for love of me--and I am hardly worth such loving--it must have
been from some motive, perhaps higher than love--some bond of honour
which he could not break. Did he not say something to that effect once?
Let me think."

Again she sat down, and so far as her excited feelings would allow,
tried to recall the story of their acquaintance, courtship, marriage--a
six-month's tale--how brief, yet how full. Amidst its confusion,
amidst all the variations of her own feelings, stood out one steadfast
image--her husband.

His character was peculiar--very peculiar. Its strength, reticence,
power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension;
but its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour--she could
understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral
right that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of
wounding the wife he loved--if he ever had loved her.

For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on
this one point of torture--then it settled. "_God knows I did love
you, Agatha_." He had said so--he who never uttered a falsehood. It was
enough.

"Yet he '_did_' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied
him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last
insulting wrong. I--to tell him he 'married me for my money'--when all
the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word. Oh,
no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never
can love me any more."

She burst into a passion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a
sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright,
clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous attitude of a child.

"There is a better thing than love--goodness. And whether he loves me or
not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have
been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My noble
husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!"

She said this in a delirium of joy--a woman's pure joy, when she can set
aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of
the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her
features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her.

Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face.

Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the
house--misfortune following--and she had