nay,
painfully.

"No, don't tell me. I want to hear nothing, nothing, Agatha. I have
before told you so. Do not be afraid."

"How strange you are! What should I be afraid of?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything. You are my wife now--mine--mine!" and
for a moment he pressed her hand tightly. "In time"--he relinquished his
hold with a sad smile--"in time, Agatha, I hope we shall become used to
one another; perhaps even grow into a contented, sedate married couple."

"Do you think so?" Alas! far more than this had been her thought--the
thought which had dawned when she paused, shuddering over the tale of
King Edward the Martyr and the woman that loved him--the dim hope, daily
rising, of an Eden not altogether lost, even though she had married so
rashly and blindly--a hope that this might have been only the burying of
her foolish girlish dream of love, which must needs die in order to be
raised up again in a different form and in a new existence.

Somewhat heavy-hearted, Agatha sat down on a raised bench that looked
down on the battered and decaying billiard-table, listening to the rain
that pattered on the glass roof above the vine-leaves--wondering how old
were the ragged-looking, flowerless, fruitless orange-trees that were
ranged on either side, the only other specimens of vegetation left.
Evidently nobody at Kingcombe Holm cared much for flowers.

"I think we will quit this dull place. You do not seem to like it,
Agatha?"

"Oh, yes, I like it well enough. I like the rain falling, falling, and
the vine-branches crushing themselves against the panes. They'll never
ripen, never--poor things! They are dying for sun, and it will not--will
not shine!"

"Agatha, what do you mean?"

"I don't clearly know what I mean. Never mind. Talk to me
about--whatever it was that you brought me to unfold. Be quick--I have
not a large stock of patience, you know of old."

"Do not laugh, for I am serious. I wanted to talk to you about our new
house."

"Our new house! Where and what like is it to be, I wonder!"

"Do you not recollect?"

"No; the two we looked at would not do," said Agatha, determinedly. She
guessed what was coming--that the discussion about Wilson's cottage,
which Nathanael seemed so to have set his heart upon, was about to be
renewed. But she would never consent to that--never! "The house I liked
you did not approve of," she continued, observing her husband's silence.
"The other I could not think of for a mom