"I hope, nay, I am sure of it, G.o.d willing!" said Anne, softly. "He often puts hindrances in our way, but in the end He always works things round, and we see them clearly afterwards. Still we ought hardly to say even of the strongest love or dearest wish we have, 'It _must_ be!' without also saying 'G.o.d willing.'"

Agatha replied not. This was a new doctrine for her. How rarely in her young, pa.s.sionless, sorrowless life, she had thought of the few words, oft used in cant, and Agatha hated all cant--"the will of G.o.d." She pondered over them much.

"What sort of a night is it" said Anne, at length.

"Very dreary and rainy, and the wind is high."

"No matter, it will not reach them. The _Ardente_ will be safe in Southampton-water by this time."

Agatha recurred to the perpetual letter; "Yes, so my husband tells me here."

"And therefore," Miss Valery continued, laying her hand over the paper, "his good little wife shall fold up this, and not weary herself any more with anxiety about him. Those who love ought above all others to trust in the love of G.o.d."

After this they sat patient and content--nay, oftentimes quite merry, for Agatha strove hard to amuse her companion. And the wind sang its song without--not threateningly, but rather in mirth; and the fire burnt brightly, within. And no one thought of them but as friends and servants--the terrible Wind, the devouring Fire.

It was growing late, and Agatha began to use the petty tyranny with which Miss Valery had invested her, insisting on her friend's going to bed.

"I will presently; only give me time--a little time. I am not so young as you, my child, and have not so many hours to waste in sleeping. There now, I'll be good. Wait--you see I am already pulling down my hair."

She did so, rather feebly. It fell on her shoulders longer and thicker than any one would have believed--it was really beautiful, except for those broad white streaks.

"What soft fine hair," cried Agatha, admiringly. "Ah, you shall go without caps in the spring--I declare you shall."

"Not at my age."

"That cannot be so very ancient. I shouldn't mind asking you the direct question, for I am sure you are not one of those foolish women who are ashamed to tell their age, as if any number of years matters while we keep a young warm heart."

"I am thirty-nine or forty, I forget which," said Anne, as she drew her fingers through the long locks, gazing down on them with some pensiveness. "I myself never liked hair of this colour, neither brown nor black; but mine was always soft and smooth, and some people used to think it _pretty_ once."

"It is pretty now. You will always be beautiful, dear, dear Anne! I will call you Anne, for you are scarcely older than I, except in a few contemptible years not worth mentioning," continued the girl, st.u.r.dily.

"And I will have you as happy, too, as I."

Anne sat silent a minute or two, the hair dropping over her face. Then she raised it and looked into the fire with a calm sweet look that Agatha thought perfectly divine.

"I have been happy," she said. "That is I have not been unhappy--G.o.d knows I have not. I have had a great deal to do always, and in all my labour was there profit. It comforted me, and helped to comfort others; it made me feel that my life was not wholly thrown away, as many an unmarried woman's is, but as no one's ever need be."

"But some are. Think of Jane Ianson, of whom Emma wrote me word yesterday. If ever any woman spent a mournful, useless life, and died of a broken heart, it was poor Jane Ianson."

"Her story was pitiful, but she somewhat erred," Anne answered, thoughtfully. "No human being _ought_ to die of a 'broken heart' (as the phrase is) while G.o.d is in His heaven, and has work to be done upon His earth. There are but two things that can really throw a lasting shadow over woman's existence--an unworthy love, and a lost love. The first ought to be rooted out at all risks; for the other--let it stay! There are more things in life than mere marrying and being happy. And for love--a high, pure, holy love, held ever faithful to one object,"--and as she spoke, Anne's whole face lightened and grew young--"no fortune or misfortune--no time or distance--no power either in earth or heaven can alter _that_."

There was a pause, during which the two women sat silent and grave. And the wind howled round the house, and the fire crackled harmlessly in the chimney, but they noticed neither--the fierce Wind--the awful Fire.

"It is a wild night," said Agatha at last. "But they are landed at Southampton long ago. Last night was lovely--such a moon! and they were sure to sail, because the _Ardente_ only plies once a week, and there is no other boat this winter-time. Oh, yes! they are quite safe in Southampton. I shouldn't wonder if they were both here to breakfast to-morrow."

And Agatha, with her little heart beating quick, merrily, and fast, never thought to look at her companion. Anne's eyes were dilated, her lips quivering--all her serenity was gone.

"To-morrow--to-morrow," she murmured, and as with a sudden pain, put her hand to her chest, breathing hard and rapidly. "Agatha, hold me fast--don't let me go--just for a little while.--I _cannot_ go!"

