But Agatha's look was fixed on the door, to which her sisters-in-law had gathered hastily. There was a talking outside--a welcome as it seemed.

She forgot everything except her sense of right and justice to one unwarrantably and unaccountably blamed.

"It is surely he," she cried, and ran eagerly forward.

"Nathanael!"

"Frederick!"

The two brothers, elder and younger, stood confronting each other.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Elizabeth sent for me--Elizabeth only showed me that kindness. Oh, it was very cruel of you all--you should have told me my father was dying."

It must have been a hard heart that could have closed itself altogether against Frederick Harper now.

He leant against the doorway, the miserable ghost of his gay self. Born only for summer weather, on him any real blast of remorse or misfortune fell suddenly, entirely, overthrowing the whole man.

"Elizabeth says it happened yesterday; and must have been because--because Grimes--Oh, G.o.d forgive me! it is I that have killed my father!"

Every one shrank back. None of his sisters understood what he meant; but the mere expression seemed to draw a line of demarcation between them and the self-convicted man. Agatha only approached him--she felt so very sorry for her old friend.

"You must not talk in this way, Major Harper. If you did vex him in any way, it is very sad; but he will forgive you now. You cannot have done any real harm to your father."

Her kind voice, her perfectly guileless manner, struck each of the brothers with various emotion. The eyes of both met on her face: Frederick dropped his, and groaned; Nathanael's brightened. For the first time he addressed his brother:

"Frederick, she is right; you must not talk thus. Compose yourself."

It was in vain; his easy temperament was plunged into depths of childish weakness. "Oh, what have I done? You said truly, it would kill him to hear _that_. And my heedlessness drove Grimes to go and tell him. Yes, your prophecy was true: I have been the disgrace of our house--the destruction of my father. What shall I do, Nathanael?"

And he held out his hands to his younger brother in the helplessness of despair.

"The first thing, Frederick, is for you to be silent Anne, take my sisters away; my brother and I have something to say to one another.

What? no one will go? Then, brother, come with me."

The other rose mechanically; Agatha likewise. She began to put circ.u.mstances together, and guess darkly at what was amiss. Probably she herself had to do with it. She remembered in what strict honour the old Squire held the duty of a guardian, as he had shown in what he said about his own relation to Anne Valery. Perhaps some carelessness of his son's had caused her own loss of fortune. Yet that was not a thing to break his father's heart, or harden his brother's against him. Mere chance it must have been; ill-luck, or at the worst carelessness. There could not be any real dishonour in Major Harper. And after all what was money, when they could be so much happier without it? She determined to go to her husband and openly say so, telling all that had come to her knowledge of their secrets. They should no longer be angry with one another--if it were on her account.

So she followed after them, with her soft, noiseless step; and when the two brothers stood together in their father's deserted study, there she was between them.

"Agatha!" They both uttered her name--the elder in much confusion. He had seemed all along as though he could scarcely bear the sight of her innocent face.

"Don't send me away," she said, laying a hand on either. "I know I am a young ignorant thing, and you are wise men; but perhaps a straightforward girl may be as wise as you. Why are you angry with one another?"

Both looked uncomfortable. Major Harper tried to throw the question off.

"Are we angry with one another? Nay, I am sure"--

"Don't deceive me--this is no time for making pretences of any kind.

What is this quarrel between you two?" And she turned from one to the other her fearless eyes.

Major Harper could not meet them; Nathanael did, calmly, but sorrowfully.

"Agatha, I cannot tell you."

"But I can tell _you_; and I will, for it is right. Major Harper, do not be unhappy. Believe me, I care not one jot for all the money I ever had. If you have lost it, I am sure it was accidentally. You would not wilfully wrong me of a straw."

Again Major Harper groaned. Nathanael stood speechless with amazement.

At length he said, very gently:

"How did you find this out, Agatha?"

"Mr. Grimes told me."

"Was that all he told?"

"Yes."

Major Harper looked relieved. Nathanael watched him sternly. After a while he said:

"Frederick, this is the right time to explain all. Do not start; you need not fear _me_; in any case I shall hold to my promise. But if you would explain--for my sake, for others' sake"--

The other shrank away. "No, not now," he whispered; "oh! brother, not now. Give me a little time. Don't disgrace me before her--before them all."

Nathanael's stature rose. Without again speaking, he shook his brother's hand from off his shoulder with a gesture, slight yet full of meaning, and turned towards Agatha. He seemed to yearn over her, though he checked every expression of feeling except the softness of his voice.

"I am glad you have found out we are poor--that in some things my wife may see I have not been so cruel to her as she thought."

Agatha's cheeks crimsoned with emotion. Why--why were they not alone that she need not have smothered it down, and stood so quiet that he believed she did not feel? He went on, rather more sadly:

"But this is not a time to talk of our own affairs; you shall know all ere long. Will you be content until then?" And he held out his hand.

She took it, looking eagerly into his face. There was something there so intrinsically n.o.ble and true! Though his conduct yet seemed strange--unreasonable towards her, harsh towards his brother, still, in defiance of all, there was that in his countenance which compelled faith. And there was that in her own heart, a something neither reason nor conviction, but transcending both, which leaped to him as through intervening darkness light leaps to light. She felt that she must believe in her husband.

He seemed partly to understand this, and smiled--a pale, faint smile, that quickly vanished.

"Now, Agatha," he said, opening the door for her, "go and see how my father is, and then you must go to bed. I will sit up with him to-night.

I cannot have my poor wife killing herself with watching."

His voice sunk tenderly; he even put out his hand, as if to stroke her hair after his old habit, but drew it back--Major Harper was looking on.

Again the dark fire, lit so fatally on his marriage-day, and since then sometimes fiercely raging, sometimes smothered down to a mere spark, yet never wholly extinguished, rose up in the young man's strong, self-contained, strangely silent heart. Would his pride never let it burst forth, that, mingling with the common air, it might burn itself to nothingness! But how many a whole life has been tortured and consumed by just such a little flame, a mere spark, let fall by some evil tongue which is set on fire of h.e.l.l.

While they paused--the wife waiting, she knew not for what, except that it seemed so easy to follow and so hard to quit her husband--there was a cry heard on the staircase at the foot of which they stood. Mrs. Dugdale came running down in terror.

"Nathanael--Agatha--I have told my father that Fred is here. Oh, come to him, do come!"

No time for pitiful earthly pa.s.sions, jealousies, and regrets. Nathanael ran quick as lightning, his wife following. But at the door of the sick-room even she recoiled.