Wanting this—yet scarcely conscious of her need—the young wife sat, in her secret soul all shivering and a-cold. At last, wearied with the long grey sweep of undulating sea, she closed the window.
“I thought the breeze would be too keen for you,” said Mr. Harper, whom her lightest movement always seemed to attract.
“Oh no; but I am tired of watching the waves. How melancholy it must be to live here. I have a perfect terror of the sea.”
“Had I known that, I would not have proposed our coming to-day from Leamington to Brighton. But we can leave to-morrow.”
“I did not mean that,” she answered quickly, dreading lest her husband might have thought her speech ungracious or unkind. “We need not go—unless you wish it.”
The bridegroom made no immediate reply: but there was a melancholy tenderness in his eyes, as, without her knowing it, he sat watching his young wife. At length he rose, and putting her arm in his, stood a long time with her at the window.
“I think, dear Agatha, that you are right. The sea is always sad. How dreary it looks now—like a wide-stretched monotonous life whose ending we see not, yet it must be crossed. How shall we cross it?”
Agatha looked inquiringly.
“The sea I mean,” he continued, with a sudden change of tone. “Shall we go over to France for a week or two?”
“Oh no”—and she shuddered. “It would kill me to cross the water.”