No one answered.
“Come, make room; I will have my place. I will sit beside you, Agatha.”
There was a sort of desperation in his “I will” that indicated a great change in the reserved, timid youth. Agatha yielded as to an irresistible influence, and he placed himself by her side, putting his arm firmly round her waist, quite regardless of the presence of a third person—though about Anne there was an abiding spirit of love which seemed to take under its shadow all lovers, ay, even though she herself were an old maid. But perhaps that was the very reason.
“I was doing you no harm, Nathanael,” said she, smiling. “And I was thinking, like you, how soon a fortnight will be gone, and how hard it is for you to part from this little girl that loves you.”
The inference, so natural, so holy, which Miss Valery had unconsciously drawn, Agatha had not the heart to deny. She knew it was but right that she should love, and be supposed to love, her betrothed husband. And looking at him, his suffering, his strong self-denial, she almost felt that she did really love him, as a wife ought.
“If,” said the soft voice of the good angel—“if you had not known each other so short a time, and been so newly betrothed, I should have said—judging such things by what they were when I was young,”—here she momentarily paused—“I should have said, Nathanael, that there was only one course which, as regarded both her and yourself, was wisest, kindest, best.”
“What is that?” cried he, eagerly.
“To do a little sooner what must necessarily have been done soon—to take one another's hands—thus.”
Agatha felt strong, wild fingers grasping her own; a dizziness came over her—she shrank back, crying, “No, no!” and hid her face on Miss Valery's shoulder. Nathanael rose up and walked away.
When he returned, it was with his “good” aspect, tender and calm.