless us, Anne, don't look so.
+      Is there anything astonishing in my father's letter? How very queer
+      everybody seems to-day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt Miss Valery draw her aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will surely go, my dear, since he wishes it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if I don't wish it&mdash;if I had far rather stay with you! Why are
+      you so anxious for my leaving you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you angry with me again, my child?&rdquo;&mdash;Agatha clung to her fondly.
+      &ldquo;Then go. Behave specially well to your husband's father. And stay&mdash;say
+      I am coming to see him to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you cannot&mdash;you are not strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, very strong,&rdquo; Anne returned hastily. &ldquo;Only go. I will stay
+      contentedly with Dorcas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha went, very much against her will She had shut herself up entirely
+      for so long. It was a torment to see any one, above all her husband's
+      family, who of course were constantly talking and inquiring about him. The
+      stateliness of Kingcombe Holm chafed her beyond endurance; Mary's
+      good-natured regrets, and Eulalie's malicious prying condolings; worst of
+      all the penetration of Elizabeth. She fancied that they and all Kingcombe
+      were pointing the finger at &ldquo;poor Mrs. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pondering over all these things during the solitary drive, her good
+      resolutions faded out from her, and her heart began to burn anew. It was
+      so hard!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She crossed the hall&mdash;the same hall where she had alighted when
+      Nathanael first brought her home. It looked dusky and dim, as then. She
+      almost expected to see him appear from some corner, with his light, quick
+      step and his long fair hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hard indeed&mdash;too hard! She hurried through, and never looked
+      behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eulalie and Mary were sitting solemnly in the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are come, Mrs. Harper. We never thought you would come again. We
+      thought you would sit for ever pining in your cage till your mate came
+      back again. What a naughty wandering bird he is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Eulalie. No teasing. I am sure we were all very sorry for your
+      loneliness, dear Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you for giving yourselves that trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no trouble at all,&rdquo; said the well-meaning and simple Mary. &ldquo;And we
+      would have come to see you or fetched you here, but I had to go so much to
+      Thornhurst while Anne was ill, and Eulalie&mdash;somehow&mdash;I don't
+      know&mdash;but Eulalie is always busy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eulalie, whose hardest toil was looking in the glass, and patting her
+      dog's ears, assented apologetically. Perhaps she read something in her
+      sister-in-law's face which showed her that Agatha was not to be trifled
+      with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go up and see Elizabeth? She has often asked for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she? I will go after dinner,&rdquo; briefly answered Agatha She would not
+      be got rid of in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we sit and talk then, till my father comes in with that queer
+      little man who has been with him all day? about whom Mary and I have been
+      vainly puzzling our brains. Such an ugly little fellow, and, between you
+      and me, not <i>quite</i> a gentleman. I wonder at papa's asking him to
+      stay and dine. I shan't do the civil to him; you may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks for the permission.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps that is the very reason Papa sent for you,&rdquo; continued Eulalie,
+      stretching herself out on the sofa. &ldquo;The person said he knew you, and
+      asked Mary where you were living, and whether you were very happy
+      together, you and your husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha rose abruptly, dashing down a heavy volume that lay on her knee&mdash;she
+      certainly had not a mild temper. While she wavered between reining in her
+      anger as she had last night vowed, and pouring upon Eulalie all the storm
+      of her roused passions&mdash;the door opened, and Mr. Harper entered with
+      his much-depreciated guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman was dressed with unusual care, and walked with even more
+      of slow stateliness than ordinary. He met Agatha with his customary
+      kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Welcome. You have been somewhat of a stranger lately. It must not happen
+      again, my dear.&rdquo; And drawing her arm through his, he faced the &ldquo;little
+      ugly fellow&rdquo; of Eulalie's dislike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Grimes, let me present you to my son's wife, Mrs. Locke Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget, sir,&rdquo; interrupted Grimes, importantly; &ldquo;I have long ago had
+      that honour, through Major&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Squire started, put his hand to his forehead&mdash;&ldquo;Yes, yes, I
+      did forget. My memory, sir&mdash;my memory is as good as ever it was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sharp contradictory ending of his speech, the colour rising to the old
+      man's cheek and forehead, whence it did not sink, but lay steadily, a
+      heavy, purple blotch, attracted Agatha's notice&mdash;certainly more than
+      Mr. Grimes did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had the honour, Mrs. Harper,&rdquo; said the latter, bowing, &ldquo;to be present
+      when your marriage settlement was signed. I had likewise the honour of
+      preparing the deed, by the wish and according to the express orders of
+      Major Har&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is sufficient,&rdquo; interrupted the Squire. &ldquo;Sir, I never burden ladies
+      with the wearisomeness of legal discussion.&mdash;Did you drive or ride
+      here, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you remember, you sent the carriage for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes&mdash;of course,&rdquo; returned the old man. &ldquo;It was a pleasant
+      drive, was it? Your husband enjoyed it too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband is in Cornwall&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. I understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was more than Agatha did. She could not make him out at all. The
+      wandering eye, dulled with more than mere age&mdash;for it had been his
+      pride that the Harper eye always sparkled to the last; the accidental
+      twitches about the mouth, which hung loosely, and seemed unable to control
+      its muscles; above all, the extraordinary and sudden lapse of a memory
+      which had hitherto been wonderful for his years. There was something not
+      right, some hidden wheel broken or locked in the mysterious mechanism that
+      we call human life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt uneasy. She wished Nathanael had been at home: and began to
+      consider whether some one&mdash;not herself&mdash;ought not to write and
+      hint that his father did not seem quite well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, she closely watched the old man, who seemed this day to show
+      her more kindness and attention than ever,&mdash;there was no mistaking
+      that. He kept her constantly at his side, talking to her with marked
+      courtesy. Once she saw his eyes&mdash;those poor, dull, restless eyes,
+      fixed on her with an expression that was quite unaccountable. Going in to
+      dinner, his step, which began measured and stately, suddenly tottered.
+      Agatha caught his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not well&mdash;I am sure of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Mr. Grimes, who was following close behind, with the very
+      reluctant Miss Mary towering over his petty head. &ldquo;No wonder that Mr.
+      Harper is not quite well to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Squire swerved aside, like an old steed goaded by the whip, then rose
+      to his full height, which was taller than either of his sons&mdash;the
+      Harpers of ancient time were a lofty generation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Grimes, I assure you I am quite well. Will you do me the honour to
+      cease your anxiety about me, and lead in my daughter to her seat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grimes passed on&mdash;quenched. There was something in &ldquo;the grand old
+      name of gentleman&rdquo; that threw around its owner an atmosphere in which
+      plebeian intruders could not breathe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A person, Agatha,&rdquo; whispered the Squire, as his eyes, bright with
+      something of their old glow, followed the evidently objectionable guest&mdash;&ldquo;A
+      person to whom I show civility for the sake of&mdash;of my family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha assented, though not quite certain to what. Scanning Mr. Grimes
+      more narrowly, she faintly remembered him, and the unpleasant, nasal-toned
+      voice which had gabbled through her marriage settlement. She wondered what
+      he had come to Nathanael for?&mdash;why Nathanael's father paid him such
+      attention?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her part, the sensation of dislike, unaccountable yet instinctive
+      dislike, was so strong, that it would have been a real satisfaction to her
+      mind if the footmen, instead of respectfully handing Mr. Grimes his soup,
+      had handed himself out at the dining-room window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dinner passed in grave formality. Even Mr. Grimes seemed out of his
+      element, being evidently, as Eulalie had said, &ldquo;not <i>quite</i> a
+      gentleman,&rdquo; either by birth or breeding, and lacking that something which
+      makes the grandest gentlemen of all&mdash;Nature's. He tried now and then
+      to open a conversation with the Miss Harpers, but Eulalie sneered at him
+      aside, and Mary was politely dignified. Agatha took very little notice of
+      him&mdash;her attention was absorbed by her father-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper looked old&mdash;very old. His hands, blanched to a yellowish
+      whiteness, moved about loosely and uncertainly. Once the large diamond
+      mourning ring which the widower always wore, &ldquo;In memory of Catherine
+      Harper,&rdquo; dropped off on the table-cloth. He did not perceive the loss
+      until Agatha restored it, and then his fingers seemed unable to slip it on
+      again, until his daughter-in-law aided him. In so doing, the clammy,
+      nerveless feel of the old man's hand made her start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Mrs. Harper,&rdquo; he said, acknowledging her assistance with his
+      most solemn bend. &ldquo;And Catherine&mdash;Agatha, I mean, if you would be so
+      kind&mdash;that is&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes? observed Agatha, inquiringly, as he made a long pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To&mdash;remind me after dinner, my dear. I have duties now&mdash;important
+      duties.&mdash;My friends!&rdquo; Here he raised himself in his chair, looked
+      round the dessert-laden table with one of his old smiles, half
+      condescending, half good-humoured, then vainly put his hand on the large
+      claret jug, which Agatha had to lift and guide to her glass&mdash;&ldquo;My
+      friends, I am delighted to see you all. And on this happy occasion let me
+      have the honour of giving the first toast. The Reverend Frederick Harper
+      and Mistress Mary Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary and Eulalie drew back. &ldquo;That is grandfather and grandmother&mdash;dead
+      fifty years ago. What does papa mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the whisper did not reach the old man, who drank the toast with all
+      solemnity. Mr. Grimes did the same, repeating it loudly, with the addition
+      of &ldquo;long life, health, and happiness.&rdquo; The daughters each cast down
+      strange, shocked looks upon her untouched glass. No one spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you make a long stay in Dorsetshire?&rdquo; observed the Squire, addressing
+      himself courteously to his guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That depends,&rdquo; Grimes answered, with a meaning twinkle of the eye&mdash;an
+      eye already growing moistened with too good wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you not say,&rdquo; Mary Harper continued, fancying her father looked at
+      her to sustain the conversation&mdash;&ldquo;did you not say you were intending
+      to visit Cornwall?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No ma'am. Would rather be excused. As Mr. Harper knows, the place would
+      be too hot to hold <i>me</i> after certain circumstances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; The old man tried hard to gather himself up into stern dignity, and
+      collect the ideas that where fast floating from him. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he repeated,
+      first haughtily, and then with a violence so rare to his rigidly
+      gentlemanly demeanour that his daughters looked alarmed&mdash;&ldquo;Sir&mdash;at
+      my table&mdash;before my family&mdash;I beg&mdash;I&rdquo;&mdash;Here he
+      suddenly recovered himself, changed his tone, and bowed&mdash;&ldquo;I&mdash;beg
+      your pardon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no offence, Squire; none meant, none taken. I came with the best of
+      all intentions towards you and yours. And if things have turned out badly&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you not say you were acquainted with Cornwall?&rdquo; abruptly asked
+      Agatha, to prevent his again irritating her father-in-law, who had leaned
+      back, sleepily. He would not close his eyes, but they looked misty and
+      heavy, and his fingers played lazily with one another on the arm of his
+      chair; Agatha laid her own upon them&mdash;she could not help it. She lost
+      her fear of the repellent Mr. Harper in the old man, so helpless and
+      feeble. She wished she had come oftener to Kingcombe Holm, and been more
+      attentive and daughter-like to Nathanael's father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As to Cornwall,&rdquo; said Grimes, in a confidential whisper, &ldquo;between you and
+      me, Mrs. Harper, mum's the word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha drew herself up haughtily; but looked at the old Squire and grew
+      patient. She even tried to eke out the flagging conversation, and luckily
+      remembered the news which Duke Dugdale had that morning ridden over to
+      communicate. She could not help thinking it very odd that no one in the
+      house had hitherto mentioned Mr. Brian Harper's expected return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall you not be very glad, Mary, to see Uncle Brian. You have heard, of
+      course, how soon he will be here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian here!&mdash;And nobody told us. Only think, papa&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Mary!&rdquo; There was a gentleness in the Squire's voice more
+      startling even than his violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you know, papa, that Uncle Brian is coming home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think&mdash;I&mdash;Yes&rdquo;&mdash;with a struggle at recollection&mdash;&ldquo;my
+      son-in-law told me that some commercial business which Brian is
+      transacting for him will bring my brother home. I shall be very happy to
+      see him. You, too, will all be delighted to see your Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An uncle? The usual rich uncle from abroad, eh?&rdquo; whispered Mr. Grimes to
+      Agatha. &ldquo;I ask merely for your own sake, ma'am, and that of my friend
+      Nathanael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha curled her lip. That the fellow should dare to speak of &ldquo;my friend
+      Nathanael!&rdquo; She glanced at Mary that they might leave the drawing-room,
+      when seeing her father-in-law was about to speak she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Squire rose in his customary manner of giving healths. His voice
+      was quavering but loud, as if he could scarcely hear it himself, and tried
+      to make it rise above a whirl of sounds that filled his brain. &ldquo;My friends
+      and children&mdash;my&rdquo;&mdash;here he looked uncertainly at Agatha&mdash;&ldquo;Yes,
+      I remember, my daughter-in-law&mdash;allow me to give one toast more&mdash;Health,
+      long life, and every blessing to my son&mdash;my youngest, worthiest, <i>only</i>
+      remaining son and heir, Nathanael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Only</i> son!&rdquo;&mdash;Every one recoiled. The worn-out brain had
+      certainly given way. Mary and Eulalie exchanged frightened glances. Agatha
+      alone, touched by the unexpected tribute to her husband, did not notice
+      the one momentous word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Squire, that's hardly fair,&rdquo; cried Mr. Grimes, bursting into a
+      hoarse vinous laugh. &ldquo;A man may go wrong sometimes, but to be thrown
+      overboard for it, and by one's father, too&mdash;think better of it, old
+      fellow. And ladies by way of an antidote, allow me to give a toast&mdash;Success
+      to my worthy and honourable&mdash;<i>exceedingly</i> honourable client,
+      Major Frederick Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Squire leaped up in his chair, with eyes starting from their
+      sockets. His lips gurgled out some inarticulate sound scarcely human; his
+      right arm shook and quivered with his vain efforts to raise it; still it
+      hung nerveless by his side. Consciousness and will yet lingered in his
+      brain, but physical life and speech had gone for ever. He fell down struck
+      by that living death&mdash;that worse than death, of old age&mdash;paralysis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The whole household was in terror and disorder. Eulalie had rushed
+      screaming from the room&mdash;Mary went about, trembling like a leaf,
+      trying to get restoratives&mdash;Agatha knelt on the floor, supporting the
+      old man's head in her lap, speaking to him sometimes, as by the motion and
+      apparent intelligence of his eyes she fancied he might possibly understand
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he is dead, he is dead!&rdquo; cried Mary, as she took up the senseless
+      hand, and let it fall again with a burst of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he is not dead&mdash;he hears you;&mdash;take care,&rdquo; said Agatha,
+      putting the frightened daughter aside with a firmness which rose in her,
+      as in similar characters it does rise, equal to the necessity. She looked
+      on the trembling Mary&mdash;on the servants gathering round with silent
+      horror, and saw there were none who, so to speak, &ldquo;had their wits about
+      them,&rdquo; except herself. Scarcely knowing how she did it, she instinctively
+      assumed the rule. She, the young girl of nineteen, who had never till then
+      been placed in any position of trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send all these people away. Quick Mary! Bring some one who can carry him
+      to his room. And&mdash;stay, Eulalie, sit down there and be quiet. Don't
+      let any one go and alarm Elizabeth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave these orders and everybody listened and obeyed; people are so
+      ready to obey any guiding spirit at such a crisis. Then she bent down
+      again over the poor corpselike figure that rested against her knee, kissed
+      the old man's forehead, and tried to comfort him. She had heard of cases,
+      when though deprived of speech and motion, the sufferer was still
+      conscious of all passing around him. Therefore she wished as soon as
+      possible to remove her father-in-law out of the way of the terrified
+      household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was carried to his room through the hall where he had lately trod so
+      stately,&mdash;the poor old man now helpless as the dead. Leaving the
+      dining-room, Agatha thought she saw his eyes turn back, as if he knew that
+      he was crossing the doorway he would never cross more, and wanted to take
+      a last look at the familiar things. Otherwise he seemed continually
+      watching herself. She walked beside him till he was laid upon his bed, and
+      then tried again to speak to him. She did it caressingly, as though the
+      old dying man had been a sick child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be content, now&mdash;quite content. I will take care of you, and see
+      that all is done right. I shall, not be away two minutes; I am only going
+      to send for help&mdash;your own doctor from Kingcombe. We must try to get
+      you well. Lie here quiet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quiet! It was like enjoining stillness to a corpse! Agatha shuddered when
+      she had used the word. For a moment the dread of her position rose upon
+      her. In that lonely house, at night too, with no help nearer than
+      Kingcombe: and even then no husband, no friend&mdash;for she dared not
+      send to poor, sick Anne Valery! And she so young, so inexperienced.&mdash;But
+      no matter! She would try to meet everything&mdash;do everything. She felt
+      already calm and brave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first thing necessary was to send for medical aid. This she did;
+      having the forethought to write a few clear lines, lest the messenger
+      should fail. She despatched word likewise to the Dugdales. She felt quite
+      composed; everything right to be remembered came clearly into her head. It
+      was the grand touch-stone of her character; the crisis of danger which
+      shows whether a woman has that presence of mind which exalts her into a
+      domestic heroine, an angel of comfort; or the weakness which sinks her
+      into a helpless selfish fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter was hardly likely to become a true picture of Agatha Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went about with Mary, giving some orders to the servants, for sickness
+      always comes startingly upon an unprepared and unaccustomed house; and
+      tried to find a few soothing words for the terrified Eulalie, who clung
+      crying about them both, forgetting all her affectations. If the Beauty had
+      any love left in her, it was for her father. Lastly, Agatha took a light,
+      and went swiftly along the passages to the distant wing of the house which
+      Elizabeth occupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Harper,&rdquo; her maid said, &ldquo;had gone quietly to rest, and was then fast
+      sleeping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Elizabeth! this seemed the hardest point of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did she see her father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This morning. The master always comes up every morning after breakfast to
+      see Miss Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And they would never see one another again, this helpless father and
+      daughter&mdash;never, till they met bodiless, in the next world!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment Agatha felt her courage fail She glided quickly from the
+      door, but came back again. Elizabeth had waked, and called her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter? I know something is the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do tell her,&rdquo; whispered the maid, &ldquo;She'll find it out anyhow&mdash;she
+      finds out everything. And she has been so ill all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha entered. There was no deceiving those eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth&mdash;your father&mdash;it is very hard, but&mdash;your
+      father&rdquo;&mdash;She hesitated; it was so difficult to convey, even in
+      gentlest words, the cruel truth. Miss Harper regarded her keenly. The
+      bearer of ill-tidings is always soon betrayed, and Agatha's was not a face
+      to disguise anything. Elizabeth's head dropped back on the pillow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I perceive. He is an old man. He has gone home before me. My dear
+      father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The perfect composure with which she said this astonished Agatha. She did
+      not understand how near Elizabeth always lived to the unknown world, and
+      how welcome and beautiful it was in her familiar sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he is alive still. But, if he should not come in to see you
+      to-morrow-morning&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go unto him; he shall not return unto me,&rdquo; murmured Elizabeth, as
+      her eyelids fell, and a few tears dropped through the lashes. &ldquo;Tell me the
+      rest, will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has been seized with paralysis, I think; he cannot speak or move, but
+      seems still conscious. I do not know how it will end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One way&mdash;only one way; I feared this long. My grandfather died so.
+      Agatha&rdquo;&mdash;calling after her, for she was stealing away, she could not
+      bear it&mdash;&ldquo;Agatha, you will take care of him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will as his own daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, if possible&rdquo;&mdash;here Elizabeth's voice faltered a little&mdash;&ldquo;give
+      my love to my dear father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha fled away. She hid herself in the recess close by &ldquo;Anne's window,&rdquo;
+       as it was called, and for a minute or two cried violently. It did her
+      good. With those tears all the selfishness, anger, and pain flowed out of
+      her heart, leaving it purer and more peaceful than it had been for a long
+      time. It was not a foolish, miserable girl, but a brave, tenderhearted,
+      sensible woman, who entered the door of the sick-chamber where the poor
+      old man lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one was there but the coachman who had carried his master up-stairs.
+      Many servants hovered about the door, but none dared enter. Either they
+      were afraid of the Squire&mdash;afraid even now, or else the motionless
+      figure that lay within the bed-curtains was too like death. Old John sat
+      beside it, with tears running down his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Harper, look at th' Master. He be all alive in's mind. He do
+      want bad to speak to we. Look at 'un, Missus!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your place, John. I will try to understand him. Father!&rdquo;&mdash;She
+      faltered a little over the word, but felt it was the right word, now. The
+      old man moved his head towards her with a feeble smile. The expression of
+      his face was clearer and more natural, only for that terribly painful
+      inarticulate murmur, which no one could comprehend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done all I could think of,&rdquo; Agatha continued, speaking softly and
+      cheerfully. &ldquo;The doctor will be here soon; Mary and Eulalie are
+      down-stairs. I have myself told Elizabeth that you are ill;&mdash;she is
+      composed, and sends her love to her dear father. Was all this right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper appeared to assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will sit beside you till the doctor comes, and then I will write to my
+      husband. You would like him to come home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed slow of comprehension, troubled, or excited. Agatha vainly tried
+      to analyse the dumb expression of the features. With all her quickness she
+      could not make out what he wanted. At last, a thought struck her. His
+      eldest son, his favourite&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like me to send for Major Harper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No words could tell the change which convulsed the old man. Abhorrence&mdash;anger&mdash;fear&mdash;all
+      were written in his countenance. He rolled his head on the pillow, he
+      struggled to gasp out something&mdash;what, his daughter-in-law could not
+      guess. She was inexpressibly shocked. One thing only seemed clear, that
+      for some cause or other the mere mention of Frederick's name worked up the
+      father into frenzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! do not try to speak. I will send for no one but Nathanael. Will
+      that content you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a motion of satisfaction, and became quiet. His features gradually
+      composed themselves, and, he sank into torpor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha still sat by the bed, holding his wrist, for she knew not moment by
+      moment how soon the pulse might stop. The old man's own daughters were too
+      terrified to approach him. They came on tiptoe to the door, looked in,
+      shuddered, and went back. No one stayed in the room but the old coachman,
+      who had been Mr. Harper's servant since they were both boys; and he sat in
+      a corner crying like a child, though silently. Agatha might as well have
+      sat there quite alone, the atmosphere around her was so still and solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had never before been in her father-in-law's room&mdash;-the state
+      bedroom, in which for centuries the Harper family had been born and died.
+      The great mahogany bed itself was almost like a bier, with its dark velvet
+      hangings, and dusty plumes. Everything around was dusty, gloomy, and worn
+      out; the Squire would have nothing changed from the time when the last
+      Mrs. Harper died there. In a little curtained alcove the lace hung yellow
+      and dusty over her toilet-table, just as she had left it when she laid
+      herself down to the pains of motherhood and death. Her portraits&mdash;one
+      girlish, another matronly, but still merry and fair&mdash;hung opposite
+      the bed. Between them was a longitudinal family-group, in the very lowest
+      style of art&mdash;a string of children, from the big boy to the tottering
+      baby, in all varieties of impossible attitudes. Their names were written
+      under (not unnecessarily)&mdash;Frederick, Emily, Harriet, Mary, Eulalie.
+      The only names missed were Nathanael and &ldquo;poor Elizabeth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically Agatha observed all these things during the first half-hour
+      of her vigil; involuntarily her mind floated away to musings concerning
+      them, until she forcibly impelled it back to consider the present. It was
+      in vain. Innumerable conjectures flitted through her brain, but not one
+      which she could catch hold of as a truth. Of one thing only she felt sure,
+      that something very serious must have happened&mdash;some great mental
+      shock, too powerful for the Squire's feeble old age. And this shock was
+      certainly in some way or other connected with Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later, when she was beginning to count every beat of the old man's
+      pulse, and look forward with dread to a midnight vigil beside that
+      breathing corpse, the doctor came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha waited for his dictum&mdash;it needed very little skill to decide
+      that. A few questions&mdash;a shake of the head&mdash;a solemn condolatory
+      sigh; and all knew that the old Squire's days were numbered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long?&rdquo; whispered Mrs. Harper, half closing the door as they came out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot say. Some hours&mdash;days&mdash;possibly a week. We never know
+      in these cases. But, I fear, certainly within a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>What</i> would be &ldquo;within a week?&rdquo; Why is it that every one dreads to
+      say the simple word &ldquo;<i>die</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha paused. She had never yet stood face to face in a house with death.
+      The sensation was very awful. She glanced within at the heavy-curtained
+      bed, and then at the fair, girlish portrait which peered through the folds
+      at its foot&mdash;the painted eyes, eternally young, seeming to keep watch
+      smilingly. The old man and his long-parted wife, to be together again&mdash;&ldquo;within
+      a week.&rdquo; It was strange&mdash;strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His sons should be sent for,&rdquo; hinted the doctor. &ldquo;Mr. Locke Harper is in
+      Cornwall, I believe; but the other&mdash;Major Harper&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick&mdash;Yes, we must send for Frederick,&rdquo; sobbed Mary. &ldquo;My father
+      cares more for him than for any of us. Oh, poor Frederick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; Eulalie said&mdash;they were all whispering together at the door&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      don't think any one of us, not even Elizabeth, knows Frederick's address
+      just now. A week ago he was passing through London, but he does make such
+      a mystery of his comings and goings. Oh, if he were only here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask my father,&rdquo; cried Mary&mdash;&ldquo;ask him if he would like to see
+      Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she said this rather too loudly, there was a strange smothered sound
+      from the bed. Agatha ran. The old Squire was gasping, choking, with the
+      frightful effort to speak. His face was purple&mdash;his eyes wild&mdash;yet
+      the poor bound tongue refused to obey his will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! be composed,&rdquo; said his daughter-in-law, soothingly. &ldquo;You shall see
+      no one. No one shall be sent for. Will that do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He grew calmer, but restless still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall my husband come? He will do you good&mdash;he does everybody good.
+      Would you like to see Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A faint assent&mdash;scarcely intelligible&mdash;and then the Squire
+      dropped off again into sleep. Agatha left him and went to his daughters,
+      who lingered outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think Major Harper has somehow vexed him. He will only see my husband.
+      A messenger must be sent to Cornwall. Who will write?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who but yourself,&rdquo; said Eulalie, hardly able even then to repress a look,
+      beneath which Agatha's cheek glowed fiery red; &ldquo;who so fit as yourself to
+      tell this to your husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right;&rdquo; and she smothered down her swelling heart into a grave
+      dignity. &ldquo;Get the messenger ready&mdash;I will write here&mdash;in this
+      room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned-within&mdash;closed the door&mdash;looked once more at the old
+      man, trying by that mournful sight to still the earthly anger that was
+      again rising in her heart,&mdash;and sat down to write.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a hard task. She scribbled the date, and paused. This, strangely
+      enough, was the first letter she had ever written to him. She did not know
+      how to begin it. Her heart beat&mdash;her fingers trembled. To tell such
+      news to the dearest friend and husband that ever woman had, would be a
+      difficult and painful thing, and for her to tell it to him, as they were
+      now! For the first letter he ever had from her to be this! And how could
+      she write it?&mdash;she who till to-day would almost have cut off her
+      right hand rather than have humbled herself to write to him at all. Yet
+      now all the wrath was melting out of her, and tenderness swelling up
+      afresh. We always feel so tender over those that are in trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I will do it,&rdquo; muttered Agatha. And she wrote firmly the words&mdash;&ldquo;<i>My
+      dear husband</i>&rdquo; They seemed at the same time to imprint themselves on
+      her heart as a truth&mdash;invisible sometimes, yet when brought near to
+      the fire of strong emotion or suffering, found ineffaceably written there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter was a mere brief explanation and summons; but it bore the
+      words, duty-words certainly&mdash;yet which no duty would have forced
+      Agatha to write had they been untrue&mdash;&ldquo;<i>My dear husband</i>&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Your
+      affectionate wife.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She despatched it, and re-entered the sick-room. All was quiet there&mdash;the
+      very hopelessness of the case produced quiet. There was nothing to be
+      done, watched, or waited for. Doctor Mason sat by his patient, as he had
+      declared his intention of doing through the night. He sat mournfully, for
+      he was a kind, good man&mdash;the family doctor for thirty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let all go to bed,&rdquo; he said to Agatha, seeming to understand at once that
+      she was the moving spirit in the family. &ldquo;Make the house perfectly quiet,
+      and then&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come and sit up with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Mason looked compassionately at the slight girlish figure, and the
+      face already wan with the re-action after excitement. &ldquo;My dear Mrs.
+      Harper, would not a servant do as well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am his son's wife. What should I say to my husband if&mdash;if
+      anything happened, and he not there, nor I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good. Then stay,&rdquo; said the doctor, kindly grasping her hand. He was a man
+      of few words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It took some time and patience to quiet the house, and persuade Mary and
+      Eulalie to retire. When all was done, and Agatha passed swiftly, lamp in
+      hand, through the dark, solitary rooms, she felt frightened. The house
+      seemed so silent&mdash;already so full of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one thing more to be done&mdash;to write a line ready for Anne
+      Valery's waking, otherwise she would expect her home, as she had promised,
+      in the early morning. How would she tell all these horrors, even in the
+      gentlest way, to the feeble Anne, for whom, however unknown to others, and
+      disguised by the invalid herself, Agatha felt an ever-present dread that
+      she in vain tried to believe was only born of strong attachment. We never
+      deeply love anything for which we do not likewise continually fear. Agatha
+      almost recoiled from the idea of mentioning danger or death to Anne
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went into the dining-room to write. Everything there appeared just as
+      when this great shock struck the household into confusion; the dessert was
+      not removed&mdash;the wine in which he had drunk Nathanael's health,
+      remained yet in Mr. Harper's glass. Agatha shrank back. She half expected
+      to see some shadowy form&mdash;not himself but Death, rise and sit in the
+      arm-chair whence the old man had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brave she was, but she was still a girl, and a girl of strong imagination.
+      Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle of the room,
+      where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the last flicker
+      of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to burn out in their
+      sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and tried to think
+      connectedly of all that had happened this night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something touched her. She leaped up&mdash;would have screamed, but that
+      she remembered the room overhead&mdash;the room. She crouched down&mdash;again
+      covering her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another touch, and a stirring in the window-curtain near which she sat.
+      There was something&mdash;every one knows that horrible sensation&mdash;<i>something</i>
+      else in the room besides herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo; she said, still not looking up, frightened at her own voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's me, ma'am&mdash;only me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody in the house had forgotten Mr. Grimes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-intoxicated at the time of Mr. Harper's seizure, he had stayed behind
+      in the dining-room, drunk himself stupid, and slept himself sober&mdash;or
+      partly so. They say drink is a great unfolder of truth; if so, the old
+      lawyer's sharp face betrayed that, in spite of all his past civility, he
+      had not the kindest feeling in the world towards the Harper family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, young lady, I frightened you? You did not expect to find me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not, indeed; I had quite forgotten your very existence,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Harper, point-blank. She had conceived a great dislike to Mr. Grimes, and
+      Agatha was a girl who never took much trouble to disguise her aversions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, ma'am. You are polite, like the rest of the Harpers. But
+      words, fair or foul, won't pay anything. Where's the Squire? He and I have
+      not yet settled the little business I came about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Grimes, perhaps you are not aware that my father-in-law is
+      dangerously ill&mdash;can enter upon no business, and see no person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In-deed?&rdquo; His thorough insolence of manner brought Agatha's dignity back.
+      She remembered that she was a lady belonging to the house, and that this
+      fellow, whose behaviour made his grey hairs so little worthy of respect,
+      was her father-in-law's invited guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; she said, drawing up her little figure, and trying to look as much
+      Mrs. Locke Harper as possible, &ldquo;you must be aware that in the present
+      state of the house a stranger's presence is undesirable. It is not too
+      late to order the carriage. Will you favour me by going to sleep at
+      Kingcombe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Grimes looked disposed to object; but she had her hand on the bell,
+      and her manner, though perfectly civil, was resolute&mdash;so resolute,
+      that he became humble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mrs. Harper, I'm willing to oblige a former client, but I should
+      like to put to you a few questions before leaving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First&mdash;what's wrong with the old gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has had a paralytic stroke&mdash;probably caused, the doctor says, by
+      some great shock, which was too much for him, being an old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other old man looked uneasy, as though some touch of nature smote him
+      for the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't think&rdquo;&mdash;here he crept backward, shambling and cowardly&mdash;&ldquo;you
+      don't think I had any hand in causing this&mdash;this very melancholy
+      occurrence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo; There was undisguised scorn in Agatha's lip. As if any Mr. Grimes
+      could do harm to a Harper! &ldquo;Nothing of the kind&mdash;pray do not disquiet
+      your conscience unnecessarily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I did bring him unpleasant news, for which I'm rather sorry now. I
+      had much better have told his son. When shall I be likely to see my friend
+      Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend Nathanael! Agatha could have crushed him and stamped upon him,
+      had he been worth it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Locke Harper,&rdquo; she said, trying hard to keep her temper&mdash;&ldquo;Mr.
+      Locke Harper will be at home to-morrow night. You can then make to him any
+      communications you please. At the present, the greatest benefit you can
+      confer on this sad house is to absent yourself from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Pon my life, Mrs. Harper, you might waste a little more breath on me,
+      lest I might think it worth while to spend a little too much breath on you
+      and yours. Do you know what claim I have upon your family?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That of being Major Harper's lawyer, I believe, and possibly mine before
+      my marriage. It is not likely that my husband has continued to use your
+      services afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha said this sharply, for she was annoyed to feel herself in such
+      total darkness regarding her husband's affairs. For a moment she felt half
+      alarmed at the expression, &ldquo;My friend Nathanael.&rdquo; Could they be allied, he
+      and this disagreeable man? Could Grimes have acquired any power over him,
+      that he was smiling in such a sinister, mysterious way?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My services? Really, Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must
+      be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's
+      services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out of
+      nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explain yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady, is it possible you don't know the unfortunate
+      circumstance, at least one of the unfortunate circumstances which brought
+      me here? Why, Mr. Locke Harper knew it months ago. He and I had several
+      conferences together on the subject. But we husbands are obliged to be
+      uncommunicative, as my wife would tell you, if you had the pleasure of
+      knowing Mrs. Grimes&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you keep to the point, sir?&rdquo; said Agatha, sternly. She felt very
+      stern&mdash;very bitter. The old wound was reopening sorer than ever.
+      Nathanael had &ldquo;held conferences&rdquo; with this fellow&mdash;confided to him
+      secrets which he had not told to her&mdash;his own wife! Here was a new
+      pang&mdash;a new indignity. In its sharpness she forgot everything else;
+      even the silent room overhead. She had just self-possession and pride
+      enough not to question; she would have been more than human had she not
+      paused to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Grimes!&rdquo; she said, confronting him, her hand still on the door,
+      where she had placed it as a mute signal which he refused to understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I own, Mrs. Harper, it is a hard case. At the time I really felt as sorry
+      for you as if you had been my own daughter. All to happen so soon after
+      your marriage, too! Some persons might blame me for consenting to keep
+      back the facts, but I assure you Major Harper compelled me to draw up the
+      settlement exactly according to his orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir&mdash;will you hasten&mdash;my time is occupied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So is mine, madam; fully occupied. I shall waste no more of it in giving
+      advice to young women who are as proud as peacocks, and as poor as
+      church-mice. If it wasn't for that highly respectable young man, your
+      husband, I should say it served you right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; said Agatha, beneath her breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Locke Harper found out, a month after his marriage, that somebody had
+      made ducks and drakes of all his wife's property. So, as I hear, the poor
+      young man has had to turn land-steward just to keep his kitchen fire
+      burning. That's all. Very odd you don't know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you take it quietly enough. You seem quite satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Grimes regarded her in perfect bewilderment. She showed no token of
+      dismay or grief, but stood calmly by the open door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not satisfied though,&rdquo; cried he, at last growing heated&mdash;&ldquo;I'm
+      not going to have shareholders coming down upon me, and be hunted from
+      London and from my profession, just because Major Harper&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather not hear of Major Harper, or any one else, to-night. Once
+      more&mdash;will you oblige me by leaving?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her thorough self-possession, her air of command&mdash;controlled the man
+      in spite of himself. He moved away, bidding her a civil good-night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Mr. Grimes; I will light you to the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; He gave a grunt&mdash;seemed inclined to hesitate&mdash;looked up
+      at Mrs. Harper, and&mdash;obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha came slowly back through the hall, feeling all stunned and
+      stupified. She sat down, smoothed her hair back with her hands, heaved one
+      or two weary sighs, and tried to think what had happened to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, I am no heiress. I have lost all my money, and am quite poor. He
+      knows it&mdash;knew it a long time ago, and did not tell me. Why did he
+      not tell me, I wonder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was a pause. For a moment she felt inclined to doubt the fact itself;
+      truthful people have little suspicion of chicanery or falsehood, and when
+      she came to think, innumerable circumstances confirmed Grime's statement.
+      Yes, it must be true. This, then, was Nathanael's secret. Why had he kept
+      it from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As if he thought I cared for money! As if&rdquo;&mdash;and a choking filled her
+      throat&mdash;&ldquo;as if I would have minded being ever so poor did he only
+      love me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought burst out naturally, like water forcing its way through muddy
+      reeds&mdash;showing how, deep down, there lay the living spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, let me consider. He must have had some strong reason for keeping
+      this secret. It cost him much; he said so. But I never heeded that. How I
+      wearied him about not taking the house; how angry I was at his acceptance
+      of the stewardship. And it was for me he wished to toil&mdash;for me, and
+      for our daily bread! Yet he would not tell me. And all the while he must
+      have had numberless cares and anxieties without, and his own wife blindly
+      tormenting him at home. Last of all I called him <i>mercenary</i>. And
+      what did he answer? Nothing! Not one reproach&mdash;not one word of anger.
+      Yet still&mdash;he kept his secret Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here she paused again. All was mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might have been through tenderness&mdash;to save me pain. Yet no&mdash;for
+      he could not but see how his silence stung me. Then since he kept not this
+      secret for love of me&mdash;and I am hardly worth such loving&mdash;it
+      must have been from some motive, perhaps higher than love&mdash;some bond
+      of honour which he could not break. Did he not say something to that
+      effect once? Let me think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she sat down, and so far as her excited feelings would allow, tried
+      to recall the story of their acquaintance, courtship, marriage&mdash;a
+      six-month's tale&mdash;how brief, yet how full. Amidst its confusion,
+      amidst all the variations of her own feelings, stood out one steadfast
+      image&mdash;her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His character was peculiar&mdash;very peculiar. Its strength, reticence,
+      power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension; but
+      its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour&mdash;she could
+      understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral right
+      that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of wounding
+      the wife he loved&mdash;if he ever had loved her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on this
+      one point of torture&mdash;then it settled. &ldquo;<i>God knows I did love you,
+      Agatha</i>.&rdquo; He had said so&mdash;he who never uttered a falsehood. It was
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet he '<i>did</i>' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied
+      him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last
+      insulting wrong. I&mdash;to tell him he 'married me for my money'&mdash;when
+      all the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word.
+      Oh, no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never
+      can love me any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She burst into a passion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a
+      sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright,
+      clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous attitude of a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a better thing than love&mdash;goodness. And whether he loves me
+      or not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have
+      been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My noble
+      husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this in a delirium of joy&mdash;a woman's pure joy, when she can
+      set aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of
+      the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her
+      features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the house&mdash;misfortune
+      following&mdash;and she had given way to that burst of joy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew her hand across her forehead&mdash;sat down at the table&mdash;wrote
+      the three lines she had intended to Anne Valery, and then went her way, to
+      watch all night long beside her husband's father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A night and a day had passed, and the household had grown somewhat
+      accustomed to the cloud that hung over it. It was but natural. How soon do
+      most families settle themselves after a great shock!&mdash;how easily-does
+      any grief become familiar and bearable! Likewise, saddest thought of all&mdash;how
+      seldom is any one really missed from among us, painfully missed, for
+      longer than a few days&mdash;a few hours!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By evening, when all Kingcombe was yet talking over the &ldquo;shocking event&rdquo;
+       at Kingcombe Holm, the &ldquo;afflicted family&rdquo; had subsided into its usual ways&mdash;a
+      little more grave perhaps, but still composed. Some voluble fresh grief
+      arose when Anne Valery came&mdash;Anne, ever foremost in entering the
+      house of mourning&mdash;and took her place among the daughters of the
+      family, ready to give sympathy, counsel, and comfort. It was all she was
+      strong enough to do now. The chief position in the household was still
+      left to Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Mason gave his directions and went away. There was nothing more to be
+      done or hoped for. The form which lay in the Squire's bedroom might lie
+      there for days, weeks, months&mdash;without change. The old coachman and
+      his wife watched their master alternately; but he took little notice of
+      them. In every conscious moment his whole attention was fixed upon Agatha.
+      His eyes followed her about the room; when she talked to him he feebly
+      smiled. She could not imagine why this should be, but she felt glad. It
+      was so sweet to know herself in any way a comfort to the father of
+      Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat for hours by the old man's bedside, trying to think of nothing but
+      him. What were all these worldly things, loss of fortune or youth, or even
+      love itself, to the spirit that lay on the verge of a closed life&mdash;passing
+      swiftly into eternity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So she sat and strove to forget all that had happened, or was happening to
+      herself; ay, though every now and then she would start, fancying there was
+      a voice in the hall, or a step at the door. And she would hesitate whether
+      to run away and hide herself from her husband's presence or wait and let
+      him find her in her right place&mdash;beside his dying father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then&mdash;how would he meet her? how look&mdash;how speak? Yet these
+      conjectures were selfish. Most likely he would scarcely notice her&mdash;his
+      heart would be so full of other thoughts. What right had she, his erring
+      wife, to obtrude herself upon his feelings at such a time? She could only
+      look at him, and watch him, and silently help him in everything. Alas, she
+      might not even dare to comfort him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening the suspense of expectation grew less, from the mere fact
+      of its having lasted so many hours. Agatha went down in the course of
+      dinner. The dining-table looked as usual, only fuller, from the presence
+      of the Dugdales and Miss Valery. Mary had of necessity taken her father's
+      place, but not his chair&mdash;it was put aside against the wall, and
+      nobody looked that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha seated herself next to Miss Valery, quietly&mdash;they were all so
+      very quiet. Anne whispered, &ldquo;How is he?&rdquo; and the rest listened for the
+      answer&mdash;the usual answer, which all foreboded. Then Harriet made an
+      attempt to speak of other things&mdash;of how the rain pattered against
+      the window-panes, and what an ill night it was for Nathanael's journey.
+      She even began to doubt whether he would come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is sure to come,&rdquo; said Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And while she was yet speaking there swept round the house a wild burst of
+      storm, in the midst of which were faintly discerned the sound of a horse's
+      feet. They all cried out&mdash;&ldquo;He is here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute more and he was in the room&mdash;drenched through&mdash;flushed
+      with riding against wind and rain. But it was himself, his own self, and
+      his wife saw him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When those who are much thought of return from absence, for the first
+      minute they almost always seem unlike the image in our hearts.&mdash;It
+      was not thus that Agatha had remembered her husband. Not thus&mdash;abrupt,
+      agitated: anything but the calm and grave Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked eagerly round the room&mdash;all rose: but Miss Valery was the
+      first to take his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, Anne, I knew you would be with them. Is he&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the same&mdash;no change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man breathed hard. &ldquo;Are you all here?&rdquo; He took his three sisters
+      and kissed them one after the other, silently, brotherly&mdash;Anne
+      likewise. There was one left out&mdash;his wife, who had hidden behind the
+      rest. But soon she heard her name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Agatha with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She approached. Her husband took her hand&mdash;paused a moment&mdash;and
+      then touched her cheek with his lips, as he had done to his sisters. He
+      did not look at her or speak&mdash;it seemed as if he were not able.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They drew round Nathanael, nearly all weeping. There was, as is natural at
+      such times, an unusual outburst of family tenderness. And, as was natural
+      also, no one seemed to think of the young wife&mdash;the stranger in the
+      circle. Agatha slid away from the group and disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after, she had taken her usual place in the sickroom. It had
+      struck her that the old man ought to be prepared for his son's coming, so
+      she had at once proceeded to his bedside. But it was useless&mdash;he was
+      sleeping. She sat down noiselessly in her old seat, and watched, as she
+      had done for many an hour in this long day, the smiling portrait at the
+      foot of the bed&mdash;her husband's mother, whom he never saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While she sat, footsteps entered the room. Agatha turned quickly round to
+      motion the intruder to silence, and perceived that it was Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She fancied&mdash;nay, was sure&mdash;that he started when he saw her.
+      Still, he came forward. She rose, and would have given him her seat, but
+      he put his hand on her shoulder, and gently pressed her down again. The
+      old servant who watched near her went respectfully to the further end of
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a solemn scene; the dim light&mdash;the total silence, broken only
+      by the feeble breathing of the old man, who lay passive as death, without
+      death's sanctity of calm. Over all, that gay youthful portrait which the
+      lamp-light, excluded from the bed, kindled into wonderfully vivid life&mdash;far
+      more like life than the sleeper below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man stood mournfully watching his father, until startled by a
+      flash of fire-light on the canvas, his eyes wandered to the painted smile
+      of his unknown mother, and then turned back again to the pillows&mdash;the
+      same pillows where she died.. His fingers began to twitch nervously,
+      though his features remained still. Slowly, Agatha saw large tears rise
+      and roll down his cheeks. Her heart yearned over her husband, but she
+      dared not speak. She could but weep&mdash;not outwardly, but inwardly,
+      with exceeding bitter pangs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the old man stirred. Agatha remembered her duty as nurse, and
+      hastily whispered her husband:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you should move aside for a minute. Don't let him see you
+      suddenly&mdash;it will startle him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is thoughtful of you. But who will tell him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will&mdash;he is used to me. Are you awake, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael caught the word, and looked surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear father,&rdquo; she continued, soothingly, &ldquo;will you not try to wake now?
+      Here is some one come to see you&mdash;some one you will be glad to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Squire's eyes grew wild; he uttered a thick, painful murmur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one who was sure to come when he knew you were ill&mdash;your son.&rdquo;
+       She paused, shocked at the frenzied expression of the old man's face. &ldquo;Nay&mdash;your
+      younger son&mdash;Nathanael&mdash;may he come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She perceived some faint assent, beckoned to her husband, saw him take her
+      place at the bedside, and then stole away, leaving the son alone with his
+      father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha rejoined the rest of the family. They were all sitting talking
+      together as Nathanael had left them. After her leaving, they said, he had
+      hardly spoken at all, but had gone up directly after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In about half-an-hour he re-appeared&mdash;greatly agitated. His sisters
+      all turned to him as he entered, but he avoided their eyes. Agatha never
+      lifted hers; she sat in a dim corner behind Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of him, Nathanael?&rdquo; asked Mary, in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot yet tell; I want to hear how he was seized. Which of you saw
+      most of him yesterday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one, unless it was Agatha. He was shut up in his study until she
+      came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who has been most with him since?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A soft expression dawned in the young man's eyes as they sought the dim
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will Agatha tell me what <i>she</i> thinks of my father's state?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This appeal, so direct&mdash;so unexpected&mdash;could not be gainsaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, when Nathanael addressed her, Agatha's agitation was so visible that
+      it attracted observation&mdash;especially Mrs. Dugdale's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo; said Harrie, compassionately, &ldquo;how pale she looks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No wonder,&rdquo; Mary added. &ldquo;She is more worn out than any of us. She sat up
+      all last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael's eyes were on his wife again, full of ineffable gentleness.
+      &ldquo;Agatha, come over and rest in this armchair. I want to talk to you about
+      my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She obeyed. He spoke in a low voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel deeply your having been so kind to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was right. I was glad to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think caused his illness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Mason said it was probably some severe mental shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael looked alarmed. &ldquo;Indeed! and did the rest of the family know
+      anything?&mdash;guess anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband fixed on her a penetrating gaze; she returned it steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha,&rdquo; he hurriedly said, &ldquo;you are a sensible girl&mdash;more so than
+      any of my sisters. I want to consult with you alone. Come and walk up and
+      down the room with me where they cannot overhear us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so. How strange it was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think my father had any sudden ill news? Did he see any person
+      yesterday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A stranger came to him. Your brother's lawyer, Mr. Grimes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grimes? Oh, my poor father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down abruptly. Agatha wondered at his mingling the two names. What
+      should Grimes have to do with his father?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did any one else see Grimes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he say to you? Was it&rdquo;&mdash;he dropped his head, and spoke half
+      inaudibly&mdash;&ldquo;Was it anything about my brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha marvelled, even with a sort of pain. Father, brother, every one
+      before her! &ldquo;He never named Major Harper, that I can remember. But he
+      said&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha drew back. How could she speak of such petty things as money and
+      fortune then! She answered softly, and with a full heart:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind. It was a mere trifle, not worth telling, or even thinking of
+      now. Another time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael regarded his wife doubtfully, but she bore the look. She was
+      speaking the simple truth. Loss of fortune did seem &ldquo;a mere trifle&rdquo; now,
+      when he was safe back again, and she sat in his presence, he talking to
+      her as gently as in the olden time. Her simplicity in worldly things was
+      so extreme that even Nathanael passed it over as impossible. He only said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, all must come out ere long. We cannot think of it now. Tell me more
+      about my poor father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is little more to tell. His manner was rather strange, I thought,
+      all dinner-time. He drank healths as usual&mdash;especially yours. His
+      mind was wandering then, for he called you his <i>only</i> son. Then Mr.
+      Grimes gave another toast&mdash;Major Harper. At that moment your father
+      fell from his chair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael started up&mdash;&ldquo;I knew it would be so. He could not bear such
+      shame&mdash;my poor old father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael,&rdquo; cried Harrie, from the fireside group, &ldquo;come and give us your
+      opinion. I say that he ought to be sent for at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael cried out violently, as if self-control were no longer possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never! Here have I used every effort, smothered every feeling, made every
+      sacrifice, to save my poor father from knowing all this&mdash;and in vain!
+      You may talk as you like, but I say Frederick shall never enter these
+      doors. He is as good as his father's murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; cried Anne Valery, going to him while the others stood aghast. She
+      only knew what fearful storms can be roused in these quiet natures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not hush. I have been silent too long over his wrong-doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But some&rdquo;&mdash;breathed Anne scarce audibly&mdash;&ldquo;some whom he wronged
+      have been silent for a lifetime.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael paused; Anne's reasoning was from facts unknown to him; but he
+      saw the agony in her face. She continued in a whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be slow to judge him, if only for his sisters' sakes&mdash;his dead
+      mother's&mdash;the honour of the family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have thought only too much of all these things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, for his father's sake&mdash;his father, who is going away to the
+      other world leaving a son unforgiven. Beware how you not only take your
+      brother's birthright, but seal your brother's curse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbid. Oh, Anne&mdash;Anne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pressed his hand over his eyes, and leaned back a moment&mdash;leaning,
+      though he did not know it, against his wife, who had stolen behind his
+      chair. No one else came near; they all shrank from their brother as if he
+      were suddenly gone mad. Looking up, he saw only Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Anne; I cannot control myself as I used to do: I have been
+      very ill lately, but don't tell my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne took no notice; perhaps she wished the wife should learn the
+      husband's real heart as she&mdash;his old friend&mdash;knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think I would harm Frederick. Not for worlds. Do you know,&rdquo; and his
+      voice lowered, &ldquo;I dare not trust myself even to be just over his misdeeds,
+      lest I should be slaying my enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your enemy? It is too hard a word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! it is true.&rdquo; He glanced round, perceiving no one near but Miss
+      Valery. &ldquo;Anne,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;do you remember the parable of Nathan? Why
+      did he do it&mdash;the cruel rich man who had enjoyed so much all his
+      life? Why did he steal my one little ewe-lamb?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; cried Anne, with a sudden suspicion waking in her. &ldquo;I don't
+      clearly understand. Tell me again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he said recovering himself. &ldquo;I have nothing to tell&mdash;But we
+      are wasting time. Anne, it shall be as you say.&rdquo; And he drew a long hard
+      breath. &ldquo;Which of us had best write to my brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rising, he found out who had been behind him. He looked horrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha!&mdash;did you overhear me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The suspicion wounded her to the core. Her pride and sense of justice were
+      alike roused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have no fear, Mr. Harper,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;I shall not betray your secrets. I
+      do not even comprehend them; except that I think it very wicked for
+      brothers to be such enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; continued Agatha, growing bolder, as she was prone to do on the
+      side of the mysteriously wronged, &ldquo;I would have sent for Major Harper
+      myself, had not your father seemed unwilling. But the eldest son ought to
+      be here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall be&mdash;your husband will write,&rdquo; interposed Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The husband moved away. He had thoroughly frozen up again into the
+      Nathanael of old, whose coldness jarred against every ardent impulse of
+      Agatha's temperament&mdash;rousing, irritating her into opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no need for him to trouble himself. What was right to be done
+      has luckily not waited for <i>his</i> doing it. Elizabeth herself informed
+      her brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This afternoon. I sent the letter myself to Mr. Trenchard's, where I
+      found out he had been staying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mrs. Harper said this, her husband's eyes literally glared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew where he was staying?&mdash;Agatha&mdash;Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Agatha's look was fixed on the door, to which her sisters-in-law had
+      gathered hastily. There was a talking outside&mdash;a welcome as it
+      seemed. She forgot everything except her sense of right and justice to one
+      unwarrantably and unaccountably blamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is surely he,&rdquo; she cried, and ran eagerly forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two brothers, elder and younger, stood confronting each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth sent for me&mdash;Elizabeth only showed me that kindness. Oh,
+      it was very cruel of you all&mdash;you should have told me my father was
+      dying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It must have been a hard heart that could have closed itself altogether
+      against Frederick Harper now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leant against the doorway, the miserable ghost of his gay self. Born
+      only for summer weather, on him any real blast of remorse or misfortune
+      fell suddenly, entirely, overthrowing the whole man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth says it happened yesterday; and must have been because&mdash;because
+      Grimes&mdash;Oh, God forgive me! it is I that have killed my father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one shrank back. None of his sisters understood what he meant; but
+      the mere expression seemed to draw a line of demarcation between them and
+      the self-convicted man. Agatha only approached him&mdash;she felt so very
+      sorry for her old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not talk in this way, Major Harper. If you did vex him in any
+      way, it is very sad; but he will forgive you now. You cannot have done any
+      real harm to your father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her kind voice, her perfectly guileless manner, struck each of the
+      brothers with various emotion. The eyes of both met on her face: Frederick
+      dropped his, and groaned; Nathanael's brightened. For the first time he
+      addressed his brother:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, she is right; you must not talk thus. Compose yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in vain; his easy temperament was plunged into depths of childish
+      weakness. &ldquo;Oh, what have I done? You said truly, it would kill him to hear
+      <i>that</i>. And my heedlessness drove Grimes to go and tell him. Yes,
+      your prophecy was true: I have been the disgrace of our house&mdash;the
+      destruction of my father. What shall I do, Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he held out his hands to his younger brother in the helplessness of
+      despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first thing, Frederick, is for you to be silent Anne, take my sisters
+      away; my brother and I have something to say to one another. What? no one
+      will go? Then, brother, come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other rose mechanically; Agatha likewise. She began to put
+      circumstances together, and guess darkly at what was amiss. Probably she
+      herself had to do with it. She remembered in what strict honour the old
+      Squire held the duty of a guardian, as he had shown in what he said about
+      his own relation to Anne Valery. Perhaps some carelessness of his son's
+      had caused her own loss of fortune. Yet that was not a thing to break his
+      father's heart, or harden his brother's against him. Mere chance it must
+      have been; ill-luck, or at the worst carelessness. There could not be any
+      real dishonour in Major Harper. And after all what was money, when they
+      could be so much happier without it? She determined to go to her husband
+      and openly say so, telling all that had come to her knowledge of their
+      secrets. They should no longer be angry with one another&mdash;if it were
+      on her account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So she followed after them, with her soft, noiseless step; and when the
+      two brothers stood together in their father's deserted study, there she
+      was between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha!&rdquo; They both uttered her name&mdash;the elder in much confusion. He
+      had seemed all along as though he could scarcely bear the sight of her
+      innocent face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't send me away,&rdquo; she said, laying a hand on either. &ldquo;I know I am a
+      young ignorant thing, and you are wise men; but perhaps a straightforward
+      girl may be as wise as you. Why are you angry with one another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both looked uncomfortable. Major Harper tried to throw the question off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we angry with one another? Nay, I am sure&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't deceive me&mdash;this is no time for making pretences of any kind.
+      What is this quarrel between you two?&rdquo; And she turned from one to the
+      other her fearless eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper could not meet them; Nathanael did, calmly, but sorrowfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, I cannot tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can tell <i>you</i>; and I will, for it is right. Major Harper, do
+      not be unhappy. Believe me, I care not one jot for all the money I ever
+      had. If you have lost it, I am sure it was accidentally. You would not
+      wilfully wrong me of a straw.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Major Harper groaned. Nathanael stood speechless with amazement. At
+      length he said, very gently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you find this out, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Grimes told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that all he told?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper looked relieved. Nathanael watched him sternly. After a while
+      he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, this is the right time to explain all. Do not start; you need
+      not fear <i>me</i>; in any case I shall hold to my promise. But if you
+      would explain&mdash;for my sake, for others' sake&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other shrank away. &ldquo;No, not now,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;oh! brother, not now.
+      Give me a little time. Don't disgrace me before her&mdash;before them
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael's stature rose. Without again speaking, he shook his brother's
+      hand from off his shoulder with a gesture, slight yet full of meaning, and
+      turned towards Agatha. He seemed to yearn over her, though he checked
+      every expression of feeling except the softness of his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad you have found out we are poor&mdash;that in some things my
+      wife may see I have not been so cruel to her as she thought.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha's cheeks crimsoned with emotion. Why&mdash;why were they not alone
+      that she need not have smothered it down, and stood so quiet that he
+      believed she did not feel? He went on, rather more sadly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is not a time to talk of our own affairs; you shall know all ere
+      long. Will you be content until then?&rdquo; And he held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took it, looking eagerly into his face. There was something there so
+      intrinsically noble and true! Though his conduct yet seemed strange&mdash;unreasonable
+      towards her, harsh towards his brother, still, in defiance of all, there
+      was that in his countenance which compelled faith. And there was that in
+      her own heart, a something neither reason nor conviction, but transcending
+      both, which leaped to him as through intervening darkness light leaps to
+      light. She felt that she must believe in her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed partly to understand this, and smiled&mdash;a pale, faint smile,
+      that quickly vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Agatha,&rdquo; he said, opening the door for her, &ldquo;go and see how my
+      father is, and then you must go to bed. I will sit up with him to-night. I
+      cannot have my poor wife killing herself with watching.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice sunk tenderly; he even put out his hand, as if to stroke her
+      hair after his old habit, but drew it back&mdash;Major Harper was looking
+      on. Again the dark fire, lit so fatally on his marriage-day, and since
+      then sometimes fiercely raging, sometimes smothered down to a mere spark,
+      yet never wholly extinguished, rose up in the young man's strong,
+      self-contained, strangely silent heart. Would his pride never let it burst
+      forth, that, mingling with the common air, it might burn itself to
+      nothingness! But how many a whole life has been tortured and consumed by
+      just such a little flame, a mere spark, let fall by some evil tongue which
+      is set on fire of hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they paused&mdash;the wife waiting, she knew not for what, except
+      that it seemed so easy to follow and so hard to quit her husband&mdash;there
+      was a cry heard on the staircase at the foot of which they stood. Mrs.
+      Dugdale came running down in terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael&mdash;Agatha&mdash;I have told my father that Fred is here. Oh,
+      come to him, do come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No time for pitiful earthly passions, jealousies, and regrets. Nathanael
+      ran quick as lightning, his wife following. But at the door of the
+      sick-room even she recoiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man sat up in bed, raised on pillows; either the paralysis had not
+      been so entire as was at first supposed, or he had slightly recovered from
+      it. His right arm moved feebly; his tongue was loosed, though only in a
+      half-intelligible jabber. But his countenance showed that, however lay the
+      miserable body, the poor old man was in his right mind. Alas! that mind
+      was not at peace, not lighted with the holy glow cast on the dying by the
+      world to come, It was filled with rage and torment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael ran to him, &ldquo;Father, father, you will destroy yourself. What is
+      it you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was unintelligible to his son, but Agatha gathered from it that
+      the chamber-door was to be shut and bolted. She did so; yet even then the
+      sick man's fury scarce abated. Broken words&mdash;curses that the helpless
+      lips refused to ratify; terrible outbursts of wrath, mingled with the
+      piteous moan of senility. Last of all came the name, once given proudly by
+      the young father to his first-born, and now gasped out with maledictions
+      from the same father's dying lips&mdash;&ldquo;Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael and Agatha looked at one another with horror. They both knew
+      that the old Squire was bent on driving from his death-bed his own, his
+      first-born son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha instinctively held down the palsied hands, which were trying to
+      lift themselves towards heaven&mdash;not in prayers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, don't say&mdash;don't even think such terrible things. Whatever
+      he has done, forgive him!&mdash;for the love of God, forgive him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man regarded her, and his excitement seemed redoubled. Agatha
+      fancied it was the father's pride, dreading lest she, a stranger, knew the
+      cause of his anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;I scarcely understand anything; my husband would not
+      tell me. Whatever has happened can all be hushed up. We would forgive
+      anything to a brother&mdash;oh, would we not?&rdquo; And she appealed to
+      Nathanael, who stood motionless, great drops lying on his forehead, though
+      his features were so still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true, father,&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;No one knows anything but me, and I
+      have kept your honour safe that he might redeem it some time. Perhaps he
+      may. And remember, he is your son&mdash;the first-born of his mother.
+      Hush, Agatha!&rdquo; Nathanael continued, as he saw a sudden change come over
+      the old man's face. &ldquo;Don't say any more now. Leave me to talk with my
+      father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the grave tenderness that he always showed her, he took his wife by
+      the hand, led her to the door, and closed it. Greatly moved, yet feeling
+      satisfied he would do what was right, Agatha obeyed and went down-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sisters and brother were assembled in the study. Marmaduke was there
+      too, but took little part in the family lamentation, except in keeping a
+      perpetual tender watch over the grief of his own Harrie. Anne Valery was
+      absent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick Harper sat apart. A sullen gloom had succeeded to his misery&mdash;with
+      him no feeling ever lasted long, at least in the same form. Harriet and
+      Eulalie were inspecting with great curiosity their elder brother, whose
+      presence among his long-estranged household seemed accompanied with such a
+      mysterious discomfort. They eyed him doubtfully, as if he had done
+      something very wrong that nobody knew of. Mary only, who was next eldest
+      to himself, ventured to address some kind words, and bestir herself about
+      his comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the family sat, Agatha among them, for more than an hour. No one
+      thought of going to bed. All remained together, in a strangely quiet,
+      subdued state, Major Harper being with them all the time, though he hardly
+      spoke, or they to him. He seemed a stranger in his father's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once when he had gone for a few minutes to Elizabeth's room&mdash;he had
+      been with Elizabeth long before his coming was known to any of the rest,
+      it was believed&mdash;Mary began in her lengthy wandering way to tell
+      anecdotes of his boyish doings; how handsome he was, and how naughty too;
+      and how, when he got into disgrace, she, by the scheming of Elizabeth,
+      used secretly to carry bread-and-honey and apples to his bedroom. And she
+      wiped her eyes, the good, plain-looking sister Mary, saying over and over
+      again,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Fred!&rdquo; She never thought of him, like the world, as &ldquo;Major Frederick
+      Harper,&rdquo; but only as &ldquo;Poor Fred!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Several times Agatha stole up-stairs to the door of the room which
+      enclosed the sorrow-mystery of the house. It was always shut, but she
+      could hear Nathanael's voice within&mdash;his soft, kind voice, talking
+      quietly by the bedside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never see anything like 'un,&rdquo; said the coachman's wife, who sat without
+      the door. &ldquo;He do manage th' Squire just as the poor dear Missus did. He do
+      talk just like his mother.&rdquo; And that was evidently the perfection of
+      everything in the old woman's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha sat down beside her on the staircase, listening to the wind
+      without, that swept fiercely over the hollow in which Kingcombe Holm lay,
+      as if ready to bear away on its pinions a departing soul. It was an awful
+      night to die in. Agatha listened, sensitive to every one of its terrors.
+      But above them all&mdash;above the shadow of coming death, fear of the
+      future, anxiety in the present&mdash;rose one thought&mdash;the thought of
+      her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It gave her no pain&mdash;it gave her no joy&mdash;yet there it was, a
+      visible image sitting strong and calm in the half-lighted chamber of her
+      heart, every feeling of which crept to its feet and lay there, like
+      priestesses in the twilight before a veiled god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael at last opened the door. He looked like one who has struggled
+      and conquered not only with things without, but things within. His face
+      had all the pallor, but likewise all the peace of victory. Agatha rose to
+      meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been waiting for me this long while? Good child!&rdquo; And he smiled,
+      but solemnly, as with an inward sense of the Presence which makes all
+      things equal&mdash;softens all asperities and calms all passions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know where my brother is?&rdquo; asked Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down-stairs, with the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go and fetch him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha looked up at her husband half incredulously. &ldquo;Have you then
+      succeeded? Is all made right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how good&mdash;how good you are!&rdquo; She grasped his hands and kissed
+      them, her eyes floating in tears; then, lest he should be displeased, ran
+      quickly away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery met her at the stairhead, coming from the gallery where were
+      Elizabeth's rooms. They exchanged the usual question, &ldquo;How is he now?&rdquo; and
+      then Agatha said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be glad with me! I am sent to fetch Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne pressed her hand. &ldquo;Go and tell him. He is with Elizabeth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And there Agatha found him overcome with grief&mdash;the gay, handsome
+      Major Harper! steadfast neither in good nor evil. He sat, his head bent,
+      his hair falling disordered, its greyness showing, oh! so plain. Plainer
+      still were the wrinkles which a life of smiles had carved only the deeper
+      round the mouth&mdash;token of how near upon him was creeping a desolate
+      unhonoured age. By his side, talking softly, with his hand in hers, lay
+      the crippled sister, perhaps the only living creature who really loved
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Harper,&rdquo; Agatha spoke softly, laying her hand upon his shoulder.
+      The poor broken-down man, dropping into old age! there was no fear of his
+      thinking she was in love with him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sent to fetch you to your father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked incredulous;&mdash;Agatha repeated her message.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband sent me. Your father wishes very much to see you. Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elizabeth!&rdquo; He turned to her as if she could make him understand this
+      incomprehensible news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth clasped his hand and loosed it. She said nothing, but Agatha saw
+      she was weeping for joy. Her brother rose and went through the long
+      gallery they passed, his sister-in-law carrying the light, and leading
+      him. He had quite forgotten his courteous manners now. Agatha thought of
+      the days in London&mdash;when he had escorted her to operas, and murmured
+      over her in drawing-rooms, making her so happy and honoured in his notice.
+      Poor Major Harper! How vain were all the shows of his brilliant life, the
+      men who had courted him, the women who had flattered and admired him!
+      Agatha forgave him all his follies&mdash;ay even all the hearts he had
+      broken. There was not one of those poor hearts, not one, on which he could
+      rest his tired head now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of their father's room Nathanael met him, a new and more
+      righteous Jacob dealing with a more desolate Esau. And like Esau's was the
+      cry that broke from Frederick Harper as he went in and flung himself on
+      his knees by the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Bless me&mdash;even me also&mdash;O' my father.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no answer. The words of forgiveness were denied his hearing. The
+      old Squire could but look at his son, and move his lips in an articulate
+      murmur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha ran to Major Harper's side. It was pitiful to see the shock he had
+      received, and the frenzied way in which he called upon his father to speak&mdash;if
+      only one word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He cannot speak, you know, but he does indeed forgive you. Be sure that
+      he forgives you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband drew her away to the little curtained alcove which had been
+      Mrs. Harper's dressing-room. There they stood, close together&mdash;for
+      Nathanael did not let her go, and she clung to him in tears&mdash;while
+      the father and son had their reconciliation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was silent throughout, for after the first burst, Major Harper was not
+      heard to speak. Now and then came a sound like the smothered sob of a boy.
+      No one saw the faces of father and son; they were bent together, just as
+      when, years upon years ago, the proud father had sometimes condescended to
+      let his baby son, his first-born and heir, go to sleep upon his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, after many minutes, Nathanael found them lying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held the curtain aside to see his father's countenance; it was very
+      peaceful now, though with a dimness gathering in the open eyes. Agatha had
+      never before seen that look&mdash;the unmistakable shadow of death. She
+      shrank back, trembling violently. Her husband put his arm round her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be afraid, my child,&rdquo; he whispered, using the old word and tone.
+      She rested on him, and was quieted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we had better call them all in now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I fetch them?&rdquo; said his wife, and went out, flitting once more
+      through the still, ghostly house. But she thought of her husband, of his
+      last word and look, and had no fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came in, all that were now living of the old man's children&mdash;save
+      one&mdash;the poor Elizabeth. They stood round the bed, a full circle, his
+      two sons, his three daughters, his son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and
+      lastly Anne Valery. She was the palest and most serene of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus for an hour or more they waited&mdash;so slow was the last closing of
+      the long-drawn-out life. There was no pain or struggle; merely the ebbing
+      away of breath. The palsied hands, white and beautiful to the last, lay
+      smooth on the counterpane; and when occasionally one or other of his
+      daughters knelt down and kissed him, the old man feebly smiled. But
+      whenever he opened his eyes, they travelled no farther than to the face of
+      his eldest son&mdash;rested there, brightened and closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus, lying quietly in the midst of his children, at daybreak the old
+      Squire died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The old man was gathered to his fathers.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was the day after that on which he had been borne to the place
+      appointed for all living. A new coffin rested beside that of Catherine
+      Harper in the family vault; the portrait still smiled, but on an empty
+      bed. There was no separation now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Kingcombe Holm the house had awakened from its sleep of mourning; the
+      shutters were opened, and the sunshine came in familiarly on the familiar
+      rooms&mdash;where was missed the presence of him who had abided there for
+      threescore years and ten. But what were they? Counted only as &ldquo;labour and
+      sorrow&rdquo;&mdash;they had all passed away, and he was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The family met&mdash;a large table circle. They looked melancholy, all in
+      their weeds, but otherwise were as usual. A certain gravity and under-tone
+      in speaking alone remained. Mary had again begun to busy herself over her
+      housekeeping; and Eulalie, looking prettier than ever in her black dress,
+      was listening with satisfaction to the Reverend Mr. Thorpe, a worthy,
+      simple young man, who had come at once to pay the family of his affianced
+      the respect of attending the funeral, and to plan another ceremony, when
+      the decent term of mourning should be expired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper, now recovering something of his old elasticity of manner,
+      took the place at the foot of the breakfast-table, whence Mary, presiding
+      as usual, cast over to him glances sometimes of pride, sometimes of
+      doubtful curiosity, as if speculating on what sort of a ruler the future
+      head of the house would be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very courteous and graceful one, most surely!&mdash;to judge by the way
+      in which he was doing the agreeable to his sister-in-law. Quite
+      harmlessly, only it seemed as necessary for Major Harper to warm himself
+      in the fair looks of some woman or other, as for a drenched butterfly to
+      dry its wings in the sunshine. He was indeed a poor helpless human
+      butterfly, not made for cloudy weather, storm, or night!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he fluttered in vain; Agatha took no notice of him whatsoever. Her
+      whole nature had deepened down to other things&mdash;things far beneath
+      the shallow ken of Major Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this week, when the numerous duties of the brothers of the family
+      left its womenkind nearly alone, shut up in the house of mourning, with
+      nothing outwardly to do or to think of beyond the fold of crape or a gown,
+      or the make of a bonnet&mdash;Agatha had learnt strange secrets. They were
+      not of Death, but of Love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had seen very little of her husband. Either by necessity or design, he
+      had been almost constantly away; at Thornhurst, arranging business for
+      Miss Valery, who had gone home; sometimes at Kingcombe, in his own house&mdash;his
+      lonely house; and for two days and nights, to the astonishment and slight
+      scandal of his sisters, he had been absent in Cornwall. But wherever he
+      was, or whatever he had to do, he either saw or wrote to his wife every
+      day; kind, grave words, or kinder letters; brother-like in their wisdom
+      and tenderness&mdash;just the sort of tenderness that he seemed to believe
+      she would wish for from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha accepted all&mdash;these brief meetings&mdash;these constant
+      letters; saw the wounding curiosity of his sisters relax, and even Harriet
+      Dugdale acknowledged how mistaken had been her former notions, and on what
+      excellent terms her brother and his wife now evidently were; she really
+      never thought Nathanael would have made such an attentive, affectionate
+      husband! And Agatha smiled outwardly a proud satisfied smile; while
+      inwardly&mdash;-oh, what a crushed, remorseful, passionate heart was
+      there!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heart which now began to know itself&mdash;at once its fulness and its
+      cravings. A heart thirsting for that love, wanting which, marriage is but
+      a dead corrupting body without the soul&mdash;love, the true life-union,
+      consisting of oneness of spirit, sympathy, thought, and will&mdash;love
+      which would have been the same had they lived twenty thousand miles apart,
+      ay, had they never married at all, but waited until eternity united those
+      whom no earthly destinies could altogether put asunder. Now out of her own
+      soul she learnt&mdash;what not one human being in a million learns, and
+      yet the truth remains the same&mdash;the unity, the immortality, the
+      divineness of Love, to which the One Immortal and Divine gave His own
+      name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat in her usual quiet mood, she did everything in such a quiet,
+      self-contained fashion now&mdash;sat, idly talked to by Major Harper, whom
+      she did not hear at all. She only heard, at the further end of the table,
+      Nathanael talking to Mary. Sometimes she stole a glance, and thought how
+      cordial his manner to his sister was, and how tender his eyes could look
+      at times. And she sighed. At her sigh, her husband would turn, see her
+      listening to Frederick with that absent downcast look&mdash;and become
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not an angry jealous silence now&mdash;his whole manner showed how much he
+      honoured and trusted his wife&mdash;but the hush of a deep, abiding pain,
+      a sense of loss which nothing could ever reveal or remove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But men must keep up worldly duties; it is only women, and not all of
+      these, who can afford the luxury of a broken heart. Mr. Harper rose,
+      nerved for the day's task&mdash;a painful one, as all the family knew. The
+      elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who
+      in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this had
+      fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish looks. As
+      he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the aspect of
+      middle age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers
+      in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come.
+      You are quite sure there was a will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking
+      there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him to dinner,
+      but his back was turned, and I could not make him understand&mdash;poor
+      father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and her
+      grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael, going
+      away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between them, though
+      smooth, was invariably formal and rare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?&mdash;you do not wish
+      to share it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no!&rdquo; hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny
+      window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away the
+      bare thought of death and the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael went out&mdash;but ere he had closed the door a little hand
+      touched him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to go with you, if you would allow&mdash;that is, if you
+      would not forbid me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forbid you? Nay! But&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want&mdash;not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets&mdash;but
+      just to sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house
+      now!&rdquo; And she shivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband sighed. &ldquo;Poor child&mdash;such a child to be in the midst of
+      us and our trouble! Come with me if you will.&rdquo; And he took her into the
+      study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one had been there since the father died; directly afterwards some
+      careful hand had locked the door, and brought the key to Nathanael; and it
+      was the only room in the house whose window, undarkened, had met during
+      all that week the eye of day. It felt close with sunshine and want of air.
+      Mr. Harper opened the casement, and placed an arm-chair beside it, where
+      Agatha might look out on the chrysanthemum bed, and the tall evergreen,
+      where a robin sat singing. He pointed out both to her, as if wishing to
+      fortify her with a sense of life and cheerfulness, and then sat down to
+      the gloomy task of looking over his father's papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were very few&mdash;at least those left open in the desk; merely
+      accounts of the estate, kept with brevity and with much apparent labour;
+      sixty years ago literature, nay, education, were at a low ebb among
+      English country gentlemen. But all the papers were so carefully arranged,
+      that Nathanael had nothing to do but to glance over them and tie them up&mdash;simple
+      yearly records of the just life and honest dealings of a good man, who
+      transferred unencumbered to his children the trust left by his ancestors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Nathanael&mdash;breaking the dreary silence&mdash;&ldquo;I think
+      there never was one of the Harper line who lived a long life so
+      stainlessly, so honourably, as my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And somehow, as he tied up the packets, his finger slightly trembled.
+      Agatha came and stood by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me help you; I have ready hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why should I make use of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you not a right?&rdquo; she said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I never claim as a right anything which is not freely given.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I give it. It pleases me to help you,&rdquo; said Agatha, in a low tone,
+      afraid of her own voice. She took the papers from him, and tried to make
+      herself busy, in her innocent way. It cheered her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael watched her for a minute. &ldquo;You are very neat-handed, Agatha, and
+      it is kind of you to help me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I would help any one.&rdquo; Foolish, thoughtless words! He said no more,
+      but went and looked over the cabinet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a sadder duty. There were letters extending over more than a half
+      century. The Squire received so few that he seemed never to have burnt
+      one. The oldest&mdash;fifty years old&mdash;were love-letters, of the time
+      when people wrote love-letters beginning &ldquo;Honoured Miss,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Dear and
+      respected Sir,&rdquo; overlaying the plain heart-truth with no sentimentalisms
+      of the pen. The signatures, &ldquo;Catherine Grey,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Nathanael Harper,&rdquo; in
+      round, formal, girl and boy hand, told how young they were when this
+      correspondence began;&mdash;young still, when its sudden ceasing showed
+      that courtship had become marriage. From that time, for nearly twenty
+      years, there was scarcely a letter signed Catharine Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This looks,&rdquo; said Agatha, who unconsciously to both had come to stand by
+      her husband and share in his task&mdash;&ldquo;this looks as if they were so
+      rarely parted that they had no need for letter-writing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was so: I believe my father and mother lived very happily together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to read these letters all through, if I might? They are the
+      only love-letters I ever saw.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they, indeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sharp questioning look startled Agatha. She remembered that first
+      letter of Nathanael's&mdash;perhaps he was vexed that she had apparently
+      forgotten it&mdash;the letter which had been such a solemn epoch in her
+      young life. She coloured vividly and painfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean&mdash;that is&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband looked another way. &ldquo;You shall have these letters if you so
+      much desire it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. I would like to keep something of your mother's. And she was
+      indeed so happy in her marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very happy, Anne Valery says. My father's was not a perfect temper, but
+      she understood him thoroughly, and he trusted her. He had need; he knew&mdash;what
+      is a rare thing in marriage now-a-days&mdash;that he had been his wife's
+      first love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha made no reply, and the conversation dropped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next to Mrs. Harper's letters, and preserved with almost equal care, was
+      another packet. It began with a child's scrawl&mdash;double-lined, upright
+      and stiff:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Father,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian has ruled me this paper, and ruled Anne another. We are all
+      very merry at Weymouth. We don't want to come home, except to see&rdquo;&mdash;(here
+      a word, apparently &ldquo;<i>ponies</i>&rdquo; had been carefully altered, by a more
+      delicate hand, into something like &ldquo;<i>Papa</i>&rdquo;)&mdash;&ldquo;Anne's love, and
+      everybody's, from your dutiful son,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'<i>Frederick?</i>'&mdash;I thought the letter was yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, if he had kept any it was sure to be my brothers. Frederick must have
+      them back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tie them up,&rdquo; said Agatha stretching out her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;are they so very precious? Why do you want to touch
+      them?&rdquo; said he, sharply, drawing them out of her reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only that I might help you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harper regarded her a moment, and then put back the letters into her
+      lap. &ldquo;Forgive me, I did not mean to be cross with you. But this task
+      confuses me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned his elbow on the cabinet, covering his eyes, and stood thus for
+      two or three minutes. Agatha remained silent&mdash;who could have intruded
+      on the emotion of a son at such a time? None but a wife who could have
+      stolen into his heart with a closer, dearer claim, and she, alas! <i>she</i>
+      dared not. Weeks ago&mdash;when she believed herself wronged&mdash;it
+      would have been far easier. The higher he rose, the lower she sank,
+      weighed down by the bitter humility that always comes with fervent love.
+      She watched him&mdash;her heart throbbing, bursting, yearning to cast
+      itself at his feet&mdash;yet she dared not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now let us look over some other letters. I wonder whether Mary was right,
+      and it is here we shall find the will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, then, was only thinking of letters and wills! Agatha turned away, and
+      went to sit by the window and watch the chrysanthemums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she was attracted back by her husband's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the will, I see, by the endorsement. Take it, Agatha; we will not
+      touch it till the Dugdales come. And here are more letters to my father.
+      Do you think I ought to burn them or look them over first?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The confidential tone in which he spoke soothed Agatha. It was a sort of
+      tacit acknowledgment of her wifely rights to his trust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, suppose you look them over&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; said he, wearily. &ldquo;Will you?&rdquo; And he gave her a handful in her
+      lap. Agatha felt pleased; she thanked him, and turned them over one by
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is a hand which looks like Miss Valery's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hers. Set them by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She opened another, in a careless and very illegible hand, which she could
+      not recognise at all:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Brother,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The approaching marriage in your family, of which you inform me,
+      unfortunately cannot alter my plans. I must recover my lost fortunes
+      abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick told me yesterday his certainty of being accepted by Miss
+      Valery. He might have told me sooner, but perhaps thought me too much of a
+      crusty old bachelor to sympathise with his felicity. Possibly I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ask if Anne has communicated to me the coming change in her life? No.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, brother, and God bless you and yours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;B. L. H.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, this is Uncle Brian!&rdquo; cried Agatha, giving the letter to her
+      husband. He read it, laid it aside without comment, and sat thinking. She
+      did the same. Turning, their eyes met; and they understood each other's
+      thoughts, but apparently neither liked to speak. At last Nathanael said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been so, though I never guessed it before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I did, though she never openly told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it is a strange world!&rdquo; mused the young man. &ldquo;Poor Uncle Brian!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When do you expect him home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any day, every day. Thank God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you not think she seemed a little better yesterday,&rdquo; said Agatha
+      hesitatingly. &ldquo;Just a very little, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little better; is she ill? What, very ill?&rdquo;&mdash;Agatha's mute answer
+      was enough. &ldquo;Oh, poor, poor Anne! And he is coming home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Agatha, shocked to see her husband's emotion&mdash;&ldquo;perhaps
+      if we take great care, and she is very happy,&mdash;people must live when
+      they are happy&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Few would live at all then,&rdquo; was the answer, unwontedly bitter. &ldquo;Better
+      not&mdash;better not; poor Anne! It is a hard, cruel, miserable world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say that, Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started, and Agatha too, for opening the door, with a bright, clear
+      look, was she of whom they were just talking&mdash;Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew I might come in. I heard what you were doing here,&rdquo; and a slight
+      sadness crossed her face. &ldquo;Is it all done, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nearly,&rdquo; and Mrs. Harper hurriedly folded the letter, which lay still on
+      her lap. Miss Valery's eye caught the writing; Nathanael gave it to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne read it; at first with a natural womanly feeling&mdash;nay, even
+      agitation. Soon this ceased, absorbed in the infinite peace and content of
+      her whole mien. &ldquo;I knew all this long ago,&rdquo; she said calmly. &ldquo;It was a&mdash;a
+      <i>mistake</i> of Frederick's.&rdquo;&mdash;Then, still calmly; &ldquo;What do you
+      think I have just heard from Marmaduke!&mdash;He&rdquo;&mdash;there could be but
+      one she meant&mdash;&ldquo;he has safely landed at Havre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian!&rdquo; the young people both cried, and then instinctively
+      repressed the joy. It seemed too sacred to be expressed in ordinary
+      fashion. And passing naturally from one thought to another, Nathanael
+      glanced round the room; the unused desk, the scattered papers left to be
+      examined by the unfamiliar hands of a younger generation. Had the absent
+      one come but a little sooner! &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it seems as if the world's
+      universal sorrow lay in those words, '<i>Too late.'</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery sank on a chair, her temporary strength departing. Her hands
+      dropped into that fold that was peculiar and habitual to them&mdash;a
+      simple attitude, not unlike Chantrey's &ldquo;Resignation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak truly, Nathanael. But 'our times are in <i>His</i> hand.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said no more, and shortly Mr. Harper, taking with him the sealed
+      packet that was endorsed &ldquo;<i>My Will</i>&rdquo; led the way to where the family
+      were assembled. In doing so there grew over him the hard silence always
+      visible when he was much affected. But Agatha was not surprised or hurt:
+      she began to understand him better now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining-room were only the immediate family. Every one knew the
+      probable purport of the will, and how simple a document it was likely to
+      be; for the patriarchal old Squire hated the very mention of law, and it
+      had been his pride that, though not entailed, the inheritance of Kingcombe
+      Holm had descended for centuries unbroken by a single legal squabble.
+      Therefore they all waited indifferently, merely to go through a necessary
+      form; Harriet Dugdale and her husband, Eulalie and her <i>fiancé</i>, and
+      the solitary Mary. Major Harper alone was rather restless, especially when
+      the three others came in from the study. It was noticeable that, with all
+      his smooth manner, Frederick never seemed quite at ease in the presence of
+      Miss Valery. Nevertheless he tried, and successfully, to assume his
+      position as elder brother and present head of the family. He gave Anne a
+      gracious welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I scarcely expected you would have honoured us so far. This is entirely a
+      family meeting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; cried everybody at once, &ldquo;Anne is so thoroughly one of the
+      family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; responded Major Harper, bowing though his brows were knit. He
+      waited till Anne took her seat, and then sat down, silent. Many changes,
+      vivid, and various, passed over his flexible mouth. At last, leaning
+      forward, he hid it with his hand. There was a brief hush in the men, of
+      solemnity&mdash;in the women, of mourning. More than one tear splashed on
+      the black dress of the tender-hearted Mary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael stood&mdash;the will in his hand&mdash;hesitating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me, that as this is a family meeting, we might&mdash;not
+      necessarily, but still out of kindness and respect&mdash;postpone it for a
+      few days, that the only remaining member of the family may be present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is that?&rdquo; said the elder brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One or two voices, especially the Dugdales, seconded this, and eagerly
+      proposed to wait for Uncle Brian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; Major Harper said, hastily. &ldquo;I have engagements. I cannot
+      wait for any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael&mdash;don't argue. Remember, I am the elder brother. Give me my
+      father's will.&rdquo; Nathanael paused a moment, and gave it. &ldquo;The seal has been
+      broken and re-fastened,&rdquo; Frederick added, breaking it with rather nervous
+      hands. He tried to glance over it, but his eyes wandered unsteadily.
+      &ldquo;There, take it and read. I hate business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he threw himself back in his seat, which happened to be the old
+      Squire's especial chair. Agatha thought it was thoughtless of him to use
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael read the will aloud. It was dated ten years back, and was in the
+      Squire's own hand, drawn up simply, but with perfect clearness. The
+      division of fortune was as they all expected: a moderate funded sum to
+      each of the daughters and to Nathanael; the estate, with all real and
+      personal property, to go to the eldest son. There were a few small
+      bequests to servants, and one gift of the late Mrs. Harper's jewels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant them,&rdquo; the old man wrote, &ldquo;for my eldest son's wife. Disappointed
+      in this, I leave them to Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper moved restlessly in his chair. Anne sat quiet. The young
+      Agatha looked at them, and wondered if people grew callous as they grew
+      old.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it all read?&rdquo; said Frederick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Stay, here are a few lines; a codicil, I fancy, affixed with seals
+      to the body of the will I can hardly make it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as Mr. Harper perused it, his wife observed his countenance change. He
+      let the paper drop, and sat silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it? Read,&rdquo;, cried Harrie Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot&mdash;Anne, will you? God knows, brothers and sisters&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      he looked all round the circle with an eagerly appealing gaze&mdash;&ldquo;God
+      knows I never knew or dreamed of this. Anne, read.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I read, Major Harper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was gazing out of the window with an absent air. At the sound of her
+      voice he started, and gave some mechanical assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne read the date&mdash;of only twelve days back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was the very day that he was taken ill, you know,&rdquo; whispered Mary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The codicil began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, Nathanael Harper, being in sound mind and body, do hereby make my last
+      will and testament, utterly revoking all others, in so far as relates to
+      my two sons. I leave to my younger son, Nathanael Locke Harper, all my
+      landed, real, and personal estate, praying that he may long live and
+      maintain our name in honour at Kingcombe Holm. To my eldest son&mdash;having
+      no desire to expose to ruin the family estate, or link the family name
+      with more dishonour than it already bears&mdash;to my eldest son,
+      Frederick Harper, I leave the sum of One Shilling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne's reading ceased. Dead silence, utter, frightened silence, followed.
+      Then arose a chorus of women's voices&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, Frederick!&mdash;oh,
+      Frederick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick rose, feebly smiling. &ldquo;It is a mistake&mdash;all a mistake. My
+      father was not in his right mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sisterly tide turned. &ldquo;Oh, hush, Frederick! How wicked of you to say
+      so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well read it over again,&rdquo; said Marmaduke Dugdale, waking up into the
+      interests of the world around him. Anne gave him the paper, and he read it
+      with his ponderous, manly voice, rounding out every bitter word which Anne
+      had softened down. All was undoubtedly legal, signed in his own hand, and
+      witnessed by two of his servants. There could be no doubt it was done
+      immediately before the paralytic attack, when he was perfectly in his
+      senses; indeed, he could not be said ever to have lost them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The family sat, awed by their father's deed; to question which never
+      struck them for a moment&mdash;legal chicanery was not rife at Kingcombe
+      Holm. They looked at the disinherited brother with a sort of shrinking
+      wonder, as if he had done some great unknown wickedness. He might have sat
+      there ever so long, conscience-stricken and stupified, but this family
+      gaze stung him into violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say it is a cheat&mdash;how or by whom contrived I know not&mdash;but
+      it is a cheat. My father loved me&mdash;the only one of you who ever did.
+      If there was a coolness between us, he forgave me when he died. You all
+      saw that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no denying it. Every one remembered how the father's last dying
+      look of love had been on his eldest son. Again the tide of family feeling
+      changed. They threw doubtful glances towards Nathanael, except his wife.
+      But she drew closer to him, and trembled and doubted no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood, meeting the eyes of all his family. In his aspect was great
+      distress, but entire composure&mdash;not a shadow of hesitation or
+      confusion. Nor, on the other hand, was there any triumph. When he spoke&mdash;they
+      seemed expecting him to speak&mdash;his voice was low and steady:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, brother, and all the rest of you know, that I have had no hand
+      in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing of the sort,&rdquo; cried Frederick. &ldquo;I only know that I have
+      been defrauded&mdash;disgraced.&mdash;Not by any act of my father's, or he
+      would not lie quiet in his grave. My father always loved me.&rdquo; And the
+      quick feeling natural to Major Harper made him hesitate&mdash;unable to
+      proceed. But soon he continued, vehemently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will find out this. Evil speakers, malicious, underhand hypocrites,
+      have turned my father against me. I declare to Heaven that I never wronged
+      any&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick stopped&mdash;interrupted not by words, for there was perfect
+      silence&mdash;but by a certain quiet look of Anne Valery's, which fastened
+      on his face. He turned crimson&mdash;he had so much of the woman in him,
+      though of womanhood in its weakest form. He glanced from Miss Valery to
+      Agatha, and then back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne&mdash;Anne Valery, tell me do you know anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;even you!&rdquo; For the moment, he cowered in such emotion as was
+      pitiful to see; but it passed and he grew desperate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, I will contest this will. It shall be proved invalid. My lawyer
+      Grimes&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Grimes has been here, and is now gone to America,&rdquo; Anne whispered. &ldquo;I
+      urged and assisted him to go, that he should not throw disgrace on the
+      family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Frederick cowered down, then rose, goaded to the last degree.
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, this will shall not stand. I will throw it into Chancery. I
+      will leave for London this very day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay,&rdquo; said Nathanael, starting from deep thought, and intercepting him
+      as he was quitting the room. &ldquo;One word, Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not one! You are all against me, but I will brave you all. I will have my
+      rights&mdash;ay, even if I plead my father's insanity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, horrible!&rdquo; cried his sisters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, you know that to be impossible,&rdquo; said Nathanael, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will plead what may prove a deeper disgrace to the family than
+      madness, or even&mdash;what I am supposed to have done,&rdquo; catching his
+      brother's arm, and hissing out the words in his face&mdash;&ldquo;I will plead
+      that the will is <i>a forgery</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael wrenched away his hold, thereby throwing Frederick back almost
+      to the floor. The two stood for a moment glaring at one another, in that
+      deadly animosity, most deadly when it arises between brothers,&mdash;and
+      then the younger recovered himself. It might be because, instantaneously
+      as the struggle had begun and ended, he had heard a woman's cry of terror,
+      and the name uttered was not &ldquo;Frederick,&rdquo; but &ldquo;Nathanael.&rdquo; Also, as he
+      stood, he felt two little hands steal from behind and tighten over his
+      own. He grew very calm then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, you must unsay that word. There are some things which a man
+      cannot bear even from his brother. No doubt can exist that this is my
+      father's own writing, and no forgery. You know that as well as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As well as you do! Exactly what I meant to observe,&rdquo; said Major Harper,
+      with his keenest and politest sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael moved back. A man's roused passions are always terrible; but
+      there is something ten times more awful in fury that is altogether calm&mdash;molten
+      down as it were to a white heat. Never but once&mdash;that uneffaceable <i>once</i>&mdash;had
+      Agatha seen her husband look as he looked now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pause one minute, Frederick. If you had waited and heard me speak&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare you to speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be better not to dare me. I am at my last ebb of patience. I
+      have kept faithfully my promise to you. None of our family know&mdash;not
+      even my own wife&mdash;all that is known by you and me, and our father
+      whom we buried yesterday. I would have saved him from the knowledge if I
+      could, but it was not to be. Now, take care. If you drive me to it&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated. Agatha felt his hand&mdash;the thin boyish hand&mdash;grow
+      cold as ice and rigid as iron. She uttered a faint cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, my wife,&rdquo; with the old sweetness in the whisper, &ldquo;go and sit
+      down. Leave me to reason with my brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, let <i>me</i> do that,&rdquo; said one coming between. It was Anne Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had risen from the chair where, during almost all this time, she had
+      sat like a statue, only none watched her, not even Agatha. When she rose,
+      it was with a motion so slow and gliding, her soft black dress scarcely
+      rustling as she moved, that Frederick Harper might well start, thinking a
+      supernatural touch was on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne, is it you? I had forgotten you. No&rdquo;&mdash;he muttered, half to
+      himself, turning from the contest with his brother to gaze on her&mdash;&ldquo;no,
+      I never did&mdash;never do forget you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe that. Come and speak to me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unresisted, she put her arm in his, and led him away to the deep
+      bay-window, circled with a low-cushioned sill, such as delights children.
+      Anne sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you determined on this cruel course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must recover my rights,&rdquo; was the sullen answer. &ldquo;Any man would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when you have done this&mdash;supposing it practicable&mdash;what
+      further do you purpose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What further?&rdquo; He looked puzzled, but at last perceived her meaning. With
+      an impulse eagerly caught, as Major Harper caught all impulses, good and
+      ill, he cried&mdash;&ldquo;Yes, I understand you. My first act, on coming to my
+      property shall be to right poor Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought so,&rdquo; said Anne, kindly. &ldquo;But you will not be able. There are
+      others whose claims will be upon you the instant you have money to satisfy
+      them&mdash;the shareholders. They know nothing of Agatha Bowen. Remember
+      you expended her fortune as you worked the mine&mdash;<i>in your own name.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper looked confounded with shame. &ldquo;And you knew all this, Anne&mdash;you!
+      For how long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For some months&mdash;ever since I bought Wheal Caroline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you never betrayed me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were playfellows, Frederick.&rdquo; She spoke softly, and turned her face to
+      the other side of the bay-window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He forgot she was old now&mdash;he remembered only the familiar voice and
+      attitude, the same as when in her girlish days she used to sit on the
+      cushioned window-sill and talk with him for hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Playfellows! Was that all, Anne? Only playfellows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only playfellows,&rdquo; she repeated firmly. &ldquo;Never anything more. You knew
+      that always.&rdquo; And, perhaps unconsciously, Anne looked down on a ring&mdash;plain,
+      not unlike a childish keepsake&mdash;which she always wore on the
+      wedding-finger of her left hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper sighed, not one of his sentimental sighs, but one from the
+      deeps of his heart. A smile, hollow and sad, followed it. &ldquo;I suppose it is
+      idle talking now, but&mdash;but&mdash;you were my first-love, Anne! If
+      things had gone differently, I might have been a different man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so. God ordained your fate, not I. No man need be ruined for life
+      because a woman cannot love him. Human beings hang not on one another in
+      that blind way. We have each an individual soul; on another soul may rest
+      all its hopes and joys, but on God only rests its worth, its duties, and
+      its nobility. We may live to do His work, and rejoice therein, long after
+      we have forgotten the very sound of that idle word&mdash;happiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on; you talk as you always used to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite,&rdquo; said Anne, with a faint smile; &ldquo;I am hardly strong enough.
+      Frederick,&rdquo; and her eyes had their former lovely, earnest look&mdash;earnest
+      almost to tears, save that girl-tears had from them long been dried,&mdash;&ldquo;Frederick,
+      for the sake of our olden days&mdash;of your mother whom we both loved&mdash;of
+      your father who has gone to her&mdash;listen to me for a little. Trust to
+      your brother&mdash;he will not act unjustly. Do not create dissensions in
+      your family; do not let people say that the moment Mr. Harper's head was
+      laid in the grave his children quarrelled over his property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not quarrel&mdash;I but take my right,&rdquo; cried Major Harper, becoming
+      again the &ldquo;man of the world,&rdquo; as he saw, the curious glances that from
+      time to time reached the bay-window. &ldquo;Thank you for this good advice; for
+      which my brother owes you even more than I. But I am not a child now, nor
+      a boy in love, to be talked over by a woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery rose, rather proudly. &ldquo;Nor am I that woman, Major Harper. But
+      I have been so long united in affection with your family; I could not bear
+      to think it would be brought to dishonour. Surely&mdash;surely <i>you</i>
+      will not be the one to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again as he turned to go, she drew him back by those earnest eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, it would grieve me so, ay, break my heart, to see them brought
+      into open shame, the old familiar home, and the name&mdash;the dear, dear
+      name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper's bitter tongue burst its control and stung. &ldquo;I now see your
+      motive. Everybody knows how very dearly Anne Valery has all her life loved
+      the Harper name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne rose to her full height, and a blush, vivid as a girl's, dyed her
+      cheek. &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;I have loved it, and I am not ashamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blush paled&mdash;she sank back on the window-sill. Major Harper was
+      alarmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne&mdash;how ill you look! What have I done to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she answered; and, catching his arm, drew herself upright once
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frederick, we were children together, and you loved me; some day you will
+      remember that. Afterwards we grew up young people, and, still thinking you
+      loved me&mdash;but it was only vanity then&mdash;you did me a great wrong;
+      I will not say how, or when, or why, and no one knows the fact save me&mdash;but
+      you did it. You did the same wrong to another lately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&mdash;how?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said to Mrs. Thornycroft&mdash;you see I have learnt all, for I wrote
+      and asked her&mdash;you said that you 'feared' poor little Agatha loved
+      you, and&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, too, that vanity misled you; that it was not true. But it was a
+      wicked thing to say; trifling with a woman's honour&mdash;torturing those
+      who loved her&mdash;bringing on her worlds of suffering. Still, she is
+      young, and her suffering may end in joy;&mdash;mine&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne paused; the human nature struggled hard within her breast&mdash;she
+      was not quite old yet. At length it calmed down&mdash;that last anguished
+      cry of the soul against its appointed destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her old playmate by the hand, saying gently,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going away soon&mdash;going <i>home</i>. Before I go, I would like
+      to say, as I used to do when you were unkind to me as a child,
+      'Good-night, and I forgive Fred everything.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Anne&mdash;Anne.&rdquo; He kissed her hand in strong emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I cannot talk more,&rdquo; she went on quickly. &ldquo;You will do as I ask?
+      You will wait until&mdash;until&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped speaking, and put her handkerchief to her lips. Slowly,
+      slowly, red drops shone through its folds. Major Harper called wildly for
+      his sisters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew how it would be,&rdquo; cried Mary Harper. &ldquo;It has happened twice
+      before, and Doctor Mason said if it happened again&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, God forgive me!&rdquo; groaned Frederick, as his brother carried Anne
+      Valery away. &ldquo;She will die&mdash;and I shall have killed her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Anne Valery did not die. Agatha had said she would not; and the young
+      heart's creed was true. It had its foundation in a higher law than that of
+      physical suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few days she was able to be moved to her own house, according to
+      her earnest desire; after a few more, the energy of her mind seemed to put
+      miraculous strength into her feeble body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you would get well,&rdquo; said Agatha joyfully, as she watched her
+      patient returning to ordinary household ways; only lying down a little
+      more than Anne was used to do, and speaking seldom and low always, for
+      fear of the bleeding at the lungs. &ldquo;I knew you must get well, but I never
+      saw anybody get well so fast as you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had need,&rdquo; Anne answered. &ldquo;I have so much to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you always have. What a busy rich life&mdash;rich in the best sense&mdash;yours
+      has been! How unlike mine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope so&mdash;in many things,&rdquo; said Anne, to herself. &ldquo;But I must not
+      speak much. I talked my last talk with poor Frederick in the bay-window.
+      Where is Frederick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has been riding up and down the country day after day&mdash;he seems
+      to find no rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne looked sorry. &ldquo;And we are so quiet here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed very quiet, that sombre house at Thorn-hurst, through whose
+      wintry rooms no one wandered but Agatha, excepting the old, attached
+      servants. Yet this was of her own will. She had been jealous that any one
+      should attempt to nurse Anne but herself. She left even her own home to do
+      it. Yet&mdash;the bitter thought followed her ever&mdash;this last was
+      small renunciation. No one would miss her there!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the days when Miss Valery lay ill, the world without had been shut
+      from Agatha's view. Woman-like, she lived within the four walls and beside
+      the sick couch, and had only seen her husband for a few minutes each day,
+      when, though he talked to her only of Anne, his manner had a soft,
+      reverent tenderness, and a troubled humility, as if he began to see a
+      different image in his young wife. She was different, and he too. Neither
+      knew how or when the change came&mdash;but it was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so miss him, when, having taken them safe to Thornhurst, and told
+      her &ldquo;that she might stay there as long as Anne needed her, but no longer&rdquo;&mdash;ah,
+      that happy &ldquo;but!&rdquo;&mdash;he went away to his own little house at Kingcombe,
+      and busied himself there for three days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think Nathanael will come and see us this morning?&rdquo; said Anne,
+      looking up from the papers with which she was occupied, towards Agatha,
+      who stood at the window watching down the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you want my husband!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no! I can do my business myself now. But I think he will come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&mdash;Child, come here.&rdquo; And as Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss
+      Valery leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over
+      her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can
+      condescend to at times, especially when recovering from sickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a foolish child! Did she fancy nobody loved her? Did she think
+      everybody believed she was wicked (and so she was, now and then, very
+      wicked). Does she suppose nobody sees her poor little goodnesses? Oh, but
+      they do! They will find all out without my telling. It is best to leave
+      things alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not speak; it will do you harm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not thus whispering. Nay, lay the head down again. Imagine it only a
+      little bird in the air talking to my child. Some kind of characters&mdash;I
+      once knew the like well!&rdquo;&mdash;and Anne's whisper came through a half
+      sigh&mdash;&ldquo;are very proud and jealous over the thing they love. They
+      cannot bear a breath to rest on it, or to go from it to any other than
+      themselves. They are very silent, too; would die rather than complain.
+      They are strong-willed and secret&mdash;and as for persuading them to
+      anything against their will, you might as well attempt to cleave with your
+      little hand to the heart of a great oak. You must shine over it, and rain
+      softly on it, and cling close round it, and it will take you into its
+      arms, and support you safe, and hang you all round with beautiful leaves.
+      But you must always remember that it is a noble forest-oak, and that you
+      are only its dews, or its sunshine, or its ivy garland. You must never
+      attempt to come between it and the skies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne ceased. Agatha looked up with moistened eyelids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand; I will try&mdash;if you will stay with me. I cannot do
+      anything right without you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne smiled. &ldquo;Poor little Agatha! Not even with the help of her husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband! Oh, teach me to be a good wife, such a wife as you would have
+      been&mdash;as you may be&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt a soft finger closing her lips, and knew that on <i>that</i>
+      subject there must still be, as ever, total silence. She hid her face, and
+      obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length Miss Valery started. &ldquo;There is a horse coming down the road, I
+      think. Go, look. It may be your husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha rose, and ran to the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne half rose too. &ldquo;I fancy I hear two horses. Is anybody with
+      Nathanael?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only Mr. Dugdale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! well!&rdquo; There was the slightest possible compression of eyelids and
+      mouth, and Anne resumed her place again. &ldquo;It is very kind of Marmaduke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The visitors came in softly. Duke Dugdale was the kindest, gentlest soul
+      to any one that was ill&mdash;wise as a doctor, merry as a child. But now&mdash;though
+      he strove to hide it&mdash;his countenance was overcast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use, Anne,&rdquo; he said, after a brief greeting, during which he felt
+      her pulse in quite a professional way, and pronounced it &ldquo;stronger&mdash;much
+      stronger&mdash;and too quick almost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is of no use?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brian Harper won't come home! All his abominable, con&mdash;yes, I'll out
+      with it&mdash;his confounded pride.&rdquo; And Duke tried to look very savage,
+      but couldn't manage it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somewhere near Havre; we can't make out where. He will not write. Ask
+      Nathanael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid it is too true,&rdquo; said Nathanael, leaving his wife, to whom he
+      had been talking by the window. &ldquo;I shall have to hunt him out, and use all
+      my persuasions before he will come home; because he is too proud to return
+      poor as he went out. What shall I say to him, Anne? I shall start
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha turned quickly round. Her husband did not see her anxious look&mdash;he
+      was watching Miss Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him, Nathanael, that his brother is dead, and his presence needed in
+      the family. Once make him understand that it is right to come, and he will
+      come. No one was ever more able to do or to suffer <i>for the right</i>,
+      than Brian Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke shook her hand heartily. &ldquo;Anne, you are as wise as a man, and as
+      faithful as a woman. If poor Brian were going to be hanged for murder, I
+      do believe-his old friend would find a good word to say for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Nathanael, after a silence, &ldquo;I shall go to Havre to-morrow.
+      You can spare me, Anne? And for my wife&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha hung her head. A vague dread smote her. She would have given worlds
+      to have courage enough to beg him not to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Havre is across the sea,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Surely Uncle Brian would come
+      home in time, if you waited.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Waited! she caught a sight of Anne's bent profile, marble-like, with the
+      shut eyes. Waited!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha crept to her husband's side. &ldquo;No&mdash;no waiting,&rdquo; she whispered.
+      &ldquo;Go. I would not keep you back an hour. Bring him. Quick&mdash;quick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Could Anne have heard, that she wakened up into such a life-like smile?
+      &ldquo;No, dear, you must not send your husband away so hastily. Let him sail
+      from Southampton to-morrow; that will do. He wants to talk to you to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael looked surprised. &ldquo;It is true, I did; and I told my brother to
+      meet me here this afternoon. Did you know that too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guessed it. You are doing right, quite right. I knew you would. I knew
+      <i>you</i>, Nathanael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She held out her hand to him, warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Anne! But you forget&mdash;it is not I only who have to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a word! Go and tell her all. Let her be the first to hear it. Away
+      with you! the sun is coming out. Run and talk in the garden-alleys,
+      children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner, so playful, yet full of keen penetration, drove them away like
+      a battery of sunbeams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does she mean?&rdquo; said Agatha, looking up puzzled, as they stood in
+      the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She reads people's minds wonderfully clear; she always did, but clearer
+      than ever now. It is strange. Agatha, do you think&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think all sorts of things about her&mdash;different and contrary every
+      hour. But the chief thought of all is, that you must go to Havre at once.
