Duke could not meet those eager eyes; he fidgeted in his seat, looked down on his hands, and told them over, finger by finger. At last he said, with that peculiar upward look which, amidst all his eccentricities, showed the beautiful serenity of a righteous man—a man who “walked with God:”
“Child, we can none of us be certain either way. We can only do all that lies in human power, and leave the event in the hand of One who is wiser and more loving than us all.”
Agatha bowed her head, and her heart with it, almost to the dust. She remembered Anne Valery's saying—how much those who loved have need to trust in God. Poor Anne! Never until this minute had any one thought of Anne at home at Thornhurst. Shocked at the selfishness that often comes with great misery, Agatha cried eagerly:
“Did you hear anything about Uncle Brian?”
“No—nothing.” The quick, husky tone, as Marmaduke turned and walked away, betrayed how keenly the good man suffered, though he never spoke of any sufferings but Agatha's. She was deeply touched.
“Take hope,” she said earnestly. “He will be saved. My husband would never forsake Uncle Brian.”
“I know that; but then Nathanael is young, and has something to live for, while Brian is getting on in years—older than I am.—I should like to have seen him again, and have shown him little Brian; but—well it's a strange world! Heaven's mercy is sure to give us a life to come, perhaps many lives—if only to make clear the hard mysteries of this. I should like to have talked that matter over once again with poor Brian.”
And Duke seemed wandering into his mild, dreamy philosophies, till Agatha recalled him.
“Now, what is to be done? You said, if we heard nothing, the boats must be drifting about somewhere in the Channel”—she shivered—“and then we would take a little steamer, and go and look for them?”
“I know. She's getting ready.”