"It's no use, Anne," he said, after a brief greeting, during which
he felt her pulse in quite a professional way, and pronounced it
"stronger--much stronger--and too quick almost."

"What is of no use?"

"Brian Harper won't come home! All his abominable, con--yes, I'll out
with it--his confounded pride." And Duke tried to look very savage, but
couldn't manage it.

"Where is he?"

"Somewhere near Havre; we can't make out where. He will not write. Ask
Nathanael."

"I am afraid it is too true," said Nathanael, leaving his wife, to whom
he had been talking by the window. "I shall have to hunt him out, and
use all my persuasions before he will come home; because he is too proud
to return poor as he went out. What shall I say to him, Anne? I shall
start to-morrow."

Agatha turned quickly round. Her husband did not see her anxious
look--he was watching Miss Valery.

"Tell him, Nathanael, that his brother is dead, and his presence needed
in the family. Once make him understand that it is right to come, and he
will come. No one was ever more able to do or to suffer _for the right_,
than Brian Harper."

Marmaduke shook her hand heartily. "Anne, you are as wise as a man,
and as faithful as a woman. If poor Brian were going to be hanged for
murder, I do believe-his old friend would find a good word to say for
him!"

"Well," said Nathanael, after a silence, "I shall go to Havre to-morrow.
You can spare me, Anne? And for my wife"--

Agatha hung her head. A vague dread smote her. She would have given
worlds to have courage enough to beg him not to go.

"Havre is across the sea," she murmured. "Surely Uncle Brian would come
home in time, if you waited."

Waited! she caught a sight of Anne's bent profile, marble-like, with the
shut eyes. Waited!

Agatha crept to her husband's side. "No--no waiting," she whispered.
"Go. I would not keep you back an hour. Bring him. Quick--quick."

Could Anne have heard, that she wakened up into such a life-like smile?
"No, dear, you must not send your husband away so hastily. Let him
sail from Southampton to-morrow; that will do. He wants to talk to you
to-day."

Nathanael looked surprised. "It is true, I did; and I told my brother to
meet me here this afternoon. Did you know that too?"

"I guessed it. You are doing right, quite right. I knew you would. I
knew _you_, Nathanael."

She held out her hand to him, warmly.

"Dear Anne! But you forget--it is not I only who have to d