"Will you keep to the point, sir?" said Agatha, sternly. She felt very stern--very bitter. The old wound was reopening sorer than ever.

Nathanael had "held conferences" with this fellow--confided to him secrets which he had not told to her--his own wife! Here was a new pang--a new indignity. In its sharpness she forgot everything else; even the silent room overhead. She had just self-possession and pride enough not to question; she would have been more than human had she not paused to hear.

"Well, Mr. Grimes!" she said, confronting him, her hand still on the door, where she had placed it as a mute signal which he refused to understand.

"I own, Mrs. Harper, it is a hard case. At the time I really felt as sorry for you as if you had been my own daughter. All to happen so soon after your marriage, too! Some persons might blame me for consenting to keep back the facts, but I a.s.sure you Major Harper compelled me to draw up the settlement exactly according to his orders."

"Sir--will you hasten--my time is occupied."

"So is mine, madam; fully occupied. I shall waste no more of it in giving advice to young women who are as proud as peac.o.c.ks, and as poor as church-mice. If it wasn't for that highly respectable young man, your husband, I should say it served you right."

"What?" said Agatha, beneath her breath.

"Mr. Locke Harper found out, a month after his marriage, that somebody had made ducks and drakes of all his wife's property. So, as I hear, the poor young man has had to turn land-steward just to keep his kitchen fire burning. That's all. Very odd you don't know it."

"I do now."

"Well, you take it quietly enough. You seem quite satisfied."

"I am so."

Mr. Grimes regarded her in perfect bewilderment. She showed no token of dismay or grief, but stood calmly by the open door.

"I'm not satisfied though," cried he, at last growing heated--"I'm not going to have shareholders coming down upon me, and be hunted from London and from my profession, just because Major Harper"--

"I would rather not hear of Major Harper, or any one else, to-night.

Once more--will you oblige me by leaving?"

Her thorough self-possession, her air of command--controlled the man in spite of himself. He moved away, bidding her a civil good-night.

"Good-night, Mr. Grimes; I will light you to the door."

"Ugh!" He gave a grunt--seemed inclined to hesitate--looked up at Mrs.

Harper, and--obeyed.

Agatha came slowly back through the hall, feeling all stunned and stupified. She sat down, smoothed her hair back with her hands, heaved one or two weary sighs, and tried to think what had happened to her.

"So, I am no heiress. I have lost all my money, and am quite poor. He knows it--knew it a long time ago, and did not tell me. Why did he not tell me, I wonder?"

Here was a pause. For a moment she felt inclined to doubt the fact itself; truthful people have little suspicion of chicanery or falsehood, and when she came to think, innumerable circ.u.mstances confirmed Grime's statement. Yes, it must be true. This, then, was Nathanael's secret. Why had he kept it from her.

"As if he thought I cared for money! As if"--and a choking filled her throat--"as if I would have minded being ever so poor did he only love me!"

The thought burst out naturally, like water forcing its way through muddy reeds--showing how, deep down, there lay the living spring.

"Now, let me consider. He must have had some strong reason for keeping this secret. It cost him much; he said so. But I never heeded that.

How I wearied him about not taking the house; how angry I was at his acceptance of the stewardship. And it was for me he wished to toil--for me, and for our daily bread! Yet he would not tell me. And all the while he must have had numberless cares and anxieties without, and his own wife blindly tormenting him at home. Last of all I called him _mercenary_. And what did he answer? Nothing! Not one reproach--not one word of anger. Yet still--he kept his secret Why?"

Here she paused again. All was mystery.

"It might have been through tenderness--to save me pain. Yet no--for he could not but see how his silence stung me. Then since he kept not this secret for love of me--and I am hardly worth such loving--it must have been from some motive, perhaps higher than love--some bond of honour which he could not break. Did he not say something to that effect once?

Let me think."

