which seemed to ask, should she come and help him? "No, dear, I
can help myself--such a useful-handed fellow doesn't want a wife even to
pack up for him. And, possibly, if you were with me, I should only find
it the harder to go. It is rather hard."

"But it is right"

"I think," said Anne--they had not known she was listening--"I think it
is right, or I would not let Nathanael go. And Heaven will take care of
him, and bring him safe home to you, Agatha. Be content."

"I was content," she said, somewhat lightly. It was a strange thing, but
yet human nature, that her husband's fits of passionate tenderness only
seemed to make her own feelings grow calm. Whether it was the shyness of
her girlhood, or the variableness of a love not spontaneous but
slowly responsive, or whether--a feeling wrong, yet alas! wondrously
natural--it was the mere wilfulness of a woman who knows herself to be
infinitely beloved, certain it was that Agatha appeared not quite the
same as a few hours before. Affectionate still, and happy, happier
than it is the nature of deep love to be; yet there was a something
wanting--some strong stroke to cleave her heart, and show beyond all
doubt what lay at its core. The heart often needs such teaching; and if
so, surely--most surely it will come.

Agatha followed her husband to the hall. He was grave with his
leave-taking of Anne Valery, who had looked less cheerful, and had
breathed rather than spoken the last "God bless you!--Come back soon."
The young man did not again say, even to himself, anything about his
journey being "hard."

But as he stood in the hall with his wife, he lingered. Youth is youth,
and love is love, and each seems so real--life's only reality while
it lasts. No human being, while drinking the magic cup, ever looks or
listens to those who have drank, and set it down empty. Be the history
ever so sad, each one thinks, smiling, "Oh, but I shall be happier than
these."

Nathanael took his wife in his arms to bid her good-bye. She stood,
looking down; bashful, reserved, but so fair! And so good likewise--all
her girlish whims could not hide her heart-goodness. In her whole
demeanour was the germ of that noble womanhood which every good man
wishes his wife to possess, that she may become his heart of hearts,
the desired and honoured of his soul, and remain such, long after all
passion dies. There was one thing only wanting in her--the light which
played waveringly in and out--sometim