“In other instances, much suffering has been caused by your means; and I would not have it said that any suffered through the Harper family. I have done what I could to prevent this. Matters are mending at Wheal Caroline. Nathanael tells me I shall have--that is, there will be--a fine flax-harvest there next year.” Speaking of “next year,” Anne's voice faltered, but the momentary feebleness passed. “Still, there is one thing, Frederick, which nobody can do but you; and it is necessary not only to save yourself but to redeem the honour of your house. It will not cost you much--only a few years' retrenchment, living with your sisters at Kingcombe Holm.” Again Major Harper protested there was nothing in the world he would not do for the sake of virtue, and Anne Valery. She drew her desk to her, and gave him paper and pen. “Write here, that you will pay gradually to certain shareholders I know of, the money they lost through trust in your name, and in that of the family. It is hardly a legal claim, or if it be, they are too poor to urge it--but I hold it as a bond of honour. Will you do this, Frederick? Then I shall be happy, knowing there is not a single stain on the Harper name.” In speaking, she had risen and come beside him, looking faded, wan, and old, now that she stood upright, in her black dress, and close cap. Her beauty was altogether of the past, but the moral influence remained. Frederick Harper took the pen, hesitated, and laid it down. “I do not know what to write.” Anne wrote for him a few plain words, such as a man of honour must inevitably hold as binding. He watched idly the movement of the hand that wrote, and the written lines. “You have the same slender fingers, Anne, and your writing looks just as it used to do,” he said, in a subdued voice. “There, now--sign.” “Sign!--It is like witnessing a will,” said Major Harper, laughing. “I wish you to consider it so,” returned Anne, in a low voice. “Consider it my last will--my last desire, which you promise to fulfil for me?” He looked at her, took the pen, and signed, his hand trembling; then kissed hers. “Anne, you know, you were my first love.” The words--said half jesting, yet with a certain mourn-fulness--were scarcely out of his lips, than he had quitted the room. They soon heard the clatter of his horse along the avenue. Major Harper was gone out into the busy world again. He never set foot in quiet Thornhurst more. The three that were left behind breathed freer--perhaps they would hardly have acknowledged it, but it was so. “Well, now it is all done,” said Nathanael, as he drew closer to the sofa where Anne lay--with Agatha performing all sorts of little unnoticed cares about her. “And now I must think about going.” No one asked him where, but Agatha glancing out of the window, thought, with a shiver, of the dreadful sea curving over into boundlessness from behind those hills.