think," whispered
Agatha to her husband. "Shall I leave you together?"

"Yes," he answered, releasing her, but only to draw her back again,
with the same wildly questioning look, the meaning of which was to her
innocence quite inexplicable.--"My wife?"

"My dear husband!"

At that whisper, which burst from her full heart in the comfort of
seeing him and of knowing that he would take on himself the burden of
all her anxiety, Nathanael let her go. She crept away, most thankful to
get out of the room, and leave Major Harper safe in his brother's hands.

But when a quarter of an hour--half-an-hour--passed by, and still the
two gentlemen remained shut up together, without sending for her to join
their conference, or, as she truly expected, to tell her that poor Major
Harper must be taken home in the delirium of brain fever--Agatha began
rather to wonder at the circumstance.

She apprehended no evil, for her even course of existence had never been
crossed by those sudden tragedies, the impression of which no one ever
entirely overcomes, which teach us to walk trembling along the ways of
life, lest each moment a gulf should open at our feet. Agatha had read
of such misfortunes, but believed them only in books; to her the real
world, and her own fate therein, appeared the most monotonous thing
imaginable. It never entered her mind to create an adventure or a
mystery.

She waited another fifteen minutes--until the clock struck five, and the
servant came up to her to announce dinner, and to know whether the same
information should be conveyed to the gentlemen in the drawing-room.
Servants seem instinctively to guess when there is something
extraordinary going on in a house, and the maid--as she found her
mistress sitting in her bed-chamber, alone and thoughtful--wore a look
of curiosity which made Mrs. Harper colour.

"Go down and tell your master--no, stay, I will go myself."

She waited until the maid had disappeared, and then went down-stairs,
but stopped at the drawing-room door, on hearing within loud voices,
at least one voice--Major Harper's. He seemed pleading or protesting
vehemently: Agatha might almost have distinguished the words, but--and
the fact is much to her credit, since her brother-in-law's apparently
sane tones having suppressed her fears, she was now smitten with very
natural curiosity--but she stopped her ears, and ran up-stairs again.
There she remained, waiting for a lull in the dispute--in which,