Anne rose to her full height, and a blush, vivid as a girl's, dyed her cheek. "I have," she said--"I have loved it, and I am not ashamed."

The blush paled--she sank back on the window-sill. Major Harper was alarmed.

"Anne--how ill you look! What have I done to you?"

"Nothing," she answered; and, catching his arm, drew herself upright once more.

"Frederick, we were children together, and you loved me; some day you will remember that. Afterwards we grew up young people, and, still thinking you loved me--but it was only vanity then--you did me a great wrong; I will not say how, or when, or why, and no one knows the fact save me--but you did it. You did the same wrong to another lately."

"How--how?"

"You said to Mrs. Th.o.r.n.ycroft--you see I have learnt all, for I wrote and asked her--you said that you 'feared' poor little Agatha loved you, and"--

"I know--I know."

"You know, too, that vanity misled you; that it was not true. But it was a wicked thing to say; trifling with a woman's honour--torturing those who loved her--bringing on her worlds of suffering. Still, she is young, and her suffering may end in joy;--mine"--

Anne paused; the human nature struggled hard within her breast--she was not quite old yet. At length it calmed down--that last anguished cry of the soul against its appointed destiny.

She took her old playmate by the hand, saying gently,

"I am going away soon--going _home_. Before I go, I would like to say, as I used to do when you were unkind to me as a child, 'Good-night, and I forgive Fred everything.'"

"Oh, Anne--Anne." He kissed her hand in strong emotion.

"Hush! I cannot talk more," she went on quickly. "You will do as I ask?

You will wait until--until"--

She stopped speaking, and put her handkerchief to her lips. Slowly, slowly, red drops shone through its folds. Major Harper called wildly for his sisters.

"I knew how it would be," cried Mary Harper. "It has happened twice before, and Doctor Mason said if it happened again"--

"Oh, G.o.d forgive me!" groaned Frederick, as his brother carried Anne Valery away. "She will die--and I shall have killed her!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

Anne Valery did not die. Agatha had said she would not; and the young heart's creed was true. It had its foundation in a higher law than that of physical suffering.

After a few days she was able to be moved to her own house, according to her earnest desire; after a few more, the energy of her mind seemed to put miraculous strength into her feeble body.

"I knew you would get well," said Agatha joyfully, as she watched her patient returning to ordinary household ways; only lying down a little more than Anne was used to do, and speaking seldom and low always, for fear of the bleeding at the lungs. "I knew you must get well, but I never saw anybody get well so fast as you."

"I had need," Anne answered. "I have so much to do."

"That you always have. What a busy rich life--rich in the best sense--yours has been! How unlike mine!"

"I hope so--in many things," said Anne, to herself. "But I must not speak much. I talked my last talk with poor Frederick in the bay-window.

Where is Frederick?"

"He has been riding up and down the country day after day--he seems to find no rest."

Anne looked sorry. "And we are so quiet here!"

It was indeed very quiet, that sombre house at Thorn-hurst, through whose wintry rooms no one wandered but Agatha, excepting the old, attached servants. Yet this was of her own will. She had been jealous that any one should attempt to nurse Anne but herself. She left even her own home to do it. Yet--the bitter thought followed her ever--this last was small renunciation. No one would miss her there!

During the days when Miss Valery lay ill, the world without had been shut from Agatha's view. Woman-like, she lived within the four walls and beside the sick couch, and had only seen her husband for a few minutes each day, when, though he talked to her only of Anne, his manner had a soft, reverent tenderness, and a troubled humility, as if he began to see a different image in his young wife. She was different, and he too.

Neither knew how or when the change came--but it was there.

She did so miss him, when, having taken them safe to Thornhurst, and told her "that she might stay there as long as Anne needed her, but no longer"--ah, that happy "but!"--he went away to his own little house at Kingcombe, and busied himself there for three days.

"Do you think Nathanael will come and see us this morning?" said Anne, looking up from the papers with which she was occupied, towards Agatha, who stood at the window watching down the road.

"Did you want my husband!"

"Oh, no! I can do my business myself now. But I think he will come."

"Why do you think so?"

"Why?--Child, come here." And as Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss Valery leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can condescend to at times, especially when recovering from sickness.

"She is a foolish child! Did she fancy n.o.body loved her? Did she think everybody believed she was wicked (and so she was, now and then, very wicked). Does she suppose n.o.body sees her poor little goodnesses? Oh, but they do! They will find all out without my telling. It is best to leave things alone."

"You must not speak; it will do you harm."

"Not thus whispering. Nay, lay the head down again. Imagine it only a little bird in the air talking to my child. Some kind of characters--I once knew the like well!"--and Anne's whisper came through a half sigh--"are very proud and jealous over the thing they love. They cannot bear a breath to rest on it, or to go from it to any other than themselves. They are very silent, too; would die rather than complain.

They are strong-willed and secret--and as for persuading them to anything against their will, you might as well attempt to cleave with your little hand to the heart of a great oak. You must shine over it, and rain softly on it, and cling close round it, and it will take you into its arms, and support you safe, and hang you all round with beautiful leaves. But you must always remember that it is a n.o.ble forest-oak, and that you are only its dews, or its sunshine, or its ivy garland. You must never attempt to come between it and the skies."

Anne ceased. Agatha looked up with moistened eyelids.

"I understand; I will try--if you will stay with me. I cannot do anything right without you."

Anne smiled. "Poor little Agatha! Not even with the help of her husband?"

"My husband! Oh, teach me to be a good wife, such a wife as you would have been--as you may be"--

Agatha felt a soft finger closing her lips, and knew that on _that_ subject there must still be, as ever, total silence. She hid her face, and obeyed.

At length Miss Valery started. "There is a horse coming down the road, I think. Go, look. It may be your husband."

Agatha rose, and ran to the window.

Anne half rose too. "I fancy I hear two horses. Is anybody with Nathanael?"

"Only Mr. Dugdale."