Agatha crushed her hands against the wall She felt as if she could almost have torn Eulalie's heart out--if she had a heart. While in her own bosom, leaping up in all its strength, ready at once for heroism, love, and fury--for any nobleness or any crime--was that fountain of all her sex's actions, that mainspring of all her life--the fatal woman-heart. She waited until she heard Nathanael descend the stairs, and then, as he passed into the drawing-room to his sisters, she, by the little curtained door, passed out into the hall. There she remained until the rest came; the sisters trooping after Nathanael, and the old Squire following likewise, to see that his son had the best and steadiest horse for a night-ride, which ride, he took care to observe, pointedly, was a most uncourteous proceeding, and warranted by nothing, save the fact of its being performed on the especial service of Anne Valery. “Agatha--where is Agatha hiding herself?” said Mary. “She ought not to keep her husband waiting a minute.'' “Oh, no?” And the little figure, all in white, glided out from some queer corner of the hall, and stood like a ghost in the moonlight. “Good night--good night.” She threw out her hand with those of the others--threw it--not gave it. Nathanael took the hand, but did not say good night--indeed he never spoke at all. “Well, are you not going to embrace one another, stage-fashion? Don't let Mary and me interrupt you, pray.” And the two Miss Harpers drew back a little from the young couple. Mr. Harper bent coldly over his wife's brow, hid under the shadow of her heavy hair. “No, no; not that,” Agatha whispered, recoiling from his touch. “Never that again.” He opened the hall-door--saying adieu to neither father nor sisters--leaped on his horse, and was gone. “Agatha, Agatha; where are you running? He is far down the road by this time. Come in, do! Are you so very reluctant to be left for a few hours alone?” “Oh, no! Oh, no!” And Agatha went back to the drawing-room with her sisters-in-law. Alone! The word she had repudiated rose up like a spirit, everywhere, all over the house. Not a room but what seemed empty, strange. Fast and busily the Miss Harpers talked--yet all around was, oh! such silence. The silence that we feel in a house when some voice and step has gone out of it, which no one misses except we, and which we miss as we should miss the daylight or the sun. When all grew quiet, and Agatha sat in her own room--expecting nothing, for she knew he would not come--but still sitting, with her hair falling damp about her, and her eyes fixed on the mirror for company, yet half growing frightened as if it were a strange object on which she gazed--then, indeed, there was silence--then, indeed, she was _alone_. CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Harper did not ride home by midnight, as his wife was well assured he would not do, though with some idle hope put into her mind by Eulalie, she sat at the window until the stars whitened in the dawn.