Again she sat down, and so far as her excited feelings would allow, tried to recall the story of their acquaintance, courtship, marriage--a six-month's tale--how brief, yet how full. Amidst its confusion, amidst all the variations of her own feelings, stood out one steadfast image--her husband.

His character was peculiar--very peculiar. Its strength, reticence, power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension; but its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour--she could understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral right that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of wounding the wife he loved--if he ever had loved her.

For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on this one point of torture--then it settled. "_G.o.d knows I did love you, Agatha_." He had said so--he who never uttered a falsehood. It was enough.

"Yet he '_did_' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last insulting wrong. I--to tell him he 'married me for my money'--when all the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word. Oh, no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never can love me any more."

She burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright, clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous att.i.tude of a child.

"There is a better thing than love--goodness. And whether he loves me or not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My n.o.ble husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!"

She said this in a delirium of joy--a woman's pure joy, when she can set aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her.

Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face.

Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the house--misfortune following--and she had given way to that burst of joy!

She drew her hand across her forehead--sat down at the table--wrote the three lines she had intended to Anne Valery, and then went her way, to watch all night long beside her husband's father.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A night and a day had pa.s.sed, and the household had grown somewhat accustomed to the cloud that hung over it. It was but natural. How soon do most families settle themselves after a great shock!--how easily-does any grief become familiar and bearable! Likewise, saddest thought of all--how seldom is any one really missed from among us, painfully missed, for longer than a few days--a few hours!

By evening, when all Kingcombe was yet talking over the "shocking event"

at Kingcombe Holm, the "afflicted family" had subsided into its usual ways--a little more grave perhaps, but still composed. Some voluble fresh grief arose when Anne Valery came--Anne, ever foremost in entering the house of mourning--and took her place among the daughters of the family, ready to give sympathy, counsel, and comfort. It was all she was strong enough to do now. The chief position in the household was still left to Agatha.

Dr. Mason gave his directions and went away. There was nothing more to be done or hoped for. The form which lay in the Squire's bedroom might lie there for days, weeks, months--without change. The old coachman and his wife watched their master alternately; but he took little notice of them. In every conscious moment his whole attention was fixed upon Agatha. His eyes followed her about the room; when she talked to him he feebly smiled. She could not imagine why this should be, but she felt glad. It was so sweet to know herself in any way a comfort to the father of Nathanael.

She sat for hours by the old man's bedside, trying to think of nothing but him. What were all these worldly things, loss of fortune or youth, or even love itself, to the spirit that lay on the verge of a closed life--pa.s.sing swiftly into eternity?

So she sat and strove to forget all that had happened, or was happening to herself; ay, though every now and then she would start, fancying there was a voice in the hall, or a step at the door. And she would hesitate whether to run away and hide herself from her husband's presence or wait and let him find her in her right place--beside his dying father.

And then--how would he meet her? how look--how speak? Yet these conjectures were selfish. Most likely he would scarcely notice her--his heart would be so full of other thoughts. What right had she, his erring wife, to obtrude herself upon his feelings at such a time? She could only look at him, and watch him, and silently help him in everything.

Alas, she might not even dare to comfort him!

Towards evening the suspense of expectation grew less, from the mere fact of its having lasted so many hours. Agatha went down in the course of dinner. The dining-table looked as usual, only fuller, from the presence of the Dugdales and Miss Valery. Mary had of necessity taken her father's place, but not his chair--it was put aside against the wall, and n.o.body looked that way.

Agatha seated herself next to Miss Valery, quietly--they were all so very quiet. Anne whispered, "How is he?" and the rest listened for the answer--the usual answer, which all foreboded. Then Harriet made an attempt to speak of other things--of how the rain pattered against the window-panes, and what an ill night it was for Nathanael's journey. She even began to doubt whether he would come.

"He is sure to come," said Miss Valery.

And while she was yet speaking there swept round the house a wild burst of storm, in the midst of which were faintly discerned the sound of a horse's feet. They all cried out--"He is here!"