lour again rose in her cheeks; her hand trembled in his. She
looked lovely, with her eyes cast down and her bosom heaving gently.
At that moment he would have given everything he had in the world to
take her in his arms and kiss her. Some mysterious sympathy, passing
from his hand to hers, seemed to tell her what was in his mind. She
snatched her hand away, and suddenly looked up at him. The tears were
in her eyes. She said nothing; she let her eyes speak for her. They
warned him--without anger, without unkindness--but still they warned
him to press her no further that day.

'Only tell me that I am forgiven,' he said, as he rose from the sofa.

'Yes,' she answered quietly, 'you are forgiven.'

'I have not lowered myself in your estimation, Agnes?'

'Oh, no!'

'Do you wish me to leave you?'

She rose, in her turn, from the sofa, and walked to her writing-table
before she replied. The unfinished letter which she had been writing
when Lady Montbarry interrupted her, lay open on the blotting-book. As
she looked at the letter, and then looked at Henry, the smile that
charmed everybody showed itself in her face.

'You must not go just yet,' she said: 'I have something to tell you.
I hardly know how to express it. The shortest way perhaps will be to
let you find it out for yourself. You have been speaking of my lonely
unprotected life here. It is not a very happy life, Henry--I own
that.' She paused, observing the growing anxiety of his expression as
he looked at her, with a shy satisfaction that perplexed him. 'Do you
know that I have anticipated your idea?' she went on. 'I am going to
make a great change in my life--if your brother Stephen and his wife
will only consent to it.' She opened the desk of the writing-table
while she spoke, took a letter out, and handed it to Henry.

He received it from her mechanically. Vague doubts, which he hardly
understood himself, kept him silent. It was impossible that the
'change in her life' of which she had spoken could mean that she was
about to be married--and yet he was conscious of a perfectly
unreasonable reluctance to open the letter. Their eyes met; she smiled
again. 'Look at the address,' she said. 'You ought to know the
handwriting--but I dare say you don't.'

He looked at the address. It was in the large, irregular, uncertain
writing of a child. He opened the letter instantly.

'Dear Aunt Agnes,--Our governess is going away. She has had money left
to her, and a hous