will take the chance. All shall be as
you deem best for your own happiness. As for mine--I will try to be
content."

He paused a little, but it was a pause which no woman could
misunderstand. Then, turning back to her, he said in a low tone,

"When am I to go away, Agatha?"

Her brow dropped slowly against his arm, as, much agitated, yet not
unhappy, she whispered the one word "_Never_."

For one moment Agatha felt against her own the loud convulsive throbs of
the heart that loved her--an embrace which, in its fierce rapture, was
like none that came before it, or after. When she learned to count and
chronicle such tokens of love, as one begins to count each wave when
the sand grows dry, this embrace remained to her as a truth, a reality,
which no succeeding doubts could explain away or gainsay.

It lasted, as such moments can but last, a space too brief to be
reckoned, dying out of its own intensity. Agatha slid from her lover's
arms, and swiftly passing out at the door, met Emma coming in. The
unlucky bridegroom was left to make his own explanation to Mrs.
Thornycroft, and how he performed that feat remains a mystery to this
day.

Solemnly, and much affected, the bride went up-stairs to put on her
wedding-garments.

Anne Valery had just arrived. She sat alone in Miss Bowen's
dressing-room, playing with the orange-wreath. Her face wore a
thoughtful, sickly, sad look, but the moment she heard some one at the
door this expression vanished.

"So, my dear, you have a rather unconscionable bridegroom, Mrs.
Thornycroft tells me. He has been here already."

Suddenly all that had happened recurred to Agatha. She forgot her own
agitation in the joy of being the first to bring good news.

"Ah, you little know why he came. Uncle Brian--there is a letter from
Uncle Brian."

And in her warm-heartedness of delight she threw her arms round Miss
Valery's neck. She was very much surprised that Anne did not speak a
single word, and that the cheek against which her young glowing one was
pressed felt as cold as marble.

"Are you not glad, Miss Valery?"

"Yes, very glad. Now will you go down-stairs and fetch me the letter?"

And, gently putting the young girl from her, Anne sat down! As Agatha
left the room, she fancied she heard a faint sound--a sigh or gasp; but
Miss Valery had not moved. She sat as at first--her hands clasped on her
lap, the veil of her bonnet falling over her face. And coming back some
minutes after,