yet
still she listened.

Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only
continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm
affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead
likeness revived in a living face.

At last, when he had expressed all he could--everything except entreaty
or complaint--Mr. Harper paused. "Now, Agatha, speak."

She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She
had been so unused to control.

"You should have consulted with me--have explained more of your reasons,
which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously
anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind."

"Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?" His accent was that of unutterable
pain.

"No! no! that you never are! Only--I suppose because I am young and
lately married--I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss
Valery?"

Anne looked from one to the other--Nathanael, who, as was his habit
in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard--and
Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet
half repentant all the while. "What must you do? You must try to learn
the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she
loves--to have faith in him."

"We women," she continued softly, "the very best and wisest of us,
cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only
love him. That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly
knowing that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite
understand, we must, as I said, _have faith in him_. I have heard of
some women whose faith has lasted all their life."

Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which
vaguely turned seaward--though apparently looking at nothing--made a
deep impression on the young wife.

She answered, thoughtfully, "I believe in my husband too, otherwise
I would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to
clash, and he is the older and the wiser--let him decide as he thinks
best--I will try to 'have faith in him.'"

Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak--it seemed impossible to
him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy
terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either,
excepting only--for one lingering, parting glance--Anne Valery.

CHAPTER XIV.

The sam