On the day of the marriage Agnes Lockwood sat alone in the littledrawing-room of her London lodgings, burning the letters which hadbeen written to her by Montbarry in the bygone time.

The Countess's maliciously smart description of her,addressed to Doctor Wybrow, had not even hinted at the charmthat most distinguished Agnes--the artless expression of goodnessand purity which instantly attracted everyone who approached her.She looked by many years younger than she really was. With her faircomplexion and her shy manner, it seemed only natural to speak of heras 'a girl,' although she was now really advancing towards thirtyyears of age. She lived alone with an old nurse devoted to her,on a modest little income which was just enough to support the two.There were none of the ordinary signs of grief in her face,as she slowly tore the letters of her false lover in two, and threwthe pieces into the small fire which had been lit to consume them.Unhappily for herself, she was one of those women who feel too deeplyto find relief in tears. Pale and quiet, with cold trembling fingers,she destroyed the letters one by one without daring to read them again.She had torn the last of the series, and was still shrinkingfrom throwing it after the rest into the swiftly destroying flame,when the old nurse came in, and asked if she would see 'Master Henry,'--meaning that youngest member of the Westwick family, who had publiclydeclared his contempt for his brother in the smoking-room ofthe club.

Agnes hesitated. A faint tinge of colour stole over her face.

There had been a long past time when Henry Westwick had ownedthat he loved her. She had made her confession to him,acknowledging that her heart was given to his eldest brother.He had submitted to his disappointment; and they had metthenceforth as cousins and friends. Never before had sheassociated the idea of him with embarrassing recollections.But now, on the very day when his brother's marriage to anotherwoman had consummated his brother's treason towards her, there wassomething vaguely repellent in the prospect of seeing him.The old nurse (who remembered them both in their cradles)observed her hesitation; and sympathising of course with the man,put in a timely word for Henry. 'He says, he's going away, my dear;and he only wants to shake hands, and say good-bye.' This plainstatement of the case had its effect. Agnes decided on receivingher cousin.

He entered the room so rapidly that he surprised her in the actof throwing the fragments of Montbarry's last letter into the fire.She hurriedly spoke first.

'You are leaving London very suddenly, Henry. Is it business?or pleasure?'

Instead of answering her, he pointed to the flaming letter,and to some black ashes of burnt paper lying lightly in the lowerpart of the fireplace.

'Are you burning letters?'

'Yes.'

'His letters?'

'Yes.'

He took her hand gently. 'I had no idea I was intruding on you,at a time when you must wish to be alone. Forgive me, Agnes--I shallsee you when I return.'

She signed to him, with a faint smile, to take a chair.

'We have known one another since we were children,' she said.'Why should I feel a foolish pride about myself in your presence? whyshould I have any secrets from you? I sent back all your brother'sgifts to me some time ago. I have been advised to do more, to keepnothing that can remind me of him--in short, to burn his letters.I have taken the advice; but I own I shrank a little from destroyingthe last of the letters. No--not because it was the last,but because it had this in it.' She opened her hand, and showedhim a lock of Montbarry's hair, tied with a morsel of golden cord.'Well! well! let it go with the rest.'

She dropped it into the flame. For a while, she stood with her backto Henry, leaning on the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire.He took the chair to which she had pointed, with a strangecontradiction of expression in his face: the tears were in his eyes,while the brows above were knit close in an angry frown.He muttered to himself, 'Damn him!'

She rallied her courage, and looked at him again when she spoke.'Well, Henry, and why are you going away?'

'I am out of spirits, Agnes, and I want a change.'

She paused before she spoke again. His face told her plainlythat he was thinking of her when he made that reply. She wasgrateful to him, but her mind was not with him: her mind was stillwith the man who had deserted her. She turned round again to the fire.

'Is it true,' she asked, after a long silence, 'that they have beenmarried to-day?'

He answered ungraciously in the one necessary word:--'Yes.'

'Did you go to the church?'

He resented the question with an expression of indignant surprise.'Go to the church?' he repeated. 'I would as soon go to--'He checked himself there. 'How can you ask?' he added in lower tones.'I have never spoken to Montbarry, I have not even seen him,since he treated you like the scoundrel and the fool thathe is.'