+      I long for Uncle Brian's coming. How soon can you return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As soon as practicable, you may be sure of that. But you must relax your
+      interest even in Uncle Brian just now; I want to talk to you. Shall we go,
+      as Anne said, into the garden-alleys?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anywhere that is sunny and warm,&rdquo; said Agatha, with a light shiver. Her
+      husband regarded her with that serious pathetic smile which was one of his
+      frequent moods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must you always have sunshine, Agatha? Could you not walk a little while
+      in the shade? Not if I were with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She cast her eyes down, trembling with a vague apprehension of ill; then
+      gazed in the kind face that grew kinder and dearer every day. She put her
+      hand in her husband's without speaking a word. He folded it up close, the
+      soft little hand, and looked pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come now, let us go into the garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha wrapped a shawl about her, gipsy-fashion, and met him there. It was
+      one of those mild days that sometimes come near upon Christmas, as if the
+      year had repented itself, and just before dying, was dreaming of its lost
+      springtide. The arbutus-trees were glistening with sunshine, and under the
+      high wall a row of camellias, grown in great bushes in the open air, the
+      pride of Anne's gardener and of the whole county of Dorset, were beginning
+      to show buds, red, white, and variegated, as beautiful as summer roses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to be so fond of this walk when I was a little lad,&rdquo; said
+      Nathanael, &ldquo;I remember, after I had the scarlet-fever, being nursed well
+      here; and how every day when my brother came, he used to carry me up and
+      down this sunny walk on his back. Poor Fred! he was the kindest fellow to
+      children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kindness seems his nature. I think that if your brother did any harm it
+      would never be through malice or intention, but only weakness of
+      character.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I perceive,&rdquo; Mr. Harper said, abruptly&mdash;&ldquo;you have no bitter feeling
+      against my brother Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I? He never did me wrong. Except, perhaps, it was his
+      carelessness that made me poor.&rdquo; Here Agatha hesitated, for she was
+      touching upon a dangerous subject&mdash;one so fraught with present
+      emotion and with references to past suffering, that hitherto both husband
+      and wife had by tacit consent abstained from it. There had been no
+      confidential talk of any kind between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; her husband said; &ldquo;we must speak of these things some time; why
+      not now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though he made me poor,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;it was probably through
+      accident. And I have no fear of poverty&rdquo;&mdash;how simply and ignorantly
+      she pronounced that terrible word!&mdash;&ldquo;I do not mind it in the least,
+      if you do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there any need for that <i>if</i>, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she replied, and was silent. Shame and remorse gathered over her
+      like a cloud. She thought of those wicked words she had spoken&mdash;words
+      which to this day he had neither answered nor revenged. He had even
+      suffered the smooth surface of daily kindnesses to grow over that gaping
+      wound of division. Was it there still? Did he remember it? Could she dare
+      to allude to it, if only to implore him to forgive her? She would in a
+      little time&mdash;perhaps when they were by themselves in their own house,
+      when she would throw herself at his knees and weep out a confession that
+      was beyond all words&mdash;words could but insult him the more. There are
+      some wounds that can only be healed by love and silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it is time,&rdquo; said the husband&mdash;&ldquo;full time that you heard
+      all, or nearly all, connected with this painful matter. It is mere
+      business, which I will try to make intelligible if possible. You ought not
+      to be quite so ignorant of worldly matters as you are, since, if anything
+      happened to me&mdash;But I have provided against almost everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking of?&rdquo; said Agatha, holding him tight, with a faint
+      intuition of his meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of nothing painful. Do not be afraid. Only that I think it right to
+      explain to you what has occurred to us since our marriage&mdash;in worldly
+      things I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I am listening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before we married,&rdquo; he continued, distinctly, and rather proudly, &ldquo;I knew
+      nothing whatever of your fortune&mdash;not even its amount. I made no
+      inquiries, interfered in no way, except reading the settlement I signed.
+      The settlement stated that your property was safe in the Funds. This was
+      a&rdquo;&mdash;his brow darkened&mdash;&ldquo;it was&mdash;<i>not true</i>. The whole
+      had been taken out, contrary to your father's expressed will, and embarked
+      in a mining speculation in Cornwall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those miners whom Miss Valery aided? Was it my money that was wasted at
+      Wheal Caroline? Was it me from whom the poor miner came to seek redress?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; the transaction was more blameable even than that. It was all carried
+      on in my brother's name. He was made what they call 'managing director' of
+      the company: Grimes being solicitor. There were a few shareholders&mdash;his
+      clients&mdash;widows and unmarried women who had put by their savings, and
+      such like poor people who wanted large interest, and some richer ones,
+      important enough to make public their ruin&mdash;for everybody lost all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the poorer shareholders&mdash;the widows&mdash;the old maids?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, there's the pity&mdash;there's the wickedness,&rdquo; said Nathanael,
+      beneath his breath. &ldquo;People tell me such things are common in England, but
+      I would have starved rather than have been mixed up in such a transaction,
+      even in the smallest way, and with property that was bona fide my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; said Agatha, slowly understanding, &ldquo;this property was not Major
+      Harper's own. Also, his doing the thing secretly afterwards, and leading
+      you to believe what was&mdash;not quite true. I must say it, I think it
+      was very wrong of your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't let us talk of him more than we can help. Remember&mdash;a brother,
+      Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      More light dawning on his strange conduct, his self-command, his secrecy
+      even with her. His wife clung to his arm, her heart brimming with emotion
+      that she dared not pour out. For he seemed inclined to be reserved even
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he added, as they walked along, &ldquo;I have had some few things to
+      try me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha pressed his arm. Oh that she could break through that awe of him
+      and his goodness, that shame of her own foolish erring self!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha,&rdquo; he said, stopping suddenly, &ldquo;the thing that hurt me was my
+      father. If only he had died a month ago, and never heard of this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If only now Agatha could speak! But she felt choking. They walked past the
+      windows and looked in. &ldquo;There is Anne sitting by herself as she used to
+      sit, watching Fred and me in the garden. He was such a handsome, gay young
+      man. I felt so proud of being his little brother. And my poor father&mdash;he
+      had not a hope in the world that did not rest on Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked on rapidly back into the shadiest and darkest walk. There he
+      stopped. &ldquo;Agatha,&rdquo; taking both her hands, and reading her features closely&mdash;&ldquo;Agatha,
+      would you be very unhappy if we went back and lived, poor, in the little
+      cottage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unhappy? I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would try that you should not be. I can earn quite enough to give you
+      many comforts. We should not be any more content if we claimed our rights
+      and lived in prosperity at Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides, I am not sure that these are our rights, morally speaking. I
+      think, if my father had lived long enough, he would have undone what he
+      did in a moment of passion, and let the first will stand. This is what I
+      have said to myself, when considering that I have duties towards my wife
+      as well as towards others, and that this would restore what was taken from
+      her. 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But, Agatha, we would not
+      urge that law?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never! God forbid! And Major Harper was so kind to me when I was an
+      orphan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Only</i> kind? Did he never&mdash;No, I am getting foolish. Say on,
+      Agatha. Come, sit here; we can talk, and nobody can see or hear us.&rdquo; And
+      he led his wife to a sheltered arbutus-bower. &ldquo;Well, was my brother so
+      kind to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was, indeed. For the sake of that time I would forgive him anything; I
+      have already forgiven him a good deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed? Tell me or not, as you choose; I urge no right to pry into your
+      secrets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't look, don't speak in that way! Why should I not tell you? I
+      would have told you before, had you asked. It was nothing&mdash;indeed
+      nothing. But I was a proud girl, and he made me angry with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what cause?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She grew confused&mdash;hesitated; the shamefacedness of girlhood came
+      over her. &ldquo;I will tell you,&rdquo; she said at last boldly. &ldquo;It is surely no
+      harm to tell anything to my husband:&mdash;Major Harper once said to Emma
+      Thornycroft, that he thought I was 'in love' with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was cruel, it was wicked, it insulted my pride. And more than that&mdash;it
+      wounded me to the heart that <i>he</i> should say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it&mdash;don't speak if you don't like&mdash;was it <i>true</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; cried Agatha, the blood rushing in a torrent over her face. &ldquo;No, it
+      was not true. I liked, I admired him, in a free girlish way; but I never,
+      never loved him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a minute's hush in the arbutus-bower, and then Nathanael sank
+      down to his wife's side&mdash;down, lower yet, to her very feet. He
+      wrapped his arms round her waist, laying his head in her lap. His whole
+      frame shook convulsively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh Heaven! You surely did not think <i>that?</i>&rdquo; cried Agatha, appalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did, ever since the day we were married. I heard him say so in the
+      church.&mdash;He repeated it to me afterwards.&mdash;And it was a lie!
+      Curse&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, forgive him!&rdquo; And Agatha sobbed on her husband's neck, clasped by
+      him as she never thought he would clasp her in this world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he rose, pale and sad. &ldquo;There is other forgiveness needed. I have
+      been very cruel to you, Agatha. I had made him a promise, and to it I
+      sacrificed myself and you too, without remorse. But now you see how it
+      was. I could have judged my brother that I loved; I dared not <i>slay my
+      enemy.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The only answer was a soft hand-pressure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hardly know what I am about, Agatha,&mdash;not even whether or no my
+      wife loves me; she did not when we were first married, I fear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha drooped her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, she shall love me yet; I am quite fearless now.&rdquo; He stood up,
+      holding her tight in his arms, as if daring the whole world to wrest her
+      from him. His whole aspect was changed. It was like the breaking up of an
+      Arctic winter, when the trees bud, and the rivers pour sounding down, and
+      the sun bursts out, reigning gloriously. For a long time they remained
+      thus, clasped together, so motionless that the little robin of the
+      arbutus-trees hopped on to a bough near them and began a song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must go in now,&rdquo; said Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay; we must not forget Anne, or anybody. One can do so much good when one
+      is happy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel so.&rdquo; She rose, hanging on his arm, but trembling still, almost
+      frightened by the insanity of his joy, whirled dizzily in the torrent of
+      his overwhelming love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand now what I had to say to you! You can guess how I mean to
+      act as regards my brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will give your consent? Without it I would have done nothing. I
+      would not have taken from my wife these worldly goods, and left her only
+      me and my love, unless she willed it so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do will it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless her.&rdquo; He lifted Agatha from her feet, rocking her in his arms
+      like a baby. &ldquo;I always said God bless her! even when I was most wretched&mdash;most
+      mad. I knew she was one of His angels&mdash;a woman worthy of all love,
+      though she had none for me. I was not very cruel to her, was I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will never be cruel to her any more. I will smother down all my pride,
+      my reserve, the horrible suspiciousness which is rooted in my nature. I
+      will never doubt or wound her&mdash;only love her&mdash;only love her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Breathless, Agatha trembled to her feet again. Her husband stood by her
+      side&mdash;calmer now, and radiant in the beauty of his youth. Manly as he
+      was, there was something about him which could only be expressed by the
+      word &ldquo;beautiful&rdquo;&mdash;a something that, be he ever so old, would keep up
+      his boyish likeness&mdash;his look of &ldquo;the angel Gabriel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go into the house now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went&mdash;those two young hearts thrilling and bounding with life
+      and joy&mdash;into the darkening house, the hushed presence of Anne
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was lying on her sofa, very still and death-like. The white cap tied
+      under her chin, the hands folded&mdash;the perfect silence in and about
+      the room&mdash;it was like as if she had lain down to rest, calmly and
+      alone, in her solitary house, and in her sleep the spirit had flown away;&mdash;away
+      into the glorious company of angels and archangels, never to be alone any
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not so. Hearing footsteps, Anne opened her eyes, and roused
+      herself quickly. She looked from one to the other of the young people&mdash;at
+      the first glance she seemed to understand all A great joy flashed across
+      her; but she said nothing. She as well as they were long used to that
+      peculiarity of nature&mdash;which especially belonged to the Harper family&mdash;a
+      conviction of the uselessness of talk and the sacredness of silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has my brother arrived?&rdquo; said Nathanael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marmaduke is gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; he wanted to get up a Free-trade dinner for the welcoming&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      she smiled&mdash;&ldquo;of one whom he says all Dorset will be delighted to
+      welcome&mdash;your Uncle Brian. Worthy Duke! It is his hobby, and one
+      likes to indulge him in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly. And where is the dinner&mdash;Uncle Brian's grand dinner&mdash;to
+      take place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I persuaded him to change it into a public meeting, and give the
+      clay-cutters&mdash;many of them Mr. Locke Harper's former people, and some
+      now old and poor&mdash;a New Year's feast instead. You will see to that,
+      Nathanael?&rdquo; And she laid her hand on his arm with rather more earnestness
+      than the simple request warranted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael assented hastily, and spoke of something else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am rather sorry I asked my brother to meet me here; I forgot he has not
+      been to Thornhurst for so many years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time then that he came,&rdquo; said Anne, gently. &ldquo;I shall be very glad
+      to see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While she was speaking, her old servant entered, with the announcement of
+      &ldquo;Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just the Major Harper of old&mdash;well-dressed, courtly, with his
+      singularly handsome face, and his short dark moustache, sufficient to mark
+      the military gentleman without degrading him into the puppy; Major Harper
+      with his habitual good-natured smile and faultless bearing, so gracefully
+      welcomed, so gaily familiar in London drawing-rooms.&mdash;But here?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused at the door, glanced hastily round the old familiar room, with
+      the known pictures hanging on the walls, and the windows opening on the
+      straight alley of arbutus-trees. His smile grew rather meaningless&mdash;he
+      hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come to this chair near me? I am very glad to see you, Major
+      Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Miss Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He crossed the room to her sofa, Nathanael making way for him. He just
+      acknowledged his brother's presence and Agatha's, then took Miss Valery's
+      extended hand, bowing over it with an attempt at his former grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I find your health quite re-established? This change to your own
+      pleasant house&mdash;pleasant as ever, I see&rdquo;&mdash;he once more glanced
+      round it&mdash;paused&mdash;then altogether broke down. &ldquo;It seems but a
+      day since we were children, Anne,&rdquo; he said, in a faltering voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha and her husband moved away. They respected the one real feeling
+      which had outlasted all his sentimentalism. For several minutes they stood
+      at the far window apart. When Anne called them back, Major Harper had
+      recovered himself, and was sitting by her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathanael, our old friend here says you wished to speak with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make haste, then, for I am going to London to-night I have made up my
+      mind. I cannot settle here in Dorsetshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if it were your father's wish&mdash;his last longing desire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne, for God's sake don't speak of my father.&rdquo; He leant his elbow on the
+      table and covered his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael and Agatha exchanged looks, then both smiled&mdash;the happy
+      smile of a clear conscience and a heart at rest. &ldquo;Tell him now,&rdquo; whispered
+      the wife to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Harper lifted up his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My elder brother!&rdquo; And Nathanael offered the hand of peace, which, in
+      spite of all outward and necessary association, neither had offered or
+      grasped since Frederick's return to Dorset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that you are my elder brother&mdash;my father's favourite always.
+      If he had lingered but another day he would doubtless have proved that,
+      and have done&mdash;what I intend to do, just as if he had himself
+      accomplished it. Do you understand me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; And Major Harper looked thoroughly amazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you see this? which you, either from forgetfulness, or trust in me&mdash;I
+      had rather believe the latter&mdash;left in my hands on that day.&rdquo; And he
+      drew from his pocket the will which had been read. &ldquo;You spoke of throwing
+      it into Chancery, and there would be scope for a century of Chancery
+      business here. But I choose rather to respect the honour and unity of the
+      family. Therefore, with my wife's entire consent in her presence, Anne's
+      and yours, I here do what my father, had he lived, would certainly have
+      done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took up the codicil, separated it from the will to which it was
+      fastened by seals, and quietly, as if it had been a fragment of worthless
+      paper, put it into the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Frederick, the original will stands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick sat motionless. He seemed hardly to believe the evidence of his
+      own eyes. He watched the curling, crackling paper with a sort of childish
+      curiosity. When at last it was completely destroyed, he shut his eyes with
+      a great sigh of satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Valery softly touched him. &ldquo;Major Harper, every brother would not
+      have acted thus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed. Just Heavens, no!&rdquo; he cried, as the whole fact burst on him,
+      touching his impressible nature to the quick. &ldquo;My dear Nathanael! My dear
+      Agatha! God bless you both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrung their hands fervently, and walked to the window, strongly
+      affected. The husband and wife remained silent. Anne Valery lay on her
+      sofa, and smoothed her thin fingers one over the other with a soft, inward
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How nobly you both act towards me! and I&mdash;how have I acted towards
+      you?&rdquo; said the elder brother, in deep and real compunction. &ldquo;I would give
+      half I possess to undo what has been done, and all through my cursed folly
+      and weakness. Do you know that I have lost every penny of your fortune,
+      Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Grimes told me so lately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, only lately? Did you not know before? Did not your husband&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she cried, eagerly. &ldquo;My husband never betrayed you, even by a single
+      word. I am glad he did not. I had far rather he had broken my heart than
+      his own honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne turned to look at the young face, flushed with feeling; and her own,
+      caught something of the glow, though still she spoke not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Major Harper, eagerly, addressing his sister-in-law&mdash;for
+      Nathanael sat in one of those passive moods which those who knew him well
+      alone could interpret&mdash;&ldquo;but my honour must not be broken either. I
+      must redeem all I lost; and I will, to the very last farthing. Only wait a
+      little, and you shall have no cause to blame me, my poor Agatha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, <i>rich</i> Agatha,&rdquo; was the murmur that Nathanael heard, as two
+      little hands came from behind and alit on his shoulders, like two soft
+      white doves. He caught them, and rose contented, cheerful and brave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Frederick, you must dismiss that idea. It is untenable, at least for
+      a long time. My wife and I are going to play at poverty.&rdquo; He smiled, and
+      drew her nearer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides,&rdquo; said Miss Valery, putting in her quiet voice, to which every
+      one always listened now, &ldquo;I think there are perhaps stronger claims than
+      Agatha's on Major Harper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed? Anne, tell me what I can do. Anything,&rdquo; he added, much moved, &ldquo;so
+      that my old friends may think well of me. Speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so, raising herself, though with some exertion, and re-assuming
+      the sensible, straightforward, business-like ways which through her long
+      life of solitary independence had caused Anne Valery to be often called,
+      as Duke Dugdale called her, &ldquo;such a wise woman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like very much to see all things settled in the Harper family.
+      Your sisters are provided for; Eulalie will be married next year; and you
+      will keep Mary and Elizabeth always with you at Kingcombe Holm. Promise
+      that, Frederick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assented most energetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no need to fear for these,&rdquo; looking affectionately at Nathanael
+      and his wife. &ldquo;Work is good for young people; and I&mdash;or others&mdash;will
+      always see that they have work enough supplied to bring in wherewithal to
+      keep the wolf from their door. For the present, they are a great deal
+      better poor than rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, prudent Miss Valery,&rdquo; said Nathanael laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She responded cheerfully, and then turning to Major Harper, went on with
+      seriousness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other instances, much suffering has been caused by your means; and I
+      would not have it said that any suffered through the Harper family. I have
+      done what I could to prevent this. Matters are mending at Wheal Caroline.
+      Nathanael tells me I shall have&mdash;that is, there will be&mdash;a fine
+      flax-harvest there next year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Speaking of &ldquo;next year,&rdquo; Anne's voice faltered, but the momentary
+      feebleness passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, there is one thing, Frederick, which nobody can do but you; and it
+      is necessary not only to save yourself but to redeem the honour of your
+      house. It will not cost you much&mdash;only a few years' retrenchment,
+      living with your sisters at Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Major Harper protested there was nothing in the world he would not
+      do for the sake of virtue, and Anne Valery. She drew her desk to her, and
+      gave him paper and pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write here, that you will pay gradually to certain shareholders I know
+      of, the money they lost through trust in your name, and in that of the
+      family. It is hardly a legal claim, or if it be, they are too poor to urge
+      it&mdash;but I hold it as a bond of honour. Will you do this, Frederick?
+      Then I shall be happy, knowing there is not a single stain on the Harper
+      name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In speaking, she had risen and come beside him, looking faded, wan, and
+      old, now that she stood upright, in her black dress, and close cap. Her
+      beauty was altogether of the past, but the moral influence remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick Harper took the pen, hesitated, and laid it down. &ldquo;I do not know
+      what to write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne wrote for him a few plain words, such as a man of honour must
+      inevitably hold as binding. He watched idly the movement of the hand that
+      wrote, and the written lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have the same slender fingers, Anne, and your writing looks just as
+      it used to do,&rdquo; he said, in a subdued voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, now&mdash;sign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sign!&mdash;It is like witnessing a will,&rdquo; said Major Harper, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you to consider it so,&rdquo; returned Anne, in a low voice. &ldquo;Consider
+      it my last will&mdash;my last desire, which you promise to fulfil for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her, took the pen, and signed, his hand trembling; then
+      kissed hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anne, you know, you were my first love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words&mdash;said half jesting, yet with a certain mourn-fulness&mdash;were
+      scarcely out of his lips, than he had quitted the room. They soon heard
+      the clatter of his horse along the avenue. Major Harper was gone out into
+      the busy world again. He never set foot in quiet Thornhurst more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three that were left behind breathed freer&mdash;perhaps they would
+      hardly have acknowledged it, but it was so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now it is all done,&rdquo; said Nathanael, as he drew closer to the sofa
+      where Anne lay&mdash;with Agatha performing all sorts of little unnoticed
+      cares about her. &ldquo;And now I must think about going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one asked him where, but Agatha glancing out of the window, thought,
+      with a shiver, of the dreadful sea curving over into boundlessness from
+      behind those hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find I must start at once,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;if I would catch the next
+      boat to Havre. It sails from Southampton to-morrow morning. I have just
+      time to ride back to Kingcombe and catch the mail train. No, I'll not let
+      you come home with me,&rdquo; he added, answering a timid look of Agatha's,
+      which seemed to ask, should she come and help him? &ldquo;No, dear, I can help
+      myself&mdash;such a useful-handed fellow doesn't want a wife even to pack
+      up for him. And, possibly, if you were with me, I should only find it the
+      harder to go. It is rather hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is right&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Anne&mdash;they had not known she was listening&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      think it is right, or I would not let Nathanael go. And Heaven will take
+      care of him, and bring him safe home to you, Agatha. Be content.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was content,&rdquo; she said, somewhat lightly. It was a strange thing, but
+      yet human nature, that her husband's fits of passionate tenderness only
+      seemed to make her own feelings grow calm. Whether it was the shyness of
+      her girlhood, or the variableness of a love not spontaneous but slowly
+      responsive, or whether&mdash;a feeling wrong, yet alas! wondrously natural&mdash;it
+      was the mere wilfulness of a woman who knows herself to be infinitely
+      beloved, certain it was that Agatha appeared not quite the same as a few
+      hours before. Affectionate still, and happy, happier than it is the nature
+      of deep love to be; yet there was a something wanting&mdash;some strong
+      stroke to cleave her heart, and show beyond all doubt what lay at its
+      core. The heart often needs such teaching; and if so, surely&mdash;most
+      surely it will come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha followed her husband to the hall. He was grave with his
+      leave-taking of Anne Valery, who had looked less cheerful, and had
+      breathed rather than spoken the last &ldquo;God bless you!&mdash;Come back
+      soon.&rdquo; The young man did not again say, even to himself, anything about
+      his journey being &ldquo;hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But as he stood in the hall with his wife, he lingered. Youth is youth,
+      and love is love, and each seems so real&mdash;life's only reality while
+      it lasts. No human being, while drinking the magic cup, ever looks or
+      listens to those who have drank, and set it down empty. Be the history
+      ever so sad, each one thinks, smiling, &ldquo;Oh, but I shall be happier than
+      these.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael took his wife in his arms to bid her good-bye. She stood,
+      looking down; bashful, reserved, but so fair! And so good likewise&mdash;all
+      her girlish whims could not hide her heart-goodness. In her whole
+      demeanour was the germ of that noble womanhood which every good man wishes
+      his wife to possess, that she may become his heart of hearts, the desired
+      and honoured of his soul, and remain such, long after all passion dies.
+      There was one thing only wanting in her&mdash;the light which played
+      waveringly in and out&mdash;sometimes flashing so true and warm and
+      bright, and then disappearing into clouds and mist. The husband could not
+      catch it&mdash;not though his eyes were thirsting for the blessed ray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These few days will seem a long time, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael took the smiling face between his hands, and looked down, far
+      down, into the brown depths of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you&rdquo;&mdash;He hesitated. &ldquo;I never asked the question before, knowing
+      it vain; but now, when I am going away&mdash;when&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, the deep passion quivering through his voice.&mdash;&ldquo;Do you
+      love me, Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled&mdash;some insane, wicked influence must have been upon her&mdash;but
+      she smiled, hung her head in childish fashion, and whispered, &ldquo;I don't
+      quite know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well!&rdquo; He sighed, and after a brief silence bade her good-bye,
+      kissed her once, and went towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;don't go yet. I was very foolish. I never, never can be half so
+      wise as you. Forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive you, my child? Ay, anything.&rdquo; And he received her as she ran into
+      his arms, kissing her again tenderly, with a sad earnestness that almost
+      increased his love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I must go, my darling wife. Take care of yourself, and good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So they parted. Agatha went in dry-eyed; then locked herself in the
+      library, and cried violently and long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are sure to be home to-morrow; nothing can prevent their being home
+      to-morrow,&rdquo; said Agatha, as she read over neither for the first time, nor
+      the second, nor the third, her husband's letter, received from Havre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was night now, and they were sitting by the fire in Miss Valery's
+      dressing-room. It had been one of Anne's best days; a wonderfully good
+      day; she had walked about the house, and given several orders to her
+      delighted servants, who, old as they were, would have obeyed the most
+      onerous commands for the pleasure of seeing their mistress strong enough
+      to give them. Some, however, wondered why she should be so particular
+      about the order of a house that never was in disorder, and especially why
+      various furniture arrangements which had gradually in the course of time
+      been altered, should be pertinaciously restored, so that all things might
+      look just as they did years and years ago. Also, though it was a few days
+      in advance of the orthodox day, she would have the house adorned with
+      &ldquo;Christmas,&rdquo; until it looked a perfect bower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It do seem, Mrs. Harper,&rdquo; said the old housekeeper, confidentially&mdash;&ldquo;it
+      do seem just as on the last merry Christmas, afore the family was broke
+      up, and Mr. Frederick turned soldier, and Mr. Locke Harper&mdash;that's
+      his uncle&mdash;went away with little Master Nathanael, Mr. Locke Harper
+      as is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Agatha had laughed very heartily at the idea of her husband being
+      &ldquo;little Master Nathanael;&rdquo; but she had not told this conversation to Anne
+      Valery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All afternoon the house had been oppressively lively, thanks to a visit
+      from the Dugdale children; which little elves were sent out of the way
+      while their mother performed the not unnecessary duty of putting her
+      establishment in order. For Harrie was determined that her house, and none
+      other, should have the honour of receiving Uncle Brian. As Nathanael had
+      taken for granted the same thing, and as Mary Harper had likewise
+      communicated her opinion, that it was against all etiquette for her poor
+      father's only brother to be welcomed anywhere but at Kingcombe Holm, there
+      seemed likely to be a tolerable family fight over the possession of the
+      said Uncle Brian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little Dugdales had talked of him incessantly all day, communicating
+      their expectations concerning him in such a funny fashion that Agatha was
+      ready to die with laughing, and even Anne, who had insisted on having the
+      children about her, was heard to laugh sometimes. She let little Brian
+      climb about her sofa, and answered all sorts of eccentric questions from
+      the others, never seeming weary. At last, when the sound of merry, young
+      voices had died out of the house, and its large, lofty rooms grew solemn
+      with the wailing of the wind, Anne had retreated to her dressing-room,
+      where she sat watching the fire-light, or answering in fragments to
+      Agatha's conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation was wandering enough; catching up various topics, and
+      then letting them drop like broken threads, but all winding themselves
+      into one and the same subject &ldquo;They will be home to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope, nay, I am sure of it, God willing!&rdquo; said Anne, softly. &ldquo;He often
+      puts hindrances in our way, but in the end He always works things round,
+      and we see them clearly afterwards. Still we ought hardly to say even of
+      the strongest love or dearest wish we have, 'It <i>must</i> be!' without
+      also saying 'God willing.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha replied not. This was a new doctrine for her. How rarely in her
+      young, passionless, sorrowless life, she had thought of the few words, oft
+      used in cant, and Agatha hated all cant&mdash;&ldquo;the will of God.&rdquo; She
+      pondered over them much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of a night is it&rdquo; said Anne, at length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very dreary and rainy, and the wind is high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter, it will not reach them. The <i>Ardente</i> will be safe in
+      Southampton-water by this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha recurred to the perpetual letter; &ldquo;Yes, so my husband tells me
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And therefore,&rdquo; Miss Valery continued, laying her hand over the paper,
+      &ldquo;his good little wife shall fold up this, and not weary herself any more
+      with anxiety about him. Those who love ought above all others to trust in
+      the love of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this they sat patient and content&mdash;nay, oftentimes quite merry,
+      for Agatha strove hard to amuse her companion. And the wind sang its song
+      without&mdash;not threateningly, but rather in mirth; and the fire burnt
+      brightly, within. And no one thought of them but as friends and servants&mdash;the
+      terrible Wind, the devouring Fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was growing late, and Agatha began to use the petty tyranny with which
+      Miss Valery had invested her, insisting on her friend's going to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will presently; only give me time&mdash;a little time. I am not so
+      young as you, my child, and have not so many hours to waste in sleeping.
+      There now, I'll be good. Wait&mdash;you see I am already pulling down my
+      hair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so, rather feebly. It fell on her shoulders longer and thicker
+      than any one would have believed&mdash;it was really beautiful, except for
+      those broad white streaks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What soft fine hair,&rdquo; cried Agatha, admiringly. &ldquo;Ah, you shall go without
+      caps in the spring&mdash;I declare you shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at my age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That cannot be so very ancient. I shouldn't mind asking you the direct
+      question, for I am sure you are not one of those foolish women who are
+      ashamed to tell their age, as if any number of years matters while we keep
+      a young warm heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thirty-nine or forty, I forget which,&rdquo; said Anne, as she drew her
+      fingers through the long locks, gazing down on them with some pensiveness.
+      &ldquo;I myself never liked hair of this colour, neither brown nor black; but
+      mine was always soft and smooth, and some people used to think it <i>pretty</i>
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is pretty now. You will always be beautiful, dear, dear Anne! I will
+      call you Anne, for you are scarcely older than I, except in a few
+      contemptible years not worth mentioning,&rdquo; continued the girl, sturdily.
+      &ldquo;And I will have you as happy, too, as I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne sat silent a minute or two, the hair dropping over her face. Then she
+      raised it and looked into the fire with a calm sweet look that Agatha
+      thought perfectly divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been happy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That is I have not been unhappy&mdash;God
+      knows I have not. I have had a great deal to do always, and in all my
+      labour was there profit. It comforted me, and helped to comfort others; it
+      made me feel that my life was not wholly thrown away, as many an unmarried
+      woman's is, but as no one's ever need be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But some are. Think of Jane Ianson, of whom Emma wrote me word yesterday.
+      If ever any woman spent a mournful, useless life, and died of a broken
+      heart, it was poor Jane Ianson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her story was pitiful, but she somewhat erred,&rdquo; Anne answered,
+      thoughtfully. &ldquo;No human being <i>ought</i> to die of a 'broken heart' (as
+      the phrase is) while God is in His heaven, and has work to be done upon
+      His earth. There are but two things that can really throw a lasting shadow
+      over woman's existence&mdash;an unworthy love, and a lost love. The first
+      ought to be rooted out at all risks; for the other&mdash;let it stay!
+      There are more things in life than mere marrying and being happy. And for
+      love&mdash;a high, pure, holy love, held ever faithful to one object,&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      as she spoke, Anne's whole face lightened and grew young&mdash;&ldquo;no fortune
+      or misfortune&mdash;no time or distance&mdash;no power either in earth or
+      heaven can alter <i>that</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause, during which the two women sat silent and grave. And
+      the wind howled round the house, and the fire crackled harmlessly in the
+      chimney, but they noticed neither&mdash;the fierce Wind&mdash;the awful
+      Fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a wild night,&rdquo; said Agatha at last. &ldquo;But they are landed at
+      Southampton long ago. Last night was lovely&mdash;such a moon! and they
+      were sure to sail, because the <i>Ardente</i> only plies once a week, and
+      there is no other boat this winter-time. Oh, yes! they are quite safe in
+      Southampton. I shouldn't wonder if they were both here to breakfast
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Agatha, with her little heart beating quick, merrily, and fast, never
+      thought to look at her companion. Anne's eyes were dilated, her lips
+      quivering&mdash;all her serenity was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow&mdash;to-morrow,&rdquo; she murmured, and as with a sudden pain, put
+      her hand to her chest, breathing hard and rapidly. &ldquo;Agatha, hold me fast&mdash;don't
+      let me go&mdash;just for a little while.&mdash;I <i>cannot</i> go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She clung to the young girl with a pallid, frightened aspect, like one who
+      looks down into a place of darkness, and shudders on its verge. Never
+      before had that expression been seen in Anne Valery. Slowly it passed
+      away, leaving the calmness that was habitual to her. Agatha hung round her
+      neck, and kissed her into smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said, rising, &ldquo;let us both go to bed. You look tired, my child,
+      and we must have your very best looks when you make breakfast for <i>them</i>
+      in the morning. That is, if they both come here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will come&mdash;my husband says so. He knows, and is determined that
+      Uncle Brian shall know&mdash;everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne sat still&mdash;so still, that her young companion was afraid she had
+      vexed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, dear&mdash;not vexed. But no human being can know everything! It lies
+      between him and me&mdash;and God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, she rose, fastened up the long hair in which the last lingering
+      beauty of her youth lay&mdash;put on her little close cap, and was again
+      the composed gentle lady of middle age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rung for the housekeeper, and gave various orders for the morning,
+      desiring a few trivial additions to the breakfast, which would have made
+      Agatha smile, but that she noted a slight hesitation in the voice that
+      ordered them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything your husband would like especially? I don't quite
+      understand his ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha blushed as she answered&mdash;&ldquo;Nor I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not answer so in a few months hence,&rdquo; said Anne, when they were
+      alone. &ldquo;It is a very unromantic doctrine, but few young wives know how
+      much the happiness of a home depends on little things&mdash;that is, if
+      anything can be little which is done for <i>his</i> comfort, and is
+      pleasant to <i>him</i>. There's a lecture for you, Mistress Agatha. Now go
+      to bed, and rise in the morning to begin a new era, as the happiest and
+      best wife in all England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; cried Agatha, laughing, though with a tear or two in her eyes.
+      To think how much Anne had guessed of the wretched past, yet, with true
+      delicacy, how entirely she had concealed that knowledge!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They embraced silently, and then Miss Valery went into her own room,
+      where, year after year, when all the duties and cheerfulness of the day
+      were done, the solitary woman had shut herself in&mdash;alone with her own
+      heart and with God. The young wife stood and looked with thoughtful
+      reverence at the closed door of that room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was eleven o'clock, yet somehow Mrs. Harper did not feel inclined to go
+      to bed. She had too many things to think of, too many plans to make and
+      resolutions to form. Her life must settle itself calmly now. Its trouble,
+      tumult, and uncertainty were over. She felt quite sure of her husband's
+      goodness&mdash;of his deep and tender love for herself&mdash;nay, also of
+      her own for him&mdash;only that was a different sort of feeling. She
+      thought less on this than on the other side of the subject&mdash;how sweet
+      it was to be so dear to him. She would try and deserve him more&mdash;be
+      to him a faithful wife and a good house-wife, and make herself happy in
+      his devotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled as she passed through the hall where he had stood and said, &ldquo;Do
+      you love me?&rdquo; She wished she had frankly answered &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; as was indeed the
+      truth; only his strong love had lately made her own seem so poor and weak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lingering on the spot which his feet had last pressed, she tried to fancy
+      him beside her, and acted the scene over again, &ldquo;making believe,&rdquo; childish
+      fashion, that she stood on tiptoe attempting to reach up to his mouth&mdash;a
+      very long way!&mdash;and there breathing out the &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; in a perfectly
+      justifiable and unquestionable fashion. And then she laughed at her own
+      conceit&mdash;the foolish little wife!&mdash;and tripped off into the
+      drawing-room, lest the old butler, who always went round the house at
+      midnight to see that all was safe, might catch her at her antics. Still,
+      were they not quite natural? Was she not a very happy and
+      fondly-worshipped wife? and was not her husband coming home the next
+      morning?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Entering the drawing-room, her high spirits were somewhat sobered down;
+      its atmosphere felt so gloomy and cold. The fire had nearly died out&mdash;the
+      ill-natured fire, that did not know there was a cheerful little woman
+      coming to sit beside it and dream of all sorts of pleasant things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish fires would never go out,&rdquo; said Agatha, rather crossly; and she
+      stirred it, and blew it, and cherished it, as if it were the only pleasant
+      companion in this dreary room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How I do love fire,&rdquo; she said at last, as she sat down on the hearth-rug
+      and warmed her little feet and hands by the blaze, and would not look in
+      the dark corners of the room, but kept her face turned from them, as
+      during her life she had kept it turned away from all gloomy subjects.
+      Passionate anguish of her own making, she had known; but that stern,
+      irremediable sorrow which comes direct from the unseen Mover of all things
+      and lays its heavy hand on the sufferer's head, saying, &ldquo;Be still, and
+      know that I am God&rdquo;&mdash;this teaching, which must come to every human
+      soul that is worth its destiny, had never yet come to Agatha Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it this unknown something even now tracking her, that made her long
+      for the familiar daylight, and feel afraid of night, with its silence, its
+      solitude, and its dark?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go to bed and try to sleep,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is but a few hours. My
+      husband is certain to be here in the morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose, laughed at herself for starting on some slight noise in the
+      quiet house&mdash;old Andrews locking up the front door, probably&mdash;snuffed
+      her candle to make it as bright as possible, and prepared to go up-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A light knock at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, Andrews. The fire is all safe, and I shall vanish now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this without looking round. When she did look she was somewhat
+      surprised to see, not the butler, but Marmaduke Dugdale. It was odd,
+      certainly, but then Duke had such very odd ways, and was always turning up
+      at impossible hours and in eccentric fashion. He looked eccentric enough
+      now, being thoroughly drenched with rain, with a queer, scared expression
+      on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha was amused by it. &ldquo;Why, what a late visitor! The children are gone
+      home hours ago, though they waited ever so long for 'Pa.' Have you been
+      all this while at Mr. Trenchard's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't been there at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't'ee laugh&mdash;now don't'ee, Mrs. Harper.&rdquo; And Duke sat down,
+      pushing the dripping hair from his forehead, pulling his face into all
+      sorts of contortions, until at last it sunk between his hands, and those
+      clear, honest, always beautiful eyes, alone confronted her. There was that
+      in their expression which startled Agatha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you come for so late, Mr. Dugdale?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I come for?&rdquo; he vaguely repeated. &ldquo;Now don't'ee tremble so. We
+      must hope for the best, my child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha felt a sudden stoppage at the heart which took away her. breath.
+      &ldquo;Tell me&mdash;quick; I shall not be frightened;&mdash;he is coming home
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear child!&rdquo; muttered Duke again, as he held out his hands to her, and
+      she saw that tears were dropping over his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha clutched at the hands threateningly&mdash;she felt herself going
+      wild. &ldquo;Tell me, I say. If you don't&mdash;I'll&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush&mdash;I'll tell you&mdash;only hush!&mdash;think of poor Anne! And
+      there's hope yet. Only they have not come into Southampton-roads&mdash;and
+      last night there was a fire seen far out at sea&mdash;and it might have
+      been a ship, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus disconnectedly Marmaduke broke his terrible news. Agatha received
+      them with a wild stare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's impossible&mdash;totally impossible,&rdquo; she cried, uttering sounds
+      that were half shrieking, half laughter. &ldquo;Absolutely, ridiculously
+      impossible. I'll not believe it&mdash;not a word. It's impossible&mdash;
+      <i>impossible!</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And gasping out that one word, over and over again, fiercely and fast, she
+      walked up and down the room like one distraught. She was indeed quite mad.
+      She had not any sense of anything. She never once thought of weeping, or
+      fainting, or doing anything but shriek out to earth and Heaven that one
+      denunciation&mdash;that such a thing was and must be&mdash;&ldquo;<i>impossible!</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke caught her&mdash;she flung him aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't touch me&mdash;don't speak to me! I say it's <i>impossible!</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Child!&rdquo; And his look became more grave and commanding than any one would
+      have believed of the Dugdale. &ldquo;Dare not to say impossible! It is sinning
+      against God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha stopped in her frenzied walk. Of a sudden came the horrible thought
+      that <i>it might be</i>&mdash;that the hand might have been lifted&mdash;have
+      fallen, striking the whole world from her at one blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh God!&mdash;oh merciful God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In that cry, scarcely louder than a moan, yet strong and wild enough to
+      pierce the heavens, Agatha knew how she loved her husband. Not calmly, not
+      meekly, but with that terrible love which is to the heart as life itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the next few minutes that passed over her no one could write&mdash;no
+      one would dare. It was utter insanity, yet with a perfect knowledge of its
+      state. Madness, stone-blind, stone-deaf&mdash;that uttered no cry, and
+      poured out no tears. She walked swiftly up and down the room, her hands
+      clenched, her features rigid as iron. Mr. Dugdale and old Andrews could
+      only watch pitifully, saying at times&mdash;which may all good Christians
+      say likewise!&mdash;&ldquo;God have mercy upon her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one else came near&mdash;the servants were all asleep, and Miss
+      Valery's room was in another part of the house. Possibly she slept too&mdash;poor
+      Anne!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Agatha, in a cold, hard voice, clutching Marmaduke's arm, &ldquo;I
+      want to know all about it. I don't believe it, mind you!&mdash;not one
+      word&mdash;but I would like to hear. Just tell me. How did you get the
+      news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Southampton, to-night. It happened last night A steamer saw the
+      burning ship, and went, but the fire had already reached to the water's
+      edge. There was not a soul in or near the wreck when it went down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha shuddered, and then said, in the same hard voice: &ldquo;It was some
+      other ship&mdash;not the <i>Ardente</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke shook his head, drearily. &ldquo;They found a spar with 'Ardente' upon
+      it. But they saw no boats, and some people think, as there were but few
+      passengers, they all got safe off, and may reach the shore.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they will!&mdash;I was sure of that;&rdquo; returned Agatha, in the
+      same wild, determined tone. &ldquo;Let me see! it was a quiet night. I stood a
+      long time looking at the moon&mdash;Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ghastly thought of her standing there looking up at the moon, and the
+      pitiless moon looking down on the sea and on him! Agatha's senses reeled&mdash;she
+      burst into the most awful laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke held her fast&mdash;the whimsical absent Marmaduke&mdash;now
+      roused into his true character, kind, as any woman, and wiser than most
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, you must be quiet. It is wicked ever to despair. There is a
+      chance&mdash;more than a chance, that your husband has been saved. He has
+      infinite presence of mind, and he is a young, strong, likely lad. But
+      Brian&mdash;poor Brian! my dear old friend!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Duke Dugdale's bravery gave way&mdash;he was of such a gentle, tender
+      heart. The sight of his emotion stilled Agatha's frenzy, and made it more
+      like a natural grief, though it was hard yet&mdash;hard as stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, taking his hand, and smiling piteously&mdash;&ldquo;come&mdash;don't
+      cry. I can't!&mdash;not for the world. Let us talk. What are you going to
+      do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going right off to Southampton&mdash;whence they have sent steamers
+      out in all directions to pick up the boats, if they are drifting anywhere
+      about the Channel. Fancy&mdash;to be out in the open sea, this
+      winter-time, with possibly no clothes or food!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo;&mdash;shuddered Agatha's low voice&mdash;&ldquo;hush! or I shall go
+      quite mad, and I would rather not just yet&mdash;<i>afterwards</i>, I
+      shall not mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't now,&rdquo; and she shrank from him. &ldquo;Never think of me&mdash;<i>that</i>
+      does not signify. Only something must be done. No weeping&mdash;no talking&mdash;<i>do</i>
+      something!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you I should. I am going&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go then!&rdquo; Her quick speech&mdash;the wild stamp of her foot&mdash;poor
+      child, how mad she was still!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale took no notice except by a compassionate look&mdash;perhaps
+      he, too, felt there was no time to lose. He went towards the door&mdash;she
+      following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am off now&mdash;I shall catch the train in two hours,&rdquo; said he,
+      springing on his horse in the dark wet night. &ldquo;Harrie will be with you
+      directly&mdash;only she thought I had better come first. Go in&mdash;go in&mdash;my
+      poor child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha obeyed mechanically, for the moment She walked about the house, in
+      at one room and out at another, meeting no person&mdash;for Andrews had
+      gone to call up some of the servants. The heavy quiet around stifled her.
+      Faster and faster she walked&mdash;clutching her hands on her throat for
+      breath&mdash;sometimes uttering, with a sort of laughing shriek, the one
+      word in which seemed her only salvation&mdash;&ldquo;Impossible!&mdash;utterly
+      and entirely impossible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down for a moment, trying to think over more clearly the chances
+      of the case&mdash;but to keep still was beyond her power. She resumed that
+      rapid walk as if she were flying through an atmosphere of invisible
+      fiends. It felt like it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, by a superhuman effort, she drove her mind to contemplate the <i>possible</i>&mdash;the
+      winds, the flames, the waves, and him struggling among them. She saw the
+      face which she had last seen so life-like&mdash;as a <i>dead face</i>,
+      with its pale, pure features and fair hair. And even that face never to be
+      again seen by her through any possible chance! For him to be blotted out
+      altogether from the world, and she left therein! &ldquo;Oh, God&mdash;oh, God!&rdquo;
+       The despairing, accusing shriek that she sent up to His mercy!&mdash;May
+      His mercy have received and forgiven it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to count up the hours that must pass before she could receive
+      any tidings, good or ill. To stay quietly in the house and wait for them!&mdash;you
+      might as well have told a poor wretch to sit still and wait for the
+      bursting of a mine. No rest&mdash;no rest. The very walls of the house
+      seemed to press upon her and hem her in. She saw a bonnet and shawl
+      hanging up in the hall, caught both, and ran out at the front door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out&mdash;out under the stars. She walked with her face lifted right up to
+      them, her eyes flashing out an insane defiance to their merciless calm.
+      The rain fell down thick, and it was very cold, but she never thought of
+      putting on the bonnet or the shawl; or, if she thought at all, it was with
+      a sort of longing that the rain might come and cool her through and
+      through, or the sharp wind pierce to her breast and kill her. Once she had
+      a thought of running a mile or two across the hills, and leaping from some
+      cliffs into the sea; so that, whichever way this suspense ended, she might
+      be safely dead beforehand&mdash;dead, too, in the same ocean, washed by
+      the same wave. All the foolish Romeo-and-Juliet-like traditions of people
+      killing themselves on some beloved's tomb, seemed to her now perfectly
+      real, possible, and natural. Nothing was unnatural or impossible&mdash;save
+      living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How to live, even for a day, an hour, in this horrible, deathly
+      stagnation, she did not know. At last, walking on blindly through the
+      night, she came to the termination of the Thornhurst estate. Was she to go
+      back and lull herself into the stupor of patience?&mdash;to be kissed and
+      wept over, and preached resignation to?&mdash;left to sit mutely in that
+      quiet house, while he was dashed about, fighting with the sea for life?&mdash;or
+      watching the clock's travelling round hour after hour, not knowing but
+      that every peaceful minute might be the terrible one in which he died?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said to herself, while the awful but delirious joy which has
+      struck many in a similar position, struck her suddenly, &ldquo;he is not dead.
+      If he had died, he would have told me&mdash;me whom he so loved He could
+      not die anywhere, or at any time, but in some way or other I should
+      certainly have known it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as she stood in the dark road&mdash;quite alone with the hills and
+      stars, calmed down into a supernatural awe, Agatha almost expected to see
+      her husband stand before her in the old familiar likeness. She would not
+      have been afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no apparition came. All nature, visible and invisible, was silent to
+      her misery. If she went back to the house, all there would be silent too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her resolution&mdash;though it could hardly be called a
+      resolution, being merely the blind impulse of despair. She climbed over
+      the gate&mdash;she had not wit enough to unfasten it&mdash;and ran, swift
+      and silent as some wild animal, along the road to Kingcombe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain ceased, and her dripping clothes dried of themselves, so as not
+      to encumber her movements. By some happy chance her feet were well shod,
+      and now, gathering her wits as she went, she put on the shawl&mdash;not
+      the bonnet, her head burned so, and felt so wild Just then, far into the
+      darkness, she heard wheels rolling and rolling. It was Mrs. Dugdale
+      driving along rapidly towards Thornhurst&mdash;but without one slash of
+      the whip or one word of conversation with Dunce. When she stopped to open
+      a gate the glare of the chaise-lamps showed the little black figure by the
+      roadside. Harrie screamed&mdash;she thought it was a ghost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any news? any news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious! is it you, child? No news&mdash;none! Get up, quick, and come
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Agatha fled on and on, noticing nothing, except once, when with a
+      start she saw the great black outline of Corfe Castle looming against the
+      night-sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/p394.jpg" width="100%" alt="Along the Road Page 394 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      When she reached Kingcombe, it was still dark. She could not even have
+      found her way, save for the faint sky brightness lent by the overcast
+      moon; and the distance she had traversed was all but miraculous. It seemed
+      as if she had not walked by natural feet, but some unseen influence had
+      drawn and lifted her the whole way. When she stood in Kingcombe streets
+      she hardly believed her senses&mdash;save that nothing was hard of belief
+      just then, except the one horror&mdash;incredible, unutterable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale was walking up and down Kingcombe railway station, waiting for
+      the early train. One or two sleepy porters were eyeing him with a sort of
+      pitying curiosity, for ill news spreads fast in a country neighbourhood.
+      There was no one else about. Nobody perceived a little figure creeping up
+      the road and coming on the platform. Even Marmaduke did not lift his eyes
+      or relax his melancholy walk until something touched him on the arm. He
+      stood astonished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is I, you see. You are not gone yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you come&mdash;you poor child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Thornhurst&mdash;I walked. But how soon shall you start?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walked from Thornhurst!&mdash;at this time of night!&rdquo; said one of the
+      railway-men, who knew the family&mdash;as indeed did every one in the
+      neighbourhood. &ldquo;Lord help us&mdash;it's that poor Mrs. Harper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale tried to remove Agatha from the platform, but she resisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am come to go with you to Southampton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What need of that? Go back to my house, poor child. If anything is to be
+      done I can do it. If nothing&mdash;why&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I <i>will</i> go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The determination was so calm, the grasp of the little hand so strong,
+      that her brother-in-law urged no more. He went in his quiet way to take
+      her ticket, the railway folk moving respectfully aside, and whispering
+      among themselves something about &ldquo;poor Mrs. Harper, that was going to
+      Southampton to see after her husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming back, Duke attempted not to talk to her, but stood by her side&mdash;she
+      would stand&mdash;sometimes feeling at her damp shawl, or wrapping her up
+      in the tender careful fashion that he used to his own little ones. At last
+      the great fiery eye, accompanied by the iron beast's snorting gasps,
+      appeared far in the dark. Agatha drew a long breath, like a sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale lifted her in the carriage, almost without a word. One of the
+      railway-men brought from somewhere&mdash;nobody ever learned where&mdash;a
+      rug for her feet, and a pillow for her head to lean on. A minute more, and
+      they were whirled away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Every one knows that story, perhaps the most terrible of its kind for many
+      years&mdash;and Heaven grant! for many more to come&mdash;when a noble
+      ship, with her full complement of human beings, fought at once with winds,
+      and waves, and fire, until came down upon it, and upon all the homes which
+      that one hour desolated, the certain doom. One shudders even at writing of
+      such things, save that they must of necessity happen, and not rarely. But
+      for one such tale as that of the <i>Amazon</i>, which convulses a whole
+      kingdom with horror, there must be many unknown chronicles of equal dread,
+      save that the little vessel sinks unnoticed into its sea grave, and the
+      destruction carried with it passes not beyond its own immediate sphere.
+      Such was the case with the Ardente.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the train neared Southampton it was already bright morning. Everybody
+      was moving about on the solid, safe, sunshiny earth&mdash;nobody thought
+      of shipwrecks and disasters at sea. Many a one looked lazily at the
+      glittering Southampton-water; no one dreamed how, far beyond the curving
+      line of horizon, human beings&mdash;husbands and brothers&mdash;might be
+      floating about without food or water, frozen, thirsting, dying or dead,
+      under the same sunny sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing the spot where the wide reach of bay opens, Marmaduke quickly drew
+      down the carriage-blind. He would not for worlds that the poor Agatha
+      should look at that merry-glancing, cruel sea. She seemed to notice the
+      movement, and stirred from the corner where she had sat during all the
+      journey, motionless, save for her perpetually open eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How light it is! quite morning!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke turned, felt her pulse, and began softly chafing her cold hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, now,&rdquo; she said piteously. &ldquo;Don't be kind to me&mdash;please don't!
+      Talk a little. Tell me what you think it best to do first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sharp-lined, worn face, not pallid, or without consciousness&mdash;some
+      people, to their misery, never can lose consciousness&mdash;mournfully did
+      worthy Duke regard it! But he did not say a word of sympathy; he knew she
+      could not bear it. Her physical powers were so tightly strung that the
+      least soft touch would make them give way altogether.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale stated briefly, and as if it had been the most matter-of-fact
+      thing in the world, how he meant to go to the owners of the <i>Ardente</i>
+      and get the first tidings of her there; how, if neither that nor any
+      rumours he could catch in and about the docks, were satisfactory, he
+      should hire a small steamer and beat up and down Channel, calling in at
+      all the ports where it was likely boats might have been picked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They would be, probably, in twenty-four hours or so. If we don't hear in
+      three days&mdash;three days at this time of year&rdquo;&mdash;he stopped with a
+      perceptible shudder&mdash;&ldquo;then, Agatha,&rdquo; and Duke's gentle voice grew
+      gentler, and solemn like a psalm, &ldquo;then, my child, we'll go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha bowed her head. Bodily exhaustion calmed her mind, and soothed her
+      into a feeling which made even the last dread alternative less fearful.
+      She felt a conviction that such &ldquo;going home&rdquo; would only be a prelude to
+      the last going home of all, when she should never part from her husband
+      more. She did not much mind now, even if all were to end so. Perhaps it
+      would be best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They got out of the carriage. All her limbs were cramped&mdash;she could
+      hardly stand. Mr. Dugdale took her unresisting, to a quiet inn he knew,
+      and there made her lie down and take food. Somehow, even in the last
+      extremity, Duke Dugdale could win people over to do his pleasure, which
+      was always for their own good.. He sat by her and talked, but only for a
+      few minutes&mdash;he had no thought of wasting even in kindness the time
+      on which might hang life or death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going now, and you must stay here till my return, which is sure not
+      to be for at least two hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two hours!&mdash;Oh, take me with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Duke shook his head. &ldquo;You would only hinder me, I fear. See there, now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trying to rise and cross the parlour, she had nearly fallen. A drowsy
+      weakness stole over her&mdash;she let her good brother have his own way
+      entirely. Very soon she found herself alone in the parlour, lying in the
+      dusky light of closed blinds, with the dull murmur creeping up from the
+      street&mdash;lying quietly in a state of passive patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No human brain can endure a great strain of mental anguish long. A
+      merciful numbness usually seizes it, in which everything grows hazy and
+      unreal, and consequently painless. Agatha felt convinced she was
+      half-asleep, and that she should wake up in her own room at Thorn-hurst or
+      at Kingcombe, and find out everything to be a dream. Or even granting its
+      reality, she seemed to view the whole story like some unconcerned person,
+      or some being from whom this troubled world had passed away, and grown
+      less than nothing and vanity. She gazed down upon herself as it were from
+      a great height, thinking how sad a story it was, and how it would have
+      grieved herself to hear it of any one else. But all her thoughts were
+      disconnected and unnatural. The only tangible feeling was a sort of
+      comfort in remembering the last day they had spent together&mdash;in
+      thinking how he loved her, and that, living or dying, he would know how
+      she loved him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this state she lay for an indefinite time&mdash;a period that had no
+      human measurement. It seemed at once a day and a moment. No counted time
+      could ever appear so like eternity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last there was a hand upon the door. Mr. Dugdale had come back. Agatha
+      started up, and sat frozen. For her life she could not have uttered a
+      sound. He took her hand, saying, gently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely he could not have spoken so, if&mdash;No, in that case his lips
+      would have been paralysed, like her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must bear up yet, little sister. There is a chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flood broke forth. Agatha flung herself on the sofa-cushions, sobbing,
+      weeping, and laughing at once. Duke patted her on the shoulder, walked
+      round her, stood eyeing her with his mild, investigating look, as if he
+      were pondering some great new problem in human nature. Finally, he sat
+      down beside her, and cried likewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha for the first time spoke naturally. &ldquo;Thank you, brother&mdash;you
+      are a very good brother to me. Now, tell me everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything is but little. It's like hanging on a thread&mdash;but we'll
+      hold on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will,&rdquo; said Agatha, setting her lips together, and sitting down firmly
+      to listen. She was in her right senses now. She had undergone the shock,
+      and risen from it another woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you would make haste and tell me. You don't know how quiet I am
+      now, nor how much I can bear&mdash;only tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marmaduke began, speaking in fragments hurriedly put together, looking
+      steadily down on his hands, using a brief business tone&mdash;just as if
+      every syllable had not been planned by him on his way back, so that the
+      tidings might fall most gradually on the poor wife's ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was indeed the Ardente. Four sailors were picked up yesterday, in one
+      of her boats. They say it's likely that others may have got off in the
+      same way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; That wild sob of thanksgiving! Marmaduke seemed to dread it more
+      than despair. He hastily added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they had many things against them. The fire happened at midnight.
+      When it broke out there was no one on deck but one passenger, walking up
+      and down. He was a young man, the sailors say, tall, with long light
+      hair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The speaker's voice faltered; he could not bear to see the misery he
+      inflicted. At last Agatha motioned to hear more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One sailor remembers him particularly, because during all the tumult he
+      was almost the only person who seemed to have his wits about him. He was
+      seen everywhere&mdash;getting out the boats, quieting the passengers&mdash;doing
+      it all, the man says, as steadily as if he had been in his own house on
+      shore, instead of in a burning ship. If there was any one likely to have
+      saved his own life and the lives of others, the sailors think it must be
+      that young man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did they see him last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not five minutes before the ship went down. He was in a boat with several
+      more. They think it was he because of his light hair. He was leaning over
+      towards a floating spar, helping in a woman and child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, then it was he! It was my husband!&rdquo; cried Agatha, clasping her hands,
+      while her countenance glowed like that of some Roman wife, who, dearer
+      even than his life, esteemed her husband's honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; she said, as that rapture faded, and the natural pang
+      returned&mdash;&ldquo;I firmly believe that he has been saved. God would not let
+      him perish. He must have got safe off from the wreck in that boat. Don't
+      you think he has?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Duke could not meet those eager eyes; he fidgeted in his seat, looked down
+      on his hands, and told them over, finger by finger. At last he said, with
+      that peculiar upward look which, amidst all his eccentricities, showed the
+      beautiful serenity of a righteous man&mdash;a man who &ldquo;walked with God:&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Child, we can none of us be certain either way. We can only do all that
+      lies in human power, and leave the event in the hand of One who is wiser
+      and more loving than us all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha bowed her head, and her heart with it, almost to the dust. She
+      remembered Anne Valery's saying&mdash;how much those who loved have need
+      to trust in God. Poor Anne! Never until this minute had any one thought of
+      Anne at home at Thornhurst. Shocked at the selfishness that often comes
+      with great misery, Agatha cried eagerly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear anything about Uncle Brian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;nothing.&rdquo; The quick, husky tone, as Marmaduke turned and walked
+      away, betrayed how keenly the good man suffered, though he never spoke of
+      any sufferings but Agatha's. She was deeply touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take hope,&rdquo; she said earnestly. &ldquo;He will be saved. My husband would never
+      forsake Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that; but then Nathanael is young, and has something to live for,
+      while Brian is getting on in years&mdash;older than I am.&mdash;I should
+      like to have seen him again, and have shown him little Brian; but&mdash;well
+      it's a strange world! Heaven's mercy is sure to give us a life to come,
+      perhaps many lives&mdash;if only to make clear the hard mysteries of this.
+      I should like to have talked that matter over once again with poor Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Duke seemed wandering into his mild, dreamy philosophies, till Agatha
+      recalled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, what is to be done? You said, if we heard nothing, the boats must be
+      drifting about somewhere in the Channel&rdquo;&mdash;she shivered&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      then we would take a little steamer, and go and look for them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. She's getting ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is right. Then we will go on board at once,&rdquo; said Agatha, with
+      decision. She, who a week ago would have been terrified at the bare
+      thought of setting her foot on the deck of any vessel!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little delicate thing,&rdquo; muttered Duke, watching her. &ldquo;It will be a
+      rough sea to-night, and we may be a day or two in getting round the coast.
+      You had better go home, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somebody once told me you had never been at sea in your life; and in
+      winter-time this Dorset coast is rough always, sometimes dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dangerous! and he is there!&rdquo; She began tying on her bonnet, hastily, but
+      steadily, as steadily as if preparing for an every-day walk. &ldquo;Now, I am
+      quite ready. Let us start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brother made no more objections, but took her through the busy
+      Southampton streets. Once, on the quay, two lounging sailors touched their
+      hats to Mr. Dugdale, and Agatha heard a whisper of &ldquo;Belongs to some o' the
+      poor fellows as went down in the <i>Ardente</i>.&rdquo; She shuddered, as if
+      there were already upon her the awful sign of widowhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;The wide Southampton harbour, with the crafts of all nations
+      gliding to and fro upon it&mdash;the bustle of the landing and embarking
+      place&mdash;the hurrying crowd, eager after their own business, none
+      thinking of the one little vessel suddenly whelmed in that wondrous
+      sea-highway, ever thronged, yet ever lonely, or of the wrecked crew
+      drifting hither and thither, no one knew where. The tale had been a day's
+      talk, a day's pity&mdash;then forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha stood in the midst of all, but saw nothing. Nothing but the grey,
+      bleak, merciless sea, howling and dancing to her feet like a victorious
+      enemy, or sweeping off into the silence of the wintry horizon, there
+      grimly folding up its mystery, as if to say, &ldquo;Of me thou shalt know
+      nothing.&rdquo; But Agatha felt as if, to win that secret, she was ready to
+      pierce into nethermost hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick, let us go,&rdquo; she said, and almost bounded into the little vessel.
+      She stood on the deck, trembling with excitement, watched the paddles
+      crash into obedience the cruel waves, ride over them, on&mdash;on&mdash;to
+      the mouth of the bay. And now for the first time she was out on the open
+      sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those gloomy winter days when the whole ocean looks sullen&mdash;heavy
+      with brooding storms. No blue foamy sweeps, no lovely sea-green calms;
+      nothing but leaden-coloured hills of water, swelling and sinking, with
+      black valleys between. Agatha remembered a story she had read or heard in
+      her childish days, of some wrecked sailor lad, doomed to death by his
+      mates because the boat was too full for safety, who asked leave to sit on
+      the gunwale until after the curl of the wave, and then quietly dropped off
+      into the smooth hollow below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was horrible! She could not look at the sea&mdash;it made her mad. She
+      could only look skywards, and try to find a break in the dun clouds; or
+      else over to the horizon, to see something&mdash;ever so faint and small a
+      something&mdash;breaking the line of water and sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men on board apparently knew Mr. Dugdale, and he them. They worked
+      with a respectful solemnity, as if aware of their sad errand. The boat was
+      a little steam-tug, and she cut her way over the heavy seas like a bird.
+      Two men, and Marmaduke, kept watch constantly with the glass, shorewards
+      and seawards. Sometimes they went so far out that the hazy coast-line
+      almost vanished, and then again they ran in-shore under the gigantic
+      cliffs that lock the south of England coast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hour after hour, the poor wife remained on deck, sometimes walking about
+      restlessly, sometimes lying wrapped in sails and rugs, her face turned
+      seaward in a dumb hopelessness that was more piteous than any moans. The
+      seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe,
+      mingled with that compassionate gentleness which sailors almost always
+      show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her food, or
+      put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the sheltering of
+      &ldquo;the poor lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Late at night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again. She
+      found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compass and the telescope. He
+      had slept by snatches where he sat, never giving up his watch for a single
+      hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;E&mdash;h!&rdquo; he said, when she came and touched him. &ldquo;I was dreaming of
+      the Missus and the little ones at home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to go home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no!&mdash;not while there's a hope. Keep heart, my child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But they looked at each other's faces in the dawn, and saw how pale and
+      disconsolate both were. And still the little lonely boat kept rocking over
+      the sea&mdash;the pitiless sea, that returned neither answer nor sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another day&mdash;another night: just the same. Once or twice they came on
+      the track of some vessel; a ship outward or homeward bound, and told their
+      story; shouting it out, in brief business-like words&mdash;how horrible
+      they sounded! And the ship's people would be seen to come to her side,
+      stand a while looking at the melancholy little steamer on its hopeless
+      search&mdash;then pass on. All the world seemed passing on slowly, slowly&mdash;leaving
+      them to that blank sea and sky, and to their own despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for several
+      hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at the stern,
+      looking shorewards at two columns of rock, which the watery wear of ages
+      had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright in the sea, a little
+      distance from one another, with the breakers boiling between.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's 'Old Harry and his wife,' as the Dorset people call them. We are
+      near home now, Agatha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home!&rdquo; She gasped the word in an agony, and turned her face again
+      seawards&mdash;towards the grey desolate line where the Channel melted
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The steamer can't run on much longer without putting in-shore,&rdquo; said
+      Duke, after an interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha almost shrieked; &ldquo;You are not going to land? We have been out such
+      a little&mdash;little while! And you said yourself the boats would live a
+      long time in the open Channel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was three days ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three days&mdash;oh, Heaven!&mdash;three days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the black, black cloud fell over her; the near vision of an existence
+      wherein <i>he</i> was not&mdash;the going home a widow&mdash;or worse,
+      because she could never have the certainty of widowhood. To be incessantly
+      watching by day, and starting up at night, with the thought that he was
+      come! Never to know when, where, or in what manner he died; to have no
+      last blessing&mdash;no last kiss! At the moment, Agatha would have given
+      her whole future life&mdash;nay, her immortal soul&mdash;to cling for one
+      minute round her husband's neck and tell him how she loved him&mdash;with
+      the one perfect love which nothing now could ever alter, weaken, or
+      estrange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dugdale moved aside. He knew that for this burst of anguish there was
+      no consolation. After a time, he came and said those few soothing words
+      which are all that people can say, without being those &ldquo;miserable
+      comforters&rdquo; who only torture the more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even then, in that last moment of anguish, there was power in the good and
+      soothing influence so peculiar to Marmaduke Dugdale. Agatha grew calmer&mdash;at
+      least more passive. Soon, she saw that the little steamer's head was
+      turned to the shore. A convulsion passed over her, but she did not rebel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a faint hope even yet,&rdquo; said Duke, with a melancholy voice that
+      almost gave the lie to his words. &ldquo;They may have drifted safe ashore
+      somewhere&mdash;though it would be almost a miracle. Or they may have been
+      carried far out to sea, and been picked up by some outward-bound ship.
+      It's just a chance&mdash;but&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha understood that &ldquo;but&rdquo; Nothing but strong conviction would have
+      forced it from her brother-in-law's lips. Her last hope died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour or two more they spent in gliding up the narrow channel of that
+      salt-water swamp, which at high tide appeared so glittering from the
+      Thornhurst road. When approached, it was a muddy chaos, desolate as an
+      uninhabited world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went as far up-stream as the little steamer could run, and then
+      landed on the bank which abutted on some rushy meadows. It was a dark
+      winter's night&mdash;there was not a soul abroad, though some faint light
+      showed they were near the town. The bells of Kingcombe Church were ringing
+      merrily through the mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had quite forgotten,&rdquo; muttered Duke to himself. &ldquo;This must be
+      Christmas-eve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What a Christmas-eve!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He half led, half lifted Agatha through the wet fields and along the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will go to my house, and let the Missus and me take care of you, my
+      child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; I will go home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, without any further argument, he took her to her own gate. There it
+      was, the familiar gate, with its shiny evergreens glittering in the
+      lamp-light; beyond it, the dusky line of Kingcombe Street.. The cottage
+      within was all dark, except for the faintest ray creeping under the
+      hall-door. Marmaduke opened it, and called Dorcas. She came, and when she
+      saw them, rushed forward sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, missus, missus&mdash;is it my missus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed the sorrowful mistress, who stood like a spectre in her
+      desolate home. But Dorcas dragged her in, and opened the parlour-door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an odour of warmth&mdash;bright light, which so dazzled Agatha
+      that at first she saw nothing. Then she saw some one lying on the sofa.
+      And lo! there&mdash;half-buried in pillows, haggard and death-like, yet
+      alive&mdash;was a face she knew&mdash;a calm, sleeping face&mdash;falling
+      round it the long light hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was Christmas morning. All the good people of Kingcombe were going to
+      church. One only household did not go to church&mdash;there was hardly
+      need, when all their life henceforward would be one long grateful psalm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha came down much as she had done on her first Sunday morning in the
+      same house, and made breakfast in the little parlour. There was a strange
+      hush about her&mdash;a joy too solemn for outward expression. When she had
+      finished all her preparations, she stood by the window, looking on the
+      sunny little garden, and listening to the Christ-mas-bells. The tears
+      sprang faster&mdash;faster&mdash;her lips moved. What she was uttering no
+      ear heard&mdash;save One. Whatever the good Kingcombe people thought, He
+      to whom the whole earth is a temple, and all time a long Sabbath of praise&mdash;would
+      forgive her that she did not go to church that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She heard a foot on the stairs, and ran thither like lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael appeared. He was extremely feeble&mdash;every motion seemed to
+      give him pain;&mdash;and his whole appearance was that of one rescued from
+      the very jaws of the grave. But he looked so happy&mdash;so infinitely
+      happy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha half-scolded him. &ldquo;Why did you not call me? Why not let me help you
+      to walk? I can do it, I know.&rdquo; And creeping under his arm, she tried to
+      convert her little self into a marvellously strong support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband only smiled, allowing himself to be led to the sofa, laid
+      down, and made comfortable with countless pillows. Then she stood and
+      looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you content?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite content,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;So content, that I want nothing in this
+      wide world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And by his look his wife knew that this was true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, darling, you have been crying? Come and sit here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came&mdash;making a minute's pretence of smiles, and then fell on his
+      neck, weeping,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I don't deserve to be so happy&mdash;so very happy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Child,&rdquo; he answered, with a grave tenderness, &ldquo;if we went by desert, who
+      among us would deserve anything? Should I, who was so hard and cold
+      towards my poor little wife, when, if I had said one word out of my real
+      heart, and not kept it down so proudly&mdash;Ah! I was very wicked. I,
+      too, did not deserve that God should save me from death, and bring me home
+      to my dear wife's love. Darling! don't let us talk of deservings; only let
+      us try to be good, and always, always love one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, the heavenly silence of that embrace, the life of life, that was in
+      it! Now for the first time the bond of full and perfect love was drawn
+      round the husband and wife, sacredly shutting them in from the world
+      without, which could never more come between them, or intermeddle with
+      their sorrows or their joys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length Agatha freed herself gently from his clasp, saying, after her
+      old habit of hiding emotion under a jest, something about the
+      impossibility that the mistress of a household could idle away her time in
+      this way. She made her husband's breakfast, and insisted on watching him
+      finish it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drinking, he said with a shudder, &ldquo;Oh, Agatha, you don't know what it is
+      to be thirsty! The hunger was nothing to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk of that, don't,&rdquo; murmured she, turning pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not, dear. But was it not strange that we should have drifted
+      ashore at Weymouth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very strange.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you sent over the way this morning, to see after Uncle Brian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet; but Harrie will take care of him. He is not near so much hurt as
+      you, and I must look after my own husband first.&rdquo; And once again wistfully
+      gazing at him, she threw her arms round his neck, murmuring, &ldquo;My own&mdash;my
+      own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The church-bells ceased, the breakfast was removed, and the husband and
+      wife sat together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somebody,&rdquo; said Nathanael, suddenly&mdash;&ldquo;somebody ought to go and see
+      Anne Valery this Christmas-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knew last night. Marmaduke said he should ride over and tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news for her to hear&mdash;dear, dear Anne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And they fell into a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha said at last, &ldquo;When am I to see Uncle Brian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon, dear. Yet&mdash;stay&mdash;is not that some one at the door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It certainly was. People walked into one another's houses so very
+      unceremoniously at Kingcombe. This visitor, however, paused in the hall,
+      and then opened the parlour-door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a remarkably tall man, with grey hair, and features not unlike
+      Nathanael's, being regular and delicate. But their expression was much
+      harsher, and indicative of a strong will and a settled bitterness, which
+      only passed over when he smiled. This smile was very beautiful, and seemed
+      to steal from his worn and hard-lined aspect at least ten years. Agatha
+      knew who he was immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian!&rdquo; Nathanael sprang up, despite his weakness, and they grasped
+      one another's hands as heartily as if they had not met for years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this your wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is indeed; my own dear wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless her.&rdquo; Mr. Locke Harper took Agatha by the hand, and looked at
+      her keenly. The peculiar expression either of bitterness or melancholy
+      came over his face, but as he watched her it gradually faded off. There
+      seemed an enchantment in the young wife's sweet looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You two are very happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They exchanged a glance, which needed no words of confirmation; but Agatha
+      said, with a shy blush, and a womanly grace that made her sweeter-looking
+      than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all the happier now Uncle Brian has come home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, my dear. Thank your husband too, for me. I would have been
+      lying 'full fathom five' in the Channel now, if it were not for that boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That boy&rdquo; sounded oddly enough, save for the world of tenderness in the
+      phrase, and the look which accompanied it. Any one could see at once the
+      strong attachment subsisting between the uncle and nephew. No more was
+      betrayed, however, and they soon began a conversation as natural and
+      unconcerned as if they had gone through no peril, and suffered no emotion.
+      Certainly, however strong their feelings, the Harpers were not a
+      &ldquo;sentimental&rdquo; family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha thought, as like a dutiful wife she sat still and listened, that
+      she had never seen any man&mdash;saving her husband of course&mdash;whose
+      mien was so simple, yet so truly noble, as Brian Locke Harper's. She
+      watched him with a pathetic curiosity, thinking what he must have been as
+      a young man, with many other thoughts besides, which came from the very
+      depths of her woman's heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Brian talked, though in a rather fragmentary and brief fashion, of
+      Kingcombe and of the changes he found. He never by any chance mentioned
+      any other place than Kingcombe, until Nathanael happened to ask him where
+      Duke was this morning?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has ridden out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I wanted to see him, and thank him for being so kind to my poor
+      little wife. Where has he gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Thornhurst.&rdquo; The word came out sharp, low, yet with a certain tone
+      that made it unlike other words. After saying it, Uncle Brian sat moodily
+      looking at the fire from under his eyebrows, until Agatha, with womanly
+      wisdom, broke the silence, by speaking to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think some time this afternoon I ought to go and see Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall go, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Brian observed, never moving his eyes from the fire, &ldquo;Harriet said
+      that she&mdash;Miss Valery&mdash;was not quite strong this winter. Was
+      that true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha answered, &ldquo;That it was only too true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something in her manner seemed to startle Mr. Locke Harper; he threw
+      towards her one of his flashing, penetrating looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have indeed been very anxious about poor Anne,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;But
+      winter is a trying season, and we hope, in the spring&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, in the spring,&rdquo; repeated Uncle Brian, hastily. &ldquo;What a gay garden
+      you have for Christmas.&rdquo; He opened the glass door, and immediately went
+      out. They saw him walking about, backwards and forwards, among
+      chrysanthemum beds and arbutus-trees, passing hurriedly, and with a
+      bent-down, abstracted gaze, which beheld nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he know about her?&rdquo; said Agatha to her husband. &ldquo;You said you would
+      tell him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not, his mood was too bitter. And there are some things in which
+      not even I dare break upon the reserve of Uncle Brian. He is as secret and
+      as proud&mdash;as I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand that 'but' my child. I know how much both he and I have
+      often erred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife pressed his hand fondly, to indicate how love had sealed its kiss
+      of forgiveness upon all things. Nathanael smiled, and continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I found Uncle Brian in such a strange mood at Havre. I dared not speak of
+      anything just then, but thought the fit time would be when we came near
+      the Dorset coast, and his heart was softened at the sight of home. I was
+      walking on deck, pondering how to tell him, when the fire began.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, don't.&rdquo; And Agatha forgot everything&mdash;it was natural she should&mdash;in
+      rejoicing once more over the beloved saved. Suddenly, there was heard a
+      fluttering, and a chattering with Dorcas in the hall, marking an
+      unmistakable approach&mdash;Mrs. Dugdale with her young flock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrie was in the best of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that may
+      be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been seen
+      either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced Agatha
+      warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother
+      Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fortitude, but shook his hair
+      after it, like a boy who has been petted against his will. However, he
+      kissed his little nephews good-humouredly, let Brian sit astride on his
+      sofa-pillows, benignly assured Fred's inquiring mind that Uncle Nathanael
+      had not been to the bottom of the sea and up again&mdash;and answered Gus
+      with a more serious voice, that it was not exactly &ldquo;funny&rdquo; to be drowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny? No, indeed,&rdquo; exclaimed the mother. &ldquo;I am sure the shock was
+      dreadful to us all. I don't know when <i>I</i> shall get over it And that
+      reminds me that Duke thinks it had been too much for poor Anne. She is
+      worse,&mdash;keeping her bed. I don't understand sick people much, but if
+      Agatha could go&mdash;Oh, there you are, Uncle Brian! Duke sent a message
+      to you. He says, he is afraid it will be some days before you can see your
+      old friend Anne: she is very ill indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brian stood silent, resting his hand on the glass-door. The colourless
+      face, void of any expression, excepting the eyes, and they&mdash;never,
+      while she lived, did Agatha forget the look of those eyes! She whispered,
+      passing him by,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to her now&mdash;I shall send word soon;&rdquo; and left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a slight difficulty about her being driven to Thornhurst, as she
+      insisted on her husband's keeping quiet at home. Harrie made a dozen plans
+      and counter-plans, until they were all frustrated by Brian Harper's rising
+      from the corner, where he had sat motionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will allow me, I will drive you there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo; There was no more said about it; they started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Locke Harper scarcely spoke to his niece all the way, until just as
+      they were passing the gate where, on that awful walk, Agatha had startled
+      Mrs. Dugdale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear you came all these miles on foot, in the middle of the night. It
+      was a very brave thing for a woman to do. I did not think any woman could
+      have love enough in her to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know several who would do much more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harrie Dugdale, probably; and for certain, Anne Valery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brian said no more until they reached the gates of Thornhurst. There he
+      helped her to descend, reins in hand, and waited. Just as Agatha was going
+      he touched her arm:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask how she is, will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha sent the message up-stairs, and remained with him for a minute or
+      two. He stood motionless by the horse, his hat pulled down over his brows&mdash;nothing
+      visible but the sharp profile of his mouth. Old Andrews called him &ldquo;that
+      gentleman&rdquo;&mdash;eyed him with some curiosity, then bowed, and wished him
+      a &ldquo;merry Christmas, sir,&rdquo; country fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer about the mistress of Thornhurst was brief; she was &ldquo;much the
+      same;&rdquo; the servants did not seem to apprehend any danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brian shook his niece's hand. &ldquo;I shall go back across the moors to
+      Kingcombe. Tell her, if, at any time, she would like to see an old friend&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped, threw down Dunce's reins, and started off towards the high
+      ground, striding over heather and furze, with his free backwoodsman's
+      step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrews looked after him. &ldquo;If that be any man alive it be Mr. Locke
+      Harper! O Lord! and I didn't know 'un&mdash;my dear old master! Mr.
+      Harper! Sir! Mr. Locke Harper.&rdquo; He ran a little way in vain pursuit of the
+      retreating figure; then Agatha saw him sit down on a stone, hide his face
+      in his shaking old hands, and cry for joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While, far over the hill-side, in very sight of the closed blinds of
+      Anne's room, the returned wanderer strode away, and disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was some time before Agatha could summon courage to walk up-stairs. All
+      things seemed so strange. She could hardly realise the fact that she had
+      been driven from Kingcombe by Uncle Brian's own self, and that she was now
+      going to tell Anne Valery that he was here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, calmed by faith in heaven, and in that next holiest faith, love,
+      she opened the door of Anne's bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was silent, solemn, and peaceful. There was a prayer-book by the
+      bedside, open at one of the Christmas-day psalms. No one lingered in the
+      room, or about the couch, with sisterly or friendly care; all was serene
+      but lonely, as Anne's whole life had been. At the opening of the door, a
+      faint voice asked, &ldquo;Who is there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only I! Oh, Anne, dearest Anne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause of weeping silence, though one only wept. Miss Valery
+      soothed the girl in all sorts of tender ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have suffered much, my poor child, but it is over now. Forget it. You
+      will be very happy now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you too&mdash;you too, Anne! But why do you lie here so drearily,
+      with no one near you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will rise soon? You must get well now they are come home. You
+      little think how anxious all are about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is kind. Everybody was always very kind to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few moments, during which Anne lay with her eyes shut, and Agatha
+      watched, with an unaccountable dread, the wonderful, spiritual calm of her
+      features, she suddenly said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have seen him, have you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Brian? Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How does he look? Was he harmed by that&mdash;that awful three days at
+      sea?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he seems quite well. He drove me to Thornhurst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he is here?&rdquo; And there came a slight trembling over the placid face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had to go back to Kingcombe, I believe,&rdquo; said Agatha, hesitating. &ldquo;But
+      he told me to say, if you liked to see an old friend&mdash;He does not
+      know how ill you have been,&rdquo; she added, with irrepressible vexation, &ldquo;or
+      else I should have felt very, very angry, even with Uncle Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! You do not understand him yet,&rdquo; said Anne, gently, as she once more
+      closed her eyes. Many thoughts seemed to sweep over her, but none left a
+      trace of bitterness behind. She was past all restlessness or suffering
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you all going to keep Christmas, Agatha? You ought to be very
+      happy. After such a week as this has been, everything seems happiness
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not everything&mdash;when you are not with us, Anne&mdash;I mean, not
+      with us to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I shall be with you, to-day and every day. I believe I shall never be
+      far away from Thornhurst and Kingcombe, and Kingcombe Holm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this more to herself than to Agatha, who listened, her throat
+      choking; then answered abruptly, &ldquo;You are talking too much&mdash;you must
+      be quiet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne smiled&mdash;one of her old smiles, so full of cheerfulness. &ldquo;I think
+      I am quiet enough already, but I will obey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her face to the pillow, and lay for a long time without moving.
+      At length she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agatha, I want you to do something for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would like to see your husband, and my old friend, Mr. Brian Harper.
+      Will you go and fetch them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will to-morrow, but&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;dear, not to-morrow; I must see them to-day&mdash;this very
+      Christmas-day. Go&mdash;you will not be away long. And we will send the
+      carriage, so that the journey can do Nathanael no harm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are always thinking of every one,&rdquo; said Agatha, as she turned to
+      obey. She felt it was a solemn mission. All her bright plans about
+      Thornhurst grew dim; she could not look forward. Yet, warm in the strength
+      of youth and love, she cherished a faint hope still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she reached Kingcombe, Brian had not come home. They sent messengers
+      for him in all directions, but in vain. At last they were forced to drive
+      back without him&mdash;hopelessly peering through the dusk to see if they
+      could discern his tall figure across the moors. When they were dashing at
+      full speed through Thornhurst-gate, some one rose up from the hedge beside
+      it, and stopped the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything the matter at the house? Speak, can't you, fellow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice hoarse and commanding&mdash;the tall, spare figure, the grey
+      hair&mdash;it could be none other than Brian Harper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael called to him. &ldquo;Uncle Brian, we have been looking for you
+      everywhere. Anne wants to see you. Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will.&rdquo; He walked away and was lost in the furze-bushes; but when the
+      carriage drove up to the door they found him already standing there. They
+      all entered the house together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anne's maid met them with a delighted countenance. Her mistress was so
+      well&mdash;thank God! She was up, and sitting in the drawing-room!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There in truth she was, in her usual seat, wearing her ordinary dress. She
+      had taken off the invalid-cap, and her soft hair was arranged as carefully
+      as if no white lines marred its brownness. She looked less old than usual&mdash;nay,
+      almost beautiful&mdash;so exquisitely peaceful was the expression of her
+      countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nathanael and his wife hung back, letting Mr. Harper meet her first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose and held out both hands to him. &ldquo;Welcome home again&mdash;welcome
+      home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said nothing, but grasped the hands, and retained them fast. There was
+      a long, long look, eye to eye, face to face,&mdash;a look, in which were
+      gathered and summed up all the years since they were young, together,&mdash;and
+      then the two old friends sat down side by side. Agatha thought it strange
+      that they should meet in such a calm, commonplace way&mdash;but then she
+      was young. She did not know how quietly flows the outward surface of a
+      tide that has flowed on, deep, solemn, and changeless, for five-and-twenty
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a little while they were all sitting round the fire&mdash;the merry
+      Christmas fire with its blazing pine-log&mdash;talking just as naturally
+      and familiarly as though no emotion had stirred them. Anne Valery, resting
+      in her arm-chair, looked on and smiled. She talked little, but listened to
+      the rest, and by an inexplicable sweet calmness, made them all so much at
+      ease, that it seemed to Agatha as if they four had known one another for a
+      whole lifetime, and been always as happy as now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the evening advanced, the Christmas dinner was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry I cannot sit at the head of my own table to-day, but&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      Miss Valery gently laid her hand on Brian's arm&mdash;&ldquo;you will take my
+      place, old friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made some unintelligible answer, and they all left the drawing-room. It
+      was a rather silent dinner; yet, somehow, no one looked sad. No one could,
+      with Anne's cheerful influence pervading the whole house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha soon rose and rejoined her. She was sitting just as they had left
+      her&mdash;but whether it was through the light being dimmer, or through a
+      certain thoughtfulness in her face, Agatha thought she did not look quite
+      the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you well?&rdquo; Are you sure you are not tired? And&rdquo;&mdash;here Agatha
+      ventured to wrap her arms round her and gaze up in her eyes with a fulness
+      of meaning&mdash;are you happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, happy! perfectly happy!&rdquo; The look and tone were such as Agatha never
+      forgot. They expressed a bliss that of its intensity could not necessarily
+      endure for more than the briefest time in this changing world. It belonged
+      to the world everlasting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go back, dear, and ask Brian to come to me? I would like to talk
+      a little, alone, with my old friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Agatha obeyed. When she had delivered her message, Mr. Locke Harper rose
+      without speaking. She saw him go into the drawing-room and close the door;
+      then she came back to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For more than two hours Agatha and Nathanael sat, not liking to go in
+      without being summoned. At last they ventured to pass the door. The
+      silence within was so death-like that it half frightened them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish she would call,&rdquo; Agatha whispered. &ldquo;She looked so strangely white
+      when she spoke to me. Hush! is not that some one stirring? I must knock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did so, but there was no answer. At last, trembling all over, she
+      caught hold of her husband's hand and made him enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was quite still&mdash;dimly-lighted&mdash;for the fire had been
+      suffered to burn itself almost out. Anne sat in her arm-chair, with Brian
+      kneeling beside her, his arms clasping her waist, and hers linked behind
+      his neck. Neither moved, or seemed to notice anything; and the two young
+      people, greatly moved by the scene, were gliding away, when a last glimmer
+      of the fire showed them Anne Valery's face. They saw it&mdash;grasped one
+      another's hands with an awe-struck meaning&mdash;and stayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a minute or two Anne faintly spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think there is some one near? Is it Agatha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl flung herself on Anne's hand.&mdash;&ldquo;It is I&mdash;and my
+      husband. May we stay? We, too, loved you, dear, dear Anne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that! One minute, just one minute, Brian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She loosed her clasp of him a little; the other two came near, she kissed
+      them both, and bade &ldquo;God bless them.&rdquo; Then raising herself up and speaking
+      with all her strength, she said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will bear witness, and say to them all, that if I had married, none
+      but Brian Locke Harper would ever have been my husband: and therefore I
+      have left to him Thornhurst, and all I have in the world, in token of my
+      love and reverence&mdash;just as if&mdash;I had been&mdash;his wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the last words, uttered very feebly, Anne sank back into her old
+      attitude. She lay there many minutes, her face beautiful in its perfect
+      rest. The other face&mdash;his face&mdash;was altogether hidden. But they
+      saw that, as his arms grasped her round, every muscle was quivering. The
+      convulsion grew so strong that even Anne felt it. She opened her eyes, and
+      tried to speak again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brian, poor Brian? Be content! it is not for long&mdash;not for very
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her fingers began to flutter feebly on his neck. She fringed the grey
+      locks round them in a childish, absent way, muttering to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very soft it feels still! He used to have such beautiful hair!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as if she felt her mind wandering, and strove to recall it, that to
+      the very last moment it might rest on him, she again forcibly opened her
+      eyes and fixed them on Brian's face. They never left it afterwards. The
+      whole world seemed to have faded from her except that face. For a minute
+      or two longer she lay looking at him, her countenance all radiant, until,
+      gradually and softly, her eyes closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; whispered Nathanael, as he drew his weeping wife closer to his
+      bosom, and pointed out the beatitude of that dying smile. &ldquo;Hush&mdash;she
+      is quite happy. She has gone home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by
+Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,17267 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by
+Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Agatha's Husband
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
+Posting Date: March 13, 2009 [EBook #21767]
+Release Date: June 8, 2007
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA'S HUSBAND ***
+
+
+
+
+David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AGATHA'S HUSBAND
+
+A NOVEL
+
+By The Author Of
+
+'John Halifax, Gentleman'
+
+DINAH MARIA CRAIK,
+AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock
+
+With Illustrations By Walter Crane
+
+Macmillan And Co.
+
+1875
+
+
+INSCRIBED TO M, P.,
+
+IN
+
+MEMORIAL OF THE FRIENDSHIP OF A LIFETIME
+
+1852.
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+The husband's farewell
+
+"She began leisurely to read"
+
+"Will you accept it, with my love?"
+
+Arrival at Kingcombe Holm
+
+On horseback
+
+Along the road
+
+
+
+
+AGATHA'S HUSBAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+--If there ever was a woman thoroughly like her name, it was Agatha
+Bowen. She was good, in the first place--right good at heart, though
+with a slight external roughness (like the sound of the g in her name),
+which took away all sentimentalism. Then the vowels--the three broad
+rich a's--which no one can pronounce with nimini-pimini closed lips--how
+thoroughly they answered to her character!--a character in the which was
+nothing small, mean, cramped, or crooked.
+
+But if we go on unfolding her in this way, there will not be the
+slightest use in writing her history, or that of one in whom her life is
+beautifully involved and enclosed--as every married woman's should be--
+
+He was still in clouded mystery--an individual yet to be; and two other
+individuals had been "talking him over," feminine-fashion, in Miss
+Agatha Bowen's drawing-room, much to that lady's amusement and
+edification. For, being moderately rich, she had her own suite of rooms
+in the house where she boarded; and having no mother--sorrowful lot for
+a girl of nineteen!--she sometimes filled her drawing-room with very
+useless and unprofitable acquaintances. These two married ladies--one
+young, the other old--Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Thornycroft--had been for the
+last half-hour vexing their very hearts out to find Agatha a husband--a
+weakness which, it must be confessed, lurks in the heart of almost every
+married lady.
+
+Agatha had been laughing at it, alternately flushing up or looking
+scornful, as her mouth had a natural propensity for looking; balancing
+herself occasionally on the arm of the sofa, which, being rather small
+and of a light figure, she could do with both impunity and grace; or
+else rushing to the open window, ostensibly to let her black kitten
+investigate street-sights from its mistress's shoulder. Agatha was very
+much of a child still, or could be when she chose.
+
+Mrs. Hill had been regretting some two or three "excellent matches" of
+which she felt sure Miss Bowen had thrown away her chance; and young
+Mrs. Thornycroft had tried hard to persuade her dearest Agatha how very
+much happier she would be in a house of her own, than as a boarder even
+in this excellent physician's family. But Agatha only laughed on, and
+devoted herself more than ever to the black kitten.
+
+She was, I fear, a damsel who rather neglected the _bienseances_ of
+life. Only, in her excuse, it must be allowed that her friends were
+doing what they had no earthly business to do; since; if there is one
+subject above all upon which a young woman has a right to keep her
+thoughts, feelings, and intentions to herself, and to exact from others
+the respect of silence, it is that of marriage. Possibly, Agatha Bowen
+was of this opinion.
+
+"Mrs. Hill, you are a very kind, good soul: and Emma Thornycroft, I like
+you very much; but if--(Oh! be quiet, Tittens!)--if you could manage to
+let me and 'my Husband' alone."
+
+These were the only serious words she said--and they were but half
+serious; she evidently felt such an irresistible propensity to laugh.
+
+"Now," continued she, turning the conversation, and putting on a
+dignified aspect, which occasionally she took it into her head to
+assume, though more in playfulness than earnest--"now let me tell you
+who you will meet here at dinner to-day."
+
+"Major Harper, of course."
+
+"I do not see the 'of course' Mrs. Thornycroft," returned Agatha,
+rather sharply; then, melting into a smile, she added: "Well, 'of
+course,' as you say; what more likely visitor could I have than my
+guardian?"
+
+"Trustee, my dear; guardians belong to romances, where young ladies are
+always expected to hate, or fall in love with them."
+
+Agatha flushed slightly. Now, unlike most girls, Miss Bowen did not look
+pretty when she blushed; her skin being very dark, and not over clear,
+the red blood coursing under it dyed her cheek, not "celestial, rosy
+red," but a warm mahogany colour. Perhaps a consciousness of this
+deepened the unpleasant blushing fit, to which, like most sensitive
+people at her age, she was always rather prone.
+
+"Not," continued Mrs. Thornycroft, watching her,--"not that I think any
+love affair is likely to happen in your case; Major Harper is far too
+much of a settled-down bachelor, and at the same time too old."
+
+Agatha pulled a comical face, and made a few solemn allusions to
+Methuselah. She had a peculiarly quick, even abrupt manner of speaking,
+saying a dozen words in the time most young ladies would take to drawl
+out three; and possessing, likewise, the rare feminine quality of never
+saying a word more than was necessary.
+
+"Agatha, how funny you are!" laughed her easily-amused friend. "But,
+dear, tell me who else is coming?" And she glanced doubtfully down on a
+gown that looked like a marriage-silk "dyed and renovated."
+
+"Oh, no ladies--and gentlemen never see whether one is dressed in
+brocade or sackcloth," returned Agatha, rather maliciously;--"only,
+'old Major Harper' as you are pleased to call him, and"----
+
+"Nay, I didn't call him very old--just forty, or thereabouts--though he
+does not look anything like it. Then he is so handsome, and, I must say,
+Agatha, pays you such extreme attention."
+
+Agatha laughed again--the quick, light-hearted laugh of nineteen--and
+her brown eyes brightened with innocent pleasure.
+
+Young Mrs. Thornycroft again looked down uneasily at her dress--not from
+overmuch vanity, but because her hounded mind recurred instinctively
+from extraneous or large interests to individual and lesser ones.
+
+"Is there really any one particular coming, my dear? Of course, _you_
+have no trouble about evening dress; mourning is such easy comfortable
+wear." (Agatha turned her head quickly aside.) "That handsome silk
+of yours looks quite well still; and mamma there," glancing at the
+contentedly knitting Mrs. Hill--"old ladies never require much dress;
+but if you had only told me to prepare for company"----
+
+"Pretty company! Merely our own circle--Dr. Ianson, Mrs. Ianson, and
+Miss Ianson--you need not mind outshining her now"----
+
+"No, indeed! I am married."
+
+"Then the 'company' dwindles down to two besides yourselves; Major
+Harper and his brother."
+
+"Oh! What sort of a person is the brother?"
+
+"I really don't know; I have never seen him. He is just come home from
+Canada; the youngest of the family--and I hate boys," replied Agatha,
+running the sentences one upon the other in her quick fashion.
+
+"The youngest of the family--how many are there in all?" inquired the
+elder lady, her friendly anxiety being probably once more on matrimonial
+thoughts intent.
+
+"I am sure, Mrs. Hill, I cannot tell. I have never seen any of them but
+Major Harper, and I never saw him till my poor father died; all which
+circumstances you know quite well, and Emma too; so there is no need to
+talk a thing twice over."
+
+From her occasional mode of speech, some people might say, and did say,
+that Agatha Bowen "had a temper of her own." It is very true, she was
+not one of those mild, amiable heroines who never can give a sharp word
+to any one. And now and then, probably from the morbid restlessness
+of unsatisfied youth--a youth, too, that fate had deprived of those
+home-ties, duties, and sacrifices, which are at once so arduous and so
+wholesome--she had a habit of carrying, not only the real black kitten,
+but the imaginary and allegorical "little black dog," on her shoulder.
+
+It was grinning there invisibly now; shaking her curls with short
+quick motion, swelling her rich full lips--those sort of lips which are
+glorious in smiles, but which in repose are apt to settle into a gravity
+not unlike crossness.
+
+She was looking thus--not her best, it must be allowed--when a servant,
+opening the drawing-room door, announced "Visitors for Miss Bowen."
+
+The first who entered, very much in advance of the other, appeared with
+that easy, agreeable air which at once marks the gentleman, and one long
+accustomed to the world in all its phases, especially to the feminine
+phase; for he bowed over Agatha's hand, and smiled in Agatha's now
+brightening face, with a sort of tender manliness, that implied his
+being used to pleasing women, and having an agreeable though not an
+ungenerous consciousness of the fact.
+
+"Are you better--really better? Are you quite sure you have no cold
+left? Nothing to make your friends anxious about you?" (Agatha shook her
+head smilingly.) "That's right; I am so glad."
+
+And no doubt Major Harper was; for a true kind-heartedness, softened
+even to tender-heartedness, was visible in his handsome face. Which face
+had been for twenty years the admiration of nearly every woman in every
+drawing-room he entered: a considerable trial for any man. Now and then
+some independent young lady, who had reasons of her own for preferring
+rosy complexions, turn-up noses, and "runaway" chins, might quarrel
+with the Major's fine Roman profile and jet-black moustache and hair;
+but--there was no denying it--he was, even at forty, a remarkably
+handsome man; one of the old school of Chesterfield perfection, which is
+fast dying out.
+
+Everybody liked him, more or less; and some people--a few men and not a
+few women, had either in friendship or in warmer fashion--deeply
+loved him. Society in general was quite aware of this; nor, it must be
+confessed, did Major Harper at all attempt to disprove or ignore the
+fact. He wore his honours--as he did a cross won, no one quite knew
+how, during a brief service in the Peninsula--neither pompously nor
+boastingly, but with the mild indifference of conscious desert.
+
+All this could be at once discerned in his face, voice, and manner;
+from which likewise a keen observer might draw the safe conclusion that,
+though a decided man of fashion, and something of a dandy, he was above
+either puppyism or immorality. And Agatha's rich Anglo-Indian father had
+not judged foolishly when he put his only child and her property in the
+trust of, as he believed, that rare personage, an honest man.
+
+If the girl Agatha, who took honesty as a matter of course in every
+gentleman, endowed this particular one with a few qualities more than he
+really possessed, it was an amiable weakness on her part, for which,
+as Major Harper would doubtless have said with a seriously troubled
+countenance, "no one could possibly blame _him._"
+
+In speaking of the Major we have taken little notice--as little, indeed,
+as Agatha did--of the younger Mr. Harper.
+
+"My brother, Miss Bowen. He came home when my sister Emily died." The
+brief introduction terminated in a slight fall of voice, which made the
+young lady look sympathisingly at the handsome face that took shades of
+sadness as easily as shades of mirth. In her interest for the Major she
+merely bowed to his brother; just noticed that the stranger was a tall,
+fair "boy," not at all resembling her own friend; and after a polite
+speech or two of welcome, to which Mr. Harper answered very briefly,
+she hardly looked at him again until she and her guests adjourned to the
+family drawing-room of Dr. Ianson.
+
+There, the Major happening to be engrossed by doing earnest politeness
+to Mrs. Thornycroft and her mother, Agatha had to enter side by side
+with the younger brother, and likewise to introduce him to the worthy
+family whose inmate she was.
+
+She did so, making the whole circuit of the room towards Miss Jane
+Ianson, in the hope that he would cast anchor, or else be grappled by
+that young lady, and so she should get rid of him. However, fate was
+adverse; the young gentleman showed no inclination to be thus put aside,
+and Miss Bowen, driven to despair, was just going to extinguish him
+altogether with some specimen of the unceremonious manner which she
+occasionally showed to "boys," when, observing him more closely, she
+discovered that he could not exactly come under this category.
+
+His fair face, fair hair, and thin, stripling-like figure, had deceived
+her. Investigating deeper, there was a something in his grave eye
+and firmly-set mouth which bespoke the man, not the boy. Agatha, who,
+treating him with a careless womanly superiority that girls of nineteen
+use, had asked "how long he had been in Canada?" and been answered
+"Fifteen years,"--hesitated at her next intended question--the very rude
+and malicious one--"How old he was when he left home?"
+
+"I was, as you say, very young when I quitted England," he answered, to
+a less pointed remark of Miss Ianson's. "I must have been a lad of nine
+or ten--little more."
+
+Agatha quite started to think of the disrespectful way in which she
+had treated a gentleman twenty-five years old! It made her shy and
+uncomfortable for some minutes, and she rather repented of her habit of
+patronising "boys."
+
+However, what was even twenty-five? A raw, uncouth age. No man was
+really good for anything until he was thirty. And, as quickly as
+courtesy and good feeling allowed her, she glided from the uninteresting
+younger brother to the charmed circle where the elder was talking away,
+as only Major Harper could talk, using all the weapons of conversation
+by turns, to a degree that never can be truly described. Like Taglioni's
+_entrechats_, or Grisi's melodious notes, such extrinsic talent dies on
+the senses of the listener, who cannot prove, scarcely even explain, but
+only say that it was so. Nevertheless, with all his power of amusing, a
+keen observer might have discerned in Major Harper a want of depth--of
+reading--of thought; a something that marked out the man of society
+in contradiction to the man of intellect or of letters. Had he been an
+author--which he was once heard to thank Heaven he was not--he would
+probably have been one of those shallow, fashionable sentimentalists
+who hang like Mahomed's coffin between earth and heaven, an eyesore unto
+both. As it was, his modicum of talent made him a most pleasant man in
+his own sphere--the drawing-room.
+
+"Really," whispered the good, corpulent Dr. Ianson, who had been
+laughing so much that he quite forgot dinner was behind time, "my dear
+Miss Bowen, your friend is the most amusing, witty, delightful person.
+It is quite a pleasure to have such a man at one's table."
+
+"Quite a pleasure, indeed," echoed Mrs. Ianson, deeply thankful to
+anything or anybody that stood in the breach between herself, her
+husband, and the dilatory cook.
+
+Agatha looked gratified and proud. Casting a shy glance towards where
+her friend was talking to Emma Thomycroft and Miss Ianson, she met
+the eye of the younger brother. It expressed such keen, though
+grave observance of her, that she felt her cheeks warm into the old,
+unbecoming, uncomfortable blush.
+
+It was rather a satisfaction that, just then, they were summoned
+to dinner; Major Harper, in his half tender, half paternal manner,
+advancing to take her downstairs; which was his custom, when, as
+frequently happened, Agatha Bowen was the woman he liked best in the
+room. This was indeed his usual way in all societies, except when out of
+kindliness of heart he now and then made a temporary sacrifice in favour
+of some woman who he thought liked _him_ best. Though even in this case,
+perhaps, he would not have erred, or felt that he erred, in offering his
+arm to Agatha.
+
+She looked happy, as any young girl would, in receiving the attentions
+of a man whom all admired; and was quite contented to sit next to him,
+listening while he talked cheerfully and brilliantly, less for her
+personal, entertainment than that of the table in general. Which she
+thought, considering the dulness of the Ianson circle, and that even her
+own kind-hearted, long-known friend, Emma Thomycroft, was not the most
+intellectual woman in the world,--showed great good nature on the part
+of Major Harper.
+
+Perhaps the most silent person at table was the younger brother, whose
+Christian name Agatha did not know. However, hearing the Major call
+him once or twice by an odd-sounding word, something like "Beynell" or
+"Ennell," she had the curiosity to inquire.
+
+"Oh, it is N. L.--his initials; which I call him by, instead of the
+very ugly name his cruel godfathers and godmothers imposed upon him as a
+life-long martyrdom."
+
+"What name is that?" asked Agatha, looking across at the luckless victim
+of nomenclature, who seemed to endure his woes with great equanimity.
+
+He met her eye, and answered for himself, showing he had been listening
+to her all the time. "I am called Nathanael--it is an old family
+name--Nathanael Locke Harper."
+
+"You don't look very like a Nathanael," observed his neighbour, Mrs.
+Thornycroft, doubtless wishing to be complimentary.
+
+"I think he does," said Agatha, kindly, for she was struck by the
+infinitely sweet and "good" expression which the young man's face just
+then wore. "He looks like the Nathanael of Scripture, 'in whom there
+was no guile.'"
+
+A pause--for the Iansons were those sort of religious people who think
+any Biblical allusions irreverent. But Major Harper said, heartily,
+"That's true!" and cordially, nay affectionately, pressed Agatha's
+hand. Nathanael slightly coloured, as if with pleasure, though he made
+no answer of any kind. He was evidently unused to bandy either jests or
+compliments.
+
+If anything could be objected to in a young man so retiring and
+unobtrusive as he, it was a certain something the very opposite of
+his brother's cheerful frankness. His features, regular, delicate, and
+perfectly colourless; his hair long, straight, and of the palest brown,
+without any shadow of what painters would call a "warm tint," auburn or
+gold, running through it; his slow, quiet movements, rare speech, and a
+certain passive composure of aspect, altogether conveyed the impression
+of a nature which, if not positively repellant, was decidedly cold.
+
+Agatha felt it, and though from the rule of opposites, this species of
+character awoke in her a spice of interest, yet was the interest of too
+faint and negative a kind to attract her more than momentarily.
+
+In her own mind she set down Nathanael Harper as "a very odd sort of
+youth"--(_a youth_ she still persisted in calling him)--and turned
+again to his brother.
+
+They had dined late,--and the brief evening bade fair to pass as
+after-dinner evenings do. Arrived in the drawing-room, old Mrs. Hill
+went to sleep; Miss Ianson, a pale young woman, in delicate health,
+disappeared; Mrs. Ianson and Mrs. Thornycroft commenced a low-toned,
+harmless conversation, which was probably about "servants" and "babies."
+Agatha being at that age when domestic affairs are very uninteresting,
+and girlish romance has not yet ripened into the sweet and solemn
+instincts of motherhood, stole quietly aside, and did the very rude
+thing of taking up a book and beginning to read "in company." But, as
+before stated, Miss Agatha had a will of her own, which she usually
+followed out, even when it ran a little contrary to the ultra-refined
+laws of propriety.
+
+The book not being sufficiently interesting, she was beginning, like
+many another clever girl of nineteen, to think the society of married
+ladies a great bore, and to wonder when the gentlemen would come
+up-stairs'. Her wish was shortly gratified by the door's opening--but
+only to admit the "youth" Nathanael.
+
+However, partly for civility, and partly through lack of entertainment,
+Agatha smiled upon even him, and tried to make him talk.
+
+This was not an easy matter, since in all qualities he seemed to be
+his elder brother's opposite. Indeed, his reserve and brevity of speech
+emulated Agatha's own; so they got on together ill enough, until by some
+happy chance they lighted on the subject of Canada and the Backwoods.
+Where is there boy or girl of romantic imagination who did not, at
+some juvenile period of existence, revel in descriptions of American
+forest-life? Agatha had scarcely passed this, the latest of her various
+manias; and on the strength of it, she and Mr. Harper became more
+sociable. She even condescended to declare "that it was a pleasure to
+meet with one who had absolutely seen, nay, lived among red Indians.'"
+
+"Ay, and nearly died among them too," added Major Harper, coming up so
+unexpectedly that Agatha had not noticed him. "Tell Miss Bowen how you
+were captured, tied to the stake, half-tomahawked, etc.--how you lived
+Indian fashion for a whole year, when you were sixteen. Wonderful lad! A
+second Nathaniel Bumppo!" added he, tapping his brother's shoulder.
+
+The young man drew back, merely answered "that the story would not
+interest Miss Bowen," and retired, whether out of pride or shyness it
+was impossible to say.
+
+The conversation, taken up and led, as usual, by Major Harper, became
+a general disquisition on the race of North American Indians.
+Accidentally, or not, the elder brother drew from the younger many
+facts, indicating a degree of both information and experience which
+made every one glance with surprise, respect, and a little awe, on the
+delicate, boyish-looking Nathanael.
+
+Once, too, Agatha took her turn as an object of interest to the rest
+They were all talking of the distinctive personal features of that
+strange race, which some writers have held to be the ten lost tribes of
+Israel. Agatha asked what were the characteristics of an Indian face,
+often stated to be so fine?
+
+"Look in the mirror, Miss Bowen," said Nathanael, joining in the
+conversation.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+I mean, that were you not an Englishwoman, I should have thought you
+descended from a Pawnee Indian--all except the hair. The features are
+exact--long, almond-shaped eyes, aquiline nose, mouth and chin of the
+rare classic mould, which these children of nature keep, long after it
+has almost vanished out of civilised Europe. Then your complexion, of
+such a dark ruddy brown--your"----
+
+"Stop--stop!" cried the Major, heartily laughing. "Miss Bowen will think
+you have learnt every one of her physical peculiarities off by
+heart already. I had not the least idea you were gifted with so much
+observation."
+
+"Nay, do let him go on; it amuses me," cried the young girl, laughing,
+though she could not help blushing a' little also.
+
+But Nathanael had "shrunk into his shell," as his brother humorously
+whispered to Agatha, and was not to be drawn out for the remainder of
+the evening.
+
+The Harpers left early, thus affording great opportunity for their
+characters being discussed afterwards. Every lady in the room had long
+since declared herself "in love" with the elder brother; the fact was
+now repeated for the thousandth time, together with one or two remarks
+about the younger Harper, who they agreed was rather nice-looking, but
+so eccentric!
+
+Miss Bowen scarcely thought about Nathanael at all; except that, after
+she was in bed, a comical recollection floated through other more
+serious ones, and she laughed outright at the notion of being considered
+like a Pawnee Indian!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Of all the misfortunes incidental to youth (falling in love included),
+there are few greater than that of having nothing to do. From this
+trial, Agatha Bowen, being unhappily a young lady of independent
+property, suffered martyrdom every day. She had no natural ties, duties,
+or interests, and was not sufficiently selfish to create the like in and
+about her own personality. She did not think herself handsome enough to
+be vain, so had not that sweet refuge of feminine idleness--dress. Nor,
+it must be dolefully confessed, was she of so loving a nature as to love
+anybody or everybody, as some women can.
