ornhurst?"

"No; I saw Anne Valery yesterday. I shall not see her again for a good
while."

"Indeed!"

"There is business requiring me in Cornwall. To-morrow I am going away."

"Going away!" The words were little more than a sigh. She felt all cold
and numb for the moment. Then a sudden flood of the old impetuous pride
came over her. Going away! Leaving his young wife! Leaving her alone in
her new home--alone the second day, to be wondered at, and pointed
at, and pitied! Perhaps he did it to humble and punish her. It was
cruel--cruel! And again the demon or angel--which took such various
forms that she hardly knew the true one--rose up rampant within her.

"Mr. Harper, this is sudden--will look strange. You ought to have told
me before."

"I did not know it myself until last night. That my going to Cornwall is
necessary, on business grounds, I have already made clear to Marmaduke.
He will tell his wife, and Harriet will tell all the world. I have so
arranged that you will have no difficulty of any kind. This house will
go on as usual, or you can visit at Thornhurst and at my father's. There
will be no loss to you of anything or anybody--except one, whose absence
must be welcome." "Welcome!" she repeated in an accent of bitter scorn.

"You said so yourself. Hush! do not say it again. When we part, let it
be in peace!"

He spoke in a smothered, exhausted voice, and holding the gate open
for her to pass, leaned upon it as if he could hardly stand. But Agatha
perceived nothing--she was dizzy and blind.

"Peace?" she repeated, driven mad by the mockery of the word. She
saw the door half-open, the warm light glimmering within the hall--so
soft--so home-like. The torture was too strong--her senses began to give
way.

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