“No, no,” he said recovering himself. “I have nothing to tell—But we are wasting time. Anne, it shall be as you say.” And he drew a long hard breath. “Which of us had best write to my brother?”
Rising, he found out who had been behind him. He looked horrified.
“Agatha!—did you overhear me?”
The suspicion wounded her to the core. Her pride and sense of justice were alike roused.
“Have no fear, Mr. Harper,” said she; “I shall not betray your secrets. I do not even comprehend them; except that I think it very wicked for brothers to be such enemies.”
He made no answer.
“And,” continued Agatha, growing bolder, as she was prone to do on the side of the mysteriously wronged, “I would have sent for Major Harper myself, had not your father seemed unwilling. But the eldest son ought to be here.”
“He shall be—your husband will write,” interposed Miss Valery.
The husband moved away. He had thoroughly frozen up again into the Nathanael of old, whose coldness jarred against every ardent impulse of Agatha's temperament—rousing, irritating her into opposition.
“There is no need for him to trouble himself. What was right to be done has luckily not waited for his doing it. Elizabeth herself informed her brother.”