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—Iwilljump 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 thisappartementfor 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 madehim—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.
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 didyousay?”
“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, forhewas 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 ishishome 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 ofherhusband. 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.