+
+Kind to all, and liking many, she was apparently one of those characters
+who only really _love_ two or three people in the whole course of their
+existence. To such, life is a serious, perilous, and often terrible
+journey.
+
+"Well, Tittens, I don't know, really, what we are to do with ourselves
+this morning," said Agatha, talking aloud to her Familiar, the black
+kitten, who shared the solitude of her little drawing-room. "You'd like
+to go and play downstairs, I dare say? It's all very nice for you to be
+running after Mrs. Ianson's wools, but I can't see anything amusing in
+fancy-work. And as for dawdling round this square and Russell Square
+with Jane Ianson and Fido--pah! I'd quite as soon be changed into a
+lapdog, and led along by a string. How stupid London is! Oh, Tittens,
+to think that you and I have never lived in the country since we were
+born. Wouldn't you like to go? Only, then we should never see
+anybody"----
+
+The foolish girl paused, and laughed, as if she did not like to
+soliloquise too confidentially, even to a kitten.
+
+"Which of them did you like the best last night, Tittens? One was not
+over civil to you; but Nathanael--yes, certainly you and that juvenile
+are great friends, considering you have met but four evenings. All in
+one week, too. Our house is getting quite gay, Miss Tittens; only it is
+so much the duller in the mornings. Heigho!
+
+"Life's a weary, weary, weary, Life's a weary coble o' care."
+
+"What's the other verse? And she began humming:
+
+"Man's a steerer, steerer, steerer, Man's a steerer--life is a pool."
+
+"I wonder, Tittens, how you and I shall steer through it? and whether
+the pool will be muddy or clear?"
+
+Twisting her fingers in and about her pet's jetty for, Agatha sat
+silent, until slowly there grew a thoughtful shadow in her eyes, a
+forewarning of the gradual passing away of that childishness, which in
+her, from accidental circumstances, had lasted strangely long.
+
+"Come, we won't be foolish, Tittens," cried she, suddenly starting up.
+"We'll put on our bonnets, and go out--that is, one of us will, and the
+other may take to Berlin wool and Mrs. Ianson."
+
+The bonnet was popped on quickly and independently--Miss Bowen scorned
+to indulge in the convenience or annoyance of a lady's-maid. Crossing
+the hall, the customary question, "Whether she would be home to dinner?"
+stopped her.
+
+"I don't know--I am not quite sure. Tell Mrs. Ianson not to wait for
+me."
+
+And she passed out, feeling keener than usual the consciousness that
+nobody would wait for her, or look for her, or miss her; that her
+comings in and goings out were perfectly indifferent to every human
+being in the house, called by courtesy her "home." Perhaps this was her
+own fault, but she could not help it. It was out of her nature to get up
+an interest among ordinary people, where interests there were none.
+
+Little more had she in the house whither she was going to pay one of her
+extempore visits; but then there was the habit of old affection, begun
+before characters develop themselves into the infinite variety from
+which mental sympathy is evolved. She could not help liking Emma
+Thornycroft, her sole childish acquaintance, whose elder sister had been
+Agatha's daily governess, until she died.
+
+"I know Emma will be glad to see me, which is something; and if she does
+tire me with talk about the babies, why, children are better than Berlin
+wool. And there is always the piano. Besides, I must walk out, or I
+shall rust to death in this horrible Bedford Square."
+
+She walked on, rather in a misanthropic mood, a circumstance to her not
+rare. But she had never known mother, sister, or brother; and the
+name of father was to her little more than an empty sound. It had
+occasionally come mistily over the Indian Ocean, in the shape of formal
+letters--the only letters that ever visited the dull London house where
+she spent her shut-up childhood, and acquired the accomplishments of her
+teens. Mr. Bowen died on the high seas: and when his daughter met the
+ship at Southampton, a closed black coffin was all that remained to her
+of the name of father. That bond, like all others, was destined to be to
+her a mere shadow. Poor Agatha!
+
+Quick exercise always brings cheerfulness when one is young, strong,
+and free from any real cares; Agatha's imaginary ones, together with the
+vague sentimentalisms into which she was on the verge of falling, yet
+had not fallen, vanished under the influence of a cheerful walk on a
+sunny summer's day. She arrived at Mrs. Thornycroft's time enough to
+find that admirable young matron busied in teaching to her eldest boy
+the grand mystery of dining; that is, dining like a Christian, seated
+at a real table with a real silver knife and fork. These latter Master
+James evidently preferred poking into his eyes and nose, rather than his
+mouth, and evinced far greater anxiety to sit on the table than on the
+chair.
+
+"Agatha, dear--so glad to see you!" and Emma's look convinced even
+Agatha that this was true. "You will stay, of course! Just in time to
+see James eat his first dinner, like a man! Now Jemmie, wipe his pretty
+mouth, and then give Auntie Agatha a sweet kiss."
+
+Agatha submitted to the kiss, though she did not quite believe in the
+adjective; and felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the title of
+"Auntie" was a mere compliment. She did not positively dislike children,
+else she would have been only half a woman, or a woman so detestable as
+to be an anomaly in creation; but her philoprogenitiveness was, to say
+the least, dormant at present; and her sense of infantile beauty being
+founded on Sir Joshua's and Murillo's cherubs, she had no great fancy
+for the ugly little James.
+
+She laid aside her bonnet, and smoothing her curls in the nursery
+mirror, looked for one minute at her Pawnee-Indian face, the sight of
+which now often made her smile. Then she sat down to lunch with Emma and
+the children; being allowed, as a great favour, to be placed next Master
+James, and drink with him out of his silver mug. Miss Bowen accepted the
+offered honour calmly, made no remark, but--went thirsty.
+
+For an hour or two she sat patiently listening to what had gone on in
+the house since she was there---how baby had cut two more teeth, and
+James had had a new braided frock--(which was sent for that she might
+look at it)--how Missy had been to her first children's party, and was
+to learn dancing at Midsummer, if papa could be coaxed to agree.
+
+"How is Mr. Thornycroft?" asked Agatha.
+
+"Oh, very well--papa is always well. I only wish the little ones took
+after him in that respect."
+
+Agatha, who was old enough to remember Emma engaged, and Emma newly
+married, smiled to think how entirely the lover beloved and the
+all-important young husband had dwindled into a mere "Papa;" liked and
+obeyed in a certain fashion, for Emma was a good wife, but evidently
+made a very secondary consideration to "the children."
+
+The young girl--as yet neither married, nor in love--wondered if this
+were always so. She often had such wonderings and speculation when she
+came to Emma's house.
+
+She was growing rather tired of so much domestic information, and had
+secretly taken out her watch to see how many hours it would be to dinner
+and to Mr. Thornycroft, a sensible, intelligent man, who from love to
+his wife had been always very kind to his wife's friends--when there
+came the not unwelcome sound of a knock at the hall-door.
+
+"Bless me; that is surely the Harpers. I had quite forgotten Major
+Harper and the bears."
+
+"An odd conjunction," observed Agatha, smiling.
+
+"Major Harper, who yesterday, for the fifth time, promised to take Missy
+to the Zoological Gardens to see the bears. He has remembered it at
+last."
+
+No, he had not remembered it; it would have been a very remarkable
+circumstance if he had; being a person so constantly full of
+engagements, for himself and others. The visitor was only his younger
+brother, who had often daundered in at Mrs. Thornycroft's house,
+possibly from a liking to Emma's friendly manner, or because, cast
+astray for a fortnight on the wide desert of London, he had, like
+Agatha, "nothing to do."
+
+If Nathanael had other reasons, they, of course, never came near the
+surface, but lay buried under the silent waters of his quiet mind.
+
+Agatha was half pleased, half disappointed at seeing him. Mrs.
+Thornycroft, good soul, was always charmed to have a visitor, for
+her society did not attract many. Only betraying, as usual, what was
+uppermost in her simple thoughts, she could not long conceal her regret
+concerning little Missy and the bears.
+
+To Agatha's great surprise, Mr. Harper, who she thought, in his
+dignified gravity, would never have condescended to such a thing,
+volunteered to assume his brother's duty.
+
+"For," said he, with a slight smile, "I have had too many perilous
+encounters with wild bears in America, not to feel some curiosity in
+seeing a few captured ones in England."
+
+"That will be charming," cried Mrs. Thornycroft, looking at him with a
+mixture of respect and maternal benignity. "Then you can tell Missy all
+those wonderful stories, only don't frighten her."
+
+"Perhaps I might She seems rather shy of me." And the adventurous young
+gentleman eyed askance a small be-ribboned child, who was creeping about
+the room and staring at him. "Would it not be better if"----
+
+"If mamma went?"
+
+"There, Missy, don't cry; mamma will go, and Agatha, too, if she would
+like it?"
+
+"Certainly," Miss Bowen answered, with a mischievous glance at
+Nathanael. "I ought to investigate bears, if only to prove myself
+descended from a Pawnee Indian."
+
+So, once more, the heavy nut-brown curls were netted up into the crown
+of her black bonnet, and her shawl pinned on carelessly--rather too
+carelessly for a young woman; since that gracious adornment, neatness,
+rarely increases with years. Agatha was quickly ready. In the ten
+minutes she had to wait for Mrs. Thornycroft, she felt, more than once,
+how much merrier they would have been with the elder than the younger
+brother. Also--for Agatha was a conscientious girl--she thought,
+seriously, what a pity it was that so pleasant and kind a man as Major
+Harper had such an unfortunate habit of forgetting his promises.
+
+Yet she regretted him--regretted his flow of witty sayings that
+attracted the humorous half of her temperament, and his touches of
+seriousness or sentiment which hovered like pleasant music
+round the yet-closed portals of her girlish heart. Until
+suddenly--conscientiousness again!--she began to be aware she was
+thinking a deal too much of Major Harper; so, with a strong effort,
+turned her attention to his brother and the bears.
+
+She had leant on Mr. Harper's offered arm all the way to the Regent's
+Park, yet he had scarcely spoken to her. No wonder, therefore, that
+she had had time for meditation, or that her comparison between the two
+brothers should be rather to Nathanael's disadvantage. The balance of
+favour, however, began to right itself a little when she saw how kind
+he was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and
+made foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched
+over little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile
+pertinacity, would poke his small self into every possible danger.
+
+At the sunken den, where the big brown bear performs gymnastic exercises
+on a centre tree, Master Jemmie was quite in his glory. He emulated
+Bruin by climbing from his feet into nurse's arms--thence into mamma's,
+and lastly, much to her discomfiture, into Miss Bowen's. The attraction
+being that she happened to stand close to the railing and next to Mr.
+Harper, who, with a bun stuck on the end of his long stick, had coaxed
+Bruin up to the very top of the tree.
+
+There the creature swayed awkwardly, his four unwieldy paws planted
+together, and his great mouth silently snapping at the cakes. Agatha
+could hardly help laughing; she, as well as the children, was so much
+amused at the monster.
+
+"Mr. Harper, give Missy your cane. Missy would like to feed bear," cried
+the mamma, now very bold, going with her eldest pet to the other side of
+the den, and attracting the animal thither.
+
+At which little James, who could not yet speak, setting up a scream of
+vexation, tried to stretch after the creature; and whether from his
+own impetuosity or her careless hold, sprang--oh, horror!--right out
+of Agatha's arms. A moment the little muslin frock caught on the
+railing--caught--ripped; then the sash, with its long knotted ends,
+which some one snatched at--nothing but the sash held up the shrieking
+child, who hung suspended half way over the pit, in reach of the beast's
+very jaws.
+
+The bear did not at once see it, till startled by the mother's frightful
+cries. Then he opened his teeth--it looked almost like a grin--and began
+slowly to descend his tree, while, as slowly, the poor child's sash was
+unloosing with its weight.
+
+A murmur of horror ran through the people near; but not a man among them
+offered help. They all slid back, except Nathanael Harper.
+
+Agatha felt his sudden gripe. "Hold my hand firm. Keep me in my
+balance," he whispered, and throwing himself over to the whole extent
+of his body, and long right arm, managed to catch hold of James, who
+struggled violently.
+
+"Hold me tight--tighter still, or we are lost," said he, trying to
+writhe back again; his hand--such a little delicate hand it seemed for a
+man--quivering with the weight of the child.
+
+She grasped him frantically--his wrist--his shoulder--nay,--stretching
+over, linked her arms round his neck. Something in her touch seemed to
+impart strength to him. He whispered, half gasping,--
+
+"Hold me firm, and I'll do it yet, Agatha." She did not then notice, or
+recollect till long afterwards, how he had called her by her Christian
+name, nor the tone in which he had said it.
+
+The moment afterwards, he had lifted the child out of the den, and poor
+Jemmie was screaming out his now harmless terror safe in the maternal
+arms.
+
+Then, and not till then, Agatha burst into tears. Tears which no
+one saw, for the mother, hugging her baby, was the very centre of a
+sympathising crowd. Mr. Harper, paler than ordinary, leaned against the
+stone-work of the den.
+
+"Oh, from what have you saved me?" cried Agatha, as after her
+thankfulness for the rescued life, came another thought, personal yet
+excusable. "Had Emma lost the child, I should have felt like a murderess
+to the day of my death."
+
+Nathanael shook his head, trying to smile; but seemed unable to speak.
+
+"You have not hurt yourself?"
+
+"Oh no. Very little. Only a strain," said he as he removed his hand from
+his side. "Go to your friend: I will come presently."
+
+He did come--though not for a good while; and Miss Bowen fancied from
+his looks that he had been more injured than he acknowledged; but she
+did not like to inquire. Nevertheless he rose greatly in her estimation,
+less for his courage than for the presence of mind and common sense
+which made it Valuable, and for the self-restraint and indifference
+which caused him afterwards to treat the whole adventure as such a
+trifling thing.
+
+It was, after all, nothing very romantic or extraordinary, and happened
+in such a brief space of time, that probably the circumstance is not
+noted in the traditionary chronicles of the Zoological Gardens, which
+contain the frightful legend carefully related that day by several
+keepers to Mrs. Thornycroft--how a bear had actually eaten up a child,
+falling in the same manner into the same den.
+
+But the adventure, slight as it may appear, made a very great and sudden
+difference in the slender tie of acquaintanceship, hitherto subsisting
+between Agatha and Major Harper's brother. She began to treat Nathanael
+more like a friend, and ceased to think of him exactly as a "boy."
+
+Master James's mamma, when she at last turned her attention from his
+beloved small self, was full of thanks to his preserver. Mr. Harper
+assured her that his feat was merely a little exertion of muscular
+strength, and at last grew evidently uncomfortable at being made so much
+of. Returning home with them, he would fain have crept away from the
+scene of his honours; but the good-natured, motherly-hearted Emma
+implored him to stay.
+
+"We will nurse you if you are hurt, which I am afraid you must be--it
+was such a dreadful strain! Oh, Jemmie, Jemmie!" and the poor mother
+shuddered.
+
+"Indeed you must come in," added Miss Bowen kindly, seeing that Emma's
+thoughts were floating away, as appeared this time natural enough, to
+her own concerns. "You shall rest all the evening, and we will talk to
+you, and be very, very agreeable. Pray yield!"
+
+Nathanael argued no more, but went in "quite lamb-like," as Mrs.
+Thornycroft afterwards declared.
+
+This acquiescence in him was little rewarded, Agatha thought--for the
+evening happened to be duller even than evenings usually passed at the
+Thornycrofts'. The head of the household, being detained in the
+City, did not appear; and Mrs. Thornycroft's tongue, unchecked by her
+husband's presence, and excited by the event of the afternoon, galloped
+on at a fearful rapidity. She poured out upon the luckless young man all
+the baby biography of her family, from Missy's christening down to the
+infant Selina's cutting of her first tooth. To all of which he listened
+with a praiseworthy attention, giving at least silence, which was
+doubtless all the answer Emma required.
+
+But Agatha, whose sympathy in these things was, as before said, at
+present small, grew half ashamed, half vexed, and finally rather
+angry--especially when she saw the pale weariness that gradually
+overspread Mr. Harper's face. More than once she hinted that he should
+have the armchair, or lie down, or rest in some way; but he took not the
+least notice; sitting immovably in his place, which happened to be next
+herself, and vaguely looking across the table towards Mrs. Thornycroft.
+
+At nine o'clock, becoming paler than ever, he bestirred himself, and
+talked of leaving.
+
+"I ought to be going too. It is not far, and as our roads agree, I will
+walk with you," said Agatha, simply.
+
+He seemed surprised--so much so, that she almost blushed, and would
+have retracted, save for the consciousness of her own frank and kindly
+purpose. She had watched him closely, and felt convinced that he had
+been more injured than he confessed; so in her generous straightforward
+fashion, she wanted to "take care of him," until he was safe at his
+brother's door, which she could see from her own. And her solitary
+education had been conducted on such unworldly principles, that she
+never thought there was anything remarkable or improper in her proposing
+to walk home with a young man, whom she knew she could trust in every
+way, and who was besides Major Harper's brother.
+
+Nor did even the matronly Mrs. Thornycroft object to the plan--save that
+it took her visitors away so early. "Surely," she added, "you can't be
+tired out already."
+
+Agatha had an ironical answer on the very tip of her tongue: but
+something in the clear, "good" eye of Nathanael repressed her little
+wickedness. So she only whispered to Emma that for various reasons she
+had wished to return early.
+
+"Very well, dear, since you must go, I am sure Mr. Harper will be most
+happy to escort you."
+
+"If not, I hope he will just say so," added Agatha, very plainly.
+
+He smiled; and his full, soft grey eye, fixed on hers, had an
+earnestness which haunted her for many a day. She began heartily to
+like Major Harper's brother, though only as his brother, with a sort
+of reflected regard, springing from that she felt for her guardian and
+friend.
+
+This consciousness made her manner perfectly easy, cheerful, and kind,
+even though they were in the perilously sentimental position of two
+young people strolling home together in the soft twilight of a Midsummer
+evening: likewise occasionally stopping to look westward at a new moon,
+which peered at them round street-corners and through the open spaces of
+darkening squares. But nothing could make these two at all romantic
+or interesting; their talk on the road was on the most ordinary
+topics--chiefly bears.
+
+"You seem quite familiar with wild beast life," Agatha observed. "Were
+you a very great hunter?"
+
+"Not exactly, for I never could muster up the courage, or the cowardice,
+wantonly to take away life. I don't remember ever shooting anything,
+except in self-defence, which was occasionally necessary during the
+journeys that I used to make from Montreal to the Indian settlements
+with Uncle Brian."
+
+"Uncle Brian," repeated Agatha, wondering whether Major Harper had ever
+mentioned such a personage, during the two years of their acquaintance.
+She thought not, since her memory had always kept tenacious record of
+what he said about his relatives--which was at best but little. It
+was one of the few things in him which jarred upon Agatha's
+feelings--Agatha, to whose isolation the idea of a family and a home was
+so pathetically sweet--his seeming so totally indifferent to his own.
+All she knew of Major Harper's kith and kin was, that he was the eldest
+brother of a large family, settled somewhere down in Dorsetshire.
+
+These thoughts swept through her mind, as Agatha, repeated
+interrogatively "Uncle Brian?"
+
+"The same who fifteen years since took me out with him to America; my
+father's youngest brother. Has Frederick never told you of him? They two
+were great companions once."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" And Agatha, seeing that Nathanael at least showed no
+dislike, but rather pleasure, in speaking of his family, thought she
+might harmlessly indulge her curiosity about the Harpers of Dorsetshire.
+"And you went away with Mr. Brian Harper, at ten years old. How could
+your mother part with you?"
+
+"She was dead--she died when I was born. But I ought to apologise for
+thus talking of family matters, which cannot interest you."
+
+"On the contrary, they do--very much!" cried Agatha; and then blushed
+at her own earnestness, at which Nathanael brightened up into positive
+warmth.
+
+"How kind you are! how I wish you knew my sisters! It is so pleasant to
+me to know them at last, after writing to them and thinking about them
+for these many years. How you would like our home--I call it home,
+forgetting that I have been only a visitor, and in a short time must go
+back to my real home, Montreal."
+
+"Must you indeed!" And Agatha felt sorry. She had been at once surprised
+and gratified by the confidential way in which this usually reserved
+young man talked to her, and her alone. "Why do you live in America? I
+hate Americans."
+
+"Do you?" said he, smiling, as if he read her thoughts. "But I have
+neither Yankee blood nor education. I was English born; brought up in
+British Canada, and by Uncle Brian."
+
+He spoke the latter words with a certain proud affection, as if his
+uncle's mere name were sufficient guarantee for himself. Agatha secretly
+wondered what could possibly be the reason that Major Harper had never
+even mentioned this personage, whom Nathanael seemed to hold in such
+honour.
+
+"Of course," he continued, "though I dearly like England, though"--and
+he sunk his voice a little--"though now it will be doubly hard to go
+away, I could never think of leaving Uncle Brian to spend his old age
+alone in the country of his adoption."
+
+"No, no," returned Agatha, absently, her thoughts still running on this
+new Mr. Harper. "What profession is he?"
+
+"Nothing now. He has led an unsettled life--always poor. But he took
+care to settle me in a situation under the Canadian Government. We both
+think ourselves well to do now."
+
+Agatha's sense of womanly decorum could hardly keep her from pressing
+her companion's arm, in instinctive acknowledgment of his goodness. She
+thought his face looked absolutely beautiful.
+
+However, restraining her quick impulses within the bounds of propriety,
+she walked on. "And so you will again cross that fearful Atlantic
+Ocean?" she said at length, with a slight shudder. The young man saw
+her gesture, and looked surprised--nay, gladdened. But nevertheless he
+remained silent.
+
+Agatha did the same, for the mention of the sea brought back to her
+the one only noteworthy incident of her life, which had given her this
+strange antipathy to the sea and to the thought of traversing it. But
+this subject--the horrible bugbear of her childhood--she rarely liked
+to recur to, even now; so it did not mingle in her conversation with Mr.
+Harper.
+
+At last Nathanael said: "I would it were possible--indeed I have often
+vainly tried--to persuade Uncle Brian to come back to England. But since
+he will not, it is clearly right for me to return to Canada. Anne Valery
+says so."
+
+"Anne Valery!" again repeated Agatha, catching at this second strange
+name with which she was supposed to be familiar.
+
+"What, did you never hear of her--my father's ward, my sister's chief
+friend--quite one of the family? Is it possible that my brother never
+spoke to you of Anne Valery?"
+
+No, certainly not. Agatha was quite sure of that. The circumstance
+of Major Harper's having a friend who bore the very suspicious and
+romantically-interesting name of Anne Valery could never have slipped
+Miss Bowen's memory. She answered Nathanael's question in an abrupt
+negative; but all the way through Russell Square she silently pondered
+as to who, or what like, Anne Valery could be? finally sketching a
+fancy portrait of a bewitching young creature, with blue eyes and golden
+hair--the style of beauty which Agatha most envied, because it was most
+unlike herself.
+
+Ere reaching Dr. Ianson's door, her attention was called to Mr. Harper,
+whose feet dragged so wearily along, that Agatha was convinced that, in
+spite of his efforts to conceal it, he was seriously ill. Her womanly
+sympathy rose--she earnestly pressed him to come in and consult Dr.
+Ianson.
+
+"No--no. Uncle Brian and I always cure ourselves. As he often says, 'A
+man after forty is either a doctor or a fool.'"
+
+"But you are only twenty-five."
+
+"Ay, but I have seen enough to make me often feel like a man of forty,"
+said he, smiling. "Do not mind me. That strain was rather too much; but
+I shall be all right in a day or two."
+
+"I hope so," cried Agatha, anxiously; "since, did you suffer, I should
+feel as if it were all of my causing, and for me.
+
+"Do you think I should regret that?" said the young man, in a tone so
+low, that its meaning scarcely reached her. Then, as if alarmed at his
+own words, he shook hands with her hastily, and walked down the square.
+
+Agatha thought how different was the abrupt, singular manner of
+Nathanael from Major Harper's tender, lingering, courteous adieu.
+Nevertheless, she fulfilled her kind purpose towards the young man; and
+running to her own window, watched his retreating figure, till her mind
+was relieved by seeing him safely enter his brother's door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A week--nay, more than a week slipped by in the customary monotony of
+that large, placidly genteel, Bedford Square house, and Agatha heard
+nothing of the house round the corner, which constituted one of the
+faint few interests of her existence. Sometimes she felt vexed at the
+lengthened absence of her friend and "guardian," as she persisted in
+considering him; sometimes the thought of young Nathanael's pale
+face crossed her fancy, awakening both sincere compassion and an
+uncomfortable doubt that all might not be going on quite right within
+the half-drawn window-blinds, at which she now and then darted a curious
+glance.
+
+At last her curiosity or interest rose to such a pitch, that it is to
+be feared that Agatha in her independent spirit, and ignorance of, or
+indifference to the world, might have committed the terrific
+impropriety of making a good-natured inquiry at the door of this
+bachelor-establishment. She certainly would, had it consisted only of
+the harmless youth Nathanael; but then Major Harper, at the mention of
+whose name Mrs. Ianson now began to smile aside, and the invalid Jane to
+dart towards Agatha quick, inquisitive looks--No; she felt an invincible
+repugnance to knocking, on any pretence, at Major Harper's door.
+
+However, having nothing to do and little to think of, and, moreover,
+being under the unwholesome necessity of keeping all her thoughts to
+herself, her conjectures grew into such a mountain of discomfort--partly
+selfish, partly generous, out of the hearty gratitude which had been
+awakened in her towards the younger brother since the adventure with
+the bear--that Miss Bowen set off one fine morning, hoping to gain
+intelligence of her neighbours by the round-about medium of Emma
+Thornycroft.
+
+But that excellent matron had had two of her children ill with some
+infantine disease, and had in consequence not a thought to spare for any
+one out of her own household. The name of Harper never crossed her lips
+until Agatha, using a safe plural, boldly asked the question, "Had Emma
+seen anything of them?"
+
+Mrs. Thorny croft could not remember.--Yes, she fancied some one had
+called--Mr. Harper, perhaps; or no, it must have been the Major, for
+somebody had said something about Mr. Nathanael's being ill or out of
+town. But the very day after that the measles came out on James, and
+poor little Missy had just been moved out of the night-nursery into the
+spare bed-room, etc. etc. etc.
+
+The rest of Emma's information concerning her babies was, as they say
+in the advertisements of lost property, "of no value to anybody but the
+original owner."
+
+Agatha bestowed a passing regret on young Nathanael, whether he were ill
+or out of town; she would have liked to have seen more of him. But that
+Major Harper should contrive to saunter up to the Regent's Park to visit
+the Thornycrofts, and never find time to turn a street-corner to say
+"How d'ye do" to _her_! she thought neither courteous nor kind.
+
+There was little inducement to spend the day with Emma, who, in her
+present mood and the state of her household, was a mere conversational
+Dr. Buchan--a walking epitome of domestic medicine. So Miss Bowen
+extended her progress; took an early dinner with Mrs. Hill, and stayed
+all the afternoon at that good old lady's silent and quiet lodgings,
+where there was neither piano nor books, save one, which Agatha
+patiently read aloud for two whole hours--"The life of Elizabeth Fry."
+A volume uninteresting enough to a young creature like herself, yet
+sometimes smiting her with involuntary reflections, as she contrasted
+her own aimless, useless existence with the life of that worthy
+Quakeress--the prison-angel.
+
+Having tired herself out, first with reading and then with singing--very
+prosy and lengthy ballads of the old school, which were the ditties Mrs.
+Hill always chose--Agatha departed much more cheerful than she came.
+So great strength and comfort is there in having something to do,
+especially if that something happens to be, according to the old
+nursery-rhyme--
+
+Not for ourself, but our neighbour.
+
+Another day passed--which being rainy, made the Doctor's dull house seem
+more inane than ever to the girl's restless humour. In the evening, at
+his old-accustomed hour, Major Harper "dropped in," and Agatha forgot
+his sins of omission in her cordial welcome. Very cordial it was, and
+unaffected, such as a young girl of nineteen may give to a man of forty,
+without her meaning being ill-construed. But under it Major Harper
+looked pathetically sentimental and uncomfortable. Very soon he moved
+away and became absorbed in delicate attentions towards the sick and
+suffering Jane Ianson.
+
+Agatha thought his behaviour rather odd, but generously put upon it
+the best construction possible--viz. his known kind-heartedness. So she
+herself went to the other side of the invalid couch, and tried to make
+mirth likewise.
+
+Asking after Mr. Harper, she learnt that her friend had been acting as
+sick-nurse, to his brother for some days.
+
+"Poor fellow--he will not confess that he is ill, or what made him so.
+But I hope he will be about again soon, for they are anxiously expecting
+him in Dorsetshire. Nathanael is the 'good boy' of our family, and as
+worthy a creature as ever breathed."
+
+Agatha smiled with pleasure to see the elder brother waxing so
+generously warm; but when she smiled, Major Harper sighed, and cast his
+handsome eyes another way. All the evening he scarcely talked to her
+at all, but to Mrs. and Miss Ianson. Agatha was quite puzzled by this
+pointed avoidance, not to say incivility, and had some thoughts
+of plainly asking him if he were vexed with her; but womanly pride
+conquered girlish frankness, and she was silent.
+
+After tea their quartett was broken by a visitor, whom all seemed
+astonished to see, and none more so than Major Harper.
+
+"Why, Nathanael, I thought you were safely disposed of with your sofa
+and book. What madness makes you come out to-night?"
+
+"Inclination, and weariness," returned the other, indifferently, as,
+without making more excuses or apologies, he dragged himself to the
+arm-chair, which Miss Bowen good-naturedly drew out for him, and slipped
+into the circle, quite naturally.
+
+"Well, wilful lads must have their way," cried his brother, "and I am
+only too glad to see you so much better."
+
+With that the flow of the Major's winning conversation recommenced; in
+which current all the rest of the company lay like silent pebbles, only
+too happy to be bubbled round by such a pleasant and refreshing stream.
+
+The younger Harper sat in his arm-chair, leaning his forehead on his
+hand, and from under that curve now and then looking at them all,
+especially Agatha.
+
+At a late hour the brothers went away, leaving Mrs. and Miss Ianson in
+a state of extreme delight, and Miss Bowen in a mood that, to say the
+least, was thoughtful--more thoughtful than usual.
+
+After that lively evening followed three dull days, consisting of
+a solitary forenoon, an afternoon walk through the squares, dinner,
+backgammon, and bed; the next morning, _de capo al fine_, and so on; a
+dance of existence as monotonous as that of the spheres, and not half so
+musical. On the fourth day, while Miss Bowen was out walking, Nathanael
+Harper called to take leave before his journey to Dorsetshire. He stayed
+some time, waiting Agatha's return, Mrs. Ianson thought; but finally
+changed his mind, and made an abrupt departure, for which that young
+lady was rather sorry than otherwise.
+
+The fifth day, Emma Thornycroft appeared, and, strange to say, without
+any of her little ones; still stranger, without many references to them
+on her lips, except the general information that they were all getting
+well now.
+
+The busy woman evidently had something on her mind, and plunged at once
+_in medias res_.
+
+"Agatha, dear, I came to have a little talk with you."
+
+"Very well," said Agatha smiling; calmly and prepared to give up her
+morning to the discussion of some knotty point in dress or infantile
+education. But she soon perceived that Emma's pretty face was too
+ominously important for anything short of that gravest interest of
+feminine life--matrimony; or more properly in this case--match-making.
+
+"Agatha, love," repeated Emma, with the affectionate accent that was
+always quite real, but which now deepened under the circumstances of
+the case, "do you know that young Northen has been speaking to Mr.
+Thornycroft about you again."
+
+"I am very sorry for it," was the short answer.
+
+"But, my dear,'isn't it a great pity that you could not like the young
+man? Such a good young man too, and with such a nice establishment
+already. If you could only see his house in Cumberland Terrace--the real
+Turkey carpets, inlaid tables, and damask chairs."
+
+"But I can't marry carpets, tables, and chairs."
+
+"Agatha, you are _so_ funny! Certainly not, without the poor man
+himself. But there is no harm in him, and I am sure he would make an
+excellent husband."
+
+"I sincerely hope so, provided he is not mine. Come, Tittens, tell Mrs.
+Thornycroft what _you_ think on the matter," cried the wilful girl,
+trying to turn the question off by catching her little favourite. But
+Emma would not thus be set aside. She was evidently well primed with a
+stronger and steadier motive than what usually occupied and sufficed her
+easy mind.
+
+"Ah, how can you be so childish! But when you come to my age"---
+
+"I shall, in a few more years. I wonder if I shall be as young-looking
+as you, Emma?" This was a very adroit thrust on the part of Miss Agatha,
+but for once it failed.
+
+"I hope and trust so, dear. That is, if you have as good a husband as
+I have. Only, be he what he may, he cannot be such another as my dear
+James."
+
+Agatha internally hoped he might not; for, much as she liked and
+respected Emma's good spouse, her ideal of a husband was certainly not
+Mr. James Thornycroft.
+
+"Tell me," continued the anxious matron, keeping up the charge--"tell
+me, Agatha, do you ever intend to marry at all?
+
+"Perhaps so; I can't say. Ask Tittens!"
+
+"Did you ever think in earnest of marrying? And"--here with an air of
+real concern Emma stole her arm round her friend's waist--"did you ever
+see anybody whom you fancied you could like, if he asked you?"
+
+Agatha laughed, but the colour was rising in her brown cheek. "Tut, tut,
+what nonsense!"
+
+"Look at me, dear, and answer seriously."
+
+Agatha, thus hemmed in, turned her face full round, and said, with
+some dignity, "I do not know, Emma, what right you have to ask me that
+question."
+
+"Ah, it is so; I feared it was," sighed Emma, not in the least offended.
+"I often thought so, even before he hinted"------
+
+"Who hinted--and what?"
+
+"I can't tell you; I promised not. And of course you ought not to know.
+Oh, dear, what am I letting out!" added poor Mrs. Thornycroft, in much
+discomfiture.
+
+"Emma, you will make me angry. What ridiculous notion have you got
+into your head? What on earth do you mean?" cried Miss Bowen, speaking
+quicker than her usual quick fashion, and dashing the kitten off her
+knee as she rose.
+
+"Don't be vexed with me, my poor dear girl. It may not be so--I hope
+not; and even if it were, he is so handsome, so agreeable, and talks so
+beautifully--I am sure you are not the first woman by many a dozen that
+has been in love with him."
+
+"With whom?" was the sharp question, as Agatha grew quite pale.
+
+"I must not say.--Ah, yes--I must. It may be a mere supposition. I wish
+you would only tell me so, and set my mind at rest, and his too. He is
+quite unhappy about it, poor man, as I see. Though, to be sure, he could
+not help it, even if you did care for him."
+
+"Him--what 'him?'"
+
+"Major Harper."
+
+Agatha's storm of passion sank to a dead calm. She sat down again
+composedly, turning her flushed cheeks from the light.
+
+"This is a new and very entertaining story. You will be kind enough,
+Emma, to tell me the whole, from beginning to end."
+
+"It all lies in a nutshell, my dear. Oh, how glad I am that you take it
+so quietly. Then, perhaps it is all a mistake, arising from your hearty
+manner to every one. I told him so, and said that he need not scruple
+visiting you, or be in the least afraid that"----
+
+"That I was in love with him? He _was_ afraid, then? He informed you so?
+Very kind of him! I am very much obliged to Major Harper."
+
+"There now--off you go again. Oh, if you would but be patient"
+
+"Patient--when the only friend I had insults me!--when I have neither
+father, nor brother,--nobody--nobody"----
+
+She stopped, and her throat choked; but the struggle was in vain; she
+burst into uncontrollable tears.
+
+"You have me, Agatha, always me, and James!" cried Emma, hanging about
+her neck, and weeping for company; until, very soon, the proud girl
+shut down the floodgates of her passion, and became herself again.
+Herself--as she could not have been, were there a mightier power
+dwelling in her heart than pride.
+
+"Now, Emma, since you have seen how the thing has vexed me, though
+not"--and she laughed--"not as being one of the many dozens of fools in
+love with Major Harper--will you tell me how this amusing circumstance
+arose?"
+
+"I really cannot, my dear. The whole thing was so hurried and confused.
+We were talking together, very friendly and sociably, as the Major and
+I always do, about you; and how much I wished you to be settled in life,
+as he must wish likewise, being the trustee of your little fortune, and
+standing in a sort of fatherly relation towards you. He did not seem to
+like the word; looked very grave and very"--
+
+"Compassionate, doubtless! Said 'he had reason to believe, that is to
+fear, I did not regard him quite as a father!' That was it, Emma, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I am glad to see you laughing at it I don't remember his
+precise words."
+
+"Probably these: 'My dear Mrs. Thornycroft, I am greatly afraid
+poor Agatha Bowen is dying for love of me.' Very candid--and like a
+gentleman!"
+
+"Now you are too sarcastic; for he is a gentleman, and most kind-hearted
+too. If you had only seen how grieved he was at the bare idea of your
+being made unhappy on his account!"
+
+"How considerate!--and how very confidential he must have been to you!"
+
+"Nay, he hardly said anything plainly; I assure you he did not. Only
+somehow he gave me the impression that he was afraid of--what I had
+feared for a long time. For as I always told you, Agatha, Major Harper
+is a settled bachelor--too old to change. Besides, he has had so many
+women in love with him."
+
+"Does he count their names, one by one, on his fingers, and hang their
+locks of hair on his paletot, after the Indian fashion Nathanael Harper
+told us of?--Poor Nathanael!" And on her excited mood that pale "good"
+face rose up like a vision of serenity. She ceased to mock so bitterly
+at Nathanael's brother and her own once-honoured friend.
+
+"I don't like your abusing Major Harper in this way," said Emma,
+gravely; "we all know his little weaknesses, but he is an excellent man,
+and my husband likes him. And it is nothing so very wonderful if he has
+been rather confidential with a steady married woman like me--just the
+right person, in short. It was for your good too, my dear. I am sure I
+asked him plainly if he ever could think of marrying you. But he shook
+his head, and answered, 'No, that was quite impossible.'"
+
+"Quite impossible, indeed," said Agatha, her proud lips quivering. "And
+should he favour you with any more confidences, you may tell him that
+Agatha Bowen never knew what it was to be 'in love' with any man.
+Likewise, that were he the only man on earth, she would not condescend
+to fall in love with or marry Major Frederick Harper.--Now, Emma, let us
+go down to lunch."
+
+They would have done so, after Mrs. Thornycroft had kissed and embraced
+her friend, in sincere delight that Agatha was quite heart-whole, and
+ready to make what she called "a sensible marriage," but they were
+stopped on the stairs by a letter that came by post.
+
+"A strange hand," Miss Bowen observed, carelessly. "Will you go
+down-stairs, Emma, and I will come when I have read it."
+
+But Agatha did not read it. She threw it on the floor, and turning the
+bolt of the door, paced her little drawing-room in extreme agitation.
+
+"I am glad I did not love him--I thank God I did not love him," she
+muttered by fits. "But I might have done so, so good and kind as he was,
+and I so young, with no one to care for. And no one cares for me--no
+one--no one!"
+
+"Young Northen" darted through her mind, but she laughed to scorn the
+possibility. What love could there be in an empty-headed fool?
+
+"Never any but fools have ever made love to me! Oh, if an honest, noble
+man did but love me, and I could marry, and get out of this friendless
+desolation, this contemptible, scheming, match-making set, where I and
+my feelings are talked of, speculated on, bandied about from house to
+house. It is horrible--horrible! But I'll not cry! No!"
+
+She dried the tears that were scorching her eyes, and mechanically took
+up her letter; until, remembering how long she had been upstairs, and
+how all that time Emma's transparent disposition and love of talk might
+have laid her and her whole affairs open before the Iansons, she
+quickly put the epistle in her pocket unread, and went down into the
+dining-room.
+
+It was not till night, when she sat idly brushing out her long curls,
+and looking at her Pawnee face in the mirror--alas! the poor face now
+seemed browner and uglier than ever!--that Agatha recollected this same
+letter.
+
+"It may give me something to think about, which will be well," sighed
+she; and carelessly pushing her hair behind her ears, she drew the
+candle nearer, and began leisurely to read.
+
+[Illustration: She began leisurely to read  p036]
+
+The commencement was slightly abrupt:
+
+
+"A month ago--had any one told me I should write this letter, I
+could not have believed it possible. But strange things happen in our
+lives--things over which we seem to have no control; we are swept on by
+an impulse and a power which most often guide us for our good. I hope it
+may be so now.
+
+"I came to England with no intention save that of seeing my family, and
+no affection in my heart stronger than for them. Living the solitary
+life that Uncle Brian leads, I have met with few women, and have never
+loved any woman--until now.
+
+"You may think me a 'boy;' indeed, I overheard you say so once; but I am
+a man--with a heart full of all a man's emotions, passionate and strong.
+Into that heart I took _you_, from the first moment I ever saw your
+face. This is just three weeks ago, but it might have been three
+years--I know you so well. I have watched you continually; every trait
+of your character--every thought of your mind. From other people I have
+found out every portion of your history--every daily action of your
+life. I know you wholly and completely, faults and all, and--I love you.
+No man will ever love you more than I.
+
+"That you should have the least interest in me now, is, I am aware,
+unlikely; indeed, almost impossible; therefore I shall not expect
+or desire any answer to this letter, sent just before I leave for
+Dorsetshire.
+
+"On my return, a week hence, I shall come and see you, should you not
+forbid it. I shall come merely as a _friend_, so that you need have no
+scruple in my visiting you, once at least. If afterwards, when you know
+me better, you should suffer me to ask for another title, giving to you
+the dearest and closest that man can give to woman--then--oh! little you
+think how I would love you, Agatha!
+
+"Nathanael Locke Harper."
+
+
+Agatha read this letter all through with a kind of fascination. Her
+first emotion was that of most utter astonishment. It had never crossed
+her mind that Nathanael Harper was the sort of being very likely to fall
+in love with anybody--and for him to love her! With such a love, too,
+that despite its suddenness carried with it the impression of quiet
+depth, strength, and endurance irresistible. It was beyond belief.
+
+She read over again fragments of his own words. "I took you into my
+heart from the first moment I ever saw you;"--"I love you--no man will
+ever love you more than I." "Little you think how I would love you,
+Agatha!"
+
+Agatha--who a minute before had been pondering mournfully that no one
+cared for her--that she was of no use to any one--and that no living
+soul would miss her, were her existence blotted out from the face of
+earth that very night!
+
+She began to tremble; ay, even though she felt that Nathanael had
+judged correctly--that she did not now love him, and probably never
+might--still, overwhelmed with the sudden sense of _his_ great love,
+she trembled. A strange softness crept over her; and for the second time
+that day she yielded to a weakness only drawn from her proud heart by
+rare emotions--Agatha wept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+To say that Agatha Bowen slept but ill that night would be unnecessary;
+since there is probably no girl who did not do so after receiving a
+first love-letter. And this was indeed her first; for the commonplace
+and business-like episode of young Northen had not been beautified by
+any such compositions. A second harmless adventure of like kind had
+furnished her with a little amusement and some vexation,--but never till
+now had her girlish heart been approached by any wooing which she could
+instinctively feel was that of real love. It touched her very much; for
+a time absorbing all distinct resolutions or intentions in a maze of
+pleasant, tender pity, and wonderment not unmixed with fear.
+
+Half the night she lay awake, planning what she should do and say in the
+future; writing in her head a dozen imaginary answers to Mr. Harper's
+letter, until she recollected that he had expressly stated it required
+none. Nevertheless, she thought she must write, if only to tell him that
+she did not love him, and that there was not the slightest use in his
+hoping to be anything more to her than a friend.
+
+"A friend!" She recoiled at the word, remembering how sorely her pride
+and feelings had been wounded by him she once held to be the best friend
+she had. She never could hold him as such any more. Her impulsive anger
+exaggerated even to wickedness the vanity of a man who fancied
+every woman was in love with him. She forgot all Major Harper's good
+qualities, his high sense of honour, his unselfish kindheartedness, his
+generous, gay spirit She set him down at once as unworthy the name of
+friend. Then--what friend had she? Not one--not one in the world.
+
+In this strait, strangely, temptingly sweet seemed to come the words,
+"_I love you; no man will ever love you better than I._"
+
+To one whose heart is altogether free, the knowledge of being deeply
+loved, and by a man whose attachment would do honour to any woman, is
+a thought so soothing, so alluring, that from it spring half the
+marriages--not strictly love-marriages--which take place in the world;
+sometimes, though not always, ending in real happiness.
+
+Agatha began to consider that it would seem very odd if she wrote to Mr.
+Harper, in his home, among his family. Perhaps his sisters might notice
+her handwriting--a useless fear, since they had never seen it; and at
+all events it would be a pity to trouble his happiness in that pleasant
+visit, by conveying prematurely the news of his rejection. She would
+wait, and give him no answer for at least a day or two; it was such a
+bitter thing to inflict pain on any human being, especially on one so
+gentle and good as Nathanael Harper.
+
+With this determination she went to sleep. She woke next morning, having
+a confused sense that something had happened, that some one had grieved
+and offended her; and--strange consciousness, softly dawning!--that some
+one loved her--deeply, dearly, as in all the days since she was born she
+had never been loved before. That even now some one might be thinking of
+her--of her alone, as his first object in the world. The sensation was
+new, inexplicable, but pleasant nevertheless. It made her feel--what
+the desolate orphan girl rarely had felt--a sort of tenderness for, and
+honouring of, herself. As she dressed, she once looked wistfully, even
+pensively, in the looking-glass.
+
+"It is certainly a queer, brown, Pawnee face! I wonder what he could see
+in it to admire. He is very good, very! I wish I could have cared for
+him!"
+
+Her heart trembled; all the woman in her was touched. But Agatha was
+resolved not to be sentimental, so she fastened her morning-dress rather
+more tastefully than usual, and descended to breakfast.
+
+Beside her plate lay a letter, which was pretty closely eyed by
+the Ianson family, as their inmate's correspondence had always been
+remarkably small.
+
+"A black edge and seal. No bad news, I hope, my dear Miss Bowen?" said
+the doctor's wife, sympathetically.
+
+Agatha did not fear. Alas! in the whole wide world she had not a
+relative to lose! And, glancing at the rather peculiar hand, she
+recognised it at once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black
+seal, that one of the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether
+from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint
+the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous
+reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the
+meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her own
+sitting-room.
+
+There was not the slightest necessity for any such precaution, as the
+missive contained merely these lines:--
+
+"In my letter of yesterday--which I doubt not you have received, since I
+posted it myself--I omitted to say that not even my brother is aware
+of it, or of its purport; as I rarely inform any one of my own private
+affairs. Though, of course, I presume not to lay the same restriction on
+you. God bless you!"
+
+The "God bless you!" was added hastily in less neat writing, as if
+the letter had been broken open to do it. The signature was merely
+his initials, "N. L. H.," and the date "Kingcombe Holm," which Agatha
+supposed was his father's house in Dorsetshire.
+
+Then, even there, amidst his dear home circle, he had thought of
+her! Agatha was more moved by that trifling circumstance, and by the
+self-restraint and silence that accompanied it, than she would have been
+by a whole quire of ordinary love-letters.
+
+He did not write again during seven entire days, and while this pause
+lasted she had time to think much and deeply. She ceased to play and
+talk confidentially with Tittens, and felt herself growing into a
+woman fast. Great mental changes may at times be wrought in one week,
+especially when it happens to be one of those not infrequent July weeks,
+which seem as if the sky were bent upon raining out at once the tears of
+the whole summer.
+
+On the Friday evening, when Miss Bowen, heartily tired of her
+weather-bound imprisonment, stood at the dining-room window, looking out
+on a hazy, yellow glow that began to appear in the west, sparkled on the
+drenched trees of the square, and made little bright reflections on the
+rain-pools of the pavement,--there appeared a gentleman from the house
+round the corner, carefully picking his steps by the crossing, and
+finally landing at Doctor Ianson's door. It was Major Harper.
+
+Agatha instinctively quitted the window, but on second thoughts returned
+thither, and when he chanced to look up, composedly bowed.
+
+He was come to spend the evening as usual, and she must meet him as
+usual too, otherwise he might think--supposing he had not yet seen Emma
+Thornycroft, or even if he had,--might think--what made Agatha's cheek
+burn like fire. But she controlled herself. The first vehemence of
+her pride and anger was over now. She had discovered that the dawning
+inclination on which she had bestowed a few dreamings and sighings,
+trying, in foolish girlish fashion, to fan a chance tinder-spark into
+the holy altar-fire of a woman's first love--had gone out in darkness,
+and that her free heart lay quiet, in a sort of twilight shade, waiting
+for its destiny; nor for the last few days had she even thought of
+Nathanael. His silence had as yet no power to grieve or surprise her; if
+it struck her at all, it was with the hope that perhaps his wooing might
+die out of itself, and save her the trouble of a painful refusal.
+She had begun to think--what girls of nineteen are very slow to
+comprehend--that there might be other things in the world besides love
+and its ideal dreams. She had read more than usual--some sensible prose,
+some lofty-hearted poetry; and was, possibly, "a sadder and a wiser"
+girl than she had been that day week.
+
+In this changed mood, after a little burst of well-controlled temper, a
+scornful pang, and a slight trepidation of the heart, Miss Agatha Bowen
+walked up-stairs to the drawing-room to meet Major Harper.
+
+Her manner in so doing was most commendable, and a worthy example to
+those young ladies who have to extinguish the tiny embers of a month
+or two's idle fancy, created by an impressible nature, by girlhood's
+frantic longing after unseen mysteries, and by the terrible misfortune
+of having nothing to do. But Miss Bowen's demeanour, so highly
+creditable, cannot be set forward in words, as it consisted in the very
+simplest, mildest, and politest "How d'ye do?"
+
+Major Harper met her with his accustomed pleasantly tender air, until
+gradually he recollected himself, looked pensive, and subsided into
+coldness. It was evident to Agatha that he could not have had any
+communication from Mrs. Thornycroft. She was growing vexed again,
+alternating from womanly wrath to childish pettishness--for in her heart
+of hearts she had a deep and friendly regard for the noble half of her
+guardian's character--when suddenly she decided that it was wisest to
+leave the room and take refuge in indifference and her piano. There she
+stayed for certainly an hour.
+
+At length, Major Harper came softly into her sitting-room.
+
+"Don't let me disturb you--but, when you have quite finished playing, I
+should like to say a word to you.--Merely on business," he added, with
+a slightly confused manner, unusual to the perfect self-possession of
+Major Harper.
+
+Agatha sat down and faced him, so frigidly, that he seemed to withdraw
+from the range of her eyes. "You do not often converse with me on
+business."
+
+He drew back. "That is true. But I considered that with so young a
+lady as yourself it was needless.--And I hate all business," he added,
+imperatively.
+
+"Then I regret that my father burdened you with mine.
+
+"No burden; it is a pleasure--if by any means I can be of use to you.
+Believe me, my dear Miss Bowen, your advantage, your security, is my
+chief aim. And therefore in this investment, of which I think it right
+to inform you"----
+
+"Investment?" she repeated, turning round a childish puzzled face. "Oh,
+Major Harper, you know I am quite ignorant of these things. Do let us
+talk of something else."
+
+"With all my heart," he responded, evidently much relieved, and turned
+the somewhat awkward conversation to the first available topic, which
+chanced to be his brother Nathanael.
+
+"You cannot think how much I miss him in my rooms, even though he was
+such a short time with me. An excellent lad is N. L., and I hear they
+are making so much of him in Dorsetshire. They tell me he will certainly
+stay there the whole three months of his leave."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" observed Agatha, briefly. She hardly knew whether to be
+pleased or sorry at this news, or by doubting it to take a feminine
+pride in being so much better informed on the subject than the Harper
+family.
+
+"No wonder he is so happy," continued the Major, with one of his
+occasional looks of momentary, though real sadness. "Fifteen years is a
+long time to be away. Though I fear, I myself have been almost as long
+without seeing the whole family together."
+
+"Are they all together now?"--Agatha felt an irresistible desire to ask
+questions.
+
+"I believe so; at least my father and my three unmarried sisters. Old
+bachelors and old maids are plentiful in the Harper family. We are all
+stiff-necked animals; we eschew even gilded harness."
+
+Agatha's cheek glowed with anger at this supposed benevolent warning to
+herself.
+
+"I dare say your sisters are very happy, nevertheless; marriage is not
+always a 'holy estate,'" said she carelessly. "But there was some other
+Dorsetshire lady whom Mr. Harper told me of. Who is Anne Valery?"
+
+Major Frederick Harper actually started, and the deep sensitive colour,
+which not even his forty years and his long worldly experience could
+quite keep down, rose in his handsome face.
+
+"So N. L. spoke to you of her. No wonder. She is an--an excellent
+person."
+
+"An excellent person," repeated Agatha mischievously. "Then she is
+rather elderly, I conclude?"
+
+"Elderly--Anne Valery elderly! By Heavens, no!" (And the excited Major
+used the solitary asseveration which clung to him, the last trace of
+his brief military experience.) "Anne Valery old! Not a day older than
+myself! We were companions as boy and girl, young man and young woman,
+until--stay--ten--fifteen years ago. Fifteen years!--ah, yes--I suppose
+she would be considered elderly now."
+
+After this burst, Major Harper sank into one of his cloudy moods. At
+last he said, in a confidential and rather sentimental tone, "Miss
+Valery is an excellent lady--an old friend of our family; but she and I
+have not met for many years. Circumstances necessitated our parting."
+
+"Circumstances?"
+
+Agatha guessed the truth--or fancied she did; and her wrathful pride
+was up again. More trophies of the illustrious Frederick's unwilling
+slaughters--more heart's blood dyeing the wheels of this unconscious
+Juggernaut of female devotees! Yet there he sat, looking so pathetically
+regretful, as if he felt himself the blameless, helpless instrument of
+fate to work the sentimental woe of all womankind! Agatha was absolutely
+dumb with indignation.
+
+She was a little unjust, even were he erring. It is often a great
+misfortune, but it is no blame to a good man that good women--more than
+one--have loved him; if, as all noble men do, he hides the humiliation
+or sorrow of their love sacredly in his own heart, and makes no boast
+of it. Of this nobility of character--rare indeed, yet not unknown or
+impossible--Frederick Harper just fell short. Kind, clever, and amusing,
+he might be, but he was a man not sufficiently great to be humble.
+
+No more was said on the mysterious topic of Miss Anne Valery. Agatha was
+too angry; and the subject seemed painful to Major Harper. Though he did
+what was not his habit--especially with female friends--he endeavoured,
+instead of encouraging, to throw off his momentary sentimentality, and
+become his usual witty, cheerful, agreeable self.
+
+Miss Bowen, even in her tenderest inclinings towards her guardian, had
+at times thought him a little too talkative--a little too much of the
+brilliant man of the world. Now, in her bitterness against him, his
+gaiety was positively offensive to her. She rose, and proposed that they
+should quit her own private room for the general drawing-room of the
+family.
+
+The Iansons were all there, even the Doctor being prone to linger in his
+dull home for the pleasure of Major Harper's delightful company. There
+was another, too, the unexpected sight of whom made both Agatha and her
+companion start.
+
+As she and the Major entered, there arose, almost like an apparition
+from his seat in the window-recess, the tall, slight figure of
+Nathanael.
+
+"N. L.! Where on earth have you dropped from? What a _very_
+extraordinary fellow you are!" cried the elder brother.
+
+"Perhaps unwelcome also," said the quiet voice.
+
+"Unwelcome--never, my dear boy! Only next time, do be a little more
+confidential. Here have I been telling a whole string of apparent fibs
+about your movements--have I not Miss Bowen? Do you not consider this
+brother of mine the most eccentric creature in the world?"
+
+Agatha looked up, and met the young man's eyes. Their expression could
+not be mistaken; they were _lover's eyes_--such as never in her life she
+had met before. They seemed constraining her to do what out of pity or
+mechanical impulse she at once did--silently to hold out her hand.
+
+Nathanael took it with his usual manner. There was no other greeting
+on his part or hers. Immediately afterwards he slipped away to the very
+farthest corner of the room.
+
+It would be hard to say whether Agatha felt relieved or disappointed at
+his behaviour; but surprised she most certainly was. This was not the
+sort of "lover's meeting" of girlish imaginings; nor was he the sort of
+lover, so perfectly unobtrusive, self-restrained, and coldly calm.
+She was glad she had not been at the pains to write the romantically
+pitiful, tender refusal, which she had concocted sentence by sentence
+in her deeply-touched heart, during that first wakeful night He did not
+seem half miserable enough to need such wondrous compassion.
+
+Freed in a measure from constraint, she became her own natural self, as
+women rarely, indeed never, are in the presence of those they love,
+or of those by whom they believe themselves loved. Neither unpleasant
+consciousness rested heavily on Agatha now; her demeanour was therefore
+very sweet, candid, and altogether pleasing.
+
+Major Harper even forgot his benevolent precautions on Miss Bowen's
+account, and tried to render himself as agreeable as heretofore, talking
+away at a tremendous rate, and with most admirable eloquence, while his
+brother sat silent in a corner. The contrast between them was never
+so strong. But once or twice Agatha, wearied out with laughing and
+listening, stole a look towards the figure that she felt was sitting
+there; and encountered the only sign Nathanael gave,--the unmistakeable
+"lover's eyes." They seemed to pierce into her heart and make it
+quiver--not exactly with tenderness, but with the strange controlling
+sense by which the love of a strong nature, reticent, and self-possessed
+even in its utmost passion--at times appears to enfold a woman--and
+any true affection, whether of lover or friend, to those who have never
+known it, and are unconsciously pining for lack of it, comes at first
+like water in a thirsty land.
+
+Miss Bowen's frank gaiety died slowly away, and she fell into more
+than one long reverie, which did not escape the benign notice of her
+guardian. He grew serious, and made an attempt to remove from her his
+own dangerous proximity.
+
+"Come, N. L., it is time we vanished. You have never told me the least
+fragment of news from home--that is, from Kingcombe."
+
+"You were too much engaged, brother. But we have plenty of time."
+
+"Kingcombe; is that the place your father lives at?" said Mrs. lanson,
+who took a patronising interest in the young man. "What a pretty name!
+Were you aware of it, Miss Bowen?"
+
+Agatha, for her life, could not help changing colour as she answered
+"Yes," knowing perfectly well who was watching her the while, and that
+he and she were thinking of the same thing, namely, the brief note whose
+date was her only information as to the family residence of the Harpers.
+
+"Kingcombe is as pretty as its name," observed the elder brother,--"a
+name more peculiar than at first seems. It was given by a loyal Harper
+during the Protectorate. It had been St. Mary's Abbey, but he, with
+pretended sanctimoniousness, changed the name, and called it _Kingcombe
+Holm_; as a gentle hint from the Dorsetshire coast to Prince Charles
+over the water. Ah! a clever fellow was my great-great-grandfather,
+Geoffrey Harper!"
+
+All laughed at the anecdote, and the Iansons looked with additional
+respect on the man who thus carelessly counted his grandfathers up to
+the Commonwealth. But Mrs. Ianson's curiosity penetrated even to the
+Harpers of Queen Victoria's day.
+
+"Indeed we can't let you two gentlemen away so early. If you have family
+matters to talk over, suppose we send you for half-an-hour to Miss
+Bowen's drawing-room! or, if they are not secrets, pray discuss them
+here. I am sure we are all greatly interested; are we not, Miss Bowen?"
+
+Agatha made some unintelligible answer. She thought Nathanael's quick
+eyes darted from her to Mrs. lanson and back again, as if to judge
+whether, young-lady-like, she had told his secret to all her female
+friends. But there was something in Agatha's countenance which marked
+her out as that rare character, a woman who can hold her tongue--even in
+a love affair.
+
+After a minute she looked at Mr. Harper gravely, kindly, as if to say,
+"You need not fear--I have not betrayed you;" and meeting her candid
+eyes, his suspicions vanished. He drew nearer to the circle, and began
+to talk.
+
+"Mrs. lanson is very kind, but we need not hold any such solemn
+conclave, Frederick," said he, smiling. "All the news that I did not
+unfold in my letter of yesterday, I can tell you now. I would like every
+one here to be interested in our good sisters and in all at home."
+
+"Yes--oh, yes," responded the other, mechanically. "Any messages for
+me?"
+
+"My father says he hopes to see you this autumn at Kingcombe. He is
+growing an old man now."
+
+"Ah, indeed!--An admirable man is my father, Miss Bowen. Quite a
+gentleman of the old school; but peculiar--rather peculiar. Well, what
+else, Nathanael?"
+
+"Elizabeth, since Emily's death, seems to have longed after you very
+much.--You were the next eldest, you know, and she fancies you were
+always very like Emily. She says it is so long since you have been to
+Kingcombe."
+
+"It is such a dull place. Besides I have seen them all elsewhere
+occasionally."
+
+"All but Elizabeth; and, you know, unless you go to Kingcombe, you never
+can see Elizabeth," said the younger brother, gently.
+
+"That is true!--Poor dear soul!" Frederick answered, looking grave.
+"Well, I will go ere long."
+
+"Perhaps at Eulalie's wedding, which I told you of?"
+
+"True--true. Eulalie is the youngest Miss Harper, as we should explain
+to our kind friends here--whom I hope we are not boring very much with
+our family reminiscences. And Eulalie, contrary to the usual custom of
+the Harpers, is actually going to be married. To a clergyman, is he not,
+N. L.?--late Curate of Kingcombe parish?"
+
+"No--of Anne Valery's parish. By the way, you have not yet asked a
+single question about Anne Valery."
+
+The Major's aspect visibly changed. In all the years of his acquaintance
+with the world he had not yet learnt the convenient art of being a
+physiognomical hypocrite. "Well, never mind--I ask a dozen questions
+now. How could I forget so excellent a friend of the family?"
+
+"She is indeed," said Nathanael, earnestly, while a glow of pleasure or
+enthusiasm dyed his pale features, and he even ceased his close watch
+over Agatha. "Though I was such a boy when I left, I find I have kept a
+true memory of Anne Valery. She is just the woman I always pictured
+her, from my own remembrance, and from Uncle Brian's chance allusions;
+though, in general, it was little enough he said of England or home. I
+was quite surprised to hear from Elizabeth what a strong friendship used
+to exist between Uncle Brian, yourself, and Anne Valery."
+
+Major Harper's restlessness increased. "Really, we are indulging our
+friends with our whole genealogy--uncles, aunts, and collateral branches
+included--which cannot be very interesting to Mrs. and Miss Ianson,
+or even to Miss Bowen, however kindly she may be disposed towards the
+Harper family."
+
+The Iansons here made polite disclaimers, but Agatha said nothing.
+Immediately afterwards, Nathanael's conversation likewise ebbed away
+into silence.
+
+The next time Agatha heard him speak was in answer to a sudden
+question of his brother's as to what had made him return to London so
+unexpectedly. "I thought you would have stayed at least three months."
+
+"No," he said in a low tone; "by that time I shall be far enough away."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"From circumstances which have lately arisen"--he did not look at
+Agatha, but she felt his meaning--"I fear I must return to America at
+once."
+
+He said no more, for his brother asked no more questions. But the
+tidings jarred painfully on Agatha's mind.
+
+He was then going away, this man of so gentle, true and noble
+nature--this, the only man who loved her, and whom, while she thought of
+rejecting, she had still hoped to retain as an honoured and dear friend.
+He was going away, and she might never see him more. She felt grieved,
+and her lonely, unloved position rose up before her in more bitterness
+and more fear than it was wont to do. She became as thoughtful and
+silent as Nathanael himself.
+
+Mr. Harper never attempted to address her or attract her attention
+during all that strange, long evening, which comprised in itself so many
+slight circumstances, so many conflicting states of feeling. Almost the
+only word this very eccentric lover said to her was in a whisper, just
+as his hand touched hers in bidding good-bye.
+
+"As I am leaving England so soon, may I come here again to-morrow?"
+
+"No, not to-morrow;" and then, her kind heart repenting of the evident
+pain she gave, she added, "Well, the day after to-morrow, if you like.
+But"----
+
+Whatever that forbidding "but" was meant to hint, Nathanael did not stay
+to hear. He was gone in a moment.
+
+However, that night a chance word of Mrs. Ianson's did more for the suit
+of the unloved, or only half-loved lover, than he himself ever dreamed
+of.
+
+"Well," said that lady, with sly, matronly smile, as, showing more
+attention than usual, she lighted Agatha's candle for bed--"Well, my
+dear Miss Bowen, is the wedding to be at my house?"
+
+"What wedding?"
+
+"Oh, you know; you know! I have guessed it a long while, but
+to-night--surely, I may congratulate you? Never was there a more
+charming man than Major Harper."
+
+Agatha looked furious. "Has he then"--"told you the lie he told to
+Emma"--she was about to say, but luckily checked herself. "Has he then
+been so premature as to give you this information?"
+
+"No! oh, of course not. But the thing is as plain as light."
+
+"You are mistaken, Mrs. Ianson. He is one of my very kindest friends;
+but I have never had the slightest intention of marrying Major Harper."
+
+With that she took her candle, and walked slowly to her own room. There,
+with her door locked, though that was needless, since there was
+no welcome or unwelcome friendship likely to intrude on her utter
+solitude,--she gave way to a woman's wounded pride. Added to this, was
+the terror that seizes a helpless young creature, who, all supports
+taken away, is at last set face to face with the cruel world, without
+even the steadfastness given by a strong sorrow. If she had really loved
+Frederick Harper, perhaps her condition would have been more endurable
+than now.
+
+At length, above the storm of passion there seemed floating an audible
+voice, just as if the mind of him who she knew was always thinking of
+her, then spoke to her mind, with the wondrous communication that has
+often happened in dreams, or waking, between two who deeply loved. A
+communication which appears both possible and credible to those who have
+felt any strong human attachment, especially that one which for the sake
+of its object seems able to cross the bounds of distance, time, life, or
+eternity.
+
+It was a thing that neither then or afterwards could she ever account
+for, and years elapsed before she mentioned the circumstance to any
+one. But while she lay weeping across her bed, Agatha seemed to hear
+distinctly, just as if it had been a voice gliding past the window,
+half-mixing with the wind that was then rising, the words:
+
+"_I love you! No man will ever love you like me._"
+
+That night, before she slept, her determination was taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Next morning Miss Bowen astonished every one, and excited once more Mrs.
+Ianson's incredulous smile, by openly desiring the servant who waited to
+take a message for her to Major Harper's. It was to the effect that she
+wished immediately to see that gentleman, could he make it convenient to
+visit her.
+
+The message was given by her very distinctly, and with most creditable
+calmness, considering that the destinies of her whole life hung on the
+sentence.
+
+Major Harper appeared, and was shown into Miss Bowen's drawing-room. She
+was not there, and the Major waited rather uneasily for several minutes,
+unaware that half of that time she had been standing without, her hand
+on the lock of the door. But her tremulousness was that of natural
+emotion, not of fluctuating purpose. No physiognomist studying Agatha's
+mouth and chin would doubt the fact, that though rather slow to
+will--when she had once willed, scarcely anything had power to shake her
+resolution.
+
+She went in at last, and bade Major Harper good morning. "I have sent
+for you," she said, "to talk over a little business."
+
+"Business!"--And the hesitation and discomfort which seemed to arise in
+him at the mere mention of the word again were visible in Major Harper.
+
+"Not trust business--something quite different," said Agatha, scarcely
+able to help smiling at the alarm of her guardian.
+
+"Then anything you like, my dear Miss Bowen! I have nothing in the world
+to do to-day. That stupid brother of mine is worse company than none
+at all. He said he had letters to write to Kingcombe, and vanished
+up-stairs! The rude fellow! But he is an excellent fellow too."
+
+"So you have always said. He appears to love his home, and be much
+beloved there. Is it so?"
+
+"Most certainly. Already they know him better than they do me, and care
+for him more; though he has been away for fifteen years. But then he has
+kept up a constant correspondence with them; while I, tossing about in
+the world--ah! I have had a hard life, Miss Bowen!"
+
+He looked so sad, that Agatha felt sorry for him. But his melancholy
+moods had less power to touch her than of old. His gaiety so quickly
+and invariably returned, that her belief in the reality of his grief was
+somewhat shaken.
+
+She paused a little, and then recurred again, indifferently as it were,
+to Nathanael--the one person in his family of whom Major Harper always
+spoke gladly and warmly.
+
+"You seem to have a great love for your younger brother. Is he then so
+noble a character?"
+
+"What do you call a noble character, my dear young lady?"
+
+The half-jesting, half-patronising manner irritated Agatha; but she
+answered boldly:
+
+"A man honest in his principles, faithful to his word; just, generous,
+and honourable."
+
+"What a category of qualities! How interested young ladies are in a
+pale, thin boy! Well then"--seeing that Agatha looked serious--"well
+then, I declare to Heaven that, even according to your high-flown
+definitions, he is as noble a lad as ever breathed. I can find no
+fault in him, except that, as I said, he is such a mere boy. Are
+you satisfied? Did you want to try if I were indeed a heartless,
+unbrotherly, good-for-nothing fellow, as you appear to think me
+sometimes?"
+
+"No," said Agatha briefly, noticing with something like scorn the
+Major's instinctive assumption that her questions must have some near
+or remote reference to himself, while he never once guessed their real
+motive. That answered, she changed the conversation.
+
+After half-an-hour's chat, Major Harper delicately alluded to the
+supposed business on which she had wished to see him, though in a tone
+that showed him to be rather doubtful whether it existed at all.
+
+Agatha coloured, and her heart quailed a little, as any girl's would,
+in having to speak so openly of things which usually reach young maidens
+softly murmured amidst the confessions of first love, or revealed
+by tender parents with blessings and tears. Life's earliest and best
+romance came to her with all its bloom worn away--all its sacredness and
+mystery set aside. For a moment she felt this hard.
+
+"I wished to inform you of something nearly concerning me, which, as
+the guardian appointed by my father, it is right you should know. I
+have had"--here she tried to make her lips say the words without
+faltering--"I have had an offer of marriage."
+
+"God bless my soul!" stammered out Major Harper, completely thrown off
+his guard by surprise. A very awkward pause ensued, until, his natural
+good feeling conquering any other, he said, not without emotion, "The
+fact of your consulting me shows that this offer is--is not without
+interest to you. May I ask--is it likely--that I shall have to
+congratulate you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He rose up slowly, and walked to the window. Whether his sensations were
+merely those of wounded vanity, or whether he had liked her better than
+he himself acknowledged, certain it was that Major Frederick Harper was
+a good deal moved--so much so, that he succeeded in concealing it. He
+came back, very kind, subdued, and tender, sat down by her side and took
+her hand.
+
+"You will not wonder that I am somewhat surprised--nay, affected--by
+these sudden tidings, viewing you as I have always done in the light of
+a--younger sister--or--or a daughter. Your happiness must naturally be
+very dear to me."
+
+"Thank you," murmured Agatha; and the tears came into her eyes. She felt
+that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great
+thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was
+free and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of love, for
+Major Harper.
+
+"I trust the--the gentleman you allude to is of a character likely to
+make you happy?"
+
+"Yes," returned Agatha, for she could only speak in monosyllables.
+
+"Is he--as your friend and guardian I may ask that question--is he
+of good standing in the world, and in a position to maintain you
+comfortably?"
+
+"I do not know--I have never thought about that," she cried, restlessly.
+"All I know is that he--loves me--that I honour him--that he would take
+me"--"out of this misery," she was about to say, but stopped, feeling
+that both the thought and the expression were unworthy Nathanael's
+future wife, and unfit to be heard by Nathanael's brother.
+
+"That he would take me," repeated she firmly, "into a contented and
+happy home, where I should be made a better woman than I am, and live a
+life more worthy of myself and of him."
+
+"You must then esteem him very highly?"
+
+"I do--more than any man I ever knew."
+
+The Major winced slightly, but quickly recovered himself. "That is, I
+believe, the feeling with which every woman ought to marry. He who
+wins and deserves such an attachment is"--and he sighed--"is a happy
+man!--Happier, perhaps, than those who have remained single."
+
+Again there ensued a pause, until Major Harper broke it by saying:
+
+"There is one more question--the last of all--which, after the
+confidence you have shown me, I may venture to ask: do I know this
+gentleman?"
+
+Agatha replied by putting into his hands his brother's letter.
+
+The moment she had done so she felt remorse for having betrayed her
+lover's confidence by letting any eyes save her own rest on his tender
+words. Had she loved him as he loved her, she could not possibly have
+done so; and even now a painful sensation smote her. She would have
+snatched the letter back, but it was too late.
+
+Major Harper's eyes had merely skimmed down the page to the signature,
+when he threw it from him, crying out vehemently:
+
+"Impossible! Agatha marry Nathanael--Nathanael marry Agatha!--He is
+a boy, a very child! What can he be thinking of? Send his letter
+back--tell him it is utter nonsense! Upon my soul it is!"
+
+Major Harper was very shortsighted and inconsiderate when he gave way to
+this burst of vexation before any woman--still more before such a woman
+as Agatha.
+
+She let him go on without interruption, but she lifted the letter from
+the floor, refolded it, and held it tenderly--more tenderly than she
+had ever until now felt towards it or its writer. Something of the grave
+sweetness belonging to the tie of an affianced wife began to cast its
+shadow over her heart.
+
+"Major Harper, when you have quite done speaking, perhaps you will sit
+down and hear what I have to say."
+
+Struck by her manner, he obeyed, entreating her pardon likewise, for he
+was a gentleman, and felt that he had acted very wrongly.
+
+"Yet surely," he began--until, looking at her, something convinced him
+that his arguments were useless. He stretched out his hand again for the
+letter, but with a slight gesture which expressed much, Agatha withheld
+it. After a pause, he said, meekly enough, as if thoroughly overcome by
+circumstances,--"So, it is quite true? You really love my brother?"
+
+"I honour him, as I said, more than I do any man."
+
+"And love him--are you sure you love him?"
+
+"No one," she answered, deeply blushing--"No one but himself has a right
+to receive the answer to that question."
+
+"True, true. Pardon me once more. But I am so startled, absolutely
+amazed. My brother Nathanael--he that was a baby when I was a grown
+man--he to marry--marrying you too--and I----Well; I suppose I am really
+growing into a miserable, useless old bachelor. I have thrown away
+my life: I shall be the last apple left on the tree--and a tolerably
+withered one too. But no matter. The world shall see the sunny half of
+me to the last."
+
+He laughed rather tunelessly at his own bitter jest, and after a brief
+silence, recovered his accustomed manner.
+
+"So so; such things must be, and I, though a bachelor myself, have no
+right to forbid marriages. Allow me to congratulate you. Of course you
+have answered this letter? My brother knows his happiness?"
+
+"He knows nothing; but I wished that he should do so to-day, after I
+had spoken to you. It was a respect I felt to be your due, to form no
+engagement of this kind without your knowledge."
+
+"Thank you," he said in a low voice.
+
+"You have been good and kind to me," continued Agatha, a little touched,
+"and I wished to have your approval in all things--chiefly in this. Is
+it so?"
+
+He offered his hand, saying, "God bless you!" with a quivering lip. He
+even muttered "child;" as though he felt how old he was growing, and
+how he had let all life's happiness slip by, until it was just that he
+should no longer claim it, but be content to see young people rejoicing
+in their youth. After a pause, he added, "Now, shall I go and fetch my
+brother?"
+
+"No," replied Agatha, "send for him, and do you stay here."
+
+"As you please," said Major Harper, a good deal surprised at this very
+original way of conducting a love affair. After courteously offering to
+withdraw himself to the dining-room, which Agatha declined, he sat and
+waited with her during the few minutes that elapsed before his brother
+appeared.
+
+Nathanael looked much agitated; his boyish face seemed to have grown
+years older since the preceding night. He paused at the door, and
+glanced with suspicion on his brother and Miss Bowen.
+
+"You sent for me, Frederick?"
+
+"It was I who sent for you," said Agatha. And then steadfastly regarding
+him whom she had tacitly accepted as her husband, the guide and ruler
+of her whole life--her self-possession failed. A great timidity,
+almost amounting to terror, came over her. Vaguely she felt the want of
+something unknown--something which in the whirl of her destiny she could
+grasp and hold by, sure that she held fast to the right. It was the one
+emotion, neither regard, liking, honour, or esteem, yet including and
+surpassing all--the _love_, strong, pure love, without which it is so
+dangerous, often so fatal, for a woman to marry.
+
+Agatha, never having known this feeling, could scarcely be said to have
+sacrificed it; at least not consciously. But even while she believed she
+was doing right in accepting the man who loved her, and whom she could
+make so happy, she trembled.
+
+Major Harper sat looking out of the window in an uncomfortable silence,
+which he evidently knew not how to break. It was a very awkward and
+somewhat ridiculous position for all three.
+
+Nathanael was the first to rise out of it. Slowly his features settled
+into composure, and his strong, earnest purpose gave him both dignity
+and calmness, even though all hope had evidently died. He looked
+steadily at his brother, avoiding Agatha.
+
+"Frederick, I think I understand now. She has been telling you all."
+
+"It was right she should. Her father left her in my care. She wishes you
+to learn her decision in my presence," said Major Harper, unwittingly
+taking a new and even respectful tone to the younger brother, whom he
+was wont to call "that boy."
+
+Nathanael grasped with his slight, long fingers, the chair by which he
+stood. "As she pleases. I am quite ready. Still--if--yesterday--without
+telling you or any one--she had said to me--But I am quite ready to hear
+what she decides."
+
+Despite his firmness, the words were uttered slowly and with a great
+struggle.
+
+"Tell him everything, Miss Bowen; it will come better from yourself,"
+said Frederick Harper, rising.
+
+Agatha rose likewise, walked across the room, and laid her hand in that
+of him who loved her. The only words she said were so low that he alone
+could hear them:
+
+"I have been very desolate--be kind to me!"
+
+Nathanael made no answer; indeed for the moment his look was that of a
+man bewildered--but he never forgot those words.
+
+Agatha felt her hand clasped--softly--but with a firm grasp that seemed
+to bind it to his for ever. This was the only sign of betrothal that
+passed between them. In another minute or two, unable to bear the scene
+longer, she crept out of the room and walked up-stairs, feeling with
+a dizzy sense, half of comfort, half of fear--yet, on the whole, the
+comfort stronger than the fear--that the struggle was all over, and her
+fate sealed for life.
+
+When she descended, an hour after, the Harpers had gone; but she found a
+little note awaiting her, just one line:
+
+"If not forbidden, I may come this evening."
+
+Agatha knew she had no right to forbid, even had she wished it, now. So
+she waited quietly through the long, dim, misty day--which seemed the
+strangest day she had ever known; until, in the evening, her lover's
+knock came to the door.
+
+She was sitting with Jane Ianson, near whom, partly in shy fear, partly
+from a vague desire for womanly sympathy, she had closely kept for the
+last hour. As yet, the Iansons knew nothing. She wondered whether from
+his manner or hers they would be likely to guess what had passed that
+morning between herself and Mr. Harper.
+
+It was an infinite relief to her when following, nay preceding,
+Nathanael, there appeared his elder brother, with the old pleasant smile
+and bow.
+
+But amidst all his assumed manner, Major Harper took occasion to whisper
+kindly to Agatha; "My brother made me come--I shall do admirably to talk
+nonsense to the Iansons."
+
+And so he did, carrying off the restraint of the evening so ingeniously
+that no one would have suspected any deeper elements of joy or pain
+beneath the smooth surface of their cheerful group.
+
+Nathanael sat almost as silent as ever; but even his very silence was
+a beautiful, joyful repose. In his aspect a new soul seemed to have
+dawned--the new soul, noble and strong, which comes into a man when he
+feels that his life has another life added to it, to guard, cherish, and
+keep as his own until death. And though Mr. Harper gave little outward
+sign of what was in him, it was touching to see how his eyes followed
+his betrothed everywhere, whether she were moving about the room, or
+working, or trying to sing. Continually Agatha felt the shining of
+these quiet, tender eyes, and she began to experience the
+consciousness--perhaps the sweetest in the world--of being able to make
+another human being entirely happy.
+
+Only sometimes, when she looked at her future husband--hardly able
+to believe he was really such--and thought how strangely things had
+happened; how here she was, no longer a girl, but a woman engaged to
+be married, sitting calmly by her lover's side, without any of the
+tremblingly delicious emotions which she had once believed would
+constitute the great mystery, Love--a strange pensiveness overtook her.
+She felt all the solemnity of her position, and, as yet, little of its
+sweetness. Perhaps that would come in time. She resolved to do her
+duty towards him whom she so tenderly honoured, and who so deeply loved
+herself; and all the evening the entire gentleness of her behaviour
+was enough to charm the very soul of any one who held towards her the
+relation now borne by Nathanael Harper.
+
+At length even the good-natured elder brother's flow of conversation
+seemed to fail, and he gave hints about leaving, to which the younger
+tacitly consented. Agatha bade them both good-night in public, and crept
+away, as she thought, unobserved, to her own sitting-room.
+
+There she stood before the hearth, which looked cheerful enough this
+wet July night,--the fire-light shining on her hands, as they hung down
+listlessly folded together. She was thinking how strange everything
+seemed about her, and what a change had come in a few days, nay, hours.
+
+Suddenly a light touch was laid on her hand. It startled her, but she
+did not attempt to shake it off. She knew quite well whose hand it was,
+and that it had a right to be there.
+
+"Agatha!"
+
+She half turned, and said once more "Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, _my_ Agatha."
+
+And for a minute he stood, holding her hand by the fire-light, until
+some one below called out loudly for "Mr. Harper." Then a kiss, soft and
+timid as a woman's, trembled over Agatha's mouth, and he was gone.
+
+This was the first time she had ever been kissed by any man. The feeling
+it left was very new, tremulous, and strange.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury
+Church--with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and
+Jane's sickly unhappy face at the other--Agatha said her prayers in due
+sabbatical form. "Said her prayers" is the right phrase, for trouble
+had not yet opened her young heart to pray. Yet she was a good girl, not
+wilfully undevout; and if during the long missionary-sermon she secretly
+got her prayer-book and read--what was the most likely portion to
+attract her--the marriage service, it was with feelings solemnised
+and not unsacred. Some portions of it made her very thoughtful, so
+thoughtful that when suddenly startled by the conclusion of the sermon,
+she prayed--not with the clergyman, for "Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
+Heretics"--but for two young creatures, herself and another, who perhaps
+needed Heaven's merciful blessings quite as much.
+
+When she rose up it was with moist eyelashes; and then she perceived
+what until this minute she had not seen,--that close behind her, sitting
+where he had probably sat all church-time, was Nathanael Harper.
+
+If anything can touch the heart of a generous woman, when it is still
+a free heart, it is that quiet, unobtrusive, proudly-silent love which,
+giving all, exacts nothing. Agatha's smile had in it something even of
+shy tenderness when at the church-door she was met by Mr. Harper.
+And when, after speaking courteously to the Iansons, he came, quite
+naturally as it were, to her side, and drew her arm in his, she felt
+a strange sense of calm and rest in knowing that it was her betrothed
+husband upon whom she leant.
+
+At the door he seemed wishful enough to enter; but Mrs. Ianson
+invariably looked very coldly upon Sunday visitors.
+
+And something questioning and questionable in the glances of both that
+lady and her daughter was very painful to Miss Bowen.
+
+"Not to-day," she whispered, as her lover detained her hand. "To-morrow
+I shall have made all clear to the Iansons."
+
+"As you will! Nothing shall trouble you," said he, with a gentle
+acquiescence, the value of which, alas! she did not half appreciate.
+"Only, remember, I have so few to-morrows."
+
+This speech troubled Agatha for many minutes, bringing various thoughts
+concerning the dim future which as yet she had scarcely contemplated.
+It is wonderful how little an unsophisticated girl's mind rests on the
+common-sense and commonplace of marriage,--household prospects, income,
+long or short engagements, and the like. When in the course of that
+drowsy, dark Sunday afternoon, with the rain-drops dripping heavily on
+the balcony, she took opportunity formally to communicate her secret to
+the astonished Mrs. Ianson, Agatha was perfectly confounded by the two
+simple questions: "When are you to be married? And where are you going
+to live?"
+
+"And oh! my dear," cried the doctor's wife, roused into positive
+sympathy by a confidence which always touches the softest chord in every
+woman's heart--"oh, my dear, I hope it will not be a long engagement.
+People change so--at least men do. You don't know what misery comes out
+of long engagements!" And, lowering her voice, she turned her dull grey
+eyes, swimming with motherly tears, towards the corner sofa where the
+pale, fretful, old-maidish Jane lay sleeping.
+
+Agatha understood a little, and guessed more. After that day, however
+ill-tempered and disagreeable the invalid might be, she was always very
+patient and kind towards Jane Ianson.
+
+After tea, when her daughter was gone to bed, Mrs. Ianson unfolded
+all to the Doctor, who nearly broke Miss Bowen's fingers with his
+congratulatory shake; John the footman, catching fragments of talk,
+probably put the whole story together for the amusement of the lower
+regions; and when Agatha retired to rest she was quite sure that the
+whole house, down to the little maid who waited on herself, was fully
+aware of the important fact that Miss Bowen was going to be married to
+Mr. Locke Harper.
+
+This annoyed her--she had not expected it. But she bore it stoically as
+a necessary evil. Only sometimes she thought how different all things
+were, seen afar and near; and faintly sighed for that long ago lost
+picture of wakening fancy--the Arcadian, impossible love-dream.
+
+She sat up till after midnight, writing to Emma Thorny-croft, the
+only near friend to whom she had to write, the news of her
+engagement--information that for many reasons she preferred giving
+by pen, not words. Finishing, she put her blind aside to have one
+freshening look at the trees in the square. It was quite cloudless now,
+the moon being just rising--the same moon that Agatha had seen, as a
+bright slender line appearing at street corners, on the Midsummer night
+when she and Nathariael Harper walked home together. She felt a deep
+interest in that especial moon, which seemed between its dawning and
+waning to have comprised the whole fate of her life.
+
+Quietly opening the window, she leant out gazing at the moonlight, as
+foolish girls will--yet who does not remember, half pathetically, those
+dear old follies!
+
+"Heigho! I wonder what will be the end of it all!" said Agatha Bowen;
+without specifying what the pronoun "it" alluded to.
+
+But she stopped, hearing a footstep rather policeman-like passing up and
+down the railing under the trees. And as after a while he crossed the
+street--she saw that the "policeman" had the very unprofessional
+appearance of a cloak and long fair hair:--Agatha's cheek burned; she
+shut down the window and blind, and relighted the candle. But her heart
+beat fast--it was so strange, so new, to be the object of such love.
+"However, I suppose I shall get used to it--besides--oh, how good he
+is!"
+
+And the genuine reverence of her heart conquered its touch of feminine
+vanity; which, perhaps, had he known.
+
+Nathanael would have done wiser in going to bed like a Christian, than
+in wandering like a heathen idolater round his beloved's shrine. But,
+however her pride may have been flattered, it is certain that Agatha
+went to sleep with tears, innocent and tender enough to serve as mirrors
+for watching night-angels, lying on her cheek.
+
+The next morning she waited at home, and for the first time received
+her betrothed openly as such. She was sitting alone in her little
+drawing-room engaged at her work; but put it down when Mr. Harper
+entered, and held out her hand kindly, though with a slight restraint
+and confusion. Both were needless: he only touched this lately-won
+hand with his soft boyish lips--like a _preux chevalier_ of the olden
+time--and sat down by her side. However deep his love might be, its
+reserve was unquestionable.
+
+After a while he began to talk to her--timidly yet tenderly, as friend
+with friend--watching her fingers while they moved, until at length the
+girl grew calmed by the calmness of her young lover. So much so, that
+she even forgot he was a young man and her lover, and found herself
+often steadfastly looking up into his face, which was gradually melting
+into a known likeness, as many faces do when we grow familiar with them.
+Agatha puzzled herself much as to who it could be that Mr. Harper was
+like--though she found no nearer resemblance than a head she had once
+seen of the angel Gabriel.
+
+She told him this--quite innocently, and then, recollecting herself,
+coloured deeply. But Nathanael looked perfectly happy.
+
+"The likeness is very flattering," said he, smiling. "Yet I would only
+wish to be--what you called me once, the first evening I saw you. Do you
+remember?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah--well--it was not probable you should," he answered, as if
+patiently taking upon himself the knowledge which only a strong love can
+bear--that it is _alone_ in its strength. "It was merely when they were
+talking of my name, and you said I looked like a Nathanael. Now, do you
+remember?"
+
+"Yes, and I think so still," she replied, without any false shame. "I
+never look at you, but I feel there is 'no guile' in you, Mr. Harper."
+
+"Thanks," he said, with much feeling. "Thanks--except for the last word.
+How soon will you try to say 'Nathanael?'"
+
+A fit of wilfulness or shyness was upon Agatha. She drew away her hand
+which he had taken. "How soon? Nay, I cannot tell. It is a long name,
+old-fashioned, and rather ugly."
+
+He made no answer--scarcely even showed that he was hurt; but he never
+again asked her to call him "Nathanael."
+
+She went on with her work, and he sat quietly looking at her for some
+little time more. Any Asmodeus peering at them through the roof would
+have vowed these were the oddest pair of lovers ever seen.
+
+At last, rousing himself, Mr. Harper said: "It is time, Agatha"--he
+paused, and added--"dear Agatha--quite time that we should talk a
+little about what concerns our happiness--at least mine."
+
+She looked at him--saw how earnest he was, and put down her work. The
+softness of her manner soothed him.
+
+"I know, dear Agatha, that it is very wrong in me; but sometimes I can
+hardly believe this is all true, and that you really promised--what I
+heard from your own lips two days ago. Will you--out of that good heart
+of yours--say it again?"
+
+"What must I say?"
+
+"That you love--no, I don't mean that--but that you care for me a
+little--enough to trust me with your happiness? Do you?"
+
+For all reply, Agatha held out the hand she had drawn back. Her lover
+kept it tight in that peculiar grasp of his--very soft and still, but
+firm as adamant.
+
+"Thank you. You shall never regret your trust. My brother told me all
+you said to him on Saturday morning. I know you do not quite love me
+yet."
+
+Agatha started, it was so true.
+
+"Still, as you have loved no one else--you are sure of that?"
+
+She thought a minute, then lifted her candid eyes, and answered:
+
+"Yes, quite sure!"
+
+He, watching her closely, betrayed himself so far as to give an inward
+thankful sigh.
+
+"Then, Agatha, since I love you, I am not afraid."
+
+"Nor I," she answered, and a tear fell, for she was greatly moved. Her
+betrothed put his arm round her, softly and timidly, as if unfamiliar
+with actions of tenderness; but she trembled so much that, still softly,
+he let her go, only keeping firm hold of her hand, apparently to show
+that no power on earth, gentle or strong, should wrest that from him.
+
+A few minutes after, he began speaking of his affairs, of which Agatha
+was in a state of entire ignorance. She said, jestingly--for they had
+fallen into quite familiar jesting now, and were laughing together like
+a couple of children--that she had not the least idea whether she were
+about to marry a prince or a beggar.
+
+"No," answered her lover, smiling at her unworldliness, and thereby
+betraying that, innocent as he looked, his was not the innocence of
+ignorance. "No; but I am not exactly a prince, and as a beggar I should
+certainly be too proud to marry _you_."
+
+"Indeed! Why?"
+
+"Because I understand you are a very rich young lady (I don't know
+how rich, for I never thought of the subject or inquired about it till
+to-day), while I am only able to earn my income year by year. Yet it is
+a good income, and, I earnestly hope, fully equal to yours."
+
+"I don't know what mine is. But why are you so punctilious?"
+
+"Uncle Brian, impressed upon me, from my boyhood, that one of the
+greatest horrors of life must be the taunt of having married an heiress
+for her money."
+
+"Has he ever married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And is he a very old man?" Miss Bowen asked, less interested in money
+matters than in this Uncle Brian, whose name so constantly floated
+across his nephew's conversation.
+
+"Fifteen years in the colonies makes a man old before his time. And he
+was not very young, probably full thirty, when he went out But I could
+go on talking of Uncle Brian for ever; you must stop me, Agatha."
+
+"Not I--I like to hear," she answered, beginning to feel how sweet it
+was to sit talking thus confidentially, and know herself and her words
+esteemed fair and pleasant in the eyes of one who loved her. But as she
+looked up and smiled, that same witching smile put an effectual stop to
+the chronicle of Brian Harper.
+
+"And I have to go back to Canada so soon!" whispered Nathanael to
+himself, as his gaze, far less calm than heretofore, fell down like a
+warm sunshine over his betrothed, "The time of my stay here will soon be
+over, and what then--Agatha?"
+
+She did not wholly comprehend the question, and so let it pass. She was
+quite content to keep him talking about things and people in whom her
+interest was naturally growing; of Kingcombe Holm, the old house on the
+Dorset coast, where the Harpers had dwelt for centuries; of its present
+owner, Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of that venerable name so renowned in
+Dorsetshire pedigrees, that one Harper had refused to merge it even in
+the blaze of a peerage. Of the five Miss Harpers, of whom one was dead,
+and another, the all-important "married sister," Mrs. Dugdale, lived in
+a town close by. Of Eulalie, the pretty _cadette_ who was at some
+future time going to disappear behind the shadows of matrimony; of
+busy, housekeeping Mary, whom nobody could possibly do without, and who
+couldn't be suffered to marry on any account whatever. Last of all, was
+the eye, ear, and heart of the house, kept tenderly in its inmost nook,
+from which for twenty years she had never moved, and never would move
+until softly carried to the house appointed for all living--Elizabeth,
+the eldest--of whom Nathanael's soft voice grew softer as he spoke. His
+betrothed hesitated to ask many questions about Elizabeth. The one of
+whom she had it in her mind always to inquire, and whose name somehow
+always slipped past, was Miss Anne Valery.
+
+All this conversation--wherein the young lover bore himself much more
+bravely than in regular "love-making"--a manufacture at which he was not
+_au fait_ at all, caused the morning to pass swiftly by. Agatha thought
+if all her life were to move so smoothly and pleasantly, she need never
+repent trusting its current to the guidance of Nathanael Harper. And
+when, soon after he departed, Emma Thorny-croft came in, all smiles,
+wonderings, and congratulations, Miss Bowen was in a mood cheerful
+enough to look the happy _fiancee_ to the life; besides womanly and
+tender enough to hang round her friend's neck, testifying her old
+regard--until Master James testified his also, and likewise his general
+sympathy in the scene, by flying at them both with bread-and-buttery
+fingers.
+
+"Ah, Agatha, there is nothing like being a wife and mother! you see what
+happiness lies before you," cried the affectionate soul, hugging her
+unruly son and heir.
+
+Miss Bowen slightly shuddered; being of a rather different opinion;
+which, however, she had the good taste to keep to herself, since
+occasionally a slight misgiving arose that either she was unreasonably
+harsh, or that the true type of infantile loveableness did not exist in
+the young Thornycrofts.
+
+As a private penance for possible injustice, and also out of the general
+sunniness of her contented heart, she was particularly kind to Master
+James that day, and moreover promised to spend the next at the Botanic
+Gardens--not the terrific Zoological!--with Emma and the babies.
+
+"And," added the young matron, with a gracious satisfaction, "you
+understand, my dear, we shall--now and always--be most happy to see Mr.
+Harper in the evening."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Whether Mr. Harper, being a rather proud and reserved individual, was
+not "so happy to be seen in the evening" as an attendant planet openly
+following his sphered idol, or whether, like all true lovers, he was
+very jealous over the lightest public betrayal of love's sanctity, most
+certainly he did not appear until he had been expected for at least two
+hours. Even then his manner was somewhat constrained. Emma's smiling,
+half-jesting congratulations were nipped in the bud; she felt as she
+afterwards declared--"quite frightened at him."
+
+Agatha, too, met him rather meekly, fearing lest she had led him into
+a position distasteful to his feelings. She was relieved when,
+taking little notice of herself, he fell into conversation with Mr.
+Thornycroft--a serious discussion on political and general topics. Once
+or twice, glancing at him, and noticing how well he talked, and how
+manly and self-possessed he looked, Agatha began to feel proud of her
+betrothed. She could not have endured a lover who--in not unfrequent
+lover-like fashion--"made a fool of himself" on her account.
+
+While the two gentlemen still talked, Miss Bowen stood secretly
+listening, but apparently watching the rich twilight that coloured the
+long sweep of the Regent's Park trees--a pretty sight, even though in
+the land of Cockayne.
+
+"There's a carriage at our door!" screamed Missy from the balcony,
+receiving a hurried maternal reproof for ill-behaviour. Mrs. Thornycroft
+wondered who the inopportune visitor could be.
+
+It was a lady, who gave no name, but wished to know if Mr. Locke Harper
+were there, and if so, would he come to the carriage and speak to her a
+moment?
+
+Nathanael did so, looking not less surprised than the rest of the party.
+After five minutes had elapsed, he was still absent from the room.
+
+"Very odd!" observed Emma, half in jest, half earnest; "I should inquire
+into the matter if I were you. Let me see--I fancy the carriage is still
+at the door. It would be rude to peep, you know, but we can inquire of
+the maid."
+
+"No," said Agatha, gently removing Mrs. Thornycrofts hand from the
+bell; "Mr. Harper will doubtless tell me all that is necessary. He is
+perfectly able to conduct his own affairs."
+
+It was speech implying more indifference than she really felt, for this
+mysterious interview did not quite please her. She tried vainly to go on
+talking with Mrs. Thornycroft, and actually started when she heard the
+carriage drive off, and Nathanael come up-stairs.
+
+His countenance was a good deal troubled, but he did not give the
+slightest explanation--not even when Mrs. Thornycroft joked him about
+his supposed "business."
+
+"With a lady, too! Not, I hope, a young lady?"
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, absently, his eyes fixed afar off on
+Agatha.
+
+"I hope your visitor in the carriage was not a young lady?"
+
+"No." The answer was in a tone that put an end to any more jesting.
+
+Nathanael sat down, and tried to take up the thread of politics just
+dropped with Mr. Thornycroft, but only for a few minutes. Then, stealing
+round by Miss Bowen's side, he whispered:
+
+"I want to speak to you: would you mind coming home soon?"
+
+"At once, if you wish it," she answered, perceiving that something was
+wrong, and feeling towards him too much of kindness and too little of
+jealous love, to be in any way displeased at his strange behaviour.
+
+"Will you do it, then, dear Agatha? Do it for me."
+
+Agatha was ill at contrivance, but she managed somehow to get away; and
+before it was dark she and her betrothed were out in the broad terrace.
+
+"Now," said she, taking his arm kindly, "if anything is amiss, you can
+tell me all as we walk home. Better walk than ride."
+
+"No, we must ride; I would not lose a minute," Nathanael answered, as
+he hurried her into a conveyance, and gave the order to drive to Bedford
+Square.
+
+Miss Bowen felt a twinge of repugnance at this control so newly
+exercised over the liberty of her actions; but her good-heartedness
+still held out, and she waited patiently for her lover to explain.
+However, he seemed to forget that any explanation was necessary. He
+leaned back in the corner quite silent, with his hand over his eyes.
+Had she loved him, or not known that he was her lover, Agatha would soon
+have essayed the womanly part of comforter, but now timidity restrained
+her.
+
+At length timidity was verging into distrust, when he suddenly said,
+just as they were entering the square:
+
+"I have used the dear right you lately gave me, in taking a strange
+liberty with you and your house. I have appointed to meet me there
+to-night one whom I must see, and whom I could not well see in any other
+way--a lady--a stranger to you. But, stay, she is here!"
+
+And as they stopped at the door, where another carriage had stopped
+likewise, Nathanael unceremoniously leaped out, and went to this
+"mysterious stranger."
+
+"Go in, dear Agatha," said he returning; "go to your own sitting-room,
+and I will bring her to you."
+
+Agatha, half reluctant to be so ordered about, and thoroughly bewildered
+likewise, mechanically obeyed. Nevertheless, with a sort of pleasure
+that this humdrum courtship was growing into something interesting at
+last, she waited for the intruding "lady."
+
+That she was a lady, the first glimpse of her as she entered the
+room leaning rather heavily on Nathanael's arm, brought sufficient
+conviction. She was tall, and a certain slow, soft way of moving,
+cast about her an atmosphere of sweet dignity. Her age was not easily
+distinguishable, but her voice, in the few words addressed to Mr.
+Harper, "Is your friend here?" seemed not that of a very young woman.
+
+In her presence, Miss Bowen instinctively rose.
+
+"Yes, she is here," said Nathanael, answering the stranger. "You could
+not have learnt what I wrote yesterday to my father and to Elizabeth.
+She is Agatha Bowen, my--my wife that will be. Agatha, this lady is Miss
+Anne Valery."
+
+It would be hard to say which of the two thus suddenly introduced to
+each other was most surprised. However, the elder lady recovered herself
+soonest.
+
+"I was not aware of this; but I am very glad. And I need not now
+apologise for thus intruding."
+
+She went up to the young betrothed, and took her by the hand warmly,
+seeming at once and without further explanation to comprehend all; while
+on Agatha's side, her look, her voice, her touch, communicated a sudden
+trust and pleasure. It was one of those instinctive, inexplicable
+attractions which almost every one has experienced more or less during
+life. She could not take her eyes off Miss Valery; the face and manner
+seemed at once familiar and strange. She had never been so impressed by
+any woman before.
+
+To show all hospitable attentions, to place an arm-chair for her guest,
+and even, as she appeared weary, to entreat her to put aside her bonnet
+and mantle--seemed quite natural to Miss Bowen, just as if they had
+been friends of years. Anne thanked her courteously, let her do what she
+would--but all the while looked anxiously at Nathanael.
+
+"You know we have much to say. Is she aware of what I told you?"
+
+"Not yet; I could not tell her; it shocked me so. Oh, my poor uncle!"
+
+Agatha, who was unfastening her guest's cloak, turned round.
+
+"What, your Uncle Brian? Has anything happened? You speak almost as if
+he were dead."
+
+Anne Valery shivered.
+
+"Dead! God forbid!" cried the young man, more deeply moved than his
+betrothed had ever seen him. "But we have had ill news. He went as
+interpreter on a Government mission, as he had often done before; he was
+so popular among the Indians. But from some treachery shown them, the
+tribe grew enraged and carried him off prisoner. Heaven only knows if
+they have spared his life. But I think--I feel they will. He was so just
+to the red men always. He is surely safe."
+
+"Yes, he is safe," repeated Miss Valery, as if any alternative but that
+were utterly incredible and impossible.
+
+Nathanael continued: "The tidings reached Kingcombe yesterday, and our
+friend here, coming to London, volunteered to bring them, and consult
+with me. If there is any good deed to be done, it is sure to be done by
+Anne Valery," added Nathanael, stretching out his hand to hers.
+
+She took it without speaking, being apparently much exhausted. And now
+that her bonnet was off, and she sitting near the lamp, Agatha discerned
+that Miss Valery was by no means young or beautiful. At all events, she
+was at that time in an unmarried woman's life when it ceases to signify
+whether she is handsome or not. Her hair at first seemed brown, but on
+looking closer, there appeared on either side the parting broad silvery
+lines, as if two snow-laden hands laid on the head had smoothed it down,
+leaving it shining still.
+
+Agatha turned from her passing examination of Miss Valery to the subject
+in question, evidently so painful to her betrothed.
+
+"You two wish to consult together? Do so. Pray stay here. I am very
+sorry for your trouble, Mr. Harper. Anything that I can do for you or
+your friend, you know"--and her voice dropped softly--"it is my duty
+now."
+
+Nathanael looked at her, as if longing to clasp her to his heart and
+say how happy he was; but he restrained himself and let his eyes alone
+declare what he felt. They were very eloquent.
+
+While this passed between the young people, the elder lady arose from
+her chair; quietness seemed painful to her.
+
+"Nathanael, every minute is precious to anxiety such as you must feel.
+Have you thought what had better be done, since you are the right person
+to do it?"
+
+"As yet I have thought of nothing. And, alas! what _can_ be done?"
+
+"Sit down, and let us consider," said she, laying her hand on his, with
+a force soft yet steady as that of her words.
+
+Agatha was gliding out of the room, but her lover's quick movement and
+Miss Valery's look stopped her.
+
+"Do not go, Miss Bowen; you are not so unknown to me as I am to you. I
+had much rather you stayed."
+
+So she took up her position a little distance off, and listened while
+the two friends consulted; pondering the while on what a rare kind of
+man Mr. Brian Harper must be to win such regard.
+
+"You say the news came accidentally?" Mr. Harper observed. "It may not
+be true, then."
+
+"It is. I had it confirmed to-day."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I went to the Colonial Office myself." ("Kind Anne Valery!" murmured
+the young man.) "It was best to do so before I told you anything. You,
+knowing the whole facts, would then decide more readily."
+
+"You are right and wise as ever. Now, tell me exactly what you heard."
+
+"While a treaty was going forward for the Government purchase of Indian
+lands, there arose a quarrel, and two red men were upon slight grounds
+punished cruelly. Then the whole tribe went off in the night, carrying
+as prisoners two Englishmen--one by force. The other is believed to have
+offered himself willingly as a hostage, until the reparation of what he
+considered an injustice shown by his countrymen to the Indians. You may
+guess who he was."
+
+"Uncle Brian, of course," cried Nathanael, pacing the room. "Just like
+him! He would do the maddest things for the sake of honour."
+
+Anne Valery's eyes flashed in the dark a momentary brightness, as if
+they were growing young again.
+
+"But his life is surely safe: all over the Indian country they respect
+the very name of Brian Harper. No harm can touch him--it is quite
+impossible!"
+
+"I think so too." And Miss Valery drew a long breath. "Still, such
+danger is very terrible--is it not?" And she turned slightly, to include
+Agatha in their conversation.
+
+"Oh, terrible!" the girl cried, deeply interested. "But could he not
+be sought for--rescued? Could not a party be despatched after him? If I
+were a man I would head one immediately."
+
+Miss Valery, faintly smiling, patted Agatha's hand. It was easy to
+see that this good heart opened itself at once to Nathanael's young
+betrothed.
+
+"That is what I had in my own mind, and should have spoken of to his
+nephew here--a party of search which the Canadian Government, if urged,
+would no doubt consent to. Nathanael could propose it--plan it. He is
+both ingenious and wise."
+
+"Ah, he is; he seems to know everything!" cried Agatha warmly. "Surely,
+Mr. Harper, you could think of something--do something?"
+
+"I could," said the nephew, slowly waking from a long interval of
+thought. "I could do--what perhaps I ought, and will--for him who has
+been more than a father to me."
+
+"What is that?" Agatha asked, while Miss Valery regarded him silently.
+
+"To go back to America--head a search; or, if that is refused me, search
+for him myself alone, and never give up until I find him--living or
+dead."
+
+"Ah, do so! that will be right, generous, noble--you could not fail."
+
+"There is no saying, Agatha; only, if done, it must be done without
+delay. I must start at once--in a week--nay a day--leaving England,
+home, you, everything. That is hard!"
+
+He uttered the last words inaudibly, and his left hand was suddenly
+clenched, as he turned and walked once up the room and down again.
+
+Agatha knew not what to say. Only a great love conscious of the extent
+of its own sacrifice, would have had boldness to urge the like sacrifice
+upon him.
+
+Miss Valery's voice broke the troubled pause:
+
+"You cannot start yet, Nathanael; you would have to apply to the
+Government here. It would be impossible for you to leave under at least
+a fortnight."
+
+"Ah!" he sighed, momentarily relieved, which was but natural "Yet, how
+wrong I am! for my poor uncle's sake I ought not to lose a day. Surely
+there would be some way of hastening the time, if inquiries were to be
+set on foot."
+
+"I have made all that could be made; still, try yourself, though I fear
+it is useless. The suspense is bitter, but what is inevitable must be
+borne," said Anne, with the smile of one long used to the practice of
+that doctrine. "And in a fortnight--a fortnight is a long time, Miss
+Bowen?"
+
+The smile, flitting to Agatha, took a cheerfulness which hitherto in
+the sad subject of her talk Miss Valery had not displayed. A certain
+benevolent meaning, which Agatha rather guessed at than discerned, was
+likewise visible there.
+
+"Come," said she, "for this night we can do nothing; but having settled
+what we shall do, or rather what Mr. Harper will do, let us make
+ourselves at rest. Be content, my dear Nathanael. Heaven will take care
+of him for whom we fear."
+
+Her voice trembled, Agatha fancied; and the young girl thought how full
+and generous was this kind woman's sympathy! likewise how good Nathanael
+must be to have awakened so deep a regard in such an one as Miss Anne
+Valery.
+
+The clock struck ten. "We are early folk in Dorsetshire; but as my
+old servant Andrews has secured my lodgings close by (I am a very
+independent woman, you see, Miss Bowen), if you will allow me, I should
+like to sit another half-hour, and become a little better acquainted
+with you."
+
+Agatha gave her a delighted welcome, and astonished the Ianson family
+by ordering all sorts of hospitalities. The three began to converse upon
+various matters, the only remarkable fact being that no one inquired for
+or alluded to a person, doubtless familiar to all--Frederick Harper. On
+Agatha's part this omission was involuntary; he had quietly slipped
+out of her thoughts hour by hour and day by day, as her interest in him
+became absorbed in others more akin to her true nature.
+
+But though every one tried to maintain the conversation on indifferent
+topics, the feelings of at least two out of the three necessarily
+drew it back to one channel. There they sat, running over the slight
+nothings, probable and improbable, which in hard suspense people count
+up; though still the worst Nathanael seemed to fear was the temporary
+hardship to which his uncle would be exposed.
+
+"And he is not so young as he used to be. How often have I urged him to
+be content with his poverty and come home. He _shall_ come home now. If
+once I get him out of these red fellows' hands, he shall turn his face
+from their wild settlements for ever. He can easily do it, even if I
+must stay in Canada."
