Nathanael held the door open for his wife and sisters to retire--things went on so formally even in the every-day life at Kingcombe Holm. In passing, Agatha felt as if she must burst through that icy barrier he had drawn; she _must_ meet her husband's look, and compel him to meet hers. She gave him a look, proud, threatening, yet full of hidden misery. He would surely answer that. No! No response--not even anger. Some sorrow perhaps, but a sorrow that was stern, hopeless, undemonstrative, as was his own nature. If any wreck had been, it had already sank down into those deep waters, of which the surface appeared perpetually calm. Agatha threw him back another look. Scorn was there and hatred--she felt as though she did really hate him at that moment. Her heart gave a leap, like a smitten deer, and then a “laughing devil” seemed to enter therein, and dash her on--anywhere--to anything. “Come, Mary--come Eulalie, we must be very merry tonight, and my husband must join, for all his solemnity. Shake it off quick, Mr. Harper, or we'll call you a deciever--a smooth-faced, smiling cheat.” Laughing out loud--she caught his hand, wrung it violently, and struck it aside. “How comical you are!” said the languid Eulalie. “But,” whispered sensible Mary, “are you quite sure Nathanael liked the joke.” “Who cares?” Yet Agatha looked back. He had merely drawn his hand in again to the other, and his colour faintly rose. Otherwise the poor, mad, passionate girl might as well have dashed herself against a rock. She grew still again, with a kind of fear. Her very limbs tottered as she went towards the drawing-room, and all the time that she lay there on the sofa, Mary bustling about her and chattering all kinds of domestic nothings, Agatha saw, as in a vision, her husband's face, so beautiful in its very sternness, so pure and righteous-looking, whilst she felt herself so desperately, daringly wicked. All the “black, ingrained spots,” which had become visible in her soul, and she knew herself to be worse than any one knew her--appeared gathering in one cloud, until she sickened at her own likeness. For beside it rose another image--and such an one! Yet there was a time when she had thought it a great sacrifice and condescension that Nathanael should be allowed to love her. Now--