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 att.i.tude 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."

"G.o.d 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.