own hands. I thought this right, and came here
determined on telling you so."

"Well?" said Agatha, expectantly.

"You promised me this hand to-day, believing I was to leave England at
once. My not leaving frees you from that promise--at least at present.
If you would rather wait until you know me better, or love me better,
then"--

"What then?"

"We will quite blot out this day--crush it--destroy it, no matter what
it was to have been. We will enter upon to-morrow, not as wife and
husband, but mere lovers--friends--acquaintances--anything you like.
Nay--I am growing a fool again."

He put his hand to his forehead, sighed heavily, and then continued with
less violence.

"If this is what you wish--as from your silence I conclude it is--be
assured, Agatha, that I shall consent. I will take no wife against her
will. The kisses of her lips would sting me, if there were no love in
her heart."

Agatha was still silent.

"Well then, it must be so," said he, in slow, measured speech. "I must
go away out of this house, for I am no bridegroom. You may tell the
women to put away this white finery till it is wanted--which may
be--never!"

She looked up questioningly.

"I repeat--_never_. The currents of life, so many and so fierce, may
sweep us asunder at any moment. I may become mercenary, and choose a
richer wife even than yourself; or you may turn from me to some one more
pleasing, more winning--my brother, perhaps"--

Agatha recoiled, while the angry blood flashed from brow to throat. Her
lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze.
But immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of
his own creating, and continued with a softened manner:

"Or, if our own wills hold secure, many things may happen, as Anne
Valery forewarned us, to prevent our union. Even ere a month or two--for
if you are ever mine it must be as soon as then--but even within
that time one or other of us may have gone away where no loving, no
regretting, can ever call us back any more."

Terrible was the imagined solitude of a world from which had passed
the only being who cherished her--the only being whom she thoroughly
honoured. Agatha drew closer to Nathanael.

"Still, for all that," continued he, striving to keep even in his mind
the balance of honour and generous tenderness against the arguments of
selfish passion, "if for any reason you wish to postpone this day for
weeks, months, or years, I