And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten heavy strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time--too swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon. “My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time has not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any of us. Let Agatha decide.” The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will which any father looking into Nathanael's face could see was not to be threatened into concession. “_Pas aux dames,_” said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air. Then more seriously: “My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you stand between your husband and his father.” Agatha, thrust into so new and important a position, felt a rush of temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain desperation. “He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of what I shall say.” And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and a better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward and forward the still unfamiliar wedding-ring, until in accidentally feeling the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality. “I am a wife,” she thought. “Under _all_ circumstances I will do a wife's duty.” And with that determination all the pleasant little follies and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left her--as one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing else--resolute and at ease. She said very simply--almost childishly--taking her father-in-law's hand the while, “If you please, and if you would not be angry, I would rather do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best.” In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire had walked off, not angrily, but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss Valery's arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with Nathanael. CHAPTER XVI. “So here is the result of family dinner-parties, and family-talks kept up till midnight!” said Mary Harper, with a little natural acerbity. “It is provoking for the mistress of a precise household to sit waiting breakfast for a whole hour.” “Mary, be charitable! We did not know you were ready, and we were so busy in my room. No laziness, was it, Agatha?”