"Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?"

The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said, "Answer that question, Anne."

"What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?"

"One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the man she is to marry?"

"Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as a matter of necessity. As for love--have you noticed, Agatha, how many women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real meaning of the word?"

Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen.

The subject came home to her. "Will Eulalie be one of these?"

"I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will never know what is real love."

"Tell me, what is that sort of love--the right love--which one ought to bring to one's husband?"

Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. "Are you seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?"

"Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'"

"Almost every human being loves in a different way."

"Well, then, your way I mean." But noticing the momentary reticence which Anne's manner showed, she added, "I mean the kind of love you have most sympathy with in other people."

"I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker (not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is pleasant to see young people loving one another."

"Still, you have not told me what _you_ call loving."

"Do you really wish to hear?" said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a low voice, she added: "I would have every woman marry, not merely liking a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly, that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true, and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry neither from liking, esteem, nor grat.i.tude for his love, but from the fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens"--and Anne's voice slightly faltered--"G.o.d will cause them to meet in the next existence. They cannot be parted--they belong to one another."

All were silent--these three women--one to whom love must have been only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which brought with it her own condemnation.

"You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it romance."

"Would they? And do you?"

"Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life."

"Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too old for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite all I have seen--the false, foolish, weak attachments--the unholy marriages--the after-life of marriage made unholier still by struggling against what was inevitable--still I believe in the one true love which binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life and, G.o.d grant it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this--little wife? You do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?"

Agatha tried to smile--to conceal the pain rising in her heart.

"Come then, I will teach you how to love him--in better words than mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'"

"Any woman would," answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book which Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which "poor Elizabeth" looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a friend.

"Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there," said Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice was hardly like itself--at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard it--when she began to read:

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise: I love thee with the pa.s.sion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints; I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if G.o.d choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh behind her.

Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in, no one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a lost or impossible paradise.

"Agatha!" She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest aspect--that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling within her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression--scarcely meant to pa.s.s her lips--and inaudible to all save him:

"Oh, why--why did I marry!"

The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him:

"Are you come to talk with us, or to fetch your wife away?"

"Neither," he said, bitterly. But recovering himself--"Nay, Anne, I came for you. My father wishes to see you. He will hear nothing I can urge.

You must come down and talk with him, or I do not know what will be done."

Agatha had until now forgotten that her husband had intended after dinner to tell his father his plans concerning the stewardship. It had been apparently a harder task than he thought, to strive with the old Squire's prejudices. Seeing his extreme perturbation, Agatha repented herself deeply of any unkindness towards him.

She went to his side. "What is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you."

"You!" he echoed; then added, with an accent studiously kind, "Thank you, Agatha. You are very good always."

He let her take his arm and stand talking with himself and Miss Valery.

"I feared it would be so," the latter said. "Your father has a strong will; still he can be persuaded. We must try."

"But only persuasion--no reasons. Understand me, Anne--no reasons!"

Miss Valery looked at the young man very earnestly.

"Nathanael, if I did not know you well, and know too whose guidance formed your character, it would be hard to trust you."

"Anne!" Again the peculiar manner which sometimes appeared in him, making him seem much older than his years, had its strange influence with Miss Valery, guiding her by an under-current deeper even than her judgment.

"Ay," she said in a whisper, "I will trust you. Let us go down." And she turned with him to say good-bye to Miss Harper.

The excitement of talking had been too much for "poor Elizabeth." One of her "dark hours" was upon her. The eyes were closed, and the face sharpened under keen physical pain. Agatha could hardly bear to see her; but Nathanael bent over his sister with that soothing kindness which in a man is so beautiful.

"Shall we stay with you? at least, shall I?"

Elizabeth motioned a decided negative.

"I know," Miss Valery said, apart, "she had rather be alone. No one can do her good, and it is too much for this child, who is not used to it as we are."

Calling Elizabeth's maid from the inner room, Anne hurried Agatha away.

She, clinging to her husband's arm, heard him say, half to himself:

"And yet we think life hard, and murmur at that we have, and grieve for that we have not! We are very wicked, all of us. Poor Elizabeth!"

The three went very silently down-stairs.