“Do not laugh, for I am serious. I wanted to talk to you about our new house.”
“Our new house! Where and what like is it to be, I wonder!”
“Do you not recollect?”
“No; the two we looked at would not do,” said Agatha, determinedly. She guessed what was coming—that the discussion about Wilson's cottage, which Nathanael seemed so to have set his heart upon, was about to be renewed. But she would never consent to that—never! “The house I liked you did not approve of,” she continued, observing her husband's silence. “The other I could not think of for a moment.”
“But supposing there was no alternative, since we must settle at once?”
“This is the first time you have condescended to inform me of that necessity.”
“If,” he went on, taking no notice of her sharp speech, but speaking with the extreme gentleness of one who himself feels tenfold the pain he is compelled to inflict—“if, as I told you yesterday, we ought to form our plans immediately; and since, Kingcombe being such a small place, there is at present no choice left us but those two houses”—
“Build one! We are rich enough.”
“Not quite.” His eyes dropped, almost like those of guilt. After a pause, he cried out violently:
“Agatha, a secret at one's heart is ten times worse to the keeper of it than it can be to any one else. Have pity for me, have patience with me, just for a little while.”