+
+The young man looked at his newly-betrothed wife, and looked away again.
+It was more than he could bear.
+
+"Agatha," said Miss Valery, after a pause, during which she had closely
+observed both the young people--"I may call you _Agatha_, for the sake
+of my friend here, may I not?"
+
+"Yes," was the low answer.
+
+"Well then, Agatha, shall you and I have a little talk? We need not mind
+that foolish boy; he was a boy, just so high, when I first knew him. Let
+him walk up and down the room a little, it will do him good."
+
+She moved to the sofa, and took Agatha by her side.
+
+"My dear"--(there was a rare sweetness in the way Miss Valery said the
+usually unsweet words _my dear_)--"I need not say, what, of course, we
+two both think, that she will be a happy woman who marries Nathanael
+Harper."
+
+Agatha, with her eyes cast down, looked everything a young girl could be
+expected to look under the circumstances.
+
+"Your happiness, as well as your history, is to me not like that of an
+entire stranger. I once knew your father."
+
+"Ah, that accounts for all!" cried Agatha, delighted to gain this
+confirmation of her strange impression in favour of Miss Valery. "When
+was this, and where was I?"
+
+"Neither born nor thought of."
+
+Agatha's countenance fell. "Then of course it was impossible--yet I felt
+certain--I could even believe so now--that I have seen you before."
+
+While the girl looked, a quick shadow passed over Anne Valery's still
+features, for the moment entirely changing their expression. But soon
+returned their ordinary settled calm.
+
+"We often fancy that strangers' faces are familiar. It is usually held
+to be an omen of future affection. Let me hope that it will prove so
+now. I have long wished, and am truly glad, heart-glad to see you, my
+dear child."
+
+She bent Agatha's forehead towards her, and kissed it. Gradually her
+lips recovered their colour, and she began to talk again, showing
+herself surprisingly familiar with the monotonous past life of the young
+girl, and likewise with her present circumstances.
+
+"How kind of you to take such an interest in me!" cried Agatha, her
+wonder absorbed in pleasure.
+
+"It was natural," Anne said, rather hastily. "A woman left orphan
+from the cradle as I was, can feel for another orphan. And though my
+acquaintance with your father was too slender to warrant my intruding
+upon you--still I never lost sight of you. Poor child, yours has been a
+desolate position for so young a girl."
+
+"Ay, very desolate," said Agatha; and suddenly the recollection
+crossed her mind of how doubly she should feel that desolation when her
+betrothed husband was gone, for how long, no one could tell! A regret
+arose, half tenderness, half selfishness; but she deemed it wholly the
+latter, and so crushed it down.
+
+"How long have you been engaged to Nathanael?" asked Miss Valery, in a
+manner so sweet as entirely to soften the abruptness of the question,
+and win the unhesitating answer.
+
+"A very short time--only a few days. Yet I seem to have known him for
+years. Oh, how good he is! how it grieves me to see him so unhappy!"
+whispered Agatha, watching his restless movements up and down.
+
+"It will be a hard trial for him, this parting with you. Men like
+Nathanael never love lightly; even sudden passions--and his must have
+been rather sudden--in them take root as with the strength of years. I
+am very sorry for the boy."
+
+And Miss Valery's eyes glistened as they rested on him whom probably
+from old habit she thus called.
+
+"Well, have you done your little mysteries?" said he, coming up to the
+sofa, with an effort to be gay. "Have you taken my character to pieces,
+Anne Valery? Remember, if so, I have little enough time to recover it. A
+fortnight will be gone directly."
+
+No one answered.
+
+"Come, make room; I _will_ have my place. I _will_ sit beside you,
+Agatha."
+
+There was a sort of desperation in his "I will" that indicated a
+great change in the reserved, timid youth. Agatha yielded as to an
+irresistible influence, and he placed himself by her side, putting his
+arm firmly round her waist, quite regardless of the presence of a third
+person--though about Anne there was an abiding spirit of love which
+seemed to take under its shadow all lovers, ay, even though she herself
+were an old maid. But perhaps that was the very reason.
+
+"I was doing you no harm, Nathanael," said she, smiling. "And I was
+thinking, like you, how soon a fortnight will be gone, and how hard it
+is for you to part from this little girl that loves you."
+
+The inference, so natural, so holy, which Miss Valery had unconsciously
+drawn, Agatha had not the heart to deny. She knew it was but right that
+she should love, and be supposed to love, her betrothed husband. And
+looking at him, his suffering, his strong self-denial, she almost felt
+that she did really love him, as a wife ought.
+
+"If," said the soft voice of the good angel--"if you had not known
+each other so short a time, and been so newly betrothed, I should have
+said--judging such things by what they were when I was young,"--here she
+momentarily paused--"I should have said, Nathanael, that there was
+only one course which, as regarded both her and yourself, was wisest,
+kindest, best."
+
+"What is that?" cried he, eagerly.
+
+"To do a little sooner what must necessarily have been done soon--to
+take one another's hands--thus."
+
+Agatha felt strong, wild fingers grasping her own; a dizziness came
+over her--she shrank back, crying, "No, no!" and hid her face on Miss
+Valery's shoulder. Nathanael rose up and walked away.
+
+When he returned, it was with his "good" aspect, tender and calm.
+
+"No, Anne, I was wrong even to think of such a thing. Assure her I will
+never urge it. She is quite right in saying 'No'--What man could expect
+such a sacrifice?"
+
+"And what woman would deem it such?" whispered Miss Valery. "But I
+know I am a very foolish, romantic old maid, and view these things in
+a different light to most people. So, my dear, be quite at rest," she
+continued, soothing the young creature, who still clung to her. "No one
+will urge you in any way; _he_ will not, he is too generous; and I had
+no right even to say what I did, except from my affection for him."
+
+She looked fondly at the young man, as if he had been still a little
+child, and she saw him in the light of ancient days. These impelled her
+to speak on earnestly.
+
+"Another reason I had; because I am old, and you two are young. Often,
+it seems as if the whole world--fate, trial, circumstance--were set
+against all lovers to make them part. It is a bitter thing when they
+part of their own free will. Accidents of all kinds--change, sorrow,
+even death--may come between, and they may never meet again. Agatha,
+Nathanael--believe one who has seen more of life than you--rarely do
+those that truly love ever attain the happiness of marrying one another.
+One half the world--the best and noblest half--thirst all their lives
+for that bliss which you throw away. What, Agatha, crying?"
+
+And she tried to lift up the drooping head, but could not.
+
+"Nay, dear, I was wrong to grieve you so. Please God, you two may meet
+again, and marry and be happy, even in this world. Come, Nathanael, you
+can say all this much better than I. Tell her you will be quite content,
+and wait any number of years. And, as to this parting, it is a right and
+noble sacrifice of yours; let her see how nobly you will bear it."
+
+"Ay, Agatha, I will," said the young lover firmly, as he stood before
+her, half stooping, half kneeling--though not quite kneeling, even then.
+But his whole manner showed the crumbling away of that clear but icy
+surface with which nature or habit had enveloped the whole man.
+
+Agatha lifted her head, and looked at him long and earnestly.
+
+"I will," he repeated; "I promise you I will. Only be content--and in
+token that you are so, give me your hand."
+
+She gave him both, and then leaned back again on Miss Valery's shoulder.
+
+"Tell him--I will go with him--anywhere--at any time--if it will only
+make him happy."
+
+The same night, when Nathanael and Anne Valery had left her, Agatha sat
+thinking, almost in a dream, yet without either sorrow or dread--that
+all uncertainty was now over--that this day week would be her
+wedding-day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"I wish, as I stated yesterday, that Miss Bowen's property should be
+settled entirely upon herself. This is the only course which to my
+thinking can reconcile a man to the humiliation of receiving a large
+fortune with his wife."
+
+"An odd doctrine, truly! Where did you learn it?" laughed Major Harper,
+who was pacing the Bedford Square drawing-room with quick, uneasy steps;
+while his brother stood very quiet, only looking from time to time at
+the closed door. It was the Saturday before the marriage; and Agatha's
+trustee had come to execute his last guardianship of her and her
+property. There was lying on a corner-table, pored over by a lawyer-like
+individual--that formidable instrument, a marriage-settlement.
+
+"Where did I learn it?" returned Mr. Harper, smiling. "Why, where I
+learned most of my opinions, and everything that is good in me--with
+Uncle Brian. Poor Uncle Brian!" and the smile faded into grave anxiety.
+
+"Are you really going on that mad expedition?" said the elder brother,
+with the air of a man who, being perturbed in his own mind, is ready to
+take a harsh view of everything.
+
+"I do not think it mad--and anything short of madness I ought to
+undertake, and shall--for him."
+
+"Ay," muttered the other, "there it is, Brian always made everybody love
+him."
+
+"But," continued Nathanael, "as I said last night to Miss Bowen, I shall
+do nothing foolishly. We must hold ourselves prepared for the worst;
+still, if better tidings should come--though that is scarcely possible
+now--then perhaps"----
+
+"You would not go!" cried Major Harper, eagerly. "Which would of course
+delay your marriage. How very much better that would be."
+
+"Why so?" said the bridegroom, with a piercing look.
+
+Frederick appeared confused, but threw it off with a laugh.
+
+"Oh, women like a little longer courtship. They are never caught all in
+a minute, unless they are quite indifferent as to who catches them. And
+even then--'marry in haste'--you know the proverb--nay, don't be angry,"
+he added, as his brother turned abruptly away. "I was only jesting; and
+a happy fellow like you can afford to be laughed at by a miserable old
+bachelor like me."
+
+The momentary annoyance passed. Nathanael was, indeed, too happy to be
+seriously vexed at anything.
+
+"Still, for some reasons," continued Major Harper, "I wish my fair ward
+were not becoming my sister in such a terrible hurry. So much to be done
+in one week, and by a man like me who hates the very name of business;
+it is next to impossible but that some things should he slurred and
+hurried over. For instance, there was no time, Grimes said, to draw up
+a long deed of settlement, showing precisely where her money was
+invested."
+
+"I told you I wanted nothing of the kind. I scarcely understand your
+English law. But can it not be stated in plain legal form--a dozen lines
+would surety; do it--that every farthing Agatha has is settled upon
+herself exclusively from the day she becomes my wife."
+
+"That is done. I--I--in fact, Mr. Grimes had already advised such a
+course as being the shortest."
+
+"Then what is the use of saying any more about it?"
+
+"But, brother," observed Major Harper, in whose manner was perceptible a
+certain vague uneasiness, "if--though I assure you Grimes has transacted
+all these matters, and he is a sharp man of business, while I am
+none--still, if it would be any satisfaction to you to know particulars
+concerning where Miss Bowen's money is invested"--
+
+"In the funds; and to remain there by her father's will, to I think you
+said."
+
+"Precisely. It _was_ invested there," returned the brother, with an
+accent so light on the past tense that Nathanael, preoccupied with other
+things than money matters, did not observe it.
+
+"Well, then, so let it stay. Don't let us talk any more about this
+matter. I trust entirely to you. To whom should I trust, if not to my
+own brother?"
+
+At these hearty words Major Harper's face, quick in every mobile
+expression of feeling, betrayed much discomposure. He walked the room in
+a mood of agitation, compared to which the bridegroom's own restlessness
+was nothing. Then he went to the farther end of the apartment, and
+hurriedly read over the marriage-settlement.
+
+"Faugh, Grimes! what balderdash is this?" he whispered angrily.
+"Balderdash?--nay, downright lies!"
+
+"Drawn up exactly as you desired, and as we arranged, Major Harper,"
+answered Mr. Grimes, formally. "Settling upon the lady and her heirs for
+ever all her property now in the 'Three per Cent. Consols.'"
+
+"Just heavens! and there's not a penny of it there!"
+
+"But there will be by the time the marriage is celebrated, or soon
+after--since you are determined to sell out those shares."
+
+"I wish I could--I wish to Heaven I could!" cried the poor Major, in a
+despair that required all the warnings of his legal adviser to smother
+it down, so as to keep their conference private. "I've been driven
+nearly mad going from broker to broker in the City to-day. I might
+as well attempt to sell out shares in the Elysian Fields as in that
+confounded Wheal Caroline."
+
+"Fluctuations, my dear sir; mere fluctuations! 'Tis the same in all
+Cornish mines. Yet, as I said, both concerning your own little property
+and Miss Bowen's afterwards, I would wish no better investment. I have
+the greatest confidence in the Wheal Caroline shares."
+
+"Confidence!" echoed the Major, ruefully. "But where is my brother's
+confidence in me, when I tell him?--'Pon my life, I can't tell him!"
+
+"There is not the slightest need; I have accurate information from the
+mine, which next week will raise the shares to ten per cent, premium,
+and then, since you are so determined to sell out that most promising
+investment"--
+
+"I will, as sure as I live. I vow I'll never be trustee to any young
+lady again, as long as my name is Frederick Harper. However, if this
+must stand"--and he read from the deed--"'all property now invested
+in the Three per Cents.'--Oh, oh!" Major Harper shook his head, with a
+deep-drawn sigh of miserable irresolution.
+
+Yet there lay the parchment, sickening him with its prevaricating if
+not lying face; and his invisible good angel kept pulling him on one
+side--nay, at last pulled him halfway across the room to where, absorbed
+in a reverie--pardonable under the circumstances--his brother sat.
+
+"Nathanael, pray get out of that brown study, and have five minutes'
+talk with me. If you only knew the annoyance I have endured all this
+week concerning Agatha's fortune! How thankful I shall be to transfer it
+from my hands into yours."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said the lover, rather absently.
+
+"And I hope it will give you less trouble and more reward than it has
+given me," continued the elder brother, still anxiously beating about
+the bush, ere he came to a direct confession. "I declare, I have been as
+anxious for the young lady's benefit as if I had intended marrying her
+myself."
+
+The bridegroom's quick, fiery glance showed Major Harper that he had
+gone a little too far, even in privileged jesting.
+
+But happily Nathanael had heard the door open. He hastily went forward
+and met his bride. With her were Mr. and Mrs. Thornycroft, Dr. and Mrs.
+Ianson, and another lady. The latter quickly passed out of the immediate
+circle, and sat down in a retired corner of the room.
+
+Agatha looked pale and worn out, which was no wonder, considering that
+for several days she had endured, morning, noon, and night, all the
+wearisome preparations which the kind-hearted Emma deemed indispensable
+to "a really nice wedding." But her betrothed noticed her paleness with
+troubled eyes.
+
+"You are not ill, my darling?"
+
+"No," said Agatha, abruptly, blushing lest any one should hear the
+tender word, which none had ever used to her before, and blushing still
+deeper when, meeting Major Harper's anxious looks fixed on them both,
+she fancied he had heard. A foolish sensitiveness made her turn away
+from her lover, and talk to the first person who came in her way.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Thornycroft and Dr. Ianson, with a knowledge that time was
+precious, had gone at once to the business of the meeting, and were
+deep in perusal of the marriage-settlement of which they were to be
+witnesses.
+
+"Why, Miss Bowen, you are a richer girl than I knew," said Emma's worthy
+husband, coming forward, with his round pleasant face. "I congratulate
+you; at this particular crisis, when hundreds are being ruined by last
+year's mania for railway speculation, it is most fortunate to have safe
+funded property."
+
+Major Harper's conscience groaned within, and it was all over. He
+resigned himself to stern necessity and force of circumstances--hoping
+everything would turn out for the best.
+
+Then they all gathered round the table, and Mr. Grimes droned out the
+necessary formalities. The bride-elect listened, half in a dream--the
+bridegroom rather more attentively.
+
+"Are you quite sure," said he, pausing, with the pen in his hand, and
+casting his eyes keenly over the document--"are you quite sure this
+deed answers the purpose I intended? This is the total amount of
+property which Mr. Bowen left?"
+
+And he looked from his brother to the lawyer with an anxiety which long
+afterwards recurred bitterly to Agatha's mind.
+
+Mr. Grimes bowed, and assured him that all was correct. So the young
+bridegroom signed with a steady hand, and afterwards watched the rather
+tremulous signature of his bride. Then an inexpressible content diffused
+itself over his face. Putting her arm in his, he led her away proudly,
+as though she were already his own.
+
+Confused by her novel position, Agatha looked instinctively for some
+womanly encouragement, but Emma Thorny-croft was busily engaged in
+admiring observation of some wedding presents, and Mrs. Ianson was worse
+than nobody.
+
+"Miss Valery!--what has become of Miss Valery? said the bride, her eyes
+wandering restlessly around. Other eyes followed hers--Major Harper's.
+Incredulously these rested on the silent lady in the background, whose
+whole mien, figure, and attire, in the plain dark dress, and close
+morning cap, marked her a woman undeniably and fearlessly middle-aged.
+
+"Is it possible!" he exclaimed. "Can that be Anne Valery?"
+
+The lady arose, and met him with extended hand. "It is Anne Valery, and
+she is very glad to see you, Major Harper."
+
+They shook hands; his confused manner contrasting strongly with
+her perfect serenity. After a moment Miss Bowen, who could not help
+watching, heard him say:
+
+"I, too, am glad we have met at last. I hope it is as friends!"
+
+"I was never otherwise to you," she answered, gently; and joined the
+circle.
+
+This rather singular greeting, noticed by none but herself, awakened
+Agatha's old wrath against Major Harper, lest, as her romantic
+imagination half suggested, the secret of Anne Valery's always
+remaining Anne Valery, was, that his old companion had been first on
+the illustrious Frederick's long list of broken hearts. If so, never was
+there a broken heart that made so little outward show, or wore such a
+cheerful exterior, as Miss Valery's.
+
+But Agatha's own heart was too full of the busy trembling fancies
+natural to her position to speculate overmuch on the hearts of other
+people. Very soon Major Harper quitted the house, and the Thornycrofts
+also. She was left alone with her lover and with Anne--Anne, who ever
+since her arrival had seemed to keep a steady watch over Nathanael's
+bride. They had rarely met, and for brief intervals; yet Agatha felt
+that she was perpetually under this guardianship, gentle, though
+strong--holding her fluctuating spirit firm, and filling her with all
+cheerful hopes and tender thoughts of her future husband. She seemed to
+grow a better woman every time she saw Anne Valery. It was inexpressibly
+sweet to turn for a few moments each day from the lace and the ribbons,
+the dresses and the bridecake, and hear Anne talk of what true marriage
+really was--when two people entirely and worthily loved one another.
+
+Only Agatha had not the courage to confess, what she began to hope was
+a foolish doubt, that the "love" which Miss Valery seemed to take for
+granted she felt towards Nathanael, was a something which as yet she
+herself did not quite understand.
+
+That Saturday afternoon, nevertheless, she was calmer and more at ease.
+Signing the settlement had removed all doubts from her mind, and made
+her realise clearly that she would soon be Mr. Harper's wife. And he
+was so tender over her, so happy. Her marriage with him appeared to make
+every one happy. That very day he had brought her a heap of letters from
+Dorsetshire; her first welcome from his kindred--her own that would be.
+
+They seemed to know all about her--from Anne Valery doubtless--and to
+be delighted at Nathanael's choice. There was a kind but formal missive
+from the old father, implying his dignified satisfaction that at
+last one of his sons would marry to keep up the family name. From
+the daughters there were letters varying in style and matter, but all
+cordial except, perhaps, Eulalie's, who had years to wait before
+_she_ married, and was rather cross accordingly. One note, in neat and
+delicate writing, made Agatha's heart beat; for it was signed, "Your
+affectionate _sister_, Elizabeth."
+
+She, who had longed for a sister all her life! Heaven was very good to
+her, to give her all ties through one! It seemed, indeed, right and holy
+that she should be married to Nathanael.
+
+One only unutterable terror she had, which by a fortunate chance was
+never alluded to by any one, and she was too much occupied to have it
+often forced on her mind. This was, the thought of having to cross the
+seas to Canada.
+
+"Oh!" she sighed, as she sat, with the letters on her lap, listening to
+what her lover said of his sisters and his family--"oh! that we could
+do as your father seems to wish, and go and live in Dorsetshire, near
+Kingcombe Holm."
+
+"I wish it too, if it would please you, dear; but it seems impossible.
+How could I live in England without a profession?--even supposing Uncle
+Brian did consent to return and settle at home. Sometimes, but very
+rarely, he has hinted at such a possibility.--He has indeed, Anne,"
+continued the young man, noticing how keenly Miss Valery's eyes were
+fixed on him.
+
+"I am glad to hear it."
+
+"But he always said he would never return till he was grown either
+very rich or very old. Alas; the latter chance may come, but the former
+never! Poor Uncle Brian! If he comes at all, it is sure not to be for
+many years."
+
+"Not for many years!" repeated Miss Valery, who was crossing over to
+Agatha's side with a piece of rich lace she had been unfolding. As she
+walked, her hand was unconsciously pressed upon her chest, a habit she
+had after any quick movement. And, leaning over Agatha, she breathed
+painfully and hard.
+
+"My dear?" The young girl looked up. "Your sisters that are to be
+desired me to give you from them a wedding-present. It was to be your
+veil. But I had a whim that I would like to give you your veil myself.
+Here it is. Will you accept it, with my love?"
+
+[Illustration: Will you accept it, with my love  p090]
+
+So saying, she laid over the bride's head a piece of old point lace,
+magnificent in texture. Agatha had never seen anything like it.
+
+"Oh, Miss Valery, to think of your giving me this! It is fit for a
+queen!" And she looked at Mr. Harper, hesitating to accept so costly a
+gift.
+
+"Nay, take it," said he smiling. "Never scruple at its costliness; it
+cannot be richer than Anne's heart." And he grasped his old friend's
+hand warmly.
+
+Miss Valery continued, with a slight colour rising in her cheek. "This
+was given me twenty years ago for a wedding-veil. It has been wasted
+upon me, you see, but I wish some one to wear it, and would like it to
+be worn by a Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+Agatha blushed crimson. Nathanael looked delighted. Neither noticed
+Anne Valery; who, her passing colour having sunk into a still deeper
+paleness, quietly returned to her seat, and soon after quitted the
+house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+It was a most unconscionably early hour on the wedding morning when Mrs.
+Thornycroft, who had insisted on mounting guard overnight in Bedford
+Square, to see that all things were made ready to go off "merry as a
+marriage bell," came into Agatha's room and roused the bride.
+
+"I never knew such a thing in all my life! Well, he is the most
+extraordinary young man! What is to be done, my dear?"
+
+"What--what?" said Agatha, waking, with a confused notion that something
+very dreadful had happened, or was going to happen. She recollected that
+this day on which she so early opened her eyes was some day of great
+solemnity. It seemed so like that of her father's funeral.
+
+"Don't be frightened, love. Nothing has occurred; only there is Mr.
+Harper in the parlour below, wanting to speak with you. I never heard of
+such a request from a bridegroom. It is contrary to all rules of common
+sense and decorum."
+
+"Hush!" said Agatha, trying to collect her thoughts. "Tell me exactly
+his message."
+
+"That he wished to speak with you at once, before you dress for church;
+and will wait for you in the dining-room. What--you are not going to
+do as he desires?--I wouldn't! One should never _obey_ till after
+marriage."
+
+Agatha made no answer, but composedly began to dress. In a few minutes
+she had once more put on the mourning, laid aside as she thought for
+ever the night before, and had gone down-stairs to her bridegroom.
+
+He was standing in the only available corner of the room not occupied
+by a chaotic mass of hymeneal preparations, and gazing vacantly out
+into the square, where the trees cast the long shadows of early morning,
+while the merry little sparrows kept up a perpetual din.
+
+As the door moved, Mr. Harper turned round. He had a sickly, worn look,
+as if he had scarcely slept all night, and in his manner was a strange
+mingling of trouble and of joy.
+
+"Agatha--how kind! I ought to apologise," he began, taking both her
+hands. "But no! I cannot."
+
+"Nothing is wrong? No misfortune happened?"
+
+"Misfortune? God forbid! Surely I do not look as if it were a
+misfortune? I am only too glad--too happy. Whatever results from it, I
+am indeed happy!"
+
+"Then so am I, whatsoever it may be," returned Agatha, softly. "Still,
+do tell me."
+
+Her bridegroom, as he pressed her to his bosom, looked as if he had for
+the moment forgotten all about his tidings; but afterwards, when her
+second entreaty came, he took out a letter and bade her read, holding
+her fast the while with a light firm hand on her shoulder. He seemed
+almost to fear that at the news he brought she would glide out of his
+grasp like snow.
+
+"It is an odd hand--strange to me," said Agatha. "Is it"--and a sudden
+thought struck her--"is it"----
+
+"Yes--thank God."
+
+"Oh, then, he is safe--I am so glad--so glad!" cried Agatha, in the
+true sympathy of her heart. But her very gladness appeared to
+affect contrariwise the troubled mood of her lover. His hand dropped
+imperceptibly from her shoulder--he sat down.
+
+"Read the letter, which came late last night. I thought you would be
+pleased--that was why I thus disturbed you."
+
+Agatha, who had not yet learned the joy or pain of reading momently the
+changes of a beloved face, immediately perused the letter. It was rather
+eccentric of its kind:
+
+
+"Lodge of O-me-not-tua.
+
+"My dear Boy,
+
+"If ever you get into the hands of those red devils, be not alarmed: it
+isn't so bad as it seems. If you saw me now, in the big buffalo-cloak of
+a medicine man, after smoking dozens of pipes of peace with every one
+of the tribe, sitting at the door of my lodge, with miles of high
+prairie-grass rolling in waves towards the sunset, you would rather
+envy me than otherwise, and cry out, as I have often done, 'Away with
+civilisation!'
+
+"I am not scalped--I thought I should not be; the tribe (it wastes
+valuable paper to write their long name, but you will have heard it)
+the tribe know me too well. I make a capital white medicine-man. I might
+have escaped any day, but, pshaw! honour!--So I choose to see a little
+of the great western forests, until I know how my two red friends have
+been treated on Lake Winnipeg shore. But in no case is any harm likely
+to come to me, except those chances of mortality which are common to
+all.
+
+"You will receive this (which a worthy psalm-singing missionary conveys
+to New York) almost as soon as the news of our adventure reaches Europe.
+I send it to relieve you, dear nephew, and all friends, if I have any
+left, from further anxiety concerning me, and especially from useless
+search, as under no circumstances whatever shall I consent to return to
+Montreal until it seems to me good.
+
+"Therefore, stay in Europe as long as, or longer than, you planned, and
+God prosper you, Nathanael, my good boy.
+
+"Your affectionate uncle,
+
+"Brian Locke Harper.
+
+"I trust earnestly that this scrawl will reach Kingcombe Holm. Possibly,
+no more news of me may ever reach there.--Yet I fear not, for He who is
+everywhere is likewise in the wild western prairies; and life is not so
+sweet that I should dread its ending. Still, if it does end, remember me
+to my brother, my nieces, and all old friends, including Anne Valery. If
+living, I shall reappear sometime, somewhere. B. L. H."
+
+
+"This is indeed happy news;--so far;" said Agatha, "though he seems in
+no cheerful mood."
+
+"Melancholy was always his way at times."
+
+"What a strange man he must be!" she continued, still thinking more
+of the letter than of anything else. "But"--and she turned to
+Nathanael--"your mind is now at rest? You will not need to go to
+America?"
+
+"Not just yet."
+
+She looked at him a moment in surprise, for there was something peculiar
+in his manner. She felt half angry with him for sitting so still, and
+speaking so briefly, while she herself was trembling with delight. "Have
+you told Miss Valery?" He shook his head. "Ah, then, go at once and tell
+her, so happy as she will be! Do go."
+
+"Presently. Come and sit down here. I want to talk to you, Agatha."
+
+She let him place her by his side. He took her hands, and regarded her
+earnestly.
+
+"Do you remember what day this was to have been?"
+
+"Was to have been?" she repeated, and instinctively guessed what he had
+doubtless come to say. Her heart began to beat violently, and her eyes
+dropped in confusion.
+
+"I say '_was_,' because, if you desire it, it shall not be. I see the
+very idea is a relief to you. I saw it in your sudden joy."
+
+Agatha was amazed--she had till this moment never thought of such a
+thing. Mr. Harper's whole manner of speech and proceeding was so very
+incomprehensible--like a lover's--that she told the entire truth in
+simply saying "that she did not understand him."
+
+"Let me repeat it in plainer words." But the plainer words would
+not come; after one or two vain efforts, he sat with averted face,
+speechless. At last he said abruptly, "Agatha, do you wish to defer our
+marriage?"
+
+As he spoke, his grasp of her hand was so fierce that it positively hurt
+her. "Oh, let me go--you are not kind," she cried, shrinking from the
+pain, which he did not even perceive he had inflicted--so strange a
+mood was upon him. He loosed her hand at once, and stood up before her,
+speaking vehemently.
+
+"I meant to be kind--very kind--just in the way that I knew would most
+please you. I meant to tell you that I wish you to hold yourself quite
+free, both as to this day or any other days: that you have only to say
+the word, and--What a fool I am making of myself!"
+
+Muttering the last words, he turned and walked quickly to the far end
+of the room, leaving Agatha to meditate. It was a new thing to see
+such passion in him; and while half frightened she was interested and
+touched. She would have been more so, but for a certain something in
+him which roused her pride, until she could not do as she had at first
+intended--follow him, and ask why he was angry. The humility of love was
+not yet hers.
+
+So she sat without moving, her eyes fixed on her hand, where the red
+mark left by her lover's grasp was slowly disappearing; until a minute
+after, he approached.
+
+"Was that the mark of my fingers on your wrist? Did I hurt you, my poor
+Agatha?"
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+"Forgive me!" And sitting down beside her, he bent his lips to where
+his rude grasp had been, kissing the little wrist over and over again,
+though he did not speak.
+
+His humility in this, the first ripple which had ever stirred their
+calmest of all calm courtships, moved Agatha even more than his sudden
+gust of passion. It is a curious fact, that some women--and they not of
+the weaker or more foolish kind--like very much to be ruled. A strong
+nature is instinctively attracted by one still stronger. Most certainly
+Agatha had never so distinctly felt the cords--not exactly of love, but
+of some influence akin thereto--which this young man had netted round
+her, as when he began to draw them with a tight, firm hand, less that of
+a submissive lover than of a dominant husband. She had never liked him
+half so well as when, taking her hand once more into his determined
+hold, he said--gently, indeed, but in a tone that would be answered--
+
+"Now, tell me, what do you wish?"
+
+"What do I wish?" echoed she, feeling as though some hard but firm
+support were about to relax from her, leaving her trembling and insecure
+to the world's open blasts. "I do not know--I cannot tell. Talk to me a
+little; that will help me to judge."
+
+His eye brightened, though faintly. "I will speak, but you shall decide,
+for all lies in your own hands. I thought this right, and came here
+determined on telling you so."
+
+"Well?" said Agatha, expectantly.
+
+"You promised me this hand to-day, believing I was to leave England at
+once. My not leaving frees you from that promise--at least at present.
+If you would rather wait until you know me better, or love me better,
+then"--
+
+"What then?"
+
+"We will quite blot out this day--crush it--destroy it, no matter what
+it was to have been. We will enter upon to-morrow, not as wife and
+husband, but mere lovers--friends--acquaintances--anything you like.
+Nay--I am growing a fool again."
+
+He put his hand to his forehead, sighed heavily, and then continued with
+less violence.
+
+"If this is what you wish--as from your silence I conclude it is--be
+assured, Agatha, that I shall consent. I will take no wife against her
+will. The kisses of her lips would sting me, if there were no love in
+her heart."
+
+Agatha was still silent.
+
+"Well then, it must be so," said he, in slow, measured speech. "I must
+go away out of this house, for I am no bridegroom. You may tell the
+women to put away this white finery till it is wanted--which may
+be--never!"
+
+She looked up questioningly.
+
+"I repeat--_never_. The currents of life, so many and so fierce, may
+sweep us asunder at any moment. I may become mercenary, and choose a
+richer wife even than yourself; or you may turn from me to some one more
+pleasing, more winning--my brother, perhaps"--
+
+Agatha recoiled, while the angry blood flashed from brow to throat. Her
+lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze.
+But immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of
+his own creating, and continued with a softened manner:
+
+"Or, if our own wills hold secure, many things may happen, as Anne
+Valery forewarned us, to prevent our union. Even ere a month or two--for
+if you are ever mine it must be as soon as then--but even within
+that time one or other of us may have gone away where no loving, no
+regretting, can ever call us back any more."
+
+Terrible was the imagined solitude of a world from which had passed
+the only being who cherished her--the only being whom she thoroughly
+honoured. Agatha drew closer to Nathanael.
+
+"Still, for all that," continued he, striving to keep even in his mind
+the balance of honour and generous tenderness against the arguments of
+selfish passion, "if for any reason you wish to postpone this day for
+weeks, months, or years, I will take the chance. All shall be as
+you deem best for your own happiness. As for mine--I will try to be
+content."
+
+He paused a little, but it was a pause which no woman could
+misunderstand. Then, turning back to her, he said in a low tone,
+
+"When am I to go away, Agatha?"
+
+Her brow dropped slowly against his arm, as, much agitated, yet not
+unhappy, she whispered the one word "_Never_."
+
+For one moment Agatha felt against her own the loud convulsive throbs of
+the heart that loved her--an embrace which, in its fierce rapture, was
+like none that came before it, or after. When she learned to count and
+chronicle such tokens of love, as one begins to count each wave when
+the sand grows dry, this embrace remained to her as a truth, a reality,
+which no succeeding doubts could explain away or gainsay.
+
+It lasted, as such moments can but last, a space too brief to be
+reckoned, dying out of its own intensity. Agatha slid from her lover's
+arms, and swiftly passing out at the door, met Emma coming in. The
+unlucky bridegroom was left to make his own explanation to Mrs.
+Thornycroft, and how he performed that feat remains a mystery to this
+day.
+
+Solemnly, and much affected, the bride went up-stairs to put on her
+wedding-garments.
+
+Anne Valery had just arrived. She sat alone in Miss Bowen's
+dressing-room, playing with the orange-wreath. Her face wore a
+thoughtful, sickly, sad look, but the moment she heard some one at the
+door this expression vanished.
+
+"So, my dear, you have a rather unconscionable bridegroom, Mrs.
+Thornycroft tells me. He has been here already."
+
+Suddenly all that had happened recurred to Agatha. She forgot her own
+agitation in the joy of being the first to bring good news.
+
+"Ah, you little know why he came. Uncle Brian--there is a letter from
+Uncle Brian."
+
+And in her warm-heartedness of delight she threw her arms round Miss
+Valery's neck. She was very much surprised that Anne did not speak a
+single word, and that the cheek against which her young glowing one was
+pressed felt as cold as marble.
+
+"Are you not glad, Miss Valery?"
+
+"Yes, very glad. Now will you go down-stairs and fetch me the letter?"
+
+And, gently putting the young girl from her, Anne sat down! As Agatha
+left the room, she fancied she heard a faint sound--a sigh or gasp; but
+Miss Valery had not moved. She sat as at first--her hands clasped on her
+lap, the veil of her bonnet falling over her face. And coming back some
+minutes after, Agatha found her in precisely the same position.
+
+"Thank you, dear." She held out her hand for the letter, and then
+retired with it to a far window. It took a good while to read. All the
+time that the young bride was being dressed by Emma and the maid, Miss
+Valery stood in that recess, her back turned towards them, apparently
+reading or pondering over that strange scrawl from the Far West.
+
+At last Mrs. Thornycroft gently hinted that there was hardly time for
+her to return home and dress for the wedding.
+
+"Dress for the wedding," repeated Anne, absently. "Oh, yes; I remember,
+it was to be early. No fear! I will be quite ready."
+
+She crossed the room, walking slowly, but at the door turned to look at
+the bride, on whose head Emma was already placing the orange-blossoms.
+
+"Doesn't she look pretty?" appealed the gratified matron-ministrant.
+
+"Yes; very pretty.--God bless her!" said Miss Valery, and kissed her on
+the forehead. Agatha quite started--the lips were so cold.
+
+"Well!" cried Emma Thornycroft, as the door closed, "I do wish, my dear,
+that little Missy had been grown up enough to be your bridesmaid instead
+of that very quiet ordinary-looking old maid. But, after all, the
+contrast will be the greater."
+
+At nine o'clock the bride's half of the wedding-party were all safely
+assembled in Doctor Ianson's drawing-room, and everything promised to
+go off successfully--to which result Emma, now all in her glory, prided
+herself as having been the main contributor--and no doubt the kind,
+active, sensible little matron was right.--When, lo!--there came an
+unlucky _contretemps_.
+
+Major Harper, who of course was to give away the bride, sent word that
+on account of sudden business he could not possibly be at the church
+before eleven. At that hour he promised faithfully to meet his brother
+there. The note which he sent over was a very hurried and disjointed
+scrawl. This was all that the vexed bridegroom knew of the matter.
+
+So for two long hours Agatha sat in her wedding-dress, strangely quiet
+and silent--sometimes playing with the wreath of orange-blossoms which
+her lover had sent her, and which, being composed of natural flowers,
+according to a whim of Mr. Harper's, was already beginning to fade.
+Still she refused to put it aside, though the prudent Emma warned her it
+would be quite withered before she reached the church; "as was sure to
+be the case when people were so ridiculous as to wear real flowers."
+
+The good soul went about, half scolding, half crying; hoping nothing
+might happen, or consoling herself with looking alternately at her
+pretty peach-coloured dress, and her "James," who walked about,
+indulging in gay reminiscences of his own wedding, and looking the most
+comfortable specimen imaginable of a worthy middle-aged "family man."
+Nevertheless, in spite of Mr. Thornycroft's efforts to cheer up the
+dreariness of the group, it was a great relief to everybody when, at the
+earliest reasonable time, the bride's small party started, and were at
+length assembled under the dark arches of Bloomsbury Church--darker than
+usual today, for the morning had gloomed over, and become close, hot,
+and thundery.
+
+Punctually at eleven, but not a minute before, which--Emma
+whispered--was certainly not quite courteous in a bridegroom, Mr. Harper
+came in. There was no one with him.
+
+"My brother not here?" he said in anxiety.
+
+Some one hinted that Major Harper was never very punctual.
+
+"He ought to be, this day at least," observed Mr. Thorny-croft. "And I
+am confident I saw him not half-an-hour ago walking homeward round the
+other side of Bedford Square. Do not be alarmed about him, pray." This
+last remark was addressed to Agatha, who, overpowered by the closeness
+of the day, and by these repeated disasters, had begun to turn pale.
+
+Nathanael watched her with a keen anxiety, which only agitated her the
+more. Every one seemed uneasy and rather dull;--a circumstance not very
+remarkable, since, in spite of the popular delusion on that subject,
+very few ever really look happy at a wedding. It makes clearer to each
+one the silent ghost sitting in every human heart, which may take any
+form--bliss long desired, lost, or unfulfilled--or, in the fulfilling
+changed to pain--or, at best, looked back upon with a memory
+half-pensive if only because it is the past.
+
+For forty interminable minutes did the little party wait in the dreary
+church aisles, until the clock, and likewise the beadle, warned them it
+was near the canonical hour.
+
+"What are we to do?" whispered the bridegroom, looking towards Anne
+Valery. She took his hand, and drawing it towards Agatha's which hung on
+her arm, said earnestly:
+
+"Wait no longer--life's changes will not wait Marry her _now_--nothing
+should come between lovers that love one another."
+
+Anne's manner, so faltering, so different from her usual self,
+irresistibly impressed the hearers. Silently the little group moved to
+the altar; the clergyman, weary of delay, hurried the service, and in
+a few minutes the young creatures who eight weeks before had scarcely
+heard each other's names, were made "not two, but one flesh."
+
+It was all like a dream to Agatha Bowen; she never believed in its
+reality until, signing that name, "Agatha Bowen," in the register-book,
+she remembered she was so signing it for the last time. A moment after,
+Emma's husband, who had assumed the office of father to the bride,
+cordially shaking her hand, wished all happiness to _Mrs. Harper_.
+
+Agatha started, shivered, and burst into tears. It was a natural thing,
+after so many hours of overstrained excitement; nor were her tears those
+of unhappiness, yet they seemed, every drop, to burn on her bridegroom's
+heart. To crown all, while these unlucky tears were still falling, some
+one at the vestry door cried out, "There's Major Harper."
+
+It was indeed himself. He entered the church hurriedly--very pale--with
+beads of dew standing on his brow.
+
+"Are they married? Am I too late--are they married?" cried he.
+
+Some uncontrollable feeling made Nathanael move to his wife's side, and
+snatch her hand.
+
+"Yes," said he, meeting his brother's eye, "we are married."
+
+Major Harper sank into one of the vestry-chairs, muttering something,
+inaudible to all ears save those which seemed fatally gifted with
+preternatural acuteness--the young bridegroom's. Nathanael fancied--nay,
+was certain--that he heard his brother say, "_Oh, my poor Agatha._" He
+looked suddenly at his bride, whose weeping had changed into silent but
+violent trembling. He dropped her hand, then with a determined air again
+took possession of it, saying sharply to his brother:
+
+"What is the reason of all this? Is anything amiss?"
+
+"No, nothing--have I said anything?"
+
+"Then why startle us thus? It is not right, Frederick."
+
+"Hush--perhaps he is ill," whispered Anne Valery.
+
+Major Harper looked up, and among the many inquiring eyes, met hers. It
+seemed to fix him, sting him, rouse him to self-command.
+
+"I am quite well," he cried, with a hoarse attempt at laughter. "A gay
+bachelor always feels doubly cheery at a wedding. So it is all over,
+Nathanael? I beg your pardon for being too late; but I have been running
+about town on important business, till I am half-dead. Still, let me
+offer my congratulations to the bride."
+
+He came forward jauntily, seized Agatha's hand and was about to kiss
+it, but for a slight shrinking on her part. The colour rushed to her
+face--his darkened with an expression of uncontrollable pain. At least
+so it appeared to one who never for a moment relaxed his watch--the
+younger brother.
+
+"Really," said Mr. Thornycroft, who, during the few minutes thus
+occupied, had bustled in and out of the vestry--"really, are we never
+intending to come home? Somebody must make a diversion here. Major
+Harper, will you take my wife? Miss Valery, allow me."
+
+This fortunate interference effected a change. All moved away a little
+from the bridegroom, who was still standing by his wife's chair.
+
+"Agatha--will you come?"
+
+She mechanically rose; Mr. Harper drew her arm in his, and led her down
+the aisle. There were a few stray lookers-on at the church-door, who
+peered at them curiously. An inexplicable shadow hung over them. Never
+were a newly-married couple more silent or more grave.
+
+Only, as they stood on the entrance-steps that were wet with a past
+shower of thunder-rain, and Agatha in her thin white shoes was walking
+right on, her husband drew her back.
+
+"It will not hurt me. Do let me go," she said.
+
+"No, you must not; you are mine now," was the answer, with a look that
+would have made the tone of control sound in any loving bride's ear the
+sweetest ever heard.
+
+He left Agatha in the church, and hurried a little in advance. His
+brother and Mrs. Thomycroft were standing at the porch outside, Emma
+laughing and whispering. And while waiting for the carriage, it so
+chanced that Nathanael caught what they were saying.
+
+"Why, Major Harper, you look as dull as if you had been in love with
+Agatha yourself! And after what you confessed to me, I did positively
+believe she was in love with you."
+
+"Agatha in love with me! really you flatter me," said Major Harper,
+looking down and tapping his boot, with his own self-complacent,
+regretful smile.
+
+"I did indeed think it, from her agitation when I hinted at such a
+thing. And I never was more amazed in my life than when she told me she
+was going to marry your brother. I do hope, poor dear Agatha"--
+
+"Don't speak of her," cried Major Harper, in a burst of real emotion.
+"And she liked me so well, poor child! Oh, I wish to Heaven I had
+married her, and saved her from"--
+
+Here a voice was heard calling "Mr. Harper--Mr. Harper," but the
+bridegroom was nowhere to be seen. Some one--not her husband--put Agatha
+into the carriage. Several minutes after, Nathanael appeared.
+
+"Where have you been? Your wife is waiting."
+
+"My wife?" He looked round bewildered, as if the words struck him with
+the awful irrevocable sense of what was done. Hurriedly he ran down the
+steps, sprang into the carriage beside Agatha, and they drove away.
+
+Through many streets and squares they passed, for the breakfast was
+to be at Emma's house. Agatha sat for the first time alone with her
+husband. The sun just coming out threw a soft crimson light through the
+closed carriage blinds; the very air felt warm and sweet, like love.
+Agatha's heart was stirred with a new tenderness towards him into whose
+keeping she had just given her whole life.
+
+For a little while she sat, her eyes cast down, wondering what he would
+say or do, whether he would take her hand, or draw her softly to his
+breast and let her cry her heart out there, as she almost longed to
+do--poor fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless girl, who in
+her husband alone must concentrate every earthly tie.
+
+But he never spoke--never moved. He leaned back in the carriage as pale
+as death, his lips rigidly shut together, his eyes shut too, except that
+now and then they opened and closed again, to show that he was not in a
+state of total unconsciousness. But towards his young wife no look ever
+once wandered.
+
+At length he started as from a trance and saw her sitting there, very
+quiet, for the pride of her nature was beginning to rise at this strange
+treatment from him to whom she had just given herself--her all. She was
+nervously moving the fingers of her left hand, where the newly placed
+ring felt heavy and strange.
+
+Nathanael snatched the hand with violence.
+
+"Agatha,--are you not my Agatha? Tell me the truth--the whole truth. I
+will have it from you!"
+
+"Mr. Harper!" she exclaimed, half frightened, half angry.
+
+His long, searching gaze tried to read her every feature--her pale
+cheeks--her lips proud, nay, almost sullen--her eyes, from which the
+softness so lately visible had changed into inquietude and trouble.
+There was in her all maidenly innocence--no one could doubt that; but
+nothing could be more unlike the shy tenderness of a bride, loving, and
+married for love.
+
+Slowly, slowly, the young bridegroom's gaze fell from her, and his
+thoughts settled into dull conviction. All his violence ceased, leaving
+an icy composure, which in itself bore the omen of its lasting stay.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, in a kind but cold voice, while his vehement
+grasp relaxed into a loose hold. "You are my dear wife now, and I will
+try to be a good husband to you, Agatha."
+
+Stooping forward, his lips just touched her cheek--which shrank from
+him, Agatha scarcely knew why.
+
+"I see!" he muttered to himself "Well, be it so! and God help us both!"
+
+The carriage stopped. Honest Mr. James Thomycroft was at the door,
+bidding a gay and full-hearted welcome to the bridegroom and bride.
+
+What a marriage-day!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+"Are you quite warm there, Agatha?"
+
+"Yes, thank you, quite warm," she said, turning round a little, and then
+turning back. She sat working, or seeming to work, at a large bay window
+that fronted the sea at Brighton. Already there had come over her the
+slight but unmistakable change which indicates the wife--the girl no
+longer. She had been married just one week.
+
+Her husband sat at a table writing, as was his habit during the middle
+of the day, in order that they might walk out in the evening. He had
+often been thus busy during the week, even though it was the first week
+of the honeymoon.
+
+The honeymoon! How different the word now sounded to Agatha! Yet she had
+nothing to complain of. Mr. Harper was very kind; watchful and tender
+over her to a degree which she felt even more than she saw. In the
+mornings he read to her, or talked, chiefly upon subjects higher and
+withal pleasanter than Agatha had ever heard talked of before; in the
+evenings they drove out or walked, till far into the starry summer
+night. They were together constantly, there never passed between them a
+quick or harsh word, and yet--
+
+Agatha vainly tried to solve the dim, cloudy "yet" which had no tangible
+form, and only arose now that the first bewilderment of her changed
+existence was settling into reality, and she was beginning to recognise
+herself as Agatha Harper, no longer a girl, but a married woman. The
+sole conclusion she could come to was, that she must be now learning
+what she supposed every one had to learn--that a honeymoon is not quite
+the dream of bliss which young people believe in, and that few married
+couples are quite happy during the first year of their union.
+
+And Mrs. Harper (or Mrs. Locke Harper, as her husband had had printed on
+the cards, omitting the name which she had once stigmatised as "ugly,")
+was probably not altogether wide of the truth, though in this case
+she judged from mistaken because individual evidence. It is next to
+impossible that two lives, unless assimilated by strong attachment and
+rare outward circumstances, if suddenly thrown together, should at once
+mingle and flow harmoniously on. It takes time, and the influence of
+perfect love, to melt and fuse the two currents into one beautiful
+whole. Perhaps, did all young lovers believe and prepare for this, there
+would be fewer disappointed and unhappy marriages.
+
+Though sitting at the open window, with the sharp sea-breeze blowing
+in upon her--it happened to be a sunless and gloomy day--Agatha had
+answered that she was "quite warm." Nevertheless her heart felt cold.
+Not positively sad, yet void. A great deal of passionate devotion is
+necessary to make two active human beings content with one another's
+sole company for eight entire days, having nothing to occupy them but
+each other.
+
+Wanting this--yet scarcely conscious of her need--the young wife sat, in
+her secret soul all shivering and a-cold. At last, wearied with the long
+grey sweep of undulating sea, she closed the window.
+
+"I thought the breeze would be too keen for you," said Mr. Harper, whom
+her lightest movement always seemed to attract.
+
+"Oh no; but I am tired of watching the waves. How melancholy it must be
+to live here. I have a perfect terror of the sea."
+
+"Had I known that, I would not have proposed our coming to-day from
+Leamington to Brighton. But we can leave to-morrow."
+
+"I did not mean that," she answered quickly, dreading lest her husband
+might have thought her speech ungracious or unkind. "We need not
+go--unless you wish it."
+
+The bridegroom made no immediate reply: but there was a melancholy
+tenderness in his eyes, as, without her knowing it, he sat watching his
+young wife. At length he rose, and putting her arm in his, stood a long
+time with her at the window.
+
+"I think, dear Agatha, that you are right. The sea is always sad. How
+dreary it looks now--like a wide-stretched monotonous life whose ending
+we see not, yet it must be crossed. How shall we cross it?"
+
+Agatha looked inquiringly.
+
+"The sea I mean," he continued, with a sudden change of tone. "Shall we
+go over to France for a week or two?"
+
+"Oh no"--and she shuddered. "It would kill me to cross the water."
+
+He looked surprised at her unaccountable repugnance, which she had
+scarcely expressed than she seemed overpowered by confusion. Her husband
+forbore to question her further; but the next day told her that he had
+arranged for their quitting Brighton and making a tour through the west
+of England, proceeding from thence to London.
+
+"Where--as my brother, or rather my brother's solicitor, writes me
+word--some business about your fortune will require our return in
+another fortnight. Are you willing, Agatha?"
+
+"Oh yes--quite willing," she cried; for now that her changed life was
+floating her far away from her old ties, she began to have a yearning
+for them all.
+
+So the honeymoon dwindled to three weeks, at the close of which Mr. and
+Mrs. Locke Harper were again in London.
+
+It seemed very strange to Agatha to come back to the known places, and
+roll over the old familiar London stones, and see all things going on as
+usual; while in herself had come so wide a gap of existence, as if those
+one-and-twenty days of absence had been one-and-twenty years.
+
+She had become a little more happy lately; a little more used to her new
+life. And day by day something undefinable began to draw her towards
+her husband. It was in fact the dawning spirit of love, which should
+and might have come before marriage, instead of being, as now, an
+after-growth. Beneath its influence Nathanael's very likeness altered;
+his face grew more beautiful, his voice softer. Looking at him now, as
+he sat by her side, Mr. Harper hardly appeared to her the same man who,
+returning from the church as her bridegroom, had impressed her with such
+shrinking awe.
+
+He too was more cheerful. All the long railway journey he had tried to
+amuse her; the humorous half of his disposition--for Nathanael had, like
+most good men, a spice of humour about him--coming out as it had never
+done before. However, as they neared London, he as well as his wife had
+become rather grave. But when, abruptly turning round, he perceived
+her earnestly, even tenderly regarding him (at which Agatha was foolish
+enough to blush, as if it were a crime to be looking admiringly at one's
+husband), he melted into a smile.
+
+"Here we are in the old quarters, Agatha. The question is, Where shall
+we go to, since we have no lodgings taken?"
+
+"You should have let me write to Emma, as I wished."
+
+"No," he said, shortly; "it was a pity to trouble her."
+
+"She would not have thought it so, poor dear Emma."
+
+"Were you very intimate with Mrs. Thornycroft? Did you tell her
+everything in your heart, as women do?"
+
+Agatha was amused by the jealous searching tone and look, so replied
+carelessly: "Oh yes, all I had to tell, which was not much. I don't
+deal in mysteries, nor like them. But the chief mystery now seems to be,
+where are we to go? If Emma may not be troubled, surely Mrs. Ianson, or
+your brother"--
+
+"My brother is out of town."
+
+"Indeed!" And Agatha looked as she felt, neither glad nor sorry, but
+purely indifferent. Her husband, observing it, became more cheerful.
+
+"Nay, my dear Agatha, you shall not be inconvenienced. We will go first
+to some quiet lodgings I know of, where Anne Valery always stays
+when she is in London--though she has returned home now, I think. And
+afterwards, if you find the evening very dull"--
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the young wife, smiling a beautiful negative.
+
+"We will go and take a sentimental walk through those very squares we
+strolled through that night--do you remember?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+How strange seemed that recollection!--how little she had then thought
+she was walking with her future husband!
+
+Yet, when a few hours after she trod the well-known streets, with her
+wifely feelings, sweet and grave, and thought that the arm on which she
+now leaned was her own through life, Agatha Harper was not unhappy, nor
+would she for one moment have wished to be again Agatha Bowen.
+
+The next day, by the husband's express desire--the declaring of which
+was a great act of self-denial on his part--word was sent to the
+Thornycrofts of the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper.
+
+Very trembling, shy, and bewitching the bride sat, waiting for the
+meeting; and when Emma did really come, very tragico-comic, half
+pleasure, half tears, was the hearty embrace between the two women. Mr.
+Harper stood and looked on--he played the young husband as composedly
+as he had done the lover and the bridegroom, except for a slight jealous
+movement as he saw the clinging, the kisses, the tears, which, with
+the warmth of a heart thrilled by new emotions and budding out into all
+manner of new tendernesses, Agatha lavished on her friend.
+
+Yet, whatever he felt, no one could observe but that Nathanael was
+extremely polite and kind to Mrs. Thorny-croft. She on her part admired
+him extremely--in whispers.
+
+"How well he looks! Really quite changed! No one would ever think of
+calling him a 'boy' now. You must be quite proud of your husband, my
+dear."
+
+Agatha smiled, and a light thrill at her heart betrayed its answer.
+Very soon she ceased to be shy and shame-faced, and sat talking quite at
+ease, as if she had been Mrs. Locke Harper for at least a year.
+
+Emma Thornycroft was a person not likely to waste much time on
+the sentimentalities of such a meeting; she soon dashed into the
+common-sense question of what were their plans in London? and when they
+would come and dine with herself and "James" "Quite friendly. We will
+ask no one, except of course Major Harper."
+
+"He is out of town," said Nathanael.
+
+"What a pity--Yet, no wonder; London is so terribly hot now. Is he quite
+well?"
+
+"I believe so," Agatha answered for her husband, who had moved off.
+
+"Because James has met him frequently of late, rushing about the City as
+pale as a ghost, and looking so miserable. We were afraid something was
+wrong with him."
+
+"Oh, I hope not," exclaimed Agatha, eagerly.
+
+"My brother is quite well," Mr. Harper again observed, from his outpost
+by the window; and something in his tone unconsciously checked and
+changed the conversation.
+
+Whether by Agatha's real inclination, or by some unnoticed influence of
+Nathanael's, who, gentle as his manners were, through a score of
+other opposing wills seemed always silently to attain his own, Mrs.
+Thornycroft's hospitable schemes were overruled. At least, the
+_venue_ was changed from Regent's Park to the Harpers' own temporary
+home--where, as if by magic, a multitude of small luxuries had already
+gathered round the young wife. She took all quite naturally, never
+pausing to think how they came.
+
+It was with a trepidation which had yet its pleasure, that she arrayed
+herself for this, the first time of her taking her place at the head of
+her husband's table. She put on a high white gown, which Mr. Harper had
+once said he liked--she was beginning to be anxious over her dress and
+appearance now. Glancing into the mirror, there recurred to her mind
+a speech she had once heard from some foolish matron--"Oh, it does not
+signify what I wear, or how I look--I'm married!" Agatha thought what a
+very wrong doctrine that was! and laughed at herself for never having
+much cared to seem pleasing until she had some one to please. Nay, now
+for the first time she grumbled at the Pawnee-face, wishing it had been
+fairer!
+
+But fair or not, when it came timidly and shone over Nathanael's
+shoulder, he sitting leaning thoughtfully on his hand, the result was
+such as materially to relieve any womanly doubts about her personal
+appearance. He kissed her in unwonted smiling tenderness.
+
+"I like that dress; and your curls--softly touching them--your curls
+fall so prettily. How well you look, Agatha! Happy, too! Is it really
+so? Are you getting more used to me and my faults, dear?" There was
+something inexpressibly tender in the way he said "Dear," the only
+caressing word he ever used.
+
+"Your faults?" re-echoed she in a merry incredulous tone. But before she
+could say more, the guests most inopportunely arrived. And Agatha, very
+naturally, darted from her husband to the other side of the room like a
+flash of lightning.
+
+If the Thornycrofts had expected to find a couple of turtle-doves cooing
+in a cage, they were certainly disappointed. Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper
+had apparently settled down into an ordinary husband and wife, resuming
+serenely their place in society, and behaving towards each other, and
+the world in general, just like sensible old married people. Their
+friends, taking the hint, treated them in like manner; and thus, now and
+for ever, vanished Agatha's honeymoon.
+
+After dinner, Emma, anxious about Agatha's proceedings, and still more
+anxious to have a hand in the same, for she was never happy unless busy
+about her own or other people's affairs, made inquiries as to the future
+plans of the young couple.
+
+Agatha could give no answer, for, to her great thankfulness, her husband
+had hitherto avoided the subject. She looked at him for a reply.
+
+"I think, Mrs. Thornycroft, it will probably be three months before
+I"--he smilingly corrected himself, and said "_we_ return to Canada."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do meanwhile? Of course, Agatha dear, you
+will remain in London?"
+
+"Oh yes," she replied, accustomed to decide for herself, and forgetting
+at the moment that there was now another to whose decision she was bound
+to defer. Blushing, she looked towards her husband, who was talking to
+Mr. Thornycroft. He turned, as indeed he always did when he heard her
+speaking; but he made no remark, and the "Yes" passed as their mutual
+assent to Emma's question.
+
+"I know a place that would just suit you," pursued the latter; "that is,
+if you take a furnished house."
+
+"I should like it much."
+
+"It is but a cottage--rather small, considering your means; by-the-by,
+Agatha, how close our friend the Major kept all your affairs. No one
+imagined you were so rich."
+
+"Neither did I, most certainly. But--the cottage."
+
+"The prettiest little place imaginable. Such a love of a drawing-room!
+I went there to call on young Northen's sister when she married, last
+year. Poor thing--sad affair that, my dear."
+
+"Indeed," said Agatha, who now felt an interest in all stories of
+marriages.
+
+"It happened a fortnight ago, soon after your wedding. They
+quarrelled--she got through a window, and ran away home to her father.
+It seems she had never cared a straw for her husband, but had married
+him out of spite, liking some one else better all the time. His own
+brother, too, they say."
+
+"What a wicked--wicked thing!" cried Agatha warmly. So warmly, that she
+did not see, close by her chair, her husband--watching her intently,
+nay wildly. As she ceased, he rose from his stooping attitude. His
+countenance became wonderfully beautiful, altogether glowing.
+
+"Really you seem to have comprehended the matter at once," said Mr.
+Thornycroft, startled in the winding-up of a long harangue about the
+Corn Laws by the exceedingly bright look which his hearer turned towards
+him.
+
+"Yes, I think I shall soon comprehend everything," was the answer, as
+Mr. Harper placed himself on the arm of his wife's chair in the gay
+attitude of a very boy. She, moving a little, made room for him and
+smiled. Nay, she even leant silently against his arm, which he had
+thrown round the back of her chair.
+
+"Come, Agatha, I want to hear about that wonderful house which your
+friend is persuading you to take. You know, I happen to have a little
+concern in the matter likewise. Have I not, Mr. Thornycroft?"
+
+"Certainly; since you have turned out to be that no less wonderful
+personage which my wife has been perpetually boring me about for the
+last two years--Agatha's Husband," said Mr. Thornycroft, patiently
+resigning the Corn Laws to their inevitable doom--oblivion.
+
+But Emma, plunging gladly into her native element, discussed the whole
+house from attic to kitchen. Mr. Harper listened with a complaisant and
+amused look. Beginning to discern the sterling good there was in the
+little woman, he passed over her harmless small-mindedness; knowing well
+that in the wide-built mansion of human nature there must be always a
+certain order of beings honourable, useful, and excellent in themselves,
+to form the basement-story.
+
+The twilight darkened while Emma talked, the faster perhaps that her
+"James," whose respected presence always restrained her tongue, was
+discovered to be undeniably asleep. But the young couple were excellent
+listeners. Nathanael still sat balancing himself on the arm of his
+wife's chair; his hand having dropped playfully among her curls. He
+joined with gaiety in all the discussions. More than once, in talking of
+the various arrangements of their new household, his voice faltered, and
+the hearts of the husband and wife seemed trembling towards one another.
+
+The conversation ended in Emma's receiving _carte-blanche_ to take the
+house, if practicable, that the Harpers might settle there for three
+months certain.
+
+"Come, this is better than I expected," cried the worthy little woman.
+"We shall be neighbours, and I can teach Agatha house-keeping. She
+will have a nice little _menage_, and can give a proper 'At Home' and
+charming wedding parties. Shall she not, Mr. Harper?"
+
+"If she wishes."
+
+But Agatha's whispered "No," and kind pressure of the hand, brought to
+him a most blissful conviction that she did _not_ wish, and that she
+would be, as she said, "happier living quietly at home." _Home_! what a
+word of promise that sounded in both their ears!
+
+When the lights came, Mr. Thornycroft woke up; with many apologies, poor
+man; only, as his wife said, "Everybody knew how hard James worked, and
+how tired he was at night." The two gentlemen fraternised once more.
+They began one of those general arguments on the history of the times,
+which when spoken, are intensely interesting, and being written as
+intensely prosy. The ladies listened in a most wife-like and pleased
+submission.
+
+"How well my husband talks--doesn't he?" whispered Emma, with sparkling
+eyes.
+
+Agatha agreed, and indeed Mr. Thornycroft's strong sense and acute
+judgment were patent to every one. But when Mr. Harper spoke, his
+clear views on every point, his trenchant but pleasant wit, by which
+he rounded off the angularities of argument, and above all his keen,
+far-seeing intellect, which dived into wondrous depths of knowledge, and
+invariably brought something precious to light--these things were to the
+young wife a positive revelation.
+
+She sat attentive, beginning to learn, what strange to say was no
+pain--her own ignorance, and her husband's superior wisdom. She had
+never before felt at once so humble and so proud.
+
+When the Thornycrofts departed, and Mr. Harper returned up-stairs from
+bidding them good-bye, he found his wife in a thoughtful mood.
+
+"Well, dear, have you had a pleasant evening? Are you content with our
+plans?"
+
+"Yes--indeed, more so than I deserve. Oh, how good you are!" she
+whispered; and her shortcomings towards him grew into a great burden of
+regret.
+
+"Hush!" he answered, smiling; "we will not begin discussing one
+another's goodness, or you know the subject would be interminable. And
+I would like us to hold a little serious consultation before to-morrow.
+You are not sleepy?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Stretch yourself out on the sofa, and let me sit beside you. There--are
+you quite comfortable?"
+
+"Ah, yes," she said, and thought for the hundredth time how sweet it was
+to have some one to take care of her.
+
+"Now, my wife, listen! You seemed to long for that cottage very much,
+and you shall have it. Nay, you ought, because at present you are the
+rich lady; while I, so long as I remain in England, receive none of my
+salary from Montreal, and am, comparatively speaking, poor. In fact,
+nothing but that very secondary character, Agatha's Husband.'"
+
+Though he laughed, there was a little jarring tone in this confession;
+but Agatha was too simple to notice it. He continued quickly,
+
+"Nevertheless, this question is only temporary; I shall be quite your
+equal in Canada."
+
+"In Canada!" she echoed dolefully. "Oh, surely--surely we need not go?"
+
+"Are you in earnest, Agatha?"
+
+"I am indeed," said she, gathering up courage to speak to him of what
+ever since her marriage had been growing an inexpressible dread.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I--I am afraid to tell."
+
+"Shall I tell you? You cannot bear to leave your old friends? You fear
+to go into a new country, entirely among strangers, with only your
+husband?"
+
+His suddenly suspicious tone stopped the frank denial that was bursting
+to his wife's lips. She only said a little hurt, "If that were true, I
+would have told you. I always speak exactly what I think."
+
+"Is it so? is it indeed so?" he cried, with a lightening of countenance
+as sudden as its shade. "Oh, Agatha, forgive me," and his heart
+seemed melting before her. "I am not good to you--but you do not quite
+understand me yet."
+
+"I feel that. Yet what can I do?"
+
+"Nothing! Only wait I will try to cure myself without paining you. But,
+for the sake of our whole life's happiness, henceforward always be open
+with me, Agatha! Don't hide from me anything! Set your frank goodness
+against my wicked suspiciousness, and make me ashamed of myself, as
+now."
+
+He had not spoken so freely or with so much emotion since they were
+married; and his wife was deeply touched. She made no answer, but half
+raising herself, crept to his arms, almost as if she loved him. So she
+truly did, in a measure, though not with the spontaneous, self-existent
+love, which, once lit in a woman's breast, is like the central
+fire hidden in the earth's bosom, enduring through all surface
+variations--through summer and winter, earthquakes, floods, and
+storms--utterly unchangeable and indestructible. And, however wildly
+extravagant this simile may sound--however rare the fact it illustrates,
+nevertheless such Love is a great truth, possible and probable, which
+has existed and may exist--thank God for it!--to prove that He did not
+found the poetry of all humanity upon a beautiful deceit.
+
+Something of this mystery was beginning to stir in the wife's heart;
+the girl-wife, married before her character was half formed--before
+the perfecting of real love, which, taking, as all feelings must, the
+impress of individual nature, was in her of slow development.
+
+As Agatha lay, her head hidden on her husband's shoulder, guessing out
+of her own heart something of what was passing in his, there came to her
+the first longing after that oneness of spirit, without which marriage
+is but a false or base union, legal and sanctified before men, but, oh!
+how unholy in the sight of God!
+
+The young wife felt as if now, and not until now, she could unfold
+to her husband all the secrets of her heart, all its foolishness,
+ignorance, and fears.
+
+"If you will listen to me, and not despise me very much, I will tell you
+something that I have never told to any one until now."
+
+She could not imagine why, but at this soft whisper he trembled;
+however, he bade her go on.
+
+"You wonder why it is I am so terrified at leaving England? It is not
+for any of the reasons you said, but for one so foolish that I am half
+ashamed to confess it. I dare not cross the sea."
+
+"Is that all?" Mr. Harper cried, and the unutterable dread which had
+actually blanched his cheek disappeared instantaneously. He felt himself
+another man.
+
+"Wait, and I'll tell you why this is," continued Agatha. "When I was
+a little child, somewhere about four years old, I was at some seaport
+town--I don't know where nor ever did, for there was no one with me but
+my nurse, and she died soon after. One day, I remember being in a
+little boat going to see a large ship. There were other people with us,
+especially one lady. Somehow, playing with her, I fell overboard." Here
+Agatha shuddered involuntarily. "It may be very ridiculous, but even
+now, when I am ill or restless in mind, I constantly dream over again
+that horrible drowning."
+
+Her husband drew her closer to him, murmuring, "Poor child!"
+
+"Ah, I was indeed a poor child! When, after being brought to life
+again--for I fancy I must have been nearly dead--my nurse forbade me
+ever to speak of what had happened, no one can tell into what a terror
+it grew. I never shall overcome it, never! The very sight of the sea is
+more than I can bear. To cross it---to be on it"--
+
+"Hush, dear, quiet yourself," said her husband, soothingly. "Now, tell
+me all you can remember about this."
+
+"Scarcely anything more, except that when I came to myself I was lying
+on the beach, with the stranger lady by me."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"I have not the slightest idea. Being so young, I recollect little about
+her--in fact, only one thing: that just as she was leaving me to go on
+in the little boat, my nurse called out, 'The ship is gone!' and the
+lady fell flat down--dead, as I thought then. They carried me away, and
+I never saw or heard of her again."
+
+"How strange!"
+
+"But," continued Agatha, gathering courage as she found her husband did
+not smile at this story, and beginning to speak with him more freely
+than she had ever done with any person in her life, "but you have no
+idea what a vivid impression the circumstance left on my mind. For years
+I made of this lady--to whom I feel sure I owed in some way or other the
+saving of my life--a sort of guardian angel I believe I even prayed to
+her--such a queer, foolish child I was--oh, so foolish!"
+
+"Very likely, dear; we all are," said Mr. Harper, gaily. "And you are
+quite sure you never saw your angel?"
+
+"No, nor any one like her. The person most like, and yet very unlike,
+too, in some things, was--don't laugh, please--was Miss Valery. That, I
+fancy, was the reason why I liked her so from the first, and was ready
+to do anything she bade me."
+
+"Then when you consented to be married it was not for love of me but
+of Anne Valery?" And beneath Nathanael's smile lingered a little sad
+earnest.
+
+His wife did not answer--even yet she was too shy to say the words, "I
+love you." But she took his hand, and reverently kissed it, whispering,
+
+"I am quite content. I would not have things otherwise than they are.
+And all I mean by telling such a long foolish story is this--teach
+me how to conquer myself and my fears, and I will go with you
+anywhere--even across the sea."
+
+"My own dear wife!" His voice was quite broken; so sudden, so unexpected
+was this declaration from her, and by the tremblings which shook her all
+the while he saw how great her struggle had been.
+
+For many minutes, holding her little head on his arm, the young husband
+sat silent, buried in deep thought; Agatha never saw the changes,
+bitter, fierce, sorrowful, that by turns swept over the face under which
+her own lay so calmly, with sweet shut eyes. Strange difference between
+the woman and the man!
+
+"Agatha," he said at last, "I have quite decided."
+
+"Decided what?"
+
+"That I will give up my office at Montreal, and we will live in
+England."
+
+She was so astonished that at first she could not speak; then she burst
+into joyful tears, and hung about him, murmuring unutterable thanks. For
+the moment he felt as if this reward made his sacrifice nothing, and yet
+it had cost him almost everything that his manly pride held dear.
+
+"Then you will not go? You will never cross the terrible Atlantic
+again?"
+
+"I do not promise that: for I must go, soon or late, if only to persuade
+Uncle Brian to return with me to England.--Uncle Brian! what will he
+say when he learns that I have given up my independence, and am living
+pensioner on a rich wife?"
+
+Agatha looked surprised.
+
+"But," continued he, trying to make a jest of the matter, "though I do
+renounce my income in the New World, I am not going to live an idler on
+your little ladyship's bounty. I intend to work hard at anything that I
+can find to do. And it will be strange if, in this wide, busy England,
+I cannot turn to some honourable profession. If not, I'd rather go into
+the fields and chop wood with this right hand"--
+
+And suddenly dashing it down on the table, he startled Agatha very much;
+so much that she again clung to him, and innocently begged him not to be
+angry with her.
+
+Then, once more, Nathanael took his wife in his arms, and became calm in
+calming her. Thus they sat, until the silence grew heavenly between
+the two, and it seemed as if, in this new confidence, and in the joy of
+mutual self-renunciation, were beginning that true marriage, which makes
+of husband and wife not only "one flesh," but one soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+It had been arranged with Emma Thornycroft that Mrs. Harper should take
+the benefit of that lady's superior domestic and worldly experience--for
+Agatha herself was a perfect child in such matters--and that they two
+should go over the intended house together. Accordingly, in the course
+of the following day Mrs. Thornycroft appeared to carry away the young
+wife, and give her the first lesson in household responsibilities.
+
+From this important business, Mr. Harper was laughingly excluded, as
+being only a "gentleman," and required merely to pronounce a final
+decision upon the niceties of feminine choice.
+
+"In fact," said Emma, gaily assuming the autocracy of her sex, "husbands
+ought to have nothing at all to do with house-choosing or house-keeping,
+except to pay the rent and the bills."
+
+Agatha could not help laughing at this, until she saw that Mr. Harper
+was silent.
+
+A few minutes before they started he took his wife aside, and showed her
+a letter. It was the formal renunciation of the appointment he held at
+Montreal.
+
+"How kind!" she cried in unfeigned delight. "And how quickly you have
+fulfilled your promise!"
+
+"When I have once decided I always like to do the thing immediately.
+This letter shall go to-day."
+
+"Ah!--let me post it," whispered Agatha, taking a wilful, childish
+pleasure in thus demolishing every chance of the future she had so
+dreaded.
+
+"What! cannot you yet trust me?" returned her husband. "Nay, there is no
+fear. What is done is done. But you shall have your way."
+
+And walking with them a little distance, he suffered Agatha with her own
+hands to post the decisive letter.
+
+After he left them, she told Mrs. Thornycroft the welcome news,
+enlarging upon Mr. Harper's goodness in resigning so much for her sake.
+
+"Resigning?" said Emma, laughing. "Well, I don't see much noble
+resignation in a young man's giving up a hardworking situation in the
+colonies to live at ease on his wife's property in England. My dear,
+husbands always like to make the most of their little sacrifices. You
+mustn't believe half they say."
+
+"My husband never said one word of his," cried Agatha, rather
+indignantly, and repented herself of her frankness to one whose
+ideas now more than ever jarred with her own. Three weeks' constant
+association with a man like Nathanael had lifted her mind above the
+ordinary standard of womanhood to which Emma belonged. She began to half
+believe the truth of what she had once with great astonishment heard
+Anne Valery declare--ay, even Anne Valery--that if the noblest moral
+type of man and of woman were each placed side by side, the man would be
+the greater of the two.
+
+But this thought she kept fondly to herself, and suffered Emma to talk
+on without much attending to her conversation. It was chiefly about
+some City business with which "her James" had been greatly annoyed of
+late--having to act for a friend who had been ruined by taking shares
+in a bubble company formed to work a Cornish mine. Agatha had often
+been doomed to listen to such historiettes. Mrs. Thornycroft had a
+great fancy for putting her harmless fingers into her husband's business
+matters, for which the chief apology in her friend's eyes was the good
+little wife's great interest in all that concerned "my James." So Agatha
+had got into a habit of listening with one ear, saying, "Yes," "No," and
+"Certainly;" while she thought of other things the while. This habit she
+to-day revived, and, pondered vaguely over many pleasant fancies
+while hearing mistily of certain atrocities perpetrated by "City
+scoundrels"--Emma was always warm in her epithets.
+
+"The 'Company,' my dear, is a complete take-in--all sham names,
+secretaries, treasurers, and even directors. The whole affair was got
+up among two or three people in a lawyer's office; and who do you think
+that lawyer is, Agatha?"
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Harper, feeling as perfectly indifferent as if
+he were the man in the moon.
+
+"I am not sure that I ought to tell you, for James only found it out, or
+rather guessed it, this morning at breakfast-time. And if the thing can
+only be proved, it will go very suspiciously against the people who
+have been mixed up in the affair, and especially against this Mr.
+Grimes.--There, I declare I've let the cat out of the bag at last, for
+all James cautioned me not!"
+
+"Well, be content," said Agatha, awaking from a reverie as to how many
+days her husband intended to stay at Kingcombe Holm, whither they were
+this week going on a formal invitation, and whether the new house would
+be quite ready on their return--"Be content, Emma; I really did not
+catch the name."
+
+"I'm glad of it," said the gossiping little woman--though she looked
+extremely sorry. "Of course, if Major Harper had known--why, you would
+have heard."
+
+"Heard what" asked Agatha, her curiosity at last attracted by
+her brother-in-law's name. But now Emma seemed wilfully bent upon
+maintaining a mysterious silence.
+
+"That's exactly what I can't tell you, my dear, except thus much--that
+my husband is afraid Major Harper has been losing a good deal of money,
+since more than two-thirds of the shares in Wheal Caroline were in his
+name, and now the vein has failed--that is, if ever there was a vein or
+a mine at all--and the other shareholders declare there has been a great
+deal of cheating somewhere--and--you understand."
+
+Agatha did not understand one jot. All she drew from this confused
+volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for
+which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or
+business matters the term "losing money" bore very little meaning.
+However, she recurred with satisfaction to her own reputed wealth, and
+thought if Major Harper were in any need he would of course tell his
+brother, and she and Nathanael could at once supply what he wanted.
+She determined to speak to her husband the first opportunity, and so
+dismissed the subject, as being not half so interesting as that of "the
+new house."
+
+At the gate of this the two ladies now stood, and Emma, with a matronly
+importance, introduced the gratified young wife to all its perfections.
+
+If there be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to
+spring up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and
+happy feelings, it is the sense of home--of pleasant domestic sway and
+domestic comfort--the looking forward to "a house of one's own." Many
+ordinary girls marry for nothing but this; and in the nobler half
+of their sex even amidst the strongest and most romantic personal
+attachment there is a something--a vague, dear hope, that, flying beyond
+the lover and the bridegroom, nestles itself in the husband and the
+future home.--The home as well as the husband, since it is given by him,
+is loved for his sake, and made beautiful for his comfort, while he is
+the ruler, the guide, and the centre of all.
+
+Mrs. Harper, as she went through the rooms of this, the first house
+she had ever looked on with an eye of interest, admiring some things,
+objecting to others, and beginning to arrange and decide in her own
+mind,--felt the awakening of that feeling which philosophers call "the
+domestic instinct"--the instinct which makes of women good wives, fond
+mothers, and wise mistresses of pleasant households. She wondered that,
+as Agatha Bowen, she had thought so little of these things.
+
+"Yes," said she, brightening up as she listened to Emma's long-winded
+discourse upon furniture and arrangements, and learning for the first
+time to appreciate the capital good sense of that admirable domestic
+oracle and young housekeeper's guide--"Yes, I think this will just do.
+And, as you say, we easily manage to buy it, furniture and all, so as to
+make what improvements we choose. Oh, how delicious it will be to have a
+house of one's own!"
+
+And the tears almost came into her eyes at thought of that long vista of
+future joy--the years which might pass in this same dwelling.
+
+"My husband," she said to the person who showed them over the place--and
+her cheeks glowed, and her heart dilated with a tender pride as she used
+the word--"my husband will come to-morrow and make his decision. I think
+there is very little doubt but that we shall take the house."
+
+So anxious was she to conclude the matter and let Mr. Harper share in
+all her pleasant feelings, that she excused herself from staying at
+Emma's until he came to fetch her, and determined to walk back to meet
+him.
+
+"What, with nobody to take care of you?" said Emma.
+
+"The idea of anybody's taking care of me! We never thought of such a
+thing three months ago. I used to come and go everywhere at my own sweet
+will, you know." Nevertheless, it was a sweet thought that there _was_
+somebody to take care of her. Her high spirit was beginning to learn
+that there are dearer pleasures in life than even the pleasure of
+independence.
+
+Pondering on these things--and also on the visit to Kingcombe Holm which
+her husband had that morning decided--she walked through the well-known
+squares, her eyes and her veil lowered, her light springy step
+restrained into matronly dignity. Agatha had a wondrous amount of
+dignity for such a little woman. Her gait, too, had in it something very
+peculiar--a mixture of elasticity, decision, and pride. Her small figure
+seemed to rise up airily between each footpress, as if unaccustomed to
+creep. There was a trace of wildness in her motions; hers was anything
+but a dainty tread or a lazy drawing-room glide; it was a bold, free,
+Indian-like walk--a footstep of the wilderness.
+
+No one who had once known her could ever mistake Agatha, be she seen
+ever so far off; and as she went on her way, a gentleman, crossing
+hastily from the opposite side of the square, saw her, started, and
+seemed inclined to shrink from recognition. But she, attracted by his
+manner, lifted up her eyes, and soon put an end to his uncertainty.
+Though a good deal surprised by the suddenness of the _rencontre_, there
+was no reason on earth why Mrs. Harper should not immediately go up and
+speak to her husband's brother.
+
+She did so, holding out her hand frankly.
+
+Major Harper's response was hesitating to a painful degree. He looked,
+in the common but expressive phrase, "as if he had seen a ghost."
+
+"Who would have thought of meeting you here, Miss Bowen--Mrs. Harper I
+mean?" he added, seeing her smile at the already strange sound of her
+maiden name. What could have possessed Major Harper to be guilty of such
+uncourteous forgetfulness?
+
+"You evidently did not think I was my real self, or you would not have
+been going to pass me by; I--that is, _we_"---at the word Nathanael's
+wife cast off her shyness, and grew bravely dignified--"we came back to
+London two days ago."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Your brother," she had not yet quite the courage to say "my husband,"
+when speaking of him, especially to Frederick Harper--"your brother
+thought you were out of town."
+
+"I?--yes--no. No, it was a mistake. But are you not going in? Good
+morning!"
+
+In his confusion of mind he was handing her up the steps of Dr.
+Ianson's door, which they were just passing. Agatha drew back; at first
+surprised, then alarmed. His strange manner, his face, not merely
+pale but ghastly, the suppressed agitation of his whole aspect, seemed
+forewarnings of some ill. It was her first consciousness that she was
+no longer alone, in herself including alike all her pleasure and all her
+pain.
+
+"Oh, tell me," she cried, catching his arm, "is there anything the
+matter? Where is my husband?"
+
+The quick fear, darting arrow-like to her heart, betrayed whose image
+lay there nearest and dearest now. Major Harper looked at her, looked
+and--sighed!
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said kindly; "all is well with your husband, for
+aught I know. He is a happy fellow in having some one in the world to be
+alarmed on his account."
+
+Agatha blushed deeply, but made no reply. She took her brother-in-law's
+offered arm, offered with a mechanical courtesy that survived the great
+discomposure of mind under which he evidently laboured, and turned with
+him towards home. She was at once puzzled and grieved to see the state
+he was in, which, deny it and disguise it as he would--and he tried
+hard to do so--was quite clear to her womanly perception. His laugh was
+hollow, his step hurried, his eyes wandering from side to side as if he
+were afraid of being seen. How different from his old cheerful lounge,
+full of a good-natured conceit, apparently content with himself, and
+willing that the whole street should gaze their fill at Major Frederick
+Harper.
+
+So old he looked, too; as if the moment his merry mask of smiles was
+thrown off, the cruel lurking wrinkles appeared. Agatha pitied him, and
+felt a return of the old liking, warm and kind, such as it was before
+the innuendoes of foolish friends had first lured her to distrust the
+nature of her own innocent feelings, and then changed them into positive
+contempt and aversion.
+
+She said, with an air of gentle matronly freedom, half sisterly, too,
+and wholly different from the shy manner of Agatha Bowen to Major
+Harper:
+
+"You must come home with me. I fear you are ill, or in anxiety. Why did
+you not tell your brother?" And suddenly she thought of Emma's statement
+of the morning. But Agatha, in her unworldliness, never supposed such a
+trivial loss as that of money could make any man so miserable as Major
+Harper seemed.
+
+"I ill? I anxious? I tell my brother?" he repeated, sharply.
+
+"Nay, as you will. Only do come to us. He will be so glad to see you."
+
+"Glad to see me?" He again repeated her words, as though he had none
+of his own, or were too bewildered to use them. Nevertheless, through
+a certain playful influence which Agatha could exert when she liked,
+making almost everybody yield to her, Major Harper suffered himself to
+be led along; his companion talking pleasantly to him the while, lest he
+might think she noticed his discomposure.
+
+Arrived at home, they found that Nathanael had walked to the Regent's
+Park to fetch his wife, according to agreement.
+
+Mrs. Harper looked sorry. She had already learned one little secret of
+her husband's character--his dislike to any unpunctuality, any altered
+plans or broken promises. "Still, you must come in and wait for him."
+
+"Wait for whom?" said Major Harper, absently.
+
+"Your brother."
+
+"My brother!--I, wait to see my brother! Impossible--I--I'll write. Good
+morning--good morning."
+
+He was leaving the hall--more hurried and agitated than ever--when Mrs.
+Harper, now really concerned, laid her hand upon his arm.
+
+"I will not let you go. Come in, and tell me what ails you."
+
+The soft whisper, the eyes of genuine compassion--womanly compassion
+only, without any love--were more than Major Harper could resist.
+
+"I will go," he muttered. "Better tell it to you than to my brother."
+And he followed her up-stairs.
+
+The cool shadow of the room seemed to quiet his excitement; he drank a
+glass of water that stood by, and became more like himself.
+
+"Well, my dear young lady," he said, with some return of the paternal
+manner of old times, "when did you come back to London?"
+
+"Two days since, as I told you. And, as you will soon hear, your
+brother's plans are all changed--we are going to live in London."
+
+"To live in London?"
+
+"He has given up his appointment at Montreal. We have taken a house, or
+shall take it to-day, and settle here. He intends entering at the bar,
+or something of the sort; but you must persuade him not. What is the use
+of his toiling, when I--that is we--are so rich?"
+
+While Agatha thus talked, chiefly to amuse her brother-in-law and make
+him feel that she was really his sister, one and the same in family
+interests--while she talked, she was astonished to see Major Harper's
+face overspread with blank dismay.
+
+"And--Nathanael has really given up his appointment?"
+
+"He has, and for my sake. Was it not good of him?"
+
+"It was madness! Nay--it is I that have been the madman--it is I that
+have done it all Agatha, forgive me! But no--you never can!"
+
+As they stood together by the fireplace he snatched her hand, gazing
+down upon her with unutterable remorse.
+
+"Poor Bowen's daughter that he trusted to me! Such a mere child too! Oh,
+forgive me, Agatha!"
+
+She thought some extraordinary delusion had come upon him--perhaps the
+forerunner of some dreadful illness. She tried to take her hand away,
+though kindly, for she firmly believed him to be delirious. Nothing
+could really have happened to herself that Mr. Harper did not know. With
+him to take care of her, she was quite safe. And in that moment--for all
+passed in a moment--Nathanael's wife first felt how implicitly she was
+beginning to put her trust in him.
+
+While she remained thus--her hand still closed tightly in her
+brother-in-law's grasp, half terrified, yet trying not to show her
+terror--the door opened, and her husband entered.
+
+At first Mr. Harper seemed petrified with amazement; then he turned
+deadly white. Crossing the room, he laid a heavy hand on his brother's
+shoulder:
+
+"Frederick, you forget yourself; this is my wife,--Agatha!"
+
+The searching agony of that one word, as he turned and looked her full
+in the face, was unutterable. She scarcely perceived it.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you are come," was all she said. He drew her to his
+side--indeed, she had sprung there of her own accord--and wrapped his
+arms tightly round her, as if to show that she was his possession, his
+own property.
+
+"Now, brother, whatever you wished to say to my wife, say it to us
+both."
+
+Major Harper could not speak.
+
+"He was waiting to see you; he is ill--very ill, I think," whispered
+Agatha to her husband. "Shall I leave you together?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, releasing her, but only to draw her back again,
+with the same wildly questioning look, the meaning of which was to her
+innocence quite inexplicable.--"My wife?"
+
+"My dear husband!"
+
+At that whisper, which burst from her full heart in the comfort of
+seeing him and of knowing that he would take on himself the burden of
+all her anxiety, Nathanael let her go. She crept away, most thankful to
+get out of the room, and leave Major Harper safe in his brother's hands.
+
+But when a quarter of an hour--half-an-hour--passed by, and still the
+two gentlemen remained shut up together, without sending for her to join
+their conference, or, as she truly expected, to tell her that poor Major
+Harper must be taken home in the delirium of brain fever--Agatha began
+rather to wonder at the circumstance.
+
+She apprehended no evil, for her even course of existence had never been
+crossed by those sudden tragedies, the impression of which no one ever
+entirely overcomes, which teach us to walk trembling along the ways of
+life, lest each moment a gulf should open at our feet. Agatha had read
+of such misfortunes, but believed them only in books; to her the real
+world, and her own fate therein, appeared the most monotonous thing
+imaginable. It never entered her mind to create an adventure or a
+mystery.
+
+She waited another fifteen minutes--until the clock struck five, and the
+servant came up to her to announce dinner, and to know whether the same
+information should be conveyed to the gentlemen in the drawing-room.
+Servants seem instinctively to guess when there is something
+extraordinary going on in a house, and the maid--as she found her
+mistress sitting in her bed-chamber, alone and thoughtful--wore a look
+of curiosity which made Mrs. Harper colour.
+
+"Go down and tell your master--no, stay, I will go myself."
+
+She waited until the maid had disappeared, and then went down-stairs,
+but stopped at the drawing-room door, on hearing within loud voices,
+at least one voice--Major Harper's. He seemed pleading or protesting
+vehemently: Agatha might almost have distinguished the words, but--and
+the fact is much to her credit, since her brother-in-law's apparently
+sane tones having suppressed her fears, she was now smitten with very
+natural curiosity--but she stopped her ears, and ran up-stairs again.
+There she remained, waiting for a lull in the dispute--in which,
+however, she never caught one tone of Nathanael's.
+
+At last, feeling rather humiliated at being thus obliged to flutter up
+and down the stairs of her own abode, and crave admittance into her own
+drawing-room, Mrs. Harper ventured to knock softly, and enter.
+
+Frederick Harper was sitting on the sofa, his head crushed down upon
+his hands. Nathanael stood at a little distance, by the fireplace. The
+attitude of the elder brother indicated deep humiliation, that of the
+younger was freezing in its sternness. Agatha had never seen such an
+expression on Nathanael face before.
+
+"What did you want?" he said abruptly, thinking it was the servant who
+entered.
+
+She could not imagine what made him start so, nor what made the two
+brothers look at her so guiltily. The fact left a very uncomfortable
+impression on her mind.
+
+"I only came"--she began.
+
+"No matter, dear." Her husband walked up to her, speaking in a low
+voice, studiously made kind, she thought "Go away now--we are engaged,
+you see."
+
+"But dinner," she added. "Will not your brother stay and dine with us?"
+
+Major Harper turned with an imploring look to his brother's wife.
+
+"No," said Mr. Harper emphatically; held the door open for Agatha to
+retire, and closed it after her. Never in all her life had she been
+treated so unceremoniously.
+
+The newly-married wife returned to her room, her cheeks burning with no
+trifling displeasure. She began to feel the tightening pressure of that
+chain with which her life was now eternally bound.
+
+But, after five minutes of silent reflection, she was too sensible to
+nourish serious indignation at being sent out of the room like a mere
+child. There must have been some good reason, which Mr. Harper would
+surely explain when his brother left. The whole conversation was
+probably some personal affair of the Major's, with which she had nothing
+to do. Yet why did her brother-in-law regard her so imploringly? It was,
+after all, rather extraordinary. So, genuine female curiosity getting
+the better of her, never did Blue Beard's Fatima watch with greater
+anxiety for "anybody coming" than did Agatha Harper watch at her window
+for somebody going--viz., Major Harper. She was too proud to listen,
+or to keep any other watch, and sat with her chamber-door resolutely
+closed.
+
+At length her vigil came to an end. She saw her late guardian passing
+down the street--not hastily or in humiliation, but with his usual
+measured step and satisfied air. Nay, he even crossed over the way to
+speak to an acquaintance, and stood smiling, talking, and swinging his
+cane. There could not be anything very wrong, then.
+
+Agatha thought, having been once sent out of the room, she would not
+re-enter it until her husband fetched her--a harmless ebullition of
+annoyance. So she stood idly before the mirror, ostensibly arranging her
+curls, though in reality seeing nothing, but listening with all her
+ears for the one footstep--which did not come. Not, alas! for many, many
+minutes.
+
+She was still standing motionless, though her brows were knitted in deep
+thought, and her mouth had assumed the rather cross expression which
+such rich, rare lips always can, and which only makes their smiling the
+more lovely--when she saw in the mirror another reflection beside her
+own.
+
+Her husband had come softly behind her, and put his arms round her
+waist.
+
+"Did you think I was a long time away from you? I could not help it,
+dear. Let us go down-stairs now."
+
+Agatha was surprised that, in spite of all the tenderness of his manner,
+he did not attempt the slightest explanation. And still more surprised
+was she to find her own questions, wonderings, reproaches, dying
+away unuttered in the atmosphere of silentness which always seemed to
+surround Nathanael Harper. This silentness had from the very beginning
+of their acquaintance induced in her that faint awe, which is the most
+ominous yet most delicious feeling that a woman can have towards a
+man. It seems an instinctive acknowledgment of the much-condemned,
+much-perverted, yet divine and unalterable law given with the first
+human marriage--"_He shall rule over thee_."
+
+After all that Agatha had intended to say, she said--nothing. She only
+turned her face to her husband, and received his kiss. Very soft it
+was--even cold--as though he dared not trust himself to the least
+expression of feeling. He merely whispered, "Now, come down with me;"
+and she went.
+
+But on the staircase she could not forbear saying, "I thought you two
+would never have done talking. Is it anything very serious? I trust not,
+since your brother walked down the street so cheerfully."
+
+"Did he?--and--were you watching him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," returned Agatha, for she had no notion of doing anything
+that she would be afterwards ashamed to confess. "But what put him into
+such a state of mind, and made him behave to me so strangely?"
+
+"How dared he behave?" asked the husband, with quickness, then stopped.
+"Forgive me. You know, I have never inquired--I never shall inquire
+about anything."--Again he paused, seeing how his mood alarmed her. "Do
+not be afraid of me! Poor child--poor little Agatha!"
+
+Waiting for no reply, he led her in to dinner.
+
+While the servants waited, Mr. Harper scarcely spoke, except when
+necessary. Only in his lightest word addressed to Agatha was a certain
+tremulousness--in his most careless look a constant tender observance,
+which soothed her mind, and quite removed from thence the impression
+of his hasty and incomprehensible words. She laid all to the charge of
+Major Harper and his unpleasant business.
+
+At dessert, Nathanael sat varying his long silences with a few
+commonplace remarks which showed how oblivious he was of all around
+him, and how sedulously he tried to disguise the fact, and rise to the
+surface of conversation. Agatha's curiosity returned, not unmingled with
+a feeling tenderer, more woman-like, more wife-like, which showed itself
+in stray peeps at him from under the lashes of net brown eyes. At length
+she took courage to say:
+
+"Now--since we seem to have nothing better to talk about, will you tell
+me what you and your brother were plotting together, that you kept poor
+little me out of the room so long?"
+
+"Plotting together? Surely, Agatha, you did not mean to use that word?"
+
+She had used it according to a habit she had of putting a jesting form
+of phrase upon matters where she was most in earnest. She was amazed to
+see her husband take it so seriously.
+
+"Well, blot out the offending word, and put in any other you choose;
+only tell me."
+
+"Why do you wish to know, little Curiosity?" said he, recovering
+himself, and eagerly catching the tone his wife had adopted.
+
+"Why? Because I am a little Curiosity, and like to know everything."
+
+"That is both presumptuous and impossible, your ladyship! If one-half
+the world were always bent on knowing all the secrets of the other half,
+what a very uncomfortable world it would be!"
+
+"I do not see that, even if the first half included the wives, and the
+second the husbands; which is apparently what you mean to imply."
+
+"I shall not plead guilty to anything by implication."
+
+They went on a few moments longer in this skirmish of assumed gaiety,
+when Agatha, pausing, leant her elbows on the table, and looked
+seriously at her husband,
+
+"Do you know we are two very foolish people?"
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+"We are pretending to make idle jests, when all the time we are both of
+us very much in earnest."
+
+"That is true!" And he sighed, though within himself, as though he did
+not wish her to hear it. "Agatha, come over to me." He held out both his
+hands; she came, and placed herself beside him, all her jesting subdued.
+She even trembled, at the expectation of something painful or sorrowful
+to be told. But her husband said nothing--except to ask if she would
+like to go anywhere this evening.
+
+Agatha felt annoyed. "Why do you put me off in this manner, when I know
+you have something on your mind?"
+
+"Have I?" he said, half mournfully.
+
+"Then tell it to me."
+
+"Nay. I always thought it was wisest, kindest, for a man to bear the
+burden of his own cares."
+
+Nathanael had spoken in his most gentle tone, and slowly, as if impelled
+to what he said by hard necessity. He was not prepared to see the sudden
+childish burst of astonishment, anger, and resistance.
+
+"From this, I understand, what you might as well have said plainly, that
+I am not to inquire what passed between you and your brother?"
+
+He moved his head in assent, and then sunk it on his left hand, holding
+out the other to his wife, as though talking were impossible to him, and
+all he wished were silence and peace. Agatha was too angry for either.
+
+"But if I do not choose at nineteen to be treated like a mere child--if
+I ask, nay, _insist_"--She hesitated, lest the last word might have
+irritated him too far. Vague fears concerning the full meaning of the
+word "obey" in the marriage service rushed into her mind.
+
+Nathanael sat motionless, his fingers pressed upon his eyelids. This
+silence was worse than any words.
+
+"Mr. Harper!"
+
+"I hear." And the grave, sad eyes--and without any displeasure--were
+turned upon her. Agatha felt a sting of conscience.
+
+"I did not mean to speak rudely to my husband; but I had my own reasons
+for inquiring about Major Harper, from something Emma said to-day."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"How eager you look! Nay, I can keep a secret too. But no, I will not."
+And the generous impulse burst out, even accompanied by a few childish
+tears and childish blushes. "She told me he had probably lost money. I
+wished to say that if such a trifle made him unhappy he might take as
+much as he liked of mine. That was all!"
+
+Her husband regarded her with mingled emotions, which at last all melted
+into one--deep tenderness. "And you would do this, even for him? Thank
+God! I never doubted your goodness, Agatha. And I _trusted_ you always."
+
+Wondering, yet half-pleased, to see him so moved, Agatha received his
+offered hand. "Then all is settled. Now tell me everything that passed
+between you."
+
+"I cannot."
+
+Gentle as the tone was, there was something in it which implied that
+to strive with Nathanael would be like beating against a marble wall.
+A great terror came over Agatha--she, who had lived like a wild bird,
+knowing no stronger will than her own. Then all the combativeness of her
+nature, hitherto dormant because she had known none worthy to contend
+against, awoke up, and tempted her to struggle fiercely with her chain.
+
+She unloosed her hands and sprang from him. "Mr. Harper, you are
+teaching me early how men rule their wives."
+
+"I only ask my wife to trust me. She would, if she knew how great was
+the sacrifice."
+
+"What sacrifice? How many more mysteries am I to be led through
+blindfold?"
+
+And her crimson cheek, her quick wild step across the room, showed a new
+picture to the husband's eyes--a picture that all young wives should be
+slow to let any man see, for it is often a fatal vision.
+
+Nathanael closed his eyes--was it to shut it out?--then spoke, steadily,
+sorrowfully:
+
+"We have scarcely been married a month. Are we beginning to be angry
+with one another already?"
+
+She made him no answer.
+
+"Will you listen to me--if for only two minutes?"
+
+She felt his step approaching, his hand fastening on hers, and replacing
+her in her chair. Resistance was impossible.
+
+"Agatha, had I trusted you less than I do, I might easily have put off
+your questions, or told you what was false. I shall do neither. I shall
+tell you truth."
+
+"That is all I wish."
+
+Nathanael said, with a visible effort, "To-day I learnt from my
+brother several rather painful circumstances--some which I was ignorant
+of--one"--his voice grew cold and hard--"one which I already knew, and
+knew to be irremediable."
+
+His wife looked much alarmed; seeing it, he forced a smile.
+
+"But what is irremediable can and must be borne. I can bear things
+better, perhaps, than most people. The other cares may be removed by
+time and--silence. To that end I have promised Frederick to keep his
+confidence secret from every one, even from my own wife, for a year to
+come. A sacrifice harder than you think; but it must be made, and I have
+made it."
+
+Agatha turned away, saying bitterly; "Your wife ought to thank you! She
+was not aware until now how wondrously well you loved your brother."
+
+There was a heavy silence, and then Mr. Harper said, in a hoarse voice,
+"Did you ever hear the story of a man who plunged into a river to save
+the life of an enemy, and when asked why he did it, answered, 'It was
+because he _was_ an enemy?"
+
+"I do not understand you," cried Agatha.
+
+"No"--her husband returned, hastily--"better not. A foolish, meaningless
+story. What were we talking about?"
+
+He--when her heart was bursting with vexation and wounded feeling--he
+pretended to treat all so lightly that he did not even remember what
+they were saying! It was more than Agatha could endure.
+
+Had he been irritated like herself--had he shown annoyance, pain--had
+they even come to a positive quarrel--for love will sometimes quarrel,
+and take comfort therein--it would have been less trying to a girl of
+her temperament. But that grave superior calm of unvarying kindness--her
+poor angry spirit beat against it like waves against a shining rock.
+
+"We were talking of what, had I considered the matter a month ago,
+I might possibly have saved myself the necessity of discussing or
+practising--a wife's blind obedience to her husband."
+
+"Agatha!"
+
+"When I married," she recklessly pursued, "I did not think what I was
+doing. It is hard enough blindly to obey even those whom one has known
+long--trusted long--loved long--but you"--
+
+"I understand. Hush! there needs not another word."
+
+Agatha began to hesitate. She had only wished to make him feel--to shake
+him from that rigid quietude which to her was so trying. She had not
+intended to wound him so.
+
+"Are you angry with me?" she asked at length.
+
+"No, not angry. No reproaches of yours can be more bitter than my own."
+
+She was just about to ask him what he meant--nay, she even considered
+whether her woman's pride might not stoop to draw aside the
+tight-pressed hands, entreating him to look up and forgive her and love
+her, when in burst Mrs. Thornycroft.
+
+"Oh--so glad to catch you--have not a minute to spare, for James is
+waiting. Where is your husband?"
+
+Mr. Harper had risen, and stood in the shadow, where his face was not
+easily visible. Agatha wondered to see him so erect and calm, while her
+own cheeks were burning, and every word she tried to utter she had to
+gulp down a burst of tears.
+
+"Mr. Harper, it was you I wanted--to ask your decision about the
+house. A mere formality. But I thought I would just call as we went
+to grandmamma's, and then I can settle everything for you to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"You are very kind, but"--
+
+"Oh, perhaps you would rather see the house yourself! Quite right. Of
+course you will take it!"
+
+"I fear not."
+
+Agatha, as well as Mrs. Thornycroft, was so utterly astonished, that
+neither of them could make any observation. To give up the house, and
+all her dear home-visions! She was aghast at the idea.
+
+"Bless me, what does your husband mean? Mr. Harper, what possible
+objection?"------
+
+"None, except we have changed our plans. It is quite uncertain how long
+we may stay at Kingcombe Holm, or where we may go from thence."
+
+"Not to America, surely? You would not break your word to poor dear
+Agatha?"
+
+"I never break my word."
+
+"Well, Mr. Harper, I declare I can't understand you," cried Emma,
+sharply. "I only hope that Agatha does. Is all this with your knowledge
+and consent, my poor child?"
+
+She said this, eyeing the husband with doubt and the wife with
+curiosity, as if disposed to put herself in the breach between the two,
+if breach there were.
+
+Agatha heard Nathanael's quick breathing--caught her friend's look of
+patronising compassion. Something of the dignity of marriage, the shame
+lest any third party should share or even witness aught that passes
+between those two who have now become one--awoke in the young girl's
+spirit. The feeling was partly pride, yet mingled with something far
+holier.
+
+She put Emma gently aside.
+
+"Whatever my husband's decision may be, I am quite satisfied therewith."
+
+Mrs. Thornycroft was mute with amazement However, she was too
+good-natured to be really angry. "Certainly, you are the most
+extraordinary, incomprehensible young couple! But I can't stay to
+discuss the matter. Agatha, I shall see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes; I will bring her to you to-morrow," said Mr. Harper, cheerfully,
+as their visitor departed.
+
+The husband and wife regarded one another in silence. At last he said,
+taking her hand:
+
+"I owe you thanks, Agatha, for"--
+
+"For doing my duty. I hope I shall never forget that."
+
+At the word "duty," so coldly uttered, Mr. Harper had let her hand fall
+He stood motionless, leaning against the marble chimney-piece, his face
+as white as the marble itself, and, in Agatha's fancy, as hard.
+
+"Have you, then, quite decided against our taking the house?" she asked
+at length.
+
+"I find it will be impossible."
+
+"Why so? But I forget; it is useless to ask _you_ questions."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+"Pardon my inquiry, but do you still keep to your plan of leaving next
+week for Dorsetshire?"
+
+"If you are willing."
+
+"I willing?" And she thought how, two hours before, she had rejoiced
+in the prospect of seeing her husband's ancestral home--her
+father-in-law--her new sisters. Her heart failed her--the poor girlish
+heart that as yet knew not either the world or itself. She burst into
+tears.
+
+Instantly Mr. Harper caught her in his arms.
+
+"Oh, Agatha, forgive me!--Have patience with me, and we may still
+be happy; at least, you may. Only trust your husband, and love him a
+little--a very little--as much as you can."
+
+"How can I trust you, whom I do not thoroughly understand? how can
+I--love"--
+
+Her hesitation--her pride warring with the expression of that feeling
+which her very anger taught her was there--seemed to pierce her husband
+to the soul.
+
+"I see," he said, mournfully. "We are both punished, Agatha; I for the
+selfishness of my love towards you, and you--Alas! how can I make you
+happier, poor child?" Her tears fell still, but less with anger than
+emotion. "I know now, we ought never to have been married. Yet, since we
+are married"--
+
+"Ay, since we are married, let us try to be good to one another, and
+bear with one another. I will!"
+
+She kissed his hand, which held up her drooping head, and Nathanael
+pressed his lips on her forehead. So outward peace was made between
+them; but in sadness and in fear, like a compact sealed tremblingly over
+a newly-closed grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"And this is Dorsetshire! What a sharp bleak wind!" said Agatha,
+shivering.
+
+Her husband, who was driving her in a phaeton which had met them at the
+railway station, turned to wrap a cloak round her.
+
+"Except in the height of summer it is always cold across these moors.
+But we shall soon be safe at Kingcombe Holm. Are you very tired?"
+
+She answered "No," which was hardly the truth. Yet her heart was more
+weary than her limbs.
+
+During the few days that elapsed between Major Harper's visit and their
+quitting London, she had scarcely seen her husband. He had been
+out continually, coming home to dinner tired and exhausted, though
+afterwards he always tried to talk and be cheerful. To her surprise,
+Major Harper never again called, nor, except in the brief answer to
+her question, "that Frederick was gone from home," did Nathanael ever
+mention his brother's name.
+
+"This is Kingcombe," said Mr. Harper, as they drove through a little
+town, which Agatha, half blinded by the wind, scarcely opened her eyes
+to look at. "My sister, Mrs. Dugdale, lives here. I thought they might
+have met us at the station; but the Dugdales are always late. Ah, there
+he is!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"My brother-in-law, Marmaduke Dugdale--or 'Duke Dugdale,' as everybody
+about here calls him. Holloa, Duke!"
+
+And Agatha, through her blue veil, "was ware," as old chronicles say,
+of a country-looking gentleman coming down the street in a mild, lazy,
+dreamy fashion, his hat pushed up at a considerable elevation from his
+forehead, leaving a mass of light hair straggling out at the back, his
+eyes bent thoughtfully on the pavement, and his hands crossed behind
+him.
+
+"Holloa, Duke!" cried Nathanael, for the second time, before he caught
+the attention of this very abstracted personage.
+
+"Eh--is it you? You don't say so! E--h!"
+
+Agatha was amused by the long, sweet-sounding drawl of the last
+monosyllable, which seemed formed out of all the five vowels rolled
+into one. It was said in such a pleasant voice, with such a simple,
+child-like air of delighted astonishment, that Agatha, conquering her
+shyness at this first meeting with one of her husband's family, peeped
+behind Nathanael's shoulder at Mr. Dugdale.
+
+She saw--what to her keen sense of beauty was a considerable shock--the
+very plainest man she thought she had ever beheld!
+
+"Mr. Dugdale--my wife."
+
+"Indeed! Very glad to see her." And Agatha who was intending merely to
+bow, felt her hand buried in another thrice its size, which gave it a
+shy, gentle, but thoroughly cordial shake. "And really, now I think of
+it, I was coming to meet you. The Missus told me to do it."
+
+"How is 'the Missus?'" asked Mr. Harper.
+
+"Quite well--they're all waiting for you. So make haste--the Squire is
+very particular as to time, you know!"
+
+Nodding to them both with a smile which diffused such an extraordinary
+light over the uncomely face that Agatha was quite startled and began to
+reconsider her first impression regarding it,--"Duke" Dugdale turned to
+walk on; but just as the horse was starting, came back again.
+
+"Nathanael, you are here just in time--general election coming. You're a
+Free-trader of course?"
+
+"Why, I never thought much about the matter."
+
+"Eh!--What a pity! But we'll convert you, and you shall convert your
+father. Ah, yes--I think we'll get the Squire on our side at last
+Good-bye."
+
+"Who is 'the Missus' and who is 'the Squire'" asked Agatha, as they
+drove off.
+
+"'The Missus' is his wife--my sister Harriet, and 'the Squire' is my
+father," said Nathanael, smiling. His face had worn a pleasant look ever
+since he caught sight of Duke Dugdale's. "When I first came home I was
+as much amused as yourself at these queer Dorsetshire phrases, but I
+like them now; they are so simple and patriarchal."
+
+Agatha agreed; yet she could hardly help laughing. But though this
+brother-in-law of Mr. Harper's--and she suddenly remembered that he
+was her own brother-in-law too--used provincial words, and spoke with a
+slight accent, which she concluded was "Dorset,"--though his dress and
+appearance had an anti-Stultzified, innocent, country look, still there
+was something about Marmaduke Dugdale which bespoke him unmistakably the
+gentleman.
