if I am to do anything. You have
expressed a dread which I have been endeavouring to stifle. I am making
her wretched."

"I don't say that _you_ are making her wretched; I say she seems
disturbed and unsettled when she ought to be full of the brightest
hopes."

"Quite so. I fear the unsettlement is exceedingly great. A neutrality on
your part is all I could in reason expect; but your counsel in such a
grave matter----"

Pensee summoned all her energy, and breathed a little prayer for the
well-being of the two women whose lives were at stake.

"I saw Agnes this morning," she said, speaking at a rapid pace; "she
came up for some shopping, and she returned home directly after tea."

"She ought to have told me that she was in town," he exclaimed.

"My dear Beauclerk, you know her sweetness! She said, 'I don't wish to
take up his time; an engagement ought not to be a servitude.' That is
the reason why she did not tell you."

"She ought to have told me," he repeated. "Such extreme delicacy was
most uncalled for. It wasn't even friendly. When we were old friends,
and nothing more, she would have told me."

"Yes, when you were friends."

"I think she gave me a nasty rap in so acting; I do, indeed. One would
infer that I had failed in some ordinary attentiveness. It is a distinct
reprimand."

"You are quite wrong. She meant it in the noblest way."

"Then it is a desperately near thing between noble conduct and a
downright snub. I can't help lashing out about it."

In Pensee's own private perception this outburst of temper was no bad
sign. It convinced her, at least, of the sincerity of his feelings
towards Agnes and his genuine desire to behave well at every point in
their relationship.

"Don't you understand," she said, "that Agnes _dares_ not love you. This
being the case, I cannot see that she could go on in what might be
called a natural way. Will you bear with me, and, if I am indiscreet,
forgive me? She wants all the sympathy and support she can get. She is
suffering very much from want of courage. She trusts, perhaps, in her
friends' prayers. It seems as though something very momentous were going
on, but that she has nothing to do but to wait for it. I think there
may be a way out still; God may overrule people's hearts."

She had never intended to say so much, and she trembled with an
excitement which she could not subdue.

"I must admit," said Reckage, "that for some time I have had a
conviction, wea