Agatha's Husband Part 51

Without knowing what she did, without any settled purpose except to escape from the misery of that sight, Agatha pushed her husband from her, turned and fled--fled anywhere, no matter where, so that it was into night and darkness, away from her home and from him.

She did not know the way; she only knew that she ran up one street and down another like the wind. Her state of mind was bordering on insanity.

At length she paused from sheer exhaustion, and leaned against a doorway--like any poor outraged homeless wretch.

The good man of the house came softly out to look up into the quiet night before he bolted his door. He stood musing, contemplating the stars. It was a minute or more before he noticed the bowed human form beside him. When he did, there was no mistaking the compa.s.sionate voice.

"Eh, poor soul! What's wrong wi'ee?"

Agatha sprang up with a cry. There were two standing by her, from whose presence she would gladly have run to the world's end--Mr. Dugdale and her husband. The one remained petrified with astonishment--the other said but three words, in a dull mechanical voice, as if every feeling had been struck out of the man by some thunderbolt of doom.

"Agatha, come home."

Again she tried to burst from him and fly, but her arm was caught, and Marmaduke Dugdale's grave look--the look he fixed upon his own children when they erred, constraining them always into repentance and goodness--was reading her inmost soul.

"Go home, poor child! I'll not tell of you or him. Go home with your husband."

She felt her hand laid, or grasped--she knew not which--in that of Nathanael; who held it with invincible firmness. There was no resisting that clasp. She rose up and followed him, as if led by an invisible chain. Her madness had pa.s.sed, and left only a dull indifference to everything. The die was cast; she had laid open the miseries of their home, had disgraced him and herself before the world. It signified little where she went or what she did; they were utterly separated now.

Without again speaking, or taking notice of Mr. Dugdale, she suffered Nathanael to lead her away, pa.s.sing swiftly down the silent streets.

Neither husband nor wife uttered a single word.

The moment she entered the house she walked up-stairs, slowly, that he might not see her tottering; went into her own room, and locked her door with a loud, fierce turning of the key, that seemed to shriek as it turned.

There, for almost an hour, she sat motionless. The maid, half asleep, came to the door with a light, but Agatha bade her set it down, and sat in the dark. Dark--altogether dark, within and without; with no hope or repentance, or even the heroism of suffering; wrathful, sullen, miserable; wronged--yet conscious that she had sinned as much as she was sinned against; seeing her husband and herself stand as it were on either edge of a black gulf, hourly widening, yet neither having strength to plunge it to the other's side.

Here she sat, upright and still, body and soul wrapped in a leaden, shroud-like darkness, until gradually a stupor possessed her brain.

"I am so tired," she murmured, "I must go to sleep. He will not leave till to-morrow. But it does not signify. Nothing signifies. I must go to sleep."

She unlocked the door and drew in the candle, flaring in its socket.

She had to press her fingers on her eyeb.a.l.l.s before they could bear the light, all was so very dark. She Sotted her hair up anyhow, took off her clothes, and crept to bed, almost as if she were creeping to her tomb.

The fragment of candle went out, sinking instantaneously, like a soul quenched out of existence, and all was total darkness. In that darkness a heavy hand seemed to lay itself on Agatha's brain, and press down her eyelids. Scarcely two minutes after, she was asleep.

Hour after hour of the night went by, and there was not a sound, not a breath in the room. The late moon rose, and gave a little glimmer of light through the curtains. Now and then there was a faint noise of some one moving in the house, but Agatha never stirred. She slept heavily as some people invariably sleep under the pressure of great pain.

Towards morning, when moonlight and dawn were melted together, and the room was growing light enough to discern faces, there was a step at the door, and a ray flas.h.i.+ng through the opening, for Agatha had left it ajar.

Nathanael set down the candle outside and came in softly. He was dressed for a journey--evidently just ready to start. He looked very ill, sleepless, and worn.

Standing a minute at the door, he listened to his wife's breathing, low and regular as that of a child. Nature and repose had soothed her; she slept now as quietly and healthfully as if she had never known trouble.

Her husband crept across the room very carefully, and remained watching her. Oh! the contrast between the one who _watched_ and the one who slept!

At first he stood perfectly upright, rigid, and motionless.