She clung to the young girl with a pallid, frightened aspect, like one who looks down into a place of darkness, and shudders on its verge.

Never before had that expression been seen in Anne Valery. Slowly it pa.s.sed away, leaving the calmness that was habitual to her. Agatha hung round her neck, and kissed her into smiles.

"Now," she said, rising, "let us both go to bed. You look tired, my child, and we must have your very best looks when you make breakfast for _them_ in the morning. That is, if they both come here."

"They will come--my husband says so. He knows, and is determined that Uncle Brian shall know--everything."

Anne sat still--so still, that her young companion was afraid she had vexed her.

"No, dear--not vexed. But no human being can know everything! It lies between him and me--and G.o.d."

So saying, she rose, fastened up the long hair in which the last lingering beauty of her youth lay--put on her little close cap, and was again the composed gentle lady of middle age.

She rung for the housekeeper, and gave various orders for the morning, desiring a few trivial additions to the breakfast, which would have made Agatha smile, but that she noted a slight hesitation in the voice that ordered them.

"Is there anything your husband would like especially? I don't quite understand his ways."

Agatha blushed as she answered--"Nor I."

"You will not answer so in a few months hence," said Anne, when they were alone. "It is a very unromantic doctrine, but few young wives know how much the happiness of a home depends on little things--that is, if anything can be little which is done for _his_ comfort, and is pleasant to _him_. There's a lecture for you, Mistress Agatha. Now go to bed, and rise in the morning to begin a new era, as the happiest and best wife in all England."

"I will," cried Agatha, laughing, though with a tear or two in her eyes.

To think how much Anne had guessed of the wretched past, yet, with true delicacy, how entirely she had concealed that knowledge!

They embraced silently, and then Miss Valery went into her own room, where, year after year, when all the duties and cheerfulness of the day were done, the solitary woman had shut herself in--alone with her own heart and with G.o.d. The young wife stood and looked with thoughtful reverence at the closed door of that room.

It was eleven o'clock, yet somehow Mrs. Harper did not feel inclined to go to bed. She had too many things to think of, too many plans to make and resolutions to form. Her life must settle itself calmly now. Its trouble, tumult, and uncertainty were over. She felt quite sure of her husband's goodness--of his deep and tender love for herself--nay, also of her own for him--only that was a different sort of feeling. She thought less on this than on the other side of the subject--how sweet it was to be so dear to him. She would try and deserve him more--be to him a faithful wife and a good house-wife, and make herself happy in his devotion.

She smiled as she pa.s.sed through the hall where he had stood and said, "Do you love me?" She wished she had frankly answered "Yes," as was indeed the truth; only his strong love had lately made her own seem so poor and weak.

Lingering on the spot which his feet had last pressed, she tried to fancy him beside her, and acted the scene over again, "making believe,"

childish fashion, that she stood on tiptoe attempting to reach up to his mouth--a very long way!--and there breathing out the "Yes" in a perfectly justifiable and unquestionable fashion. And then she laughed at her own conceit--the foolish little wife!--and tripped off into the drawing-room, lest the old butler, who always went round the house at midnight to see that all was safe, might catch her at her antics.

Still, were they not quite natural? Was she not a very happy and fondly-worshipped wife? and was not her husband coming home the next morning?

Entering the drawing-room, her high spirits were somewhat sobered down; its atmosphere felt so gloomy and cold. The fire had nearly died out--the ill-natured fire, that did not know there was a cheerful little woman coming to sit beside it and dream of all sorts of pleasant things.

"I wish fires would never go out," said Agatha, rather crossly; and she stirred it, and blew it, and cherished it, as if it were the only pleasant companion in this dreary room.

"How I do love fire," she said at last, as she sat down on the hearth-rug and warmed her little feet and hands by the blaze, and would not look in the dark corners of the room, but kept her face turned from them, as during her life she had kept it turned away from all gloomy subjects. Pa.s.sionate anguish of her own making, she had known; but that stern, irremediable sorrow which comes direct from the unseen Mover of all things and lays its heavy hand on the sufferer's head, saying, "Be still, and know that I am G.o.d"--this teaching, which must come to every human soul that is worth its destiny, had never yet come to Agatha Harper.

Was it this unknown something even now tracking her, that made her long for the familiar daylight, and feel afraid of night, with its silence, its solitude, and its dark?

"I will go to bed and try to sleep," she said. "It is but a few hours.

My husband is certain to be here in the morning."

She rose, laughed at herself for starting on some slight noise in the quiet house--old Andrews locking up the front door, probably--snuffed her candle to make it as bright as possible, and prepared to go up-stairs.

A light knock at the door.

"Come in, Andrews. The fire is all safe, and I shall vanish now."