The soft whisper, the eyes of genuine compassion—womanly compassion only, without any love—were more than Major Harper could resist.
“I will go,” he muttered. “Better tell it to you than to my brother.” And he followed her up-stairs.
The cool shadow of the room seemed to quiet his excitement; he drank a glass of water that stood by, and became more like himself.
“Well, my dear young lady,” he said, with some return of the paternal manner of old times, “when did you come back to London?”
“Two days since, as I told you. And, as you will soon hear, your brother's plans are all changed—we are going to live in London.”
“To live in London?”
“He has given up his appointment at Montreal. We have taken a house, or shall take it to-day, and settle here. He intends entering at the bar, or something of the sort; but you must persuade him not. What is the use of his toiling, when I—that is we—are so rich?”
While Agatha thus talked, chiefly to amuse her brother-in-law and make him feel that she was really his sister, one and the same in family interests—while she talked, she was astonished to see Major Harper's face overspread with blank dismay.
“And—Nathanael has really given up his appointment?”
“He has, and for my sake. Was it not good of him?”