+
+"I am glad we met him," said Mr. Harper, looking back down the street.
+"There he is, talking to a knot of people at the market-hall--farmers,
+no doubt, whom he will try to make Free-traders of, and who would listen
+to him affectionately, even if he tried to make them Mahometans. The
+good soul! There isn't a better man in all Dorsetshire."
+
+It was evident that Nathanael greatly liked "Duke Dugdale."
+
+Agatha would have asked a score of questions; about his age, which
+defied all guessing, and might have been anything from thirty to
+fifty-five--also about his "Missus," for he looked like a man who never
+could have made love, or thought of such a thing, in all his life. But
+her curiosity was restrained, partly by that of the old servant behind,
+who kept up a close though reverential observance of all the sayings
+and doings of "Ma-a-ester" Nathanael's wife. She did not like even
+accidentally to betray how very little of Kingcombe her reserved husband
+had told her, and how she knew scarcely more of his family than their
+names.
+
+Having parted from his brother-in-law, and gradually lost the benign
+influence which Duke Dugdale seemed to impart, Mr. Harper's face
+re-assumed that gravity, almost sadness, which, except when talking with
+herself, his wife now continually saw it wear.
+
+They drove on, pushing against a fierce wind, that appeared like an
+invisible iron barrier to intercept their way. Every now and then,
+Agatha could not help shivering and creeping closer to her husband;
+whenever she did so, he always turned round and wrapped her up with most
+sedulous care.
+
+"It is a dreary day for you to see our county for the first time,
+Agatha. If the sun were shining, these wide bleak sweeps of country
+would look all purple with heather, and that dun-coloured, gloomy range
+of hills;--we must call them hills out of compliment, though they are so
+small--would stand out in a clear line against the sky. Beyond them lies
+the British Channel, with its grand sea-coast."
+
+"The sea--ah! always the sea."
+
+"Nay, dear, don't be afraid, how don't'ee--as we Dorset people would
+say. Kingcombe Holm lies in a valley. You would never know you were so
+near the ocean. It is the same at Anne Valery's house."
+
+"Where is that!" said Agatha, brightening up at the mention of the name.
+
+"Why, this animal seems inclined to show me--even if I did not know
+it of long habit," answered Mr. Harper, bestowing a little less of his
+attention on his wife, and more on the obstreporous pony, who, in regard
+to a certain turn of the road, had grown peculiarly wrong-headed.
+
+"Don't'ee give in, sir! T'Squire bought he o' Miss Valery, and she do
+gi' un their own way, terrible bad," hinted the groom.
+
+"Unfortunately, his own way happens to be a wrong one," said Nathannael,
+quietly, as he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which
+it takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse.
+Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a
+case being no bad criterion of a man's character, "lose your temper, and
+you'll lose your beast," ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain.
+She was considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from
+the struggling animal to her husband, in whose fair face the colour
+had risen, while the boyish lips were set together with a will, fierce,
+rigid, and man-like. She could hardly take her eyes from him.
+
+"Agatha, are you afraid? Will you descend?" asked he, suddenly.
+
+"No--I will stay with you."
+
+The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the
+end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to
+Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.
+
+"I fear," she said--when he tried to draw her out of her contemplative
+mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees, almost the
+only trees that grow in this region--standing in black clumps on the
+hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used to encamp
+there--"I fear you have made _me_ as much in awe of you as you have the
+pony."
+
+He smiled, and was quoting something about "love casting out fear," when
+he suddenly corrected himself, and grew silent. In that silence they
+swept on to the gates of Kingcombe Holm.
+
+It was a place--more like an ancient manorial farm than a gentleman's
+residence--nestled snugly in one of those fairy valleys which are found
+here and there among the bleak wastes of Dorsetshire coast scenery--the
+richer for the barrenness of all around. Before and behind the house
+rose sudden acclivities, thick with autumn-tinted trees. On another side
+was a smooth, curving, wavy hill, bare in outline, with white dots of
+grazing sheep floating about upon its green. The Holm, with its garden
+and park, lay on a narrow plain of verdurous beauty, at the bottom of
+the valley. Nothing was visible beyond it, save a long, bare, terraced
+range of hill, and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in
+sight, except a tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three
+labourers' cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed
+children stood, poking their fingers in their mouths, and staring
+intensely at Agatha.
+
+"Oh, what a delicious nest," she cried--overcome with excitement at her
+first view of Kingcombe Holm, where, however, there was not a creature
+visible but the great dog, that barked a furious welcome from the
+courtyard, and the peacock, that strutted to and fro before the blank
+windows, sweeping his draggled tail. "Are they at home, I wonder? Will
+they all be waiting for us?"
+
+"In the drawing-room, most likely. It is my father's way. He receives
+there all strangers--new-comers, I mean. We shall see nobody till then."
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, brother Nathanael," said a quick, lively
+voice. "So, ho! Dunce, hold still, do'ee! You used to be as precise as
+the Squire himself, bless his heart! Now then, N. L. Jump down!"
+
+The speaker of all this had come flying out of the hall-door--a vision
+of flounces, gaiety, and heartiness, had given the pony a few pats, or
+rather slaps, _en passant_, and now stood balancing herself on one of
+the spokes of the wheel, and leaning over into the carriage.
+
+[Illustration: Arrival at Kingcombe Holm  p148]
+
+"Is that you, Harrie? Agatha, this is my sister Mrs. Dugdale."
+
+And Agatha found herself face to face (literally speaking, too, for
+"Harrie" kissed her) with a merry-looking, pretty woman, of a style a
+little too _prononcee_ perhaps, for her features were on a similar mould
+to Major Harper's. Still, there could be no doubt as to the prettiness,
+and the airy, youthful aspect--younger, perhaps, than her years. Agatha
+was perfectly astounded to find in this gay "Harrie" the wife of the
+grave and middle-aged Duke Dugdale!
+
+"You see, my dear--ahem! what shall I call you?--that I can't be formal
+and polite, and it's no use trying. So I just left my father sitting
+stately in the drawing-room with Mary on one side, as mistress of the
+household; Eulalie on the other, looking as bewitching and effective as
+she can, and both dying with curiosity to run out and see you. But I'm
+not a Miss Harper now; so, while they longed to do it, I--did it. Here I
+am! Welcome home, Mrs. Locke Harper!"
+
+"Thank you," stammered the young bride, hardly knowing whether to laugh
+or to cry. Her husband was scarcely less agitated than herself, but
+showed it only in the nervous trembling of his upper lip, and in the
+extreme brevity of his words. He lifted his wife down from the carriage,
+and Mrs. Dugdale, throwing back the blue veil, peered curiously into the
+face of her new sister.
+
+"E--h!" she said, in that long musical ejaculation just like her
+husband--the only thing in which she was like him. Never was a pair
+who so fully exemplified the theory of matrimonial opposites. "E--h,
+Nathanael!" And her quick glance at her brother indicated undisguised
+admiration of "the Pawnee-face."
+
+He himself looked restless, uncomfortable, as if his sister slightly
+fidgeted him; she had indeed, with all her heartiness, a certain
+quicksilverishness of manner, jumping here, there, and everywhere like
+mercury on a plate, in a fashion that was very perplexing at first to
+quiet people.
+
+"Come along, my dear," continued Harrie, tucking the young wife under
+her arm--"come and beautify a little--the Squire likes it. And run
+away to your father, N. L., my boy!" added she to her younger
+brother--younger--as a closer inspection of her fresh country face
+showed--possibly by some five or six years.
+
+Mr. Harper assented with as good a grace as he could, and resigned his
+wife to his sister.
+
+For the next ten minutes Agatha had a confused notion of being taken
+through many rooms and passages, hovered about by Mrs. Dugdale, her
+flounces, and her lively talk--of trying to answer a dozen questions per
+minute, and being so bewildered, that she succeeded in answering none,
+save that she had met Mr. Dugdale--that she did _not_ think him "a
+beauty," and (she hastily and in terror added this fact) that there was
+not the least necessity for his being so.
+
+"Not the least, my dear. I always thought the same! You'll love him
+heartily in a week--I did! Bless him for a dear, good, ugly, beautiful
+old soul!"
+
+Here Agatha, who stood listening, and nervously arranging the long curls
+that _would_ fall uncurled and untidy, felt a renewal of her old girlish
+enthusiasm for all true things; her eyes brightened, and her heart
+warmed towards "Harrie." She would have liked to stay talking longer,
+but for a vision of Mr. Harper waiting uncomfortably down-stairs.
+
+"So you have finished adorning, and want to go! You can't bear to be ten
+minutes away from your husband, that's clear! Well, my dear, you'll get
+wiser when you have been married as long as I have. But I don't know,"
+added Mrs. Dugdale laughing; "I'm always glad enough to get rid of Duke
+for an hour or two; yet somehow, when he is away, I'm always wanting
+him. By-the-by, did he happen to say what time he was coming over
+here--only to see you, you know? He has quite enough of 'the Missus.'"
+
+Agatha laughingly asked how long "the Missus" had borne that title.
+
+"Couldn't possibly count! Look at Gus and Fred in jacket and trousers,
+and little Brian learning to ride. Frightful antiquity! And yet when
+I married I was a girl like you; only ten times wilder--the greatest
+harum-scarum in the county! I often wonder poor Duke was not afraid to
+marry me! Heigho! Well, here we are down-stairs, and here--take your
+wife, most solemn brother Nathanael! If you were but a little more like
+Frederick! By the way, have you seen Fred lately?"
+
+"He has left town," said Mr. Harper, shortly, as he drew his young
+wife's arm through his own, and led her to his father's presence.
+
+Agatha was conscious of a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman--not unlike
+Major Harper frozen into stately age--who rose and came to meet her.
+
+"I am most happy to welcome my son's wife to Kingcombe Holm."
+
+Agatha felt the withered fingers touching her own--the kiss of welcome
+formally sealed on her forehead. She trembled exceedingly for a moment,
+but recovered herself, and met old Mr. Harper's keen observant gaze with
+one as clear and as composed as his own. One glance told her that he was
+not the sort of man into whose fatherly arms she could throw herself,
+and indulge the emotion brimming over in her heart. But his examination
+of her was evidently favourable.
+
+"You are most welcome, believe me. And my daughters"--here he turned to
+two ladies, of whom Agatha at first distinguished nothing, save that
+one was very pretty, the other much older, and plain--"my daughters,
+receive your new sister." Here the ladies aforesaid approached and shook
+hands, the plain one very warmly.--"You also can tell her how truly glad
+we are to receive--Mrs. Harper."
+
+He hesitated a little before the latter word, and pronounced it with
+some tremulousness, as though the old man were thinking how many years
+had passed since the name "Mrs. Harper" had been unspoken at Kingcombe
+Holm.
+
+His daughters looked at one another--even Harriet observing a grave
+respect No one spoke, or took outward notice of the circumstance; but
+from that time the subject of much secret conjecture was set at rest,
+and Agatha was called by every one "Mrs. Harper."
+
+During the somewhat awkward quarter of an hour that followed, in which
+the chief conversation was sustained by "the Squire," and occasionally
+by Nathanael--Mrs. Dugdale having vanished--the young girl observed
+her two sisters-in-law. Neither struck her fancy particularly, perhaps
+because there was nothing particular to strike it. The Misses Harper
+were, like most female branches of "county families," vegetating on
+their estates from generation to generation in uninterrupted gentility
+and uniformity. Of the two, Agatha liked Mary best; for there was great
+goodnature shining through her fearless plainness--a sort of placid
+acknowledgment of the fact that she was born for usefulness, not
+ornament. Eulalie, on the contrary, carried in her every gesture a
+disagreeable self-consciousness, which testified to her long assumption
+of one character--the beauty of the family. Despite Agatha's admiration
+of handsome women in general, she and the youngest Miss Harper eyed one
+another uncomfortably, as if sure from the first that they shall never
+like one another.
+
+All this while Nathanael spoke but little to his wife, apparently
+leaving her to nestle down at her own will among his family. But he kept
+continually near her, within reach of a word or glance, had she given
+him either; and she more than once felt his look of grave tenderness
+reading her very soul. She could not think why, in spite of all his
+efforts to the contrary, he should be continually so serious, while she
+was quite ready to be happy and at ease.
+
+There was one thing, however, which gave her keen satisfaction--the
+great honour in which her husband was evidently held by his family.
+
+Very soon a heterogeneous post-prandial repast was announced for the
+benefit of the travellers; to which Mr. Harper graciously bade them
+retire--even leading his daughter-in-law to the dining-room door.
+
+"He'll not come further in," whispered Mrs. Dugdale, who made herself
+most active about Agatha. "You arrived at seven, and my father would
+as soon think of changing his six o'clock dinner hour as he would of
+changing his politics; for all Duke says to the contrary."
+
+Agatha was not sorry, since the idea of dining under the elaborate
+kindness and dignified courtliness of old Mr. Harper was rather
+alarming. Besides, she was so hungry!
+
+The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came
+gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every
+possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She
+had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about--rattling on
+like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging away _bon mots_ and
+witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a "wonderfully clever
+woman,"--the very last character which this light-spirited country-lady
+would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had relaxed
+into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being of
+sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her much
+but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane
+beauty.
+
+Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness
+not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted
+among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the
+intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him.
+
+In quitting the dining-room--where Agatha, irresistibly led on by Mrs.
+Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had laughed
+till she was fairly tired out--he said, in a half whisper:
+
+"Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth."
+
+In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was
+another sister--in truth, the Miss Harper of the family--Mary, its head
+and housekeeper, being properly only "Miss Mary." She noticed that as
+Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself doubtfully,
+as if to inquire how much she knew--and anxiously, as though there
+were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's first seeing
+Elizabeth.
+
+Mrs. Harper felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm
+in her husband's, and said, "I should much like to go."
+
+Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other
+two moving away into the drawing-room.
+
+Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to
+quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and
+his sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what
+sort of person she was going to see--for all she had heard was that from
+some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room--made
+the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her
+husband perceived it.
+
+"Nay, you need not mind," he whispered. "You will see nothing to pain
+you. We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy--poor
+Elizabeth!"
+
+As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase
+into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room--made scrupulously pleasant,
+Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things,
+engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper
+on the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate
+and careful choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its
+arrangements, or have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the
+sense of aesthetic fitness is its native element.
+
+At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a
+sofa--though so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form--she
+saw what seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the
+face was no child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at
+middle age. Many wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in
+soft, close bands, was quite grey. The only thing notable about the
+countenance was a remarkable serenity, which in youth might have
+conveyed that painful impression of premature age often seen in similar
+cases, but which now in age made it look young. It was as if time
+and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this sad victim of Nature's
+unkindness--had passed by and left her to keep something of the child's
+paradise about her still.
+
+This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the
+silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so
+shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed.
+
+Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see
+her easily without turning round.
+
+"Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?"
+
+The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful,
+smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called "poor Elizabeth." Such
+thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It
+took away all the painful constraint which most people experience on
+first coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus;
+and made Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that
+poor distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth
+Harper.
+
+"She is just what I thought," said a voice, thin, but not unmusical.
+"You described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister."
+
+Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of
+all greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least
+of its sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith,
+looking more like himself than he had done since they entered his
+father's doors.
+
+They all sat down and talked for a long time, Elizabeth more cheerfully
+than any. She appeared completely versed in the affairs of the whole
+family, as though her mind were a hidden gallery in which were clearly
+daguerreotyped, and faithfully retained, all impressions of the external
+world. She seemed to know everybody and everybody's circumstances--to
+have ranged them and theirs distinctly and in order, in the wide, empty
+halls of her memory, which could be filled in no other way. For, as
+Agatha gradually learned, this spinal disease, withering up the form
+from infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute
+physical pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements
+of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect
+alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble
+and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the
+average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her
+only possession was the loving heart.
+
+She asked an infinitude of questions, her bright quick eyes seeming to
+extort and gain more than the mere verbal answers. She talked a good
+deal, throwing more light than Agatha had ever before received on the
+manners, characters, and history of the Harper family, the Dugdales, and
+Anne Valery. But there was in her speech a certain reticence, as though
+all the common gossip of life was in her clear spirit received, sifted,
+purified, and then distributed abroad in chosen portions as goodly and
+pleasant food. She seemed to receive the secrets of every one's life and
+to betray none.
+
+Agatha now learnt why there had been such a mystery of regret,
+reverence, and love hanging over the very mention of the eldest Miss
+Harper.
+
+When the tumult of this strange day had resolved itself into silence,
+Agatha, believing her husband fast asleep, lay pondering over
+it, wondering why he had not asked her what she thought of his
+family--wondering, above all, what was the strange weight upon him which
+he tried so hard to conceal, and to appear just the same to every one,
+especially to her. Her coming life rose up like a great maze, about
+which all the characters now apparently mingled therein wandered mistily
+in and out. Among them, those which had gained most vivid individuality
+in a fancy not prone to catch quick interests, affecting her alternately
+with a sense of pensive ideal calm, and cheerful healthy human liking,
+were Elizabeth Harper, the "Missus," and Duke Dugdale.
+
+Likewise, as an especial pleasure, she had discovered the one to whom
+she clung as to a well-known friend among all these strangers, lived
+within eight miles of Kingcombe Holm.
+
+"And"--she kept recurring to a fact spread abroad in the house just
+before bed-time, and apparently diffusing universal satisfaction--"and
+Anne Valery is sure to be here to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+On the morning--her first morning at Kingcombe Holm--Mrs. Harper woke
+refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was
+pencilled distinctly against the bluest of blue skies, which hung like
+a tent over the shut-up valley. She stood at the window looking at it,
+while Mary Harper made the breakfast and Eulalie curiously examined
+Agatha's dress, supposed to be the latest bridal fashion from London.
+Nathanael sat writing letters until breakfast was ready, and then took
+his father's place at the foot of the table.
+
+"Elizabeth bade me ask you," said Mary, addressing him, "if you had any
+letters this morning from Frederick? You know she likes to look at all
+family letters--they amuse her. Shall I take this one?"
+
+Nathanael put his hand upon a heap, among which was plainly
+distinguishable Major Harper's writing. "No, Mary--not now. If
+necessary, I will read part of it to Elizabeth myself."
+
+Agatha, who had before vainly asked the same question, was annoyed by
+her husband's reserve. His silence in all his affairs, especially those
+relating to his brother, was impenetrable.
+
+But this was rousing in her, day by day, a strong spirit of opposition.
+Had not the presence of his sisters restrained her, for her external
+wifely pride grew as much as her inward antagonism--she would have again
+boldly put forward her claim to read the letter. As it was, she had
+self-control enough to sit silent, but her mouth assumed that peculiar
+expression which at times revealed a few little mysteries of her
+nature--showing that beneath the quietude and simplicity of the girl lay
+the strong, desperate will of a resolute woman.
+
+After breakfast, when Mr. Harper, with some slight apology, had gone to
+his letters again, she rose, intending to stroll about and explore
+the lawn. She had never been used to ask any one's permission for her
+out-goings and in-comings, so was departing quite naturally, when Mary
+stopped her.
+
+"I hope you will not mind it, but we always stay in the house until my
+father comes down-stairs. He likes to see us before he begins the day."
+
+Agatha submitted--with a good grace, of course; though she thought
+the rule absolute was painfully prevalent in the Harper family. But as
+half-an-hour went by, and the morning air, so fresh and cool, tempted
+her sorely, she tried to set aside this formal domestic regulation.
+
+Mary looked quite frightened at her overt rebellion.--"My dear Mrs.
+Harper--indeed we never do it. Do we, Nathanael?" said she, appealingly.
+
+He listened to the discussion a moment.--"My dear wife, since my father
+would not like it, you will not go, I know."
+
+The tone was gentle, but Agatha would as soon have thought of
+overleaping a stone wall as of opposing a desire thus expressed. She
+sat quietly down again--or would have done so, but that she saw Eulalie
+smile meaningly at her sister. Intercepting the young wife, the smile
+changed into affected condolence.
+
+"Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as
+a little boy," and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically.
+"Really, as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did
+their lady loves know them only half as well as their sisters do."
+
+"Nay," said the good-natured Mary, "but Harrie also says that men, like
+wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not
+too much shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very
+disagreeable boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you"------
+
+"There is no need; I am quite satisfied," said Mrs. Harper, with no
+small dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered
+the room.
+
+He entered dressed for riding--looking somewhat younger than the night
+before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He
+saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity,
+patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a
+good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret
+pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with "my son Nathanael,"
+and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two
+daughters listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was
+the same benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate
+of reserve and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as
+Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either
+his mind or his body to appear _en deshabille_. Agatha wondered how he
+could ever have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man
+wooing; nay, more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she
+noticed the extreme feebleness which his dignity but half disguised),
+how he would ever stoop to the last levelling of all humanity--the
+grave-clothes and the tomb.
+
+"Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride
+to Kingcombe?" said he, looking round the circle with a patronising
+interest, which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the
+kindly expression of the old man's eye.
+
+"There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie
+"--here Eulalie looked affectedly conscious--"no others, I think."
+
+"Except one to Nathanael from Frederick," observed the Beauty.
+
+At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little
+graver--a little statelier. He said coldly, "Nathanael, I hope you have
+pleasant news from your brother. Where is he now?"
+
+"In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent."
+
+"My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He
+is not really gone?"
+
+"Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more--but certainly a year."
+
+The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his
+riding-whip. "If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the
+respect of informing _him_ first. Excuse me if I doubt whether my son's
+plans are quite decided."
+
+"They are indeed, sir," said Nathanael gently. "And I was aware of,
+indeed advised, this journey. He bids me explain to you that when this
+letter arrives he will be already gone."
+
+The father started--and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood
+a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like
+a cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's
+ready hand--thanked him--bade good morning to the womenkind all round,
+and left them.
+
+"Shall I ride with you, father?" said Nathanael, following him to the
+hall-door, with a concerned air.
+
+"Not to-day--I thank you! Not to-day."
+
+Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. "This will be a sad blow to
+papa," said the former. "Frederick was always a great anxiety to him."
+
+Agatha inquired wherefore.
+
+"Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished
+his eldest son to settle down in the county. I know--though he says
+nothing--that this has been a sore point between them for nearly twenty
+years."
+
+"And I know," added Eulalie, mysteriously, "that papa was going to make
+a last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A
+pretty fight there would have been--papa and Frederick against Marmaduke
+and his pet candidate!"
+
+"'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best," said
+Mary, sagely. "But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or
+he would say we had been gossiping."
+
+Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life,
+from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were
+wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared,
+riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up
+one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can
+drive, and make herself independent of everybody.
+
+"It is Anne Valery!" was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the
+door--Agatha being the first.
+
+"My dear--my dear!" murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little
+carriage to pat the brown curls. "Are you quite well?--quite happy? And
+your husband?" She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry.
+"Is all well, Nathanael?"
+
+Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought,
+as usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly,
+"Yes, Anne, all is well!"
+
+She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage.
+Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright
+colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she
+came into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even
+so healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago--the last time they
+had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness.
+
+"I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire--and
+my own. May I, Mary?"
+
+"Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering
+and longing after you."
+
+"I have not been well. London never suits me," said Anne carelessly.
+"But come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day.
+In the first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen
+yet, Eulalie?"
+
+Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of
+Elizabeth's "hard days," when she could not talk much to any one till
+evening.
+
+Anne continued, after a pause--"I want to drive over to Kingcombe about
+some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr. Wilson's
+death."
+
+"Anne's steward," whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law.
+"You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?" And Agatha
+noticed, with some amusement, what an extreme deference was infused into
+the usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper.
+
+"So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?"
+asked Mr. Harper suddenly.
+
+"No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a
+woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would
+wish him always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but
+undoubtedly a gentleman."
+
+As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting
+her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in
+a low tone, "Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk
+with you."
+
+She assented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand
+Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no
+further questions.
+
+"And, for the third important business which should be done to-day,
+and perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm
+Hill, and show her the view of the Channel."
+
+Agatha drew back from the window. "Ah, not the sea!--I cannot bear the
+sea." Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness.
+
+"Were you ever on the sea, my dear?"
+
+"Once, long ago."
+
+"Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your
+bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace--do you see it?--with
+Nathanael and me."
+
+"But you will be tired," Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to
+resist Anne Valery.
+
+"Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength--health. I hardly live
+when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go,
+Agatha."
+
+She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they
+soon started--they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and
+the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air.
+
+They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew
+clusters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must
+be in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving
+only the short grass cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the
+furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove
+along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight
+of Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as
+though the sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose
+leaving the carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse
+of the Channel.
+
+"There!" she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed
+over to his wife. "There, Agatha!"
+
+It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They
+stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of
+moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between
+the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay.
+Parallel to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace--until it likewise
+reached the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs,
+against which the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain.
+Beyond all, motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away
+in a mist of brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide,
+immeasurable sea.
+
+The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with
+her former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is
+always given by the sight of the ocean--that ocean which One "holdeth
+in the hollow of his hand." Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she
+was able to look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and
+there on the dazzling sheet of waves.
+
+"There go the ships," said Nathanael. "See what numbers of
+them--numbers, yet how few they seem!--are moving up and down on this
+highway of all nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping
+in the horizon.
+
+"Do you remember Tennyson's lines?--they reached Uncle Brian and me even
+in the wild forests of America:
+
+     "'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
+     Which brings our friends up from the under world;
+     Sad as the last which reddens over one
+     That sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'"
+
+"There! it is gone now," cried Agatha, almost with a sense of loss. She
+felt Anne Valery's fingers tighten convulsively over her arm, and saw
+her with straining eyes and quivering lips watching the vanishing--nay,
+vanished--ship, as if all her soul were flying with it to the "under
+world."
+
+The sight was so startling, so moving--especially in a woman of Miss
+Valery's mature age and composed demeanour--that Nathanael's wife
+instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two
+Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as
+before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook,
+where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as
+summer.
+
+Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of
+scenery--especially the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line
+of coast sweeps on ruggedly westward to the Land's End.
+
+"But I believe," he said, "that there is nowhere a grander coast than we
+have here--not even in Cornwall."
+
+"Speaking of Cornwall," Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael,
+"I lately heard a sad story about some mines there."
+
+Mr. Harper seemed restless. "The speculation had failed, having been
+ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had
+property near in the county--what, did you not know that, Nathanael--I
+was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal
+Caroline. Have you heard the name, Agatha?"
+
+"No," said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the
+lovely view.
+
+"Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael"--
+
+"I know all," he said hastily. "It is a sad history--too sad to be
+talked of here. Another time"--
+
+His eye met hers--and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little apart,
+enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea--vague
+object of nameless terror--could ever appear so beautiful.
+
+"Poor child!" murmured Miss Valery.
+
+"Hush, Anne!" Nathanael whispered, so imploringly--nay, commandingly,
+that Anne was startled.
+
+"How like you are to"--
+
+"What were you saying?" asked Agatha, turning at last.
+
+"I was saying," Miss Valery replied hastily--"I was saying how like
+Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian."
+
+"Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?"
+
+"Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell
+you, _as he ought_," added Anne pointedly.
+
+"Surely I will, one day," said Nathanael. "But in this case, as in many
+others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best,
+wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the
+wrong has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face
+that seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was
+marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery.
+
+"And now," continued Mr. Harper, "while I am alone with you and my
+wife"--here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean
+against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind--"I wanted to
+talk with you, Anne, about some plans I have."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"I have given up--as Agatha wrote you word--all idea of our settling at
+Montreal. It is necessary that I should at once find some employment in
+England."
+
+"Not yet--not just yet," said his wife.
+
+"I must, dear. It is right--it is necessary. Anne herself would say so."
+
+Miss Valery assented, much to Agatha's surprise.
+
+"The only question then is--what can I do? Nothing in the
+professions--for I have acquired none; nothing in literature--for I
+am not a genius; but anything in the clear, straightforward,
+man-of-business line--Uncle Brian used to accuse me of being so very
+practical.--Anne," he added, smiling, "I wish, instead of having to puff
+off myself thus, Uncle Brian were here to advertise my qualifications."
+
+"Qualifications for what?" inquired Agatha, Miss Valery being silent
+
+"For obtaining from my friend here what I would at once have applied for
+to any stranger; poor Wilson's vacant post as her overseer, land-agent,
+steward, or whatever the name may be."
+
+"Steward!" cried Mrs. Harper. "Surely you would never dream of being a
+steward?"
+
+"Why not? Because I am unworthy of the situation, or--as I fear my proud
+little wife thinks--because the situation is not worthy of me? Nay, a
+man never loses honour by earning his bread in honourable fashion;
+and Miss Valery herself said that for this office she required both a
+gentleman and a friend. Will she accept me?"
+
+And he extended, proudly as his father might--yet with a frank
+independence nobler than the pride of all the Harpers--his honest right
+hand. Anne Valery took it, the tears rising in her eyes.
+
+"I could never have offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so
+steadfast, so wise----Yes! it is indeed, considering all things, the
+wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless your
+wife consents."
+
+"I will not consent," said Agatha, determinedly.
+
+There was an uncomfortable pause.
+
+"I see in your plan no reason--no right," continued she, forgetting
+in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of
+conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. "Why was I
+never told this before?"
+
+"Because I never thought of it myself until this morning."
+
+The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many
+more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips.
+
+"The fact is, Agatha--I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both
+love"--
+
+"And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred."
+
+These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that
+was rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery.
+
+"It is necessary," Mr. Harper went on--"imperatively so, for my
+comfort--that I should at once do something. And in choosing
+one's work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the
+rule--'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many
+things I could not do; this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will
+find. Nor need I feel ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery."
+
+Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. "But your
+father--your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?"
+
+"Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling
+near him in Dorsetshire."
+
+"In Dorsetshire!" echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her
+last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's
+county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable
+equanimity.
+
+"And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if
+my wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the
+best."
+
+His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first
+dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either
+she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured
+her to believe him in the right. She listened--only half-convinced, yet
+still she listened.
+
+Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only
+continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm
+affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead
+likeness revived in a living face.
+
+At last, when he had expressed all he could--everything except entreaty
+or complaint--Mr. Harper paused. "Now, Agatha, speak."
+
+She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She
+had been so unused to control.
+
+"You should have consulted with me--have explained more of your reasons,
+which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously
+anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind."
+
+"Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?" His accent was that of unutterable
+pain.
+
+"No! no! that you never are! Only--I suppose because I am young and
+lately married--I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss
+Valery?"
+
+Anne looked from one to the other--Nathanael, who, as was his habit
+in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard--and
+Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet
+half repentant all the while. "What must you do? You must try to learn
+the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she
+loves--to have faith in him."
+
+"We women," she continued softly, "the very best and wisest of us,
+cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only
+love him. That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly
+knowing that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite
+understand, we must, as I said, _have faith in him_. I have heard of
+some women whose faith has lasted all their life."
+
+Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which
+vaguely turned seaward--though apparently looking at nothing--made a
+deep impression on the young wife.
+
+She answered, thoughtfully, "I believe in my husband too, otherwise
+I would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to
+clash, and he is the older and the wiser--let him decide as he thinks
+best--I will try to 'have faith in him.'"
+
+Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak--it seemed impossible to
+him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy
+terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either,
+excepting only--for one lingering, parting glance--Anne Valery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to
+Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house
+suitable for the young couple. They had not said a word to either of
+the Miss Harpers concerning this sudden arrangement, agreeing that the
+father of the household ought to be shown the respect of receiving the
+first information.
+
+"And then," said Nathanael, "I trust mainly to Anne Valery to overcome
+his scruples. Anne can do anything she likes with my father. Don't you
+remember," he continued, leaning over to the front seat where the two
+ladies were, and looking quite cheerful, as though a great load had
+been taken off his mind--"don't you remember--I do, though I was such
+a little boy--how there was one day a grand family tumult because
+Frederick wanted his commission, and my father refused it--how you
+walked up and down the garden, first with one and then with the other,
+persuading everybody to be friends, while Uncle Brian and I"--
+
+"There, that will do," said Miss Valery. "Never mind old times, but let
+us look forward to the future. Here we are at Kingcombe. Agatha, how do
+you like the place?"
+
+And Agatha, on this glowing autumn afternoon, eagerly examined her
+future home.
+
+It was a rather noteworthy country town; small, clean, with an air of
+sober preservation, reminding one of a well-kept, dignified, healthy
+old age. It wore its antiquity with a sort of pride, as if its quaint
+streets, intersecting one another in cruciform shape, still kept
+the impress of mediaeval feet, baron's or priest's, in the days when
+Kingcombe had sixteen churches and a castle to boot--as if the Roman
+walls which enclosed it lay solemnly conscious that, at night, ghosts
+of old Latin warriors glided over the smooth turf of those great earthen
+mounds where the town's-children played. Even the very river, which came
+up to the town narrow and slow, with perhaps one sailing-barge on it
+visible far across the flat country, and looking like a boat taking an
+insane pedestrian excursion over the meadows--even the river seemed to
+run silently, as if remembering the time when it had floated up Danish
+ships with their fierce barbarian freight, and landed them just under
+that red sand-cliff, where the lazy cows now stood, and the innocent
+blackberry-bushes grew.
+
+It was a curious place Kingcombe, or so Agatha thought.
+
+"How strange it is," Mr. Harper observed. "All these old spots seem to
+me like places beheld in a dream. Uncle Brian often used to talk about
+them. I think to this day he remembers everything and everybody about
+Kingcombe."
+
+"Does he?"
+
+"And that some day or other he will come back again I do most firmly
+believe. Do not you, Anne?"
+
+"Yes." As she spoke, her hand involuntarily was pressed upon her side.
+Agatha wondered she responded so coldly and with so melancholy a look,
+to such a joyous prospect as Uncle Brian's return would surely be to all
+the family.
+
+But here they were in Kingcombe streets--very quiet, sleepy streets,
+which seemed to have taken an undisturbed doze for a few centuries, to
+atone for the terrible excitements there created successively by
+Danish, Roman, Saxon, and baronial ruffians. The poor little town seemed
+determined to spend its old age in peace and solitude, for you might
+have planted a cannonade at the market-place, and swept down East
+Street, West Street, North Street, and South Street, without laying
+more than a dozen official murders on your soul. There was indeed great
+reason for Mrs. Harper's innocent inquiry--"Where are all the people
+gone to?"
+
+"Except on market-days, we rarely see more street passengers than now in
+Kingcombe," Aline Valery answered, smiling. "You will get accustomed to
+that and many other things when you are a country lady. Now, shall we
+drive to the Dugdales, or look first at the two houses I told you of?"
+
+Mr. Harper preferred the latter course, under fear, his wife merrily
+declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and
+sister, she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire
+and water, since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably "put out"
+the other. They did not squabble--Nathanael Harper never squabbled--but
+they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals.
+Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always
+occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat.
+
+The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft
+would have phrased it, "a love of a place!" Dining-room, drawing-rooms,
+conservatory, gardens--quite a gentleman's mansion. Agatha set her heart
+upon it at once, and it blotted out even her lingering regret over the
+lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee
+of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it,
+giving her this thing and that thing necessary to its beautification.
+
+He patted her cheek with a pleased yet sad look.
+
+"Dear, I will give you all I can; be quite sure of that. But"--
+
+"Nay, no buts; I must have this house. Besides, Miss Valery says it is
+the only house to let in Kingcombe."
+
+"Except the one I showed you as we passed."
+
+"Oh, that mean little cottage--impossible. We could never think of
+living there."
+
+"Nevertheless, let us look at it. You know we are but just beginning the
+world, and 'small beginnings make great endings' as Uncle Brian would
+sagely observe. Come along, my little wife."
+
+She tried to slip from his hand and appeal to Miss Valery, but Anne
+had moved forward, and left them alone. There was no resource; and even
+while Agatha's spirit was rather restive under the coercion, she could
+not but acknowledge the pleasantness with which it was enforced.
+
+"Well, I'll go with you, but I hereby declare rebellion. I will not have
+that miserable nutshell of a house," said she, laughing.
+
+Yet it was a pretty nutshell--quite after the "love in a cottage"
+fashion--though adorned and perfected by the late Mr. Wilson, an old
+bachelor.
+
+"Did he die here?" asked Agatha.
+
+"No; in Cornwall," Anne answered. "He had gone over to look at some
+property I have lately bought there. The people on it, miners thrown
+out of work, gave him more anxiety than he could bear, for he was not
+strong. He said their misery broke his heart."
+
+Miss Valery spoke softly, but the words caught Nathanael's ear. He
+looked greatly shocked--and said, in a low tone, "Anne, don't talk of
+this. If I live, the wrong shall be atoned for."
+
+Agatha wondered for the moment what wrong there was which made her
+husband look so pained and humbled. But she forbore to ask questions,
+and again turned her attention to the house.
+
+"It must have been a charming nest for an old bachelor, and I would have
+liked it very much myself had I been an old maid. But it would never do
+for _us_, you know."
+
+Nathanael smiled, so loth to contradict her, or thwart her pretty ways.
+
+"Don't you see, Miss Valery;" Agatha continued, gathering apprehensions
+from his silence, smiling though it was--"Don't you see how different
+the cases are? This little house might do very well for Mr. Wilson,
+but then if my husband takes his place as your steward, it is only for
+amusement. We are rich people, you know."
+
+"My poor child!" began Anne Valery, looking regretfully, nay,
+reproachfully at Mr. Harper. But he whispered as he passed:
+
+"Not yet, Anne--for my father's sake--the whole family's--nay, her own.
+Not just yet!"
+
+Such was his earnestness, such his air of command, that, for the
+second time, Anne, looking in his face and reading the old likeness
+there--obeyed him.
+
+Agatha, wondering, uncomfortable, recommenced what she jestingly called
+"her little rebellion." "I see, Mr. Harper, your heart is inclining to
+this place, though why or wherefore I cannot tell. But do incline it
+back again! We must have the other house--that delicious Honeywood."
+
+"My dear little wife! Nobody could live at Honeywood under a thousand a
+year."
+
+"Well, and have we not that? I am sure I thought I had more money than
+ever I could do with. How much have I?"
+
+He hesitated--she fancied it was at the thoughtless "I," and generously
+changed the expression.
+
+"How much have _we?_"
+
+"Enough--I will make it enough--to keep you from wanting anything, and
+give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not enough to
+warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it--not even for your
+sake, Agatha."
+
+"I do not see the matter as you do."
+
+"You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing--when, on various
+accounts, I can judge better than she can--will not my wife trust me?"
+
+And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, "Trust him."
+
+Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more
+bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband
+and Anne Valery.
+
+"You expect too much," she said, sharply. "I cannot trust, even though I
+may be compelled to obey."
+
+Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. "Agatha, what must--what can I
+do? No," he muttered to himself, "I can do nothing." He walked to the
+window, and stood looking out mutely on the little garden--tiny, but so
+pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees
+serving as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia,
+woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and
+singing over the few fallen leaves.
+
+While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of
+draperies to the door.
+
+"My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha--Anne! How d'ye
+do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?"
+
+"We were coming directly," Agatha said. "But how did you find out we
+were at Kingcombe?"
+
+"You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne
+Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke
+Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily
+circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know,
+the grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid
+told it to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss
+Trenchard, who was coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the
+children their dinner, and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as
+one of Nathanael's Red Indians. And here I am."
+
+She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in
+all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured,
+that her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha--more especially as, for
+a great wonder, she asked no questions.
+
+"So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty
+place, isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would
+not let it go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house,
+with all the furniture just as it was. How melancholy!"
+
+She said "How melancholy!" just in the tone that she would have
+said "How entertaining!" From circumstances, or from natural
+peculiarity--that light easy temper which dances like a feather over the
+troubled waters of life--she had evidently never learnt the meaning of
+the word sorrow.
+
+"But now," Harriet continued, "what I come for, is to carry you all off
+to lunch--the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your
+nephews."
+
+Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews!
+
+"And such boys!" Miss Valery added, interposing. "'The Missus' has
+good right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie
+succeeds better than another, it is in the management of her children."
+
+"Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature," cried Mrs.
+Dugdale; but her eye--the mother's eye--twinkled with pleasure all the
+time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She walked
+off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed
+behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr.
+Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another.
+
+"I declare there is Duke!" cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. "Just look at
+him, meandering up and down the town." (Agatha laughed at the word;
+"meandering" seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) "But
+my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does
+yours? I beg your pardon--since you are watching him as if you thought
+he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha--(I always call everybody by
+their Christian names)--Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his
+brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look."
+
+The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at
+the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and
+earnestly, as men will do--Nathanael having apparently forgotten the
+bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's
+heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.
+
+Neither spoke to their wives--being busy laying their heads together
+over a newspaper--until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her
+husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At
+last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage,
+mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young
+kitten.
+
+"Nay, now, Missus--don't'ee, love; I'm busy.--And you see, Nathanael,
+as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr.
+Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you
+think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard
+wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction."
+
+"Wouldn't he?" said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician,
+who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At
+which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with "Vote
+for Trenchard!" stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner
+shouting:
+
+"Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!--and give us a
+shilling! Amen!"
+
+"You see now what comes of your politics," cried his wife, trying to
+pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a
+perplexed expression troubling his face.
+
+"It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny
+for drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what
+it is, Nathanael," and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always
+broadened when he was very earnest, "those lads drink because they are
+starving--drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be
+starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore,
+hurrah for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling!
+Only don't'ee let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no
+bribery money o' Mr. Trenchard's, its _mine_.
+
+"Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!"
+shouted the men as they staggered off.
+
+Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile
+which made his ugly face quite beautiful--at least Agatha thought
+so;--which was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least
+notice of her all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing
+way.
+
+"Eh--what, Missus? did you say Mrs. Harper was here?" He shook hands
+with her, looking in another direction;--then again turned to Nathanael.
+
+"Utterly useless!" cried Harrie, laughing. "He's more misty than usual
+to-day. Let us leave the men alone, stupid bears as they are! and come
+up-stairs to the children."
+
+All this time no one asked or looked for Miss Valery, who had lingered
+behind, bidding them go forward. It seemed the habit of the family that
+she should be left to go about in her own fashion, interfered with by
+nobody, and attended by nobody, save when she came among them to do them
+good. It was not wonderful; since, having passed that time of youth when
+a pleasant woman is everybody's petted darling, she had lived to feel
+herself alone in the world--wife, sister, and child to no one. It always
+takes a certain amount of moral courage to meet that destiny.
+
+Aided by the beneficial influence of dinner, which in the Dugdales'
+house seemed to have the mysterious property of extending over an
+indefinite time, Agatha had succeeded in making friends with her
+"nephews" to say nothing of a lovely little niece, who would persist in
+putting chubby arms round "Pa's" neck, and dividing his attention sorely
+between Free-trade and rice-pudding. Mr. Harper had taken another child
+on his knee, and was cutting oranges and doing "Uncle Nathanael" to
+perfection. His wife stole beside him with affection. Why would he not
+be always as now? Why was he so good, so gentle to others, yet so hard
+to be understood by her? Was it her own fault? She almost believed so.
+
+On this group, all happy, all united together by those lovely links in
+the chain of happiness--little children--Anne Valery entered. She passed
+round the table, having a word, or smile, or kiss for all. Then she
+went to an arm-chair, looking tired, though joining all the while in the
+conversation, particularly with Mr. Dugdale, who seemed to have a great
+regard for her.
+
+"Ah, Miss Valery, I wish you were a man, and could vote for us!" said
+he, peering from underneath the baby-hands which made a pointed Norman
+arch over "Pa's" eyes. "You'd be sure to vote on the right side. Didn't
+we make a convert of you, Brian and I, years before people talked of
+Free-trade; long before he went out, and I got married to mamma there?
+Eh, Brian, my lad"--and he patted his youngest boy, throned on
+Mr. Harper's knee--"if you only grow up such a wise man as your
+grand-uncle!"
+
+Agatha was amused to see how the idea and recollection of Uncle Brian
+had permeated through every branch of the Harper family. Almost every
+family has some such personage, mythical, sublime, exciting the wonder
+and hero-worship of all the young people. Little Brian opened wide his
+large grey eyes at the mention of his honoured namesake.
+
+But while he gazed, his papa's pudding-laden spoon stopped half-way on
+its journey to the baby-mouth that was waiting for it--Duke Dugdale was
+in a reverie. He did not even hear the little clamourer on his knee.
+
+"Really, now, that's very odd, very odd indeed." And he felt anxiously
+in his pocket. "No, I had another coat on that day--mamma, where's my
+grey overcoat?"
+
+"Duke--what on earth are you talking about? Now, Agatha, confess--isn't
+my husband the very vaguest, mistiest man you ever knew? Oh, you dear
+old visionary, what do you want with grey overcoats at dinner-time?"
+
+He smiled patiently--perhaps he did not even hear--put down his little
+girl, and walked out of the room, his wife anxiously jumping up and
+following with some pathetic exclamation about "Duke's being so cross!"
+Which seemed to Agatha the most amusing exaggeration possible.
+
+In a minute or two this most opposite couple--opposite, but fitting like
+a dovetailed joint--came in merrily together, Harrie holding a letter.
+
+"Would you believe, he got it last week, has been carrying it about ever
+since, and never thought of it! There, Nathanael, it's yours! Devour
+it!"
+
+"From Uncle Brian!" cried the young man. At which name there ran a great
+sensation throughout the family, in all but Miss Valery, who still kept
+her chair.
+
+"News! news!" cried Harrie, Agatha and the boys gathering round. Mr.
+Dugdale walked up and down the room--his hands behind him--smiling in
+benevolent content at everybody and at nobody. Brian and his tiny sister
+consoled themselves for the little attention they got by slily climbing
+on the table and embedding their fingers in the rice-pudding.
+
+Nathanael read the letter aloud, as seemed to be the family custom with
+Uncle Brian's correspondence.
+
+
+"My dear Boy," I find the Western solitudes are no nearer heaven than
+civilisation. My two red friends having escaped and got back, which they
+did on purpose to tomahawk me--I gave the tribe the slip, and am here in
+New York. There I accidentally received your letter.
+
+"You are a foolish boy. When I was young, I think I would rather have
+died than have married a rich woman, even if she loved me, which no
+woman ever did. Nevertheless, I hope you will fare better than you
+deserve.
+
+"Shall you ever come back to America? Not on my account, I pray, though
+I miss you, and am getting old and lonely. Perhaps it is as well that
+you left me, and have married and settled. That seems to me now the
+happier, worthier life for a man to lead. I should like to come and see
+you, if I could come not quite the beggar I am now. Therefore, I often
+think I shall go to California."
+
+There was a light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was
+found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's
+shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it
+with him. She moved her head in thanks, and he continued:
+
+"If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a
+little of that cursed--I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in
+England. Till then--or till death--which seems equally likely, I remain,
+
+"Your affectionate Uncle,
+
+"Brian Locke Harper.
+
+"P.S.--I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New York.
+Tell my old friend Duke that I congratulate him on having given up
+merchandising, so that my brother at Kingcombe Holm can no longer
+reproach him with being the only one of the Harper connection who
+_earns_ a livelihood."
+
+
+This letter, which was trying to read, being sharp and stinging on many
+points to more than one person present, Nathanael went steadily through,
+though several times his colour changed. No one made any comment
+except Agatha, who observed "that Uncle Brian must be rather bitter and
+sarcastic at heart."
+
+"No--not bitter," Anne Valery said,--"only sorrowful. It is often so,
+when after a hard life men feel themselves growing old. What shall you
+do, Nathanael?"
+
+"About what? His going to California? Nay, I cannot prevent that. What
+use in my writing when he gives me such lectures about my marriage?"
+
+"He would not if he knew Agatha. Besides, in this doctrine he is a
+little wrong. It is of small moment on which side lies the wealth;--love
+makes all things even."
+
+Mr. Harper turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had
+already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that
+at the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim
+her right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.
+
+The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys
+were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian
+would not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject
+Nathanael was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory
+information. Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden
+behind, where Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling
+up and down in close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha
+noticed that. Anne Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr.
+Dugdale's "mistiness" of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was
+shaking his companion warmly by the hand.
+
+"Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in
+coming into _my_ head. And it's just the very thing. It will give him
+occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover"--and a
+sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure--"I shouldn't
+wonder if it brought him home."
+
+"Hush!"
+
+"Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by,
+Anne"--here a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man--"what a help
+he would be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn't _he_ see the
+blessing of Free-trade?"
+
+Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and
+they stepped in at the window;--Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away,
+lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was
+doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell
+as abundant and unnoticed as rain.
+
+"Now"--and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little
+rosy chin and kissing him--"now, who will come back with us to that
+grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt
+Mary is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?"
+
+All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will,
+by her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a
+helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them
+on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving
+that she had reached home alive.
+
+Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody asked
+what she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly
+suspected he had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes
+of her Kingcombe tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and
+Free-trade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table
+was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His
+grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only
+enriched his courtesies, like the "body" in mellow old wine. He leaned
+graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long
+table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most
+of them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary,
+taking the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black
+velvet dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of
+the family; while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side
+of the host, and were duly honoured by him.
+
+Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked
+very pretty, her girlish _abandon_ of manner softened by a certain
+wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position
+well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her
+husband to see if he were satisfied with her--a fact which no one but
+herself could doubt.
+
+"Now, my children," said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn,
+and dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he
+was so fond--"now, my children--I may call you all so?" and he smiled at
+Anne Valery--"let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and especially
+the youngest of you"--here he softly patted Agatha's hand, on the table.
+"And since we always drink healths here--a good old fashion that I
+should be loth to renounce--let me give you the first toast--Mr. and
+Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!"
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table,
+at which indecorum--probably occasioned by a county meeting that was
+running in his head--his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But the
+severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round.
+After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:
+
+"Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne--my wife and I thank you all"
+
+"What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'" said the Squire,
+turning to his daughter-in-law. "A remnant of my young days, when every
+lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every
+gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table,
+Anne, where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the
+pleasure of giving yours."
+
+"Thank you," said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite
+with the old gentleman.
+
+"You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with
+this lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held
+over her the right which I understand my eldest son"--he paused a
+moment--"which Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her
+grandfather left me his executor and sole guardian of his infant
+heiress. I was a young man then, but I tried to deserve his trust. Did
+I, Anne?"
+
+Again she smiled--most affectionately.
+
+"And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest
+heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me
+infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred
+trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne--let us drink
+his memory."
+
+Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the glass to his lips--a
+glass filled with only water--he never took wine.
+
+"You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost
+or absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and
+of old times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable
+pleasant recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our
+guests at Kingcombe Holm.--Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast."
+
+Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but
+met nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought--remembering
+her own few ties--that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one
+nearest to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave "Uncle Brian."
+
+Every one applauded--the Squire graciously acknowledging the compliment
+to his brother.
+
+"The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much
+regarded by me," he explained to his daughter-in-law. "In spite of
+the great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our
+characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian." And
+hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read
+aloud by his son--saving the wise omission of the postscript.
+
+"Go to California?" said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. "I do not
+like that--it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and daring
+enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so, Anne?"
+
+Anne assented.
+
+"He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before
+he left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get
+some ice for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl."
+It was touching to hear him call Miss Valery a "girl"--she whom the
+young Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.
+
+"And though he did leave us so abruptly--wherefore, remains to this day
+a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change--still I
+have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper," continued the Squire, who
+seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.
+
+"Brian Harper!" exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. "Yes--Brian
+would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His
+judgment was always as sound as his politics."
+
+"What was your remark, Marmaduke" said the old Squire, testily.
+
+"O, nothing--nothing, father!" Harrie quickly answered, with a half
+merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up
+again into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl
+in his keeping--the undoubted value of which there is no need either to
+put forward or to defend.
+
+Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into
+a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of
+unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be
+called even by those that loved her, "an old maid." And when at last the
+Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated
+away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as
+though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business,
+and of thinking and judging for everybody.
+
+Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be
+the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching
+Anne Valery.
+
+There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman
+occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself.
+It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of
+love--in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its
+hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this
+reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love,
+the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which
+makes--according to the Platonic doctrine--a perfect being. Of
+course, this theory would be almost universally considered
+"sentimentalism"--Agatha's little infatuation being included therein;
+but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us
+argues some truth at their origin.
+
+To the young girl--still so girlish, though she was married--there was
+an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very
+sweep of her dress across the floor--her slow soft motions, which might
+have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and
+self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and
+looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from
+sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy
+nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way,
+so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards--all filled
+Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she
+had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago--or that her
+own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser
+and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman
+as Miss Valery.
+
+Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she
+wished to appropriate her--and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so long
+discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging
+to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs.
+Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the
+part of the Beauty--which had reference to a certain "Edward"--about
+whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to
+Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they
+two--Mrs. Harper and herself--should go and visit Elizabeth.
+
+Passing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly,
+stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over
+the hills.
+
+"Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we
+do when we are young!" The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over
+her quiet face like a cloud over the moon--surprised and touched Agatha.
+
+"Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since
+I was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for
+stopping here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let
+us pass on."
+
+She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a
+pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.
+
+Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and
+it was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking
+fingers could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind--clear,
+delicate, well-arranged, exact.
+
+"We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?"
+
+"Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad,
+you are aware?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?" said
+Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.
+
+Both answered in the negative--Miss Valery saying, with attempted
+gaiety, "You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael.
+He can be both deaf and dumb."
+
+"Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out
+that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever
+she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen
+Nathanael when he came down to us that week."
+
+"What did he do?" the young wife asked, not without some painful
+curiosity--for sometimes, in the moments when she could not "make out"
+her husband's rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered
+that perhaps Mr. Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion
+was too sudden to be a lasting reality.
+
+"What did he do?--Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very self-possessed.
+You could hardly tell he was in love at all. Nobody ever guessed it but
+I--not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he was determined to
+have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing--Oh, I knew you would
+be married to him! You could not help it!"
+
+"Nor did she wish--nor need she," said Anne, gently, as she saw Agatha's
+confusion. "But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I hear
+that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family. Edward
+Thorpe has got the living--the richest one."
+
+"So, of course, Eulalie will marry him." The deduction reached Agatha as
+rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her
+own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual
+plain speeches:
+
+"Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?"
+
+The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said,
+"Answer that question, Anne."
+
+"What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?"
+
+"One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the
+man she is to marry?"
+
+"Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well
+for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as
+a matter of necessity. As for love--have you noticed, Agatha, how many
+women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long
+life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real
+meaning of the word?"
+
+Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen.
+The subject came home to her. "Will Eulalie be one of these?"
+
+"I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will
+never know what is real love."
+
+"Tell me, what is that sort of love--the right love--which one ought to
+bring to one's husband?"
+
+Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. "Are you
+seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?"
+
+"Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'"
+
+"Almost every human being loves in a different way."
+
+"Well, then, your way I mean." But noticing the momentary reticence
+which Anne's manner showed, she added, "I mean the kind of love you have
+most sympathy with in other people."
+
+"I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that
+Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker
+(not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is
+pleasant to see young people loving one another."
+
+"Still, you have not told me what _you_ call loving."
+
+"Do you really wish to hear?" said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a
+low voice, she added: "I would have every woman marry, not merely liking
+a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly,
+that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none
+other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his
+little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet
+would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to
+look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true,
+and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor
+burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely
+independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry
+neither from liking, esteem, nor gratitude for his love, but from the
+fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens"--and
+Anne's voice slightly faltered--"God will cause them to meet in the next
+existence. They cannot be parted--they belong to one another."
+
+All were silent--these three women--one to whom love must have been
+only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk
+of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat
+thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which
+brought with it her own condemnation.
+
+"You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it
+romance."
+
+"Would they? And do you?"
+
+"Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like
+perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life."
+
+"Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find
+approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too
+old for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite
+all I have seen--the false, foolish, weak attachments--the unholy
+marriages--the after-life of marriage made unholier still by struggling
+against what was inevitable--still I believe in the one true love which
+binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life and, God grant
+it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this--little wife? You
+do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?"
+
+Agatha tried to smile--to conceal the pain rising in her heart.
+
+"Come then, I will teach you how to love him--in better words than
+mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her
+poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'"
+
+"Any woman would," answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book
+which Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which "poor
+Elizabeth" looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a
+friend.
+
+"Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there," said
+Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was
+not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice
+was hardly like itself--at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard
+it--when she began to read:
+
+"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth,
+and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
+For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every
+day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as
+men strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise:
+I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my
+childhood's faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost
+saints; I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and,
+if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
+
+There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh
+behind her.
+
+Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in,
+no one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were
+closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a
+lost or impossible paradise.
+
+"Agatha!" She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest
+aspect--that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling within
+her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression--scarcely meant
+to pass her lips--and inaudible to all save him:
+
+"Oh, why--why did I marry!"
+
+The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but
+Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he
+seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him:
+
+"Are you come to talk with us, or to fetch your wife away?"
+
+"Neither," he said, bitterly. But recovering himself--"Nay, Anne, I came
+for you. My father wishes to see you. He will hear nothing I can urge.
+You must come down and talk with him, or I do not know what will be
+done."
+
+Agatha had until now forgotten that her husband had intended after
+dinner to tell his father his plans concerning the stewardship. It had
+been apparently a harder task than he thought, to strive with the old
+Squire's prejudices. Seeing his extreme perturbation, Agatha repented
+herself deeply of any unkindness towards him.
+
+She went to his side. "What is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you."
+
+"You!" he echoed; then added, with an accent studiously kind, "Thank
+you, Agatha. You are very good always."
+
+He let her take his arm and stand talking with himself and Miss Valery.
+
+"I feared it would be so," the latter said. "Your father has a strong
+will; still he can be persuaded. We must try."
+
+"But only persuasion--no reasons. Understand me, Anne--no reasons!"
+
+Miss Valery looked at the young man very earnestly.
+
+"Nathanael, if I did not know you well, and know too whose guidance
+formed your character, it would be hard to trust you."
+
+"Anne!" Again the peculiar manner which sometimes appeared in him,
+making him seem much older than his years, had its strange influence
+with Miss Valery, guiding her by an under-current deeper even than her
+judgment.
+
+"Ay," she said in a whisper, "I will trust you. Let us go down." And she
+turned with him to say good-bye to Miss Harper.
+
+The excitement of talking had been too much for "poor Elizabeth." One
+of her "dark hours" was upon her. The eyes were closed, and the face
+sharpened under keen physical pain. Agatha could hardly bear to see her;
+but Nathanael bent over his sister with that soothing kindness which in
+a man is so beautiful.
+
+"Shall we stay with you? at least, shall I?"
+
+Elizabeth motioned a decided negative.
+
+"I know," Miss Valery said, apart, "she had rather be alone. No one can
+do her good, and it is too much for this child, who is not used to it as
+we are."
+
+Calling Elizabeth's maid from the inner room, Anne hurried Agatha away.
+She, clinging to her husband's arm, heard him say, half to himself:
+
+"And yet we think life hard, and murmur at that we have, and grieve for
+that we have not! We are very wicked, all of us. Poor Elizabeth!"
+
+The three went very silently down-stairs.
+
+At the dining-room door Mrs. Harper let go her husband's arm.
+
+"Why are you leaving me, Agatha?"
+
+"Because I thought--I imagined, perhaps you wished"--
+
+"I wish to have you with me always. Anne knows," and he looked pointedly
+at Miss Valery, "that I shall never respond to, and most certainly never
+volunteer, any confidence to either her or my father that I do not share
+with my wife. She has the first claim, and what is not hers no other
+person shall obtain."
+
+Anne looked puzzled. At last she said, in an under tone, "I think I
+understand, and you are quite right. I shall remember."
+
+The old Squire was sitting in his arm-chair, the dessert and wine still
+before him. The cheerfulness of the dinner-circle over, he looked very
+aged now--aged and lonely too, being the only occupant of that large
+room. He raised his head when Miss Valery entered, but seemed annoyed at
+the entrance of his daughter-in-law.
+
+"Mrs. Harper! I did not mean to encroach on _your_ leisure."
+
+"No, father; it was I who wished her to come. Forgive me, but I could
+not bring Miss Valery into our family councils and exclude my own wife.
+She is not a stranger now."
+
+Saying this, Nathanael placed Agatha in a chair and stood beside her,
+taking her cold hand, for with all her power she could not keep herself
+from trembling. She had never known anything of those formidable affairs
+which are called "family quarrels."
+
+"Now, father," he continued in a straightforward but respectful manner,
+"Anne will answer any question to prove what I have already told
+you--that it is at my own request she takes me for her steward."
+
+"Her friend and adviser," Anne interposed.
+
+"I never doubted, Nathanael, that it was at your own request. Otherwise
+it were impossible that Miss Valery would so far have insulted my
+family."
+
+At these words Anne coloured, and moved a step or two with something of
+the pride of her young days. "I did not think, Mr. Harper, that it
+would have been either an insult to offer, or a disgrace to accept, the
+position which your son desires to hold. Far be it from me in any way to
+wrong any member of your family, especially the son whom your wife left
+in my arms--and Brian's--when she died."
+
+Agatha had never before heard Miss Valery say "Brian." She was evidently
+speaking as people do when much moved, using a form of phrase and
+alluding to things not commonly referred to.
+
+The old Squire sat silent a minute, and then stretched out his hand. "I
+know your goodness, Anne! But I cannot renounce all my rights. Even a
+younger son must not throw discredit on his family. Except in one brief
+instance, for centuries there has never been a Harper who worked for his
+living."
+
+"Then, father, let me be the first to commence that act of inconceivable
+boldness and energy," said Nathanael, with a good-humoured persuasive
+smile. "Let me, being likewise a younger son, take a leaf out of Uncle
+Brian's book, and try to labour, as he once did, in my own county, with
+the honour of my own race about me."
+
+"And what did he effect? Was he not looked down upon, humiliated,
+cheated? I never ride past his old deserted clay-pits without being
+thankful that he went to Canada, rather than have disgraced us by what
+his folly must have come to at last. He would have lost the little he
+had--have been bankrupt, perhaps dishonoured."
+
+"Mr. Harper!"--Anne rose from her chair--"I think you speak rather
+hardly of your brother. It never could be said, or will be said, that
+Brian Harper was _dishonoured._"
+
+At these words, spoken with unusual warmth, Nathanael gratefully clasped
+her hand. The Squire observed, with added dignity, that no one could be
+more sensible than himself of his brother's merit, and that he thanked
+Miss Valery for extending her kind interests to every branch of the
+Harper family.
+
+"And now," he continued, "we will cease this conversation. My son
+knows my sentiments, and will doubtless act upon them. I never maintain
+arguments with my children." And the sentence implied that what "I never
+do," was consequently a thing unnecessary and impossible to be done. The
+old gentleman leant on each arm of his chair, and feebly tried to rise.
+
+"Father," cried Nathanael, detaining him, "I would do much rather than
+try you thus; but it cannot be helped. I must work."
+
+"I do not see the necessity."
+
+"But if there be a necessity; if my own feelings, my conscience--other
+reasons, which here I cannot urge"--and involuntarily his eye glanced
+towards his wife.
+
+An instinct of delicacy brightened the old man's perceptions. He bowed
+to Agatha. "We need not apologise for these discussions before a lady
+who has done my son the honour of uniting her fortune to his ancient
+family." (And he evidently thought the honour bestowed was quite as
+much on the Harper side.) "She, I am sure, will agree with me that this
+proceeding is not necessary."
+
+Agatha hesitated. Much as she longed to do it, a sense of right
+prevented her from openly siding against her husband. She kept silence;
+Nathanael answered with the tone of one who sets a strong guard upon his
+lips, almost stronger than he can bear:
+
+"I have already told my wife all the reasons I have just given you,
+that, since I am resolved to be independent, there is no way but this. I
+have been brought up abroad, and have learnt no profession; my health is
+not robust enough for a town life, or for hard study. Many, almost all
+the usual modes in which a man, born a gentleman, can earn his living
+are thus shut out from me. What Anne Valery offers me I _can_ do,
+and should be content in doing. Father, do not stand in the way of my
+winning for myself a little comfort--a little peace."
+
+Through his entreaty, earnest and manly as it was, there ran a sort of
+melancholy which surprised and grieved Agatha. Could this be the lover
+on whom, in giving him herself, she believed she had bestowed entire
+felicity? Had he too, like herself, found a something wanting in
+marriage, a something to fill up which he must needs resort to an active
+career of worldly toil? Would she never be able to make either him or
+herself truly happy? and if so, what was the cause?
+
+The Squire keenly regarded his son, who stood before him in an attitude
+so respectful yet so firm. Something seemed to strike him in the pale,
+delicate, womanish features; perhaps he saw therein the wife who had
+died when Nathanael was born, and whose death, people said, had chilled
+the father's heart strangely against the poor babe.
+
+"My son," he said, "you have been away from me nearly all your life--and
+where I have given little, I can require little. But I am an old man.
+Do not let me feel that you too are setting yourself against my grey
+hairs."
+
+"God knows, father, I would not for worlds! But what can I do? Anne,
+what can I do?"
+
+Anne rose, and leant over Mr. Harper's chair, like a privileged eldest
+daughter who secretly strengthened with her judgment the wisdom that
+was growing feeble through old age; doing it reverently, as we all would
+wish our children to do when our own light grows dim. For, alas! the
+wisest and firmest of us may come one day to mutter in the ears of
+a younger generation the senile cry, "I am old and foolish--old and
+foolish."
+
+"Dear friend--if Nathanael follows out this plan, it will be for the
+comfort and not the disquiet of your grey hairs. Think how pleasant
+always to have a son at hand, and a young, pretty Mrs. Harper to
+brighten Kingcombe Holm."
+
+This was a wise thrust--the old gentleman looked in his
+daughter-in-law's fair face, and bowed complacently.
+
+"Then, too, your son will live in the country, lead the life that he
+loves, and that you love--the very life which all these years you have
+been vainly planning for his brother."
+
+The Squire turned sharply round. "On that subject, if you please, we
+will be silent. Anne, Anne," he added, "do you want again to turn my
+plans aside? Would you take from me my other son also?"
+
+She drew back, much wounded.
+
+"No, no, my dear, I did not mean that. It was not your fault--you
+two were not suited for each other. Nevertheless, in spite of your
+wilfulness, in nothing but the name did I lose a daughter. Forgive me,
+Anne!"
+
+"My dear old friend," she whispered, and stole her fingers into the
+withered palm of the Squire. He kissed them with the grace of an old
+courtier: the tenderness of a father. She, though moved at his kindness,
+betrayed no stronger emotion; and Agatha, who had watched intently
+this little episode, confirmatory of an old suspicion of her own, was
+considerably puzzled thereby. If Anne Valery's life contained any sad
+secret, it was evidently not this. She had not remained an old maid for
+love of Major Harper.
+
+"Nathanael," said the old man, returning with dignity to the former
+conversation, "I would not be harsh or unjust. There is but one way to
+reconcile our opposing wills, since you are determined on this scheme of
+independence. You have told me your plan--will you accept mine?"
+
+"Let me hear it, father," answered Nathanael respectfully.
+
+"You have hitherto had nothing from me--your Uncle Brian insisted on
+that--nor will you ever have much; I must keep my property intact for
+the next heir of Kingcombe Holm. Nothing shall alienate the rights of
+my eldest son, with whom rests the honour of our family and name."
+
+Agatha noticing the determined pride with which her father-in-law said
+this, wondered that her husband listened with a lowered aspect and made
+no response. She thought it unbrotherly, unkind.
+
+"But," continued Mr. Harper, "though the chief of all I possess must
+remain secure for Frederick, I have a little besides, saved for my
+daughters' portions. If, with their consent, I lend you this, and you
+will embark in some profession"--
+
+"No, father, no! I will never take one farthing from you or my sisters!
+I will not again be burdened with other people's property! Oh for the
+days when I earned my own solitary bread from hand to mouth, and was
+free and at rest!"
+
+He spoke excitedly, and was only conscious of the extent of what he had
+said by feeling his wife's hand drop slowly from his own.
+
+"Nay, Agatha, I did not mean"--and he tried to draw it back again.
+"Forgive me."
+
+"Perhaps we have both need to forgive one another."
+
+No one heard this mournful whisper between the young husband and wife;
+they stood as if it had not been uttered--for both their consciences
+felt duty to be a bond as strong as love.
+
+And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten
+heavy strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time--too
+swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her
+pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon.
+
+"My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time
+has not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any
+of us. Let Agatha decide."
+
+The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a
+compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride
+of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will
+which any father looking into Nathanael's face could see was not to be
+threatened into concession.
+
+"_Pas aux dames,_" said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air.
+Then more seriously: "My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you
+stand between your husband and his father."
+
+Agatha, thrust into so new and important a position, felt a rush of
+temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss
+Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her
+husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain
+desperation.
+
+"He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful
+child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of
+what I shall say."
+
+And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly
+judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and
+a better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward
+and forward the still unfamiliar wedding-ring, until in accidentally
+feeling the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality.
+
+"I am a wife," she thought. "Under _all_ circumstances I will do a
+wife's duty." And with that determination all the pleasant little
+follies and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left
+her--as one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing
+else--resolute and at ease.
+
+She said very simply--almost childishly--taking her father-in-law's hand
+the while, "If you please, and if you would not be angry, I would rather
+do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best."
+
+In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes
+after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire
+had walked off, not angrily, but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss
+Valery's arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with
+Nathanael.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+"So here is the result of family dinner-parties, and family-talks kept
+up till midnight!" said Mary Harper, with a little natural acerbity.
+"It is provoking for the mistress of a precise household to sit waiting
+breakfast for a whole hour."
+
+"Mary, be charitable! We did not know you were ready, and we were so
+busy in my room. No laziness, was it, Agatha?"
+
+"No, indeed: I think Miss Valery is the very busiest woman I ever knew.
+How can she get through it all?"
+
+"Only by first making up my mind, and then acting upon it. Your
+husband's plan, too, I see. He and I shall get on as if we had worked
+together all our lives. Shall we not, my 'right-hand' Nathanael?"
+
+He answered pleasantly; he looked quite a new man this morning. "Yes: I
+seem to understand your ways already. My first half-hour's business in
+the memorable 'Anne's room' at Kingcombe Holm has been like a return of
+old times. What a woman you are! You might have been brought up as I was
+by Uncle Brian. You have just his ways."
+
+Anne smiled: and with a jest about the treble compliment he had
+contrived to pay, let the conversation slip past to other things.
+
+Mary and Eulalie talked excessively. They were both much scandalised by
+their brother's new position and intended course of life, to be put in
+practice immediately.
+
+Both the Miss Harpers were that sort of feminine minds which are like
+some kinds of flower-bells--the less fair the wider they open. Agatha
+wondered to see how very patient Miss Valery was over Mary's mild
+platitudes and Eulalie's follies. But Anne's good heart seemed to cast
+a shield of tenderness over everybody that bore the name of Harper. At
+length the young wife got tired of the after-breakfast discussion, which
+consisted of about a dozen different plans for the day--severally put
+up and knocked down again--each contradicting the other. The mild
+_laissez-faire_ of country life in a large family was quite too much for
+her patience; she longed to get up and shake everybody into common-sense
+and decision. But her husband and Miss Valery took everything
+easily--they were used to the ways at Kingcombe Holm.
+
+"Oh, if your sister Harriet would but come in, or Mr. Dugdale!" she
+whispered to her husband, "surely they would settle something."
+
+"Not at all; they would only make matters worse. And, look!--'speaking
+of angels, one often sees their wings.'--Is that you, Marmaduke?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+Mr. Dugdale walked in composedly through the sash-window, beaming around
+him a sort of general smile. He never attempted any individual greeting,
+and Agatha offering her hand, was met by his surprised but benevolent
+"Eh!" However, when required, he gave her a hearty grasp. After which,
+peering dreamily round the room, he pounced upon a queer-looking folio,
+and buried himself therein, making occasional remarks highly interesting
+of their kind, but slightly irrelevant to the conversation in general.
+Agatha amused herself with peeping at the title of the book--some
+abstruse work on mechanical science--and then watched the reader,
+thinking what great intellectual power there was in the head, and what
+acuteness in the eye. Also, he wore at times a wonderfully spiritual
+expression, strangely contrasting with the materiality of his daily
+existence. No one could see that look without feeling convinced that
+there were beautiful depths open only to Divinest vision, in the silent
+and abstracted nature of Marmaduke Dugdale. Nevertheless, he could be
+eminently practical now and then, especially in mechanics.
+
+"Nathanael, Nathanael! just look here. This is the very contrivance that
+would have suited Brian in his old clay-pits. See!"
+
+And he began talking in a style that was Greek itself to Agatha, but to
+which Nathanael, leaning over his chair-back, listened intelligently.
+It was very nice to see the liking between the two brothers-in-law--the
+young man so tender over the oddities of the elder one, who seemed such
+a strange mixture of the philosopher and the child. These were the sort
+of traits which continually turned Agatha's heart towards her husband.
+
+"Talking of clay-pits," said Duke, with a gleam of recollection, "I've
+something for you here!" He drew out of the voluminous mass of papers
+that stuffed his pockets one more carelessly scrawled than the rest.
+"It's a plan of my own, for giving a little help to our own clay-cutters
+and to the stone-cutters in the Isle of Portland, who are shockingly off
+in the winter sometimes. Here's Trenchard's name down for a good sum--it
+will make him and Free-trade popular, you know."
+
+And Mr. Dugdale smiled with the most amiable and innocent
+Machiavellianism.
+
+Nathanael shook his head mischievously, greatly to the amusement of his
+wife, who had stolen up to see what was going on, and stood hanging on
+his arm and peeping over at the illegible paper.
+
+"Excellent plan, Marmaduke--very long-headed. You give them Christmas
+dinners, and they give you--votes."
+
+"Bless you, no! That would be bribery. We"--he reflected a minute--"Oh,
+we will only help those who have got no votes."
+
+"Then the voters will all be against you."
+
+Mr. Dugdale, much puzzled, pushed up his hair until it stood right aloft
+on his forehead. Soon a dawn of satisfaction reappeared. "All against
+us? Dear me, no! They would be pleased to see their poor neighbours
+helped on in the world, as you or I would, you know. They'd side at once
+with Trenchard and Free-trade. Come now, Nathanael, you'll assist? By
+the way, somebody told me you were very rich--or at least that your wife
+was an heiress. She looks a kind little soul She'll put her name down
+under Anne Valery's here?"
+
+And he turned to Agatha with that air of frank goodness by which
+Marmaduke Dugdale could coax everybody round to his own ends.
+
+"Ay, that we will, though I suppose I am not so rich as Miss Valery.
+Still, we have enough to help poor people--have we not?"
+
+She appealed gaily to Mr. Harper, but he replied nothing. She persisted:
+
+"We need not give much, since Mr. Trenchard and Miss Valery are both on
+the list before us. We'll give--let me see--fifty pounds. Ah, now,
+just go up-stairs and fetch me down fifty pounds!" said she, hanging
+caressingly on her husband's arm.
+
+He looked down on her, and looked away. He had become very grave. "We
+will talk of this some other time, dear."
+
+"But another time will not do. I want it now. I fear," she whispered,
+blushing--"I fear, before I married, I was very thoughtless and selfish.
+I would like to cure myself, and spend my money usefully, as Anne Valery
+does. Charity is such a luxury."
+
+"Too dear a luxury for every one," said Nathanael sighing.
+
+She looked up, scarcely believing him to be in earnest. Her
+open-hearted, open-handed nature was much hurt. She said, with a bitter
+meaning:
+
+"I did not know I had such a very prudent husband."
+
+He took no notice, but addressed himself to Mr. Dugdale. "Nay, Duke, you
+and your benevolences are too hard upon us young married people. We must
+tighten our purse-strings against you this time."
+
+Agatha's cheek flamed. "But if _I_ wish it"--
+
+"Dear, it cannot be, we cannot afford it."
+
+Agatha moved angrily from his side, and soon after, though not so soon
+as to attract notice to him or herself, she quitted the room. Scarcely
+had she reached her own when she heard a step behind her.
+
+"Are you angry with me, my wife, and for such a little thing?"
+
+Nathanael stood there, holding both her hands, and looking down upon her
+with a face so kind, so regretful, so grave, that she felt ashamed of
+the quick storm which had ruffled her own spirit The cause of this did
+seem now a very "little thing." She hung her head, child-like, and made
+no answer.
+
+"Why is it," said Mr. Harper, putting his arm round her--"why is it that
+we are always having these 'little things' rising up to trouble us?
+Why cannot we bear with one another, and take the chance-happiness that
+falls to our lot? It is not much, I fear"--
+
+She looked uneasy.
+
+"Nay, perhaps that is chiefly my fault. I often wish Heaven had given
+you a better husband, Agatha."
+
+And his countenance was so softened, mournful, and tender, that Agatha's
+affection returned. There was something childish and foolish in these
+small wranglings. They wore her patience away. For the twentieth time
+she vowed not to make herself unhappy, or restless, or cross, but to
+take Nathanael's goodness as she saw it, believing in it and him. Since
+according to that wise speech of Harriet--which even Anne Valery smiled
+at and did not deny--the best of men were very disagreeable at times,
+and no man's good qualities ever came out thoroughly until he had been
+married for at least a year.
+
+With a tear in her eye and a quiver on her lip, Agatha held up her young
+face to her husband. He kissed her, and there was peace.
+
+But though he had made this concession, and made many others in the
+course of the next hour, to remove from her mind every thought of pain,
+still he showed not the slightest change of will regarding the cause of
+dispute. And perhaps in her secret heart this only caused his wife to
+respect him the more. It is usually the weak and erring who vacillate.
+Firmness of purpose, mildly carried out, implies a true motive at the
+root. Agatha began to think whether her husband might not have some
+reason for his conduct; probably the very simple one of disliking to see
+his name or her own paraded in a subscription-list, or mixed up with a
+political clique.
+
+Nevertheless, he puzzled her. She could not think why, with all his
+tenderness, he so often put his will in opposition to her own, and
+prevented her pleasure; why he was so slow in giving her his confidence;
+why he more than once plainly stated that there was "a reason" for
+various disagreeable whims, yet had not told her what that reason was.
+All these were trivial things--yet in the early sunrise of married life
+the least molehill throws a long black shadow.
+
+"I will be a wise woman. I will not disquiet myself in vain," said the
+little wife to herself, as her husband left her, in answer to repeated
+calls from some feminine voice which had just entered the house, and
+was immediately audible half over it. Harriet Dugdale's, of course. To
+her--sharp-sighted and merry-tongued woman that she was--Agatha would
+not for worlds have betrayed anything; so, dashing cold water on her
+forehead to hide the very near approach to tears, she quickly descended.
+
+Harrie was in a state of considerable indignation, mixed with laughter.
+"I never knew such people as you are! and certainly never was there the
+like of my Duke there. He set off to fetch you all to Corfe Castle--his
+own proposition. I waited an hour and a half--then I took the pony to
+see after you--and lo!--there he is, sitting quite at his ease. Oh,
+Duke--Duke!"
+
+She shook her riding-whip at him twice before she disturbed him from his
+book.
+
+"Eh, Missus--what do'ee want, my child?"
+
+"Want? Don't you see what a passion we're all in? Abuse him,
+Anne--Agatha--Nathanael! Do! I've no patience with him. Didn't he say
+himself that he would take us all to Corfe Castle? Oh, you--you"---- And
+Harrie looked unutterable things.
+
+Mr. Dugdale gazed round placidly. "Really, now, that's a pity! Never
+mind, Missus! I only forgot." And patting her hand with ineffable
+gentleness and good-humour, he opened his book again.
+
+"Oh, you--you"--here she put on a melodramatic scowl--"you inconceivably
+provoking, misty, oblivious, incomprehensible old darling!"
+
+And springing upon the back of his chair, Harrie hugged him to a degree
+that compelled the unfortunate philosopher to renounce his book. He took
+the caresses very patiently, and smiled with superior love upon his
+merry wife.
+
+"That'll do, Missus! Eh--and before folk, too! Now don't'ee, my child!"
+
+And shaking himself, hair and all, into something like order, he picked
+up the folio, tucked it under his arm, and wended his way through the
+window slowly down the lawn.
+
+Agatha glanced at her husband, who stood talking to Miss Valery. She
+wondered what Nathanael would say if _she_ were to take a leaf out of
+his sister's book, and treat her own liege lord after the unceremonious
+fashion of Harrie Dugdale!
+
+"There--off he goes, quite cross, no doubt." (He was smiling as
+benevolently as if he could embrace the whole world.) "But we must catch
+him at the stables. I brought White-star galloping after me, and Duke
+will rouse up when he sees his beloved horse. You shall take my pony,
+Agatha. Of course you can ride?"
+
+Agatha could--in a London riding-school and London parks. She had her
+doubts about the country, but felt strongly inclined to try; for Mrs.
+Dugdale had entered Kingcombe Holm like a breath of keen fresh air,
+putting life and spirit into everybody. Nathanael made no opposition,
+only he insisted on Mary's quiet grey mare being substituted for
+Harrie's skittish pony.
+
+"I shall ride with you part way," said he, "and then leave you in Mr.
+Dugdale's charge, while I stay at Kingcombe."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I have business there."
+
+Still the same weary "business" which he never explained or talked
+about, yet which always seemed to rise up like a bugbear on their
+pleasures, until Agatha was sick of the sound of the word!
+
+She turned away, and put herself altogether under Mrs. Dugdale's care to
+be equipped for the ride.
+
+Anne Valery, coming in with her quiet common sense, succeeded in making
+up the party, which, with one exception, Harrie had left to make itself
+up according to its own discretion. When Mrs. Harper descended, she
+found all settled for the spending of a day at Corfe Castle, in picnic
+style--glorious and free--with a moonlight canter home in the evening.
+No one was omitted except the Squire, who with considerable dignity
+declined such _al fresco_ amusements; and Anne Valery, who promised to
+peep in upon them as she passed the Castle on her way to her own house,
+after spending a few hours with Elizabeth.
+
+Agatha had never been on horseback since she was married. It made her
+feel like a girl again, and brought back all the wild spirits of her
+youth, now repressed in propriety by her changed life--until sometimes
+she hardly knew herself, or fancied she was growing into that object of
+her former scorn, an ordinary young lady. She cast the subdued and meek
+"Mrs. Locke Harper" to the winds, and dashed wildly back for this day at
+least into "Agatha Bowen."
+
+Her husband, putting her on her horse, with many injunctions, was
+surprised to see her give him a careless nod and dart off delightedly,
+as if she and the grey mare had wings. The Dugdales followed, a wild
+pair, for Marmaduke was quite another being on horseback.
+
+"Look at him, Agatha,"--and Harrie's laugh ringing on the wind caused
+the mild grey mare to seem rather restless in her mind. "Did you think
+my Duke could ride as he does? He never looks so well as on horseback.
+He is a perfect Thessalian!"
+
+Agatha was amused to find classic lore in Harrie Dugdale, and she gave
+most cordial admiration to Duke. "He is a magnificent rider; he sits the
+horse just as if he were born to it."
+
+"Bless him! so he was. He rode his father's horses at four years old,
+and went hunting at fourteen. And he has such a beautiful temper, and
+such a firm will besides--that he could manage the wildest brute in the
+county. See there!"
+
+White-star had become rather obstreperous, showing his spirit; his
+master carelessly lent down, giving him a box on each ear, just as if
+the stately blood horse had been a naughty child; then composedly rode
+him back to the two ladies.
+
+"Harrie! Missus! do'ee come on! Nathanael is behind, all right. Come
+along!"
+
+He gave his wife's pony a switch, and off they dashed, she laughing
+merrily, and he galloping away with such ease and grace that Agatha
+could not take her eyes off him.
+
+She looked after them with a vague sense of envy,--this odd married
+pair, in whose union so many things appeared unequal and peculiar,
+except for one thing--the love which hallowed and perfected all. When
+her own husband came up, she, unwilling to talk, and dreading above all
+that his quick eye should detect anything amiss in her, pushed her horse
+forward, and calling to Nathanael to follow, rode on after the Dugdales.
+
+Ere they had ridden far, all her wild spirits came back again, and all
+her wifely feelings too, for her husband seemed as happy as herself, and
+entered into all her frolics. They swept along like two children, across
+the breezy moors, purple and fragrant, down by the hilly sheep-paths,
+lying bare in autumn sunshine. Nathanael proved himself almost as good a
+horseman as Duke Dugdale: a great pleasure to Agatha, for of all things
+women do like a man to be manly. Nay, once, in the descent of a hill so
+steep, that a Cockney equestrian would have been frightened out of his
+seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief
+that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he snatched little
+Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been
+awakened towards him. She hinted this, and said how pleasant it was to
+feel that one's husband was, as she expressed it, "a man that could take
+care of one."
+
+"And how very foolish and helpless townfolk--drawing-room gentlemen,
+appear in the country! I wonder," and she could not help telling him the
+comical idea, though not very complimentary to her husband's brother--"I
+wonder how Major Harper would look on horseback?"
+
+"What did you say? The wind blew that sentence away."
+
+She hardly liked to repeat it exactly, but said something about Major
+Harper and his coming down to Dorset.
+
+Nathanael spurred his horse forward without replying. A minute
+afterwards he returned to his wife's side, bringing her a great bunch of
+heather, with yellow gorse mixed, and made jokes about the Dorsetshire
+saying, "When gorse is out of bloom kissing's out of season." And
+evermore he looked secretly at her, to notice if she laughed and was
+happy, had roses on her cheeks, and pleasure in her eyes. Seeing this,
+the husband appeared contented and at ease.
+
+They and the Dugdales rode merrily into Kingcombe, much to that good
+town's astonishment. The equestrian quartette at Marmaduke's door was
+a sight that the worthy inhabitants of that sleepy street would not get
+over for a week. Everybody gathered at doors and windows, and a small
+group of farmers at the market quadrangle stared with all their eyes.
+The sensation created was enormous, and likewise the crowd,--almost as
+dense as a wandering juggler gathers in a quiet suburban London street!
+Agatha, passing through it, laughed till she could laugh no longer.
+
+Her husband, pleased at her gaiety, came to lift her off her horse.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" Mrs. Dugdale cried. "Keep your seat, Agatha; no time
+to lose; on we go in a minute, when Duke has been to get his letters.
+Here, Brian, my pet."--There had rushed out round her horse a cluster of
+infantine Dugdales.--"Lift Brian up here, Uncle Nathanael, and I'll give
+him a canter. Bravo! He's Pa's own boy, born for a rider! Come along,
+Auntie Agatha."
+
+Agatha would willingly have followed down the street. She was amused by
+the daring of the mother and the boy, and amused especially by her new
+title of "Auntie Agatha."
+
+"Do let me go, Mr. Harper; I don't want to dismount, indeed."
+
+"But I have something to say to you--just a few words. We must decide
+to-day about the house, you know."
+
+"Never mind the house; I had rather not think about it." And the mere
+shadow of past vexation still vexed her. "Ah!" she added, entreatingly,
+"do be good to me--do let me enjoy myself for once!"
+
+"I would not prevent you for the world." He dropped her bridle with a
+sigh, and turned back among his little nephews.
+
+Fred had coaxed the horse from the groom, and Gus was bent on mounting;
+there was a dreadful struggle, and angry cries for Uncle Nathanael. In
+the midst of it Uncle Nathanael appeared, like an angel of peace, and
+setting the boys one behind another on his horse's back, led the animal
+up and down carefully.
+
+Agatha looked after them, thinking how kind and good her husband was.
+She wished she had not refused so hastily such a simple request; she
+began to think herself a wretch for ever contradicting him in anything.
+
+The little party started again, increased by the arrival of the family
+carriage from Kingcombe Holm, wherein sat Mary and Eulalie. To these
+were speedily added the three young Dugdales, all in high glee. And it
+spoke well for the Miss Harpers, whom Agatha was disposed to like least
+of her husband's relatives, that they made very lenient and kindly aunts
+to those obstreperous boys.
+
+Agatha was crossing the bridge which bounded South Street, trying to
+make her horse stand still while Mr. Dugdale pointed out the identical
+red cliff where the Danes drew up their ships, and laughing with Harrie
+at the notion of how terribly frightened the quiet souls in Kingcombe
+would be at such an incursion now, when Nathanael came on foot to his
+wife's side.
+
+"Why did you start without speaking to me?"
+
+"I could not help it; I thought you were gone. You will come after us
+soon?" And she felt angry with herself for having momentarily forgotten
+him.
+
+"I will come when I have settled this business of the house. You
+understand, Agatha, I am obliged to decide to-day? You will not blame
+me afterwards?"
+
+"Oh, no--no!" His extreme seriousness of manner jarred with her youthful
+spirits. She did not think or care about what he did, so that for this
+day only he let her be gay and happy. From some incomprehensible cause,
+his very love seemed to hang over her like a cloud, and so it had been
+from the beginning. She did so long to dash out into the sunshine of
+her careless, girlish life, and scamper over the beautiful country with
+Harrie Dugdale.
+
+"Oh, no!" she repeated only wishing to satisfy him. "Take any house you
+like, and come onward soon; and oh, do let us be cheerful and merry!"
+
+"We will!" His bright look as she patted his shoulder--a very
+venturesome act---gave her much cheer; and when, after she had cantered
+a good way down the road, she turned and saw him still leaning on the
+bridge looking after her, her heart throbbed with pleasure. Despite all
+his reserves and peculiarities, and her own conscious failings, there
+was one thing to which she clung as to a root of comfort that
+would never be taken away, and would surely bear blossom and fruit
+afterwards--the belief that her husband truly loved her.
+
+[Illustration: On horseback  p212]
+
+"If so," she thought, "I suppose all will come right in time, and Agatha
+Harper will be as happy as, or happier than, Agatha Bowen."
+
+So on she went, yielding to the delicious excitement of being on
+horseback. She was also much interested by the country round about,
+which appeared to her as old, desolate, and strange as if she had been
+a Thane's daughter riding across the moors to the gates of that renowned
+castle which, as Harrie declared, putting on the physiognomy of some
+school-child drawling out a history-lesson, "was celebrated for being
+the residence of the ancient Saxon kings."
+
+"And this was the place," continued she in the same tone, pointing to an
+old gate-post--"this was the place where His Majesty's most illustrious
+horse did stop when His Majesty's most sainted body was dragged along by
+the leg, in the stirrup, on account of the wound given him when he was
+a-drinking at the castle-door, by his stepmother, Queen Elfrida. All of
+which is to be seen to the present day."
+
+Agatha first laughed at this comical view of the subject, then she
+felt a little repugnance at hearing that stern old tragedy so lightly
+treated. As she walked her horse along the road which might have been,
+and probably was, the very same Saxon highway as in those times, she
+thought of the wounded horseman dashing out from between those green
+hills and of the murdered body dropping slowly, slowly from the saddle,
+dragged in dust, and beat against stones, until the woman that loved
+him--for even a king might have had some woman that loved him--would not
+have known the face she thought so fair.
+
+It was an idle fancy, but beneath it her tears were rising; chiefly
+for thinking, not of "The Martyr," but of the woman--whoever she
+was--(Agatha had not historical erudition enough to remember if King
+Edward had a wife)--to whom that day's tragedy might have brought
+a lifetime's doom. She began to shudder--to feel that she too was a
+wife--to understand dimly what a wife's love might come to be--also
+something of a wife's terrors. She wished--it was foolish enough, but
+she did wish that Nathanael had not been riding on horseback, or else
+that, in picturing to herself the dead head of the Martyr dragged along
+the road, she did not always see it with long fair hair. And then she
+wondered if these horrible fancies indicated the dawning of that feeling
+which she had deceived herself into believing she already possessed. Was
+she beginning to find out the difference between that quiet response
+to secured affection, that pleasant knowledge of being loved, and
+the strong, engrossing, self-existent attachment which Anne Valery
+described--the passion which has but one object, one interest, one joy,
+in the whole wide world?
+
+Was she beginning really _to love_ her husband?
+
+The answer to that question involved so much, both of what had been, and
+what was yet to come, that Agatha dared not ponder over it.
+
+"Mrs. Harper! Mrs. Harper!" She mused no longer, but hurried on after
+the Dugdales.
+
+It was not to point out the Castle that Harrie had been so vociferous,
+but to show a place which she evidently deemed far more interesting.
+
+"Do you see that white house far among the trees? That's where my Duke
+was born. He lived there in peace and quietness till he got acquainted
+with Uncle Brian, and came to Kingcombe Holm and fell in love with me."
+
+"How did he do it? I want to know what is the fashion of such things in
+Dorset."
+
+"How did Duke fall in love with me? Really I can't tell. I was fifteen
+or so--a mere baby! He first gave me a doll, and then he wanted to marry
+me!"
+
+"But how did he make love, or 'propose' as they call it?" persisted
+Agatha, to whom the idea of Marmaduke Dugdale in that character was
+irresistibly funny.
+
+"Make love? Propose? Bless you, my dear, he never did either! Somehow it
+all came quite naturally. We belonged to one another."
+
+The very phrase Anne Valery had used! It made Nathanael's wife rather
+thoughtful. She wondered what was the feeling like, when people
+"belonged to one another."
+
+But she had no time for meditation; for now the great grey ruin loomed
+in sight, and everybody, including the shouting boys in the carriage
+behind, was eager to point it out, especially when Agatha made the
+lamentable confession that she had never seen a ruined castle in her
+life before.
+
+"And you might go all over England and not find such another as this,"
+said Mr. Dugdale, riding up to her with a smile of great satisfaction.
+"Nobody thinks much of it in these parts, and few antiquarians ever come
+and poke about it. Perhaps it's as well. They couldn't find out more
+than we know already. But no!"--and his eye, taking in the noble
+old ruin arched over by the broad sky, assumed its peculiar dreamy
+expression--"We don't know anything. Nobody knows anything about this
+wonderful world!"
+
+Agatha looked around. On the top of a smooth conical hill, each side of
+which was guarded by other two hills equally smooth and bare, rose the
+wreck of the magnificent fortress, enough of the walls remaining to show
+its extent and plan. Its destroyer had been--not Father Time, who does
+his work quietly and gracefully--but that worse spoiler, man. Huge
+masses of masonry, hurled from the summit, lay in the moat beneath,
+fixed as they had been for centuries, with vegetation growing over them.
+Some of the walls, undermined and shaken from their foundations, took
+strange, oblique angles, yet refused to fall. Marks of cannon-balls were
+indented on the stonework of the battered gateway, which still remained
+a gateway--probably the very same under which Queen Elfrida, "fair and
+false," had offered to her son the stirrup-cup.
+
+The general impression left on the mind was not that of natural decay,
+solemn and holy, but of sudden destruction, coming unawares, and
+struggled against, as a man in the flower of life struggles with
+mortality. There was something very melancholy about the ruined fortress
+left on the hill-top in sight of the little town close below, where its
+desolation was unheeded. Agatha, sensitive, enthusiastic, and easily
+impressed, grew silent, and wondered that her companions could laugh
+so carelessly, even when passing under the grey portal into the very
+precincts of the deserted castle.
+
+"We shall not find a soul here," said Harrie; "scarcely anybody ever
+comes at this season, except when our Kingcombe Oddfellows' Club have
+a picnic on this bowling-green; or schoolboys get together and climb
+up the ivy to frighten the jackdaws--my husband has done it many a
+time--haven't you, Duke?"
+
+"I see mamma," vaguely responded Duke, who was busy lifting his boys
+down from the carriage, with a paternal care and tenderness beautiful
+to see. He then, with one little fellow on his shoulder, another holding
+his hand, and a third clinging to his coat-tails, strode off up the
+green ascent, without paying the slightest attention to Mrs. Harper.
+Which dereliction from the rules of politeness it never once came into
+her mind to notice or to blame.
+
+"There they go! Nobody minds me; it's all Pa!" said Mrs. Dugdale, with
+an assumption of wrath; a very miserable pretence, while her look was so
+happy and fond. "You see, Agatha, what you'll come to--after ten years'
+matrimony!"
+
+Agatha's heart was so full, she could not laugh but sighed, yet it was
+not with unhappiness.
+
+He and Harrie wandered over the castle together, for the two Miss
+Harpers did not approve of climbing. The little boys and "Pa" reappeared
+now and then at all sorts of improbable and terrifically dangerous
+corners, and occasionally Mrs. Dugdale made frantic darts after them.
+Especially when they were all seen standing on one of the topmost
+precipices, the father giving a practical scientific lesson on the
+momentum of falling bodies; in illustration of which Harrie declared he
+would certainly throw little Brian out of his arms, in a fit of absence
+of mind, thoroughly believing the child was a stone.
+
+At last, when their excitement had fairly worn itself out, and even Mrs.
+Dugdale's energetic liveliness had come to a dead stop in consequence
+of a fit of sleepiness and crossness on the part of Brian--Agatha roamed
+about the old castle by herself; creeping into all the queer nooks with
+a childish pleasure, mounting impassable walls so as to find the highest
+point of view. She always had a great delight in climbing, and in
+feeling herself at the top of everything.
+
+It was such a strange afternoon too, grey, soft, warm, the sun having
+long gone in and left an atmosphere of pleasant cloudiness, tender and
+dim, the shadowing over of a fading day, which nevertheless foretells no
+rain, but often indicates a beautiful day to-morrow. Somehow or other,
+it made Agatha think of Miss Valery; nor was she surprised when,
+as suddenly as if she had dropped out of the sky, Anne was seen
+approaching.
+
+"Let me help you up these stones. How good of you to come, and how tired
+you seem!"
+
+"Oh no, I shall be rested in a minute. But I am not quite so young as
+you, my dear."
+
+She came up and leaned against the ivy-wall that Agatha had climbed,
+which was on the opposite side of the hill to the bowling-green, the
+gathering-spot of the little party. It was a nook of thorough solitude
+and desolation, nothing being visible from it but the widely extended
+flat of country, looking seaward, though the sea itself was not in view.
+
+"Why did you climb so high?" said Agatha, as, earnestly regarding her
+friend, she perceived more than ever before the difference in their
+years, and felt strongly tempted to wrap her strong young arms round
+Miss Valery's waist, and support her with even a daughter's care.
+
+"I shall be well presently," Anne repeated, with cheerfulness. "I have
+not climbed up to this spot for many years. I thought I would like to
+come here once again."
+
+She sat down on a flat stone raised upon two others.
+
+"What a comfortable seat! It might have been made on purpose for you."
+
+"So it was--long ago. No one has disturbed it since. Come, my dear."
+
+She drew Agatha beside her--there was just room for two; and they sat in
+silence, looking at the view, except that Agatha sometimes cast her eyes
+about rather restlessly. It was a magical answer to her thoughts when
+Anne observed:
+
+"I met your husband as I drove through Kingcombe. He desired me to
+tell you he was detained a little, but would be here ere long. How very
+thoughtful and good he is!"
+
+Agatha said "Yes"--a mere "Yes," quiet and low.
+
+Miss Valery made no further remark, but sat a long time, absently
+gazing over the low-lying sweep of country which gradually melted into a
+greyness that looked like sea.
+
+"Is it the sea?" asked Mrs. Harper.
+
+"No, it lies yonder, behind the hill opposite--where there is the smoke
+of the furze burning. From that spot I should think one could trace the
+line of coast almost to Weymouth. Do you remember ever seeing Weymouth?"
+
+"No! how could I?" returned Agatha, surprised by the suddenness of the
+question, and its form. "I never was in Dorsetshire before."
+
+Anne said something, either in jest or earnest, about one's often
+fancying one has seen places in a previous existence, and changed the
+theme by pointing out the view on the other hand. "My house, Thornhurst,
+lies in that direction. You must come and see me soon, and we will talk
+more pleasantly than I can do to-day. It is so strange to be sitting
+here with Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+"Why so? What makes you so often call me by that name?"
+
+"Only a whim I have. But is it not a good name--a beautiful name? Ah,
+you child!--you poor little one! To think of _you_ becoming Mrs. Locke
+Harper!"
+
+There was a pathos--a kind of tender retrospection in Anne Valery's
+manner as she touched the brown curls and smoothed the neat dress,
+which--riding hat and skirt having been laid aside or tucked up--made
+a pretty mountain-maiden out of Nathanael's wife. Agatha never could
+understand the peculiar fondness with which Miss Valery sometimes
+regarded her--to-day especially. She seemed constantly on the point of
+saying something--which she never did say. At last she rose from the
+stone seat.
+
+"We will talk another day. We must go now." Yet she lingered. "Just
+let us stand here, in this exact spot; and look at the view." She
+looked--her eyes absorbing it from every point, as one drinks in, for
+the last time, a long-familiar draught of landscape beauty.. "My dear!"
+
+The whisper was strangely soft--even solemn.
+
+"You will remember, dear, it was I that brought you here first. You'll
+come here sometimes, will you not?"
+
+"Oh, very often indeed! It is a delicious place."
+
+"I thought so when I was your age. And you'll not forget the stone seat,
+Agatha? I hope no one will disturb it. Good-bye! poor old stone."
+
+Saying this in a whisper, she stooped and patted it with her hand--the
+thin white hand that might once have been so round, pretty, and young.
+The act, natural even to childishness, might have made Agatha smile,
+but for a certain something about Miss Valery that invested with dignity
+even her simplicities. So, merely echoing "Goodbye, old stone!" she
+followed Anne down the slope.
+
+After a loud-lamenting adieu, especially from the Dugdale boys, Miss
+Valery mounted her little carriage and drove away into the gathering
+shadow--Agatha knew not where.
+
+"What a good woman she is! I wish we were all like her!" she said,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"My dear, nobody can be, especially with a husband and four children. It
+is a blessing to society in general that Anne Valery never married."
+
+"But people do marry late in life sometimes. So may she. Do you think
+she will?"
+
+"Can't say! Don't know! Very mysterious!" ejaculated Harrie. "My brother
+Fred once hinted--and Fred was a very fascinating young fellow when I
+was a child--But all that belongs to the year One. I'll hold my tongue."
+
+Agatha had too much delicacy to inquire further. Still, it seemed very
+odd that there should be a general impression of Anne's early attachment
+to Major Harper, in contradistinction to the old Squire's regretful hint
+that she had refused his eldest son. But these scraps of romance, so far
+back in the past, were useless searching.
+
+"An excellent woman is Anne Valery," continued Harrie--"really
+excellent: but sometimes rather a bore to her friends who have families.
+My Duke often forgets he has four children to provide for, when he
+listens to her charitable schemes. 'Twas but the other day he and she
+were mad about some starving Cornish miners that she sent poor Mr.
+Wilson to look after."
+
+"Ah, I remember," cried Agatha, now interested in things which she had
+before heard indifferently. She was thirsting for some opportunity of
+doing good--of redeeming the long waste of idle years and unemployed
+fortune. "Do tell me about those miners."
+
+"Little to tell, my dear. Only philanthropic ideas about helping poor
+wretches that had been thrown out of work by some cheating speculators
+shutting up the mines. Anne sent Wilson to find out who the man was, and
+what could be done. After that I never heard any more of it, nor did my
+husband either.--Stop--don't run and question him! For goodness' sake
+let the nonsense drop out of his poor dear head."
+
+Agatha, thus rebuffed, ceased her inquiries, but she inwardly resolved
+to find out all about the Cornish miners, and consult with her husband
+about assisting them. He could not object to this good deed--it should
+be done as privately as ever he liked--she would take care not even to
+make mention of it before anybody, as in the matter of the subscription.
+And surely, though he was strange and had his peculiar notions,
+Nathanael was generous at heart, and would not thwart her in anything
+really essential, especially when she only wished to follow in the steps
+of Anne Valery, and use worthily her large fortune.
+
+With these thoughts elevating and cheering her mind, she sat and watched
+for her husband until he came. She was so glad to see him that she quite
+forgot to inquire about the house. He seemed at first expectant of her
+questions, and rather grave, but at last gave himself up to the general
+merry mood.
+
+Once only, when they were riding homeward side by side, the fading
+sunset before them, and the low moon hiding herself behind the great
+black hill of Corfe, Nathanael suddenly said:
+
+"My dear Agatha, perhaps you would like me to tell you"--
+
+"No," she cried, with a quick instinct of reluctance. "Tell me nothing
+to-night. Let us be happy for this one day."
+
+Her husband sighed, and was silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"Agatha, will you come out and walk with me?"
+
+"Do you not see it is raining?"
+
+He had not indeed, though he had stood at the window in meditation ever
+since breakfast-time. As for Agatha, she had been so tired with her
+excursion the previous day that she had done nothing but sleep, and
+had scarcely opened her lips to her husband or to any one. Now, on this
+rainy day, she felt the reaction of her high spirits--was dull, dreamy;
+wished her husband would come and talk to her, and "make a baby" of
+her. She could not think why he stood at that odious window, pondering,
+counting rain-drops apparently, and then made the unaccountable
+proposition of a walk.
+
+"Raining, is it?" He looked up at the murky sky. "What a change from
+last night."
+
+"I did not know you were so subject to elemental influences?"
+
+"We all are, more or less; but I was just then thinking about other
+things than what I spoke of. My dear wife, I want to talk to you very
+much. Where shall we go, so as not to be interrupted?"
+
+"Anywhere you like," said she, resigning herself to her fate and to a
+long argument, which she supposed was about the new house. She did
+not remember about it clearly, but she had a floating suspicion that
+Nathanael was determined to settle the matter soon, and that she
+should have a hard struggle between the pretty house she liked, and Mr.
+Wilson's cottage, which her husband so unaccountably preferred. This was
+a matter in which she could not yield, come what might. Therefore
+the "anywhere you like" was in rather an ungracious manner. He seemed
+determined not to observe this.
+
+"Suppose we go into the conservatory;--you have never seen it. But put
+on something to keep you warm."
+
+He wrapped Mary's crimson garden-shawl over her head--clumsily enough,
+for Mr. Harper was not a "ladies' man;" his whole character and habits
+of life being in curious opposition to the extreme delicacy which Nature
+had externally stamped upon his appearance. Pausing, he held his wife at
+arm's length, gazing at her admiringly.
+
+"Will that do? What a gipsy you look, with your red shawl and brown
+face!"
+
+"Pawnee-face, you know! Do you remember how you once called me so, and
+how your brother"--
+
+"Come, let us go," he said abruptly, and hurried her through the
+drawing-rooms. Agatha was rather hurt that his aspect should change so
+cloudily, and that he should thus quench her little reminiscences of
+courtship-days, so dear to every happy wife, and gradually becoming
+dearer even to herself. As they entered the conservatory, she shivered
+with an uncomfortable sense of gloom.
+
+"What a large, bare place! Even the vines look cheerless--and where have
+they put all the flowers? What a shame to send them away, and turn it
+into a billiard-room."
+
+"It was done years ago, to please--my brother"--(Agatha was amazed at
+the hard tone of that tender fraternal word--so can the sense of words
+alter in the saying)--"and my father will not have it removed."
+
+"He must have been very fond of your brother," said Agatha, as, with
+a woman's natural leaning to the injured side, she thought of Major
+Harper--his gaiety and his good-nature. She wondered why Nathanael was
+so rigid and cold in his forced and rare mentioning of his brother's
+name. As she pondered, her eyes took a serious shadow in their depths.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Agatha?"
+
+The suddenness of the question--the consciousness that she might vex
+Nathanael did she answer it--made her hesitate, blushing vividly--nay,
+painfully.
+
+"No, don't tell me. I want to hear nothing, nothing, Agatha. I have
+before told you so. Do not be afraid."
+
+"How strange you are! What should I be afraid of?"
+
+"Nothing. Forget I said anything. You are my wife now--mine--mine!" and
+for a moment he pressed her hand tightly. "In time"--he relinquished his
+hold with a sad smile--"in time, Agatha, I hope we shall become used to
+one another; perhaps even grow into a contented, sedate married couple."
+
+"Do you think so?" Alas! far more than this had been her thought--the
+thought which had dawned when she paused, shuddering over the tale of
+King Edward the Martyr and the woman that loved him--the dim hope, daily
+rising, of an Eden not altogether lost, even though she had married so
+rashly and blindly--a hope that this might have been only the burying of
+her foolish girlish dream of love, which must needs die in order to be
+raised up again in a different form and in a new existence.
+
+Somewhat heavy-hearted, Agatha sat down on a raised bench that looked
+down on the battered and decaying billiard-table, listening to the rain
+that pattered on the glass roof above the vine-leaves--wondering how old
+were the ragged-looking, flowerless, fruitless orange-trees that were
+ranged on either side, the only other specimens of vegetation left.
+Evidently nobody at Kingcombe Holm cared much for flowers.
+
+"I think we will quit this dull place. You do not seem to like it,
+Agatha?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I like it well enough. I like the rain falling, falling, and
+the vine-branches crushing themselves against the panes. They'll never
+ripen, never--poor things! They are dying for sun, and it will not--will
+not shine!"
+
+"Agatha, what do you mean?"
+
+"I don't clearly know what I mean. Never mind. Talk to me
+about--whatever it was that you brought me to unfold. Be quick--I have
+not a large stock of patience, you know of old."
+
+"Do not laugh, for I am serious. I wanted to talk to you about our new
+house."
+
+"Our new house! Where and what like is it to be, I wonder!"
+
+"Do you not recollect?"
+
+"No; the two we looked at would not do," said Agatha, determinedly. She
+guessed what was coming--that the discussion about Wilson's cottage,
+which Nathanael seemed so to have set his heart upon, was about to be
+renewed. But she would never consent to that--never! "The house I liked
+you did not approve of," she continued, observing her husband's silence.
+"The other I could not think of for a moment."
+
+"But supposing there was no alternative, since we must settle at once?"
+
+"This is the first time you have condescended to inform me of that
+necessity."
+
+"If," he went on, taking no notice of her sharp speech, but speaking
+with the extreme gentleness of one who himself feels tenfold the pain he
+is compelled to inflict--"if, as I told you yesterday, we ought to form
+our plans immediately; and since, Kingcombe being such a small place,
+there is at present no choice left us but those two houses"--
+
+"Build one! We are rich enough."
