She paused, hesitated, put her hand to her heart, as she often did, and ceased to speak; but Agatha eagerly continued the sentence:

"Next year we will come and stay here, you and I; or perhaps, as a very great favour, we'll admit one or two more. Next year, when you are quite strong, remember. We will be very happy, next year."

She repeated the words strongly, resolutely, dinning them into Miss Valery's ear, but she only won for answer that silent smile which went to her heart like an arrow. She rushed for safety to the commonplaces of life, to the quick, hasty speeches which relieved her. She began to be very cross about some delay in breakfast.

"Never mind me, dear," said Anne's quieting tones. "I am quite well, and want nothing. Only let us sit still, and look at the sea." And she drew her from her eager bustling about the inn-parlour to the place where they had both sat the previous night. Agatha balanced herself on the arm of the chair, determined she would not be serious for an instant, and would not let Anne talk. Yet both resolutions were broken ere long.

Perhaps it was the bright stillness of the sea view, sliding away round the headland into infinity, which impressed her in spite of herself.

Still she struggled against her feelings.

"I will not have you so grave, Miss Valery. Mind, I will not."

"Am I grave? Nay, only quiet; and so happy! Do you know what it is to be quite content with everything in one's life--past, present, and to come, knowing that all is overruled for good, forgiving everybody and loving everybody?"

Agatha linked her arms tighter round Miss Valery's neck.

"Don't talk in that way, or look in that way--don't. Be wicked! Speak cross! I will not have you an angel. I will not feel your wings growing.

I'll tear them out. There."

She laughed--laughed with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes--until she sobbed again. Her feelings had been on the stretch for hours, and now gave way. Anne bent down from her serenity to notice and soothe the wayward child.

"Poor little thing, she wants taking care of as much as anybody. When will her husband come home?"

"Never--never!" cried Agatha, hardly knowing what she said. "I shall lose him--you--all."

Miss Valery smiled--the composed smile of one who ascending a mountain, sees the lowland mazes around laid out distinct and clear, and looks over them to their ending.

"Yes, my child, he will come back. Absence breaks slender ties, but it rivets strong ones. Have faith in him. People like him, if they once love, love always. He will come back."

There was a great light in Miss Valery's countenance, which irresistibly attracted Agatha. She dried her eyes, forgot her own personal cares, and listened to the comforter.

"Think how much we love those that are away. Once perhaps we used to vex and slight them and be cross with them, but now we carry them in our hearts always. We forget everything bitter, and remember only the sweet; how good they were, and how dearly we loved them. Our thoughts and prayers follow them continually, flying over and about them like wandering angels, that must be laden with good. And all this loving--all this waiting--all this praying, year after year--I mean day after day"--she suddenly turned to Agatha. "Be content, my child. He will come back."

Agatha made no reply. She was not thinking of herself just then. She was thinking of the life, compared to which her own nineteen commonplace years sank into nothingness; of the love beside which that feeling she had so called, looked mean and poor; of the patient endurance--what was her patience? And yet she had fancied that never was woman so tried as Agatha Harper.

With a resolve as sudden as brave, and in her present state of mind to be brave at all it must needs be sudden, Agatha determined to put herself and her troubles altogether aside, and think only of those whom she loved.

"Come," she said, and rose up strong in the courage of self-denial. "We will indulge in no more dreariness; it is not good for you, and I won't allow it, my patient. You shall be patient, in every sense, for a little while longer, and then we'll all be very happy--_all_, I say, next year."

With this declaration she made ready to carry her friend off to Kingcombe--to her own little house--where she was bent on detaining Anne prisoner. Miss Valery declared herself quite willing to be thus bound for a day or two, until she was strong enough to go to Kingcombe Holm.

"But I'll not let you go--I'll be jealous. Why must you be wandering off to that dreary place?"

"Its not dreary to me; I always loved Kingcombe Holm; and I must pay it one last visit before--before winter."

"But there is plenty of time," returned Agatha, hastily. "Why go just now?"

"Because"--Miss Valery spoke after a moment's pause, very steadfastly--"Because I have reasons for so doing. My old friend, Mr.

Harper, has a few strong prejudices, some of them to the hurt of his brother, and I wish to talk to him myself before Mr. Brian Harper comes home."

