e of year"--he stopped with a
perceptible shudder--"then, Agatha," and Duke's gentle voice grew
gentler, and solemn like a psalm, "then, my child, we'll go home."

Agatha bowed her head. Bodily exhaustion calmed her mind, and soothed
her into a feeling which made even the last dread alternative less
fearful. She felt a conviction that such "going home" would only be a
prelude to the last going home of all, when she should never part from
her husband more. She did not much mind now, even if all were to end so.
Perhaps it would be best.

They got out of the carriage. All her limbs were cramped--she could
hardly stand. Mr. Dugdale took her unresisting, to a quiet inn he knew,
and there made her lie down and take food. Somehow, even in the last
extremity, Duke Dugdale could win people over to do his pleasure, which
was always for their own good.. He sat by her and talked, but only for
a few minutes--he had no thought of wasting even in kindness the time on
which might hang life or death.

"I am going now, and you must stay here till my return, which is sure
not to be for at least two hours."

"Two hours!--Oh, take me with you!"

Duke shook his head. "You would only hinder me, I fear. See there, now!"

Trying to rise and cross the parlour, she had nearly fallen. A drowsy
weakness stole over her--she let her good brother have his own way
entirely. Very soon she found herself alone in the parlour, lying in the
dusky light of closed blinds, with the dull murmur creeping up from the
street--lying quietly in a state of passive patience.

No human brain can endure a great strain of mental anguish long. A
merciful numbness usually seizes it, in which everything grows hazy
and unreal, and consequently painless. Agatha felt convinced she was
half-asleep, and that she should wake up in her own room at Thorn-hurst
or at Kingcombe, and find out everything to be a dream. Or even granting
its reality, she seemed to view the whole story like some unconcerned
person, or some being from whom this troubled world had passed away, and
grown less than nothing and vanity. She gazed down upon herself as it
were from a great height, thinking how sad a story it was, and how
it would have grieved herself to hear it of any one else. But all her
thoughts were disconnected and unnatural. The only tangible feeling
was a sort of comfort in remembering the last day they had spent
together--in thinking how he loved her, and that, living or dying, he