+
+"Not quite." His eyes dropped, almost like those of guilt. After a
+pause, he cried out violently:
+
+"Agatha, a secret at one's heart is ten times worse to the keeper of it
+than it can be to any one else. Have pity for me, have patience with me,
+just for a little while."
+
+"What are you talking about? What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing," said he. "Nothing to harm your peace, my little wife. Believe
+me, I have committed no greater crime, than"--
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Than having taken Wilson's cottage."
+
+He tried by smiling to teach her to make light of it--perhaps because it
+was a thing so light to him. But Agatha was enraged beyond endurance.
+
+"You have absolutely taken it--that mean, wretched hovel that I told you
+I hated;--taken it secretly, without my knowledge or consent!"
+
+"You mistake there. I told you we were obliged to decide yesterday; you
+were unwilling to consult with me, and at last--do you remember? you
+left the decision in my hands. I merely believed your own words, and
+knowing the necessity of acting upon them, did so. I cannot think I was
+wrong."
+
+"Oh, no! Not at all!" cried Agatha, laughing wildly. "It was only like
+you--under-handed in stealing my few pleasures--very frank and open when
+you can rule. Never honest or candid with me, except to my punishment. A
+kind, generous husband, truly!"
+
+These and a torrent more of bitter words she poured out. She never knew
+till now the passion, the galling sarcasm, there was in her nature. She
+felt a longing to hate--a wish to wound. Every time she looked at her
+husband, there seemed a demon rising up within her--that demon which
+lurks strangely enough in the heart's closest and tenderest depths.
+
+"Cannot you speak!" she cried, going up to him. "Anything is better than
+that wicked silence. Speak!"
+
+"Agatha!"
+
+"No--I'll not hear you. See what you have done--how you have made me
+disgrace myself" and she almost sobbed.--"Never in my life was I in a
+passion before."
+
+"Is it my fault then?" said he, mournfully.
+
+"Yes, yours. It is you who stir up all these bad feelings in me.. I was
+a good girl, a happy girl, before you married me."
+
+"Was it so? Then you shall be held blameless. Poor child--poor child!"
+
+His unutterable regret, his entire prostration, stung her to the heart,
+and silenced her for the moment; but speedily she burst out again:
+
+"You call me a child--so perhaps I am, in years; but you should have
+thought of that before. You married me, and made me a woman. You took
+away my gay childish heart, and yet in all humiliating things you still
+treat me like a child."
+
+"Do I?" He answered mechanically, out of thoughts that lay deep down,
+far below the surface of his wife's bitter words. These last awoke
+in him not one ray of anger--not even when at last, in a fit of
+uncontrollable petulance, she tore his hand from before his eyes,
+bidding him look at her--if he dared.
+
+"Yes, I dare." And the look she courted, arose steady, sorrowful, like
+that of a man who turns his eyes upward, hopeless yet faithful, out of a
+wrecked ship. "Whatever has been, or may come, God knows that, from the
+first, I did love you, Agatha."
+
+Wherefore had he used the word "did!" Why could she not smother down
+the unwonted pang, the new craving? Or rather, why could she not throw
+herself in his arms and cry out, "Do you love me--do you love me now?"
+Pride--pride only--the restless wild nature upon which his reserve fell
+like water upon fire, without the blending spirit of conscious love
+which often makes two opposite temperaments result in closest union.
+
+Nevertheless, she was somewhat soothed, and began to compress the mass
+of imaginary wrongs into the one little wrong which had originated it
+all.
+
+"What made you take a liking to that miserable house? I hate small
+rooms--I cannot breathe in them--I have never been used to a little
+house. Why must I now? I am not going to be extravagant--nobody could be
+if they tried, in a poor place like Kingcombe. Since you _will_
+insist on our living there, and _will_ carry out your cruel pride of
+independence"--
+
+"Cruel--oh, Agatha!" He absolutely groaned.
+
+"Wishing no extravagance, I do wish for comfort--perhaps some little
+elegance--as I have had all my life."
+
+"You shall have it still, Agatha," her husband muttered. "I will coin my
+heart's blood into gold but you shall have it."
+
+"Now you are talking barbarously! Or else--how very very wrong am I!
+What can be the reason that we torture each other so?"
+
+"Fate!" he cried, pacing wildly up and down. "Fate! that has netted
+us both to our own misery--nay, worse--to make us the misery of one
+another. Yet how could I know? You seemed a young simple girl, free to
+love--I felt sure I could make you love me. Poor dupe that I was! Oh,
+why did I ever see you, Agatha Bowen?"
+
+He snatched his wife on his knee, and kissed her repeatedly--madly--just
+as he had done on the morning of their wedding-day; never since! Then he
+let her go--almost with coldness.
+
+"There--I will not vex you. I must not be foolish any more."
+
+Foolish! He thought it foolish to show that he loved her! Without
+replying, Agatha sat down on the bench where her husband placed her. He
+might say what he liked: she was very patient now.
+
+He began to explain his reasons for taking the house; that he had
+naturally more acquaintance with worldly matters than she had; that
+whatever their income, it was advisable for young people to begin
+housekeeping prudently, since it was easy to increase small beginnings,
+while of all outward domestic horrors there was nothing greater than the
+horror of running into debt. When he talked thus, at once with wisdom
+and gentleness, Agatha began to forgive him.
+
+"After all," said she, brightening, "your prudence--which I might
+call by a harder word, but I'll be good now--your prudence is only
+restraining me in my little pleasures, and I don't much mind. But if you
+ever tried to restrain me in a matter of kindness, as you did yesterday,
+only I guessed the motive"--
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"There--don't look so startled and displeased. I saw you did not like
+the _eclat_ of political charities. But another time, if I want to do
+good--like Anne Valery, only in a very, very much smaller way--Hark!
+what is that noise?"
+
+It was a decent-looking working-man, standing out in the pouring rain,
+watching them through the panes, and rattling angrily at the locked
+conservatory-door.
+
+"What a fierce eye! It looks quite wolfish. What can he want with us?"
+
+"I will go and see. Some labourer wanting work, probably; but the fellow
+has no business to come beckoning and interrupting. Stay here, Agatha."
+
+"No--I will come with you." And she tripped after her husband, the
+momentary content of her heart creating a longing to do good--a sort of
+tithe of happiness thankfully paid to Heaven.
+
+Nathanael unfastened the glass-door, not without annoyance; for, unlike
+his wife, _his_ joy-tithe was not yet due.
+
+"What do you want, my good fellow?"
+
+"Some o' th' Harpers."
+
+"Indeed! Are you after work? You don't look like one of the
+clay-cutters. Where do you come from?"
+
+"I be Darset, I be; but I comed fra Carnwall."
+
+"From where?" asked Agatha, puzzled by the provincialism, and attracted
+at once by the man's intelligent face, and by a keen, misery-stricken,
+hungry look, which she had truly called "wolfish."
+
+"I be comed fra the miners in Carnwall," reiterated the man, raising
+his voice threateningly. "They sent I back to Darset to see some o' th'
+Harpers."
+
+"You must go in, Agatha; it is cold. I cannot have you standing here.
+Go--quick." And Agatha was astonished to see how pallid and eager her
+husband looked, and how anxious he seemed to get her out of the way.
+
+"No, thank you. I am not cold at all. I want to hear this man. Perhaps
+he is one of the poor miners Miss Valery spoke of at Wheal--what was
+it?"
+
+"I be comed fra Wheal Caroline, Missus, and I do want one o' th'
+Harpers. There be the old 'un at the window! Thick's the man for we."
+
+And he was hurrying off to the bow-window of the Squire's room, which
+was alongside of the conservatory. But Nathanael called him back
+imperatively.
+
+"Stay, friend. My father has nothing to do with the mines--it is I. I'll
+speak to you presently.--Some business of Anne's," he explained hastily
+to his wife. "Leave us, dear."
+
+"Why do you make me go in? I want to hear about the poor miners; I want
+to help them, as well as Anne Valery."
+
+"Do'ee help we, Missus!" implored the man, softened by a woman's kind
+looks. "Do'ee give we some'at to keep 'un fra starving!"
+
+"Starving!" cried Agatha in horror. And even her husband's anxiety
+was for the moment quelled in the deep pity which overspread his
+countenance.
+
+"It be nigh that, I tell'ee. Us be no cheats--there be other folk as has
+cheated we. Fine grand folk as knew nowt o' the mines, but shut 'un up,
+and paid no money."
+
+"How wicked!"
+
+"But I be come to find 'un out," cried the man fiercely, as his eye lit
+on Nathanael. "For I do know thick fine folk. And I tell'ee"--
+
+"Silence! you forget you are speaking before a lady. Wait for me, and I
+will talk with you."
+
+"Will'ee, Mister? Don't'ee cheat, now!" said the miner, with a rude
+attempt at a sneer.
+
+The young man's cheek flushed, but he said very quietly--
+
+"I promise you, I will speak with you here in half-an-hour. I am
+Nathanael Harper--Mr. Harper's youngest son."
+
+After a minute's keen observation, the miner pulled off his cap
+respectfully. "Thank'ee, sir! You bean't _he_, I see. But you be th' old
+Squire's son, and--I be Darset, I be!"
+
+Another bow--the involuntary respect to the ancient county family from
+honest labour born upon its ancestral sod, and the man leaned exhausted
+against the ragged stem of one of the old vines.
+
+"Missus," he said, looking up hungrily--at the lady this time--
+"Missus, do'ee gie 'un a bit o' bread!"
+
+Agatha, full of compassion, was eager to send the servants or take him
+into the kitchen, or even fetch him his dinner with her own hands. Mr.
+Harper interfered.
+
+"I will bring him some food myself. Stay here, my man; don't stir hence.
+Remember, you have nothing to do with my father."
+
+There was a warning severity in the tone which annoyed Agatha. Why did
+her husband speak harshly to the poor miner?
+
+Still she obeyed Mr. Harper's evident wish that she should go away; and
+spent the time in Elizabeth's room, telling her of this little incident.
+
+Miss Harper listened with all the quick intelligence of her bright eyes.
+The only remark she made was:
+
+"What could have led this miner to come back to Dorsetshire after our
+family?"
+
+Agatha had never thought of this, indeed she did not want to think. Her
+heart was brimming with charity. She longed to empty it out in a torrent
+of benefactions, to which even Anne Valery's constant stream of good
+deeds appeared measured and slow. Elizabeth watched her with a strange
+piercing expression--Elizabeth, who from her silent nest seemed to
+behold all things clearer, like a spirit sitting halfway in upper air,
+to whose passionless wide vision distant mazes take form and proportion.
+Often, there was something almost supernatural in Elizabeth and her
+attentive eyes.
+
+"My dear," she said at last, when Agatha paused for a response to her
+own enthusiasm, "Man proposes--God disposes! Go and talk over these
+things with your husband first." Agatha went.
+
+She met Nathanael on the staircase, going up to their own room.
+
+"Ah; is it you? I am so glad. Come and tell me what has been done about
+the poor miner."
+
+"He is gone. I have sent him back to Cornwall."
+
+"What, so soon? Not to starve at that Wheal--Wheal something or other--I
+always forget the name?"
+
+"Do forget it. Don't let the matter trouble my little wife. Let her run
+down-stairs and think of something else."
+
+He patted her head with assumed carelessness, and was passing her by;
+but she stopped him.
+
+"Ah! there it is--I am always to be a child! I am to run down-stairs
+and think of something else, while you go and shut yourself up to
+ponder over this affair. But I will not be shut out; I will go with
+you;--come!"
+
+In playful force she drew him to their room, and closed the door.
+
+"Now, sit down, and tell me the whole story. Why, how grave and pale
+it has made you look! But never mind; we'll find out a plan to help the
+poor people."
+
+He gave some inarticulate assent, which checked her by its coldness,
+sank on the chair she placed, and folded his fingers tightly in one
+another, so that Agatha could not even strengthen herself in the bold
+projects she was about to communicate, by stealing her own into her
+husband's hand. However, she placed herself on the floor at his feet, in
+the attitude of a Circassian beauty; or--she accidentally thought--not
+unlike a Circassian slave.
+
+"Begin, please! I must hear about these mines."
+
+"I doubt if you could understand,--at least with the few explanations I
+am able to give you at present."
+
+"Nevertheless, I'll try. Why are the poor men starving in this way?"
+
+"You heard but now. Because the mines were first opened on a
+speculation, worked carelessly--dishonestly I fear--till the
+speculator's money failed, and the vein stopped. Then the miners being
+thrown out of employ were reduced to great distress, as this man tells
+me."
+
+"But why should he have come here after your father?"
+
+"And," continued Nathanael, in a quick and rather inexplicable
+correlative, "the mines were lately sold as waste land. Anne Valery
+bought them."
+
+"Why did she do that?"
+
+"Out of charity; that she might begin some employment--flax-growing, I
+think--to find food for the poor people. There the tale's ended, my Lady
+Inquisitive. Will you go down to my sisters?"
+
+"Not yet. I want to talk to you a little--a very little longer. May I?"
+
+And she drooped her head, blushing as the young will blush over the same
+charitable feeling which the old and hardened ostentatiously parade.
+
+Mr. Harper gazed hopelessly around, as if longing any means of escape
+and solitude. His wife saw him and was pained.
+
+"What--are you tired of me?"
+
+"No, no, dear, Only I am so busy--and have so many things to think about
+just now."
+
+"Tell me some of them."
+
+"What--tell you all my business mysteries," he returned, playfully.
+"Didn't you say to me once, before we were married, that you hated
+secrets, and never could keep one in your life?"
+
+"It is true--quite true. I do hate them," cried Agatha.
+
+"And for all your smiling, I know you are keeping back something from me
+now."
+
+"Foolish little wife!"
+
+"Foolish--but still a wife. Look at me and tell the truth. Is there
+anything in your heart which I do not know?"
+
+"Yes, Agatha, several things."
+
+The sudden change from jest to deep earnest startled the wife so much
+that she was struck dumb.
+
+"Circumstances may happen," he continued, "which a husband cannot always
+tell to his wife, especially a man of my queer temper and lonely ways.
+I always knew that the woman I married would have much to bear from me.
+Did I not tell her so, poor little Agatha?" And he tried to take her
+hand.
+
+"You are talking in this way to soothe me, but I know well what you
+mean. No husband ever really thinks himself in fault, but his wife. Emma
+always said so."
+
+Mr. Harper dropped the unwilling hand; but the next moment, by a strong
+effort, reclaimed it firmly.
+
+"Agatha, are we beginning again to be angry with one another? Is there
+never to be peace between us?"
+
+"Peace" only? Nothing closer, dearer? Yet what was it that, as Agatha
+looked at her husband, made her think even his "peace" better than any
+other's love?
+
+"Yes," she murmured, after watching him long in silence--"yes, there
+shall be peace. Whatever I am, I know how good you are. And," she added,
+gaily, "now let me unfold a plan of mine for proving how good we both
+are."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I want some money--a good deal."
+
+Mr. Harper turned away. "Wherefore?"
+
+"Cannot you guess? I thought you would at once--nay, that you would be
+the first to propose it. I am glad I am first. Now, do guess."
+
+"I had rather not, if it is a serious matter. If otherwise, I am hardly
+quite merry enough for jests to-day. Tell me."
+
+"It is a very simple thing, though it has cost me half-an-hour's
+puzzling. I never thought so much about business in all my life.
+Well,"--she hesitated.
+
+"Go on, Agatha."
+
+"I want--it must come out--I want you to take half or all of my--_our_
+money which is in the Funds (as I believe Major Harper said, though I
+have not the least idea what Funds are)--and with it to buy a new mine,
+and set the poor miners all working again; they'll like it a great deal
+better than flax-growing. And perhaps we could afterwards build schools
+and cottages, and do oceans of good. Oh! how glad I am I was born an
+heiress!"
+
+She rose, her eyes brightening; her little figure dilated; she had never
+looked so lovely--so loveable. And yet the husband sat as it were stone
+blind and dumb.
+
+"You cannot have any objection to this, I know," Agatha went on. "It is
+not like giving money openly away--making a show of charity. Nobody need
+know but that we do it on our own account--just to increase our riches;"
+and she laughed merrily at the idea. "Think now--how much money would it
+take?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"A great deal, probably, since you look so serious over it," said the
+wife, a little vexed. "Perhaps my plan is foolish in some things; but I
+think it is right, and I am very firm--firmer than you imagine--when
+I feel I am in the right. Surely, living so cheaply in that tiny
+house--and we will live cheaper still if you choose--we shall have
+plenty to spare. We must do this. Say that we shall."
+
+Her husband was silent.
+
+Gradually the blush of enthusiasm deepened into that of annoyance--real
+anger. "Mr. Harper, I wait until you answer me."
+
+As she turned away, Nathanael looked after her. Such a flood of
+tenderness, reverence, sorrow, passion, rarely swept over a human face.
+
+Then he rose, paced up the room in his usual fashion, and down again;
+pausing once at the window (a strange thing for him to notice just then)
+to let out a brown bee that, having come in for shelter from the rain,
+wanted to go out again with the sunshine. At last he came to Agatha's
+side.
+
+"My dear wife, it grieves me to pain you by a refusal--grieves me more
+than you can tell; but the plan you propose is utterly impracticable."
+
+"Indeed!" Her colour flashed, darkened of a stormy red, and paled. She
+was exercising very great self-restraint.
+
+"I will ask less," she resumed, bitterly. "I had forgotten the extreme
+prudence of your character. Give me just what _you_ think is sufficient
+for charity." And her lip tried not to curl--her heart tried not to
+despise her husband.
+
+Nathanael gave no answer.
+
+"Mr. Harper, three--four times lately you have denied me what I asked.
+Thrice it was merely my own pleasure--which I relinquished. This time it
+is a matter of principle, and I will not yield. Will you--since I have
+made you master of my fortune--will you allow me enough out of it for
+my own slight gratification? That at least is but justice."
+
+"Justice!" echoed Nathanael, his features sinking gradually into the
+rigidity they sometimes wore--a warning of how much the gentleness of
+his nature could bear.
+
+"Hear me for one minute, Agatha. I know this is hard, very hard for you.
+I have prevented your living in London; I have taken a smaller house
+than you like; I have restricted you in acts of charity. But for all
+these things I have reasons."
+
+"Will you tell me those reasons?" It was a tone, not of entreaty, but
+of threatening--such as a man rarely hears from a woman without all the
+pride within him recoiling into obstinacy.
+
+Mr. Harper grew yet paler, though still his answer was soft--"Agatha, do
+not ask me. I cannot tell you."
+
+"You dare not! You are ashamed!"
+
+He walked away from her. When he returned, it was less the lover that
+spoke than the man. "I am not ashamed of anything I do, and I have clear
+motives for all. I only desire my wife to have patience for awhile, and
+trust her husband."
+
+"I trust my husband!" she cried, in violent passion--"When he acts
+outrageously, unjustly, insultingly--binds me hand and foot like a
+child, and then smiles and tells me 'to be patient!' When he has secrets
+from me--when, for all I know, his whole conduct may have been one long
+deceit towards me."
+
+"Take care, Agatha." The words were said between his teeth, and then the
+lips closed in that strong straight line which made his face look all
+iron.
+
+"I say it may have been--I have heard of such things"--and she laughed
+fearfully at the horrible thought a tempting devil was putting into her
+mind--"I have heard of young girls--poor desolate creatures, cursed
+with riches, and having no one to guard them--of some stranger coming
+and marrying them hastily, but not for love--oh, not for love!" And her
+laughter grew absolutely frightful in its mockery. "How do I know but
+that you thus married me?"
+
+Her wild eyes fixed themselves on her husband. She saw his face change
+to very ghastliness, and guilt itself could not have trembled more than
+the shudder which ran through his frame.
+
+"I was right," she gasped, her passion subdued into cold horror--"you
+did marry me for my money!"
+
+No answer--not a breath--only an incredulous stare. Once more Agatha's
+passion rose, a sea of wrath, misery, despair, that dashed her blindly
+on, she recked not where.
+
+"I see it all now--all your wickedness. You never loved me, you only
+loved my riches. You have them now, and so you can stand there and gaze
+at me, as hard, as dumb as a stone. But I will make you hear--I will
+shriek it into your silence again--again--You married me for my money!"
+
+Still no word. The silence she spoke of was awful. Nathanael stood
+upright, his hands knotted together, the lids dropping over his eyes.
+He neither looked at her nor at anything. There was not the slightest
+expression in his face--it might have been carved in granite. When at
+last almost to see if he were living man, Agatha clutched his arm, it
+also felt hard, immoveable, like a granite rock.
+
+"Mr. Harper!" she cried, terror mingling with the outburst of her rage.
+
+He merely lifted his eyes and looked at the door.--Not once--oh! never
+once at her!
+
+"Ay, I will go," she answered--"most gladly, most thankfully! I will run
+anywhere to escape your presence."
+
+She crossed the room and tried to unfasten the door, which she had
+herself bolted a little while before, out of play; but her trembling
+fingers were useless. She was obliged to call her husband's help, and he
+came.
+
+Perfectly silent, without a single glance towards her, he undid the
+fastening, and set the door open for her to pass. A pang of fear, nay
+remorse, came over Agatha.
+
+"Speak," she cried--"if only one word, speak!"
+
+His lips moved, as though framing an inarticulate "No," and then closed
+again in that iron line. He still stood holding the door.
+
+Hardly knowing what she did, Agatha sprang past the threshold and
+tottered a few steps on. Then turning, she saw the door shut behind her,
+slowly, noiselessly, but _it was shut_. She felt as if the door of hope
+had been shut upon her heart.
+
+She turned again, and fled away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+It was late afternoon. The rain had ceased, and glowed into one of those
+soft October days, so exquisitely sunny and fair. The light glimmered
+through the closed Venetian blinds of "Anne's room," and danced on the
+carpet and about Agatha's feet as she sat, quiet at last, and tried to
+remember how she had come and how long she had been there. She had seen
+no one; nobody ever came into "Anne's room."
+
+The dressing-bell rang--the only sound she had heard in the house for
+hours.
+
+She started up, waking to the frightful certainty that all was
+real--that the ways of the household were going on just as usual--that
+she must rouse up, no matter staggering under what burden of misery, and
+go through her daily part, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was
+about to happen.
+
+Nothing? when this day, perhaps this same hour, must decide one of two
+things--whether she were a wretched wife, bound for life to a man
+who married her solely for mercenary motives, or whether she were
+a wife--perhaps in this even more wretched--who had so wronged and
+insulted her husband that nothing ever could win his forgiveness or
+restore his love. His love, which, as she now dimly began to see, and
+shuddered in the seeing, was becoming to her the most precious thing in
+existence.
+
+Never, until she sat there, quite alone, and feeling what it was to be
+left alone, after being so watched and cherished---never until now had
+she understood what the world would be to her if doomed to question her
+husband's honour or to outlive her husband's love.
+
+"It must have been all a dream," she said, moving her cold fingers to
+and fro over her forehead. "He never could have wronged me so, or I him.
+He must surely explain, and I will ask his pardon for what I said in my
+passion--Unless, indeed, my accusation were true."
+
+But she could not think of that possibility now--it maddened her.
+
+"I shall meet him soon. I wonder how he will meet me. That will decide
+all.--Hark!"
+
+She listened--with a vague expectation of footsteps at the door. But no
+one came.
+
+"I suppose he is in his room still--our room." And all the solemn union
+of married life--the perpetual presence, the never parting night nor
+day, which makes estrangement in that tie worse than in any other human
+bond--rushed upon her with unutterable terror.
+
+"If he has deceived and wronged me, how shall I endure the sight of him?
+If I have outraged him, and he will not forgive me--oh, what will become
+of me?"
+
+She heard various bells ringing throughout the house, and knew that she
+had no time to lose. She rose up feebly, with that aching numbed feeling
+which strong agitation leaves in the whole frame, and tottered to the
+mirror.
+
+"I must look at myself, to see that there is nothing strange about me,
+in case I meet any one in the passages.--Oh, what a face!"
+
+It was sallow, blanched, with dark shadows round the eyes, and dark
+lines drawn everywhere. That first storm of wild passion--that agony of
+remorse following, had left indelible marks. She seemed ten years older
+since she had last beheld herself, which was when she pulled out her
+long curls in the morning. She pulled them out mechanically now, trying
+to make of them a screen to hide the poor face that she had used to
+fancy they adorned. Then she flew like a frightened creature along the
+passages, and without meeting any one, reached her chamber-door. It was
+a little way open; she need not knock then--knock and wait trembling for
+the answer. Perhaps Mr. Harper was not there, and so for a few minutes
+she was safe from the dreaded meeting. She went in.
+
+The room was empty, but her husband's handkerchief and riding-gloves
+were lying about; he had apparently just gone down-stairs. Nevertheless,
+though a relief, it was rather a shock to her to find the room deserted.
+She felt a weight in its silence, forewarning her of she knew not what;
+she looked round inquiringly, as if the walls could tell her what had
+passed within them since she left. At last she took up her husband's
+gloves and laid them by with a care foreign to her general habit, and
+with a strange tenderness. When Mary's maid answered her summons,
+she could not forbear asking, carelessly, but with an inward
+heart-beat--"Where was Mr. Harper?"
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper, ma'am, is sitting reading to master in the library."
+
+He then could sit and read quietly to his father. With him, too, all
+household ways went on unaltered--with her only was the tempest--the
+despair. Her remorse ebbed down--her pride and anger rose. Light--a
+fierce flashing light--came to her eyes, and crimson roses to her
+cheeks. She dressed herself with care, and went down--though not until
+the last minute--to the drawing-room.
+
+Mary met her at the door. "I was just coming to fetch you. Nathanael
+said you had been sitting in Anne's room."
+
+How could he know? Had he watched her?
+
+She answered flippantly, "'Tis very true. I have been enjoying my
+own company. Very good company too. Have I detained you, though? Is
+everybody here?"
+
+Everybody was here. _He_ was here. Though she never glanced that way,
+she saw him, and the look he wore. To others it might seem his ordinary
+look, a little paler, a little more reserved, but she knew what it
+meant. She knew likewise, now that her passion had subsided, how his
+whole life--his stainless life--gave the lie to the accusation she had
+cast upon him. She had outraged him in the keenest point where a proud
+honourable man can be outraged by his wife; her own hand had cleft a
+gulf between them which might never close.
+
+At the thought her heart seemed dropping down--down in her bosom, like
+a bird whose wing is broken, it knows not how. Sick, giddy, she clung to
+Mary's arm for a moment.
+
+"Nathanael, look here. What is the matter with your wife?"
+
+"Nothing," Agatha cried. "I have only stupified myself with--with
+thinking. I will think no more--no more."
+
+She tossed her head back with a fierce laugh. Her husband, who had
+half-risen at Mary's call, resumed his seat, making no remark.
+
+He had never been used to show her much fondness or attention before
+his family, so it did not appear strange that in the few minutes
+before dinner he should talk to his sisters, and leave his wife to
+the courtesies of his father. For it was now an acknowledged fact at
+Kingcombe Holm that the Squire was growing very fond of Agatha.
+
+Dinner came, the long, dreadful dinner, with the brilliant light
+glimmering in her face, and showing every expression there; with old
+Mr. Harper leaning forward to address her every time she relapsed
+into silence; with the consciousness upon her that there was no medium
+course, that she must talk and laugh, fast and recklessly, or else fall
+into tears; with the knowledge, worst of all, that there was one
+sitting at the bottom of the table whom she dared not look at, but whom
+nevertheless she perpetually saw.
+
+Her husband had taken his usual place, and sustained it in his usual
+manner. There was the same brotherly chat with Mary and Eulalie,
+the same answers to his father, and when once, in the dinner-table
+courtesies, he addressed his wife, the tone was precisely as it had ever
+been.
+
+Agatha could have shrieked back her answer, betraying him to all the
+household! This smooth outside of daily life--and with what below? It
+was horrible.
+
+Yet she felt herself powerless to burst through it. His perfect silence,
+leaving his honour, the honour of both, in her hands, was like a chain
+of iron wrapped round her; however she writhed and dashed herself
+against it, there it was.
+
+The Squire seemed to remain at table longer than ever to-day. He would
+not let his woman-kind depart. He had many toasts to give, and various
+old reminiscences to unfold to his daughter-in-law. She heard all in
+a misty dream, and kept on vaguely smiling. At last the purgatory was
+ended, and they rose.
+
+Nathanael held the door open for his wife and sisters to retire--things
+went on so formally even in the every-day life at Kingcombe Holm. In
+passing, Agatha felt as if she must burst through that icy barrier he
+had drawn; she _must_ meet her husband's look, and compel him to meet
+hers. She gave him a look, proud, threatening, yet full of hidden
+misery. He would surely answer that.
+
+No! No response--not even anger. Some sorrow perhaps, but a sorrow that
+was stern, hopeless, undemonstrative, as was his own nature. If any
+wreck had been, it had already sank down into those deep waters, of
+which the surface appeared perpetually calm.
+
+Agatha threw him back another look. Scorn was there and hatred--she felt
+as though she did really hate him at that moment. Her heart gave a
+leap, like a smitten deer, and then a "laughing devil" seemed to enter
+therein, and dash her on--anywhere--to anything.
+
+"Come, Mary--come Eulalie, we must be very merry tonight, and my husband
+must join, for all his solemnity. Shake it off quick, Mr. Harper, or
+we'll call you a deciever--a smooth-faced, smiling cheat."
+
+Laughing out loud--she caught his hand, wrung it violently, and struck
+it aside.
+
+"How comical you are!" said the languid Eulalie.
+
+"But," whispered sensible Mary, "are you quite sure Nathanael liked the
+joke."
+
+"Who cares?" Yet Agatha looked back.
+
+He had merely drawn his hand in again to the other, and his colour
+faintly rose. Otherwise the poor, mad, passionate girl might as well
+have dashed herself against a rock. She grew still again, with a kind of
+fear. Her very limbs tottered as she went towards the drawing-room, and
+all the time that she lay there on the sofa, Mary bustling about her and
+chattering all kinds of domestic nothings, Agatha saw, as in a vision,
+her husband's face, so beautiful in its very sternness, so pure and
+righteous-looking, whilst she felt herself so desperately, daringly
+wicked. All the "black, ingrained spots," which had become visible
+in her soul, and she knew herself to be worse than any one knew
+her--appeared gathering in one cloud, until she sickened at her own
+likeness. For beside it rose another image--and such an one! Yet there
+was a time when she had thought it a great sacrifice and condescension
+that Nathanael should be allowed to love her. Now--
+
+No, she dared not hear the cry of her heart. She dared not do anything
+but hate him, as he must surely hate her. Had he stood before her that
+minute, she would have flung away this softness, made her flashing eyes
+burn up their tears, and appeared all indifference. He might if he chose
+be as cold as ice, as proud as Lucifer;--she would be the same. She
+would never once let him suspect that which this day's misery had shown
+her was kindling in her heart. A something, before which the pleasant
+little vanity of being adored, the content of an easy unexacting liking
+in return, fell like straws in a flame. A something which she tried to
+call wrath and hate, but which was truly the avenging angel, Love.
+
+It seemed an age before Mr. Harper came up-stairs. When he did, his
+father was leaning on his arm. The old gentleman looked tired, as
+if they had been talking much, yet seemed to regard with a lingering
+tenderness his son, once so little of a favourite. Why did he? Why did
+Nathanael soon or late win every one's attachment? And how could he show
+that reverent attention to his father, that cheerful kindness to his
+sisters, while _she_ sat there, jealous of every look and word? Each
+time he addressed any of these three, Agatha felt as if some unseen
+power were lashing her into fury.
+
+It is a strange and terrible thing, but nevertheless true, that a good
+man, a kind man, a generous man, may sometimes quite unconsciously drive
+a woman nearly mad; make her feel as though a legion of fiends were
+struggling for possession of her soul, goad her weakness into acts which
+torture alone causes, and the after-blackness of which, presented to
+her real self, creates a humiliation which only drives her madder still.
+Men, that is, good men, who are stronger and better able to do and
+to bear--ought to be very gentle, very wise, in the manner they deal
+towards women. No short-coming or wrong, however great, from the weaker
+to the stronger, can merit an equal return; and according to the law
+that the more delicate the mental and physical organisation, the
+keener is the power of suffering; so no man, be he ever so wise or
+tender-hearted, can rightly estimate the depth of a woman's agony.
+
+Agatha rose, and went away by herself into a smaller room that led
+out of the other, not unlike her own pet sitting-room in her maiden
+days--the room where she had once stood by the firelight, and Nathanael
+had come in and given her the first trembling, thrilling love-kiss. She
+stood in the same attitude now. Did she remember it? Was she, in that
+shadowy corner, with glimpses of light and fragments of talk pouring
+in from the other room, dreaming over that old time--old, though it
+happened scarcely three months ago--dreaming it over, with oh! what
+different emotions!
+
+And when she heard a step--her ears were very quick now. Did she turn,
+and think to see her lover of old--so little loved? Alas! without
+lifting her eyes, she felt the presence was no longer that of her timid
+young lover, but of her husband.
+
+Mr. Harper came in, and for the first time since that fearful minute
+when she quitted him, the husband and wife were alone. Not quite so, for
+he had left the door wide open--purposely, she thought. There was a full
+vision of Mary playing chess with her father, and of Eulalie lounging on
+the sofa, gazing now and then with idle curiosity into the little room.
+
+It was insulting! Why, if he came to speak healing words, did he let his
+whole family peer into the mysteries which ought to be strictly sacred
+between the two whom marriage had made one? If only he had shut the
+door! If only she could do it, and then turn and cling round his neck,
+or even weep at his knees--for that frantic desire did strike her for a
+moment--anything, to win from him pardon and peace!
+
+"Agatha, are you quite at leisure?"
+
+To dream of answering such a tone with a flood of tears! or of clinging
+round a neck that lifted itself up in such a marble pride! It was
+impossible.
+
+"I am quite at leisure, Mr. Harper."
+
+At such a crisis, and between two such characters, the fate of a
+lifetime may depend upon the first word. The first word had been spoken,
+and answered.
+
+Agatha turned to the fire again, and her husband to the shadow. Either
+it was fancy, or the effect of natural contact, but the one face seemed
+to flame, the other to darken--suddenly, hopelessly--as when the last
+glimmer of light fades out upon a wall.
+
+"Can you speak with me for a few moments?"
+
+"Certainly. Shall it be here?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+Agatha sat down; smoothed her dress, and held her folded hands tight
+upon her knees, lest he should see how they were trembling.
+
+Mr. Harper resumed. His tone was gentle, though with a certain
+strangeness in it, a want of that music which runs through all
+deep-toned low voices, and which in his was very peculiar.
+
+"It appears to me--though nothing shall be done against your
+decision--that, considering all things, it would be better that our stay
+in my father's house were made as short as possible."
+
+"Yes--yes." Two long pausing words, said beneath her breath.
+
+"Accordingly I rode to Kingcombe this afternoon, and find that we can
+enter the cottage on Saturday. To-day is Thursday"----
+
+"Is it?--Oh yes. I beg your pardon. Proceed."
+
+"If it would be agreeable and convenient to you, I think we had better
+arrange matters so. I have already told my father it was probable we
+should leave on Saturday. Are you willing?"
+
+"Quite willing."
+
+"It is settled then. On Saturday evening we go home."
+
+Go home! To their first home! To that new bridal nest, which, be it the
+poorest dwelling on earth, seems--or should seem--holy, happy, and fair!
+What a coming home it was! Better, she thought, that he had cast her
+adrift, or torn himself from her and placed the wide world between them.
+Rather any open separation than the mockery of such a union.
+
+"Home!" she cried. "I will not go--I cannot. Oh, not home!"
+
+"To a house, then--call it by what name you please. To your own
+house, which we will merely _say_ is mine. Your comfort"--he stopped a
+little--"must always be the first consideration of your husband."
+
+"My husband!" she repeated, almost in a shriek--and the old fit of
+fierce laughter was coming back.
+
+At this moment Eulalie's curious eyes were seen turning towards the
+little room. Nathanael moved so as to shield his wife from them. "Hush!"
+he said, sorrowfully, even with a sort of pity--"hush, Agatha. We are
+married. Between us two there must be, under all circumstances, honour
+and silence."
+
+His manner was so solemn, free from bitterness or anger, that Agatha's
+passion was quelled. She was awed as by the sight of some dead face,
+wronged grievously in life, but which now only revenges itself by the
+hopelessness of its mute perpetual smile. She remained staring blankly
+into the fire, plaiting and unplaiting the sash of her dress with
+heedless fingers. Eulalie might peer safely.
+
+"There was another thing," resumed Nathanael, "which, before telling
+the rest of the household, I wished to say to you. I had business in
+Weymouth to-morrow; and--if"--
+
+"Well? I listen."
+
+"If--I were to ride there to-night"--
+
+"Go." A soft, quick word--a mere motion of the lips--and yet it was the
+one word of doom.
+
+After that, without saying more, Mr. Harper walked back slowly into the
+drawing-room, and Agatha sat by the fireside alone.
+
+She heard the rest talking--complaining--reasoning--heard one or two
+persuasive calls for "Agatha"--but she never moved. Then came the
+bell hastily pulled, and the old Squire's testy summons for "Mr. Locke
+Harper's horse," and "was it a fine night, and the moon risen?" Then the
+drawing-room door opened and closed. No--he was not gone--not without
+saying adieu. He would surely pay his wife that deference. Outside the
+wall she heard his foot ascending the staircase, slowly, with heavy
+pauses between each step. She crept close to the farther door--behind
+the curtain, and listened.
+
+"Agatha--where is she gone to?" said Mary, peeping carelessly into the
+dark room.
+
+"Oh, she has followed her husband up-stairs, of course. Think of all the
+charges and farewells--the kissing and the crying. 'Tis a wonder she
+did not insist on riding with him across the country, and coming back at
+midnight, as I suppose Nathanael will do. La? what's to become of these
+very devoted husbands and wives."
+
+Agatha crushed her hands against the wall She felt as if she could
+almost have torn Eulalie's heart out--if she had a heart. While in her
+own bosom, leaping up in all its strength, ready at once for heroism,
+love, and fury--for any nobleness or any crime--was that fountain of
+all her sex's actions, that mainspring of all her life--the fatal
+woman-heart.
+
+She waited until she heard Nathanael descend the stairs, and then, as
+he passed into the drawing-room to his sisters, she, by the little
+curtained door, passed out into the hall. There she remained until the
+rest came; the sisters trooping after Nathanael, and the old Squire
+following likewise, to see that his son had the best and steadiest horse
+for a night-ride, which ride, he took care to observe, pointedly, was a
+most uncourteous proceeding, and warranted by nothing, save the fact of
+its being performed on the especial service of Anne Valery.
+
+"Agatha--where is Agatha hiding herself?" said Mary. "She ought not to
+keep her husband waiting a minute.''
+
+"Oh, no?" And the little figure, all in white, glided out from some
+queer corner of the hall, and stood like a ghost in the moonlight.
+"Good night--good night." She threw out her hand with those of the
+others--threw it--not gave it.
+
+Nathanael took the hand, but did not say good night--indeed he never
+spoke at all.
+
+"Well, are you not going to embrace one another, stage-fashion? Don't
+let Mary and me interrupt you, pray." And the two Miss Harpers drew back
+a little from the young couple.
+
+Mr. Harper bent coldly over his wife's brow, hid under the shadow of her
+heavy hair.
+
+"No, no; not that," Agatha whispered, recoiling from his touch. "Never
+that again."
+
+He opened the hall-door--saying adieu to neither father nor
+sisters--leaped on his horse, and was gone.
+
+"Agatha, Agatha; where are you running? He is far down the road by this
+time. Come in, do! Are you so very reluctant to be left for a few hours
+alone?"
+
+"Oh, no! Oh, no!" And Agatha went back to the drawing-room with her
+sisters-in-law.
+
+Alone! The word she had repudiated rose up like a spirit, everywhere,
+all over the house. Not a room but what seemed empty, strange. Fast and
+busily the Miss Harpers talked--yet all around was, oh! such silence.
+The silence that we feel in a house when some voice and step has gone
+out of it, which no one misses except we, and which we miss as we should
+miss the daylight or the sun.
+
+When all grew quiet, and Agatha sat in her own room--expecting nothing,
+for she knew he would not come--but still sitting, with her hair falling
+damp about her, and her eyes fixed on the mirror for company, yet
+half growing frightened as if it were a strange object on which she
+gazed--then, indeed, there was silence--then, indeed, she was _alone_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Mr. Harper did not ride home by midnight, as his wife was well assured
+he would not do, though with some idle hope put into her mind by
+Eulalie, she sat at the window until the stars whitened in the dawn.
+
+At noon--which seemed to come slowly, every hour a day--Mr. Dugdale
+appeared with a message, which by some wondrous good fortune he
+remembered to deliver--that Nathanael had returned from Weymouth to
+Kingcombe, and was waiting there. Agatha gathered with difficulty that
+her husband wished her to return with Mr. Dugdale.
+
+"I will not go."
+
+"That's right! I wouldn't do it upon any account," said Eulalie, with
+not the kindest of laughs. "I wouldn't be sent for like a school-girl.
+Let Nathanael come himself and fetch you. What a rude fellow he is!"
+
+"Eulalie!--You forget you are speaking of your brother and my husband. I
+will be ready in five minutes, Mr. Dugdale."
+
+Duke lifted his placid but observant eyes, and smiled. "That's good.
+Come along, my child."
+
+He had never spoken so kindly to her before. It was as if he read her
+trouble. Her anger faded--she was near bursting in tears. In a little
+while she had taken the good man's arm--which Eulalie pointedly informed
+her was not the fashion at Kingcombe--and was walking with him to meet
+her husband.
+
+Marmaduke talked but little; marching on leisurely in a meditative mood,
+and leaving his young sister-in-law to follow his example. Once or twice
+she felt stealing down upon her one of his kindly, paternal glances,
+and heard him saying to himself his usual winding-up of every mental
+difficulty:
+
+"Eh!--We know nothing! Nobody knows anything. But everything always
+comes clear sometime."
+
+At the verge of the town, apparently coming to meet them, she saw
+Nathanael--saw him a long way off. Her heart leaped at the first vision
+of the tall slender figure and light hair; but when he approached she
+was walking steadfastly along. Her eyes lowered, and her mouth firm set.
+He came up, silently gave her his arm, and she took it as silently.
+
+Mr. Dugdale and her husband immediately began to talk, so there was no
+need for Agatha to do anything but walk on, trying to remember where she
+was, and what course of conduct she had to pursue; trying above all to
+repress these alternate storms of anger and lulls of despair, and deport
+herself not like a passionate child, but a reasonable woman--a woman
+who, after all, might have been heavily wronged.
+
+Sometimes she essayed to consider this--to recall, as is so difficult
+always, the original cause of difference, the little cloud which had
+produced this tempest--but everything was in an inextricable maze.
+
+Ere long, Nathanael's silence warned her that they two were alone, Mr.
+Dugdale having made himself absent, and being seen afar off, diving into
+a knot of market-politicians. Arm-in-arm the husband and wife passed
+on through the street. Agatha pulled her veil down, and caught more
+steadfast hold of her husband's arm--he was her husband, and she would
+maintain their honour in the world's sight. She felt how many curious
+eyes were watching them from windows--how many gossiping tongues would
+be passing comment on the looks and demeanour of Mr. and Mrs. Locke
+Harper.
+
+"Shall we go over the house now, or would you like to call for my
+sister?"
+
+"No--we will go at once," returned Agatha.
+
+Steadfastly--mechanically--the young husband and wife looked over their
+future home, which was all but ready for habitation. It was not a mean
+abode now; to Mr. Wilson's furniture had been added various comforts
+and luxuries. Agatha asked no questions--scarcely noticed anything. She
+merely moved about, trying to sustain her position in the eyes of the
+work-people that showed her round the house; stopping a minute to speak
+kindly to the servant who was already installed there, and who, dropping
+a dozen respectful curtsies, explained that she was the daughter of
+"Master Nathanael's" nurse.
+
+Everything seemed arranged for Mrs. Harper's comfort, as by invisible
+hands. She never inquired, or even thought, who was the origin of
+it all. She could not believe she was in her own home;--her married
+home;--she felt as if each minute she should wake and find herself
+Agatha Bowen, in the old rooms in Bedford Square, with all things else a
+dream.
+
+"Oh, that it were," she sighed within herself. "Oh that I had never"--
+
+She paused here--she could not wish that she had never seen Nathanael.
+
+They quitted the cottage and went out into the street, for country
+and town blended together in tiny Kingcombe. Mr. Harper closed the
+wicket-gate, and looked back upon the little house. There was an unquiet
+glitter in his eye, and his chest heaved violently for a few moments.
+Then, with all outward observance, he linked his wife's arm in his, and
+they proceeded onwards.
+
+At the end of East Street they met Harriet Dugdale--the Dugdales seemed
+always wandering about Kingcombe after one another, and turning up at
+intervals at odd corners.
+
+"Here you both are! I was looking for my husband. Has anybody seen Duke.
+Oh, where on earth is Duke gone to? He said he would be back in five
+minutes--which means five hours."
+
+"I left him at the market-place."
+
+"That's an hour ago. He has been home two or three times since then. Do
+you think he could get on for a whole hour without wanting the Missus?
+Oh, there he is. Stop, and I'll catch him."
+
+He was caught, and led forward prisoner by his pretty wife, who never
+once let him go, lest he should slide away again, and become absorbed in
+the mysterious electioneering groups that haunted the town.
+
+"Now--Harrie--Missus, just wait--I'll be back in a minute."
+
+"Not a minute! Anne has sent word that she wants you directly--you and
+Nathanael. You'll go, brother!"
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To Thornhurst, to meet Mr. Trenchard and some other folk. You must
+start immediately."
+
+Mr. Harper glanced towards his wife, who had dropped his arm; not
+pointedly, but as though release were welcome.
+
+"What, couldn't it leave its pet again?" cried Harrie, laughing. "Bless
+it, nobody demands that terrible sacrifice. Do you think Anne would
+invite husbands without their wives? We are all to go--if you agree,
+Agatha."
+
+"Oh, yes!" It was quite indifferent to her where she went, or what she
+did.
+
+So they all four started in one of those inimitable conveyances called
+dog-carts, which seem to offer every facility for "accidental death,"
+either by flying over the horse's head, tumbling under the wheels, or
+slipping off behind.
+
+"Where will you sit, my dear? Beside your husband, I suppose? Mine
+drives."
+
+Agatha answered by springing up beside Mr. Dugdale, with some vague jest
+about husbands being no company at all. The dark fit had passed, and she
+was now in a mood of desperation.
+
+They dashed on quickly; Marmaduke was a daring driver.
+
+Sometimes Agatha even thought he would overturn them in the road. Little
+she cared! She was in that state of excitement when the utmost peril
+would only have made her laugh. Passing under the three hills, and
+looking up at the old castle, silent and grey, the daylight shining
+through the fissured apertures that had been windows, she turned round
+and recklessly proposed to Harrie their scrambling up the green slope
+and rolling down again.
+
+"E--h, my child!" said Duke Dugdale, turning his mild benevolent looks
+on the flushed face beside him. "Don't'ee try that, don't'ee, now! When
+people once set themselves rolling down-hill they never stop till they
+get to the bottom. It's always so in this world."
+
+Agatha laughed more loudly. She wished her husband to hear how merry she
+was. She talked incessantly to Mr. Dugdale or Harrie, and held herself
+very upright, so that Nathanael, who sat behind her, might not
+even feel the touch of her shoulder. She, who had hitherto been so
+indifferent to everybody, so mild in her likings and dislikes--never
+till now had she felt such strange emotions. Yet each and all carried
+with them a fierce charm. It was like a person learning for the first
+time what thirst was, and drinking fire, because, in any case, he must
+drink. And with all her wrath there seemed a spell over heart, brain,
+and senses, which never for a moment allowed her to cease thinking
+of her husband. Every movement he made, every word he uttered, she
+distinctly felt and heard.
+
+The way grew unfamiliar; they were passing through a track of country,
+wilder, and more peculiar than any Mrs. Harper had yet seen in
+Dorsetshire--a road cut through furzy eminences, looking down on deep,
+abrupt valleys, that might have been the bed of dried-up lakes or bays;
+long heathery sweeps of undulating ground, with great stones lying here
+and there; cultivation altogether ceasing--even sheep becoming rare; and
+ever when they chanced to rise on higher ground, a sharp, salt, sea-wind
+blowing, not a human being to be seen for miles.
+
+"Here's the gate. I'll open it. Now we get into Anne Valery's property,"
+said Harrie, as she leaped down and leaped up again, mocking Nathanael's
+"brown study."
+
+"What a change!" Agatha cried. "I have not seen such trees in
+Dorsetshire."
+
+"They seem indeed to have grown on purpose for Anne. Her grandfather
+built Thornhurst. A queer desolate spot to choose, but it's a perfect
+little nest of beauty. There!"
+
+The road opened upon a semicircular green plane, levelled among the
+hills, as it were on purpose, and planted round with a sheltering
+bulwark of trees--lime, chestnut, oak--rising higher and higher, until
+at the summit, where the sea-breeze caught them, grew nothing but the
+perpetual Dorsetshire fir. On the edge of the semicircle stood the
+house, this green plane before it, behind, a wide stretch of country,
+where the tide, running for miles inland, made strange-shaped lakes and
+broad rivers, spread out glistening in the afternoon sun.
+
+"Anne, must always be near the sea. I don't think she would live even
+here unless she knew that just climbing those rocks would bring her in
+sight of the Channel. She has quite an ocean-mania."
+
+"I'll learn it from her. I want a convenient little mania. Suppose I
+cure myself of my old grudge against the sea, and go from hatred into
+love, or from love back again into hatred--as people do."
+
+"What a comical girl you are!"
+
+"Very. Stay now. Wait till the horse is quiet, and I'll take a leap
+down--just like a person leaping into"--
+
+"Hold, Agatha"--and she felt her arm caught by her husband. It was the
+first time he had touched or addressed her since they left Kingcombe.
+"Don't spring down--it is not safe. Stay till I lift you."
+
+"I do not want your help."
+
+"Excuse me, you do; you are not used to this sort of carriage.'
+
+"Stand aside--I _will_ jump down," she cried, roused by the contest,
+slight as it was, but enough to show the clashing of the two wills.
+"Stand aside," she repeated, leaning forward with glittering eyes,
+giddy, and in so great confusion of mind as to be in real danger--"we
+will see who gives way."
+
+"Are you in earnest?" Nathanael whispered.
+
+"Quite. Go!"
+
+"I would go if it were play. But when I see my wife about to do any
+frantic thing to her own injury, I shall restrain her--thus."
+
+Balancing himself on the carriage-step, he clasped the little figure in
+his arms--tight--strangely tight and close. Before Agatha could resist,
+he had lifted her safely down, and set her free.
+
+She stood passive--astonished. What could it be in that firm will, in
+that sudden clasp, which made her feel--was it anger? No not anger,
+though her cheeks glowed and her breast heaved. Why was it, that as
+Nathanael walked onward towards the house, his wife looked after him
+with such a mingling of attraction and repulsion? What could it be, this
+strange power which gave him the preeminence over her--which taught her,
+without her knowing it, the mystery that causes man to rule and woman
+to obey; Very thoughtful--even unmoved by Harrie's loud laughter at
+the "excellent joke"--Mrs. Harper suffered herself to be led on by her
+sister-in-law.
+
+"Nonsense, child, don't look so serious. Men will have their
+way--especially husbands. Mine gets obeyed as little as any one; but now
+and then, when it comes to the point"--here Harrie looked astonishingly
+grave, for her--"I'm obliged to give in to Pa; and somehow Pa's always
+right, bless him!"
+
+How every word of one happy wife went like a dagger into the other
+wife's heart! But there was no shield. Here they were in Anne Valery's
+house, obliged to appear as cheerful guests, especially the newest
+guest, the bride. Agatha tried, and tried successfully, to play her
+part:--misery makes such capital hypocrites!
+
+"Isn't this a large house for a single woman?" said Mrs. Dugdale, as the
+two ladies passed up-stairs. "Yet Anne constantly manages to fill it,
+especially in summer-time. The dozens of sick friends she has staying
+here to be cured by sea-breezes! the scores of young people that come
+and make love in those green alleys down the garden! But then in the
+lulls of company the house is dull and silent--as now."
+
+It was very silent, though not with the desolation which often broods
+over a large house thinly inhabited. The room--Anne's bedroom--lay
+westward, and a good deal of sunshine was still glinting in. A few late
+bees were buzzing about the open window, cheated perhaps by the feathery
+seeds of the clematis, which had long ceased flowering. There was no
+other sound. But many fine prints, a few painted portraits, and several
+white-gleaming statuettes, seemed as the sunlight struck them to burst
+the silence, with mute speech.
+
+"Oh, you are looking at Anne's 'odds and ends' as I call them. Rather a
+contrast, her walls and ours. I don't see the use of prints and plaster
+images--always in the way where there are children. But Anne is so
+dreadfully fond of pretty things. She says they're company. No wonder! A
+solitary old maid must find herself very dull at times."
+
+"Must she?--then she is the more glad to see her visitors"--a pleasant
+voice, a silken-rustling step, which in Agatha's fancy seemed always to
+enter like daylight into a dusky room--and Miss Valery came to welcome
+her guests.
+
+She addressed Mrs. Harper first, and then Harrie, who looked confused
+for the moment. But it was not a trifle that could upset the equanimity
+of the honest-speaking Harrie Dugdale.
+
+"Bless us, Anne, how softly you walk!' Listeners,' etc.--You know the
+saying! But you might listen at every door in Dorsetshire, and never
+hear worse of yourself than I said just now."
+
+"Thank you. When I want a good character I shall be sure to come to
+Harriet Dugdale.--And now, what is the news with the little wife! whom I
+have yet to bid welcome to Thornhurst. Welcome Mrs. Locke Harper."
+Anne said the name, as she often did, with a peculiar under-tone of
+hesitation and tenderness; then, according to her frequent habit, she
+put her hand on her favourite's shoulder, and began to play with the
+brown curls. "Have you been quite well and happy since I saw you?"
+
+The question, so simple, so full of kindness, pierced Agatha's soul.
+Alas? how much had happened since she sat on the stone seat at Corfe
+Castle, and looked over the view with Anne Valery! How little did Anne
+or any one know that she was wretched--maddened--hating herself and the
+whole world--believing in nothing good, nothing holy--not even in her
+who spoke. The words, the smile, appeared the mocking hypocrisy of one
+who had persuaded her to marry, and must ere long know of that hasty
+marriage the miserable result This thought steeled her heart even
+against Anne Valery.
+
+She burst into a sharp laugh. "Well! Happy! Cannot you see? You are the
+best person to answer your own question." And she moved away out of the
+room.
+
+Anne looked after her, thoughtfully, rather sadly. Perhaps she was used
+to have her pets glide from her, dancing out indifferently into the
+merry world. She made no attempt to follow Agatha, but led the way
+down-stairs into the drawing-room.
+
+"Mr. Trenchard, come and let me introduce you to Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+As Miss Valery said this, an elderly gentleman, dapper, dandy, and
+small, escaped from under the hands of Duke Dugdale--those big earnest
+hands that were laid upon him in all the apostleship of sincere
+argument--and came, nothing loth, as his eager bow showed, to do the
+polite to the young bride who had been lately brought to the county.
+For Mr. Trenchard, besides the wondrously sweetening power of his
+candidateship, came of a very ancient name in Dorsetshire. He was
+evidently a beau too--one of those harmless general adorers whom the
+influence of a graceful woman touches even unto old age.
+
+Agatha saw in his first look that he admired her, and she was in
+that proud desperate mood when a girl is ready to catch hold of the
+attentions or conversation of any one--even an elderly gentleman. She
+was very gracious to Mr. Trenchard--nay, altogether bewitching--though
+for the first ten minutes she herself saw and heard nothing save a thing
+in black with white hair, talking to her of the beauties of Dorsetshire.
+More distinctly than aught he said, she heard what was passing in the
+group at the other end of the room--especially her husband's voice,
+so quiet and deep, always a tone deeper than any other voices, falling
+through all the rest like a note of music. And she soon found out that
+Anne was listening also--to Nathanael, of course. She always did.
+
+Mr. Trenchard followed the direction of the two ladies' eyes, and
+ingeniously took up the text.
+
+"I assure you, Mrs. Harper, it is a pleasure to all the neighbourhood
+that your husband has come back from America. I remember him quite a
+child, and his uncle a young man. And really, how like he is, in both
+feature and voice, to what his uncle used to be at that time. As he
+stands there talking, I could almost fancy it was Mr. Locke Harper."
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper," repeated Agatha. "Was that the name Uncle Brian went
+by?"
+
+"Yes, save with those privileged people who called him Brian. But they
+were few. He had not the fortune or misfortune of possessing a thousand
+and one intimate friends. Yet all respected him, and remember him still.
+It will be a real satisfaction to have in the country a second Mr. Locke
+Harper,--Dear me, how like he is! Don't you see it, Miss Valery?"
+
+"There is a general likeness running through all the Harper family."
+
+"Except the eldest son, though even to him I can trace some resemblance
+here"--and he bowed to Mrs. Dugdale. "And this reminds me that I knew
+beforehand I should probably have the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Harper in
+Dorsetshire. Only two days ago I saw at Paris Major Frederick Harper."
+
+"Is Major Harper at Paris?" eagerly cried Agatha, caught by the name,
+which had so soon passed out of the daily interests of her life,
+that its sound was already quite strange. It reached her now like a
+comforting breath of old times--a something to catch hold of in the
+wide, dreary maze around her. Her former guardian seemed to rise up
+before her; with all his cheery, good-natured ways; his compassion
+when she had been newly made an orphan; his kindness of manner that
+remained--ay, to the very last.
+
+In a rush of many feelings that softened her voice to positive
+tenderness, she cried, "Oh do tell me all about Major Harper?"
+
+And this time she did not notice that, in the political discussion going
+forward, it was Mr. Dugdale who spoke, his brother-in-law having ceased
+the argument and become silent.
+
+"Madam," returned the candidate, with a smile--perhaps a little too
+meaning a smile--"I will, with pleasure, tell you everything. I guessed
+from his anxious questions concerning you, and whether I had met you in
+Dorsetshire, that before he was your brother-in-law Major Harper had the
+happiness of being an intimate friend of yours."
+
+"He was my guardian."
+
+"That fact he did not inform me of. Indeed we had little time for
+conversation. We merely dined together, and parted almost immediately.
+He seemed in the midst of a whirl of pleasant engagements, as Major
+Harper invariably is. Charming, agreeable man! An immense favourite with
+all ladies."
+
+Agatha answered "Yes" rather coldly. Her attention was wandering; she
+had missed the sound of her husband's voice altogether. But the next
+moment she heard him behind her.
+
+"Mr. Trenchard?"
+
+"Well, my dear sir? Are you also come to ask questions about your
+brother, whom, as I have been telling Mrs. Harper, I had the pleasure to
+meet in Paris?"
+
+"So I have just heard you say. Where, and how was he living?"
+
+Agatha thought this a strange question for Nathanael to put to a third
+party concerning his own brother. She was glad to hear Miss Valery
+observe, with genuine tact, that Major Harper was always careless in the
+matter of giving addresses.
+
+"He was living--let me see--at 102 Rue--, one of the handsomest and
+pleasantest streets in Paris. I remember he said he was obliged to take
+this _appartement_ for three months, after which he was going to act the
+hermit and economise. Very unlikely that, I should think, for a man of
+Major Harper's social habits."
+
+"Very," Agatha said, being looked to for a response. She was much
+surprised to learn this of her brother-in-law; still more did she wonder
+at the rigid silence with which her husband heard the same.
+
+"I think, Mrs. Harper, we may safely say that his determination will not
+last. A mere fit of misanthropy after rather too much gaiety. In such
+a pleasant fellow as Frederick Harper we must excuse a few broken
+resolutions."
+
+"We ought," said Anne Valery, with that rare gentleness which makes men
+listen to a woman even when she "preaches." "It is a very hard trial for
+any one to be thrown into the world with so many gifts as Major Harper.
+A man whom all men like, and not a few women are prone to love, goes
+through an ordeal so fierce, that if he withstand it he is one of the
+greatest heroes on earth. If he fall"--and Anne lowered her voice so
+that Agatha could scarcely hear, though she felt sure Nathanael did--"if
+he fall, we ought, through all the wrong, clearly to discern the
+temptation."
+
+It was a new doctrine, the last Agatha would have expected to hear on
+the lips of such a sternly good woman as she had painted Miss Valery.
+She said so, adding, with her usual plainness, "I thought, somehow, that
+you did not like Major Harper?"
+
+"Nay, we were young together. But hush, my dear, your husband is
+speaking."
+
+He was saying, with quite an altered expression, something about "my
+brother Frederick." But after that mention Major Harper's name died out
+of the conversation, as out of Agatha's memory. Alas, not the unfrequent
+fate of the Major Harpers of society--meteors, never thought of but
+while they are shining, and forgotten as soon as they have burnt
+themselves out.
+
+By this time the two or three stray visitors--gentlemen-farmers, Anne's
+tenants, as Mrs. Dugdale whispered--had disappeared, and Mr. Trenchard
+was the sole stranger left in the drawing-room. Miss Valery did the
+honours of her house with a remarkably simple grace.
+
+"I give no state dinner parties," she said, smiling, to Mr. Trenchard.
+"It is a whim of mine that I never could see the use of friends meeting
+together merely to eat and drink, or of offering them more and richer
+fare than is customary or necessary. But if you will stay and dine with
+me, and with these my own people, country fashion, even though you have
+been a ten years' resident in London"--
+
+"But have never forgotten Dorset, and good Dorset ways," said the old
+gentleman, as he bowed over the hostess's hand. Then, obeying Anne's
+signal, he offered his arm to Mrs. Harper to lead her in to dinner;--the
+innocent daylight dinner, with real China-roses looking in at the
+window, and an energetic autumn-robin singing his good-night before the
+sun went down.
+
+Agatha could have been happy, merry--she was still so young, and
+the weight on her heart was the first that ever had fallen there. At
+intervals she struggled to forget it--almost succeeded; and then the
+first glimpse of her husband's face, the first tone of his voice,
+brought the burden back again. Her spirits grew wilder than ever, lest
+any one should guess she was so very, very miserable.
+
+After dinner, dreading Anne's eyes, she rushed off into the garden with
+Harrie Dugdale; tossing back her hair, and inhaling by gasps the cold
+evening wind, that it might bring calm and clearness to her brain. Even
+yet she felt as though she were dreaming.
+
+Returning, she found lights in the drawing-room. Mr. Trenchard, in a
+patient attitude, was listening to Marmaduke Dugdale; some distance
+off, Nathanael sat talking to Miss Valery. Anne was leaning back in an
+arm-chair: the lamp shining full on her face showed how very pale and
+worn it was. Her voice, too, sounded feeble, as Agatha caught the words:
+
+"In two months, you think? That is a long time."
+
+"It cannot be sooner, Marmaduke says. I met him on board the ship
+at Weymouth; when he told me of this innocent little scheme he was
+transacting."
+
+"But you will not tell"--
+
+"Uncle Brian? No, of course not. Yet I think it would do Uncle Brian
+good to know how dearly Marmaduke and all his friends here care for him.
+Yet he might not believe it--I think he never did."
+
+Anne was silent.
+
+"He used to say," continued Nathanael, who was sitting where he
+could not see his wife, and for once heard not her soft step over the
+carpet--"Uncle Brian used to say, that it was wisest neither to love
+nor need love. I think different. It is a cruel, hardening, embittering
+thing for a man to feel that no one loves him."
+
+--"Love--love! Have you two sage ones been discussing that folly? Now,
+may I have the honour to hear?"
+
+"If Anne will talk; I have done speaking," said Mr. Harper, as he gave
+Agatha his chair, and slowly moved away to the other circle.
+
+Thus, ever thus, he went from her, escaping the chance of either being
+wounded or healed. Agatha was nearly wild. With all her might she flung
+herself into conversation with Mr. Trenchard, and tried to conjugate
+that verb--hitherto a mystery to her innocent mind--_to flirt_. She
+wished to make herself beautifully hateful--bewitchingly foul; or rather
+she did not care what she made herself, if she only made _him_--who had
+now in her thoughts sank to the namelessness, which proves that one name
+is fast filling up the whole world--made him stir from that mountain
+height of impassive calm--melted him into repentance--shook him into
+frenzied jealousy. Anything--anything--so that he no longer should stand
+before her like a serene Alp, which nothing human could disturb, and
+which--ah, in all her madness, she saw that but too clearly!--which
+had always such a heavenly light shining on its forehead--a purity
+"God-given," like his name.
+
+His name, which she had once so disliked, but which now caught a strange
+beauty. Lately, she had looked out its meaning in a list of Bible names;
+and many a time, the night before, she had said it to herself, crying
+it out into the dark, until its soft Hebrew vowels grew musical, and its
+holy Hebrew meaning grew divine. "Nathanael--Nathanael--_God-given_."
+Might he not indeed be a husband given unto her of God--to lead her in
+the right way, and make a true noble woman of her; such as a woman is
+always made by the love of, and the loving of, a noble man.
+
+But these were sacred night-time thoughts which vanished in the
+daylight, or only came in snatches and rifts, careering through the
+blackness that surrounded her.
+
+And still she talked to the fortunate Mr. Trenchard; made herself more
+agreeable than she had ever believed possible. The elderly beau was
+fascinated, and even Mr. Dugdale turned from election-papers, to look at
+his fair sister-in-law with genuine admiration--now and then nodding to
+Harrie, as if to see what she thought of this new light that had shot
+across their country hemisphere. At which Mrs. Dugdale once or
+twice pretended to be mightily jealous, until her husband, with his
+inconceivable sweet smile, his way of patting her knees with his big
+gentle hand, and the utterly inexpressible tone of his "Nay, now Missus"
+made matters quite straight, and plunged back into his politics.
+
+All this while Anne Valery sat in her arm chair--speaking little,
+looking from one to the other of her guests with a wandering, thoughtful
+eye, that, for once, noticed little the things around her, because her
+mental vision was afar off.--Whither--
+
+And Marmaduke went on with his benevolent schemes for improving
+Dorsetshire and the world; and his Harrie had her dreams too--possibly
+about the advantage an M.P.'s interest might prove in future days to
+"the children;" and the young couple, in all the whirl of their misery,
+still clung to hope and youth and life, so little of which way they had
+trod, and so much of which lay before them. No one thought of her who
+sat apart, looking smilingly on them all, but to whom they and the
+things surrounding them were day by day growing more dim--who was
+fading, fading, even while she smiled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+When, late at night, the party reached Kingcombe, it was resolved that
+the Harpers should remain there until morning. Agatha, worn out with
+bodily fatigue and the great tension of her mind during so many hours,
+laid her head down on her pillow, closed her aching eyes, and never
+opened them till near upon broad noon. Then she found breakfast was long
+over in the early house of the Dugdales, and that Nathanael had left her
+and gone out some hours before.
+
+"He would not let me come and wake you--he said you slept so heavily
+and looked so tired. Certainly, he is the very kindest husband! Who ever
+would have believed that stiff, cold disagreeable Nathanael, who came
+home from America some months ago, puzzling us all, would have turned
+out so well. It is your ladyship's doing, I suppose."
+
+So ran on Mrs. Dugdale, nor noticed how beneath her words her
+sister-in-law writhed, as though they had been sharp swords. Harrie was
+not a penetrating woman; Agatha had already discerned that, and thought,
+with a bitter smile, that it was well they were coming to live at
+Kingcombe, and that Mrs. Dugdale would be a very safe and amusing
+companion.
+
+"Now, what is to be done to-day?" said she, as she ate the breakfast
+which Harrie brought her, and looked round the strange bed-room, which
+made her feel more bewildered than ever. So many phases, so many lives
+did she seem to have passed through since she was married.
+
+"The first thing to be done, my dear, is to take you back to Kingcombe
+Holm, to do respectful to your papa-in-law. Very punctilious is the
+Squire. If Nathanael had not ridden over there at some unearthly hour
+this morning, he never would have forgiven your not returning at
+night--the last night too, for I see your husband is determined to be
+settled at the cottage this evening."
+
+"Ah, that is well." Agatha breathed more freely. She was so glad to hide
+herself under any roof that was her own. And perhaps a vague thought
+crept up, that some time--not for days yet, but when she could bend her
+pride to soften him--when they were living quite alone together--all
+might be gradually explained, nay, healed, between her and her husband.
+She was on the whole not sorry to go "home."
+
+"I see you two are quite agreed," laughed Harrie. "Marvellous union,
+Mrs. Locke Harper. You'll be really a pattern couple soon, and throw
+Duke and me cruelly in the shade. Now, dress like lightning, and I'll
+drive you and the children over to grandpapa's. Most likely well meet Pa
+and Nathanael somewhere about the town."
+
+But, with the general vagueness of the Dugdale habits, that meeting did
+not arrive, nor was Mr. Harper anywhere to be seen.
+
+"I dare say he is at the cottage, where I was bid not to take you upon
+any account. Charming little mysteries, I suppose, attendant on bringing
+home the bride. Very nice. Heigh-ho! I remember how happy I was when my
+poor dear Duke brought me home for the first time!"
+
+"Where was that?" They were dashing over the moors, Agatha sitting
+rather silent, and Harrie's tongue galloping as fast as Dunce, her
+steed. Little Brian was perched on his mother's knee, holding the
+reins--a baby Phaeton, though with small danger of setting the world on
+fire--at least just yet.
+
+"Where was it, my dear? Why, to the same old house we live in, empty
+and gloomy then, though it's full enough now. And I had been
+married--(hold your tongues, Fred and Gus! you can't have the whip,
+simpletons!)--married only three weeks, and it was queer coming back to
+my native place; and my father was rather cross that I had married Duke
+at all, and--I was foolish enough to cry."
+
+Here Harrie laughed, and gave Dunce a lash that quite discomposed his
+pony faculties, and made Brian scream with delight.
+
+"And what did your husband say?"
+
+"Say? Nothing. He never speaks when he's vexed or hurt; only, a little
+while afterwards he came beside me, and said something about my being
+such a young girl, so gay-hearted and pretty--(bah!--though I was pretty
+then)--too young, he said, to marry such an elderly man, etc. etc. etc."
+
+"And what did _you_ say?"
+
+"Likewise nothing. I just jumped on his knee, and took him round the
+neck, and--But that isn't of the slightest consequence to anybody. Tuts!
+On with you, Dunce!" And Harrie leaned forward, her eyelashes glittering
+wet in spite of her fun.
+
+"I know I don't deserve him," she continued. "I never did. Nobody could.
+There are a lot of bad men in the world, but when a man is really good,
+there's hardly a woman alive that is good enough for him. And I'm not
+half good enough for Duke--but--I love him! That's all. Bless thee,
+Brian! thee is Pa's own boy all over!"
+
+And Harrie kissed the little fellow passionately, with something more
+even than a mother's love.--Agatha could have lifted up her arms and
+shrieked with misery.
+
+It was a strange long day at Kingcombe Holm; many things to be arranged,
+many questions to be parried, many prying eyes to be avoided. But
+the general conclusion seemed to be, that this sudden movement was a
+mysterious whim of Nathanael--and Nathanael was supposed by one-half of
+his family to be mightily prone to mysteries and whims.
+
+At length, when the day was nigh spent, and Agatha had dressed for the
+last of those formal dinners to which she had never been able quite to
+reconcile herself, she took refuge in Elizabeth's room. Thither she
+had of late absented herself; there was something so formidable in the
+keenness of Elizabeth's silent eyes. Hesitating before the door, she
+remembered when she had last quitted it. It required all her bravery to
+cross the threshold once more.
+
+"Come in. I hear your foot, Agatha." There was no stepping back now.
+
+The same atmosphere of peace and sanctity pervading the pretty room; the
+same lights dancing through the painted window on the silk coverlet; the
+same face, which had all the colourless reality of death, without any
+of its ghastliness--a smiling repose, such as is seen only at the
+beginning and end of life's tumult--in the cradle and in the coffin. Its
+effect upon Agatha was instantaneous. Her trembling ceased; she stepped
+lightly, as one does in entering a holy place.
+
+"Elizabeth!" It seemed a beautiful name, a saint's name, and as such
+came quite naturally, though she had rarely before been so familiar with
+any one of her new sisters. She kneeled down and kissed Elizabeth.
+
+"That is right. You are good to come. And where have you been, my little
+sister?--I have not seen you for three days."
+
+"Is it so long?"
+
+"Yes--though it may seem longer to me here. You remember you came and
+told me a long story about a Cornish miner. How did the tale end? What,
+no answer?"
+
+None. She tried to hide herself--crush herself into the very floor where
+she sat, out of reach of Elizabeth's eyes.
+
+"Ah, well, dear! I shall not ask."
+
+"Perhaps my husband will tell you some day. Talk to me of something
+else, Elizabeth. And oh! however I may look and speak, don't notice me.
+Let me feel that I need not make pretences with you."
+
+"You need not. Nothing that happens here goes beyond these four walls.
+Everybody tells me everything."
+
+Elizabeth might well say this. There was that about her which made
+people fearless and free in their confidence; it did not seem like
+talking to a mortal woman, mixed up continually in the affairs of life,
+but to one removed to a different sphere, where there was no chance of
+betrayal.
+
+Her room was a safe confessional, and she was a sort of general
+conscience in the house.
+
+"Everybody tells you everything," repeated Agatha. "Does my husband?"
+
+"Not yet; at least not in words."
+
+"Then I will not. Only let me come here, and"--
+
+She covered her face, and for a few moments wept fully and freely, as
+one weep's before one's own heart and before God. Then she dried her
+eyes, and the storm was over.
+
+Elizabeth only said, "Poor child--poor child. Wait!" But the one word
+struck like a sun-ray through darkness. No one ever "waited" but had
+some hopeful ending to wait for.
+
+"Now," said Agatha, overcoming her weakness--"now let us talk. What have
+you been doing all day?"
+
+"Little else than read this, and think over it. You know Frederick's
+hand, I see? He does not usually write such long letters, even to me.
+All is not right with him, I fear."
+
+"Indeed!"--and Agatha met unsuspiciously the keen look of Elizabeth.
+"Yet he is well and in the midst of gaieties; Mr. Trenchard said so
+yesterday. They met in Paris."
+
+"Did they?" Elizabeth lay musing for a good while; then suddenly said,
+observing her young sister, "Agatha, you are listening? There's some one
+at the door?"
+
+It was Nathanael. Any one might have known that by the quick flush
+that swept over his wife's features. But when this passed she was again
+composed--not at all like the young creature who had wept by Elizabeth's
+couch. She merely acknowledged her husband's presence, and leaving her
+place vacant for him, took up a book.
+
+He said, "I did not know my wife was here. Were you and she talking?
+Shall I leave you?"
+
+Elizabeth smiled. "Then you must take your wife also, for I will not be
+the sundering of married people. But nonsense! Sit down both of you. We
+were speaking about Frederick. Has he written to you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"In this letter"--Nathanael's eyes fell on it and froze there--"he
+gives me no address. Agatha says he is living in Paris. Do you remember
+where?"
+
+"I do not.",
+
+"Perhaps your wife does."
+
+Agatha had a useful memory for such things. She repeated the address
+given by Mr. Trenchard, exactly.
+
+"Good child! When I write I shall tell Frederick how you remembered
+him. But he has been equally mindful of you. He asks many questions, and
+seems very anxious about you."
+
+"Does he? He is very kind," said Agatha, somewhat moved. She felt all
+kindness deeply now.
+
+"He is kind," Miss Harper continued, thoughtfully. "When he was a
+boy, there never was a softer heart. Poor Frederick!" And the name was
+uttered with a fondness that Agatha had never noticed in any other of
+Major Harper's family towards him. It led her to look sympathisingly
+towards Elizabeth.
+
+"Are you uneasy about him? Oh! I do hope nothing is wrong with poor
+Major Harper." And she almost forgot her own feelings in thinking
+how unbrotherly it was of Nathanael to sit there like a stone, saying
+nothing. Elizabeth also seemed hurt; the elder brother was clearly her
+favourite--clung to as sisters cling, through good report and evil. She
+looked gratefully at Agatha.
+
+"Thank you. You are a warm-hearted girl. But you ought to keep a warm
+heart for Frederick. You do not know how tenderly he always speaks of
+you."
+
+Agatha coloured, she hardly knew why, except because she saw her husband
+start and look at her--one of those keen, quick looks that only last a
+moment. Under it she blushed still deeper--to very scarlet.
+
+Mr. Harper stood up. "I think, Elizabeth, we must go now. Agatha shall
+come to you again in a day or two--and you and she can then talk over
+both your sisterly loves for Frederick."
+
+He spoke lightly, but Agatha heard a jarring tone--she was growing so
+familiar with his every tone now. Why did he thus speak, thus look,
+whenever she uttered or listened to his brother's name? Could it be
+possible that Emma had told him--No, she threw that thought from her in
+scorn--the scorn with which she had once met the insinuation that
+she had been "in love" with Major Harper. Emma could not have been so
+foolish, so wicked, or, if she had, any manly honour, any honest pride,
+would have made Nathanael speak of it before their marriage. Since, she
+felt certain that Mr. Harper had not interchanged a single word alone
+with Mrs. Thornycroft.
+
+In disgust and shame that her vanity--oh! not vanity, but a feeling
+that, holy as it was, her proud heart still denied--had led her to
+form the suspicion, Agatha cast it from her. She who had no secrets, no
+jealousies, felt it to be impossible that Nathanael should bury within
+his breast that foul thing--a secret jealousy of his brother.
+
+Especially now, when it seemed as if his love itself were dying or
+dead--when on quitting Elizabeth's room, he walked with her, silent, or
+making smooth brief speeches, as he would to any other lady--any lady he
+had met for the first time, and was handing courteously down to dinner.
+Her heart boiled within her! Was she to pour it out before him in
+complaint--repentance? Was she to accuse him of jealousy, and be met
+with a calm contemptuous smile?--to betray the growing passion of her
+heart, in order to light up the few stray embers that might yet be
+lingering feebly in his? Never! She walked on haughtily, carelessly,
+dumb.
+
+The evening slid on, hardly noticed by her. Night came; when, after
+many ceremonious family adieux, which she responded to without ever
+hearing--after one frantic rush along the dim passages to Elizabeth's
+door, where she drew back and left the tearful good-bye unspoken, for
+_he_ was standing there--after all this the Squire put her into the
+family coach, with Mrs. Dugdale at her side and Nathanael opposite.
+Bidding her farewell, the old man gave, with less stateliness than
+tenderness, his fatherly blessing upon her and her new home. They
+reached it. Again she laid her head upon a strange pillow in a strange
+room, and slept, as she always did when very wretched, the heavy,
+stupifying sleep which lasts from night till morning--deadening all
+care, but making the waking like that of one waking in a tomb.
+
+Agatha woke with the sunshine full in her eyes, and the early
+church-bells ringing.
+
+"Oh, where am I? What day is this? Where is my husband?"
+
+The new maid, Nathanael's foster-sister, was standing by, smiling all
+respectful civilities, informing her in broad Dorset that it was Sunday,
+time for "missus" to get up, and that "master" was walking in the
+garden.
+
+They "mistress" and "master," head and guide of their own
+household!--they, two young creatures, who so little time ago had been a
+youth and a girl, each floating adrift on life, without duties or ties.
+It had seemed very strange, very solemn, under any circumstances, but
+now--
+
+"God help me, poor helpless child that I am! Oh, what shall I do?"
+
+Such was the inward sob of Agatha's heart. She almost wished that she
+could have turned her face again on the pillow, and slept there safely
+for eternity.
+
+But the matin church-bells ceased--it was nine o'clock. She must rise,
+and appear below for the first time as mistress in her own house. Also,
+she remembered faintly something which Mrs. Dugdale had said about the
+custom at Kingcombe--an irrefragable law of country etiquette---of a
+bride's going to church for the first time, ceremoniously, in
+bridal dress. And no sooner had she descended--wrapped in the first
+morning-frock she could lay her hands upon, than Harrie entered.
+
+"So--I am your first visitor you see. Many welcomes to your new home!
+And may it prove as happy, as merry--and some day, as full--as ours.
+Bless you, my dear little sister!"
+
+She pressed Agatha in her arms with more feeling than Harrie usually
+showed. But, for Agatha's salvation, or she would have burst into sobs,
+it was only momentary.
+
+"Come, no sentiment! Call in Nathanael, and eat your breakfast quickly,
+you atrociously lazy folks! Don't you know you have only half-an-hour
+and you must go to church, or all Kingcombe would be talking."
+
+"I meant to go--I shall be ready in two minutes."
+
+"My patience! ready--in such a gown! Come here Nathanael. Are you aware
+it's indispensable for your wife to appear at church in wedding costume,
+just as she did on that blissful day, when"--
+
+"Hush! I'll do anything you like, only hush!" whispered Agatha. Harrie
+laughed, and said something about "sparing her blushes." There were none
+to spare--she was as pale as death. What, appear before her husband,
+dressed as on the morning when if not altogether a happy bride, she at
+least had the hope of making her bridegroom happy, and the comfort of
+believing that he loved her and would love her always! The mere thought
+of this sent a coldness through all her frame.
+
+Nathanael said, "You told me this before, Harriet. It is an idle custom;
+but neither my wife nor myself would wish to go against the world, or
+the ways of our own people. Arrange it, as Agatha says, according as you
+like."
+
+He had then heard her whisper--he had seen her paleness. How had he
+interpreted both?
+
+The church-bells began to ring again, and Harrie prepared to vanish,
+though not until she had dressed Agatha, scanned her from top to toe,
+vowed the bonnet did not become her a bit, and that she looked as
+white as if she were again about to go through the formidable
+marriage-service.
+
+"A sad pity!--because to-day you'll be looked at a great deal more than
+the clergyman. We are a terribly inquisitive town; and weddings are
+scarce at Kingcombe.--Take your wife, Nathanael. There you go--a very
+handsome, interesting young couple. Nay, don't cheat the townsfolk by
+taking the garden way."
+
+"Do, pray?" entreated Agatha of her husband. "Don't let the people see
+us."
+
+"You foolish child!" cried Harrie, as she made herself invisible through
+the front-door, throwing back her last words as an unconscious parting
+sting. "Folks will think you are ashamed of your husband."
+
+Agatha took no notice, nor did Nathanael. Silently they walked to
+church, the garden way, which led them out opposite the eastern door.
+Entering with his wife on his arm, his bare head erect, though the eyes
+were lowered, his whole face still and steadfast, but looking much
+older since his marriage.--Mr. Harper was a man of whom no one need
+be ashamed. His wife glanced at him, and, in spite of all her sorrow,
+walked proudly up the aisle--prouder far than on her wedding-day. She
+never thought of herself or of the people looking at her. And--Heaven
+forgive her, poor child!--for the moment she never thought of Whose
+temple she was entering, until the clergyman's serious voice arose,
+proclaiming those "sacrifices" which are "a broken spirit." Then her
+spirit sank down broken within her, and under her thick white veil, and
+upon her white velvet bridal Prayer-book, fell tears, many and bitter.
+The poorest charity-girl that stared at her from the gallery would not
+that day have envied the bride.
+
+Service over, out of the church they went as they had come, arm-in-arm;
+the congregation holding back; all watching, but from some mysterious
+etiquette which must be left to the Kingcombeites to elucidate, no one
+venturing to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper. The Squire's household
+did not attend this church, nor the Dugdales either; so that the young
+people walked home without speaking to a soul, and scarcely to each
+other. They were both very grave. A word, perhaps, from either would
+have unlocked a heart flood; but the word was not spoken. They met at
+the gate of the cottage Mrs. Dugdale and her boys. Soon all the solemn
+influences of the temple passed away. They were in the world once
+more--the hard, bitter, erring world.
+
+"We are come in to see Auntie Agatha and Uncle Nathanael," said Harrie,
+as the children stood rather awe-struck by Mrs. Harper's dazzling
+appearance. "And we are going to take both back with us for dinner, as
+you promised. Early country dinner, my dear, which can't by any means be
+eaten in those fine clothes."
+
+"I will take them off." And her foot was on the stairs.
+
+"Stay; don't you see your husband looking at you. Let me look too--we
+are never likely to see you dressed as a bride again."
+
+Agatha paused, but Mr. Harper had already turned away. His gaze--would
+she had seen it! but she did not--was ended.
+
+She ran up-stairs, she looked in the glass once more at the vision
+which, from the age of childhood, almost every girl beholds herself in
+fancy--the dazzling white silk, orange-flowers, and lace, trappings
+of a day, never to be again worn. Then she tore them off,
+wildly--desperately; wishing one minute that she could bury them in the
+earth out of her sight, and again wrapping them up tenderly, as we wrap
+up clothes that are now nothing but empty garments, from which the form
+that-filled them has vanished evermore.
+
+Afterwards she dressed herself in ordinary matronly garb, and came down
+with matronly aspect to Harry and the little boys.
+
+A mid-day country dinner, eaten in peace and quietness, where people
+keep Sunday in Christian fashion--at least externally--where no visitors
+come in, and no gay evening reunions put an unholy close to the holy
+day; when the father of the family gathers his children round him in
+the long, sleepy afternoons, or takes a walk with them in the
+summer-twilight while all the neighbours are safe in church; after
+which, as a great treat, the elder ones sit up to supper, and the little
+ones are put to bed by mamma's own hands; then pleasant weariness,
+perhaps some brief evening prayer, sincere without cant--the household
+separates--the house darkens--and the day of rest ends.
+
+This was the way they kept Sunday at the Dugdales'. It was something new
+to Agatha, and she liked it much. She threw herself into the domestic
+ways as if she had been used to them all her life, and specially made
+herself popular with the father and the little ones. Marmaduke looked
+benevolently upon his sister-in-law, seemed quite to forget she was "a
+young lady," and even was heard to call her "my child" four times,--at
+which she was very pleased and proud. Over and over again, with youth's
+wild thirst to be happy, she tried to forget the weight on her life,
+and plunge into a temporary gaiety. Sometimes she even caught herself
+laughing outright, as she played with the children; for no one can be
+miserable always, especially at nineteen. But whenever she looked up,
+or was silent, or paused to think, the image of her husband came like a
+cloud between her and her mirth. No--she never could be really happy.
+
+Nathanael was all day very quiet and abstracted. He did not romp with
+his little nephews, and only smiled when Harrie teased him for this
+unusual omission of avuncular privilege. Once, Agatha saw him sitting
+with the youngest little girl fast asleep against his shoulder, he
+looking over her baby-curls with a pensive, troubled eye, an eye which
+seemed gazing into the future to find there--nothing! A strange thrill
+quivered through Agatha's heart to see him so sitting with that child.
+
+After tea Mrs. Dugdale proposed turning out of doors all the masculine
+half of the family, except the infant Brian, before whom loomed the
+terrific prospect of bed. So off they started. Gus being seen to snatch
+frantically at Pa's hand, and Fred, sublime in his first jacket, walking
+alongside with an air and grace worthy of the uncle whose name he bore.
+
+"There they go," cried Mrs. Dugdale, looking fondly after them. "Not
+bad-looking lads either, considering that Pa isn't exactly a beauty. But
+pshaw! what does that signify? I think my Duke's the very nicest face I
+know. Don't you, Agatha?"
+
+Agatha warmly acquiesced. She had entirely got over the first impression
+of Duke's plainness. And moreover she was learning day by day that
+mysterious secret which individualises one face out of all the world,
+and makes its very deficiencies more lovely than any other features'
+charm. She could fully sympathise with Harrie's harmless weakness, and
+agreed--looking at Brian, who in fact strongly resembled his father,
+angelicised into childhood, keeping the same beautiful expression, which
+needed no change--that if Mr. Dugdale's sons grew up like him in all
+points, the world would be none the worse, but a great deal the better.
+
+Thus talking--which little Brian seemed actually to understand, for he
+stood at her knee gazing up with miraculously merry eyes--Agatha watched
+her sister-in-law's Sunday duty, religiously performed, of putting the
+younger two to bed, while the nurses went to church, or took walks with
+their sweethearts. For, as Harrie sagely observed, "'the maidens' as
+we call them in Dorsetshire, 'the maidens' will fall in love as well as
+we."
+
+So chattering merrily--while she dashed water over Miss Baby's white,
+round limbs, and let Brian caper wildly about the nursery, clad in all
+sorts of half-costumes, or no costume at all--Mrs. Dugdale
+initiated Agatha into various arcana belonging to motherhood and
+mistress-of-a-family-hood. The other listened eagerly, so eagerly that
+she could have laughed at herself, remembering what she was six months
+before. To think that to-morrow she must begin her house-keeping--she,
+who knew no more of such things than a child! She snatched at all sorts
+of knowledge, talked over butchers, and bakers, and house expenses, and
+Kingcombe ways of marketing, taking an interest in the most commonplace
+things. For pervading everything was the consciousness, "It is _his_
+home I have to make comfortable." That thought sanctified and beautified
+all.
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," said Harrie, pausing in her walk up and
+down, patting and singing to Baby, who stared with open eyes over her
+shoulder, and obstinately declined going to sleep. "You will turn out a
+notable woman, I see. It's a curious and melancholy fact, which we don't
+ever learn till we are married, that all the love in the world is thrown
+away upon a man unless you make him comfortable at home. A neat house
+and a creditable dinner every day go more to his heart than all the
+sentimental devotion you can give. It's all very well for a man in love
+to live upon roses and posies, and kisses and blisses, but after he is
+married he dearly likes to be comfortable."
+
+Agatha was silent for a moment, hardly venturing to believe, and yet
+afraid she must. "I heard Miss Valery once say that no man's love after
+marriage is exactly as it was before it; that the thing attained soon
+loses its preciousness, and that the wife has to assume a new character,
+and win another kind of love. I wonder if this is true. I wonder"--and
+suddenly she changed her seriousness for the tone of raillery she always
+used with Harrie Dugdaie--"I wonder whether our husbands adore us first,
+and afterwards expect us to adore them."
+
+"So they do; I assure you they do! And a pretty amount of adoring
+and waiting upon your husband will require. I wouldn't for the whole
+universe have my Duke such an awfully exacting, particular, provoking,
+disagreeably good, or inexplicably naughty animal as my brother
+Nathanael."
+
+"Mrs. Dugdaie!" Agatha hardly knew whether to laugh or to be indignant.
+She only knew that she felt ready to spring up like a chained tigress
+when anybody said a word against Mr. Harper.
+
+"There now, don't waken the baby. Keep yourself quiet, do. See, there's
+its husband coming down the street to comfort it. He is looking up here,
+too. Run down, do'ee now; and if she'll be a good girl she shall
+have the neatest household and the best husband in Kingcombe--always
+excepting mine."
+
+Agatha did not run down; but she leant over the landing, and heard the
+footsteps and voices in the hall--steps and voices which always seem to
+put new life into a house where its ruler is dear to the hearts of wife
+and children. Troubled as she was--laden with even a new weight since
+the talk with Mrs. Dugdale--Agatha listened, and felt that in spite of
+all, the house seemed brighter for the entrance of _her_ husband. She
+tried to catch what he was saying, but only heard the voice of Mr.
+Dugdaie.
+
+"Of course, as you say, it's necessary. But really tomorrow--so
+soon--and for such a long time too! Couldn't both go together?"
+
+Nathanael made some inaudible reply.
+
+"To be sure, you know best. But--poor young thing!--I wonder what my
+Harrie would have said to me. Poor, pretty little thing!"
+
+The words, the manner, startled Agatha; She could not make them out. She
+descended, looking alarmed, uneasy--a look which did not wear off all
+the rest of the evening.
+
+In leaving she wondered why Mr. Dugdale woke from his dreaminess to bid
+her good-night with a fatherly air, addressing her more than once by his
+superlative of kindness, "My child." When she took her husband's arm
+to go out of the lighted hall-into the night, Agatha trembled, as if
+something were going to happen--she knew not what.
+
+The street was very dark, for Kingcombe people were economisers in gas;
+and besides kept such primitive hours, that at ten o'clock you might
+walk from one end of the town to the other and not see a light in any
+house. There was not a soul abroad except these two, and their feet
+echoed loudly along the pavement. At first Agatha, blinded by coming out
+of light into darkness, saw nothing, but stumbled on, clinging tightly
+to her husband. At length she perceived whereabouts they were--the
+black, quaintly-gabled houses, the market-cross, and, far above the
+sleepy town and its deserted streets, the bright wonderfully bright
+stars.
+
+Agatha took comfort when she saw the stars.
+
+"Have we far to go? I am rather tired," she said to her husband, chiefly
+for the sake of saying something.
+
+"Tired, are you? Then you must have a quiet day tomorrow. It will be
+very quiet, I doubt not;" and he sighed.
+
+"Why so? What is to be done to-morrow? Shall you have to ride over to
+Thornhurst?"
+
+"No; I saw Anne Valery yesterday. I shall not see her again for a good
+while."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"There is business requiring me in Cornwall. To-morrow I am going away."
+
+"Going away!" The words were little more than a sigh. She felt all cold
+and numb for the moment. Then a sudden flood of the old impetuous pride
+came over her. Going away! Leaving his young wife! Leaving her alone in
+her new home--alone the second day, to be wondered at, and pointed
+at, and pitied! Perhaps he did it to humble and punish her. It was
+cruel--cruel! And again the demon or angel--which took such various
+forms that she hardly knew the true one--rose up rampant within her.
+
+"Mr. Harper, this is sudden--will look strange. You ought to have told
+me before."
+
+"I did not know it myself until last night. That my going to Cornwall is
+necessary, on business grounds, I have already made clear to Marmaduke.
+He will tell his wife, and Harriet will tell all the world. I have so
+arranged that you will have no difficulty of any kind. This house will
+go on as usual, or you can visit at Thornhurst and at my father's. There
+will be no loss to you of anything or anybody--except one, whose absence
+must be welcome." "Welcome!" she repeated in an accent of bitter scorn.
+
+"You said so yourself. Hush! do not say it again. When we part, let it
+be in peace!"
+
+He spoke in a smothered, exhausted voice, and holding the gate open
+for her to pass, leaned upon it as if he could hardly stand. But Agatha
+perceived nothing--she was dizzy and blind.
+
+"Peace?" she repeated, driven mad by the mockery of the word. She
+saw the door half-open, the warm light glimmering within the hall--so
+soft--so home-like. The torture was too strong--her senses began to give
+way.
+
+Without knowing what she did, without any settled purpose except to
+escape from the misery of that sight, Agatha pushed her husband from
+her, turned and fled--fled anywhere, no matter where, so that it was
+into night and darkness, away from her home and from him.
+
+She did not know the way; she only knew that she ran up one street and
+down another like the wind. Her state of mind was bordering on insanity.
+At length she paused from sheer exhaustion, and leaned against a
+doorway--like any poor outraged homeless wretch.
+
+The good man of the house came softly out to look up into the quiet
+night before he bolted his door. He stood musing, contemplating the
+stars. It was a minute or more before he noticed the bowed human form
+beside him. When he did, there was no mistaking the compassionate voice.
+
+"Eh, poor soul! What's wrong wi'ee?"
+
+Agatha sprang up with a cry. There were two standing by her, from whose
+presence she would gladly have run to the world's end--Mr. Dugdale and
+her husband. The one remained petrified with astonishment--the other
+said but three words, in a dull mechanical voice, as if every feeling
+had been struck out of the man by some thunderbolt of doom.
+
+"Agatha, come home."
+
+Again she tried to burst from him and fly, but her arm was caught, and
+Marmaduke Dugdale's grave look--the look he fixed upon his own
+children when they erred, constraining them always into repentance and
+goodness--was reading her inmost soul.
+
+"Go home, poor child! I'll not tell of you or him. Go home with your
+husband."
+
+She felt her hand laid, or grasped--she knew not which--in that of
+Nathanael; who held it with invincible firmness. There was no resisting
+that clasp. She rose up and followed him, as if led by an invisible
+chain. Her madness had passed, and left only a dull indifference to
+everything. The die was cast; she had laid open the miseries of their
+home, had disgraced him and herself before the world. It signified
+little where she went or what she did; they were utterly separated now.
+
+Without again speaking, or taking notice of Mr. Dugdale, she suffered
+Nathanael to lead her away, passing swiftly down the silent streets.
+Neither husband nor wife uttered a single word.
+
+The moment she entered the house she walked up-stairs, slowly, that he
+might not see her tottering; went into her own room, and locked her
+door with a loud, fierce turning of the key, that seemed to shriek as it
+turned.
+
+There, for almost an hour, she sat motionless. The maid, half asleep,
+came to the door with a light, but Agatha bade her set it down, and sat
+in the dark. Dark--altogether dark, within and without; with no hope
+or repentance, or even the heroism of suffering; wrathful, sullen,
+miserable; wronged--yet conscious that she had sinned as much as she
+was sinned against; seeing her husband and herself stand as it were
+on either edge of a black gulf, hourly widening, yet neither having
+strength to plunge it to the other's side.
+
+Here she sat, upright and still, body and soul wrapped in a leaden,
+shroud-like darkness, until gradually a stupor possessed her brain.
+
+"I am so tired," she murmured, "I must go to sleep. He will not leave
+till to-morrow. But it does not signify. Nothing signifies. I must go to
+sleep."
+
+She unlocked the door and drew in the candle, flaring in its socket.
+She had to press her fingers on her eyeballs before they could bear the
+light, all was so very dark. She Sotted her hair up anyhow, took off her
+clothes, and crept to bed, almost as if she were creeping to her tomb.
+The fragment of candle went out, sinking instantaneously, like a soul
+quenched out of existence, and all was total darkness. In that darkness
+a heavy hand seemed to lay itself on Agatha's brain, and press down her
+eyelids. Scarcely two minutes after, she was asleep.
+
+Hour after hour of the night went by, and there was not a sound, not
+a breath in the room. The late moon rose, and gave a little glimmer of
+light through the curtains. Now and then there was a faint noise of some
+one moving in the house, but Agatha never stirred. She slept heavily as
+some people invariably sleep under the pressure of great pain.
+
+Towards morning, when moonlight and dawn were melted together, and the
+room was growing light enough to discern faces, there was a step at the
+door, and a ray flashing through the opening, for Agatha had left it
+ajar.
+
+Nathanael set down the candle outside and came in softly. He was dressed
+for a journey--evidently just ready to start. He looked very ill,
+sleepless, and worn.
+
+Standing a minute at the door, he listened to his wife's breathing, low
+and regular as that of a child. Nature and repose had soothed her; she
+slept now as quietly and healthfully as if she had never known trouble.
+Her husband crept across the room very carefully, and remained watching
+her. Oh! the contrast between the one who _watched_ and the one who
+slept!
+
+At first he stood perfectly upright, rigid, and motionless.
+
+Then his hands twisted themselves together, and his eyes grew hot,
+bursting. His lips moved as in speaking, though with never a sound. It
+was the dumbness--the choking dumbness of that emotion which made it
+so terrible. Such silence could not last--he seemed to feel it could
+not--and so moved backward out of hearing. There he stood for a little
+while, leaning against the wall, his hand bound tightly over his
+forehead, and sighing, so bitterly sighing!--that gasp which bursts from
+men who have no tears.
+
+At length he became calmer, but still stood without the door. He even
+moved the candle further off, as though afraid its glare, might disturb
+the sleeper--forgetful that the room was now growing all bright with
+daybreak. At this moment the clock striking in the hall below made him
+start.
+
+Hastily he took out a paper that he had hid somewhere about him. It
+was in his own handwriting, all sealed and endorsed. "Not to be opened
+except in case of my death." Nevertheless he tore it open--tore likewise
+an under-cover addressed to his wife, and began to read:
+
+"I know you never loved me. From something I overheard on our
+marriage-day--from other words afterwards let fall in anger by my
+brother, I also know that you loved"--
+
+He crushed the paper, his eyes seeming literally to flame. Then all the
+fury died out of them, and left nothing but tenderness. He listened for
+the soft breathing within--soft and pure.
+
+"No!" he murmured. "I will not leave her honour to the chance of written
+words. No other human being must ever know what I knew. If I live, it
+is not worse than it was before; and should any harm come to me, let her
+think I died in ignorance. Better so."
+
+He tore the paper into small strips, and deliberately burnt them one
+by one in the candle, making a little pile of the ashes, but afterwards
+scattering them about the fireplace. Then putting out the light--for
+the house was now filled with the soft grey dawn--Nathanael stepped once
+more into his wife's room.
+
+And still she was sleeping--sleeping at the very crisis of her fate. Her
+face was composed and sweet, though her hands were still clenched, and
+one of them almost buried in her loose hair.
+
+Her husband stood and looked at her, trying long to keep himself firm
+and self-restrained, as though she were aware of his presence. But at
+last the holy helplessness of sleep subdued him. From standing upright
+he sank gradually down--down--till he was crouching on his knees.
+Shudder over shudder came over him--sigh after sigh rose up, and was
+smothered again in his breast. At last even the strong man's strength
+gave way, and there fell a heavy, silent, burning rain.
+
+And all the while the wife slept, and never knew how he loved her!
+
+After a while this ceased. Nathanael opened his eyes and tried to look
+once more calmly on his wife. She stirred a little in sleep, and began
+to smile--a very soft, meek, innocent smile, that softened her lips into
+infantine sweetness. She was again Agatha, the merry Agatha, as she had
+been when he first saw her, before he wooed her, and shook her roughly
+from her girlish calm into all the struggles of life. He could have
+cursed himself--and yet--yet he loved her!
+
+Kneeling, he put his arm softly over her. Another moment and he would
+have yielded to the frantic impulse, and snatched her to his heart for
+one--just one embrace--heedless of her waking. But how would she wake?
+only to hate and reproach him. He had better leave her thus, and carry
+away in his remembrance that picture of peace, which blotted out all
+her bitter words, all her cruel want of love--made him forget everything
+except that she had been the wife of his bosom and his first love.
+
+He drew back his arm, gradually and noiselessly. He did not attempt to
+kiss her, not even her hand, lest he should disturb her; but kneeling,
+laid his hand on the pillow by hers, and pressed his lips to her hair.
+
+"I am glad she sleeps--yes, very glad! She is quite content now, she
+will be quite happy when I am gone, God love thee and take care of
+thee--my darling--my Agatha."
+
+[Illustration: A husband's farewell  p280]
+
+Kissing her hair once again, he rose up and went away.
+
+As he departed, the first sunbeam came in and danced upon the bed,
+showing Agatha fast asleep, sleeping still. She never woke until it had
+been broad day for a long time, and the sun creeping over her pillow
+struck her eyes.
+
+Then she started up with a loud cry--she had been dreaming. Tears were
+wet upon her cheek. She called wildly for her husband. It was too late.
+
+He had been gone at least three hours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"Mrs. Harper--Missus--there's a carriage at the door."
+
+"Say I am not at home."
+
+She had given the same sullen answer to every visitor for four weeks,
+shutting herself up in stern seclusion, determined that, whatever cruel
+comments they made, the neighbourhood should have no power of spying
+into the mystery of "that poor Mrs. Locke Harper who did not live happy
+with her husband." For so she felt sure had been the result of that
+fatal betrayal to her brother-in-law. Since, as Harrie had once said,
+"Duke never could keep a secret in his life!" But even his own wife
+could not thoroughly fathom the good heart of Marmaduke Dugdale.
+
+"Not at home?" repeated Dorcas, who had been very faithful to her young
+mistress. "Not when it's Miss Valery, who has been so ill? Oh, Missus,
+do'ee see Miss Valery."
+
+Mrs. Harper hesitated, and during that time her visitor entered
+uninvited.
+
+"So, Agatha, as you did not come to see me, I have come at last to see
+you."
+
+"I am sorry"--
+
+"What, to see me?" said Anne, smiling. But the voice was weak, and the
+smile had a sickly beauty. Agatha was struck by a change, slight, yet
+perceptible, which had come over Miss Valery.
+
+"I hear you have been ill--will you take the arm-chair? Are you better
+to day?"
+
+"Oh yes," returned Anne, briefly; she was never much in the habit of
+talking about herself. "But you, my dear, how have you been this long
+time? Come and let me look at you."
+
+"It is not worth while. Never mind me. Talk of something else."
+
+"Of your husband, then. When did you hear from him?"
+
+"Last week."
+
+"And is he quite well? Will you give a message to him from me when you
+write again?"
+
+"I never write."
+
+Miss Valery looked surprised, pained. Evidently to her sick-room had
+reached the vaguest possible hints of what had happened. Or else Anne
+must have refused to hear or credit what she was persuaded was an
+impossible falsehood. In all good hearts scandal unrepeated, unbelieved,
+dies a natural death.
+
+To Mrs. Harper's brief, sharp sentence there was no reply; her guest
+turned to other topics.
+
+"Harriet Dugdale comes home to-morrow. It is not often she takes it into
+her head to pay a three weeks' visit from home. You must have missed her
+a good deal."
+
+"No, I did not. I have never been outside the garden."
+
+"Was that quite right, my dear? And your sisters-in-law complain
+bitterly that you will not go to Kingcombe Holm."
+
+"They should have taken more trouble in coming to ask me.
+
+"Nay, in this world we should not judge too harshly. We cannot see into
+any one's motives. There may have been reasons. I know the Squire has
+not been at all well; and Mary has spent her whole time in watching him,
+and in coming to Thornhurst to nurse me."
+
+"Have you been so very ill, then? I wish--I wish--"
+
+"That you also had come to see me? Well, you will come now. Not to-day;
+for I am going to use this lovely autumn morning in taking a journey."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To Weymouth, opposite the Isle of Portland."
+
+After this answer both were silent. Agatha was thinking of the night
+when her husband rode to Weymouth. Anne was thinking--of what?
+
+At length she put her thoughts aside, and turned to watch the young
+wife, who had fallen into a sullen, absent mood.
+
+"Does your house please you, Agatha? It is very pretty, I think."
+
+"Yes, very. I do not complain. Would you like to look over it? Or shall
+I give you some cake and wine? That is the fashion, I believe, when a
+visitor first comes to see a bride in her new home."
+
+The bitterness, the sarcasm of her manner were pitiful to see. Anne
+Valery watched her, sadly, yet not hopelessly. There was in the calm of
+that pale face a clearness of vision which pierced through many human
+darknesses to the light behind.
+
+She only said, "Thank you, I will take some wine; I like to keep up
+good old customs,"--and waited while Mrs. Harper, with a quick excited
+manner, and a countenance that changed momentarily, did the first
+honours of her household. So sad it was to see her doing it all alone!
+More widow-like than bride-like.
+
+As she came up with the wine-glass, Miss Valery caught her hand, holding
+it firmly in defiance of Agatha's slight effort to get free.
+
+"Wait a minute for my good wishes to the bride. May God bless you! Not
+with fortune, which is oftentimes only a curse"--
+
+"That is true," muttered Agatha, bitterly.
+
+"Not with perfect freedom from care, for that is impossible, or, if
+possible, would not be good for you. Every one of us must bear our own
+burden; and we can bear it, if we love one another."
+
+Agatha's lips were set together.
+
+"If," continued Anne, firmly--"If we love any one with sincerity and
+faithfulness, we are sure to reap our reward some time. If any love us,
+and we believe it and trust them, they are sure to come out clear from
+all clouds, our own beloved, true to the end. Therefore, Agatha, above
+all blessings, may God bless you with _love_! May you be happy in your
+husband, and make him happy! May you live to see your home merry
+and full--not silent!--may you die among your children and your own
+people--not alone!"
+
+The sudden solemnity of this blessing, enhanced by the feebleness of
+the voice that uttered it, awoke strange emotions in Agatha. She threw
+herself on her knees by the armchair, where Anne lay back--now faint and
+pale.
+
+"Oh, if you had been near me--if I had known you always, and you had
+brought me up, and made a good woman of me."
+
+"Perhaps I ought," murmured Anne, thoughtfully. "But, just then, it
+would have been so hard--so hard!"
+
+"What are you saying? Say it again. All your words are good words. Tell
+me."
+
+"Nothing, dear. Except"--here Miss Valery raised herself with a sudden
+effort mental and bodily--"Agatha, will you go with me to Weymouth?"
+
+"If you like. Anywhere to be with you. I am sick of myself."
+
+"We all are at times, especially when we are young, and do not quite
+understand ourselves or others. The feeling passes away. But as to
+Weymouth--do you still dislike to go near the sea?"
+
+"Yes--no! I will try to bear it; I think I could, by your side. And you
+shall not go alone on any account."
+
+"Thank you," said Anne, taking her hand. So they went.
+
+An innocent line of railway darted past Kingcombe, in the vain hope of
+waking that somnolent town. It was a pleasant whirl across the usual
+breezy flats of moorland, by some meadows where a network of serpentine
+streams flashed in the sun. Agatha felt more like her own self; with
+her, the spirit of Nature was always an exorciser of internal demons;
+and Anne's conversation aided the beneficent work.
+
+At Dorchester they took a carriage, and drove across the country to
+Weymouth.
+
+"Are you not getting weary? you looked so but lately," said Agatha to
+Miss Valery.
+
+"Not at all, I feel strong now." Her eyes and cheeks were indeed very
+bright; she leaned forward and gazed eagerly around.
+
+"This Weymouth seems familiar to you, Miss Valery?"
+
+"Yes; we used to come here every summer--Mr. and Mrs. Harper and the
+children and I, until she died. She was as good as a mother, or an elder
+sister"--here Anne hesitated, but repeated the words--"like an elder
+sister--to me. We were all very happy in those times. It is a great
+blessing, Agatha, to have had a happy childhood. Where did you spend
+yours?"
+
+Agatha looked uneasy. "Chiefly in London--I told you."
+
+"But before then, when you were a very little girl?"
+
+"I do not know. Don't let us talk about that."
