“I say '_was_,' because, if you desire it, it shall not be. I see the very idea is a relief to you. I saw it in your sudden joy.” Agatha was amazed--she had till this moment never thought of such a thing. Mr. Harper's whole manner of speech and proceeding was so very incomprehensible--like a lover's--that she told the entire truth in simply saying “that she did not understand him.” “Let me repeat it in plainer words.” But the plainer words would not come; after one or two vain efforts, he sat with averted face, speechless. At last he said abruptly, “Agatha, do you wish to defer our marriage?” As he spoke, his grasp of her hand was so fierce that it positively hurt her. “Oh, let me go--you are not kind,” she cried, shrinking from the pain, which he did not even perceive he had inflicted--so strange a mood was upon him. He loosed her hand at once, and stood up before her, speaking vehemently. “I meant to be kind--very kind--just in the way that I knew would most please you. I meant to tell you that I wish you to hold yourself quite free, both as to this day or any other days: that you have only to say the word, and--What a fool I am making of myself!” Muttering the last words, he turned and walked quickly to the far end of the room, leaving Agatha to meditate. It was a new thing to see such passion in him; and while half frightened she was interested and touched. She would have been more so, but for a certain something in him which roused her pride, until she could not do as she had at first intended--follow him, and ask why he was angry. The humility of love was not yet hers. So she sat without moving, her eyes fixed on her hand, where the red mark left by her lover's grasp was slowly disappearing; until a minute after, he approached. “Was that the mark of my fingers on your wrist? Did I hurt you, my poor Agatha?” “Yes, a little.” “Forgive me!” And sitting down beside her, he bent his lips to where his rude grasp had been, kissing the little wrist over and over again, though he did not speak. His humility in this, the first ripple which had ever stirred their calmest of all calm courtships, moved Agatha even more than his sudden gust of passion. It is a curious fact, that some women--and they not of the weaker or more foolish kind--like very much to be ruled. A strong nature is instinctively attracted by one still stronger. Most certainly Agatha had never so distinctly felt the cords--not exactly of love, but of some influence akin thereto--which this young man had netted round her, as when he began to draw them with a tight, firm hand, less that of a submissive lover than of a dominant husband. She had never liked him half so well as when, taking her hand once more into his determined hold, he said--gently, indeed, but in a tone that would be answered-- “Now, tell me, what do you wish?”