She grew confused—hesitated; the shamefacedness of girlhood came over her. “I will tell you,” she said at last boldly. “It is surely no harm to tell anything to my husband:—Major Harper once said to Emma Thornycroft, that he thought I was 'in love' with him.”
“Well!”
“It was cruel, it was wicked, it insulted my pride. And more than that—it wounded me to the heart that he should say so.”
“Was it—don't speak if you don't like—was it true?”
“No,” cried Agatha, the blood rushing in a torrent over her face. “No, it was not true. I liked, I admired him, in a free girlish way; but I never, never loved him.”
There was a minute's hush in the arbutus-bower, and then Nathanael sank down to his wife's side—down, lower yet, to her very feet. He wrapped his arms round her waist, laying his head in her lap. His whole frame shook convulsively.
“Oh Heaven! You surely did not think that?” cried Agatha, appalled.
“I did, ever since the day we were married. I heard him say so in the church.—He repeated it to me afterwards.—And it was a lie! Curse”—
“No, no, forgive him!” And Agatha sobbed on her husband's neck, clasped by him as she never thought he would clasp her in this world.
At last he rose, pale and sad. “There is other forgiveness needed. I have been very cruel to you, Agatha. I had made him a promise, and to it I sacrificed myself and you too, without remorse. But now you see how it was. I could have judged my brother that I loved; I dared not slay my enemy.”