“Hear me for one minute, Agatha. I know this is hard, very hard for you. I have prevented your living in London; I have taken a smaller house than you like; I have restricted you in acts of charity. But for all these things I have reasons.” “Will you tell me those reasons?” It was a tone, not of entreaty, but of threatening--such as a man rarely hears from a woman without all the pride within him recoiling into obstinacy. Mr. Harper grew yet paler, though still his answer was soft--“Agatha, do not ask me. I cannot tell you.” “You dare not! You are ashamed!” He walked away from her. When he returned, it was less the lover that spoke than the man. “I am not ashamed of anything I do, and I have clear motives for all. I only desire my wife to have patience for awhile, and trust her husband.” “I trust my husband!” she cried, in violent passion--“When he acts outrageously, unjustly, insultingly--binds me hand and foot like a child, and then smiles and tells me 'to be patient!' When he has secrets from me--when, for all I know, his whole conduct may have been one long deceit towards me.” “Take care, Agatha.” The words were said between his teeth, and then the lips closed in that strong straight line which made his face look all iron. “I say it may have been--I have heard of such things”--and she laughed fearfully at the horrible thought a tempting devil was putting into her mind--“I have heard of young girls--poor desolate creatures, cursed with riches, and having no one to guard them--of some stranger coming and marrying them hastily, but not for love--oh, not for love!” And her laughter grew absolutely frightful in its mockery. “How do I know but that you thus married me?” Her wild eyes fixed themselves on her husband. She saw his face change to very ghastliness, and guilt itself could not have trembled more than the shudder which ran through his frame. “I was right,” she gasped, her passion subdued into cold horror--“you did marry me for my money!” No answer--not a breath--only an incredulous stare. Once more Agatha's passion rose, a sea of wrath, misery, despair, that dashed her blindly on, she recked not where. “I see it all now--all your wickedness. You never loved me, you only loved my riches. You have them now, and so you can stand there and gaze at me, as hard, as dumb as a stone. But I will make you hear--I will shriek it into your silence again--again--You married me for my money!” Still no word. The silence she spoke of was awful. Nathanael stood upright, his hands knotted together, the lids dropping over his eyes. He neither looked at her nor at anything. There was not the slightest expression in his face--it might have been carved in granite. When at last almost to see if he were living man, Agatha clutched his arm, it also felt hard, immoveable, like a granite rock. “Mr. Harper!” she cried, terror mingling with the outburst of her rage. He merely lifted his eyes and looked at the door.--Not once--oh! never once at her!