+
+"Not if you do not wish it." Anne's eyes, which had watched her closely,
+turned away, and after a few minutes were riveted on a line of blue sea
+sweeping round a distant headland, and curving off to the horizon. As
+she looked she became very pale, and shivered. Agatha hardly noticed
+her, being so busy examining the new regions into which they now
+entered--the ordinary High Street of an ordinary country town. The sea
+view had vanished.
+
+Suddenly the carriage turned a corner, and they burst upon the shore of
+Weymouth Bay. A great, blue, glittering bay, with two white headlands
+shutting it in; the tide running high, the waves dashing themselves
+furiously against the sea-wall of the esplanade, breaking into showers
+of spray, and curling back into the foaming whirl below.
+
+Agatha started, and put her hands before her eyes. "I know that sight--I
+remember that sound. Oh! where is this place? why did you bring me
+here?"
+
+At this cry Miss Valery, roused from her momentary fit of abstraction,
+took hold of Agatha's hand. The girl was trembling violently.
+
+"My dear, I did not expect this, or you should not have come here. This
+is Weymouth. Now do you remember?"
+
+"How should I? Was I ever here before?" She peered from under her hand at
+the sparkling sea. "No, it is not like that sea; it is too bright. Yet I
+hear the same roll against the same wall. It is very foolish, but I wish
+we could get away."
+
+"Presently," said Anne's soothing voice. "We must drive along this
+shore, and then we will get out at an inn I know, and rest."
+
+Her manner, her expression, as she fixed her eyes full upon her, struck
+Agatha with an indescribable feeling. She looked eagerly at Miss Valery,
+trying to read in that worn face some likeness to the one which had
+impressed her childish memory with almost angelic beauty.
+
+"Tell me--you say you have been often here--did you ever one stormy day
+follow a ship that was outward bound? You were in a little boat, and the
+ship was standing out to sea, round that point--and"--
+
+She stopped, for Anne's face was livid to the very lips. Agatha forgot
+her own question and its purport.
+
+"Stop the carriage. Let me hold you. Dear--dear Miss Valery, you are
+worn out--you are fainting."
+
+"No--I never faint--I am only tired. Don't speak to me for a minute or
+two, and I shall be well."
+
+With a long sigh she forcibly brought life back to her cheeks--a feeble
+life at best. Agatha, watching her, was smitten by a dread which
+now entered her mind for the first time, driving thence all personal
+feelings, and making her gaze with sorrowful anxiety on the friend
+beside her who had been all day so cheerful and kind. And she thought
+with a remorse amounting to positive horror, that she herself during
+that day had more than once spoken sharply even to Anne Valery.
+
+A great awe came upon her, reflecting how often we unconsciously walk
+hand-in-hand, and talk of our own petty earthly trials, with those whose
+souls' wings are already growing, already stirring with the air that
+comes to bear them to the unseen land.
+
+It was a relief indescribable, when leisurely strolling along the
+pavement, she saw among many strange faces one that seemed familiar. The
+hands knotted loosely at his back, the light hair straggling out from
+under the hat, that was pushed far up from the forehead--no, she could
+not be mistaken. She uttered a cry of pleasure.
+
+"Look, look! there he is; I am certain it is he."
+
+Anne started violently.
+
+"Mr. Dugdale, Mr. Dugdale!" Agatha called out.
+
+He came up to the carriage with the most lengthened "E--h!" that she had
+ever heard him utter. "What brought you two here? This bleak day too.
+Very wrong of Anne!"
+
+"But she would come. She said she wanted a breath of sea-air, and I
+think, besides, she has business."
+
+"No," interrupted Anne, "no business, except bringing Agatha to see
+Weymouth. Now shall we rest, and have some tea at the inn. You'll come
+with us, Mr. Dugdale?"
+
+"Yes, I want to speak to you, Anne. I've got news about--that little
+affair you know of. That was why I came to Weymouth to-day. Eh,
+now--just look there!"
+
+With a countenance brimful of pleasure he came to Miss Valery's side,
+and pointed to a steamer that lay in the offing.
+
+"It's the _Anna Mary_. She made the passage from New York in no time.
+I've been aboard her already. I fancied I might find him there. Now,
+what do you think, Anne?"
+
+"Is he come?" said Anne, in a steady voice. She had quite recovered
+herself now.
+
+"No--not this time. But he will sail, for certain, by the next New York
+packet to Havre."
+
+"Thank God!" It was a very low answer--just a sigh, and nothing more.
+
+"And we have satisfactorily ended all that business which you first put
+into my head," continued Duke, rubbing his hands with great glee. "It
+was a risk certainly, but then it was for him. My children will never be
+a bit the poorer."
+
+"No," murmured Anne Valery to herself.
+
+"And think what an election we shall have! With him to make speeches for
+Trenchard, and argue in this wonderful way about Free-trade, and tell
+the farmers all about Canadian wheat! Glorious!"
+
+"What are you both talking about?" cried Agatha, who had been
+considerably puzzled. "Do let me hear, if it is not a secret."
+
+"No secret," said Anne, turning round, speaking clearly and composedly,
+and not at all like a sick person. "Mr. Brian Harper is coming home."
+
+Agatha clapped her hands for joy.
+
+When they dismounted from the carriage, and had ordered tea at the
+inn, Anne still seemed quite strong. She said it was the sea-breeze that
+brought life to her, and stood at the open window gazing over the bay.
+Agatha thought she had never seen Miss Valery's face so near looking
+beautiful as now; it was the faint reflex of girlhood's brightness, like
+the zodiacal light which the sun casts on the sky long after he has gone
+down.
+
+After tea,--at which meal Mr. Dugdale did not appear, a fact that nobody
+wondered at, since he was left to wander about Weymouth at his own sweet
+will, without Harrie to catch him and remind him that there was such
+a thing as time, likewise such sublunary necessities as eating and
+drinking--after tea Miss Valery and Mrs. Harper sat at the window
+together.
+
+It was only an inn-window, the panes scribbled over with many names, and
+it lighted an ordinary inn-parlour, looking on the esplanade. Yet it
+was a pleasant seat; quiet, too, for the town was almost deserted as
+winter-time came on. The bay, smoothed by the ebbing tide, lay like
+crystal under a sky where sunset and moonlight mixed. Agatha ventured to
+look at the sea now. She beheld with a curious interest a sight till now
+so unfamiliar, taking a childish pleasure in watching the great white
+arm of moon-rays stretch further and further across the water, changing
+the ripples into molten silver, and making ethereal and ghostlike every
+little boat that glided through them.
+
+By-and-by came a group of wandering musicians, playing very respectably,
+as German street-musicians always do. They converted the dark esplanade
+and the shabby inn-parlour into a fairy picture of visible and audible
+romance.
+
+"It is quite like a scene in a play," said Agatha, laughing and
+trying to make Miss Valery laugh. She could not see her clearly in the
+moonlight, but she did not like her sitting so quiet and silent.
+
+"Yes, very like a play, with '_Herz, mein Herz,_' for a serenade. What a
+sweet old tune it is!"
+
+"I used to sing it once." And Agatha began following the instruments
+with her voice. "No, I can't sing. I could sooner cry."
+
+"Why? Are you sorrowful?"
+
+"No--happy. Yet all feels strange, very strange." She crept to Miss
+Valery, wrapped her arms round her waist, and laid her head timidly on
+her shoulder. Anne drew her nearer, with a more caressing manner than
+she ever used to any one. Agatha Harper seemed that night of all nights
+to lie very near her heart.
+
+"_Herz, mein Herz,_" died faintly away down the esplanade; there was
+nothing but the glitter of the bay, and the moon climbing higher and
+higher above the Isle of Portland.
+
+Anne spoke at last, amidst the half-playful, half-tender caresses that
+were so dear to Agatha, who had never known what it was to be calmly and
+safely in a mother's arms. Lying thus seemed most like it.
+
+"Do you think I care for you, Agatha, my child?"
+
+"I cannot tell. Perhaps not, for I am not good enough to deserve it."
+
+"Do you know what first made me care for you?"
+
+"No--unless it was for the sake of my husband."
+
+Anne gave no reply, and her husband's name plunged Agatha into such a
+maze of painful thought, that she was for a long time altogether silent.
+
+"Shall I tell you a story, Agatha?"
+
+"Anything--anything, to keep me from thinking."
+
+"If I do, it is one you must not tell again, unless to Nathanael, for I
+would put no secrets between husband and wife."
+
+"Ah, that is right--that is kind. Would that _he_ had thought the same!"
+
+"What did you say, dear?"
+
+"Nothing! Nothing of any consequence. Don't mind me. Go on."
+
+"It is a history which I think it right and best to tell you. You will
+both need to keep it sacred for a little while--not for very long."
+
+As she spoke, a shudder passed through Anne's frame. Was it the
+involuntary shrinking of mortality in sight of immortality?
+
+Shortly afterwards she began to talk in her usual sweet tone--perhaps a
+shade more serious.
+
+"'There were once two _friends_--three I should say, but the third far
+less intimate than the other two. Something happened--it is now too long
+ago to signify what--which made the elder of the first two angry with
+his dearest friend and the other. He went away suddenly, writing word to
+his friend--his own--that he should sail next day, leaving England for
+ever."
+
+"That was wrong!" cried Agatha. "People ought never to be passionate and
+unjust in friendship. It was very wrong."
+
+"Hush! you do not know all the circumstances; you cannot judge," Anne
+answered hastily. "His friend, who greatly honoured him, and knew what
+pain his loss would bring to many, wished to prevent his going. She"--
+
+"It was a woman, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And were they _only_ friends?"
+
+"They were friends," repeated Miss Valery, in a tone which, doubtful as
+the answer was, made Agatha feel she had no right to inquire further.
+
+"She never knew how much he cared for her until that last letter he
+wrote, just after he had gone away. On receiving it, she followed
+him--which she had a right to do--to the place he mentioned, a seaport
+from which he was to sail. When she reached it, the vessel had already
+heaved anchor and was standing out to sea. She saw it--the very ship he
+was on board--in the middle of the bay."
+
+"The bay! Was it then"--
+
+"Hush, dear, just for a little,--I cannot speak long. It was a stormy
+day, and few boats would go out. However, there was on the beach a woman
+who was also very eager to catch the vessel. Together they managed to
+get a boat, and embarked--this lady I speak of--the woman and a little
+girl."
+
+Agatha listened with painful avidity.
+
+"It was not the woman's own child, or she could not have been so
+careless of it It was tossed into the bottom of the boat, and lay there
+crying. The lady felt sorry for it, and took it in her arms. They had
+gone but a little way from the shore when it was playing about her,
+quite happy again. While playing--she looking at the ship, and not
+watching the little thing as she ought to have done--the child fell
+overboard."
+
+A loud sob burst from Agatha.
+
+"Hush, still hush, my darling! The child was saved. The ship sailed
+away, but the child--you _know_ that she was saved. I am thankful to God
+it was so!"
+
+Anne wrapped her arms tightly round the sobbing girl, and after a few
+moments she also wept.
+
+"I remember it all now," cried Agatha, as soon as she found words--"the
+shore, the headlands, the bay. I was that little child, and it was you
+who saved me!"
+
+Anne made no answer but by pressing her closer.
+
+"I felt it the first moment I ever saw you. I never forgot you--never!
+But how did you know me?"
+
+"Was I likely ever to lose sight of that little child? And also, years
+before, I had once or twice met your father--though this would have
+been nothing. But from that day I felt that you belonged to me. And now,
+since you are become a Harper, you do."
+
+Agatha embraced her, and then suddenly looked mournful.--"But yourself?
+Tell me, did you ever again meet your--your friend?"
+
+No answer. A slight movement of the lips sufficed to explain the whole.
+
+"And it was all through me," cried Agatha, to whom that soft smile was
+agony. "And what have I done in requital? I have lived a useless, erring
+life; I have suffered--oh, how I have suffered! Far better I had been
+left lying at the bottom of that quiet bay. Why did God let you save
+me?"
+
+"That you might grow up a good and noble woman, fulfilling worthily the
+life He spared, and giving it back into His hands, in His time, as a
+true and faithful servant. Dare not to murmur at His will--dare not to
+ask why He saved you, Agatha Harper."
+
+Saying this, as sternly as Anne Valery could speak--she tried to put
+Agatha from her breast, but the girl held her too fast.
+
+"Oh, do not cast me away. I have nobody in the world but you. Forgive
+me! Guide my life which I owe you, and make it worth your saving. Love
+me--teach my husband to love me. If you knew how miserable I am, and may
+be always."
+
+"No one is miserable always," returned Anne faintly, as she leaned back,
+her hands dropping down cold and listless. "We grow content in time. We
+shall all be--very happy--some day."
+
+She spoke with hesitation and difficulty. The next minute, in spite
+of her declaration that she never fainted, Miss Valery had become
+insensible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"What, up and dressed already, without sending for me? Did you not
+promise last night that I should do everything for you just as if I were
+your child? How very naughty you are, Miss Valery."
+
+Agatha spoke rather crossly; it was a relief to speak so. Anne turned
+round--she was sitting at the window of the inn bed-chamber looking on
+Weymouth Bay.
+
+"Am I naughty? And you have assumed the right to scold me? That is quite
+a pleasure. I have had no one to scold me for a great many years."
+
+There was a certain pathos running through her cheerfulness which made
+Agatha's heart burst. She had lain awake half the night thinking of Anne
+Valery, and had guessed, or put together many things, which made her
+come with uncontrollable emotion into the presence of her whose fate had
+been so knotted up with her own. For that this circumstance had in
+some way or other brought about Anne's fate--the one fate of a woman's
+life--Agatha could not doubt. Neither could she doubt who was this
+"friend." But she said nothing--she felt she had no right.
+
+"Don't look at the sea, please. Look at me. Tell me how you feel this
+morning."
+
+"Well--quite well. We will go home to-day. What did you tell Mr. Dugdale
+last night?"
+
+"Only what you desired me--that, being wearied, you felt inclined to
+stay the night at Weymouth."
+
+"That was right.--Look, Agatha, how beautiful the sea is. I must teach
+you not to be afraid of it any more. Next year"--
+
+She paused, hesitated, put her hand to her heart, as she often did, and
+ceased to speak; but Agatha eagerly continued the sentence:
+
+"Next year we will come and stay here, you and I; or perhaps, as a very
+great favour, we'll admit one or two more. Next year, when you are quite
+strong, remember. We will be very happy, next year."
+
+She repeated the words strongly, resolutely, dinning them into Miss
+Valery's ear, but she only won for answer that silent smile which went
+to her heart like an arrow. She rushed for safety to the commonplaces of
+life, to the quick, hasty speeches which relieved her. She began to be
+very cross about some delay in breakfast.
+
+"Never mind me, dear," said Anne's quieting tones. "I am quite well, and
+want nothing. Only let us sit still, and look at the sea." And she drew
+her from her eager bustling about the inn-parlour to the place where
+they had both sat the previous night. Agatha balanced herself on the arm
+of the chair, determined she would not be serious for an instant, and
+would not let Anne talk. Yet both resolutions were broken ere long.
+Perhaps it was the bright stillness of the sea view, sliding away round
+the headland into infinity, which impressed her in spite of herself.
+Still she struggled against her feelings.
+
+"I will not have you so grave, Miss Valery. Mind, I will not."
+
+"Am I grave? Nay, only quiet; and so happy! Do you know what it is to be
+quite content with everything in one's life--past, present, and to come,
+knowing that all is overruled for good, forgiving everybody and loving
+everybody?"
+
+Agatha linked her arms tighter round Miss Valery's neck.
+
+"Don't talk in that way, or look in that way--don't. Be wicked! Speak
+cross! I will not have you an angel. I will not feel your wings growing.
+I'll tear them out. There."
+
+She laughed--laughed with brimming eyes--until she sobbed again. Her
+feelings had been on the stretch for hours, and now gave way. Anne bent
+down from her serenity to notice and soothe the wayward child.
+
+"Poor little thing, she wants taking care of as much as anybody. When
+will her husband come home?"
+
+"Never--never!" cried Agatha, hardly knowing what she said. "I shall
+lose him--you--all."
+
+Miss Valery smiled--the composed smile of one who ascending a mountain,
+sees the lowland mazes around laid out distinct and clear, and looks
+over them to their ending.
+
+"Yes, my child, he will come back. Absence breaks slender ties, but it
+rivets strong ones. Have faith in him. People like him, if they once
+love, love always. He will come back."
+
+There was a great light in Miss Valery's countenance, which irresistibly
+attracted Agatha. She dried her eyes, forgot her own personal cares, and
+listened to the comforter.
+
+"Think how much we love those that are away. Once perhaps we used to
+vex and slight them and be cross with them, but now we carry them in our
+hearts always. We forget everything bitter, and remember only the sweet;
+how good they were, and how dearly we loved them. Our thoughts and
+prayers follow them continually, flying over and about them like
+wandering angels, that must be laden with good. And all this loving--all
+this waiting--all this praying, year after year--I mean day after
+day"--she suddenly turned to Agatha. "Be content, my child. He will come
+back."
+
+Agatha made no reply. She was not thinking of herself just then. She
+was thinking of the life, compared to which her own nineteen commonplace
+years sank into nothingness; of the love beside which that feeling she
+had so called, looked mean and poor; of the patient endurance--what was
+her patience? And yet she had fancied that never was woman so tried as
+Agatha Harper.
+
+With a resolve as sudden as brave, and in her present state of mind
+to be brave at all it must needs be sudden, Agatha determined to put
+herself and her troubles altogether aside, and think only of those whom
+she loved.
+
+"Come," she said, and rose up strong in the courage of self-denial. "We
+will indulge in no more dreariness; it is not good for you, and I won't
+allow it, my patient. You shall be patient, in every sense, for a little
+while longer, and then we'll all be very happy--_all_, I say, next
+year."
+
+With this declaration she made ready to carry her friend off to
+Kingcombe--to her own little house--where she was bent on detaining Anne
+prisoner. Miss Valery declared herself quite willing to be thus bound
+for a day or two, until she was strong enough to go to Kingcombe Holm.
+
+"But I'll not let you go--I'll be jealous. Why must you be wandering off
+to that dreary place?"
+
+"Its not dreary to me; I always loved Kingcombe Holm; and I must pay it
+one last visit before--before winter."
+
+"But there is plenty of time," returned Agatha, hastily. "Why go just
+now?"
+
+"Because"--Miss Valery spoke after a moment's pause, very
+steadfastly--"Because I have reasons for so doing. My old friend, Mr.
+Harper, has a few strong prejudices, some of them to the hurt of his
+brother, and I wish to talk to him myself before Mr. Brian Harper comes
+home."
+
+While Miss Valery said this name, Agatha had carefully bent her eyes
+seaward. In answering, her colour rose--her manner was more troubled and
+hesitating by far than that of her companion.
+
+"Go, then. I will not hinder you. Nobody can feel more interest than I
+do in Uncle Brian. When do you think he will be here?"
+
+"In three weeks, most likely."
+
+Anne made no other remark, nor did Agatha. In a short time they were
+driving homeward along the margin of the bay. That well-remembered bay,
+the sight of which even now made Agatha feel as if she were dreaming
+over again the one awful event of her childhood. And Anne--what felt
+she? No wonder that she did not talk.
+
+They came to a spot where the formal esplanade merged into a lonely
+sea-side walk, leading towards the widening mouth of the bay, and
+commanding the farthest view of the Channel as it curved down westward
+into the horizon. Agatha turned pale.
+
+"I remember it--that line of coast with the grey clouds over it. I lay
+on these sands, and afterwards when you fell, I sat and cried over
+you. This was the place, and it was over that point that the ship
+disappeared."
+
+Anne was speechless.
+
+Agatha clasped her hand:--they understood one another. The next minute
+the carriage turned. Miss Valery breathed a quick sigh, and bent
+hurriedly forward; but the glitter of the ocean had vanished--she had
+seen the last of Weymouth Bay.
+
+It was a weary journey, for Anne seemed very feeble. Her young nurse was
+thankful when the flashing network of streams told how near they were
+whirling towards Kingcombe. As the train stopped, Mrs. Dugdale was
+visible on the platform; Duke also, not at the station--that being a
+degree of punctuality quite impossible--but a little way down the road.
+
+"Well, Miss Anne Valery and Mrs. Locke Harper! To be gallivanting about
+in this way! I declare it's quite disgraceful. What have you to say for
+yourselves? Here have I been running up to every train to meet you, and
+tell you"--
+
+"What?" Agatha's cheek flushed with expectation. Anne grew very white.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Harper, you need not be so hasty--'tisn't your husband.
+A great blessing if it were. All the town is crying shame on him for
+staying away so long."
+
+Agatha threw a furious look at her sister, and dragged Miss Valery
+along, nor stopped till she saw the latter could hardly breathe or
+stand.
+
+"Stay, my child. Harriet, you should not say such things. Nathanael is
+only absent on business--my business; he will come home soon."
+
+These words, uttered with difficulty, calmed the rising storm. Harrie
+laughingly begged pardon, and was satisfied.
+
+"Well, the sooner Nathanael comes, the better. There was a gentleman
+last night wanting him."
+
+"What gentleman?"
+
+"Can't tell. He left no name. A little wiry shrimp of a fellow who
+seemed to know all about our family, Fred included; so Duke, in his
+ultra hospitality, took the creature in for the night, and this morning
+drove him over to Kingcombe Holm. There, don't let us bother ourselves
+about him. How do you feel now, Anne? Quite well, eh?"
+
+"Quite well," Anne echoed in her cheerful voice that never had a tone
+of pain or complaining. But it seemed to strike Mr. Dugdale, who had
+lounged up to her side. His peculiarly gentle and observant look rested
+on her for a moment, and then he offered her his arm, an act of courtesy
+very rare in the absent Duke Dugdale. Agatha walked on her other hand;
+Harrie fluttering about them, and talking very fast, chiefly about the
+wonderful news of yesterday, which her husband had just communicated.
+
+"And a great shame not to tell me long before. As if I did not care
+for Uncle Brian as much as anybody does. What a Christmas we shall
+have--Uncle Brian, Nathanael, and Fred."
+
+"Is Major Harper coming?" The question was from Anne.
+
+"Elizabeth hopes so. He surely will not disappoint Elizabeth. And he
+must come to see Uncle Brian; they were such friends, you know. All the
+middle-aged oddities in Kingcombe are on the _qui vive_ to see
+Uncle Brian and Fred. They two were the finest young fellows in the
+neighbourhood, people say, and to think they should both come back
+miserable old bachelors! Nobody married but my poor Duke! Hurra!"
+
+So she rattled on until they reached Agatha's door. One of the Kingcombe
+Holm servants stood there with the carriage. Mrs. Locke Harper was
+wanted immediately, to dine at her father-in-law's.
+
+"I will not go. I will not leave Miss Valery. They don't often ask
+me--indeed, I have never been since--No, I will not go," she added
+obstinately.
+
+"Do!" entreated Anne, who had sat down, faint with a walk so short that
+no one thought of its fatiguing her--not even Agatha.
+
+"T' Squire do want'ee very bad, Missus. Here!" And the old coachman,
+almost as old as his master, gave to Mrs. Harper a note, which was only
+the second she had ever received from her husband's father. It was a
+crabbed, ancient hand, blotted and blurred, then steadied resolutely
+into the preciseness of a school-boy--one of those pathetic fragments of
+writing that irresistibly remind one of the trembling failing hand--the
+hand that once wrote brave love-letters.
+
+"You are highly favoured; my father rarely writes to any one. What does
+he say?" cried Harrie, rather jealous.
+
+Agatha read aloud:
+
+     "My dear Daughter-in-law,
+
+     "Will you honour me by dining here to-day, without fail?
+
+     "I remain, always your affectionate Father,
+
+     "Nathanael Harper."
+
+"'Your affectionate Father,'" repeated Mrs. Dugdale. "He hardly ever
+signed that to me in his life, though I am his very own daughter, and
+his eldest too. He never signed so to anybody but Fred. Bah! what a big
+blot He is almost past writing, poor dear man! Come, Agatha, you cannot
+refuse; you must go."
+
+"She must indeed," echoed Anne Valery.
+
+"Even though the Squire has been so rude as never to ask me or Duke,
+though Duke saw him this very morning, when he rode over to Kingcombe
+Holm to tell the news about Uncle Brian.--Bless us, Anne, don't look
+so. Is there anything astonishing in my father's letter? How very queer
+everybody seems to-day!"
+
+Agatha felt Miss Valery draw her aside.
+
+"You will surely go, my dear, since he wishes it."
+
+"But if I don't wish it--if I had far rather stay with you! Why are you
+so anxious for my leaving you?"
+
+"Are you angry with me again, my child?"--Agatha clung to her fondly.
+"Then go. Behave specially well to your husband's father. And stay--say
+I am coming to see him to-morrow."
+
+"But you cannot--you are not strong."
+
+"Oh yes, very strong," Anne returned hastily. "Only go. I will stay
+contentedly with Dorcas."
+
+Agatha went, very much against her will She had shut herself up entirely
+for so long. It was a torment to see any one, above all her husband's
+family, who of course were constantly talking and inquiring about him.
+The stateliness of Kingcombe Holm chafed her beyond endurance; Mary's
+good-natured regrets, and Eulalie's malicious prying condolings; worst
+of all the penetration of Elizabeth. She fancied that they and all
+Kingcombe were pointing the finger at "poor Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+Pondering over all these things during the solitary drive, her good
+resolutions faded out from her, and her heart began to burn anew. It was
+so hard!
+
+She crossed the hall--the same hall where she had alighted when
+Nathanael first brought her home. It looked dusky and dim, as then.
+She almost expected to see him appear from some corner, with his light,
+quick step and his long fair hair.
+
+It was hard indeed--too hard! She hurried through, and never looked
+behind.
+
+Eulalie and Mary were sitting solemnly in the drawing-room.
+
+"So you are come, Mrs. Harper. We never thought you would come again. We
+thought you would sit for ever pining in your cage till your mate came
+back again. What a naughty wandering bird he is!"
+
+"Don't, Eulalie. No teasing. I am sure we were all very sorry for your
+loneliness, dear Agatha."
+
+"Thank you for giving yourselves that trouble."
+
+"Oh, no trouble at all," said the well-meaning and simple Mary. "And we
+would have come to see you or fetched you here, but I had to go so
+much to Thornhurst while Anne was ill, and Eulalie--somehow--I don't
+know--but Eulalie is always busy."
+
+Eulalie, whose hardest toil was looking in the glass, and patting her
+dog's ears, assented apologetically. Perhaps she read something in her
+sister-in-law's face which showed her that Agatha was not to be trifled
+with.
+
+"Will you go up and see Elizabeth? She has often asked for you."
+
+"Has she? I will go after dinner," briefly answered Agatha She would not
+be got rid of in that way.
+
+"Shall we sit and talk then, till my father comes in with that queer
+little man who has been with him all day? about whom Mary and I have
+been vainly puzzling our brains. Such an ugly little fellow, and,
+between you and me, not _quite_ a gentleman. I wonder at papa's asking
+him to stay and dine. I shan't do the civil to him; you may."
+
+"Thanks for the permission."
+
+"Perhaps that is the very reason Papa sent for you," continued Eulalie,
+stretching herself out on the sofa. "The person said he knew you,
+and asked Mary where you were living, and whether you were very happy
+together, you and your husband."
+
+Agatha rose abruptly, dashing down a heavy volume that lay on her
+knee--she certainly had not a mild temper. While she wavered between
+reining in her anger as she had last night vowed, and pouring upon
+Eulalie all the storm of her roused passions--the door opened, and Mr.
+Harper entered with his much-depreciated guest.
+
+The old gentleman was dressed with unusual care, and walked with even
+more of slow stateliness than ordinary. He met Agatha with his customary
+kindness.
+
+"Welcome. You have been somewhat of a stranger lately. It must not
+happen again, my dear." And drawing her arm through his, he faced the
+"little ugly fellow" of Eulalie's dislike.
+
+"Mr. Grimes, let me present you to my son's wife, Mrs. Locke Harper."
+
+"You forget, sir," interrupted Grimes, importantly; "I have long ago had
+that honour, through Major"--
+
+The old Squire started, put his hand to his forehead--"Yes, yes, I did
+forget. My memory, sir--my memory is as good as ever it was."
+
+The sharp contradictory ending of his speech, the colour rising to the
+old man's cheek and forehead, whence it did not sink, but lay steadily,
+a heavy, purple blotch, attracted Agatha's notice--certainly more than
+Mr. Grimes did.
+
+"I had the honour, Mrs. Harper," said the latter, bowing, "to be present
+when your marriage settlement was signed. I had likewise the honour of
+preparing the deed, by the wish and according to the express orders of
+Major Har"--
+
+"That is sufficient," interrupted the Squire. "Sir, I never burden
+ladies with the wearisomeness of legal discussion.--Did you drive or
+ride here, Agatha?"
+
+"If you remember, you sent the carriage for me."
+
+"Yes, yes--of course," returned the old man. "It was a pleasant drive,
+was it? Your husband enjoyed it too?"
+
+"My husband is in Cornwall"
+
+"Certainly. I understand."
+
+Which was more than Agatha did. She could not make him out at all. The
+wandering eye, dulled with more than mere age--for it had been his pride
+that the Harper eye always sparkled to the last; the accidental twitches
+about the mouth, which hung loosely, and seemed unable to control its
+muscles; above all, the extraordinary and sudden lapse of a memory
+which had hitherto been wonderful for his years. There was something not
+right, some hidden wheel broken or locked in the mysterious mechanism
+that we call human life.
+
+Agatha felt uneasy. She wished Nathanael had been at home: and began to
+consider whether some one--not herself--ought not to write and hint that
+his father did not seem quite well.
+
+Meanwhile, she closely watched the old man, who seemed this day to show
+her more kindness and attention than ever,--there was no mistaking that.
+He kept her constantly at his side, talking to her with marked courtesy.
+Once she saw his eyes--those poor, dull, restless eyes, fixed on her
+with an expression that was quite unaccountable. Going in to dinner, his
+step, which began measured and stately, suddenly tottered. Agatha caught
+his arm.
+
+"You are not well--I am sure of it."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mr. Grimes, who was following close behind, with the very
+reluctant Miss Mary towering over his petty head. "No wonder that Mr.
+Harper is not quite well to-day."
+
+The Squire swerved aside, like an old steed goaded by the whip, then
+rose to his full height, which was taller than either of his sons--the
+Harpers of ancient time were a lofty generation.
+
+"Mr. Grimes, I assure you I am quite well. Will you do me the honour to
+cease your anxiety about me, and lead in my daughter to her seat?"
+
+Grimes passed on--quenched. There was something in "the grand old
+name of gentleman" that threw around its owner an atmosphere in which
+plebeian intruders could not breathe.
+
+"A person, Agatha," whispered the Squire, as his eyes, bright with
+something of their old glow, followed the evidently objectionable
+guest--"A person to whom I show civility for the sake of--of my
+family."
+
+Agatha assented, though not quite certain to what. Scanning Mr.
+Grimes more narrowly, she faintly remembered him, and the unpleasant,
+nasal-toned voice which had gabbled through her marriage settlement. She
+wondered what he had come to Nathanael for?--why Nathanael's father paid
+him such attention?
+
+On her part, the sensation of dislike, unaccountable yet instinctive
+dislike, was so strong, that it would have been a real satisfaction to
+her mind if the footmen, instead of respectfully handing Mr. Grimes his
+soup, had handed himself out at the dining-room window.
+
+The dinner passed in grave formality. Even Mr. Grimes seemed out of
+his element, being evidently, as Eulalie had said, "not _quite_ a
+gentleman," either by birth or breeding, and lacking that something
+which makes the grandest gentlemen of all--Nature's. He tried now and
+then to open a conversation with the Miss Harpers, but Eulalie sneered
+at him aside, and Mary was politely dignified. Agatha took very little
+notice of him--her attention was absorbed by her father-in-law.
+
+Mr. Harper looked old--very old. His hands, blanched to a yellowish
+whiteness, moved about loosely and uncertainly. Once the large diamond
+mourning ring which the widower always wore, "In memory of Catherine
+Harper," dropped off on the table-cloth. He did not perceive the loss
+until Agatha restored it, and then his fingers seemed unable to slip it
+on again, until his daughter-in-law aided him. In so doing, the clammy,
+nerveless feel of the old man's hand made her start.
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Harper," he said, acknowledging her assistance with
+his most solemn bend. "And Catherine--Agatha, I mean, if you would be so
+kind--that is"--
+
+"Yes? observed Agatha, inquiringly, as he made a long pause.
+
+"To--remind me after dinner, my dear. I have duties now--important
+duties.--My friends!" Here he raised himself in his chair, looked round
+the dessert-laden table with one of his old smiles, half condescending,
+half good-humoured, then vainly put his hand on the large claret jug,
+which Agatha had to lift and guide to her glass--"My friends, I am
+delighted to see you all. And on this happy occasion let me have the
+honour of giving the first toast. The Reverend Frederick Harper and
+Mistress Mary Harper."
+
+Mary and Eulalie drew back. "That is grandfather and grandmother--dead
+fifty years ago. What does papa mean?"
+
+But the whisper did not reach the old man, who drank the toast with
+all solemnity. Mr. Grimes did the same, repeating it loudly, with the
+addition of "long life, health, and happiness." The daughters each cast
+down strange, shocked looks upon her untouched glass. No one spoke.
+
+"Do you make a long stay in Dorsetshire?" observed the Squire,
+addressing himself courteously to his guest.
+
+"That depends," Grimes answered, with a meaning twinkle of the eye--an
+eye already growing moistened with too good wine.
+
+"Did you not say," Mary Harper continued, fancying her father looked at
+her to sustain the conversation--"did you not say you were intending to
+visit Cornwall?"
+
+"No ma'am. Would rather be excused. As Mr. Harper knows, the place would
+be too hot to hold _me_ after certain circumstances."
+
+"Sir!" The old man tried hard to gather himself up into stern dignity,
+and collect the ideas that where fast floating from him. "Sir," he
+repeated, first haughtily, and then with a violence so rare to
+his rigidly gentlemanly demeanour that his daughters looked
+alarmed--"Sir--at my table--before my family--I beg--I"--Here he
+suddenly recovered himself, changed his tone, and bowed--"I--beg your
+pardon."
+
+"Oh, no offence, Squire; none meant, none taken. I came with the best
+of all intentions towards you and yours. And if things have turned out
+badly"--
+
+"Did you not say you were acquainted with Cornwall?" abruptly asked
+Agatha, to prevent his again irritating her father-in-law, who had
+leaned back, sleepily. He would not close his eyes, but they looked
+misty and heavy, and his fingers played lazily with one another on the
+arm of his chair; Agatha laid her own upon them--she could not help
+it. She lost her fear of the repellent Mr. Harper in the old man, so
+helpless and feeble. She wished she had come oftener to Kingcombe Holm,
+and been more attentive and daughter-like to Nathanael's father.
+
+"As to Cornwall," said Grimes, in a confidential whisper, "between you
+and me, Mrs. Harper, mum's the word."
+
+Agatha drew herself up haughtily; but looked at the old Squire and
+grew patient. She even tried to eke out the flagging conversation, and
+luckily remembered the news which Duke Dugdale had that morning ridden
+over to communicate. She could not help thinking it very odd that no one
+in the house had hitherto mentioned Mr. Brian Harper's expected return.
+
+"Shall you not be very glad, Mary, to see Uncle Brian. You have heard,
+of course, how soon he will be here?"
+
+"Uncle Brian here!--And nobody told us. Only think, papa"--
+
+"My dear Mary!" There was a gentleness in the Squire's voice more
+startling even than his violence.
+
+"Did you know, papa, that Uncle Brian is coming home?"
+
+"I think--I--Yes"--with a struggle at recollection--"my son-in-law told
+me that some commercial business which Brian is transacting for him will
+bring my brother home. I shall be very happy to see him. You, too, will
+all be delighted to see your Uncle Brian."
+
+"An uncle? The usual rich uncle from abroad, eh?" whispered Mr. Grimes
+to Agatha. "I ask merely for your own sake, ma'am, and that of my friend
+Nathanael."
+
+Agatha curled her lip. That the fellow should dare to speak of "my
+friend Nathanael!" She glanced at Mary that they might leave the
+drawing-room, when seeing her father-in-law was about to speak she
+paused.
+
+The old Squire rose in his customary manner of giving healths. His voice
+was quavering but loud, as if he could scarcely hear it himself, and
+tried to make it rise above a whirl of sounds that filled his brain. "My
+friends and children--my"--here he looked uncertainly at Agatha--"Yes,
+I remember, my daughter-in-law--allow me to give one toast more--Health,
+long life, and every blessing to my son--my youngest, worthiest, _only_
+remaining son and heir, Nathanael."
+
+"_Only_ son!"--Every one recoiled. The worn-out brain had certainly
+given way. Mary and Eulalie exchanged frightened glances. Agatha alone,
+touched by the unexpected tribute to her husband, did not notice the one
+momentous word.
+
+"Now, Squire, that's hardly fair," cried Mr. Grimes, bursting into a
+hoarse vinous laugh. "A man may go wrong sometimes, but to be thrown
+overboard for it, and by one's father, too--think better of it,
+old fellow. And ladies by way of an antidote, allow me to give a
+toast--Success to my worthy and honourable--_exceedingly_ honourable
+client, Major Frederick Harper."
+
+The old Squire leaped up in his chair, with eyes starting from their
+sockets. His lips gurgled out some inarticulate sound scarcely human;
+his right arm shook and quivered with his vain efforts to raise it;
+still it hung nerveless by his side. Consciousness and will yet lingered
+in his brain, but physical life and speech had gone for ever. He
+fell down struck by that living death--that worse than death, of old
+age--paralysis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+The whole household was in terror and disorder. Eulalie had rushed
+screaming from the room--Mary went about, trembling like a leaf, trying
+to get restoratives--Agatha knelt on the floor, supporting the old
+man's head in her lap, speaking to him sometimes, as by the motion
+and apparent intelligence of his eyes she fancied he might possibly
+understand her.
+
+"Oh, he is dead, he is dead!" cried Mary, as she took up the senseless
+hand, and let it fall again with a burst of tears.
+
+"No, he is not dead--he hears you;--take care," said Agatha, putting
+the frightened daughter aside with a firmness which rose in her, as in
+similar characters it does rise, equal to the necessity. She looked on
+the trembling Mary--on the servants gathering round with silent horror,
+and saw there were none who, so to speak, "had their wits about them,"
+except herself. Scarcely knowing how she did it, she instinctively
+assumed the rule. She, the young girl of nineteen, who had never till
+then been placed in any position of trial.
+
+"Send all these people away. Quick Mary! Bring some one who can carry
+him to his room. And--stay, Eulalie, sit down there and be quiet. Don't
+let any one go and alarm Elizabeth."
+
+She gave these orders and everybody listened and obeyed; people are so
+ready to obey any guiding spirit at such a crisis. Then she bent down
+again over the poor corpselike figure that rested against her knee,
+kissed the old man's forehead, and tried to comfort him. She had heard
+of cases, when though deprived of speech and motion, the sufferer was
+still conscious of all passing around him. Therefore she wished as soon
+as possible to remove her father-in-law out of the way of the terrified
+household.
+
+He was carried to his room through the hall where he had lately trod
+so stately,--the poor old man now helpless as the dead. Leaving the
+dining-room, Agatha thought she saw his eyes turn back, as if he knew
+that he was crossing the doorway he would never cross more, and
+wanted to take a last look at the familiar things. Otherwise he seemed
+continually watching herself. She walked beside him till he was
+laid upon his bed, and then tried again to speak to him. She did it
+caressingly, as though the old dying man had been a sick child.
+
+"Be content, now--quite content. I will take care of you, and see that
+all is done right. I shall, not be away two minutes; I am only going to
+send for help--your own doctor from Kingcombe. We must try to get you
+well. Lie here quiet."
+
+Quiet! It was like enjoining stillness to a corpse! Agatha shuddered
+when she had used the word. For a moment the dread of her position rose
+upon her. In that lonely house, at night too, with no help nearer than
+Kingcombe: and even then no husband, no friend--for she dared not send
+to poor, sick Anne Valery! And she so young, so inexperienced.--But
+no matter! She would try to meet everything--do everything. She felt
+already calm and brave.
+
+The first thing necessary was to send for medical aid. This she did;
+having the forethought to write a few clear lines, lest the messenger
+should fail. She despatched word likewise to the Dugdales. She felt
+quite composed; everything right to be remembered came clearly into
+her head. It was the grand touch-stone of her character; the crisis
+of danger which shows whether a woman has that presence of mind which
+exalts her into a domestic heroine, an angel of comfort; or the weakness
+which sinks her into a helpless selfish fool.
+
+The latter was hardly likely to become a true picture of Agatha Harper.
+
+She went about with Mary, giving some orders to the servants, for
+sickness always comes startingly upon an unprepared and unaccustomed
+house; and tried to find a few soothing words for the terrified Eulalie,
+who clung crying about them both, forgetting all her affectations. If
+the Beauty had any love left in her, it was for her father. Lastly,
+Agatha took a light, and went swiftly along the passages to the distant
+wing of the house which Elizabeth occupied.
+
+"Miss Harper," her maid said, "had gone quietly to rest, and was then
+fast sleeping."
+
+Poor Elizabeth! this seemed the hardest point of all.
+
+"When did she see her father?"
+
+"This morning. The master always comes up every morning after breakfast
+to see Miss Harper."
+
+And they would never see one another again, this helpless father and
+daughter--never, till they met bodiless, in the next world!
+
+For the moment Agatha felt her courage fail She glided quickly from the
+door, but came back again. Elizabeth had waked, and called her.
+
+"What is the matter? I know something is the matter."
+
+"Do tell her," whispered the maid, "She'll find it out anyhow--she finds
+out everything. And she has been so ill all day."
+
+Agatha entered. There was no deceiving those eyes.
+
+"Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth--your father--it is very hard, but--your
+father"--She hesitated; it was so difficult to convey, even in gentlest
+words, the cruel truth. Miss Harper regarded her keenly. The bearer
+of ill-tidings is always soon betrayed, and Agatha's was not a face to
+disguise anything. Elizabeth's head dropped back on the pillow.
+
+"I perceive. He is an old man. He has gone home before me. My dear
+father!"
+
+The perfect composure with which she said this astonished Agatha. She
+did not understand how near Elizabeth always lived to the unknown world,
+and how welcome and beautiful it was in her familiar sight.
+
+"No; he is alive still. But, if he should not come in to see you
+to-morrow-morning"--
+
+"I shall go unto him; he shall not return unto me," murmured Elizabeth,
+as her eyelids fell, and a few tears dropped through the lashes. "Tell
+me the rest, will you?"
+
+"He has been seized with paralysis, I think; he cannot speak or move,
+but seems still conscious. I do not know how it will end."
+
+"One way--only one way; I feared this long. My grandfather died so.
+Agatha"--calling after her, for she was stealing away, she could not
+bear it--"Agatha, you will take care of him?"
+
+"I will as his own daughter."
+
+"And, if possible"--here Elizabeth's voice faltered a little--"give my
+love to my dear father."
+
+Agatha fled away. She hid herself in the recess close by "Anne's
+window," as it was called, and for a minute or two cried violently.
+It did her good. With those tears all the selfishness, anger, and pain
+flowed out of her heart, leaving it purer and more peaceful than it had
+been for a long time. It was not a foolish, miserable girl, but a brave,
+tenderhearted, sensible woman, who entered the door of the sick-chamber
+where the poor old man lay.
+
+No one was there but the coachman who had carried his master up-stairs.
+Many servants hovered about the door, but none dared enter. Either
+they were afraid of the Squire--afraid even now, or else the motionless
+figure that lay within the bed-curtains was too like death. Old John sat
+beside it, with tears running down his cheeks.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Harper, look at th' Master. He be all alive in's mind. He do
+want bad to speak to we. Look at 'un, Missus!"
+
+"Give me your place, John. I will try to understand him. Father!"--She
+faltered a little over the word, but felt it was the right word,
+now. The old man moved his head towards her with a feeble smile. The
+expression of his face was clearer and more natural, only for that
+terribly painful inarticulate murmur, which no one could comprehend.
+
+"I have done all I could think of," Agatha continued, speaking softly
+and cheerfully. "The doctor will be here soon; Mary and Eulalie are
+down-stairs. I have myself told Elizabeth that you are ill;--she is
+composed, and sends her love to her dear father. Was all this right?"
+
+Mr. Harper appeared to assent.
+
+"I will sit beside you till the doctor comes, and then I will write to
+my husband. You would like him to come home?"
+
+He seemed slow of comprehension, troubled, or excited. Agatha vainly
+tried to analyse the dumb expression of the features. With all her
+quickness she could not make out what he wanted. At last, a thought
+struck her. His eldest son, his favourite--
+
+"Would you like me to send for Major Harper?"
+
+No words could tell the change which convulsed the old man.
+Abhorrence--anger--fear--all were written in his countenance. He rolled
+his head on the pillow, he struggled to gasp out something--what, his
+daughter-in-law could not guess. She was inexpressibly shocked. One
+thing only seemed clear, that for some cause or other the mere mention
+of Frederick's name worked up the father into frenzy.
+
+"Hush! do not try to speak. I will send for no one but Nathanael. Will
+that content you?"
+
+He made a motion of satisfaction, and became quiet. His features
+gradually composed themselves, and, he sank into torpor.
+
+Agatha still sat by the bed, holding his wrist, for she knew not moment
+by moment how soon the pulse might stop. The old man's own daughters
+were too terrified to approach him. They came on tiptoe to the door,
+looked in, shuddered, and went back. No one stayed in the room but the
+old coachman, who had been Mr. Harper's servant since they were both
+boys; and he sat in a corner crying like a child, though silently.
+Agatha might as well have sat there quite alone, the atmosphere around
+her was so still and solemn.
+
+She had never before been in her father-in-law's room---the state
+bedroom, in which for centuries the Harper family had been born and
+died. The great mahogany bed itself was almost like a bier, with its
+dark velvet hangings, and dusty plumes. Everything around was dusty,
+gloomy, and worn out; the Squire would have nothing changed from the
+time when the last Mrs. Harper died there. In a little curtained alcove
+the lace hung yellow and dusty over her toilet-table, just as she had
+left it when she laid herself down to the pains of motherhood and
+death. Her portraits--one girlish, another matronly, but still merry
+and fair--hung opposite the bed. Between them was a longitudinal
+family-group, in the very lowest style of art--a string of children,
+from the big boy to the tottering baby, in all varieties of
+impossible attitudes. Their names were written under (not
+unnecessarily)--Frederick, Emily, Harriet, Mary, Eulalie. The only names
+missed were Nathanael and "poor Elizabeth."
+
+Mechanically Agatha observed all these things during the first half-hour
+of her vigil; involuntarily her mind floated away to musings concerning
+them, until she forcibly impelled it back to consider the present. It
+was in vain. Innumerable conjectures flitted through her brain, but not
+one which she could catch hold of as a truth. Of one thing only she felt
+sure, that something very serious must have happened--some great mental
+shock, too powerful for the Squire's feeble old age. And this shock was
+certainly in some way or other connected with Major Harper.
+
+An hour later, when she was beginning to count every beat of the old
+man's pulse, and look forward with dread to a midnight vigil beside that
+breathing corpse, the doctor came.
+
+Agatha waited for his dictum--it needed very little skill to decide
+that. A few questions--a shake of the head--a solemn condolatory sigh;
+and all knew that the old Squire's days were numbered.
+
+"How long?" whispered Mrs. Harper, half closing the door as they came
+out.
+
+"I cannot say. Some hours--days--possibly a week. We never know in these
+cases. But, I fear, certainly within a week."
+
+_What_ would be "within a week?" Why is it that every one dreads to say
+the simple word "_die_?"
+
+Agatha paused. She had never yet stood face to face in a house
+with death. The sensation was very awful. She glanced within at the
+heavy-curtained bed, and then at the fair, girlish portrait which
+peered through the folds at its foot--the painted eyes, eternally young,
+seeming to keep watch smilingly. The old man and his long-parted wife,
+to be together again--"within a week." It was strange--strange.
+
+"His sons should be sent for," hinted the doctor. "Mr. Locke Harper is
+in Cornwall, I believe; but the other--Major Harper"----
+
+"Frederick--Yes, we must send for Frederick," sobbed Mary. "My father
+cares more for him than for any of us. Oh, poor Frederick!"
+
+"But," Eulalie said--they were all whispering together at the door--"I
+don't think any one of us, not even Elizabeth, knows Frederick's address
+just now. A week ago he was passing through London, but he does make
+such a mystery of his comings and goings. Oh, if he were only here!"
+
+"Ask my father," cried Mary--"ask him if he would like to see
+Frederick."
+
+As she said this rather too loudly, there was a strange smothered sound
+from the bed. Agatha ran. The old Squire was gasping, choking, with the
+frightful effort to speak. His face was purple--his eyes wild--yet the
+poor bound tongue refused to obey his will.
+
+"Hush! be composed," said his daughter-in-law, soothingly. "You shall
+see no one. No one shall be sent for. Will that do?"
+
+He grew calmer, but restless still.
+
+"Shall my husband come? He will do you good--he does everybody good.
+Would you like to see Nathanael?"
+
+A faint assent--scarcely intelligible--and then the Squire dropped
+off again into sleep. Agatha left him and went to his daughters, who
+lingered outside.
+
+"I think Major Harper has somehow vexed him. He will only see my
+husband. A messenger must be sent to Cornwall. Who will write?"
+
+"Who but yourself," said Eulalie, hardly able even then to repress a
+look, beneath which Agatha's cheek glowed fiery red; "who so fit as
+yourself to tell this to your husband?"
+
+"You are right;" and she smothered down her swelling heart into a grave
+dignity. "Get the messenger ready--I will write here--in this room."
+
+She turned-within--closed the door--looked once more at the old man,
+trying by that mournful sight to still the earthly anger that was again
+rising in her heart,--and sat down to write.
+
+It was a hard task. She scribbled the date, and paused. This, strangely
+enough, was the first letter she had ever written to him. She did not
+know how to begin it. Her heart beat--her fingers trembled. To tell such
+news to the dearest friend and husband that ever woman had, would be a
+difficult and painful thing, and for her to tell it to him, as they were
+now! For the first letter he ever had from her to be this! And how could
+she write it?--she who till to-day would almost have cut off her right
+hand rather than have humbled herself to write to him at all. Yet now
+all the wrath was melting out of her, and tenderness swelling up afresh.
+We always feel so tender over those that are in trouble.
+
+"Yes, I will do it," muttered Agatha. And she wrote firmly the
+words--"_My dear husband_" They seemed at the same time to imprint
+themselves on her heart as a truth--invisible sometimes, yet when
+brought near to the fire of strong emotion or suffering, found
+ineffaceably written there.
+
+The letter was a mere brief explanation and summons; but it bore the
+words, duty-words certainly--yet which no duty would have forced Agatha
+to write had they been untrue--"_My dear husband_"--"_Your affectionate
+wife._"
+
+She despatched it, and re-entered the sick-room. All was quiet
+there--the very hopelessness of the case produced quiet. There was
+nothing to be done, watched, or waited for. Doctor Mason sat by his
+patient, as he had declared his intention of doing through the night.
+He sat mournfully, for he was a kind, good man--the family doctor for
+thirty years.
+
+"Let all go to bed," he said to Agatha, seeming to understand at once
+that she was the moving spirit in the family. "Make the house perfectly
+quiet, and then"--
+
+"I will come and sit up with you."
+
+Doctor Mason looked compassionately at the slight girlish figure, and
+the face already wan with the re-action after excitement. "My dear Mrs.
+Harper, would not a servant do as well?"
+
+"No, I am his son's wife. What should I say to my husband if--if
+anything happened, and he not there, nor I?"
+
+"Good. Then stay," said the doctor, kindly grasping her hand. He was a
+man of few words.
+
+It took some time and patience to quiet the house, and persuade Mary and
+Eulalie to retire. When all was done, and Agatha passed swiftly, lamp in
+hand, through the dark, solitary rooms, she felt frightened. The house
+seemed so silent--already so full of death.
+
+There was one thing more to be done--to write a line ready for Anne
+Valery's waking, otherwise she would expect her home, as she had
+promised, in the early morning. How would she tell all these horrors,
+even in the gentlest way, to the feeble Anne, for whom, however
+unknown to others, and disguised by the invalid herself, Agatha felt an
+ever-present dread that she in vain tried to believe was only born of
+strong attachment. We never deeply love anything for which we do not
+likewise continually fear. Agatha almost recoiled from the idea of
+mentioning danger or death to Anne Valery.
+
+She went into the dining-room to write. Everything there appeared
+just as when this great shock struck the household into confusion; the
+dessert was not removed--the wine in which he had drunk Nathanael's
+health, remained yet in Mr. Harper's glass. Agatha shrank back. She half
+expected to see some shadowy form--not himself but Death, rise and sit
+in the arm-chair whence the old man had fallen.
+
+Brave she was, but she was still a girl, and a girl of strong
+imagination. Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle
+of the room, where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the
+last flicker of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to
+burn out in their sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and
+tried to think connectedly of all that had happened this night.
+
+Something touched her. She leaped up--would have screamed, but that
+she remembered the room overhead--the room. She crouched down--again
+covering her eyes.
+
+Another touch, and a stirring in the window-curtain near which she
+sat. There was something--every one knows that horrible
+sensation--_something_ else in the room besides herself.
+
+"Who is it?" she said, still not looking up, frightened at her own
+voice.
+
+"It's me, ma'am--only me."
+
+Everybody in the house had forgotten Mr. Grimes.
+
+Half-intoxicated at the time of Mr. Harper's seizure, he had stayed
+behind in the dining-room, drunk himself stupid, and slept himself
+sober--or partly so. They say drink is a great unfolder of truth; if
+so, the old lawyer's sharp face betrayed that, in spite of all his past
+civility, he had not the kindest feeling in the world towards the Harper
+family.
+
+"So, young lady, I frightened you? You did not expect to find me here."
+
+"I did not, indeed; I had quite forgotten your very existence," said
+Mrs. Harper, point-blank. She had conceived a great dislike to Mr.
+Grimes, and Agatha was a girl who never took much trouble to disguise
+her aversions.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am. You are polite, like the rest of the Harpers. But
+words, fair or foul, won't pay anything. Where's the Squire? He and I
+have not yet settled the little business I came about."
+
+"Mr. Grimes, perhaps you are not aware that my father-in-law is
+dangerously ill--can enter upon no business, and see no person."
+
+"In-deed?" His thorough insolence of manner brought Agatha's dignity
+back. She remembered that she was a lady belonging to the house, and
+that this fellow, whose behaviour made his grey hairs so little worthy
+of respect, was her father-in-law's invited guest.
+
+"Sir," she said, drawing up her little figure, and trying to look as
+much Mrs. Locke Harper as possible, "you must be aware that in the
+present state of the house a stranger's presence is undesirable. It is
+not too late to order the carriage. Will you favour me by going to sleep
+at Kingcombe?"
+
+Mr. Grimes looked disposed to object; but she had her hand on the bell,
+and her manner, though perfectly civil, was resolute--so resolute, that
+he became humble.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Harper, I'm willing to oblige a former client, but I should
+like to put to you a few questions before leaving."
+
+"Put them."
+
+"First--what's wrong with the old gentleman?"
+
+"He has had a paralytic stroke--probably caused, the doctor says, by
+some great shock, which was too much for him, being an old man."
+
+The other old man looked uneasy, as though some touch of nature smote
+him for the moment.
+
+"You don't think"--here he crept backward, shambling and cowardly--"you
+don't think I had any hand in causing this--this very melancholy
+occurrence."
+
+"You?" There was undisguised scorn in Agatha's lip. As if any Mr. Grimes
+could do harm to a Harper! "Nothing of the kind--pray do not disquiet
+your conscience unnecessarily."
+
+"But I did bring him unpleasant news, for which I'm rather sorry now.
+I had much better have told his son. When shall I be likely to see my
+friend Nathanael?"
+
+His friend Nathanael! Agatha could have crushed him and stamped upon
+him, had he been worth it.
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper," she said, trying hard to keep her temper--"Mr. Locke
+Harper will be at home to-morrow night. You can then make to him any
+communications you please. At the present, the greatest benefit you can
+confer on this sad house is to absent yourself from it."
+
+"'Pon my life, Mrs. Harper, you might waste a little more breath on me,
+lest I might think it worth while to spend a little too much breath on
+you and yours. Do you know what claim I have upon your family?"
+
+"That of being Major Harper's lawyer, I believe, and possibly mine
+before my marriage. It is not likely that my husband has continued to
+use your services afterwards."
+
+Agatha said this sharply, for she was annoyed to feel herself in such
+total darkness regarding her husband's affairs. For a moment she felt
+half alarmed at the expression, "My friend Nathanael." Could they be
+allied, he and this disagreeable man? Could Grimes have acquired any
+power over him, that he was smiling in such a sinister, mysterious way?
+
+"My services? Really, Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must
+be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's
+services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out
+of nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left"--
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"My dear young lady, is it possible you don't know the unfortunate
+circumstance, at least one of the unfortunate circumstances which
+brought me here? Why, Mr. Locke Harper knew it months ago. He and I had
+several conferences together on the subject. But we husbands are
+obliged to be uncommunicative, as my wife would tell you, if you had the
+pleasure of knowing Mrs. Grimes"--
+
+"Will you keep to the point, sir?" said Agatha, sternly. She felt
+very stern--very bitter. The old wound was reopening sorer than ever.
+Nathanael had "held conferences" with this fellow--confided to him
+secrets which he had not told to her--his own wife! Here was a new
+pang--a new indignity. In its sharpness she forgot everything else; even
+the silent room overhead. She had just self-possession and pride enough
+not to question; she would have been more than human had she not paused
+to hear.
+
+"Well, Mr. Grimes!" she said, confronting him, her hand still on the
+door, where she had placed it as a mute signal which he refused to
+understand.
+
+"I own, Mrs. Harper, it is a hard case. At the time I really felt as
+sorry for you as if you had been my own daughter. All to happen so soon
+after your marriage, too! Some persons might blame me for consenting to
+keep back the facts, but I assure you Major Harper compelled me to draw
+up the settlement exactly according to his orders."
+
+"Sir--will you hasten--my time is occupied."
+
+"So is mine, madam; fully occupied. I shall waste no more of it in
+giving advice to young women who are as proud as peacocks, and as poor
+as church-mice. If it wasn't for that highly respectable young man, your
+husband, I should say it served you right."
+
+"What?" said Agatha, beneath her breath.
+
+"Mr. Locke Harper found out, a month after his marriage, that somebody
+had made ducks and drakes of all his wife's property. So, as I hear,
+the poor young man has had to turn land-steward just to keep his kitchen
+fire burning. That's all. Very odd you don't know it."
+
+"I do now."
+
+"Well, you take it quietly enough. You seem quite satisfied."
+
+"I am so."
+
+Mr. Grimes regarded her in perfect bewilderment. She showed no token of
+dismay or grief, but stood calmly by the open door.
+
+"I'm not satisfied though," cried he, at last growing heated--"I'm
+not going to have shareholders coming down upon me, and be hunted from
+London and from my profession, just because Major Harper"--
+
+"I would rather not hear of Major Harper, or any one else, to-night.
+Once more--will you oblige me by leaving?"
+
+Her thorough self-possession, her air of command--controlled the man in
+spite of himself. He moved away, bidding her a civil good-night.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Grimes; I will light you to the door."
+
+"Ugh!" He gave a grunt--seemed inclined to hesitate--looked up at Mrs.
+Harper, and--obeyed.
+
+Agatha came slowly back through the hall, feeling all stunned and
+stupified. She sat down, smoothed her hair back with her hands, heaved
+one or two weary sighs, and tried to think what had happened to her.
+
+"So, I am no heiress. I have lost all my money, and am quite poor. He
+knows it--knew it a long time ago, and did not tell me. Why did he not
+tell me, I wonder?"
+
+Here was a pause. For a moment she felt inclined to doubt the fact
+itself; truthful people have little suspicion of chicanery or falsehood,
+and when she came to think, innumerable circumstances confirmed Grime's
+statement. Yes, it must be true. This, then, was Nathanael's secret. Why
+had he kept it from her.
+
+"As if he thought I cared for money! As if"--and a choking filled her
+throat--"as if I would have minded being ever so poor did he only love
+me!"
+
+The thought burst out naturally, like water forcing its way through
+muddy reeds--showing how, deep down, there lay the living spring.
+
+"Now, let me consider. He must have had some strong reason for keeping
+this secret. It cost him much; he said so. But I never heeded that.
+How I wearied him about not taking the house; how angry I was at his
+acceptance of the stewardship. And it was for me he wished to toil--for
+me, and for our daily bread! Yet he would not tell me. And all the while
+he must have had numberless cares and anxieties without, and his
+own wife blindly tormenting him at home. Last of all I called him
+_mercenary_. And what did he answer? Nothing! Not one reproach--not one
+word of anger. Yet still--he kept his secret Why?"
+
+Here she paused again. All was mystery.
+
+"It might have been through tenderness--to save me pain. Yet no--for he
+could not but see how his silence stung me. Then since he kept not this
+secret for love of me--and I am hardly worth such loving--it must have
+been from some motive, perhaps higher than love--some bond of honour
+which he could not break. Did he not say something to that effect once?
+Let me think."
+
+Again she sat down, and so far as her excited feelings would allow,
+tried to recall the story of their acquaintance, courtship, marriage--a
+six-month's tale--how brief, yet how full. Amidst its confusion,
+amidst all the variations of her own feelings, stood out one steadfast
+image--her husband.
+
+His character was peculiar--very peculiar. Its strength, reticence,
+power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension;
+but its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour--she could
+understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral
+right that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of
+wounding the wife he loved--if he ever had loved her.
+
+For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on
+this one point of torture--then it settled. "_God knows I did love
+you, Agatha_." He had said so--he who never uttered a falsehood. It was
+enough.
+
+"Yet he '_did_' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied
+him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last
+insulting wrong. I--to tell him he 'married me for my money'--when all
+the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word. Oh,
+no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never
+can love me any more."
+
+She burst into a passion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a
+sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright,
+clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous attitude of a child.
+
+"There is a better thing than love--goodness. And whether he loves me or
+not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have
+been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My noble
+husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!"
+
+She said this in a delirium of joy--a woman's pure joy, when she can set
+aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of
+the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her
+features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her.
+
+Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face.
+
+Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the
+house--misfortune following--and she had given way to that burst of joy!
+
+She drew her hand across her forehead--sat down at the table--wrote the
+three lines she had intended to Anne Valery, and then went her way, to
+watch all night long beside her husband's father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A night and a day had passed, and the household had grown somewhat
+accustomed to the cloud that hung over it. It was but natural. How soon
+do most families settle themselves after a great shock!--how easily-does
+any grief become familiar and bearable! Likewise, saddest thought
+of all--how seldom is any one really missed from among us, painfully
+missed, for longer than a few days--a few hours!
+
+By evening, when all Kingcombe was yet talking over the "shocking event"
+at Kingcombe Holm, the "afflicted family" had subsided into its usual
+ways--a little more grave perhaps, but still composed. Some voluble
+fresh grief arose when Anne Valery came--Anne, ever foremost in entering
+the house of mourning--and took her place among the daughters of the
+family, ready to give sympathy, counsel, and comfort. It was all she was
+strong enough to do now. The chief position in the household was still
+left to Agatha.
+
+Dr. Mason gave his directions and went away. There was nothing more to
+be done or hoped for. The form which lay in the Squire's bedroom might
+lie there for days, weeks, months--without change. The old coachman and
+his wife watched their master alternately; but he took little notice
+of them. In every conscious moment his whole attention was fixed upon
+Agatha. His eyes followed her about the room; when she talked to him he
+feebly smiled. She could not imagine why this should be, but she felt
+glad. It was so sweet to know herself in any way a comfort to the father
+of Nathanael.
+
+She sat for hours by the old man's bedside, trying to think of nothing
+but him. What were all these worldly things, loss of fortune or youth,
+or even love itself, to the spirit that lay on the verge of a closed
+life--passing swiftly into eternity?
+
+So she sat and strove to forget all that had happened, or was happening
+to herself; ay, though every now and then she would start, fancying
+there was a voice in the hall, or a step at the door. And she would
+hesitate whether to run away and hide herself from her husband's
+presence or wait and let him find her in her right place--beside his
+dying father.
+
+And then--how would he meet her? how look--how speak? Yet these
+conjectures were selfish. Most likely he would scarcely notice her--his
+heart would be so full of other thoughts. What right had she, his erring
+wife, to obtrude herself upon his feelings at such a time? She could
+only look at him, and watch him, and silently help him in everything.
+Alas, she might not even dare to comfort him!
+
+Towards evening the suspense of expectation grew less, from the mere
+fact of its having lasted so many hours. Agatha went down in the course
+of dinner. The dining-table looked as usual, only fuller, from the
+presence of the Dugdales and Miss Valery. Mary had of necessity taken
+her father's place, but not his chair--it was put aside against the
+wall, and nobody looked that way.
+
+Agatha seated herself next to Miss Valery, quietly--they were all so
+very quiet. Anne whispered, "How is he?" and the rest listened for the
+answer--the usual answer, which all foreboded. Then Harriet made an
+attempt to speak of other things--of how the rain pattered against the
+window-panes, and what an ill night it was for Nathanael's journey. She
+even began to doubt whether he would come.
+
+"He is sure to come," said Miss Valery.
+
+And while she was yet speaking there swept round the house a wild burst
+of storm, in the midst of which were faintly discerned the sound of a
+horse's feet. They all cried out--"He is here!"
+
+A minute more and he was in the room--drenched through--flushed with
+riding against wind and rain. But it was himself, his own self, and his
+wife saw him.
+
+When those who are much thought of return from absence, for the first
+minute they almost always seem unlike the image in our hearts.--It
+was not thus that Agatha had remembered her husband. Not thus--abrupt,
+agitated: anything but the calm and grave Nathanael.
+
+He looked eagerly round the room--all rose: but Miss Valery was the
+first to take his hand.
+
+"Thanks, Anne, I knew you would be with them. Is he"--
+
+"Just the same--no change."
+
+The young man breathed hard. "Are you all here?" He took his three
+sisters and kissed them one after the other, silently, brotherly--Anne
+likewise. There was one left out--his wife, who had hidden behind the
+rest. But soon she heard her name.
+
+"Is Agatha with you?"
+
+She approached. Her husband took her hand--paused a moment--and then
+touched her cheek with his lips, as he had done to his sisters. He did
+not look at her or speak--it seemed as if he were not able.
+
+They drew round Nathanael, nearly all weeping. There was, as is natural
+at such times, an unusual outburst of family tenderness. And, as was
+natural also, no one seemed to think of the young wife--the stranger in
+the circle. Agatha slid away from the group and disappeared.
+
+Shortly after, she had taken her usual place in the sickroom. It had
+struck her that the old man ought to be prepared for his son's coming,
+so she had at once proceeded to his bedside. But it was useless--he was
+sleeping. She sat down noiselessly in her old seat, and watched, as she
+had done for many an hour in this long day, the smiling portrait at the
+foot of the bed--her husband's mother, whom he never saw.
+
+While she sat, footsteps entered the room. Agatha turned quickly round
+to motion the intruder to silence, and perceived that it was Nathanael.
+
+She fancied--nay, was sure--that he started when he saw her. Still, he
+came forward. She rose, and would have given him her seat, but he put
+his hand on her shoulder, and gently pressed her down again. The old
+servant who watched near her went respectfully to the further end of the
+room.
+
+It was a solemn scene; the dim light--the total silence, broken only by
+the feeble breathing of the old man, who lay passive as death, without
+death's sanctity of calm. Over all, that gay youthful portrait which
+the lamp-light, excluded from the bed, kindled into wonderfully vivid
+life--far more like life than the sleeper below.
+
+The young man stood mournfully watching his father, until startled by
+a flash of fire-light on the canvas, his eyes wandered to the painted
+smile of his unknown mother, and then turned back again to the
+pillows--the same pillows where she died.. His fingers began to twitch
+nervously, though his features remained still. Slowly, Agatha saw large
+tears rise and roll down his cheeks. Her heart yearned over her
+husband, but she dared not speak. She could but weep--not outwardly, but
+inwardly, with exceeding bitter pangs.
+
+At length the old man stirred. Agatha remembered her duty as nurse, and
+hastily whispered her husband:
+
+"I think you should move aside for a minute. Don't let him see you
+suddenly--it will startle him."
+
+"That is thoughtful of you. But who will tell him?"
+
+"I will--he is used to me. Are you awake, father?"
+
+Nathanael caught the word, and looked surprised.
+
+"Dear father," she continued, soothingly, "will you not try to wake now?
+Here is some one come to see you--some one you will be glad to see."
+
+The Squire's eyes grew wild; he uttered a thick, painful murmur.
+
+"Some one who was sure to come when he knew you were ill--your son."
+She paused, shocked at the frenzied expression of the old man's face.
+"Nay--your younger son--Nathanael--may he come?"
+
+She perceived some faint assent, beckoned to her husband, saw him take
+her place at the bedside, and then stole away, leaving the son alone
+with his father.
+
+Agatha rejoined the rest of the family. They were all sitting talking
+together as Nathanael had left them. After her leaving, they said, he
+had hardly spoken at all, but had gone up directly after her.
+
+In about half-an-hour he re-appeared--greatly agitated. His sisters all
+turned to him as he entered, but he avoided their eyes. Agatha never
+lifted hers; she sat in a dim corner behind Miss Valery.
+
+"What do you think of him, Nathanael?" asked Mary, in a low voice.
+
+"I cannot yet tell; I want to hear how he was seized. Which of you saw
+most of him yesterday?"
+
+"No one, unless it was Agatha. He was shut up in his study until she
+came."
+
+"And who has been most with him since?"
+
+"Agatha."
+
+A soft expression dawned in the young man's eyes as they sought the dim
+corner.
+
+"Will Agatha tell me what _she_ thinks of my father's state?"
+
+This appeal, so direct--so unexpected--could not be gainsaid.
+
+Yet, when Nathanael addressed her, Agatha's agitation was so visible
+that it attracted observation--especially Mrs. Dugdale's.
+
+"Poor child!" said Harrie, compassionately, "how pale she looks!"
+
+"No wonder," Mary added. "She is more worn out than any of us. She sat
+up all last night."
+
+Nathanael's eyes were on his wife again, full of ineffable gentleness.
+"Agatha, come over and rest in this armchair. I want to talk to you
+about my father."
+
+She obeyed. He spoke in a low voice:
+
+"I feel deeply your having been so kind to him."
+
+"It was right. I was glad to do it."
+
+"What do you think caused his illness?"
+
+"Doctor Mason said it was probably some severe mental shock."
+
+Nathanael looked alarmed. "Indeed! and did the rest of the family know
+anything?--guess anything?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Her husband fixed on her a penetrating gaze; she returned it steadily.
+
+"Agatha," he hurriedly said, "you are a sensible girl--more so than any
+of my sisters. I want to consult with you alone. Come and walk up and
+down the room with me where they cannot overhear us."
+
+She did so. How strange it was!
+
+"Do you think my father had any sudden ill news? Did he see any person
+yesterday?"
+
+"A stranger came to him. Your brother's lawyer, Mr. Grimes."
+
+"Grimes? Oh, my poor father!"
+
+He sat down abruptly. Agatha wondered at his mingling the two names.
+What should Grimes have to do with his father?
+
+"Did any one else see Grimes?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"What did he say to you? Was it"--he dropped his head, and spoke half
+inaudibly--"Was it anything about my brother?"
+
+Agatha marvelled, even with a sort of pain. Father, brother, every one
+before her! "He never named Major Harper, that I can remember. But he
+said"--
+
+"What?"
+
+Agatha drew back. How could she speak of such petty things as money and
+fortune then! She answered softly, and with a full heart:
+
+"Never mind. It was a mere trifle, not worth telling, or even thinking
+of now. Another time."
+
+Nathanael regarded his wife doubtfully, but she bore the look. She was
+speaking the simple truth. Loss of fortune did seem "a mere trifle" now,
+when he was safe back again, and she sat in his presence, he talking to
+her as gently as in the olden time. Her simplicity in worldly things
+was so extreme that even Nathanael passed it over as impossible. He only
+said:
+
+"Well, all must come out ere long. We cannot think of it now. Tell me
+more about my poor father."
+
+"There is little more to tell. His manner was rather strange, I thought,
+all dinner-time. He drank healths as usual--especially yours. His mind
+was wandering then, for he called you his _only_ son. Then Mr. Grimes
+gave another toast--Major Harper. At that moment your father fell from
+his chair."
+
+Nathanael started up--"I knew it would be so. He could not bear such
+shame--my poor old father!"
+
+"Nathanael," cried Harrie, from the fireside group, "come and give us
+your opinion. I say that he ought to be sent for at once."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Frederick"
+
+Nathanael cried out violently, as if self-control were no longer
+possible.
+
+"Never! Here have I used every effort, smothered every feeling, made
+every sacrifice, to save my poor father from knowing all this--and in
+vain! You may talk as you like, but I say Frederick shall never enter
+these doors. He is as good as his father's murderer."
+
+"Hush!" cried Anne Valery, going to him while the others stood aghast.
+She only knew what fearful storms can be roused in these quiet natures.
+
+"I will not hush. I have been silent too long over his wrong-doing."
+
+"But some"--breathed Anne scarce audibly--"some whom he wronged have
+been silent for a lifetime."
+
+Nathanael paused; Anne's reasoning was from facts unknown to him; but he
+saw the agony in her face. She continued in a whisper:
+
+"Be slow to judge him, if only for his sisters' sakes--his dead
+mother's--the honour of the family."
+
+"I have thought only too much of all these things."
+
+"Then, for his father's sake--his father, who is going away to the
+other world leaving a son unforgiven. Beware how you not only take your
+brother's birthright, but seal your brother's curse."
+
+"God forbid. Oh, Anne--Anne!"
+
+He pressed his hand over his eyes, and leaned back a moment--leaning,
+though he did not know it, against his wife, who had stolen behind his
+chair. No one else came near; they all shrank from their brother as if
+he were suddenly gone mad. Looking up, he saw only Miss Valery.
+
+"Forgive me, Anne; I cannot control myself as I used to do: I have been
+very ill lately, but don't tell my wife."
+
+Anne took no notice; perhaps she wished the wife should learn the
+husband's real heart as she--his old friend--knew it.
+
+"Don't think I would harm Frederick. Not for worlds. Do you know," and
+his voice lowered, "I dare not trust myself even to be just over his
+misdeeds, lest I should be slaying my enemy."
+
+"Your enemy? It is too hard a word."
+
+"No! it is true." He glanced round, perceiving no one near but Miss
+Valery. "Anne," he whispered, "do you remember the parable of Nathan?
+Why did he do it--the cruel rich man who had enjoyed so much all his
+life? Why did he steal my one little ewe-lamb?"
+
+"Stay!" cried Anne, with a sudden suspicion waking in her. "I don't
+clearly understand. Tell me again."
+
+"No, no," he said recovering himself. "I have nothing to tell--But we
+are wasting time. Anne, it shall be as you say." And he drew a long hard
+breath. "Which of us had best write to my brother?"
+
+Rising, he found out who had been behind him. He looked horrified.
+
+"Agatha!--did you overhear me?"
+
+The suspicion wounded her to the core. Her pride and sense of justice
+were alike roused.
+
+"Have no fear, Mr. Harper," said she; "I shall not betray your secrets.
+I do not even comprehend them; except that I think it very wicked for
+brothers to be such enemies."
+
+He made no answer.
+
+"And," continued Agatha, growing bolder, as she was prone to do on the
+side of the mysteriously wronged, "I would have sent for Major Harper
+myself, had not your father seemed unwilling. But the eldest son ought
+to be here."
+
+"He shall be--your husband will write," interposed Miss Valery.
+
+The husband moved away. He had thoroughly frozen up again into the
+Nathanael of old, whose coldness jarred against every ardent impulse of
+Agatha's temperament--rousing, irritating her into opposition.
+
+"There is no need for him to trouble himself. What was right to be done
+has luckily not waited for _his_ doing it. Elizabeth herself informed
+her brother."
+
+"When?"
+
+"This afternoon. I sent the letter myself to Mr. Trenchard's, where I
+found out he had been staying."
+
+As Mrs. Harper said this, her husband's eyes literally glared.
+
+"You knew where he was staying?--Agatha--Agatha?"
+
+But Agatha's look was fixed on the door, to which her sisters-in-law had
+gathered hastily. There was a talking outside--a welcome as it seemed.
+She forgot everything except her sense of right and justice to one
+unwarrantably and unaccountably blamed.
+
+"It is surely he," she cried, and ran eagerly forward.
+
+"Nathanael!"
+
+"Frederick!"
+
+The two brothers, elder and younger, stood confronting each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"Elizabeth sent for me--Elizabeth only showed me that kindness. Oh, it
+was very cruel of you all--you should have told me my father was dying."
+
+It must have been a hard heart that could have closed itself altogether
+against Frederick Harper now.
+
+He leant against the doorway, the miserable ghost of his gay self. Born
+only for summer weather, on him any real blast of remorse or misfortune
+fell suddenly, entirely, overthrowing the whole man.
+
+"Elizabeth says it happened yesterday; and must have been
+because--because Grimes--Oh, God forgive me! it is I that have killed my
+father!"
+
+Every one shrank back. None of his sisters understood what he meant; but
+the mere expression seemed to draw a line of demarcation between them
+and the self-convicted man. Agatha only approached him--she felt so very
+sorry for her old friend.
+
+"You must not talk in this way, Major Harper. If you did vex him in any
+way, it is very sad; but he will forgive you now. You cannot have done
+any real harm to your father."
+
+Her kind voice, her perfectly guileless manner, struck each of the
+brothers with various emotion. The eyes of both met on her face:
+Frederick dropped his, and groaned; Nathanael's brightened. For the
+first time he addressed his brother:
+
+"Frederick, she is right; you must not talk thus. Compose yourself."
+
+It was in vain; his easy temperament was plunged into depths of childish
+weakness. "Oh, what have I done? You said truly, it would kill him to
+hear _that_. And my heedlessness drove Grimes to go and tell him. Yes,
+your prophecy was true: I have been the disgrace of our house--the
+destruction of my father. What shall I do, Nathanael?"
+
+And he held out his hands to his younger brother in the helplessness of
+despair.
+
+"The first thing, Frederick, is for you to be silent Anne, take my
+sisters away; my brother and I have something to say to one another.
+What? no one will go? Then, brother, come with me."
+
+The other rose mechanically; Agatha likewise. She began to put
+circumstances together, and guess darkly at what was amiss. Probably she
+herself had to do with it. She remembered in what strict honour the
+old Squire held the duty of a guardian, as he had shown in what he said
+about his own relation to Anne Valery. Perhaps some carelessness of his
+son's had caused her own loss of fortune. Yet that was not a thing to
+break his father's heart, or harden his brother's against him. Mere
+chance it must have been; ill-luck, or at the worst carelessness. There
+could not be any real dishonour in Major Harper. And after all what was
+money, when they could be so much happier without it? She determined to
+go to her husband and openly say so, telling all that had come to her
+knowledge of their secrets. They should no longer be angry with one
+another--if it were on her account.
+
+So she followed after them, with her soft, noiseless step; and when the
+two brothers stood together in their father's deserted study, there she
+was between them.
+
+"Agatha!" They both uttered her name--the elder in much confusion. He
+had seemed all along as though he could scarcely bear the sight of her
+innocent face.
+
+"Don't send me away," she said, laying a hand on either. "I know I am
+a young ignorant thing, and you are wise men; but perhaps a
+straightforward girl may be as wise as you. Why are you angry with one
+another?"
+
+Both looked uncomfortable. Major Harper tried to throw the question off.
+
+"Are we angry with one another? Nay, I am sure"--
+
+"Don't deceive me--this is no time for making pretences of any kind.
+What is this quarrel between you two?" And she turned from one to the
+other her fearless eyes.
+
+Major Harper could not meet them; Nathanael did, calmly, but
+sorrowfully.
+
+"Agatha, I cannot tell you."
+
+"But I can tell _you_; and I will, for it is right. Major Harper, do not
+be unhappy. Believe me, I care not one jot for all the money I ever
+had. If you have lost it, I am sure it was accidentally. You would not
+wilfully wrong me of a straw."
+
+Again Major Harper groaned. Nathanael stood speechless with amazement.
+At length he said, very gently:
+
+"How did you find this out, Agatha?"
+
+"Mr. Grimes told me."
+
+"Was that all he told?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Major Harper looked relieved. Nathanael watched him sternly. After a
+while he said:
+
+"Frederick, this is the right time to explain all. Do not start; you
+need not fear _me_; in any case I shall hold to my promise. But if you
+would explain--for my sake, for others' sake"--
+
+The other shrank away. "No, not now," he whispered; "oh! brother, not
+now. Give me a little time. Don't disgrace me before her--before them
+all."
+
+Nathanael's stature rose. Without again speaking, he shook his brother's
+hand from off his shoulder with a gesture, slight yet full of meaning,
+and turned towards Agatha. He seemed to yearn over her, though he
+checked every expression of feeling except the softness of his voice.
+
+"I am glad you have found out we are poor--that in some things my wife
+may see I have not been so cruel to her as she thought."
+
+Agatha's cheeks crimsoned with emotion. Why--why were they not alone
+that she need not have smothered it down, and stood so quiet that he
+believed she did not feel? He went on, rather more sadly:
+
+"But this is not a time to talk of our own affairs; you shall know all
+ere long. Will you be content until then?" And he held out his hand.
+
+She took it, looking eagerly into his face. There was something there
+so intrinsically noble and true! Though his conduct yet seemed
+strange--unreasonable towards her, harsh towards his brother, still,
+in defiance of all, there was that in his countenance which compelled
+faith. And there was that in her own heart, a something neither reason
+nor conviction, but transcending both, which leaped to him as through
+intervening darkness light leaps to light. She felt that she must
+believe in her husband.
+
+He seemed partly to understand this, and smiled--a pale, faint smile,
+that quickly vanished.
+
+"Now, Agatha," he said, opening the door for her, "go and see how my
+father is, and then you must go to bed. I will sit up with him to-night.
+I cannot have my poor wife killing herself with watching."
+
+His voice sunk tenderly; he even put out his hand, as if to stroke her
+hair after his old habit, but drew it back--Major Harper was looking on.
+Again the dark fire, lit so fatally on his marriage-day, and since then
+sometimes fiercely raging, sometimes smothered down to a mere spark,
+yet never wholly extinguished, rose up in the young man's strong,
+self-contained, strangely silent heart. Would his pride never let it
+burst forth, that, mingling with the common air, it might burn itself to
+nothingness! But how many a whole life has been tortured and consumed
+by just such a little flame, a mere spark, let fall by some evil tongue
+which is set on fire of hell.
+
+While they paused--the wife waiting, she knew not for what, except that
+it seemed so easy to follow and so hard to quit her husband--there was a
+cry heard on the staircase at the foot of which they stood. Mrs. Dugdale
+came running down in terror.
+
+"Nathanael--Agatha--I have told my father that Fred is here. Oh, come to
+him, do come!"
+
+No time for pitiful earthly passions, jealousies, and regrets. Nathanael
+ran quick as lightning, his wife following. But at the door of the
+sick-room even she recoiled.
+
+The old man sat up in bed, raised on pillows; either the paralysis
+had not been so entire as was at first supposed, or he had slightly
+recovered from it. His right arm moved feebly; his tongue was loosed,
+though only in a half-intelligible jabber. But his countenance showed
+that, however lay the miserable body, the poor old man was in his right
+mind. Alas! that mind was not at peace, not lighted with the holy glow
+cast on the dying by the world to come, It was filled with rage and
+torment.
+
+Nathanael ran to him, "Father, father, you will destroy yourself. What
+is it you want?"
+
+The answer was unintelligible to his son, but Agatha gathered from it
+that the chamber-door was to be shut and bolted. She did so; yet even
+then the sick man's fury scarce abated. Broken words--curses that the
+helpless lips refused to ratify; terrible outbursts of wrath, mingled
+with the piteous moan of senility. Last of all came the name, once given
+proudly by the young father to his first-born, and now gasped out with
+maledictions from the same father's dying lips--"Frederick."
+
+Nathanael and Agatha looked at one another with horror. They both knew
+that the old Squire was bent on driving from his death-bed his own, his
+first-born son.
+
+Agatha instinctively held down the palsied hands, which were trying to
+lift themselves towards heaven--not in prayers!
+
+"Father, don't say--don't even think such terrible things. Whatever he
+has done, forgive him!--for the love of God, forgive him!"
+
+The old man regarded her, and his excitement seemed redoubled. Agatha
+fancied it was the father's pride, dreading lest she, a stranger, knew
+the cause of his anger.
+
+"No, no!" she cried, "I scarcely understand anything; my husband would
+not tell me. Whatever has happened can all be hushed up. We would
+forgive anything to a brother--oh, would we not?" And she appealed to
+Nathanael, who stood motionless, great drops lying on his forehead,
+though his features were so still.
+
+"It is true, father," he whispered. "No one knows anything but me, and I
+have kept your honour safe that he might redeem it some time. Perhaps he
+may. And remember, he is your son--the first-born of his mother. Hush,
+Agatha!" Nathanael continued, as he saw a sudden change come over
+the old man's face. "Don't say any more now. Leave me to talk with my
+father."
+
+With the grave tenderness that he always showed her, he took his wife by
+the hand, led her to the door, and closed it. Greatly moved, yet
+feeling satisfied he would do what was right, Agatha obeyed and went
+down-stairs.
+
+The sisters and brother were assembled in the study. Marmaduke was there
+too, but took little part in the family lamentation, except in keeping a
+perpetual tender watch over the grief of his own Harrie. Anne Valery was
+absent.
+
+Frederick Harper sat apart. A sullen gloom had succeeded to his
+misery--with him no feeling ever lasted long, at least in the same form.
+Harriet and Eulalie were inspecting with great curiosity their elder
+brother, whose presence among his long-estranged household seemed
+accompanied with such a mysterious discomfort. They eyed him doubtfully,
+as if he had done something very wrong that nobody knew of. Mary only,
+who was next eldest to himself, ventured to address some kind words, and
+bestir herself about his comfort.
+
+Thus the family sat, Agatha among them, for more than an hour. No one
+thought of going to bed. All remained together, in a strangely quiet,
+subdued state, Major Harper being with them all the time, though he
+hardly spoke, or they to him. He seemed a stranger in his father's
+house.
+
+Once when he had gone for a few minutes to Elizabeth's room--he had been
+with Elizabeth long before his coming was known to any of the rest, it
+was believed--Mary began in her lengthy wandering way to tell anecdotes
+of his boyish doings; how handsome he was, and how naughty too; and
+how, when he got into disgrace, she, by the scheming of Elizabeth, used
+secretly to carry bread-and-honey and apples to his bedroom. And she
+wiped her eyes, the good, plain-looking sister Mary, saying over and
+over again,
+
+"Poor Fred!" She never thought of him, like the world, as "Major
+Frederick Harper," but only as "Poor Fred!"
+
+Several times Agatha stole up-stairs to the door of the room which
+enclosed the sorrow-mystery of the house. It was always shut, but she
+could hear Nathanael's voice within--his soft, kind voice, talking
+quietly by the bedside.
+
+"I never see anything like 'un," said the coachman's wife, who sat
+without the door. "He do manage th' Squire just as the poor dear
+Missus did. He do talk just like his mother." And that was evidently the
+perfection of everything in the old woman's eyes.
+
+Agatha sat down beside her on the staircase, listening to the wind
+without, that swept fiercely over the hollow in which Kingcombe Holm
+lay, as if ready to bear away on its pinions a departing soul. It was
+an awful night to die in. Agatha listened, sensitive to every one of its
+terrors. But above them all--above the shadow of coming death, fear of
+the future, anxiety in the present--rose one thought--the thought of her
+husband.
+
+It gave her no pain--it gave her no joy--yet there it was, a visible
+image sitting strong and calm in the half-lighted chamber of her heart,
+every feeling of which crept to its feet and lay there, like priestesses
+in the twilight before a veiled god.
+
+Nathanael at last opened the door. He looked like one who has struggled
+and conquered not only with things without, but things within. His face
+had all the pallor, but likewise all the peace of victory. Agatha rose
+to meet him.
+
+"Have you been waiting for me this long while? Good child!" And he
+smiled, but solemnly, as with an inward sense of the Presence which
+makes all things equal--softens all asperities and calms all passions.
+
+"Do you know where my brother is?" asked Nathanael.
+
+"Down-stairs, with the rest."
+
+"Will you go and fetch him?"
+
+Agatha looked up at her husband half incredulously. "Have you then
+succeeded? Is all made right?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, how good--how good you are!" She grasped his hands and kissed them,
+her eyes floating in tears; then, lest he should be displeased, ran
+quickly away.
+
+Miss Valery met her at the stairhead, coming from the gallery where were
+Elizabeth's rooms. They exchanged the usual question, "How is he now?"
+and then Agatha said:
+
+"Be glad with me! I am sent to fetch Major Harper."
+
+Anne pressed her hand. "Go and tell him. He is with Elizabeth."
+
+And there Agatha found him overcome with grief--the gay, handsome Major
+Harper! steadfast neither in good nor evil. He sat, his head bent, his
+hair falling disordered, its greyness showing, oh! so plain. Plainer
+still were the wrinkles which a life of smiles had carved only the
+deeper round the mouth--token of how near upon him was creeping a
+desolate unhonoured age. By his side, talking softly, with his hand
+in hers, lay the crippled sister, perhaps the only living creature who
+really loved him.
+
+"Major Harper," Agatha spoke softly, laying her hand upon his shoulder.
+The poor broken-down man, dropping into old age! there was no fear of
+his thinking she was in love with him now.
+
+"Well, what do you want?"
+
+"I am sent to fetch you to your father."
+
+He looked incredulous;--Agatha repeated her message.
+
+"My husband sent me. Your father wishes very much to see you. Come."
+
+"Elizabeth!" He turned to her as if she could make him understand this
+incomprehensible news.
+
+Elizabeth clasped his hand and loosed it. She said nothing, but Agatha
+saw she was weeping for joy. Her brother rose and went through the long
+gallery they passed, his sister-in-law carrying the light, and leading
+him. He had quite forgotten his courteous manners now. Agatha thought of
+the days in London--when he had escorted her to operas, and murmured
+over her in drawing-rooms, making her so happy and honoured in his
+notice. Poor Major Harper! How vain were all the shows of his brilliant
+life, the men who had courted him, the women who had flattered and
+admired him! Agatha forgave him all his follies--ay even all the hearts
+he had broken. There was not one of those poor hearts, not one, on which
+he could rest his tired head now!
+
+At the door of their father's room Nathanael met him, a new and more
+righteous Jacob dealing with a more desolate Esau. And like Esau's was
+the cry that broke from Frederick Harper as he went in and flung himself
+on his knees by the bed.
+
+"_Bless me--even me also--O' my father._"
+
+There was no answer. The words of forgiveness were denied his hearing.
+The old Squire could but look at his son, and move his lips in an
+articulate murmur.
+
+Agatha ran to Major Harper's side. It was pitiful to see the shock he
+had received, and the frenzied way in which he called upon his father to
+speak--if only one word.
+
+"He cannot speak, you know, but he does indeed forgive you. Be sure that
+he forgives you!"
+
+Her husband drew her away to the little curtained alcove which had
+been Mrs. Harper's dressing-room. There they stood, close together--for
+Nathanael did not let her go, and she clung to him in tears--while the
+father and son had their reconciliation.
+
+It was silent throughout, for after the first burst, Major Harper was
+not heard to speak. Now and then came a sound like the smothered sob of
+a boy. No one saw the faces of father and son; they were bent together,
+just as when, years upon years ago, the proud father had sometimes
+condescended to let his baby son, his first-born and heir, go to sleep
+upon his shoulder.
+
+Thus, after many minutes, Nathanael found them lying.
+
+He held the curtain aside to see his father's countenance; it was very
+peaceful now, though with a dimness gathering in the open eyes. Agatha
+had never before seen that look--the unmistakable shadow of death. She
+shrank back, trembling violently. Her husband put his arm round her.
+
+"Do not be afraid, my child," he whispered, using the old word and tone.
+She rested on him, and was quieted.
+
+"I think we had better call them all in now."
+
+"Shall I fetch them?" said his wife, and went out, flitting once more
+through the still, ghostly house. But she thought of her husband, of his
+last word and look, and had no fear.
+
+They came in, all that were now living of the old man's children--save
+one--the poor Elizabeth. They stood round the bed, a full circle, his
+two sons, his three daughters, his son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and
+lastly Anne Valery. She was the palest and most serene of all.
+
+Thus for an hour or more they waited--so slow was the last closing
+of the long-drawn-out life. There was no pain or struggle; merely the
+ebbing away of breath. The palsied hands, white and beautiful to the
+last, lay smooth on the counterpane; and when occasionally one or other
+of his daughters knelt down and kissed him, the old man feebly smiled.
+But whenever he opened his eyes, they travelled no farther than to the
+face of his eldest son--rested there, brightened and closed.
+
+And thus, lying quietly in the midst of his children, at daybreak the
+old Squire died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The old man was gathered to his fathers.
+
+It was the day after that on which he had been borne to the place
+appointed for all living. A new coffin rested beside that of Catherine
+Harper in the family vault; the portrait still smiled, but on an empty
+bed. There was no separation now.
+
+At Kingcombe Holm the house had awakened from its sleep of mourning;
+the shutters were opened, and the sunshine came in familiarly on the
+familiar rooms--where was missed the presence of him who had abided
+there for threescore years and ten. But what were they? Counted only as
+"labour and sorrow"--they had all passed away, and he was gone.
+
+The family met--a large table circle. They looked melancholy, all
+in their weeds, but otherwise were as usual. A certain gravity and
+under-tone in speaking alone remained. Mary had again begun to busy
+herself over her housekeeping; and Eulalie, looking prettier than ever
+in her black dress, was listening with satisfaction to the Reverend
+Mr. Thorpe, a worthy, simple young man, who had come at once to pay the
+family of his affianced the respect of attending the funeral, and
+to plan another ceremony, when the decent term of mourning should be
+expired.
+
+Major Harper, now recovering something of his old elasticity of
+manner, took the place at the foot of the breakfast-table, whence
+Mary, presiding as usual, cast over to him glances sometimes of pride,
+sometimes of doubtful curiosity, as if speculating on what sort of a
+ruler the future head of the house would be.
+
+A very courteous and graceful one, most surely!--to judge by the way in
+which he was doing the agreeable to his sister-in-law. Quite harmlessly,
+only it seemed as necessary for Major Harper to warm himself in the fair
+looks of some woman or other, as for a drenched butterfly to dry its
+wings in the sunshine. He was indeed a poor helpless human butterfly,
+not made for cloudy weather, storm, or night!
+
+But he fluttered in vain; Agatha took no notice of him whatsoever. Her
+whole nature had deepened down to other things--things far beneath the
+shallow ken of Major Harper.
+
+During this week, when the numerous duties of the brothers of the family
+left its womenkind nearly alone, shut up in the house of mourning, with
+nothing outwardly to do or to think of beyond the fold of crape or a
+gown, or the make of a bonnet--Agatha had learnt strange secrets. They
+were not of Death, but of Love.
+
+She had seen very little of her husband. Either by necessity or design,
+he had been almost constantly away; at Thornhurst, arranging business
+for Miss Valery, who had gone home; sometimes at Kingcombe, in his
+own house--his lonely house; and for two days and nights, to the
+astonishment and slight scandal of his sisters, he had been absent in
+Cornwall. But wherever he was, or whatever he had to do, he either saw
+or wrote to his wife every day; kind, grave words, or kinder letters;
+brother-like in their wisdom and tenderness--just the sort of tenderness
+that he seemed to believe she would wish for from him.
+
+Agatha accepted all--these brief meetings--these constant letters; saw
+the wounding curiosity of his sisters relax, and even Harriet Dugdale
+acknowledged how mistaken had been her former notions, and on what
+excellent terms her brother and his wife now evidently were; she really
+never thought Nathanael would have made such an attentive, affectionate
+husband! And Agatha smiled outwardly a proud satisfied smile; while
+inwardly---oh, what a crushed, remorseful, passionate heart was there!
+
+A heart which now began to know itself--at once its fulness and its
+cravings. A heart thirsting for that love, wanting which, marriage is
+but a dead corrupting body without the soul--love, the true life-union,
+consisting of oneness of spirit, sympathy, thought, and will--love which
+would have been the same had they lived twenty thousand miles apart, ay,
+had they never married at all, but waited until eternity united those
+whom no earthly destinies could altogether put asunder. Now out of her
+own soul she learnt--what not one human being in a million learns,
+and yet the truth remains the same--the unity, the immortality, the
+divineness of Love, to which the One Immortal and Divine gave His own
+name.
+
+She sat in her usual quiet mood, she did everything in such a quiet,
+self-contained fashion now--sat, idly talked to by Major Harper, whom
+she did not hear at all. She only heard, at the further end of the
+table, Nathanael talking to Mary. Sometimes she stole a glance, and
+thought how cordial his manner to his sister was, and how tender his
+eyes could look at times. And she sighed. At her sigh, her husband would
+turn, see her listening to Frederick with that absent downcast look--and
+become silent.
+
+Not an angry jealous silence now--his whole manner showed how much he
+honoured and trusted his wife--but the hush of a deep, abiding pain, a
+sense of loss which nothing could ever reveal or remove.
+
+But men must keep up worldly duties; it is only women, and not all of
+these, who can afford the luxury of a broken heart. Mr. Harper rose,
+nerved for the day's task--a painful one, as all the family knew. The
+elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who
+in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this
+had fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish
+looks. As he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the
+aspect of middle age.
+
+"It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers
+in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come.
+You are quite sure there was a will?"
+
+"Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking
+there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him
+to dinner, but his back was turned, and I could not make him
+understand--poor father!"
+
+Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and
+her grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael,
+going away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between
+them, though smooth, was invariably formal and rare.
+
+"You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?--you do not wish to
+share it?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny
+window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away
+the bare thought of death and the grave.
+
+Nathanael went out--but ere he had closed the door a little hand touched
+him.
+
+"What do you want, Agatha?"
+
+"I should like to go with you, if you would allow--that is, if you would
+not forbid me."
+
+"Forbid you? Nay! But"--
+
+"I want--not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets--but just to
+sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house now!" And
+she shivered.
+
+Her husband sighed. "Poor child--such a child to be in the midst of us
+and our trouble! Come with me if you will." And he took her into the
+study.
+
+No one had been there since the father died; directly afterwards some
+careful hand had locked the door, and brought the key to Nathanael;
+and it was the only room in the house whose window, undarkened, had met
+during all that week the eye of day. It felt close with sunshine and
+want of air. Mr. Harper opened the casement, and placed an arm-chair
+beside it, where Agatha might look out on the chrysanthemum bed, and the
+tall evergreen, where a robin sat singing. He pointed out both to her,
+as if wishing to fortify her with a sense of life and cheerfulness, and
+then sat down to the gloomy task of looking over his father's papers.
+
+They were very few--at least those left open in the desk; merely
+accounts of the estate, kept with brevity and with much apparent labour;
+sixty years ago literature, nay, education, were at a low ebb among
+English country gentlemen. But all the papers were so carefully
+arranged, that Nathanael had nothing to do but to glance over them and
+tie them up--simple yearly records of the just life and honest dealings
+of a good man, who transferred unencumbered to his children the trust
+left by his ancestors.
+
+"I think," said Nathanael--breaking the dreary silence--"I think there
+never was one of the Harper line who lived a long life so stainlessly,
+so honourably, as my father."
+
+And somehow, as he tied up the packets, his finger slightly trembled.
+Agatha came and stood by him.
+
+"Let me help you; I have ready hands."
+
+"But why should I make use of them?"
+
+"Have you not a right?" she said, smiling.
+
+"Nay, I never claim as a right anything which is not freely given."
+
+"But I give it. It pleases me to help you," said Agatha, in a low tone,
+afraid of her own voice. She took the papers from him, and tried to make
+herself busy, in her innocent way. It cheered her.
+
+Nathanael watched her for a minute. "You are very neat-handed, Agatha,
+and it is kind of you to help me."
+
+"Oh, I would help any one." Foolish, thoughtless words! He said no more,
+but went and looked over the cabinet.
+
+This was a sadder duty. There were letters extending over more than a
+half century. The Squire received so few that he seemed never to have
+burnt one. The oldest--fifty years old--were love-letters, of the time
+when people wrote love-letters beginning "Honoured Miss," and "Dear
+and respected Sir," overlaying the plain heart-truth with no
+sentimentalisms of the pen. The signatures, "Catherine Grey," and
+"Nathanael Harper," in round, formal, girl and boy hand, told how young
+they were when this correspondence began;--young still, when its sudden
+ceasing showed that courtship had become marriage. From that time,
+for nearly twenty years, there was scarcely a letter signed Catharine
+Harper.
+
+"This looks," said Agatha, who unconsciously to both had come to stand
+by her husband and share in his task--"this looks as if they were so
+rarely parted that they had no need for letter-writing."
+
+"It was so: I believe my father and mother lived very happily together."
+
+"I should like to read these letters all through, if I might? They are
+the only love-letters I ever saw."
+
+"Are they, indeed?"
+
+The sharp questioning look startled Agatha. She remembered that first
+letter of Nathanael's--perhaps he was vexed that she had apparently
+forgotten it--the letter which had been such a solemn epoch in her young
+life. She coloured vividly and painfully.
+
+"I mean--that is"--
+
+Her husband looked another way. "You shall have these letters if you so
+much desire it."
+
+"Thank you. I would like to keep something of your mother's. And she was
+indeed so happy in her marriage?"
+
+"Very happy, Anne Valery says. My father's was not a perfect temper,
+but she understood him thoroughly, and he trusted her. He had need; he
+knew--what is a rare thing in marriage now-a-days--that he had been his
+wife's first love."
+
+Agatha made no reply, and the conversation dropped.
+
+Next to Mrs. Harper's letters, and preserved with almost equal care, was
+another packet. It began with a child's scrawl--double-lined, upright
+and stiff:
+
+
+"My dear Father,
+
+"Uncle Brian has ruled me this paper, and ruled Anne another. We are
+all very merry at Weymouth. We don't want to come home, except to
+see"--(here a word, apparently "_ponies_" had been carefully altered, by
+a more delicate hand, into something like "_Papa_")--"Anne's love, and
+everybody's, from your dutiful son,
+
+"Frederick."
+
+
+"'_Frederick?_'--I thought the letter was yours."
+
+"No, if he had kept any it was sure to be my brothers. Frederick must
+have them back."
+
+"Let me tie them up," said Agatha stretching out her hand.
+
+"No--no--are they so very precious? Why do you want to touch them?" said
+he, sharply, drawing them out of her reach.
+
+"Only that I might help you."
+
+Mr. Harper regarded her a moment, and then put back the letters into
+her lap. "Forgive me, I did not mean to be cross with you. But this task
+confuses me."
+
+He leaned his elbow on the cabinet, covering his eyes, and stood
+thus for two or three minutes. Agatha remained silent--who could have
+intruded on the emotion of a son at such a time? None but a wife who
+could have stolen into his heart with a closer, dearer claim, and she,
+alas! _she_ dared not. Weeks ago--when she believed herself wronged--it
+would have been far easier. The higher he rose, the lower she sank,
+weighed down by the bitter humility that always comes with fervent love.
+She watched him--her heart throbbing, bursting, yearning to cast itself
+at his feet--yet she dared not.
+
+"Now let us look over some other letters. I wonder whether Mary was
+right, and it is here we shall find the will!"
+
+He, then, was only thinking of letters and wills! Agatha turned away,
+and went to sit by the window and watch the chrysanthemums.
+
+At last she was attracted back by her husband's voice.
+
+"This is the will, I see, by the endorsement. Take it, Agatha; we will
+not touch it till the Dugdales come. And here are more letters to my
+father. Do you think I ought to burn them or look them over first?"
+
+The confidential tone in which he spoke soothed Agatha. It was a sort of
+tacit acknowledgment of her wifely rights to his trust.
+
+"I think, suppose you look them over"--
+
+"I cannot," said he, wearily. "Will you?" And he gave her a handful in
+her lap. Agatha felt pleased; she thanked him, and turned them over one
+by one.
+
+"Here is a hand which looks like Miss Valery's."
+
+"It is hers. Set them by."
+
+She opened another, in a careless and very illegible hand, which she
+could not recognise at all:
+
+
+"My dear Brother,
+
+"The approaching marriage in your family, of which you inform me,
+unfortunately cannot alter my plans. I must recover my lost fortunes
+abroad.
+
+"Frederick told me yesterday his certainty of being accepted by Miss
+Valery. He might have told me sooner, but perhaps thought me too much of
+a crusty old bachelor to sympathise with his felicity. Possibly I am.
+
+"You ask if Anne has communicated to me the coming change in her life?
+No.
+
+"Farewell, brother, and God bless you and yours.
+
+"B. L. H."
+
+
+"Why, this is Uncle Brian!" cried Agatha, giving the letter to her
+husband. He read it, laid it aside without comment, and sat thinking.
+She did the same. Turning, their eyes met; and they understood each
+other's thoughts, but apparently neither liked to speak. At last
+Nathanael said:
+
+"It must have been so, though I never guessed it before."
+
+"But I did, though she never openly told me."
+
+"Well, it is a strange world!" mused the young man. "Poor Uncle Brian!"
+
+"When do you expect him home?"
+
+"Any day, every day. Thank God!"
+
+"Did you not think she seemed a little better yesterday," said Agatha
+hesitatingly. "Just a very little, you know."
+
+"A little better; is she ill? What, very ill?"--Agatha's mute answer was
+enough. "Oh, poor, poor Anne! And he is coming home!"
+
+"Perhaps," said Agatha, shocked to see her husband's emotion--"perhaps
+if we take great care, and she is very happy,--people must live when
+they are happy"--
+
+"Few would live at all then," was the answer, unwontedly bitter. "Better
+not--better not; poor Anne! It is a hard, cruel, miserable world."
+
+"Why do you say that, Nathanael?"
+
+He started, and Agatha too, for opening the door, with a bright, clear
+look, was she of whom they were just talking--Anne Valery.
+
+"I knew I might come in. I heard what you were doing here," and a slight
+sadness crossed her face. "Is it all done, now?"
+
+"Nearly," and Mrs. Harper hurriedly folded the letter, which lay still
+on her lap. Miss Valery's eye caught the writing; Nathanael gave it to
+her.
+
+Anne read it; at first with a natural womanly feeling--nay, even
+agitation. Soon this ceased, absorbed in the infinite peace and content
+of her whole mien. "I knew all this long ago," she said calmly. "It was
+a--a _mistake_ of Frederick's."--Then, still calmly; "What do you think
+I have just heard from Marmaduke!--He"--there could be but one she
+meant--"he has safely landed at Havre."
+
+"Uncle Brian!" the young people both cried, and then instinctively
+repressed the joy. It seemed too sacred to be expressed in ordinary
+fashion. And passing naturally from one thought to another, Nathanael
+glanced round the room; the unused desk, the scattered papers left to be
+examined by the unfamiliar hands of a younger generation. Had the
+absent one come but a little sooner! "Alas!" he said, "it seems as if the
+world's universal sorrow lay in those words, '_Too late.'_"
+
+Miss Valery sank on a chair, her temporary strength departing. Her hands
+dropped into that fold that was peculiar and habitual to them--a simple
+attitude, not unlike Chantrey's "Resignation."
+
+"You speak truly, Nathanael. But 'our times are in _His_ hand.'"
+
+She said no more, and shortly Mr. Harper, taking with him the sealed
+packet that was endorsed "_My Will_" led the way to where the family
+were assembled. In doing so there grew over him the hard silence always
+visible when he was much affected. But Agatha was not surprised or hurt:
+she began to understand him better now.
+
+In the dining-room were only the immediate family. Every one knew the
+probable purport of the will, and how simple a document it was likely to
+be; for the patriarchal old Squire hated the very mention of law, and
+it had been his pride that, though not entailed, the inheritance of
+Kingcombe Holm had descended for centuries unbroken by a single legal
+squabble. Therefore they all waited indifferently, merely to go through
+a necessary form; Harriet Dugdale and her husband, Eulalie and her
+_fiance_, and the solitary Mary. Major Harper alone was rather restless,
+especially when the three others came in from the study. It was
+noticeable that, with all his smooth manner, Frederick never seemed
+quite at ease in the presence of Miss Valery. Nevertheless he tried, and
+successfully, to assume his position as elder brother and present head
+of the family. He gave Anne a gracious welcome.
+
+"I scarcely expected you would have honoured us so far. This is entirely
+a family meeting."
+
+"Shall I leave?"
+
+"Oh, no," cried everybody at once, "Anne is so thoroughly one of the
+family."
+
+"Certainly," responded Major Harper, bowing though his brows were knit.
+He waited till Anne took her seat, and then sat down, silent. Many
+changes, vivid, and various, passed over his flexible mouth. At last,
+leaning forward, he hid it with his hand. There was a brief hush in
+the men, of solemnity--in the women, of mourning. More than one tear
+splashed on the black dress of the tender-hearted Mary.
+
+Nathanael stood--the will in his hand--hesitating.
+
+"It seems to me, that as this is a family meeting, we might--not
+necessarily, but still out of kindness and respect--postpone it for a
+few days, that the only remaining member of the family may be present."
+
+"Who is that?" said the elder brother.
+
+"Uncle Brian."
+
+One or two voices, especially the Dugdales, seconded this, and eagerly
+proposed to wait for Uncle Brian.
+
+"Impossible!" Major Harper said, hastily. "I have engagements. I cannot
+wait for any one."
