if she only made _him_--who had
now in her thoughts sank to the namelessness, which proves that one name
is fast filling up the whole world--made him stir from that mountain
height of impassive calm--melted him into repentance--shook him into
frenzied jealousy. Anything--anything--so that he no longer should stand
before her like a serene Alp, which nothing human could disturb, and
which--ah, in all her madness, she saw that but too clearly!--which
had always such a heavenly light shining on its forehead--a purity
"God-given," like his name.

His name, which she had once so disliked, but which now caught a strange
beauty. Lately, she had looked out its meaning in a list of Bible names;
and many a time, the night before, she had said it to herself, crying
it out into the dark, until its soft Hebrew vowels grew musical, and its
holy Hebrew meaning grew divine. "Nathanael--Nathanael--_God-given_."
Might he not indeed be a husband given unto her of God--to lead her in
the right way, and make a true noble woman of her; such as a woman is
always made by the love of, and the loving of, a noble man.

But these were sacred night-time thoughts which vanished in the
daylight, or only came in snatches and rifts, careering through the
blackness that surrounded her.

And still she talked to the fortunate Mr. Trenchard; made herself more
agreeable than she had ever believed possible. The elderly beau was
fascinated, and even Mr. Dugdale turned from election-papers, to look at
his fair sister-in-law with genuine admiration--now and then nodding to
Harrie, as if to see what she thought of this new light that had shot
across their country hemisphere. At which Mrs. Dugdale once or
twice pretended to be mightily jealous, until her husband, with his
inconceivable sweet smile, his way of patting her knees with his big
gentle hand, and the utterly inexpressible tone of his "Nay, now Missus"
made matters quite straight, and plunged back into his politics.

All this while Anne Valery sat in her arm chair--speaking little,
looking from one to the other of her guests with a wandering, thoughtful
eye, that, for once, noticed little the things around her, because her
mental vision was afar off.--Whither--

And Marmaduke went on with his benevolent schemes for improving
Dorsetshire and the world; and his Harrie had her dreams too--possibly
about the advantage an M.P.'s interest might prove in future days to
"the children;" and the young couple,