“It was madness! Nay—it is I that have been the madman—it is I that have done it all Agatha, forgive me! But no—you never can!”
As they stood together by the fireplace he snatched her hand, gazing down upon her with unutterable remorse.
“Poor Bowen's daughter that he trusted to me! Such a mere child too! Oh, forgive me, Agatha!”
She thought some extraordinary delusion had come upon him—perhaps the forerunner of some dreadful illness. She tried to take her hand away, though kindly, for she firmly believed him to be delirious. Nothing could really have happened to herself that Mr. Harper did not know. With him to take care of her, she was quite safe. And in that moment—for all passed in a moment—Nathanael's wife first felt how implicitly she was beginning to put her trust in him.
While she remained thus—her hand still closed tightly in her brother-in-law's grasp, half terrified, yet trying not to show her terror—the door opened, and her husband entered.
At first Mr. Harper seemed petrified with amazement; then he turned deadly white. Crossing the room, he laid a heavy hand on his brother's shoulder:
“Frederick, you forget yourself; this is my wife,—Agatha!”
The searching agony of that one word, as he turned and looked her full in the face, was unutterable. She scarcely perceived it.
“Oh, I am so glad you are come,” was all she said. He drew her to his side—indeed, she had sprung there of her own accord—and wrapped his arms tightly round her, as if to show that she was his possession, his own property.
“Now, brother, whatever you wished to say to my wife, say it to us both.”