While Miss Valery said this name, Agatha had carefully bent her eyes seaward. In answering, her colour rose--her manner was more troubled and hesitating by far than that of her companion.

"Go, then. I will not hinder you. n.o.body can feel more interest than I do in Uncle Brian. When do you think he will be here?"

"In three weeks, most likely."

Anne made no other remark, nor did Agatha. In a short time they were driving homeward along the margin of the bay. That well-remembered bay, the sight of which even now made Agatha feel as if she were dreaming over again the one awful event of her childhood. And Anne--what felt she? No wonder that she did not talk.

They came to a spot where the formal esplanade merged into a lonely sea-side walk, leading towards the widening mouth of the bay, and commanding the farthest view of the Channel as it curved down westward into the horizon. Agatha turned pale.

"I remember it--that line of coast with the grey clouds over it. I lay on these sands, and afterwards when you fell, I sat and cried over you. This was the place, and it was over that point that the ship disappeared."

Anne was speechless.

Agatha clasped her hand:--they understood one another. The next minute the carriage turned. Miss Valery breathed a quick sigh, and bent hurriedly forward; but the glitter of the ocean had vanished--she had seen the last of Weymouth Bay.

It was a weary journey, for Anne seemed very feeble. Her young nurse was thankful when the flashing network of streams told how near they were whirling towards Kingcombe. As the train stopped, Mrs. Dugdale was visible on the platform; Duke also, not at the station--that being a degree of punctuality quite impossible--but a little way down the road.

"Well, Miss Anne Valery and Mrs. Locke Harper! To be gallivanting about in this way! I declare it's quite disgraceful. What have you to say for yourselves? Here have I been running up to every train to meet you, and tell you"--

"What?" Agatha's cheek flushed with expectation. Anne grew very white.

"Now, Mrs. Harper, you need not be so hasty--'tisn't your husband.

A great blessing if it were. All the town is crying shame on him for staying away so long."

Agatha threw a furious look at her sister, and dragged Miss Valery along, nor stopped till she saw the latter could hardly breathe or stand.

"Stay, my child. Harriet, you should not say such things. Nathanael is only absent on business--my business; he will come home soon."

These words, uttered with difficulty, calmed the rising storm. Harrie laughingly begged pardon, and was satisfied.

"Well, the sooner Nathanael comes, the better. There was a gentleman last night wanting him."

"What gentleman?"

"Can't tell. He left no name. A little wiry shrimp of a fellow who seemed to know all about our family, Fred included; so Duke, in his ultra hospitality, took the creature in for the night, and this morning drove him over to Kingcombe Holm. There, don't let us bother ourselves about him. How do you feel now, Anne? Quite well, eh?"

"Quite well," Anne echoed in her cheerful voice that never had a tone of pain or complaining. But it seemed to strike Mr. Dugdale, who had lounged up to her side. His peculiarly gentle and observant look rested on her for a moment, and then he offered her his arm, an act of courtesy very rare in the absent Duke Dugdale. Agatha walked on her other hand; Harrie fluttering about them, and talking very fast, chiefly about the wonderful news of yesterday, which her husband had just communicated.

"And a great shame not to tell me long before. As if I did not care for Uncle Brian as much as anybody does. What a Christmas we shall have--Uncle Brian, Nathanael, and Fred."

"Is Major Harper coming?" The question was from Anne.

"Elizabeth hopes so. He surely will not disappoint Elizabeth. And he must come to see Uncle Brian; they were such friends, you know. All the middle-aged oddities in Kingcombe are on the _qui vive_ to see Uncle Brian and Fred. They two were the finest young fellows in the neighbourhood, people say, and to think they should both come back miserable old bachelors! n.o.body married but my poor Duke! Hurra!"

So she rattled on until they reached Agatha's door. One of the Kingcombe Holm servants stood there with the carriage. Mrs. Locke Harper was wanted immediately, to dine at her father-in-law's.

"I will not go. I will not leave Miss Valery. They don't often ask me--indeed, I have never been since--No, I will not go," she added obstinately.

"Do!" entreated Anne, who had sat down, faint with a walk so short that no one thought of its fatiguing her--not even Agatha.