She repeated the words strongly, resolutely, dinning them into Miss Valery's ear, but she only won for answer that silent smile which went to her heart like an arrow. She rushed for safety to the commonplaces of life, to the quick, hasty speeches which relieved her. She began to be very cross about some delay in breakfast.
“Never mind me, dear,” said Anne's quieting tones. “I am quite well, and want nothing. Only let us sit still, and look at the sea.” And she drew her from her eager bustling about the inn-parlour to the place where they had both sat the previous night. Agatha balanced herself on the arm of the chair, determined she would not be serious for an instant, and would not let Anne talk. Yet both resolutions were broken ere long. Perhaps it was the bright stillness of the sea view, sliding away round the headland into infinity, which impressed her in spite of herself. Still she struggled against her feelings.
“I will not have you so grave, Miss Valery. Mind, I will not.”
“Am I grave? Nay, only quiet; and so happy! Do you know what it is to be quite content with everything in one's life—past, present, and to come, knowing that all is overruled for good, forgiving everybody and loving everybody?”
Agatha linked her arms tighter round Miss Valery's neck.
“Don't talk in that way, or look in that way—don't. Be wicked! Speak cross! I will not have you an angel. I will not feel your wings growing. I'll tear them out. There.”
She laughed—laughed with brimming eyes—until she sobbed again. Her feelings had been on the stretch for hours, and now gave way. Anne bent down from her serenity to notice and soothe the wayward child.
“Poor little thing, she wants taking care of as much as anybody. When will her husband come home?”
“Never—never!” cried Agatha, hardly knowing what she said. “I shall lose him—you—all.”
Miss Valery smiled—the composed smile of one who ascending a mountain, sees the lowland mazes around laid out distinct and clear, and looks over them to their ending.