was drawn
round the husband and wife, sacredly shutting them in from the world
without, which could never more come between them, or intermeddle with
their sorrows or their joys.

At length Agatha freed herself gently from his clasp, saying, after
her old habit of hiding emotion under a jest, something about the
impossibility that the mistress of a household could idle away her time
in this way. She made her husband's breakfast, and insisted on watching
him finish it.

Drinking, he said with a shudder, "Oh, Agatha, you don't know what it is
to be thirsty! The hunger was nothing to it."

"Don't talk of that, don't," murmured she, turning pale.

"I will not, dear. But was it not strange that we should have drifted
ashore at Weymouth?"

"Very strange."

"Have you sent over the way this morning, to see after Uncle Brian?"

"Not yet; but Harrie will take care of him. He is not near so much hurt
as you, and I must look after my own husband first." And once again
wistfully gazing at him, she threw her arms round his neck, murmuring,
"My own--my own!"

The church-bells ceased, the breakfast was removed, and the husband and
wife sat together.

"Somebody," said Nathanael, suddenly--"somebody ought to go and see
Anne Valery this Christmas-day.

"Does she know?"

"She knew last night. Marmaduke said he should ride over and tell her."

"What news for her to hear--dear, dear Anne!"

And they fell into a silence.

Agatha said at last, "When am I to see Uncle Brian?"

"Very soon, dear. Yet--stay--is not that some one at the door?"

It certainly was. People walked into one another's houses so very
unceremoniously at Kingcombe. This visitor, however, paused in the hall,
and then opened the parlour-door.

He was a remarkably tall man, with grey hair, and features not unlike
Nathanael's, being regular and delicate. But their expression was much
harsher, and indicative of a strong will and a settled bitterness, which
only passed over when he smiled. This smile was very beautiful, and
seemed to steal from his worn and hard-lined aspect at least ten years.
Agatha knew who he was immediately.

"Uncle Brian!" Nathanael sprang up, despite his weakness, and they
grasped one another's hands as heartily as if they had not met for
years.

"Is this your wife?"

"It is indeed; my own dear wife."

"God bless her." Mr. Locke Harper took Agatha by the hand, and looked at
her keenly. The peculiar expression either of bitterne