"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.



"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."