"We will," said Agatha, setting her lips together, and sitting down firmly to listen. She was in her right senses now. She had undergone the shock, and risen from it another woman.

"I wish you would make haste and tell me. You don't know how quiet I am now, nor how much I can bear--only tell me."

Marmaduke began, speaking in fragments hurriedly put together, looking steadily down on his hands, using a brief business tone--just as if every syllable had not been planned by him on his way back, so that the tidings might fall most gradually on the poor wife's ear.

"It was indeed the Ardente. Four sailors were picked up yesterday, in one of her boats. They say it's likely that others may have got off in the same way."

"Ah!" That wild sob of thanksgiving! Marmaduke seemed to dread it more than despair. He hastily added:

"But they had many things against them. The fire happened at midnight.

When it broke out there was no one on deck but one pa.s.senger, walking up and down. He was a young man, the sailors say, tall, with long light hair."

The speaker's voice faltered; he could not bear to see the misery he inflicted. At last Agatha motioned to hear more.

"One sailor remembers him particularly, because during all the tumult he was almost the only person who seemed to have his wits about him. He was seen everywhere--getting out the boats, quieting the pa.s.sengers--doing it all, the man says, as steadily as if he had been in his own house on sh.o.r.e, instead of in a burning ship. If there was any one likely to have saved his own life and the lives of others, the sailors think it must be that young man."

"When did they see him last?"

"Not five minutes before the ship went down. He was in a boat with several more. They think it was he because of his light hair. He was leaning over towards a floating spar, helping in a woman and child."

"Ah, then it was he! It was my husband!" cried Agatha, clasping her hands, while her countenance glowed like that of some Roman wife, who, dearer even than his life, esteemed her husband's honour.

"I believe," she said, as that rapture faded, and the natural pang returned--"I firmly believe that he has been saved. G.o.d would not let him perish. He must have got safe off from the wreck in that boat. Don't you think he has?"

Duke could not meet those eager eyes; he fidgeted in his seat, looked down on his hands, and told them over, finger by finger. At last he said, with that peculiar upward look which, amidst all his eccentricities, showed the beautiful serenity of a righteous man--a man who "walked with G.o.d:"

"Child, we can none of us be certain either way. We can only do all that lies in human power, and leave the event in the hand of One who is wiser and more loving than us all."

Agatha bowed her head, and her heart with it, almost to the dust. She remembered Anne Valery's saying--how much those who loved have need to trust in G.o.d. Poor Anne! Never until this minute had any one thought of Anne at home at Thornhurst. Shocked at the selfishness that often comes with great misery, Agatha cried eagerly:

"Did you hear anything about Uncle Brian?"

"No--nothing." The quick, husky tone, as Marmaduke turned and walked away, betrayed how keenly the good man suffered, though he never spoke of any sufferings but Agatha's. She was deeply touched.

"Take hope," she said earnestly. "He will be saved. My husband would never forsake Uncle Brian."

"I know that; but then Nathanael is young, and has something to live for, while Brian is getting on in years--older than I am.--I should like to have seen him again, and have shown him little Brian; but--well it's a strange world! Heaven's mercy is sure to give us a life to come, perhaps many lives--if only to make clear the hard mysteries of this. I should like to have talked that matter over once again with poor Brian."

And Duke seemed wandering into his mild, dreamy philosophies, till Agatha recalled him.

"Now, what is to be done? You said, if we heard nothing, the boats must be drifting about somewhere in the Channel"--she shivered--"and then we would take a little steamer, and go and look for them?"

"I know. She's getting ready."

"That is right. Then we will go on board at once," said Agatha, with decision. She, who a week ago would have been terrified at the bare thought of setting her foot on the deck of any vessel!

"Poor little delicate thing," muttered Duke, watching her. "It will be a rough sea to-night, and we may be a day or two in getting round the coast. You had better go home, Agatha."

She shook her head.

"Somebody once told me you had never been at sea in your life; and in winter-time this Dorset coast is rough always, sometimes dangerous."

"Dangerous! and he is there!" She began tying on her bonnet, hastily, but steadily, as steadily as if preparing for an every-day walk. "Now, I am quite ready. Let us start."

