“I hope so—in many things,” said Anne, to herself. “But I must not speak much. I talked my last talk with poor Frederick in the bay-window. Where is Frederick?”
“He has been riding up and down the country day after day—he seems to find no rest.”
Anne looked sorry. “And we are so quiet here!”
It was indeed very quiet, that sombre house at Thorn-hurst, through whose wintry rooms no one wandered but Agatha, excepting the old, attached servants. Yet this was of her own will. She had been jealous that any one should attempt to nurse Anne but herself. She left even her own home to do it. Yet—the bitter thought followed her ever—this last was small renunciation. No one would miss her there!
During the days when Miss Valery lay ill, the world without had been shut from Agatha's view. Woman-like, she lived within the four walls and beside the sick couch, and had only seen her husband for a few minutes each day, when, though he talked to her only of Anne, his manner had a soft, reverent tenderness, and a troubled humility, as if he began to see a different image in his young wife. She was different, and he too. Neither knew how or when the change came—but it was there.
She did so miss him, when, having taken them safe to Thornhurst, and told her “that she might stay there as long as Anne needed her, but no longer”—ah, that happy “but!”—he went away to his own little house at Kingcombe, and busied himself there for three days.
“Do you think Nathanael will come and see us this morning?” said Anne, looking up from the papers with which she was occupied, towards Agatha, who stood at the window watching down the road.
“Did you want my husband!”
“Oh, no! I can do my business myself now. But I think he will come.”
“Why do you think so?”