She looked at him suddenly, without saying a word.He understood her, and begged her pardon. But he was still angry.'The reckoning comes to some men,' he said, 'even in this world.He will live to rue the day when he married that woman!'

Agnes took a chair by his side, and looked at him with a gentle surprise.

'Is it quite reasonable to be so angry with her, because yourbrother preferred her to me?' she asked.

Henry turned on her sharply. 'Do you defend the Countess,of all the people in the world?'

'Why not?' Agnes answered. 'I know nothing against her.On the only occasion when we met, she appeared to be a singularly timid,nervous person, looking dreadfully ill; and being indeed so ill that shefainted under the heat of my room. Why should we not do her justice?We know that she was innocent of any intention to wrong me; we knowthat she was not aware of my engagement--'

Henry lifted his hand impatiently, and stopped her.'There is such a thing as being too just and too forgiving!'he interposed. 'I can't bear to hear you talk in that patient way,after the scandalously cruel manner in which you have been treated.Try to forget them both, Agnes. I wish to God I could help you todo it!'

Agnes laid her hand on his arm. 'You are very good to me, Henry;but you don't quite understand me. I was thinking of myselfand my trouble in quite a different way, when you came in.I was wondering whether anything which has so entirely filled my heart,and so absorbed all that is best and truest in me, as my feelingfor your brother, can really pass away as if it had never existed.I have destroyed the last visible things that remind me of him.In this world I shall see him no more. But is the tie that once bound us,completely broken? Am I as entirely parted from the good and evilfortune of his life as if we had never met and never loved? What doyou think, Henry? I can hardly believe it.'

'If you could bring the retribution on him that he has deserved,'Henry Westwick answered sternly, 'I might be inclined to agreewith you.'

As that reply passed his lips, the old nurse appeared again at the door,announcing another visitor.

'I'm sorry to disturb you, my dear. But here is little Mrs. Ferrariwanting to know when she may say a few words to you.'

Agnes turned to Henry, before she replied. 'You rememberEmily Bidwell, my favourite pupil years ago at the village school,and afterwards my maid? She left me, to marry an Italian courier,named Ferrari--and I am afraid it has not turned out very well.Do you mind my having her in here for a minute or two?'

Henry rose to take his leave. 'I should be glad to see Emily againat any other time,' he said. 'But it is best that I should go now.My mind is disturbed, Agnes; I might say things to you, if Istayed here any longer, which--which are better not said now.I shall cross the Channel by the mail to-night, and seehow a few weeks' change will help me.' He took her hand.'Is there anything in the world that I can do for you?' he askedvery earnestly. She thanked him, and tried to release her hand.He held it with a tremulous lingering grasp. 'God bless you, Agnes!'he said in faltering tones, with his eyes on the ground.Her face flushed again, and the next instant turned palerthan ever; she knew his heart as well as he knew it himself--she was too distressed to speak. He lifted her hand to his lips,kissed it fervently, and, without looking at her again, left the room.The nurse hobbled after him to the head of the stairs: she had notforgotten the time when the younger brother had been the unsuccessfulrival of the elder for the hand of Agnes. 'Don't be down-hearted,Master Henry,' whispered the old woman, with the unscrupulous commonsense of persons in the lower rank of life. 'Try her again, when youcome back!'

Left alone for a few moments, Agnes took a turn in the room,trying to compose herself. She paused before a little water-colourdrawing on the wall, which had belonged to her mother: it was herown portrait when she was a child. 'How much happier we should be,'she thought to herself sadly, 'if we never grew up!'

The courier's wife was shown in--a little meek melancholy woman,with white eyelashes, and watery eyes, who curtseyed deferentiallyand was troubled with a small chronic cough. Agnes shook handswith her kindly. 'Well, Emily, what can I do for you?'

The courier's wife made rather a strange answer: 'I'm afraidto tell you, Miss.'

'Is it such a very difficult favour to grant? Sit down, and letme hear how you are going on. Perhaps the petition will slipout while we are talking. How does your husband behave to you?'

Emily's light grey eyes looked more watery than ever.She shook her head and sighed resignedly. 'I have no positivecomplaint to make against him, Miss. But I'm afraid he doesn'tcare about me; and he seems to take no interest in his home--I may almost say he's tired of his home. It might be betterfor both of us, Miss, if he went travelling for a while--not to mention the money, which is beginning to be wanted sadly.'She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and sighed again more resignedlythan ever.

