His character was peculiar--very peculiar. Its strength, reticence, power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension; but its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour--she could understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral right that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of wounding the wife he loved--if he ever had loved her. For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on this one point of torture--then it settled. “_God knows I did love you, Agatha_.” He had said so--he who never uttered a falsehood. It was enough. “Yet he '_did_' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last insulting wrong. I--to tell him he 'married me for my money'--when all the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word. Oh, no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never can love me any more.” She burst into a passion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright, clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous attitude of a child. “There is a better thing than love--goodness. And whether he loves me or not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My noble husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!” She said this in a delirium of joy--a woman's pure joy, when she can set aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her. Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face. Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the house--misfortune following--and she had given way to that burst of joy! She drew her hand across her forehead--sat down at the table--wrote the three lines she had intended to Anne Valery, and then went her way, to watch all night long beside her husband's father. CHAPTER XXIV. A night and a day had passed, and the household had grown somewhat accustomed to the cloud that hung over it. It was but natural. How soon do most families settle themselves after a great shock!--how easily-does any grief become familiar and bearable! Likewise, saddest thought of all--how seldom is any one really missed from among us, painfully missed, for longer than a few days--a few hours!