+
+"But"--
+
+"Nathanael--don't argue. Remember, I am the elder brother. Give me my
+father's will." Nathanael paused a moment, and gave it. "The seal has
+been broken and re-fastened," Frederick added, breaking it with rather
+nervous hands. He tried to glance over it, but his eyes wandered
+unsteadily. "There, take it and read. I hate business."
+
+And he threw himself back in his seat, which happened to be the old
+Squire's especial chair. Agatha thought it was thoughtless of him to use
+it.
+
+Nathanael read the will aloud. It was dated ten years back, and was in
+the Squire's own hand, drawn up simply, but with perfect clearness. The
+division of fortune was as they all expected: a moderate funded sum to
+each of the daughters and to Nathanael; the estate, with all real and
+personal property, to go to the eldest son. There were a few small
+bequests to servants, and one gift of the late Mrs. Harper's jewels.
+
+"I meant them," the old man wrote, "for my eldest son's wife.
+Disappointed in this, I leave them to Anne Valery."
+
+Major Harper moved restlessly in his chair. Anne sat quiet. The young
+Agatha looked at them, and wondered if people grew callous as they grew
+old.
+
+"Is it all read?" said Frederick.
+
+"Yes. Stay, here are a few lines; a codicil, I fancy, affixed with seals
+to the body of the will I can hardly make it out."
+
+And as Mr. Harper perused it, his wife observed his countenance change.
+He let the paper drop, and sat silent.
+
+"What is it? Read,", cried Harrie Dugdale.
+
+"I cannot--Anne, will you? God knows, brothers and sisters"--and he
+looked all round the circle with an eagerly appealing gaze--"God knows
+I never knew or dreamed of this. Anne, read."
+
+"Shall I read, Major Harper?"
+
+He was gazing out of the window with an absent air. At the sound of her
+voice he started, and gave some mechanical assent.
+
+Anne read the date--of only twelve days back.
+
+"That was the very day that he was taken ill, you know," whispered Mary.
+
+The codicil began:
+
+"I, Nathanael Harper, being in sound mind and body, do hereby make
+my last will and testament, utterly revoking all others, in so far
+as relates to my two sons. I leave to my younger son, Nathanael Locke
+Harper, all my landed, real, and personal estate, praying that he may
+long live and maintain our name in honour at Kingcombe Holm. To my
+eldest son--having no desire to expose to ruin the family estate, or
+link the family name with more dishonour than it already bears--to my
+eldest son, Frederick Harper, I leave the sum of One Shilling."
+
+Anne's reading ceased. Dead silence, utter, frightened silence,
+followed. Then arose a chorus of women's voices--"Oh, Frederick!--oh,
+Frederick!"
+
+Frederick rose, feebly smiling. "It is a mistake--all a mistake. My
+father was not in his right mind."
+
+The sisterly tide turned. "Oh, hush, Frederick! How wicked of you to say
+so!"
+
+"Well read it over again," said Marmaduke Dugdale, waking up into the
+interests of the world around him. Anne gave him the paper, and he read
+it with his ponderous, manly voice, rounding out every bitter word which
+Anne had softened down. All was undoubtedly legal, signed in his own
+hand, and witnessed by two of his servants. There could be no doubt it
+was done immediately before the paralytic attack, when he was perfectly
+in his senses; indeed, he could not be said ever to have lost them.
+
+The family sat, awed by their father's deed; to question which never
+struck them for a moment--legal chicanery was not rife at Kingcombe
+Holm. They looked at the disinherited brother with a sort of shrinking
+wonder, as if he had done some great unknown wickedness. He might have
+sat there ever so long, conscience-stricken and stupified, but this
+family gaze stung him into violence.
+
+"I say it is a cheat--how or by whom contrived I know not--but it is a
+cheat. My father loved me--the only one of you who ever did. If there
+was a coolness between us, he forgave me when he died. You all saw
+that."
+
+There was no denying it. Every one remembered how the father's last
+dying look of love had been on his eldest son. Again the tide of family
+feeling changed. They threw doubtful glances towards Nathanael, except
+his wife. But she drew closer to him, and trembled and doubted no more.
+
+He stood, meeting the eyes of all his family. In his aspect was great
+distress, but entire composure--not a shadow of hesitation or confusion.
+Nor, on the other hand, was there any triumph. When he spoke--they
+seemed expecting him to speak--his voice was low and steady:
+
+"You know, brother, and all the rest of you know, that I have had no
+hand in this matter."
+
+"I know nothing of the sort," cried Frederick. "I only know that I have
+been defrauded--disgraced.--Not by any act of my father's, or he would
+not lie quiet in his grave. My father always loved me." And the quick
+feeling natural to Major Harper made him hesitate--unable to proceed.
+But soon he continued, vehemently:
+
+"I will find out this. Evil speakers, malicious, underhand hypocrites,
+have turned my father against me. I declare to Heaven that I never
+wronged any"--
+
+Frederick stopped--interrupted not by words, for there was perfect
+silence--but by a certain quiet look of Anne Valery's, which fastened on
+his face. He turned crimson--he had so much of the woman in him, though
+of womanhood in its weakest form. He glanced from Miss Valery to Agatha,
+and then back again.
+
+"Anne--Anne Valery, tell me do you know anything?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"You--even you!" For the moment, he cowered in such emotion as was
+pitiful to see; but it passed and he grew desperate.
+
+"I say, I will contest this will. It shall be proved invalid. My lawyer
+Grimes"--
+
+"Mr. Grimes has been here, and is now gone to America," Anne whispered.
+"I urged and assisted him to go, that he should not throw disgrace on
+the family."
+
+Again Frederick cowered down, then rose, goaded to the last degree.
+"Nevertheless, this will shall not stand. I will throw it into Chancery.
+I will leave for London this very day."
+
+"Stay," said Nathanael, starting from deep thought, and intercepting him
+as he was quitting the room. "One word, Frederick."
+
+"Not one! You are all against me, but I will brave you all. I will have
+my rights--ay, even if I plead my father's insanity."
+
+"Oh, horrible!" cried his sisters.
+
+"Frederick, you know that to be impossible," said Nathanael, sternly.
+
+"Then I will plead what may prove a deeper disgrace to the family
+than madness, or even--what I am supposed to have done," catching his
+brother's arm, and hissing out the words in his face--"I will plead
+that the will is _a forgery_."
+
+Nathanael wrenched away his hold, thereby throwing Frederick back almost
+to the floor. The two stood for a moment glaring at one another, in that
+deadly animosity, most deadly when it arises between brothers,--and then
+the younger recovered himself. It might be because, instantaneously as
+the struggle had begun and ended, he had heard a woman's cry of terror,
+and the name uttered was not "Frederick," but "Nathanael." Also, as he
+stood, he felt two little hands steal from behind and tighten over his
+own. He grew very calm then.
+
+"Frederick, you must unsay that word. There are some things which a man
+cannot bear even from his brother. No doubt can exist that this is my
+father's own writing, and no forgery. You know that as well as I do."
+
+"As well as you do! Exactly what I meant to observe," said Major Harper,
+with his keenest and politest sneer.
+
+Nathanael moved back. A man's roused passions are always terrible;
+but there is something ten times more awful in fury that is altogether
+calm--molten down as it were to a white heat. Never but once--that
+uneffaceable _once_--had Agatha seen her husband look as he looked now.
+
+"Pause one minute, Frederick. If you had waited and heard me speak"----
+
+"I dare you to speak!"
+
+"It would be better not to dare me. I am at my last ebb of patience.
+I have kept faithfully my promise to you. None of our family know--not
+even my own wife--all that is known by you and me, and our father whom
+we buried yesterday. I would have saved him from the knowledge if I
+could, but it was not to be. Now, take care. If you drive me to it"--
+
+He hesitated. Agatha felt his hand--the thin boyish hand--grow cold as
+ice and rigid as iron. She uttered a faint cry.
+
+"Agatha, my wife," with the old sweetness in the whisper, "go and sit
+down. Leave me to reason with my brother."
+
+"No, let _me_ do that," said one coming between. It was Anne Valery.
+
+She had risen from the chair where, during almost all this time, she
+had sat like a statue, only none watched her, not even Agatha. When she
+rose, it was with a motion so slow and gliding, her soft black dress
+scarcely rustling as she moved, that Frederick Harper might well start,
+thinking a supernatural touch was on his arm.
+
+"Anne, is it you? I had forgotten you. No"--he muttered, half to
+himself, turning from the contest with his brother to gaze on her--"no,
+I never did--never do forget you."
+
+"I believe that. Come and speak to me here."
+
+Unresisted, she put her arm in his, and led him away to the deep
+bay-window, circled with a low-cushioned sill, such as delights
+children. Anne sat down.
+
+"Are you determined on this cruel course?"
+
+"I must recover my rights," was the sullen answer. "Any man would."
+
+"And when you have done this--supposing it practicable--what further do
+you purpose?"
+
+"What further?" He looked puzzled, but at last perceived her meaning.
+With an impulse eagerly caught, as Major Harper caught all impulses,
+good and ill, he cried--"Yes, I understand you. My first act, on coming
+to my property shall be to right poor Agatha."
+
+"I thought so," said Anne, kindly. "But you will not be able. There
+are others whose claims will be upon you the instant you have money
+to satisfy them--the shareholders. They know nothing of Agatha Bowen.
+Remember you expended her fortune as you worked the mine--_in your own
+name._"
+
+Major Harper looked confounded with shame. "And you knew all this,
+Anne--you! For how long?"
+
+"For some months--ever since I bought Wheal Caroline."
+
+"And you never betrayed me!"
+
+"We were playfellows, Frederick." She spoke softly, and turned her face
+to the other side of the bay-window.
+
+He forgot she was old now--he remembered only the familiar voice and
+attitude, the same as when in her girlish days she used to sit on the
+cushioned window-sill and talk with him for hours.
+
+"Playfellows! Was that all, Anne? Only playfellows?"
+
+"Only playfellows," she repeated firmly. "Never anything more. You
+knew that always." And, perhaps unconsciously, Anne looked down on a
+ring--plain, not unlike a childish keepsake--which she always wore on
+the wedding-finger of her left hand.
+
+Major Harper sighed, not one of his sentimental sighs, but one from the
+deeps of his heart. A smile, hollow and sad, followed it. "I suppose it
+is idle talking now, but--but--you were my first-love, Anne! If things
+had gone differently, I might have been a different man."
+
+"Not so. God ordained your fate, not I. No man need be ruined for life
+because a woman cannot love him. Human beings hang not on one another
+in that blind way. We have each an individual soul; on another soul
+may rest all its hopes and joys, but on God only rests its worth,
+its duties, and its nobility. We may live to do His work, and rejoice
+therein, long after we have forgotten the very sound of that idle
+word--happiness."
+
+She paused.
+
+"Go on; you talk as you always used to do."
+
+"Not quite," said Anne, with a faint smile; "I am hardly strong enough.
+Frederick," and her eyes had their former lovely, earnest look--earnest
+almost to tears, save that girl-tears had from them long been
+dried,--"Frederick, for the sake of our olden days--of your mother whom
+we both loved--of your father who has gone to her--listen to me for a
+little. Trust to your brother--he will not act unjustly. Do not create
+dissensions in your family; do not let people say that the moment Mr.
+Harper's head was laid in the grave his children quarrelled over his
+property."
+
+"I do not quarrel--I but take my right," cried Major Harper, becoming
+again the "man of the world," as he saw, the curious glances that from
+time to time reached the bay-window. "Thank you for this good advice;
+for which my brother owes you even more than I. But I am not a child
+now, nor a boy in love, to be talked over by a woman."
+
+Miss Valery rose, rather proudly. "Nor am I that woman, Major Harper.
+But I have been so long united in affection with your family; I could
+not bear to think it would be brought to dishonour. Surely--surely _you_
+will not be the one to do it."
+
+Again as he turned to go, she drew him back by those earnest eyes.
+
+"Frederick, it would grieve me so, ay, break my heart, to see them
+brought into open shame, the old familiar home, and the name--the dear,
+dear name."
+
+Major Harper's bitter tongue burst its control and stung. "I now see
+your motive. Everybody knows how very dearly Anne Valery has all her
+life loved the Harper name."
+
+Anne rose to her full height, and a blush, vivid as a girl's, dyed her
+cheek. "I have," she said--"I have loved it, and I am not ashamed."
+
+The blush paled--she sank back on the window-sill. Major Harper was
+alarmed.
+
+"Anne--how ill you look! What have I done to you?"
+
+"Nothing," she answered; and, catching his arm, drew herself upright
+once more.
+
+"Frederick, we were children together, and you loved me; some day you
+will remember that. Afterwards we grew up young people, and, still
+thinking you loved me--but it was only vanity then--you did me a great
+wrong; I will not say how, or when, or why, and no one knows the fact
+save me--but you did it. You did the same wrong to another lately."
+
+"How--how?"
+
+"You said to Mrs. Thornycroft--you see I have learnt all, for I wrote
+and asked her--you said that you 'feared' poor little Agatha loved you,
+and"--
+
+"I know--I know."
+
+"You know, too, that vanity misled you; that it was not true. But it was
+a wicked thing to say; trifling with a woman's honour--torturing those
+who loved her--bringing on her worlds of suffering. Still, she is young,
+and her suffering may end in joy;--mine"--
+
+Anne paused; the human nature struggled hard within her breast--she was
+not quite old yet. At length it calmed down--that last anguished cry of
+the soul against its appointed destiny.
+
+She took her old playmate by the hand, saying gently,
+
+"I am going away soon--going _home_. Before I go, I would like to say,
+as I used to do when you were unkind to me as a child, 'Good-night, and
+I forgive Fred everything.'"
+
+"Oh, Anne--Anne." He kissed her hand in strong emotion.
+
+"Hush! I cannot talk more," she went on quickly. "You will do as I ask?
+You will wait until--until"--
+
+She stopped speaking, and put her handkerchief to her lips. Slowly,
+slowly, red drops shone through its folds. Major Harper called wildly
+for his sisters.
+
+"I knew how it would be," cried Mary Harper. "It has happened twice
+before, and Doctor Mason said if it happened again"--
+
+"Oh, God forgive me!" groaned Frederick, as his brother carried Anne
+Valery away. "She will die--and I shall have killed her!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Anne Valery did not die. Agatha had said she would not; and the young
+heart's creed was true. It had its foundation in a higher law than that
+of physical suffering.
+
+After a few days she was able to be moved to her own house, according to
+her earnest desire; after a few more, the energy of her mind seemed to
+put miraculous strength into her feeble body.
+
+"I knew you would get well," said Agatha joyfully, as she watched her
+patient returning to ordinary household ways; only lying down a little
+more than Anne was used to do, and speaking seldom and low always, for
+fear of the bleeding at the lungs. "I knew you must get well, but I
+never saw anybody get well so fast as you."
+
+"I had need," Anne answered. "I have so much to do."
+
+"That you always have. What a busy rich life--rich in the best
+sense--yours has been! How unlike mine!"
+
+"I hope so--in many things," said Anne, to herself. "But I must not
+speak much. I talked my last talk with poor Frederick in the bay-window.
+Where is Frederick?"
+
+"He has been riding up and down the country day after day--he seems to
+find no rest."
+
+Anne looked sorry. "And we are so quiet here!"
+
+It was indeed very quiet, that sombre house at Thorn-hurst, through
+whose wintry rooms no one wandered but Agatha, excepting the old,
+attached servants. Yet this was of her own will. She had been jealous
+that any one should attempt to nurse Anne but herself. She left even her
+own home to do it. Yet--the bitter thought followed her ever--this last
+was small renunciation. No one would miss her there!
+
+During the days when Miss Valery lay ill, the world without had been
+shut from Agatha's view. Woman-like, she lived within the four walls and
+beside the sick couch, and had only seen her husband for a few minutes
+each day, when, though he talked to her only of Anne, his manner had a
+soft, reverent tenderness, and a troubled humility, as if he began to
+see a different image in his young wife. She was different, and he too.
+Neither knew how or when the change came--but it was there.
+
+She did so miss him, when, having taken them safe to Thornhurst, and
+told her "that she might stay there as long as Anne needed her, but no
+longer"--ah, that happy "but!"--he went away to his own little house at
+Kingcombe, and busied himself there for three days.
+
+"Do you think Nathanael will come and see us this morning?" said Anne,
+looking up from the papers with which she was occupied, towards Agatha,
+who stood at the window watching down the road.
+
+"Did you want my husband!"
+
+"Oh, no! I can do my business myself now. But I think he will come."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Why?--Child, come here." And as Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss Valery
+leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over
+her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can
+condescend to at times, especially when recovering from sickness.
+
+"She is a foolish child! Did she fancy nobody loved her? Did she think
+everybody believed she was wicked (and so she was, now and then, very
+wicked). Does she suppose nobody sees her poor little goodnesses? Oh,
+but they do! They will find all out without my telling. It is best to
+leave things alone."
+
+"You must not speak; it will do you harm."
+
+"Not thus whispering. Nay, lay the head down again. Imagine it only a
+little bird in the air talking to my child. Some kind of characters--I
+once knew the like well!"--and Anne's whisper came through a half
+sigh--"are very proud and jealous over the thing they love. They
+cannot bear a breath to rest on it, or to go from it to any other than
+themselves. They are very silent, too; would die rather than complain.
+They are strong-willed and secret--and as for persuading them to
+anything against their will, you might as well attempt to cleave with
+your little hand to the heart of a great oak. You must shine over it,
+and rain softly on it, and cling close round it, and it will take
+you into its arms, and support you safe, and hang you all round with
+beautiful leaves. But you must always remember that it is a noble
+forest-oak, and that you are only its dews, or its sunshine, or its ivy
+garland. You must never attempt to come between it and the skies."
+
+Anne ceased. Agatha looked up with moistened eyelids.
+
+"I understand; I will try--if you will stay with me. I cannot do
+anything right without you."
+
+Anne smiled. "Poor little Agatha! Not even with the help of her
+husband?"
+
+"My husband! Oh, teach me to be a good wife, such a wife as you would
+have been--as you may be"--
+
+Agatha felt a soft finger closing her lips, and knew that on _that_
+subject there must still be, as ever, total silence. She hid her face,
+and obeyed.
+
+At length Miss Valery started. "There is a horse coming down the road, I
+think. Go, look. It may be your husband."
+
+Agatha rose, and ran to the window.
+
+Anne half rose too. "I fancy I hear two horses. Is anybody with
+Nathanael?"
+
+"Only Mr. Dugdale."
+
+"Ah! well!" There was the slightest possible compression of eyelids and
+mouth, and Anne resumed her place again. "It is very kind of Marmaduke."
+
+The visitors came in softly. Duke Dugdale was the kindest, gentlest
+soul to any one that was ill--wise as a doctor, merry as a child. But
+now--though he strove to hide it--his countenance was overcast.
+
+"It's no use, Anne," he said, after a brief greeting, during which
+he felt her pulse in quite a professional way, and pronounced it
+"stronger--much stronger--and too quick almost."
+
+"What is of no use?"
+
+"Brian Harper won't come home! All his abominable, con--yes, I'll out
+with it--his confounded pride." And Duke tried to look very savage, but
+couldn't manage it.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Somewhere near Havre; we can't make out where. He will not write. Ask
+Nathanael."
+
+"I am afraid it is too true," said Nathanael, leaving his wife, to whom
+he had been talking by the window. "I shall have to hunt him out, and
+use all my persuasions before he will come home; because he is too proud
+to return poor as he went out. What shall I say to him, Anne? I shall
+start to-morrow."
+
+Agatha turned quickly round. Her husband did not see her anxious
+look--he was watching Miss Valery.
+
+"Tell him, Nathanael, that his brother is dead, and his presence needed
+in the family. Once make him understand that it is right to come, and he
+will come. No one was ever more able to do or to suffer _for the right_,
+than Brian Harper."
+
+Marmaduke shook her hand heartily. "Anne, you are as wise as a man,
+and as faithful as a woman. If poor Brian were going to be hanged for
+murder, I do believe-his old friend would find a good word to say for
+him!"
+
+"Well," said Nathanael, after a silence, "I shall go to Havre to-morrow.
+You can spare me, Anne? And for my wife"--
+
+Agatha hung her head. A vague dread smote her. She would have given
+worlds to have courage enough to beg him not to go.
+
+"Havre is across the sea," she murmured. "Surely Uncle Brian would come
+home in time, if you waited."
+
+Waited! she caught a sight of Anne's bent profile, marble-like, with the
+shut eyes. Waited!
+
+Agatha crept to her husband's side. "No--no waiting," she whispered.
+"Go. I would not keep you back an hour. Bring him. Quick--quick."
+
+Could Anne have heard, that she wakened up into such a life-like smile?
+"No, dear, you must not send your husband away so hastily. Let him
+sail from Southampton to-morrow; that will do. He wants to talk to you
+to-day."
+
+Nathanael looked surprised. "It is true, I did; and I told my brother to
+meet me here this afternoon. Did you know that too?"
+
+"I guessed it. You are doing right, quite right. I knew you would. I
+knew _you_, Nathanael."
+
+She held out her hand to him, warmly.
+
+"Dear Anne! But you forget--it is not I only who have to do it."
+
+"Not a word! Go and tell her all. Let her be the first to hear it. Away
+with you! the sun is coming out. Run and talk in the garden-alleys,
+children!"
+
+Her manner, so playful, yet full of keen penetration, drove them away
+like a battery of sunbeams.
+
+"What does she mean?" said Agatha, looking up puzzled, as they stood in
+the hall.
+
+"She reads people's minds wonderfully clear; she always did, but clearer
+than ever now. It is strange. Agatha, do you think"--
+
+"I think all sorts of things about her--different and contrary every
+hour. But the chief thought of all is, that you must go to Havre at
+once. I long for Uncle Brian's coming. How soon can you return?"
+
+"As soon as practicable, you may be sure of that. But you must relax
+your interest even in Uncle Brian just now; I want to talk to you. Shall
+we go, as Anne said, into the garden-alleys?"
+
+"Anywhere that is sunny and warm," said Agatha, with a light shiver. Her
+husband regarded her with that serious pathetic smile which was one of
+his frequent moods.
+
+"Must you always have sunshine, Agatha? Could you not walk a little
+while in the shade? Not if I were with you?"
+
+She cast her eyes down, trembling with a vague apprehension of ill; then
+gazed in the kind face that grew kinder and dearer every day. She put
+her hand in her husband's without speaking a word. He folded it up
+close, the soft little hand, and looked pleased.
+
+"Come now, let us go into the garden."
+
+Agatha wrapped a shawl about her, gipsy-fashion, and met him there. It
+was one of those mild days that sometimes come near upon Christmas, as
+if the year had repented itself, and just before dying, was dreaming of
+its lost springtide. The arbutus-trees were glistening with sunshine,
+and under the high wall a row of camellias, grown in great bushes in
+the open air, the pride of Anne's gardener and of the whole county of
+Dorset, were beginning to show buds, red, white, and variegated, as
+beautiful as summer roses.
+
+"I used to be so fond of this walk when I was a little lad," said
+Nathanael, "I remember, after I had the scarlet-fever, being nursed well
+here; and how every day when my brother came, he used to carry me up and
+down this sunny walk on his back. Poor Fred! he was the kindest fellow
+to children."
+
+"Kindness seems his nature. I think that if your brother did any harm
+it would never be through malice or intention, but only weakness of
+character."
+
+"I perceive," Mr. Harper said, abruptly--"you have no bitter feeling
+against my brother Frederick."
+
+"How could I? He never did me wrong. Except, perhaps, it was his
+carelessness that made me poor." Here Agatha hesitated, for she was
+touching upon a dangerous subject--one so fraught with present emotion
+and with references to past suffering, that hitherto both husband
+and wife had by tacit consent abstained from it. There had been no
+confidential talk of any kind between them.
+
+"Go on," her husband said; "we must speak of these things some time; why
+not now?"
+
+"Though he made me poor," she continued, "it was probably through
+accident. And I have no fear of poverty"--how simply and ignorantly she
+pronounced that terrible word!--"I do not mind it in the least, if you
+do not."
+
+"Was there any need for that _if_, Agatha?"
+
+"No," she replied, and was silent. Shame and remorse gathered over her
+like a cloud. She thought of those wicked words she had spoken--words
+which to this day he had neither answered nor revenged. He had even
+suffered the smooth surface of daily kindnesses to grow over that gaping
+wound of division. Was it there still? Did he remember it? Could she
+dare to allude to it, if only to implore him to forgive her? She would
+in a little time--perhaps when they were by themselves in their
+own house, when she would throw herself at his knees and weep out a
+confession that was beyond all words--words could but insult him the
+more. There are some wounds that can only be healed by love and silence.
+
+"I think it is time," said the husband--"full time that you heard all,
+or nearly all, connected with this painful matter. It is mere business,
+which I will try to make intelligible if possible. You ought not to
+be quite so ignorant of worldly matters as you are, since, if anything
+happened to me--But I have provided against almost everything."
+
+"What are you talking of?" said Agatha, holding him tight, with a faint
+intuition of his meaning.
+
+"Of nothing painful. Do not be afraid. Only that I think it right to
+explain to you what has occurred to us since our marriage--in worldly
+things I mean."
+
+"Yes. I am listening."
+
+"Before we married," he continued, distinctly, and rather proudly, "I
+knew nothing whatever of your fortune--not even its amount. I made no
+inquiries, interfered in no way, except reading the settlement I signed.
+The settlement stated that your property was safe in the Funds. This
+was a"--his brow darkened--"it was--_not true_. The whole had been taken
+out, contrary to your father's expressed will, and embarked in a mining
+speculation in Cornwall."
+
+"Those miners whom Miss Valery aided? Was it my money that was wasted
+at Wheal Caroline? Was it me from whom the poor miner came to seek
+redress?"
+
+"No; the transaction was more blameable even than that. It was all
+carried on in my brother's name. He was made what they call 'managing
+director' of the company: Grimes being solicitor. There were a few
+shareholders--his clients--widows and unmarried women who had put by
+their savings, and such like poor people who wanted large interest,
+and some richer ones, important enough to make public their ruin--for
+everybody lost all."
+
+"But the poorer shareholders--the widows--the old maids?"
+
+"Ay, there's the pity--there's the wickedness," said Nathanael, beneath
+his breath. "People tell me such things are common in England, but I
+would have starved rather than have been mixed up in such a transaction,
+even in the smallest way, and with property that was bona fide my own."
+
+"And," said Agatha, slowly understanding, "this property was not Major
+Harper's own. Also, his doing the thing secretly afterwards, and leading
+you to believe what was--not quite true. I must say it, I think it was
+very wrong of your brother."
+
+"Don't let us talk of him more than we can help. Remember--a brother,
+Agatha!"
+
+More light dawning on his strange conduct, his self-command, his secrecy
+even with her. His wife clung to his arm, her heart brimming with
+emotion that she dared not pour out. For he seemed inclined to be
+reserved even now.
+
+"You see," he added, as they walked along, "I have had some few things
+to try me."
+
+Agatha pressed his arm. Oh that she could break through that awe of him
+and his goodness, that shame of her own foolish erring self!
+
+"Agatha," he said, stopping suddenly, "the thing that hurt me was my
+father. If only he had died a month ago, and never heard of this!"
+
+If only now Agatha could speak! But she felt choking. They walked past
+the windows and looked in. "There is Anne sitting by herself as she used
+to sit, watching Fred and me in the garden. He was such a handsome,
+gay young man. I felt so proud of being his little brother. And my poor
+father--he had not a hope in the world that did not rest on Frederick."
+
+He walked on rapidly back into the shadiest and darkest walk. There
+he stopped. "Agatha," taking both her hands, and reading her features
+closely--"Agatha, would you be very unhappy if we went back and lived,
+poor, in the little cottage?"
+
+"Unhappy? I?"
+
+"I would try that you should not be. I can earn quite enough to give
+you many comforts. We should not be any more content if we claimed our
+rights and lived in prosperity at Kingcombe Holm."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Besides, I am not sure that these are our rights, morally speaking. I
+think, if my father had lived long enough, he would have undone what he
+did in a moment of passion, and let the first will stand. This is what I
+have said to myself, when considering that I have duties towards my wife
+as well as towards others, and that this would restore what was taken
+from her. 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But, Agatha, we
+would not urge that law?"
+
+"Never! God forbid! And Major Harper was so kind to me when I was an
+orphan."
+
+"_Only_ kind? Did he never--No, I am getting foolish. Say on, Agatha.
+Come, sit here; we can talk, and nobody can see or hear us." And he led
+his wife to a sheltered arbutus-bower. "Well, was my brother so kind to
+you?"
+
+"He was, indeed. For the sake of that time I would forgive him anything;
+I have already forgiven him a good deal."
+
+"Indeed? Tell me or not, as you choose; I urge no right to pry into your
+secrets."
+
+"Oh, don't look, don't speak in that way! Why should I not tell you?
+I would have told you before, had you asked. It was nothing--indeed
+nothing. But I was a proud girl, and he made me angry with him."
+
+"For what cause?"
+
+She grew confused--hesitated; the shamefacedness of girlhood came over
+her. "I will tell you," she said at last boldly. "It is surely no
+harm to tell anything to my husband:--Major Harper once said to Emma
+Thornycroft, that he thought I was 'in love' with him."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"It was cruel, it was wicked, it insulted my pride. And more than
+that--it wounded me to the heart that _he_ should say so."
+
+"Was it--don't speak if you don't like--was it _true_?"
+
+"No," cried Agatha, the blood rushing in a torrent over her face. "No,
+it was not true. I liked, I admired him, in a free girlish way; but I
+never, never loved him."
+
+There was a minute's hush in the arbutus-bower, and then Nathanael sank
+down to his wife's side--down, lower yet, to her very feet. He wrapped
+his arms round her waist, laying his head in her lap. His whole frame
+shook convulsively.
+
+"Oh Heaven! You surely did not think _that?_" cried Agatha, appalled.
+
+"I did, ever since the day we were married. I heard him say so in the
+church.--He repeated it to me afterwards.--And it was a lie! Curse"--
+
+"No, no, forgive him!" And Agatha sobbed on her husband's neck, clasped
+by him as she never thought he would clasp her in this world.
+
+At last he rose, pale and sad. "There is other forgiveness needed. I
+have been very cruel to you, Agatha. I had made him a promise, and to it
+I sacrificed myself and you too, without remorse. But now you see how it
+was. I could have judged my brother that I loved; I dared not _slay my
+enemy._"
+
+The only answer was a soft hand-pressure.
+
+"I hardly know what I am about, Agatha,--not even whether or no my wife
+loves me; she did not when we were first married, I fear?"
+
+Agatha drooped her head.
+
+"Never mind, she shall love me yet; I am quite fearless now." He stood
+up, holding her tight in his arms, as if daring the whole world to wrest
+her from him. His whole aspect was changed. It was like the breaking up
+of an Arctic winter, when the trees bud, and the rivers pour sounding
+down, and the sun bursts out, reigning gloriously. For a long time they
+remained thus, clasped together, so motionless that the little robin of
+the arbutus-trees hopped on to a bough near them and began a song.
+
+"We must go in now," said Agatha.
+
+"Ay; we must not forget Anne, or anybody. One can do so much good when
+one is happy!"
+
+"I feel so." She rose, hanging on his arm, but trembling still, almost
+frightened by the insanity of his joy, whirled dizzily in the torrent of
+his overwhelming love.
+
+"You understand now what I had to say to you! You can guess how I mean
+to act as regards my brother?"
+
+"I think I can."
+
+"And you will give your consent? Without it I would have done nothing. I
+would not have taken from my wife these worldly goods, and left her only
+me and my love, unless she willed it so."
+
+"I do will it."
+
+"God bless her." He lifted Agatha from her feet, rocking her in his
+arms like a baby. "I always said God bless her! even when I was most
+wretched--most mad. I knew she was one of His angels--a woman worthy of
+all love, though she had none for me. I was not very cruel to her, was
+I?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"I will never be cruel to her any more. I will smother down all my
+pride, my reserve, the horrible suspiciousness which is rooted in my
+nature. I will never doubt or wound her--only love her--only love her."
+
+Breathless, Agatha trembled to her feet again. Her husband stood by her
+side--calmer now, and radiant in the beauty of his youth. Manly as he
+was, there was something about him which could only be expressed by the
+word "beautiful"--a something that, be he ever so old, would keep up his
+boyish likeness--his look of "the angel Gabriel."
+
+"Let us go into the house now."
+
+They went--those two young hearts thrilling and bounding with life and
+joy--into the darkening house, the hushed presence of Anne Valery.
+
+She was lying on her sofa, very still and death-like. The white cap tied
+under her chin, the hands folded--the perfect silence in and about the
+room--it was like as if she had lain down to rest, calmly and alone, in
+her solitary house, and in her sleep the spirit had flown away;--away
+into the glorious company of angels and archangels, never to be alone
+any more.
+
+But it was not so. Hearing footsteps, Anne opened her eyes, and
+roused herself quickly. She looked from one to the other of the young
+people--at the first glance she seemed to understand all A great joy
+flashed across her; but she said nothing. She as well as they were long
+used to that peculiarity of nature--which especially belonged to
+the Harper family--a conviction of the uselessness of talk and the
+sacredness of silence.
+
+"Has my brother arrived?" said Nathanael.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Marmaduke is gone?"
+
+"Yes; he wanted to get up a Free-trade dinner for the welcoming"--here
+she smiled--"of one whom he says all Dorset will be delighted to
+welcome--your Uncle Brian. Worthy Duke! It is his hobby, and one likes
+to indulge him in it."
+
+"Most certainly. And where is the dinner--Uncle Brian's grand dinner--to
+take place?"
+
+"I persuaded him to change it into a public meeting, and give the
+clay-cutters--many of them Mr. Locke Harper's former people, and some
+now old and poor--a New Year's feast instead. You will see to
+that, Nathanael?" And she laid her hand on his arm with rather more
+earnestness than the simple request warranted.
+
+Nathanael assented hastily, and spoke of something else.
+
+"I am rather sorry I asked my brother to meet me here; I forgot he has
+not been to Thornhurst for so many years."
+
+"It is time then that he came," said Anne, gently. "I shall be very glad
+to see him."
+
+While she was speaking, her old servant entered, with the announcement
+of "Major Harper."
+
+Just the Major Harper of old--well-dressed, courtly, with his singularly
+handsome face, and his short dark moustache, sufficient to mark the
+military gentleman without degrading him into the puppy; Major
+Harper with his habitual good-natured smile and faultless bearing, so
+gracefully welcomed, so gaily familiar in London drawing-rooms.--But
+here?--
+
+He paused at the door, glanced hastily round the old familiar room, with
+the known pictures hanging on the walls, and the windows opening on the
+straight alley of arbutus-trees. His smile grew rather meaningless--he
+hesitated.
+
+"Will you come to this chair near me? I am very glad to see you, Major
+Harper."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Valery."
+
+He crossed the room to her sofa, Nathanael making way for him. He
+just acknowledged his brother's presence and Agatha's, then took Miss
+Valery's extended hand, bowing over it with an attempt at his former
+grace.
+
+"I hope I find your health quite re-established? This change to your
+own pleasant house--pleasant as ever, I see"--he once more glanced round
+it--paused--then altogether broke down. "It seems but a day since we
+were children, Anne," he said, in a faltering voice.
+
+Agatha and her husband moved away. They respected the one real feeling
+which had outlasted all his sentimentalism. For several minutes they
+stood at the far window apart. When Anne called them back, Major Harper
+had recovered himself, and was sitting by her.
+
+"Nathanael, our old friend here says you wished to speak with me?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Make haste, then, for I am going to London to-night I have made up my
+mind. I cannot settle here in Dorsetshire."
+
+"Not if it were your father's wish--his last longing desire?"
+
+"Anne, for God's sake don't speak of my father." He leant his elbow on
+the table and covered his eyes.
+
+Nathanael and Agatha exchanged looks, then both smiled--the happy smile
+of a clear conscience and a heart at rest. "Tell him now," whispered the
+wife to her husband.
+
+"Brother!"
+
+Major Harper lifted up his head.
+
+"My elder brother!" And Nathanael offered the hand of peace, which, in
+spite of all outward and necessary association, neither had offered or
+grasped since Frederick's return to Dorset.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you are my elder brother--my father's favourite always. If
+he had lingered but another day he would doubtless have proved that, and
+have done--what I intend to do, just as if he had himself accomplished
+it. Do you understand me?"
+
+"No!" And Major Harper looked thoroughly amazed.
+
+"Do you see this? which you, either from forgetfulness, or trust in
+me--I had rather believe the latter--left in my hands on that day."
+And he drew from his pocket the will which had been read. "You spoke
+of throwing it into Chancery, and there would be scope for a century of
+Chancery business here. But I choose rather to respect the honour and
+unity of the family. Therefore, with my wife's entire consent in her
+presence, Anne's and yours, I here do what my father, had he lived,
+would certainly have done."
+
+He took up the codicil, separated it from the will to which it was
+fastened by seals, and quietly, as if it had been a fragment of
+worthless paper, put it into the fire.
+
+"Now, Frederick, the original will stands."
+
+Frederick sat motionless. He seemed hardly to believe the evidence of
+his own eyes. He watched the curling, crackling paper with a sort of
+childish curiosity. When at last it was completely destroyed, he shut
+his eyes with a great sigh of satisfaction.
+
+Miss Valery softly touched him. "Major Harper, every brother would not
+have acted thus."
+
+"No, indeed. Just Heavens, no!" he cried, as the whole fact burst on
+him, touching his impressible nature to the quick. "My dear Nathanael!
+My dear Agatha! God bless you both."
+
+He wrung their hands fervently, and walked to the window, strongly
+affected. The husband and wife remained silent. Anne Valery lay on her
+sofa, and smoothed her thin fingers one over the other with a soft,
+inward smile.
+
+"How nobly you both act towards me! and I--how have I acted towards
+you?" said the elder brother, in deep and real compunction. "I would
+give half I possess to undo what has been done, and all through my
+cursed folly and weakness. Do you know that I have lost every penny of
+your fortune, Agatha?"
+
+"Mr. Grimes told me so lately."
+
+"What, only lately? Did you not know before? Did not your husband"--
+
+"No," she cried, eagerly. "My husband never betrayed you, even by a
+single word. I am glad he did not. I had far rather he had broken my
+heart than his own honour."
+
+Anne turned to look at the young face, flushed with feeling; and her
+own, caught something of the glow, though still she spoke not.
+
+"But," said Major Harper, eagerly, addressing his sister-in-law--for
+Nathanael sat in one of those passive moods which those who knew him
+well alone could interpret--"but my honour must not be broken either. I
+must redeem all I lost; and I will, to the very last farthing. Only wait
+a little, and you shall have no cause to blame me, my poor Agatha!"
+
+"Nay, _rich_ Agatha," was the murmur that Nathanael heard, as two little
+hands came from behind and alit on his shoulders, like two soft white
+doves. He caught them, and rose contented, cheerful and brave.
+
+"No, Frederick, you must dismiss that idea. It is untenable, at least
+for a long time. My wife and I are going to play at poverty." He smiled,
+and drew her nearer to him.
+
+"Besides," said Miss Valery, putting in her quiet voice, to which every
+one always listened now, "I think there are perhaps stronger claims than
+Agatha's on Major Harper."
+
+"Indeed? Anne, tell me what I can do. Anything," he added, much moved,
+"so that my old friends may think well of me. Speak!"
+
+She did so, raising herself, though with some exertion, and re-assuming
+the sensible, straightforward, business-like ways which through her long
+life of solitary independence had caused Anne Valery to be often called,
+as Duke Dugdale called her, "such a wise woman!"
+
+"I should like very much to see all things settled in the Harper family.
+Your sisters are provided for; Eulalie will be married next year; and
+you will keep Mary and Elizabeth always with you at Kingcombe Holm.
+Promise that, Frederick."
+
+He assented most energetically.
+
+"There is no need to fear for these," looking affectionately at
+Nathanael and his wife. "Work is good for young people; and I--or
+others--will always see that they have work enough supplied to bring in
+wherewithal to keep the wolf from their door. For the present, they are
+a great deal better poor than rich."
+
+"Thank you, prudent Miss Valery," said Nathanael laughing.
+
+She responded cheerfully, and then turning to Major Harper, went on with
+seriousness:
+
+"In other instances, much suffering has been caused by your means; and
+I would not have it said that any suffered through the Harper family.
+I have done what I could to prevent this. Matters are mending at Wheal
+Caroline. Nathanael tells me I shall have--that is, there will be--a
+fine flax-harvest there next year."
+
+Speaking of "next year," Anne's voice faltered, but the momentary
+feebleness passed.
+
+"Still, there is one thing, Frederick, which nobody can do but you; and
+it is necessary not only to save yourself but to redeem the honour of
+your house. It will not cost you much--only a few years' retrenchment,
+living with your sisters at Kingcombe Holm."
+
+Again Major Harper protested there was nothing in the world he would not
+do for the sake of virtue, and Anne Valery. She drew her desk to her,
+and gave him paper and pen.
+
+"Write here, that you will pay gradually to certain shareholders I know
+of, the money they lost through trust in your name, and in that of the
+family. It is hardly a legal claim, or if it be, they are too poor to
+urge it--but I hold it as a bond of honour. Will you do this, Frederick?
+Then I shall be happy, knowing there is not a single stain on the Harper
+name."
+
+In speaking, she had risen and come beside him, looking faded, wan, and
+old, now that she stood upright, in her black dress, and close cap. Her
+beauty was altogether of the past, but the moral influence remained.
+
+Frederick Harper took the pen, hesitated, and laid it down. "I do not
+know what to write."
+
+Anne wrote for him a few plain words, such as a man of honour must
+inevitably hold as binding. He watched idly the movement of the hand
+that wrote, and the written lines.
+
+"You have the same slender fingers, Anne, and your writing looks just as
+it used to do," he said, in a subdued voice.
+
+"There, now--sign."
+
+"Sign!--It is like witnessing a will," said Major Harper, laughing.
+
+"I wish you to consider it so," returned Anne, in a low voice. "Consider
+it my last will--my last desire, which you promise to fulfil for me?"
+
+He looked at her, took the pen, and signed, his hand trembling; then
+kissed hers.
+
+"Anne, you know, you were my first love."
+
+The words--said half jesting, yet with a certain mourn-fulness--were
+scarcely out of his lips, than he had quitted the room. They soon heard
+the clatter of his horse along the avenue. Major Harper was gone out
+into the busy world again. He never set foot in quiet Thornhurst more.
+
+The three that were left behind breathed freer--perhaps they would
+hardly have acknowledged it, but it was so.
+
+"Well, now it is all done," said Nathanael, as he drew closer to
+the sofa where Anne lay--with Agatha performing all sorts of little
+unnoticed cares about her. "And now I must think about going."
+
+No one asked him where, but Agatha glancing out of the window, thought,
+with a shiver, of the dreadful sea curving over into boundlessness from
+behind those hills.
+
+"I find I must start at once," he continued, "if I would catch the next
+boat to Havre. It sails from Southampton to-morrow morning. I have just
+time to ride back to Kingcombe and catch the mail train. No, I'll
+not let you come home with me," he added, answering a timid look of
+Agatha's, which seemed to ask, should she come and help him? "No, dear, I
+can help myself--such a useful-handed fellow doesn't want a wife even to
+pack up for him. And, possibly, if you were with me, I should only find
+it the harder to go. It is rather hard."
+
+"But it is right"
+
+"I think," said Anne--they had not known she was listening--"I think it
+is right, or I would not let Nathanael go. And Heaven will take care of
+him, and bring him safe home to you, Agatha. Be content."
+
+"I was content," she said, somewhat lightly. It was a strange thing, but
+yet human nature, that her husband's fits of passionate tenderness only
+seemed to make her own feelings grow calm. Whether it was the shyness of
+her girlhood, or the variableness of a love not spontaneous but
+slowly responsive, or whether--a feeling wrong, yet alas! wondrously
+natural--it was the mere wilfulness of a woman who knows herself to be
+infinitely beloved, certain it was that Agatha appeared not quite the
+same as a few hours before. Affectionate still, and happy, happier
+than it is the nature of deep love to be; yet there was a something
+wanting--some strong stroke to cleave her heart, and show beyond all
+doubt what lay at its core. The heart often needs such teaching; and if
+so, surely--most surely it will come.
+
+Agatha followed her husband to the hall. He was grave with his
+leave-taking of Anne Valery, who had looked less cheerful, and had
+breathed rather than spoken the last "God bless you!--Come back soon."
+The young man did not again say, even to himself, anything about his
+journey being "hard."
+
+But as he stood in the hall with his wife, he lingered. Youth is youth,
+and love is love, and each seems so real--life's only reality while
+it lasts. No human being, while drinking the magic cup, ever looks or
+listens to those who have drank, and set it down empty. Be the history
+ever so sad, each one thinks, smiling, "Oh, but I shall be happier than
+these."
+
+Nathanael took his wife in his arms to bid her good-bye. She stood,
+looking down; bashful, reserved, but so fair! And so good likewise--all
+her girlish whims could not hide her heart-goodness. In her whole
+demeanour was the germ of that noble womanhood which every good man
+wishes his wife to possess, that she may become his heart of hearts,
+the desired and honoured of his soul, and remain such, long after all
+passion dies. There was one thing only wanting in her--the light which
+played waveringly in and out--sometimes flashing so true and warm and
+bright, and then disappearing into clouds and mist. The husband could
+not catch it--not though his eyes were thirsting for the blessed ray.
+
+"These few days will seem a long time, Agatha."
+
+"Will they?"
+
+Nathanael took the smiling face between his hands, and looked down, far
+down, into the brown depths of her eyes.
+
+"Do you"--He hesitated. "I never asked the question before, knowing it
+vain; but now, when I am going away--when"--
+
+He paused, the deep passion quivering through his voice.--"Do you love
+me, Agatha?"
+
+She smiled--some insane, wicked influence must have been upon her--but
+she smiled, hung her head in childish fashion, and whispered, "I don't
+quite know."
+
+"Well--well!" He sighed, and after a brief silence bade her good-bye,
+kissed her once, and went towards the door.
+
+"Ah--don't go yet. I was very foolish. I never, never can be half so
+wise as you. Forgive me."
+
+"Forgive you, my child? Ay, anything." And he received her as she ran
+into his arms, kissing her again tenderly, with a sad earnestness that
+almost increased his love.
+
+"Now I must go, my darling wife. Take care of yourself, and good-bye."
+
+So they parted. Agatha went in dry-eyed; then locked herself in the
+library, and cried violently and long.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+"They are sure to be home to-morrow; nothing can prevent their being
+home to-morrow," said Agatha, as she read over neither for the first
+time, nor the second, nor the third, her husband's letter, received from
+Havre.
+
+It was night now, and they were sitting by the fire in Miss Valery's
+dressing-room. It had been one of Anne's best days; a wonderfully good
+day; she had walked about the house, and given several orders to her
+delighted servants, who, old as they were, would have obeyed the most
+onerous commands for the pleasure of seeing their mistress strong enough
+to give them. Some, however, wondered why she should be so particular
+about the order of a house that never was in disorder, and especially
+why various furniture arrangements which had gradually in the course of
+time been altered, should be pertinaciously restored, so that all things
+might look just as they did years and years ago. Also, though it was
+a few days in advance of the orthodox day, she would have the house
+adorned with "Christmas," until it looked a perfect bower.
+
+"It do seem, Mrs. Harper," said the old housekeeper, confidentially--"it
+do seem just as on the last merry Christmas, afore the family was broke
+up, and Mr. Frederick turned soldier, and Mr. Locke Harper--that's his
+uncle--went away with little Master Nathanael, Mr. Locke Harper as is
+now."
+
+And Agatha had laughed very heartily at the idea of her husband being
+"little Master Nathanael;" but she had not told this conversation to
+Anne Valery.
+
+All afternoon the house had been oppressively lively, thanks to a visit
+from the Dugdale children; which little elves were sent out of the way
+while their mother performed the not unnecessary duty of putting her
+establishment in order. For Harrie was determined that her house,
+and none other, should have the honour of receiving Uncle Brian. As
+Nathanael had taken for granted the same thing, and as Mary Harper had
+likewise communicated her opinion, that it was against all etiquette for
+her poor father's only brother to be welcomed anywhere but at Kingcombe
+Holm, there seemed likely to be a tolerable family fight over the
+possession of the said Uncle Brian.
+
+The little Dugdales had talked of him incessantly all day, communicating
+their expectations concerning him in such a funny fashion that Agatha
+was ready to die with laughing, and even Anne, who had insisted on
+having the children about her, was heard to laugh sometimes. She let
+little Brian climb about her sofa, and answered all sorts of eccentric
+questions from the others, never seeming weary. At last, when the sound
+of merry, young voices had died out of the house, and its large, lofty
+rooms grew solemn with the wailing of the wind, Anne had retreated to
+her dressing-room, where she sat watching the fire-light, or answering
+in fragments to Agatha's conversation.
+
+This conversation was wandering enough; catching up various topics, and
+then letting them drop like broken threads, but all winding themselves
+into one and the same subject "They will be home to-morrow."
+
+"I hope, nay, I am sure of it, God willing!" said Anne, softly. "He
+often puts hindrances in our way, but in the end He always works things
+round, and we see them clearly afterwards. Still we ought hardly to
+say even of the strongest love or dearest wish we have, 'It _must_
+be!' without also saying 'God willing.'"
+
+Agatha replied not. This was a new doctrine for her. How rarely in her
+young, passionless, sorrowless life, she had thought of the few words,
+oft used in cant, and Agatha hated all cant--"the will of God." She
+pondered over them much.
+
+"What sort of a night is it" said Anne, at length.
+
+"Very dreary and rainy, and the wind is high."
+
+"No matter, it will not reach them. The _Ardente_ will be safe in
+Southampton-water by this time."
+
+Agatha recurred to the perpetual letter; "Yes, so my husband tells me
+here."
+
+"And therefore," Miss Valery continued, laying her hand over the paper,
+"his good little wife shall fold up this, and not weary herself any more
+with anxiety about him. Those who love ought above all others to trust
+in the love of God."
+
+After this they sat patient and content--nay, oftentimes quite merry,
+for Agatha strove hard to amuse her companion. And the wind sang its
+song without--not threateningly, but rather in mirth; and the fire
+burnt brightly, within. And no one thought of them but as friends and
+servants--the terrible Wind, the devouring Fire.
+
+It was growing late, and Agatha began to use the petty tyranny with
+which Miss Valery had invested her, insisting on her friend's going to
+bed.
+
+"I will presently; only give me time--a little time. I am not so young
+as you, my child, and have not so many hours to waste in sleeping. There
+now, I'll be good. Wait--you see I am already pulling down my hair."
+
+She did so, rather feebly. It fell on her shoulders longer and thicker
+than any one would have believed--it was really beautiful, except for
+those broad white streaks.
+
+"What soft fine hair," cried Agatha, admiringly. "Ah, you shall go
+without caps in the spring--I declare you shall."
+
+"Not at my age."
+
+"That cannot be so very ancient. I shouldn't mind asking you the direct
+question, for I am sure you are not one of those foolish women who are
+ashamed to tell their age, as if any number of years matters while we
+keep a young warm heart."
+
+"I am thirty-nine or forty, I forget which," said Anne, as she drew
+her fingers through the long locks, gazing down on them with some
+pensiveness. "I myself never liked hair of this colour, neither brown
+nor black; but mine was always soft and smooth, and some people used to
+think it _pretty_ once."
+
+"It is pretty now. You will always be beautiful, dear, dear Anne! I
+will call you Anne, for you are scarcely older than I, except in a few
+contemptible years not worth mentioning," continued the girl, sturdily.
+"And I will have you as happy, too, as I."
+
+Anne sat silent a minute or two, the hair dropping over her face. Then
+she raised it and looked into the fire with a calm sweet look that
+Agatha thought perfectly divine.
+
+"I have been happy," she said. "That is I have not been unhappy--God
+knows I have not. I have had a great deal to do always, and in all my
+labour was there profit. It comforted me, and helped to comfort others;
+it made me feel that my life was not wholly thrown away, as many an
+unmarried woman's is, but as no one's ever need be."
+
+"But some are. Think of Jane Ianson, of whom Emma wrote me word
+yesterday. If ever any woman spent a mournful, useless life, and died of
+a broken heart, it was poor Jane Ianson."
+
+"Her story was pitiful, but she somewhat erred," Anne answered,
+thoughtfully. "No human being _ought_ to die of a 'broken heart' (as the
+phrase is) while God is in His heaven, and has work to be done upon His
+earth. There are but two things that can really throw a lasting shadow
+over woman's existence--an unworthy love, and a lost love. The first
+ought to be rooted out at all risks; for the other--let it stay! There
+are more things in life than mere marrying and being happy. And for
+love--a high, pure, holy love, held ever faithful to one object,"--and
+as she spoke, Anne's whole face lightened and grew young--"no fortune or
+misfortune--no time or distance--no power either in earth or heaven can
+alter _that_."
+
+There was a pause, during which the two women sat silent and grave. And
+the wind howled round the house, and the fire crackled harmlessly in the
+chimney, but they noticed neither--the fierce Wind--the awful Fire.
+
+"It is a wild night," said Agatha at last. "But they are landed at
+Southampton long ago. Last night was lovely--such a moon! and they were
+sure to sail, because the _Ardente_ only plies once a week, and there
+is no other boat this winter-time. Oh, yes! they are quite safe in
+Southampton. I shouldn't wonder if they were both here to breakfast
+to-morrow."
+
+And Agatha, with her little heart beating quick, merrily, and fast,
+never thought to look at her companion. Anne's eyes were dilated, her
+lips quivering--all her serenity was gone.
+
+"To-morrow--to-morrow," she murmured, and as with a sudden pain, put
+her hand to her chest, breathing hard and rapidly. "Agatha, hold me
+fast--don't let me go--just for a little while.--I _cannot_ go!"
+
+She clung to the young girl with a pallid, frightened aspect, like one
+who looks down into a place of darkness, and shudders on its verge.
+Never before had that expression been seen in Anne Valery. Slowly it
+passed away, leaving the calmness that was habitual to her. Agatha hung
+round her neck, and kissed her into smiles.
+
+"Now," she said, rising, "let us both go to bed. You look tired, my
+child, and we must have your very best looks when you make breakfast for
+_them_ in the morning. That is, if they both come here."
+
+"They will come--my husband says so. He knows, and is determined that
+Uncle Brian shall know--everything."
+
+Anne sat still--so still, that her young companion was afraid she had
+vexed her.
+
+"No, dear--not vexed. But no human being can know everything! It lies
+between him and me--and God."
+
+So saying, she rose, fastened up the long hair in which the last
+lingering beauty of her youth lay--put on her little close cap, and was
+again the composed gentle lady of middle age.
+
+She rung for the housekeeper, and gave various orders for the morning,
+desiring a few trivial additions to the breakfast, which would have made
+Agatha smile, but that she noted a slight hesitation in the voice that
+ordered them.
+
+"Is there anything your husband would like especially? I don't quite
+understand his ways."
+
+Agatha blushed as she answered--"Nor I."
+
+"You will not answer so in a few months hence," said Anne, when they
+were alone. "It is a very unromantic doctrine, but few young wives know
+how much the happiness of a home depends on little things--that is, if
+anything can be little which is done for _his_ comfort, and is pleasant
+to _him_. There's a lecture for you, Mistress Agatha. Now go to bed, and
+rise in the morning to begin a new era, as the happiest and best wife in
+all England."
+
+"I will," cried Agatha, laughing, though with a tear or two in her eyes.
+To think how much Anne had guessed of the wretched past, yet, with true
+delicacy, how entirely she had concealed that knowledge!
+
+They embraced silently, and then Miss Valery went into her own room,
+where, year after year, when all the duties and cheerfulness of the day
+were done, the solitary woman had shut herself in--alone with her own
+heart and with God. The young wife stood and looked with thoughtful
+reverence at the closed door of that room.
+
+It was eleven o'clock, yet somehow Mrs. Harper did not feel inclined to
+go to bed. She had too many things to think of, too many plans to make
+and resolutions to form. Her life must settle itself calmly now. Its
+trouble, tumult, and uncertainty were over. She felt quite sure of her
+husband's goodness--of his deep and tender love for herself--nay, also
+of her own for him--only that was a different sort of feeling. She
+thought less on this than on the other side of the subject--how sweet it
+was to be so dear to him. She would try and deserve him more--be to him
+a faithful wife and a good house-wife, and make herself happy in his
+devotion.
+
+She smiled as she passed through the hall where he had stood and said,
+"Do you love me?" She wished she had frankly answered "Yes," as was
+indeed the truth; only his strong love had lately made her own seem so
+poor and weak.
+
+Lingering on the spot which his feet had last pressed, she tried to
+fancy him beside her, and acted the scene over again, "making believe,"
+childish fashion, that she stood on tiptoe attempting to reach up to
+his mouth--a very long way!--and there breathing out the "Yes" in a
+perfectly justifiable and unquestionable fashion. And then she laughed
+at her own conceit--the foolish little wife!--and tripped off into the
+drawing-room, lest the old butler, who always went round the house at
+midnight to see that all was safe, might catch her at her antics.
+Still, were they not quite natural? Was she not a very happy and
+fondly-worshipped wife? and was not her husband coming home the next
+morning?
+
+Entering the drawing-room, her high spirits were somewhat sobered
+down; its atmosphere felt so gloomy and cold. The fire had nearly died
+out--the ill-natured fire, that did not know there was a cheerful little
+woman coming to sit beside it and dream of all sorts of pleasant things.
+
+"I wish fires would never go out," said Agatha, rather crossly; and
+she stirred it, and blew it, and cherished it, as if it were the only
+pleasant companion in this dreary room.
+
+"How I do love fire," she said at last, as she sat down on the
+hearth-rug and warmed her little feet and hands by the blaze, and would
+not look in the dark corners of the room, but kept her face turned from
+them, as during her life she had kept it turned away from all gloomy
+subjects. Passionate anguish of her own making, she had known; but that
+stern, irremediable sorrow which comes direct from the unseen Mover of
+all things and lays its heavy hand on the sufferer's head, saying, "Be
+still, and know that I am God"--this teaching, which must come to every
+human soul that is worth its destiny, had never yet come to Agatha
+Harper.
+
+Was it this unknown something even now tracking her, that made her long
+for the familiar daylight, and feel afraid of night, with its silence,
+its solitude, and its dark?
+
+"I will go to bed and try to sleep," she said. "It is but a few hours.
+My husband is certain to be here in the morning."
+
+She rose, laughed at herself for starting on some slight noise in the
+quiet house--old Andrews locking up the front door, probably--snuffed
+her candle to make it as bright as possible, and prepared to go
+up-stairs.
+
+A light knock at the door.
+
+"Come in, Andrews. The fire is all safe, and I shall vanish now."
+
+She said this without looking round. When she did look she was somewhat
+surprised to see, not the butler, but Marmaduke Dugdale. It was odd,
+certainly, but then Duke had such very odd ways, and was always turning
+up at impossible hours and in eccentric fashion. He looked eccentric
+enough now, being thoroughly drenched with rain, with a queer, scared
+expression on his face.
+
+Agatha was amused by it. "Why, what a late visitor! The children are
+gone home hours ago, though they waited ever so long for 'Pa.' Have you
+been all this while at Mr. Trenchard's?"
+
+"I haven't been there at all."
+
+Agatha smiled.
+
+"Don't'ee laugh--now don't'ee, Mrs. Harper." And Duke sat down, pushing
+the dripping hair from his forehead, pulling his face into all sorts of
+contortions, until at last it sunk between his hands, and those clear,
+honest, always beautiful eyes, alone confronted her. There was that in
+their expression which startled Agatha.
+
+"What did you come for so late, Mr. Dugdale?"
+
+"What did I come for?" he vaguely repeated. "Now don't'ee tremble so. We
+must hope for the best, my child."
+
+Agatha felt a sudden stoppage at the heart which took away her.
+breath. "Tell me--quick; I shall not be frightened;--he is coming home
+to-morrow."
+
+"My dear child!" muttered Duke again, as he held out his hands to her,
+and she saw that tears were dropping over his cheeks.
+
+Agatha clutched at the hands threateningly--she felt herself going wild.
+"Tell me, I say. If you don't--I'll"------
+
+"Hush--I'll tell you--only hush!--think of poor Anne! And there's hope
+yet. Only they have not come into Southampton-roads--and last night
+there was a fire seen far out at sea--and it might have been a ship, you
+know."
+
+Thus disconnectedly Marmaduke broke his terrible news. Agatha received
+them with a wild stare.
+
+"It's impossible--totally impossible," she cried, uttering sounds
+that were half shrieking, half laughter. "Absolutely, ridiculously
+impossible. I'll not believe it--not a word. It's impossible--
+_impossible!_"
+
+And gasping out that one word, over and over again, fiercely and fast,
+she walked up and down the room like one distraught. She was indeed
+quite mad. She had not any sense of anything. She never once thought
+of weeping, or fainting, or doing anything but shriek out to earth
+and Heaven that one denunciation--that such a thing was and must
+be--"_impossible!_"
+
+Marmaduke caught her--she flung him aside.
+
+"Don't touch me--don't speak to me! I say it's _impossible!_"
+
+"Child!" And his look became more grave and commanding than any one
+would have believed of the Dugdale. "Dare not to say impossible! It is
+sinning against God."
+
+Agatha stopped in her frenzied walk. Of a sudden came the horrible
+thought that _it might be_--that the hand might have been lifted--have
+fallen, striking the whole world from her at one blow.
+
+"Oh God!--oh merciful God!"
+
+In that cry, scarcely louder than a moan, yet strong and wild enough to
+pierce the heavens, Agatha knew how she loved her husband. Not calmly,
+not meekly, but with that terrible love which is to the heart as life
+itself.
+
+Of the next few minutes that passed over her no one could write--no one
+would dare. It was utter insanity, yet with a perfect knowledge of
+its state. Madness, stone-blind, stone-deaf--that uttered no cry, and
+poured out no tears. She walked swiftly up and down the room, her hands
+clenched, her features rigid as iron. Mr. Dugdale and old Andrews could
+only watch pitifully, saying at times--which may all good Christians say
+likewise!--"God have mercy upon her."
+
+No one else came near--the servants were all asleep, and Miss Valery's
+room was in another part of the house. Possibly she slept too--poor
+Anne!
+
+"Now," said Agatha, in a cold, hard voice, clutching Marmaduke's arm,
+"I want to know all about it. I don't believe it, mind you!--not one
+word--but I would like to hear. Just tell me. How did you get the news?"
+
+"From Southampton, to-night. It happened last night A steamer saw the
+burning ship, and went, but the fire had already reached to the water's
+edge. There was not a soul in or near the wreck when it went down."
+
+Agatha shuddered, and then said, in the same hard voice: "It was some
+other ship--not the _Ardente_."
+
+Marmaduke shook his head, drearily. "They found a spar with 'Ardente'
+upon it. But they saw no boats, and some people think, as there were but
+few passengers, they all got safe off, and may reach the shore."
+
+"Of course they will!--I was sure of that;" returned Agatha, in the same
+wild, determined tone. "Let me see! it was a quiet night. I stood a long
+time looking at the moon--Ah!"
+
+The ghastly thought of her standing there looking up at the moon, and
+the pitiless moon looking down on the sea and on him! Agatha's senses
+reeled--she burst into the most awful laughter.
+
+Marmaduke held her fast--the whimsical absent Marmaduke--now roused into
+his true character, kind, as any woman, and wiser than most men.
+
+"Agatha, you must be quiet. It is wicked ever to despair. There is a
+chance--more than a chance, that your husband has been saved. He has
+infinite presence of mind, and he is a young, strong, likely lad. But
+Brian--poor Brian! my dear old friend!"
+
+Duke Dugdale's bravery gave way--he was of such a gentle, tender heart.
+The sight of his emotion stilled Agatha's frenzy, and made it more like
+a natural grief, though it was hard yet--hard as stone.
+
+"Come," she said, taking his hand, and smiling piteously--"come--don't
+cry. I can't!--not for the world. Let us talk. What are you going to
+do?"
+
+"I am going right off to Southampton--whence they have sent steamers out
+in all directions to pick up the boats, if they are drifting anywhere
+about the Channel. Fancy--to be out in the open sea, this winter-time,
+with possibly no clothes or food!"
+
+"Hush!"--shuddered Agatha's low voice--"hush! or I shall go quite mad,
+and I would rather not just yet--_afterwards_, I shall not mind."
+
+"Poor child!"
+
+"Don't now," and she shrank from him. "Never think of me--_that_ does
+not signify. Only something must be done. No weeping--no talking--_do_
+something!"
+
+"I told you I should. I am going"--
+
+"Go then!" Her quick speech--the wild stamp of her foot--poor child, how
+mad she was still!
+
+Mr. Dugdale took no notice except by a compassionate look--perhaps
+he, too, felt there was no time to lose. He went towards the door--she
+following.
+
+"I am off now--I shall catch the train in two hours," said he,
+springing on his horse in the dark wet night. "Harrie will be with you
+directly--only she thought I had better come first. Go in--go in--my
+poor child."
+
+Agatha obeyed mechanically, for the moment She walked about the house,
+in at one room and out at another, meeting no person--for Andrews had
+gone to call up some of the servants. The heavy quiet around stifled
+her. Faster and faster she walked--clutching her hands on her throat for
+breath--sometimes uttering, with a sort of laughing shriek, the one word
+in which seemed her only salvation--"Impossible!--utterly and entirely
+impossible!"
+
+She sat down for a moment, trying to think over more clearly the chances
+of the case--but to keep still was beyond her power. She resumed that
+rapid walk as if she were flying through an atmosphere of invisible
+fiends. It felt like it.
+
+Once, by a superhuman effort, she drove her mind to contemplate the
+_possible_--the winds, the flames, the waves, and him struggling among
+them. She saw the face which she had last seen so life-like--as a _dead
+face_, with its pale, pure features and fair hair. And even that face
+never to be again seen by her through any possible chance! For him to
+be blotted out altogether from the world, and she left therein! "Oh,
+God--oh, God!" The despairing, accusing shriek that she sent up to His
+mercy!--May His mercy have received and forgiven it!
+
+She began to count up the hours that must pass before she could receive
+any tidings, good or ill. To stay quietly in the house and wait for
+them!--you might as well have told a poor wretch to sit still and wait
+for the bursting of a mine. No rest--no rest. The very walls of the
+house seemed to press upon her and hem her in. She saw a bonnet and
+shawl hanging up in the hall, caught both, and ran out at the front
+door.
+
+Out--out under the stars. She walked with her face lifted right up to
+them, her eyes flashing out an insane defiance to their merciless calm.
+The rain fell down thick, and it was very cold, but she never thought
+of putting on the bonnet or the shawl; or, if she thought at all, it was
+with a sort of longing that the rain might come and cool her through and
+through, or the sharp wind pierce to her breast and kill her. Once she
+had a thought of running a mile or two across the hills, and leaping
+from some cliffs into the sea; so that, whichever way this suspense
+ended, she might be safely dead beforehand--dead, too, in the same
+ocean, washed by the same wave. All the foolish Romeo-and-Juliet-like
+traditions of people killing themselves on some beloved's tomb, seemed
+to her now perfectly real, possible, and natural. Nothing was unnatural
+or impossible--save living.
+
+How to live, even for a day, an hour, in this horrible, deathly
+stagnation, she did not know. At last, walking on blindly through the
+night, she came to the termination of the Thornhurst estate. Was she to
+go back and lull herself into the stupor of patience?--to be kissed
+and wept over, and preached resignation to?--left to sit mutely in
+that quiet house, while he was dashed about, fighting with the sea for
+life?--or watching the clock's travelling round hour after hour, not
+knowing but that every peaceful minute might be the terrible one in
+which he died?
+
+"No," she said to herself, while the awful but delirious joy which has
+struck many in a similar position, struck her suddenly, "he is not dead.
+If he had died, he would have told me--me whom he so loved He could
+not die anywhere, or at any time, but in some way or other I should
+certainly have known it."
+
+And as she stood in the dark road--quite alone with the hills and stars,
+calmed down into a supernatural awe, Agatha almost expected to see her
+husband stand before her in the old familiar likeness. She would not
+have been afraid.
+
+But no apparition came. All nature, visible and invisible, was silent
+to her misery. If she went back to the house, all there would be silent
+too.
+
+She took her resolution--though it could hardly be called a resolution,
+being merely the blind impulse of despair. She climbed over the
+gate--she had not wit enough to unfasten it--and ran, swift and silent
+as some wild animal, along the road to Kingcombe.
+
+The rain ceased, and her dripping clothes dried of themselves, so as not
+to encumber her movements. By some happy chance her feet were well shod,
+and now, gathering her wits as she went, she put on the shawl--not the
+bonnet, her head burned so, and felt so wild Just then, far into the
+darkness, she heard wheels rolling and rolling. It was Mrs. Dugdale
+driving along rapidly towards Thornhurst--but without one slash of the
+whip or one word of conversation with Dunce. When she stopped to open a
+gate the glare of the chaise-lamps showed the little black figure by the
+roadside. Harrie screamed--she thought it was a ghost.
+
+"Any news? any news?"
+
+"Gracious! is it you, child? No news--none! Get up, quick, and come
+home."
+
+But Agatha fled on and on, noticing nothing, except once, when with a
+start she saw the great black outline of Corfe Castle looming against
+the night-sky.
+
+[Illustration: Along the road page 394]
+
+When she reached Kingcombe, it was still dark. She could not even have
+found her way, save for the faint sky brightness lent by the overcast
+moon; and the distance she had traversed was all but miraculous.
+It seemed as if she had not walked by natural feet, but some unseen
+influence had drawn and lifted her the whole way. When she stood in
+Kingcombe streets she hardly believed her senses--save that nothing
+was hard of belief just then, except the one horror--incredible,
+unutterable.
+
+Mr. Dugdale was walking up and down Kingcombe railway station, waiting
+for the early train. One or two sleepy porters were eyeing him with
+a sort of pitying curiosity, for ill news spreads fast in a country
+neighbourhood. There was no one else about. Nobody perceived a little
+figure creeping up the road and coming on the platform. Even Marmaduke
+did not lift his eyes or relax his melancholy walk until something
+touched him on the arm. He stood astonished.
+
+"It is I, you see. You are not gone yet."
+
+"How did you come--you poor child?"
+
+"From Thornhurst--I walked. But how soon shall you start?"
+
+"Walked from Thornhurst!--at this time of night!" said one of the
+railway-men, who knew the family--as indeed did every one in the
+neighbourhood. "Lord help us--it's that poor Mrs. Harper!"
+
+Mr. Dugdale tried to remove Agatha from the platform, but she resisted.
+
+"I am come to go with you to Southampton."
+
+"What need of that? Go back to my house, poor child. If anything is to
+be done I can do it. If nothing--why"--
+
+"I _will_ go."
+
+The determination was so calm, the grasp of the little hand so strong,
+that her brother-in-law urged no more. He went in his quiet way to take
+her ticket, the railway folk moving respectfully aside, and whispering
+among themselves something about "poor Mrs. Harper, that was going to
+Southampton to see after her husband."
+
+Coming back, Duke attempted not to talk to her, but stood by her
+side--she would stand--sometimes feeling at her damp shawl, or wrapping
+her up in the tender careful fashion that he used to his own little
+ones. At last the great fiery eye, accompanied by the iron beast's
+snorting gasps, appeared far in the dark. Agatha drew a long breath,
+like a sob.
+
+Mr. Dugdale lifted her in the carriage, almost without a word. One of
+the railway-men brought from somewhere--nobody ever learned where--a rug
+for her feet, and a pillow for her head to lean on. A minute more, and
+they were whirled away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Every one knows that story, perhaps the most terrible of its kind for
+many years--and Heaven grant! for many more to come--when a noble ship,
+with her full complement of human beings, fought at once with winds, and
+waves, and fire, until came down upon it, and upon all the homes which
+that one hour desolated, the certain doom. One shudders even at writing
+of such things, save that they must of necessity happen, and not rarely.
+But for one such tale as that of the _Amazon_, which convulses a whole
+kingdom with horror, there must be many unknown chronicles of equal
+dread, save that the little vessel sinks unnoticed into its sea grave,
+and the destruction carried with it passes not beyond its own immediate
+sphere. Such was the case with the Ardente.
+
+When the train neared Southampton it was already bright morning.
+Everybody was moving about on the solid, safe, sunshiny earth--nobody
+thought of shipwrecks and disasters at sea. Many a one looked lazily
+at the glittering Southampton-water; no one dreamed how, far beyond the
+curving line of horizon, human beings--husbands and brothers--might be
+floating about without food or water, frozen, thirsting, dying or dead,
+under the same sunny sky.
+
+Passing the spot where the wide reach of bay opens, Marmaduke quickly
+drew down the carriage-blind. He would not for worlds that the poor
+Agatha should look at that merry-glancing, cruel sea. She seemed to
+notice the movement, and stirred from the corner where she had sat
+during all the journey, motionless, save for her perpetually open eyes.
+
+"How light it is! quite morning!"
+
+Marmaduke turned, felt her pulse, and began softly chafing her cold
+hand.
+
+"Don't, now," she said piteously. "Don't be kind to me--please don't!
+Talk a little. Tell me what you think it best to do first."
+
+The sharp-lined, worn face, not pallid, or without consciousness--some
+people, to their misery, never can lose consciousness--mournfully did
+worthy Duke regard it! But he did not say a word of sympathy; he knew
+she could not bear it. Her physical powers were so tightly strung that
+the least soft touch would make them give way altogether.
+
+Mr. Dugdale stated briefly, and as if it had been the most
+matter-of-fact thing in the world, how he meant to go to the owners of
+the _Ardente_ and get the first tidings of her there; how, if neither
+that nor any rumours he could catch in and about the docks, were
+satisfactory, he should hire a small steamer and beat up and down
+Channel, calling in at all the ports where it was likely boats might
+have been picked up.
+
+"They would be, probably, in twenty-four hours or so. If we don't hear
+in three days--three days at this time of year"--he stopped with a
+perceptible shudder--"then, Agatha," and Duke's gentle voice grew
+gentler, and solemn like a psalm, "then, my child, we'll go home."
+
+Agatha bowed her head. Bodily exhaustion calmed her mind, and soothed
+her into a feeling which made even the last dread alternative less
+fearful. She felt a conviction that such "going home" would only be a
+prelude to the last going home of all, when she should never part from
+her husband more. She did not much mind now, even if all were to end so.
+Perhaps it would be best.
+
+They got out of the carriage. All her limbs were cramped--she could
+hardly stand. Mr. Dugdale took her unresisting, to a quiet inn he knew,
+and there made her lie down and take food. Somehow, even in the last
+extremity, Duke Dugdale could win people over to do his pleasure, which
+was always for their own good.. He sat by her and talked, but only for
+a few minutes--he had no thought of wasting even in kindness the time on
+which might hang life or death.
+
+"I am going now, and you must stay here till my return, which is sure
+not to be for at least two hours."
+
+"Two hours!--Oh, take me with you!"
+
+Duke shook his head. "You would only hinder me, I fear. See there, now!"
+
+Trying to rise and cross the parlour, she had nearly fallen. A drowsy
+weakness stole over her--she let her good brother have his own way
+entirely. Very soon she found herself alone in the parlour, lying in the
+dusky light of closed blinds, with the dull murmur creeping up from the
+street--lying quietly in a state of passive patience.
+
+No human brain can endure a great strain of mental anguish long. A
+merciful numbness usually seizes it, in which everything grows hazy
+and unreal, and consequently painless. Agatha felt convinced she was
+half-asleep, and that she should wake up in her own room at Thorn-hurst
+or at Kingcombe, and find out everything to be a dream. Or even granting
+its reality, she seemed to view the whole story like some unconcerned
+person, or some being from whom this troubled world had passed away, and
+grown less than nothing and vanity. She gazed down upon herself as it
+were from a great height, thinking how sad a story it was, and how
+it would have grieved herself to hear it of any one else. But all her
+thoughts were disconnected and unnatural. The only tangible feeling
+was a sort of comfort in remembering the last day they had spent
+together--in thinking how he loved her, and that, living or dying, he
+would know how she loved him now.
+
+In this state she lay for an indefinite time--a period that had no human
+measurement. It seemed at once a day and a moment. No counted time could
+ever appear so like eternity.
+
+At last there was a hand upon the door. Mr. Dugdale had come back.
+Agatha started up, and sat frozen. For her life she could not have
+uttered a sound. He took her hand, saying, gently:
+
+"My dear child!"
+
+Surely he could not have spoken so, if--No, in that case his lips would
+have been paralysed, like her own.
+
+"We must bear up yet, little sister. There is a chance."
+
+The flood broke forth. Agatha flung herself on the sofa-cushions,
+sobbing, weeping, and laughing at once. Duke patted her on the shoulder,
+walked round her, stood eyeing her with his mild, investigating look, as
+if he were pondering some great new problem in human nature. Finally, he
+sat down beside her, and cried likewise.
+
+Agatha for the first time spoke naturally. "Thank you, brother--you are
+a very good brother to me. Now, tell me everything."
+
+"Everything is but little. It's like hanging on a thread--but we'll hold
+on."
+
+"We will," said Agatha, setting her lips together, and sitting down
+firmly to listen. She was in her right senses now. She had undergone the
+shock, and risen from it another woman.
+
+"I wish you would make haste and tell me. You don't know how quiet I am
+now, nor how much I can bear--only tell me."
+
+Marmaduke began, speaking in fragments hurriedly put together, looking
+steadily down on his hands, using a brief business tone--just as if
+every syllable had not been planned by him on his way back, so that the
+tidings might fall most gradually on the poor wife's ear.
+
+"It was indeed the Ardente. Four sailors were picked up yesterday, in
+one of her boats. They say it's likely that others may have got off in
+the same way."
+
+"Ah!" That wild sob of thanksgiving! Marmaduke seemed to dread it more
+than despair. He hastily added:
+
+"But they had many things against them. The fire happened at midnight.
+When it broke out there was no one on deck but one passenger, walking
+up and down. He was a young man, the sailors say, tall, with long light
+hair."
+
+The speaker's voice faltered; he could not bear to see the misery he
+inflicted. At last Agatha motioned to hear more.
+
+"One sailor remembers him particularly, because during all the tumult he
+was almost the only person who seemed to have his wits about him. He was
+seen everywhere--getting out the boats, quieting the passengers--doing
+it all, the man says, as steadily as if he had been in his own house on
+shore, instead of in a burning ship. If there was any one likely to have
+saved his own life and the lives of others, the sailors think it must be
+that young man."
+
+"When did they see him last?"
+
+"Not five minutes before the ship went down. He was in a boat with
+several more. They think it was he because of his light hair. He was
+leaning over towards a floating spar, helping in a woman and child."
+
+"Ah, then it was he! It was my husband!" cried Agatha, clasping her
+hands, while her countenance glowed like that of some Roman wife, who,
+dearer even than his life, esteemed her husband's honour.
+
+"I believe," she said, as that rapture faded, and the natural pang
+returned--"I firmly believe that he has been saved. God would not let
+him perish. He must have got safe off from the wreck in that boat. Don't
+you think he has?"
+
+Duke could not meet those eager eyes; he fidgeted in his seat, looked
+down on his hands, and told them over, finger by finger. At last
+he said, with that peculiar upward look which, amidst all his
+eccentricities, showed the beautiful serenity of a righteous man--a man
+who "walked with God:"
+
+"Child, we can none of us be certain either way. We can only do all that
+lies in human power, and leave the event in the hand of One who is wiser
+and more loving than us all."
+
+Agatha bowed her head, and her heart with it, almost to the dust. She
+remembered Anne Valery's saying--how much those who loved have need to
+trust in God. Poor Anne! Never until this minute had any one thought of
+Anne at home at Thornhurst. Shocked at the selfishness that often comes
+with great misery, Agatha cried eagerly:
+
+"Did you hear anything about Uncle Brian?"
+
+"No--nothing." The quick, husky tone, as Marmaduke turned and walked
+away, betrayed how keenly the good man suffered, though he never spoke
+of any sufferings but Agatha's. She was deeply touched.
+
+"Take hope," she said earnestly. "He will be saved. My husband would
+never forsake Uncle Brian."
+
+"I know that; but then Nathanael is young, and has something to live
+for, while Brian is getting on in years--older than I am.--I should like
+to have seen him again, and have shown him little Brian; but--well
+it's a strange world! Heaven's mercy is sure to give us a life to come,
+perhaps many lives--if only to make clear the hard mysteries of this. I
+should like to have talked that matter over once again with poor Brian."
+
+And Duke seemed wandering into his mild, dreamy philosophies, till
+Agatha recalled him.
+
+"Now, what is to be done? You said, if we heard nothing, the boats must
+be drifting about somewhere in the Channel"--she shivered--"and then we
+would take a little steamer, and go and look for them?"
+
+"I know. She's getting ready."
+
+"That is right. Then we will go on board at once," said Agatha, with
+decision. She, who a week ago would have been terrified at the bare
+thought of setting her foot on the deck of any vessel!
+
+"Poor little delicate thing," muttered Duke, watching her. "It will be
+a rough sea to-night, and we may be a day or two in getting round the
+coast. You had better go home, Agatha."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Somebody once told me you had never been at sea in your life; and in
+winter-time this Dorset coast is rough always, sometimes dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous! and he is there!" She began tying on her bonnet, hastily,
+but steadily, as steadily as if preparing for an every-day walk. "Now, I
+am quite ready. Let us start."
+
+Her brother made no more objections, but took her through the busy
+Southampton streets. Once, on the quay, two lounging sailors touched
+their hats to Mr. Dugdale, and Agatha heard a whisper of "Belongs to
+some o' the poor fellows as went down in the _Ardente_." She shuddered,
+as if there were already upon her the awful sign of widowhood.
+
+--The wide Southampton harbour, with the crafts of all nations gliding
+to and fro upon it--the bustle of the landing and embarking place--the
+hurrying crowd, eager after their own business, none thinking of the
+one little vessel suddenly whelmed in that wondrous sea-highway, ever
+thronged, yet ever lonely, or of the wrecked crew drifting hither and
+thither, no one knew where. The tale had been a day's talk, a day's
+pity--then forgotten.
+
+Agatha stood in the midst of all, but saw nothing. Nothing but the grey,
+bleak, merciless sea, howling and dancing to her feet like a victorious
+enemy, or sweeping off into the silence of the wintry horizon, there
+grimly folding up its mystery, as if to say, "Of me thou shalt know
+nothing." But Agatha felt as if, to win that secret, she was ready to
+pierce into nethermost hell.
+
+"Quick, let us go," she said, and almost bounded into the little vessel.
+She stood on the deck, trembling with excitement, watched the paddles
+crash into obedience the cruel waves, ride over them, on--on--to the
+mouth of the bay. And now for the first time she was out on the open
+sea.
+
+It was one of those gloomy winter days when the whole ocean looks
+sullen--heavy with brooding storms. No blue foamy sweeps, no lovely
+sea-green calms; nothing but leaden-coloured hills of water, swelling
+and sinking, with black valleys between. Agatha remembered a story she
+had read or heard in her childish days, of some wrecked sailor lad,
+doomed to death by his mates because the boat was too full for safety,
+who asked leave to sit on the gunwale until after the curl of the wave,
+and then quietly dropped off into the smooth hollow below.
+
+It was horrible! She could not look at the sea--it made her mad. She
+could only look skywards, and try to find a break in the dun clouds; or
+else over to the horizon, to see something--ever so faint and small a
+something--breaking the line of water and sky.
+
+The men on board apparently knew Mr. Dugdale, and he them. They worked
+with a respectful solemnity, as if aware of their sad errand. The boat
+was a little steam-tug, and she cut her way over the heavy seas like
+a bird. Two men, and Marmaduke, kept watch constantly with the glass,
+shorewards and seawards. Sometimes they went so far out that the hazy
+coast-line almost vanished, and then again they ran in-shore under the
+gigantic cliffs that lock the south of England coast.
+
+Hour after hour, the poor wife remained on deck, sometimes walking about
+restlessly, sometimes lying wrapped in sails and rugs, her face turned
+seaward in a dumb hopelessness that was more piteous than any moans. The
+seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe,
+mingled with that compassionate gentleness which sailors almost always
+show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her
+food, or put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the
+sheltering of "the poor lady."
+
+Late at night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again.
+She found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compass and the telescope.
+He had slept by snatches where he sat, never giving up his watch for a
+single hour.
+
+"E--h!" he said, when she came and touched him. "I was dreaming of the
+Missus and the little ones at home!"
+
+"Do you want to go home?"
+
+"No--no!--not while there's a hope. Keep heart, my child!"
+
+But they looked at each other's faces in the dawn, and saw how pale and
+disconsolate both were. And still the little lonely boat kept rocking
+over the sea--the pitiless sea, that returned neither answer nor sign.
+
+Another day--another night: just the same. Once or twice they came on
+the track of some vessel; a ship outward or homeward bound, and told
+their story; shouting it out, in brief business-like words--how horrible
+they sounded! And the ship's people would be seen to come to her side,
+stand a while looking at the melancholy little steamer on its
+hopeless search--then pass on. All the world seemed passing on slowly,
+slowly--leaving them to that blank sea and sky, and to their own
+despair.
+
+On the evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for
+several hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at
+the stern, looking shorewards at two columns of rock, which the watery
+wear of ages had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright in
+the sea, a little distance from one another, with the breakers boiling
+between.
+
+"There's 'Old Harry and his wife,' as the Dorset people call them. We
+are near home now, Agatha."
+
+"Home!" She gasped the word in an agony, and turned her face again
+seawards--towards the grey desolate line where the Channel melted away.
+
+"The steamer can't run on much longer without putting in-shore," said
+Duke, after an interval.
+
+Agatha almost shrieked; "You are not going to land? We have been out
+such a little--little while! And you said yourself the boats would live
+a long time in the open Channel."
+
+"But that was three days ago."
+
+"Three days--oh, Heaven!--three days."
+
+And the black, black cloud fell over her; the near vision of an
+existence wherein _he_ was not--the going home a widow--or worse,
+because she could never have the certainty of widowhood. To be
+incessantly watching by day, and starting up at night, with the thought
+that he was come! Never to know when, where, or in what manner he died;
+to have no last blessing--no last kiss! At the moment, Agatha would have
+given her whole future life--nay, her immortal soul--to cling for one
+minute round her husband's neck and tell him how she loved him--with
+the one perfect love which nothing now could ever alter, weaken, or
+estrange.
+
+Mr. Dugdale moved aside. He knew that for this burst of anguish there
+was no consolation. After a time, he came and said those few soothing
+words which are all that people can say, without being those "miserable
+comforters" who only torture the more.
+
+Even then, in that last moment of anguish, there was power in the good
+and soothing influence so peculiar to Marmaduke Dugdale. Agatha grew
+calmer--at least more passive. Soon, she saw that the little steamer's
+head was turned to the shore. A convulsion passed over her, but she did
+not rebel.
+
+"There is a faint hope even yet," said Duke, with a melancholy voice
+that almost gave the lie to his words. "They may have drifted safe
+ashore somewhere--though it would be almost a miracle. Or they may have
+been carried far out to sea, and been picked up by some outward-bound
+ship. It's just a chance--but"--
+
+Agatha understood that "but" Nothing but strong conviction would have
+forced it from her brother-in-law's lips. Her last hope died.
+
+An hour or two more they spent in gliding up the narrow channel of that
+salt-water swamp, which at high tide appeared so glittering from the
+Thornhurst road. When approached, it was a muddy chaos, desolate as an
+uninhabited world.
+
+They went as far up-stream as the little steamer could run, and then
+landed on the bank which abutted on some rushy meadows. It was a dark
+winter's night--there was not a soul abroad, though some faint light
+showed they were near the town. The bells of Kingcombe Church were
+ringing merrily through the mist.
+
+"I had quite forgotten," muttered Duke to himself. "This must be
+Christmas-eve."
+
+What a Christmas-eve!
+
+He half led, half lifted Agatha through the wet fields and along the
+road.
+
+"You will go to my house, and let the Missus and me take care of you, my
+child?"
+
+"No, no; I will go home!"
+
+So, without any further argument, he took her to her own gate. There
+it was, the familiar gate, with its shiny evergreens glittering in the
+lamp-light; beyond it, the dusky line of Kingcombe Street.. The cottage
+within was all dark, except for the faintest ray creeping under the
+hall-door. Marmaduke opened it, and called Dorcas. She came, and when
+she saw them, rushed forward sobbing.
+
+"Oh, missus, missus--is it my missus?"
+
+It was indeed the sorrowful mistress, who stood like a spectre in her
+desolate home. But Dorcas dragged her in, and opened the parlour-door.
+
+There was an odour of warmth--bright light, which so dazzled Agatha that
+at first she saw nothing. Then she saw some one lying on the sofa.
+And lo! there--half-buried in pillows, haggard and death-like, yet
+alive--was a face she knew--a calm, sleeping face--falling round it the
+long light hair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+It was Christmas morning. All the good people of Kingcombe were going
+to church. One only household did not go to church--there was hardly
+need, when all their life henceforward would be one long grateful psalm.
+
+Agatha came down much as she had done on her first Sunday morning in
+the same house, and made breakfast in the little parlour. There was a
+strange hush about her--a joy too solemn for outward expression. When
+she had finished all her preparations, she stood by the window, looking
+on the sunny little garden, and listening to the Christ-mas-bells. The
+tears sprang faster--faster--her lips moved. What she was uttering no
+ear heard--save One. Whatever the good Kingcombe people thought, He
+to whom the whole earth is a temple, and all time a long Sabbath of
+praise--would forgive her that she did not go to church that day.
+
+She heard a foot on the stairs, and ran thither like lightning.
+
+Nathanael appeared. He was extremely feeble--every motion seemed to give
+him pain;--and his whole appearance was that of one rescued from the
+very jaws of the grave. But he looked so happy--so infinitely happy!
+
+Agatha half-scolded him. "Why did you not call me? Why not let me help
+you to walk? I can do it, I know." And creeping under his arm, she tried
+to convert her little self into a marvellously strong support.
+
+Her husband only smiled, allowing himself to be led to the sofa, laid
+down, and made comfortable with countless pillows. Then she stood and
+looked at him.
+
+"Are you content?"
+
+"Quite content," he murmured. "So content, that I want nothing in this
+wide world."
+
+And by his look his wife knew that this was true.
+
+"Agatha, darling, you have been crying? Come and sit here."
+
+She came--making a minute's pretence of smiles, and then fell on his
+neck, weeping,
+
+"Oh! I don't deserve to be so happy--so very happy!"
+
+"Child," he answered, with a grave tenderness, "if we went by desert,
+who among us would deserve anything? Should I, who was so hard and cold
+towards my poor little wife, when, if I had said one word out of my real
+heart, and not kept it down so proudly--Ah! I was very wicked. I, too,
+did not deserve that God should save me from death, and bring me home to
+my dear wife's love. Darling! don't let us talk of deservings; only let
+us try to be good, and always, always love one another."
+
+Oh, the heavenly silence of that embrace, the life of life, that was in
+it! Now for the first time the bond of full and perfect love was drawn
+round the husband and wife, sacredly shutting them in from the world
+without, which could never more come between them, or intermeddle with
+their sorrows or their joys.
+
+At length Agatha freed herself gently from his clasp, saying, after
+her old habit of hiding emotion under a jest, something about the
+impossibility that the mistress of a household could idle away her time
+in this way. She made her husband's breakfast, and insisted on watching
+him finish it.
+
+Drinking, he said with a shudder, "Oh, Agatha, you don't know what it is
+to be thirsty! The hunger was nothing to it."
+
+"Don't talk of that, don't," murmured she, turning pale.
+
+"I will not, dear. But was it not strange that we should have drifted
+ashore at Weymouth?"
+
+"Very strange."
+
+"Have you sent over the way this morning, to see after Uncle Brian?"
+
+"Not yet; but Harrie will take care of him. He is not near so much hurt
+as you, and I must look after my own husband first." And once again
+wistfully gazing at him, she threw her arms round his neck, murmuring,
+"My own--my own!"
+
+The church-bells ceased, the breakfast was removed, and the husband and
+wife sat together.
+
+"Somebody," said Nathanael, suddenly--"somebody ought to go and see
+Anne Valery this Christmas-day.
+
+"Does she know?"
+
+"She knew last night. Marmaduke said he should ride over and tell her."
+
+"What news for her to hear--dear, dear Anne!"
+
+And they fell into a silence.
+
+Agatha said at last, "When am I to see Uncle Brian?"
+
+"Very soon, dear. Yet--stay--is not that some one at the door?"
+
+It certainly was. People walked into one another's houses so very
+unceremoniously at Kingcombe. This visitor, however, paused in the hall,
+and then opened the parlour-door.
+
+He was a remarkably tall man, with grey hair, and features not unlike
+Nathanael's, being regular and delicate. But their expression was much
+harsher, and indicative of a strong will and a settled bitterness, which
+only passed over when he smiled. This smile was very beautiful, and
+seemed to steal from his worn and hard-lined aspect at least ten years.
+Agatha knew who he was immediately.
+
+"Uncle Brian!" Nathanael sprang up, despite his weakness, and they
+grasped one another's hands as heartily as if they had not met for
+years.
+
+"Is this your wife?"
+
+"It is indeed; my own dear wife."
+
+"God bless her." Mr. Locke Harper took Agatha by the hand, and looked at
+her keenly. The peculiar expression either of bitterness or melancholy
+came over his face, but as he watched her it gradually faded off. There
+seemed an enchantment in the young wife's sweet looks.
+
+"You two are very happy?"
+
+They exchanged a glance, which needed no words of confirmation; but
+Agatha said, with a shy blush, and a womanly grace that made her
+sweeter-looking than ever.
+
+"We are all the happier now Uncle Brian has come home."
+
+"Thank you, my dear. Thank your husband too, for me. I would have been
+lying 'full fathom five' in the Channel now, if it were not for that
+boy."
+
+"That boy" sounded oddly enough, save for the world of tenderness in the
+phrase, and the look which accompanied it. Any one could see at once the
+strong attachment subsisting between the uncle and nephew. No more was
+betrayed, however, and they soon began a conversation as natural and
+unconcerned as if they had gone through no peril, and suffered no
+emotion. Certainly, however strong their feelings, the Harpers were not
+a "sentimental" family.
+
+Agatha thought, as like a dutiful wife she sat still and listened, that
+she had never seen any man--saving her husband of course--whose mien was
+so simple, yet so truly noble, as Brian Locke Harper's. She watched him
+with a pathetic curiosity, thinking what he must have been as a young
+man, with many other thoughts besides, which came from the very depths
+of her woman's heart.
+
+Uncle Brian talked, though in a rather fragmentary and brief fashion, of
+Kingcombe and of the changes he found. He never by any chance mentioned
+any other place than Kingcombe, until Nathanael happened to ask him
+where Duke was this morning?
+
+"He has ridden out."
+
+"But I wanted to see him, and thank him for being so kind to my poor
+little wife. Where has he gone?"
+
+"To Thornhurst." The word came out sharp, low, yet with a certain
+tone that made it unlike other words. After saying it, Uncle Brian sat
+moodily looking at the fire from under his eyebrows, until Agatha, with
+womanly wisdom, broke the silence, by speaking to her husband.
+
+"I think some time this afternoon I ought to go and see Anne Valery."
+
+"You shall go, dear."
+
+Uncle Brian observed, never moving his eyes from the fire, "Harriet said
+that she--Miss Valery--was not quite strong this winter. Was that true?"
+
+Agatha answered, "That it was only too true."
+
+Something in her manner seemed to startle Mr. Locke Harper; he threw
+towards her one of his flashing, penetrating looks.
+
+"We have indeed been very anxious about poor Anne," she answered. "But
+winter is a trying season, and we hope, in the spring"--
+
+"Yes, in the spring," repeated Uncle Brian, hastily. "What a gay garden
+you have for Christmas." He opened the glass door, and immediately
+went out. They saw him walking about, backwards and forwards, among
+chrysanthemum beds and arbutus-trees, passing hurriedly, and with a
+bent-down, abstracted gaze, which beheld nothing.
+
+"Does he know about her?" said Agatha to her husband. "You said you
+would tell him."
+
+"I could not, his mood was too bitter. And there are some things in
+which not even I dare break upon the reserve of Uncle Brian. He is as
+secret and as proud--as I am."
+
+"Ah, but"--
+
+"I understand that 'but' my child. I know how much both he and I have
+often erred."
+
+His wife pressed his hand fondly, to indicate how love had sealed its
+kiss of forgiveness upon all things. Nathanael smiled, and continued:
+
+"I found Uncle Brian in such a strange mood at Havre. I dared not speak
+of anything just then, but thought the fit time would be when we came
+near the Dorset coast, and his heart was softened at the sight of home.
+I was walking on deck, pondering how to tell him, when the fire began."
+
+"Ah, don't." And Agatha forgot everything--it was natural she should--in
+rejoicing once more over the beloved saved. Suddenly, there was heard
+a fluttering, and a chattering with Dorcas in the hall, marking an
+unmistakable approach--Mrs. Dugdale with her young flock.
+
+Harrie was in the best of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that
+may be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been
+seen either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced
+Agatha warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother
+Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fortitude, but shook his hair
+after it, like a boy who has been petted against his will. However, he
+kissed his little nephews good-humouredly, let Brian sit astride on
+his sofa-pillows, benignly assured Fred's inquiring mind that Uncle
+Nathanael had not been to the bottom of the sea and up again--and
+answered Gus with a more serious voice, that it was not exactly "funny"
+to be drowned.
+
+"Funny? No, indeed," exclaimed the mother. "I am sure the shock was
+dreadful to us all. I don't know when _I_ shall get over it And that
+reminds me that Duke thinks it had been too much for poor Anne. She is
+worse,--keeping her bed. I don't understand sick people much, but if
+Agatha could go--Oh, there you are, Uncle Brian! Duke sent a message to
+you. He says, he is afraid it will be some days before you can see your
+old friend Anne: she is very ill indeed."
+
+Brian stood silent, resting his hand on the glass-door. The colourless
+face, void of any expression, excepting the eyes, and they--never, while
+she lived, did Agatha forget the look of those eyes! She whispered,
+passing him by,
+
+"I am going to her now--I shall send word soon;" and left the room.
+
+There was a slight difficulty about her being driven to Thornhurst, as
+she insisted on her husband's keeping quiet at home. Harrie made a
+dozen plans and counter-plans, until they were all frustrated by Brian
+Harper's rising from the corner, where he had sat motionless.
+
+"If you will allow me, I will drive you there."
+
+"Thank you." There was no more said about it; they started.
+
+Mr. Locke Harper scarcely spoke to his niece all the way, until just
+as they were passing the gate where, on that awful walk, Agatha had
+startled Mrs. Dugdale.
+
+"I hear you came all these miles on foot, in the middle of the night. It
+was a very brave thing for a woman to do. I did not think any woman
+could have love enough in her to do it."
+
+"I know several who would do much more."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Harrie Dugdale, probably; and for certain, Anne Valery."
+
+Brian said no more until they reached the gates of Thornhurst. There
+he helped her to descend, reins in hand, and waited. Just as Agatha was
+going he touched her arm:
+
+"Ask how she is, will you?"
+
+Agatha sent the message up-stairs, and remained with him for a minute
+or two. He stood motionless by the horse, his hat pulled down over his
+brows--nothing visible but the sharp profile of his mouth. Old Andrews
+called him "that gentleman"--eyed him with some curiosity, then bowed,
+and wished him a "merry Christmas, sir," country fashion.
+
+The answer about the mistress of Thornhurst was brief; she was "much the
+same;" the servants did not seem to apprehend any danger.
+
+Brian shook his niece's hand. "I shall go back across the moors to
+Kingcombe. Tell her, if, at any time, she would like to see an old
+friend"--
+
+He stopped, threw down Dunce's reins, and started off towards the high
+ground, striding over heather and furze, with his free backwoodsman's
+step.
+
+Andrews looked after him. "If that be any man alive it be Mr. Locke
+Harper! O Lord! and I didn't know 'un--my dear old master! Mr. Harper!
+Sir! Mr. Locke Harper." He ran a little way in vain pursuit of the
+retreating figure; then Agatha saw him sit down on a stone, hide his
+face in his shaking old hands, and cry for joy.
+
+While, far over the hill-side, in very sight of the closed blinds of
+Anne's room, the returned wanderer strode away, and disappeared.
+
+It was some time before Agatha could summon courage to walk up-stairs.
+All things seemed so strange. She could hardly realise the fact that she
+had been driven from Kingcombe by Uncle Brian's own self, and that she
+was now going to tell Anne Valery that he was here.
+
+At last, calmed by faith in heaven, and in that next holiest faith,
+love, she opened the door of Anne's bedroom.
+
+It was silent, solemn, and peaceful. There was a prayer-book by the
+bedside, open at one of the Christmas-day psalms. No one lingered in the
+room, or about the couch, with sisterly or friendly care; all was serene
+but lonely, as Anne's whole life had been. At the opening of the door, a
+faint voice asked, "Who is there?"
+
+"Only I! Oh, Anne, dearest Anne!"
+
+There was a pause of weeping silence, though one only wept. Miss Valery
+soothed the girl in all sorts of tender ways.
+
+"You have suffered much, my poor child, but it is over now. Forget it.
+You will be very happy now."
+
+"And you too--you too, Anne! But why do you lie here so drearily, with
+no one near you?"
+
+"I like it."
+
+"But you will rise soon? You must get well now they are come home. You
+little think how anxious all are about you."
+
+"That is kind. Everybody was always very kind to me."
+
+After a few moments, during which Anne lay with her eyes shut, and
+Agatha watched, with an unaccountable dread, the wonderful, spiritual
+calm of her features, she suddenly said:
+
+"You have seen him, have you not?"
+
+"Uncle Brian? Yes."
+
+"How does he look? Was he harmed by that--that awful three days at sea?
+
+"No; he seems quite well. He drove me to Thornhurst."
+
+"Then he is here?" And there came a slight trembling over the placid
+face.
+
+"He had to go back to Kingcombe, I believe," said Agatha, hesitating.
+"But he told me to say, if you liked to see an old friend--He does not
+know how ill you have been," she added, with irrepressible vexation, "or
+else I should have felt very, very angry, even with Uncle Brian."
+
+"Hush! You do not understand him yet," said Anne, gently, as she once
+more closed her eyes. Many thoughts seemed to sweep over her, but none
+left a trace of bitterness behind. She was past all restlessness or
+suffering now.
+
+"How are you all going to keep Christmas, Agatha? You ought to be very
+happy. After such a week as this has been, everything seems happiness
+now."
+
+"Not everything--when you are not with us, Anne--I mean, not with us
+to-day."
+
+"But I shall be with you, to-day and every day. I believe I shall never
+be far away from Thornhurst and Kingcombe, and Kingcombe Holm."
+
+She said this more to herself than to Agatha, who listened, her throat
+choking; then answered abruptly, "You are talking too much--you must be
+quiet."
+
+Anne smiled--one of her old smiles, so full of cheerfulness. "I think I
+am quiet enough already, but I will obey."
+
+She turned her face to the pillow, and lay for a long time without
+moving. At length she said:
+
+"Agatha, I want you to do something for me."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I would like to see your husband, and my old friend, Mr. Brian Harper.
+Will you go and fetch them?"
+
+"I will to-morrow, but"--
+
+"No--dear, not to-morrow; I must see them to-day--this very
+Christmas-day. Go--you will not be away long. And we will send the
+carriage, so that the journey can do Nathanael no harm."
+
+"You are always thinking of every one," said Agatha, as she turned
+to obey. She felt it was a solemn mission. All her bright plans about
+Thornhurst grew dim; she could not look forward. Yet, warm in the
+strength of youth and love, she cherished a faint hope still.
+
+When she reached Kingcombe, Brian had not come home. They sent
+messengers for him in all directions, but in vain. At last they were
+forced to drive back without him--hopelessly peering through the dusk
+to see if they could discern his tall figure across the moors. When they
+were dashing at full speed through Thornhurst-gate, some one rose up
+from the hedge beside it, and stopped the horses.
+
+"Is anything the matter at the house? Speak, can't you, fellow?"
+
+The voice hoarse and commanding--the tall, spare figure, the grey
+hair--it could be none other than Brian Harper.
+
+Nathanael called to him. "Uncle Brian, we have been looking for you
+everywhere. Anne wants to see you. Come."
+
+"I will." He walked away and was lost in the furze-bushes; but when the
+carriage drove up to the door they found him already standing there.
+They all entered the house together.
+
+Anne's maid met them with a delighted countenance. Her mistress was so
+well--thank God! She was up, and sitting in the drawing-room!
+
+There in truth she was, in her usual seat, wearing her ordinary dress.
+She had taken off the invalid-cap, and her soft hair was arranged as
+carefully as if no white lines marred its brownness. She looked less
+old than usual--nay, almost beautiful--so exquisitely peaceful was the
+expression of her countenance.
+
+Nathanael and his wife hung back, letting Mr. Harper meet her first.
+
+She rose and held out both hands to him. "Welcome home again--welcome
+home!"
+
+He said nothing, but grasped the hands, and retained them fast. There
+was a long, long look, eye to eye, face to face,--a look, in which
+were gathered and summed up all the years since they were young,
+together,--and then the two old friends sat down side by side. Agatha
+thought it strange that they should meet in such a calm, commonplace
+way--but then she was young. She did not know how quietly flows
+the outward surface of a tide that has flowed on, deep, solemn, and
+changeless, for five-and-twenty years.
+
+In a little while they were all sitting round the fire--the merry
+Christmas fire with its blazing pine-log--talking just as naturally and
+familiarly as though no emotion had stirred them. Anne Valery, resting
+in her arm-chair, looked on and smiled. She talked little, but listened
+to the rest, and by an inexplicable sweet calmness, made them all so
+much at ease, that it seemed to Agatha as if they four had known one
+another for a whole lifetime, and been always as happy as now.
+
+As the evening advanced, the Christmas dinner was announced.
+
+"I am sorry I cannot sit at the head of my own table to-day, but"--and
+Miss Valery gently laid her hand on Brian's arm--"you will take my
+place, old friend?"
+
+He made some unintelligible answer, and they all left the drawing-room.
+It was a rather silent dinner; yet, somehow, no one looked sad. No one
+could, with Anne's cheerful influence pervading the whole house.
+
+Agatha soon rose and rejoined her. She was sitting just as they had left
+her--but whether it was through the light being dimmer, or through a
+certain thoughtfulness in her face, Agatha thought she did not look
+quite the same.
+
+"Are you well?" Are you sure you are not tired? And"--here Agatha
+ventured to wrap her arms round her and gaze up in her eyes with a
+fulness of meaning--are you happy?"
+
+"Ay, happy! perfectly happy!" The look and tone were such as Agatha
+never forgot. They expressed a bliss that of its intensity could not
+necessarily endure for more than the briefest time in this changing
+world. It belonged to the world everlasting.
+
+"Will you go back, dear, and ask Brian to come to me? I would like to
+talk a little, alone, with my old friend."
+
+Agatha obeyed. When she had delivered her message, Mr. Locke Harper rose
+without speaking. She saw him go into the drawing-room and close the
+door; then she came back to her husband.
+
+For more than two hours Agatha and Nathanael sat, not liking to go in
+without being summoned. At last they ventured to pass the door. The
+silence within was so death-like that it half frightened them.
+
+"I wish she would call," Agatha whispered. "She looked so strangely
+white when she spoke to me. Hush! is not that some one stirring? I must
+knock."
+
+She did so, but there was no answer. At last, trembling all over, she
+caught hold of her husband's hand and made him enter.
+
+The room was quite still--dimly-lighted--for the fire had been suffered
+to burn itself almost out. Anne sat in her arm-chair, with Brian
+kneeling beside her, his arms clasping her waist, and hers linked behind
+his neck. Neither moved, or seemed to notice anything; and the two
+young people, greatly moved by the scene, were gliding away, when a last
+glimmer of the fire showed them Anne Valery's face. They saw it--grasped
+one another's hands with an awe-struck meaning--and stayed.
+
+In a minute or two Anne faintly spoke.
+
+"I think there is some one near? Is it Agatha?"
+
+The young girl flung herself on Anne's hand.--"It is I--and my husband.
+May we stay? We, too, loved you, dear, dear Anne?"
+
+"I know that! One minute, just one minute, Brian."
+
+She loosed her clasp of him a little; the other two came near, she
+kissed them both, and bade "God bless them." Then raising herself up and
+speaking with all her strength, she said,
+
+"You will bear witness, and say to them all, that if I had married, none
+but Brian Locke Harper would ever have been my husband: and therefore I
+have left to him Thornhurst, and all I have in the world, in token of my
+love and reverence--just as if--I had been--his wife."
+
+With the last words, uttered very feebly, Anne sank back into her old
+attitude. She lay there many minutes, her face beautiful in its perfect
+rest. The other face--his face--was altogether hidden. But they saw
+that, as his arms grasped her round, every muscle was quivering. The
+convulsion grew so strong that even Anne felt it. She opened her eyes,
+and tried to speak again.
+
+"Brian, poor Brian? Be content! it is not for long--not for very long."
+
+Her fingers began to flutter feebly on his neck. She fringed the grey
+locks round them in a childish, absent way, muttering to herself.
+
+"How very soft it feels still! He used to have such beautiful hair!"
+
+Then, as if she felt her mind wandering, and strove to recall it, that
+to the very last moment it might rest on him, she again forcibly opened
+her eyes and fixed them on Brian's face. They never left it afterwards.
+The whole world seemed to have faded from her except that face. For
+a minute or two longer she lay looking at him, her countenance all
+radiant, until, gradually and softly, her eyes closed.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Nathanael, as he drew his weeping wife closer to his
+bosom, and pointed out the beatitude of that dying smile. "Hush--she is
+quite happy. She has gone home!"
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha's Husband, by
+Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
+
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