A faint a.s.sent--scarcely intelligible--and then the Squire dropped off again into sleep. Agatha left him and went to his daughters, who lingered outside.

"I think Major Harper has somehow vexed him. He will only see my husband. A messenger must be sent to Cornwall. Who will write?"

"Who but yourself," said Eulalie, hardly able even then to repress a look, beneath which Agatha's cheek glowed fiery red; "who so fit as yourself to tell this to your husband?"

"You are right;" and she smothered down her swelling heart into a grave dignity. "Get the messenger ready--I will write here--in this room."

She turned-within--closed the door--looked once more at the old man, trying by that mournful sight to still the earthly anger that was again rising in her heart,--and sat down to write.

It was a hard task. She scribbled the date, and paused. This, strangely enough, was the first letter she had ever written to him. She did not know how to begin it. Her heart beat--her fingers trembled. To tell such news to the dearest friend and husband that ever woman had, would be a difficult and painful thing, and for her to tell it to him, as they were now! For the first letter he ever had from her to be this! And how could she write it?--she who till to-day would almost have cut off her right hand rather than have humbled herself to write to him at all. Yet now all the wrath was melting out of her, and tenderness swelling up afresh.

We always feel so tender over those that are in trouble.

"Yes, I will do it," muttered Agatha. And she wrote firmly the words--"_My dear husband_" They seemed at the same time to imprint themselves on her heart as a truth--invisible sometimes, yet when brought near to the fire of strong emotion or suffering, found ineffaceably written there.

The letter was a mere brief explanation and summons; but it bore the words, duty-words certainly--yet which no duty would have forced Agatha to write had they been untrue--"_My dear husband_"--"_Your affectionate wife._"

She despatched it, and re-entered the sick-room. All was quiet there--the very hopelessness of the case produced quiet. There was nothing to be done, watched, or waited for. Doctor Mason sat by his patient, as he had declared his intention of doing through the night.

He sat mournfully, for he was a kind, good man--the family doctor for thirty years.

"Let all go to bed," he said to Agatha, seeming to understand at once that she was the moving spirit in the family. "Make the house perfectly quiet, and then"--

"I will come and sit up with you."

Doctor Mason looked compa.s.sionately at the slight girlish figure, and the face already wan with the re-action after excitement. "My dear Mrs.

Harper, would not a servant do as well?"

"No, I am his son's wife. What should I say to my husband if--if anything happened, and he not there, nor I?"

"Good. Then stay," said the doctor, kindly grasping her hand. He was a man of few words.

It took some time and patience to quiet the house, and persuade Mary and Eulalie to retire. When all was done, and Agatha pa.s.sed swiftly, lamp in hand, through the dark, solitary rooms, she felt frightened. The house seemed so silent--already so full of death.

There was one thing more to be done--to write a line ready for Anne Valery's waking, otherwise she would expect her home, as she had promised, in the early morning. How would she tell all these horrors, even in the gentlest way, to the feeble Anne, for whom, however unknown to others, and disguised by the invalid herself, Agatha felt an ever-present dread that she in vain tried to believe was only born of strong attachment. We never deeply love anything for which we do not likewise continually fear. Agatha almost recoiled from the idea of mentioning danger or death to Anne Valery.

She went into the dining-room to write. Everything there appeared just as when this great shock struck the household into confusion; the dessert was not removed--the wine in which he had drunk Nathanael's health, remained yet in Mr. Harper's gla.s.s. Agatha shrank back. She half expected to see some shadowy form--not himself but Death, rise and sit in the arm-chair whence the old man had fallen.

Brave she was, but she was still a girl, and a girl of strong imagination. Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle of the room, where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the last flicker of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to burn out in their sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and tried to think connectedly of all that had happened this night.

Something touched her. She leaped up--would have screamed, but that she remembered the room overhead--the room. She crouched down--again covering her eyes.