Her brother made no more objections, but took her through the busy Southampton streets. Once, on the quay, two lounging sailors touched their hats to Mr. Dugdale, and Agatha heard a whisper of "Belongs to some o' the poor fellows as went down in the _Ardente_." She shuddered, as if there were already upon her the awful sign of widowhood.

--The wide Southampton harbour, with the crafts of all nations gliding to and fro upon it--the bustle of the landing and embarking place--the hurrying crowd, eager after their own business, none thinking of the one little vessel suddenly whelmed in that wondrous sea-highway, ever thronged, yet ever lonely, or of the wrecked crew drifting hither and thither, no one knew where. The tale had been a day's talk, a day's pity--then forgotten.

Agatha stood in the midst of all, but saw nothing. Nothing but the grey, bleak, merciless sea, howling and dancing to her feet like a victorious enemy, or sweeping off into the silence of the wintry horizon, there grimly folding up its mystery, as if to say, "Of me thou shalt know nothing." But Agatha felt as if, to win that secret, she was ready to pierce into nethermost h.e.l.l.

"Quick, let us go," she said, and almost bounded into the little vessel.

She stood on the deck, trembling with excitement, watched the paddles crash into obedience the cruel waves, ride over them, on--on--to the mouth of the bay. And now for the first time she was out on the open sea.

It was one of those gloomy winter days when the whole ocean looks sullen--heavy with brooding storms. No blue foamy sweeps, no lovely sea-green calms; nothing but leaden-coloured hills of water, swelling and sinking, with black valleys between. Agatha remembered a story she had read or heard in her childish days, of some wrecked sailor lad, doomed to death by his mates because the boat was too full for safety, who asked leave to sit on the gunwale until after the curl of the wave, and then quietly dropped off into the smooth hollow below.

It was horrible! She could not look at the sea--it made her mad. She could only look skywards, and try to find a break in the dun clouds; or else over to the horizon, to see something--ever so faint and small a something--breaking the line of water and sky.

The men on board apparently knew Mr. Dugdale, and he them. They worked with a respectful solemnity, as if aware of their sad errand. The boat was a little steam-tug, and she cut her way over the heavy seas like a bird. Two men, and Marmaduke, kept watch constantly with the gla.s.s, sh.o.r.ewards and seawards. Sometimes they went so far out that the hazy coast-line almost vanished, and then again they ran in-sh.o.r.e under the gigantic cliffs that lock the south of England coast.

Hour after hour, the poor wife remained on deck, sometimes walking about restlessly, sometimes lying wrapped in sails and rugs, her face turned seaward in a dumb hopelessness that was more piteous than any moans. The seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe, mingled with that compa.s.sionate gentleness which sailors almost always show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her food, or put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the sheltering of "the poor lady."

Late at night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again.

She found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compa.s.s and the telescope.

He had slept by s.n.a.t.c.hes where he sat, never giving up his watch for a single hour.

"E--h!" he said, when she came and touched him. "I was dreaming of the Missus and the little ones at home!"

"Do you want to go home?"

"No--no!--not while there's a hope. Keep heart, my child!"

But they looked at each other's faces in the dawn, and saw how pale and disconsolate both were. And still the little lonely boat kept rocking over the sea--the pitiless sea, that returned neither answer nor sign.

Another day--another night: just the same. Once or twice they came on the track of some vessel; a ship outward or homeward bound, and told their story; shouting it out, in brief business-like words--how horrible they sounded! And the ship's people would be seen to come to her side, stand a while looking at the melancholy little steamer on its hopeless search--then pa.s.s on. All the world seemed pa.s.sing on slowly, slowly--leaving them to that blank sea and sky, and to their own despair.

On the evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for several hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at the stern, looking sh.o.r.ewards at two columns of rock, which the watery wear of ages had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright in the sea, a little distance from one another, with the breakers boiling between.

"There's 'Old Harry and his wife,' as the Dorset people call them. We are near home now, Agatha."

"Home!" She gasped the word in an agony, and turned her face again seawards--towards the grey desolate line where the Channel melted away.

"The steamer can't run on much longer without putting in-sh.o.r.e," said Duke, after an interval.

Agatha almost shrieked; "You are not going to land? We have been out such a little--little while! And you said yourself the boats would live a long time in the open Channel."

"But that was three days ago."

"Three days--oh, Heaven!--three days."