d up again, mocking Nathanael's
"brown study."

"What a change!" Agatha cried. "I have not seen such trees in
Dorsetshire."

"They seem indeed to have grown on purpose for Anne. Her grandfather
built Thornhurst. A queer desolate spot to choose, but it's a perfect
little nest of beauty. There!"

The road opened upon a semicircular green plane, levelled among the
hills, as it were on purpose, and planted round with a sheltering
bulwark of trees--lime, chestnut, oak--rising higher and higher, until
at the summit, where the sea-breeze caught them, grew nothing but the
perpetual Dorsetshire fir. On the edge of the semicircle stood the
house, this green plane before it, behind, a wide stretch of country,
where the tide, running for miles inland, made strange-shaped lakes and
broad rivers, spread out glistening in the afternoon sun.

"Anne, must always be near the sea. I don't think she would live even
here unless she knew that just climbing those rocks would bring her in
sight of the Channel. She has quite an ocean-mania."

"I'll learn it from her. I want a convenient little mania. Suppose I
cure myself of my old grudge against the sea, and go from hatred into
love, or from love back again into hatred--as people do."

"What a comical girl you are!"

"Very. Stay now. Wait till the horse is quiet, and I'll take a leap
down--just like a person leaping into"--

"Hold, Agatha"--and she felt her arm caught by her husband. It was the
first time he had touched or addressed her since they left Kingcombe.
"Don't spring down--it is not safe. Stay till I lift you."

"I do not want your help."

"Excuse me, you do; you are not used to this sort of carriage.'

"Stand aside--I _will_ jump down," she cried, roused by the contest,
slight as it was, but enough to show the clashing of the two wills.
"Stand aside," she repeated, leaning forward with glittering eyes,
giddy, and in so great confusion of mind as to be in real danger--"we
will see who gives way."

"Are you in earnest?" Nathanael whispered.

"Quite. Go!"

"I would go if it were play. But when I see my wife about to do any
frantic thing to her own injury, I shall restrain her--thus."

Balancing himself on the carriage-step, he clasped the little figure in
his arms--tight--strangely tight and close. Before Agatha could resist,
he had lifted her safely down, and set her free.

She stood passive--astonished. What could it be in that firm will, in
that sudden clasp, wh