"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, n.o.body 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 a.s.sisting 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."