Agatha knew who he was immediately.

"Uncle Brian!" Nathanael sprang up, despite his weakness, and they grasped one another's hands as heartily as if they had not met for years.

"Is this your wife?"

"It is indeed; my own dear wife."

"G.o.d bless her." Mr. Locke Harper took Agatha by the hand, and looked at her keenly. The peculiar expression either of bitterness or melancholy came over his face, but as he watched her it gradually faded off. There seemed an enchantment in the young wife's sweet looks.

"You two are very happy?"

They exchanged a glance, which needed no words of confirmation; but Agatha said, with a shy blush, and a womanly grace that made her sweeter-looking than ever.

"We are all the happier now Uncle Brian has come home."

"Thank you, my dear. Thank your husband too, for me. I would have been lying 'full fathom five' in the Channel now, if it were not for that boy."

"That boy" sounded oddly enough, save for the world of tenderness in the phrase, and the look which accompanied it. Any one could see at once the strong attachment subsisting between the uncle and nephew. No more was betrayed, however, and they soon began a conversation as natural and unconcerned as if they had gone through no peril, and suffered no emotion. Certainly, however strong their feelings, the Harpers were not a "sentimental" family.

Agatha thought, as like a dutiful wife she sat still and listened, that she had never seen any man--saving her husband of course--whose mien was so simple, yet so truly n.o.ble, as Brian Locke Harper's. She watched him with a pathetic curiosity, thinking what he must have been as a young man, with many other thoughts besides, which came from the very depths of her woman's heart.

Uncle Brian talked, though in a rather fragmentary and brief fashion, of Kingcombe and of the changes he found. He never by any chance mentioned any other place than Kingcombe, until Nathanael happened to ask him where Duke was this morning?

"He has ridden out."

"But I wanted to see him, and thank him for being so kind to my poor little wife. Where has he gone?"

"To Thornhurst." The word came out sharp, low, yet with a certain tone that made it unlike other words. After saying it, Uncle Brian sat moodily looking at the fire from under his eyebrows, until Agatha, with womanly wisdom, broke the silence, by speaking to her husband.

"I think some time this afternoon I ought to go and see Anne Valery."

"You shall go, dear."

Uncle Brian observed, never moving his eyes from the fire, "Harriet said that she--Miss Valery--was not quite strong this winter. Was that true?"

Agatha answered, "That it was only too true."

Something in her manner seemed to startle Mr. Locke Harper; he threw towards her one of his flashing, penetrating looks.

"We have indeed been very anxious about poor Anne," she answered. "But winter is a trying season, and we hope, in the spring"--

"Yes, in the spring," repeated Uncle Brian, hastily. "What a gay garden you have for Christmas." He opened the gla.s.s door, and immediately went out. They saw him walking about, backwards and forwards, among chrysanthemum beds and arbutus-trees, pa.s.sing hurriedly, and with a bent-down, abstracted gaze, which beheld nothing.

"Does he know about her?" said Agatha to her husband. "You said you would tell him."

"I could not, his mood was too bitter. And there are some things in which not even I dare break upon the reserve of Uncle Brian. He is as secret and as proud--as I am."

"Ah, but"--

"I understand that 'but' my child. I know how much both he and I have often erred."

His wife pressed his hand fondly, to indicate how love had sealed its kiss of forgiveness upon all things. Nathanael smiled, and continued:

"I found Uncle Brian in such a strange mood at Havre. I dared not speak of anything just then, but thought the fit time would be when we came near the Dorset coast, and his heart was softened at the sight of home.

I was walking on deck, pondering how to tell him, when the fire began."

"Ah, don't." And Agatha forgot everything--it was natural she should--in rejoicing once more over the beloved saved. Suddenly, there was heard a fluttering, and a chattering with Dorcas in the hall, marking an unmistakable approach--Mrs. Dugdale with her young flock.

Harrie was in the best of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that may be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been seen either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced Agatha warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fort.i.tude, but shook his hair after it, like a boy who has been petted against his will. However, he kissed his little nephews good-humouredly, let Brian sit astride on his sofa-pillows, benignly a.s.sured Fred's inquiring mind that Uncle Nathanael had not been to the bottom of the sea and up again--and answered Gus with a more serious voice, that it was not exactly "funny"

to be drowned.

"Funny? No, indeed," exclaimed the mother. "I am sure the shock was dreadful to us all. I don't know when _I_ shall get over it And that reminds me that Duke thinks it had been too much for poor Anne. She is worse,--keeping her bed. I don't understand sick people much, but if Agatha could go--Oh, there you are, Uncle Brian! Duke sent a message to you. He says, he is afraid it will be some days before you can see your old friend Anne: she is very ill indeed."

Brian stood silent, resting his hand on the gla.s.s-door. The colourless face, void of any expression, excepting the eyes, and they--never, while she lived, did Agatha forget the look of those eyes! She whispered, pa.s.sing him by,

"I am going to her now--I shall send word soon;" and left the room.

There was a slight difficulty about her being driven to Thornhurst, as she insisted on her husband's keeping quiet at home. Harrie made a dozen plans and counter-plans, until they were all frustrated by Brian Harper's rising from the corner, where he had sat motionless.

"If you will allow me, I will drive you there."

"Thank you." There was no more said about it; they started.

Mr. Locke Harper scarcely spoke to his niece all the way, until just as they were pa.s.sing the gate where, on that awful walk, Agatha had startled Mrs. Dugdale.

"I hear you came all these miles on foot, in the middle of the night. It was a very brave thing for a woman to do. I did not think any woman could have love enough in her to do it."

"I know several who would do much more."

"Who are they?"

"Harrie Dugdale, probably; and for certain, Anne Valery."

Brian said no more until they reached the gates of Thornhurst. There he helped her to descend, reins in hand, and waited. Just as Agatha was going he touched her arm:

"Ask how she is, will you?"

Agatha sent the message up-stairs, and remained with him for a minute or two. He stood motionless by the horse, his hat pulled down over his brows--nothing visible but the sharp profile of his mouth. Old Andrews called him "that gentleman"--eyed him with some curiosity, then bowed, and wished him a "merry Christmas, sir," country fashion.

The answer about the mistress of Thornhurst was brief; she was "much the same;" the servants did not seem to apprehend any danger.

Brian shook his niece's hand. "I shall go back across the moors to Kingcombe. Tell her, if, at any time, she would like to see an old friend"--

He stopped, threw down Dunce's reins, and started off towards the high ground, striding over heather and furze, with his free backwoodsman's step.

Andrews looked after him. "If that be any man alive it be Mr. Locke Harper! O Lord! and I didn't know 'un--my dear old master! Mr. Harper!

Sir! Mr. Locke Harper." He ran a little way in vain pursuit of the retreating figure; then Agatha saw him sit down on a stone, hide his face in his shaking old hands, and cry for joy.

While, far over the hill-side, in very sight of the closed blinds of Anne's room, the returned wanderer strode away, and disappeared.