d not walked by natural feet, but some unseen
influence had drawn and lifted her the whole way. When she stood in
Kingcombe streets she hardly believed her senses--save that nothing
was hard of belief just then, except the one horror--incredible,
unutterable.

Mr. Dugdale was walking up and down Kingcombe railway station, waiting
for the early train. One or two sleepy porters were eyeing him with
a sort of pitying curiosity, for ill news spreads fast in a country
neighbourhood. There was no one else about. Nobody perceived a little
figure creeping up the road and coming on the platform. Even Marmaduke
did not lift his eyes or relax his melancholy walk until something
touched him on the arm. He stood astonished.

"It is I, you see. You are not gone yet."

"How did you come--you poor child?"

"From Thornhurst--I walked. But how soon shall you start?"

"Walked from Thornhurst!--at this time of night!" said one of the
railway-men, who knew the family--as indeed did every one in the
neighbourhood. "Lord help us--it's that poor Mrs. Harper!"

Mr. Dugdale tried to remove Agatha from the platform, but she resisted.

"I am come to go with you to Southampton."

"What need of that? Go back to my house, poor child. If anything is to
be done I can do it. If nothing--why"--

"I _will_ go."

The determination was so calm, the grasp of the little hand so strong,
that her brother-in-law urged no more. He went in his quiet way to take
her ticket, the railway folk moving respectfully aside, and whispering
among themselves something about "poor Mrs. Harper, that was going to
Southampton to see after her husband."

Coming back, Duke attempted not to talk to her, but stood by her
side--she would stand--sometimes feeling at her damp shawl, or wrapping
her up in the tender careful fashion that he used to his own little
ones. At last the great fiery eye, accompanied by the iron beast's
snorting gasps, appeared far in the dark. Agatha drew a long breath,
like a sob.

Mr. Dugdale lifted her in the carriage, almost without a word. One of
the railway-men brought from somewhere--nobody ever learned where--a rug
for her feet, and a pillow for her head to lean on. A minute more, and
they were whirled away.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Every one knows that story, perhaps the most terrible of its kind for
many years--and Heaven grant! for many more to come--when a noble ship,
with her full complement of human beings, fought at once with winds