Another touch, and a stirring in the window-curtain near which she sat. There was something--every one knows that horrible sensation--_something_ else in the room besides herself.

"Who is it?" she said, still not looking up, frightened at her own voice.

"It's me, ma'am--only me."

Everybody in the house had forgotten Mr. Grimes.

Half-intoxicated at the time of Mr. Harper's seizure, he had stayed behind in the dining-room, drunk himself stupid, and slept himself sober--or partly so. They say drink is a great unfolder of truth; if so, the old lawyer's sharp face betrayed that, in spite of all his past civility, he had not the kindest feeling in the world towards the Harper family.

"So, young lady, I frightened you? You did not expect to find me here."

"I did not, indeed; I had quite forgotten your very existence," said Mrs. Harper, point-blank. She had conceived a great dislike to Mr.

Grimes, and Agatha was a girl who never took much trouble to disguise her aversions.

"Thank you, ma'am. You are polite, like the rest of the Harpers. But words, fair or foul, won't pay anything. Where's the Squire? He and I have not yet settled the little business I came about."

"Mr. Grimes, perhaps you are not aware that my father-in-law is dangerously ill--can enter upon no business, and see no person."

"In-deed?" His thorough insolence of manner brought Agatha's dignity back. She remembered that she was a lady belonging to the house, and that this fellow, whose behaviour made his grey hairs so little worthy of respect, was her father-in-law's invited guest.

"Sir," she said, drawing up her little figure, and trying to look as much Mrs. Locke Harper as possible, "you must be aware that in the present state of the house a stranger's presence is undesirable. It is not too late to order the carriage. Will you favour me by going to sleep at Kingcombe?"

Mr. Grimes looked disposed to object; but she had her hand on the bell, and her manner, though perfectly civil, was resolute--so resolute, that he became humble.

"Well, Mrs. Harper, I'm willing to oblige a former client, but I should like to put to you a few questions before leaving."

"Put them."

"First--what's wrong with the old gentleman?"

"He has had a paralytic stroke--probably caused, the doctor says, by some great shock, which was too much for him, being an old man."

The other old man looked uneasy, as though some touch of nature smote him for the moment.

"You don't think"--here he crept backward, shambling and cowardly--"you don't think I had any hand in causing this--this very melancholy occurrence."

"You?" There was undisguised scorn in Agatha's lip. As if any Mr. Grimes could do harm to a Harper! "Nothing of the kind--pray do not disquiet your conscience unnecessarily."

"But I did bring him unpleasant news, for which I'm rather sorry now.

I had much better have told his son. When shall I be likely to see my friend Nathanael?"

His friend Nathanael! Agatha could have crushed him and stamped upon him, had he been worth it.

"Mr. Locke Harper," she said, trying hard to keep her temper--"Mr. Locke Harper will be at home to-morrow night. You can then make to him any communications you please. At the present, the greatest benefit you can confer on this sad house is to absent yourself from it."

"'Pon my life, Mrs. Harper, you might waste a little more breath on me, lest I might think it worth while to spend a little too much breath on you and yours. Do you know what claim I have upon your family?"

"That of being Major Harper's lawyer, I believe, and possibly mine before my marriage. It is not likely that my husband has continued to use your services afterwards."

Agatha said this sharply, for she was annoyed to feel herself in such total darkness regarding her husband's affairs. For a moment she felt half alarmed at the expression, "My friend Nathanael." Could they be allied, he and this disagreeable man? Could Grimes have acquired any power over him, that he was smiling in such a sinister, mysterious way?

"My services? Really, Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out of nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left"--

"Explain yourself."

"My dear young lady, is it possible you don't know the unfortunate circ.u.mstance, at least one of the unfortunate circ.u.mstances which brought me here? Why, Mr. Locke Harper knew it months ago. He and I had several conferences together on the subject. But we husbands are obliged to be uncommunicative, as my wife would tell you, if you had the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Grimes"--