Then his hands twisted themselves together, and his eyes grew hot, bursting. His lips moved as in speaking, though with never a sound. It was the dumbness--the choking dumbness of that emotion which made it so terrible. Such silence could not last--he seemed to feel it could not--and so moved backward out of hearing. There he stood for a little while, leaning against the wall, his hand bound tightly over his forehead, and sighing, so bitterly sighing!--that gasp which bursts from men who have no tears.

At length he became calmer, but still stood without the door. He even moved the candle further off, as though afraid its glare, might disturb the sleeper--forgetful that the room was now growing all bright with daybreak. At this moment the clock striking in the hall below made him start.

Hastily he took out a paper that he had hid somewhere about him. It was in his own handwriting, all sealed and endorsed. "Not to be opened except in case of my death." Nevertheless he tore it open--tore likewise an under-cover addressed to his wife, and began to read:

"I know you never loved me. From something I overheard on our marriage-day--from other words afterwards let fall in anger by my brother, I also know that you loved"--

He crushed the paper, his eyes seeming literally to flame. Then all the fury died out of them, and left nothing but tenderness. He listened for the soft breathing within--soft and pure.

"No!" he murmured. "I will not leave her honour to the chance of written words. No other human being must ever know what I knew. If I live, it is not worse than it was before; and should any harm come to me, let her think I died in ignorance. Better so."

He tore the paper into small strips, and deliberately burnt them one by one in the candle, making a little pile of the ashes, but afterwards scattering them about the fireplace. Then putting out the light--for the house was now filled with the soft grey dawn--Nathanael stepped once more into his wife's room.

And still she was sleeping--sleeping at the very crisis of her fate. Her face was composed and sweet, though her hands were still clenched, and one of them almost buried in her loose hair.

Her husband stood and looked at her, trying long to keep himself firm and self-restrained, as though she were aware of his presence. But at last the holy helplessness of sleep subdued him. From standing upright he sank gradually down--down--till he was crouching on his knees.

Shudder over shudder came over him--sigh after sigh rose up, and was smothered again in his breast. At last even the strong man's strength gave way, and there fell a heavy, silent, burning rain.

And all the while the wife slept, and never knew how he loved her!

After a while this ceased. Nathanael opened his eyes and tried to look once more calmly on his wife. She stirred a little in sleep, and began to smile--a very soft, meek, innocent smile, that softened her lips into infantine sweetness. She was again Agatha, the merry Agatha, as she had been when he first saw her, before he wooed her, and shook her roughly from her girlish calm into all the struggles of life. He could have cursed himself--and yet--yet he loved her!

Kneeling, he put his arm softly over her. Another moment and he would have yielded to the frantic impulse, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her to his heart for one--just one embrace--heedless of her waking. But how would she wake?

only to hate and reproach him. He had better leave her thus, and carry away in his remembrance that picture of peace, which blotted out all her bitter words, all her cruel want of love--made him forget everything except that she had been the wife of his bosom and his first love.

He drew back his arm, gradually and noiselessly. He did not attempt to kiss her, not even her hand, lest he should disturb her; but kneeling, laid his hand on the pillow by hers, and pressed his lips to her hair.

"I am glad she sleeps--yes, very glad! She is quite content now, she will be quite happy when I am gone, G.o.d love thee and take care of thee--my darling--my Agatha."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A husband's farewell p280]

Kissing her hair once again, he rose up and went away.

As he departed, the first sunbeam came in and danced upon the bed, showing Agatha fast asleep, sleeping still. She never woke until it had been broad day for a long time, and the sun creeping over her pillow struck her eyes.

Then she started up with a loud cry--she had been dreaming. Tears were wet upon her cheek. She called wildly for her husband. It was too late.

He had been gone at least three hours.

CHAPTER XXI

"Mrs. Harper--Missus--there's a carriage at the door."

"Say I am not at home."

She had given the same sullen answer to every visitor for four weeks, shutting herself up in stern seclusion, determined that, whatever cruel comments they made, the neighbourhood should have no power of spying into the mystery of "that poor Mrs. Locke Harper who did not live happy with her husband." For so she felt sure had been the result of that fatal betrayal to her brother-in-law. Since, as Harrie had once said, "Duke never could keep a secret in his life!" But even his own wife could not thoroughly fathom the good heart of Marmaduke Dugdale.

"Not at home?" repeated Dorcas, who had been very faithful to her young mistress. "Not when it's Miss Valery, who has been so ill? Oh, Missus, do'ee see Miss Valery."

Mrs. Harper hesitated, and during that time her visitor entered uninvited.