'I don't quite understand,' said Agnes. 'I thought your husbandhad an engagement to take some ladies to Switzerland and Italy?'

'That was his ill-luck, Miss. One of the ladies fell ill--and the others wouldn't go without her. They paid him a month's salaryas compensation. But they had engaged him for the autumn and winter--and the loss is serious.'

'I am sorry to hear it, Emily. Let us hope he will soon haveanother chance.'

'It's not his turn, Miss, to be recommended when the next applicationscome to the couriers' office. You see, there are so many of themout of employment just now. If he could be privately recommended--'She stopped, and left the unfinished sentence to speak for itself.

Agnes understood her directly. 'You want my recommendation,'she rejoined. 'Why couldn't you say so at once?'

Emily blushed. 'It would be such a chance for my husband,'she answered confusedly. 'A letter, inquiring for a good courier(a six months' engagement, Miss!) came to the office this morning.It's another man's turn to be chosen--and the secretary willrecommend him. If my husband could only send his testimonials by thesame post--with just a word in your name, Miss--it might turn the scale,as they say. A private recommendation between gentlefolks goes so far.'She stopped again, and sighed again, and looked down at the carpet,as if she had some private reason for feeling a little ashamedof herself.

Agnes began to be rather weary of the persistent tone of mysteryin which her visitor spoke. 'If you want my interest with anyfriend of mine,' she said, 'why can't you tell me the name?'

The courier's wife began to cry. 'I'm ashamed to tell you, Miss.'

For the first time, Agnes spoke sharply. 'Nonsense, Emily!Tell me the name directly--or drop the subject--whichever youlike best.'

Emily made a last desperate effort. She wrung her handkerchiefhard in her lap, and let off the name as if she had been lettingoff a loaded gun:--'Lord Montbarry!'

Agnes rose and looked at her.

'You have disappointed me,' she said very quietly, but with a lookwhich the courier's wife had never seen in her face before.'Knowing what you know, you ought to be aware that it is impossiblefor me to communicate with Lord Montbarry. I always supposed youhad some delicacy of feeling. I am sorry to find that I havebeen mistaken.'

Weak as she was, Emily had spirit enough to feel the reproof.She walked in her meek noiseless way to the door. 'I beg your pardon,Miss. I am not quite so bad as you think me. But I beg your pardon,all the same.'

She opened the door. Agnes called her back. There was somethingin the woman's apology that appealed irresistibly to her just andgenerous nature. 'Come,' she said; 'we must not part in this way.Let me not misunderstand you. What is it that you expected meto do?'

Emily was wise enough to answer this time without any reserve.'My husband will send his testimonials, Miss, to Lord Montbarryin Scotland. I only wanted you to let him say in his letterthat his wife has been known to you since she was a child,and that you feel some little interest in his welfare on that account.I don't ask it now, Miss. You have made me understand that Iwas wrong.'

Had she really been wrong? Past remembrances, as well as presenttroubles, pleaded powerfully with Agnes for the courier's wife.'It seems only a small favour to ask,' she said, speaking underthe impulse of kindness which was the strongest impulse in her nature.'But I am not sure that I ought to allow my name to be mentioned in yourhusband's letter. Let me hear again exactly what he wishes to say.'Emily repeated the words--and then offered one of those suggestions,which have a special value of their own to persons unaccustomed to the useof their pens. 'Suppose you try, Miss, how it looks in writing?'Childish as the idea was, Agnes tried the experiment. 'If I let youmention me,' she said, 'we must at least decide what you are to say.'She wrote the words in the briefest and plainest form:--'I venture to statethat my wife has been known from her childhood to Miss Agnes Lockwood,who feels some little interest in my welfare on that account.'Reduced to this one sentence, there was surely nothing in the referenceto her name which implied that Agnes had permitted it, or that shewas even aware of it. After a last struggle with herself, she handedthe written paper to Emily. 'Your husband must copy it exactly,without altering anything,' she stipulated. 'On that condition,I grant your request.' Emily was not only thankful--she wasreally touched. Agnes hurried the little woman out of the room.'Don't give me time to repent and take it back again,' she said.Emily vanished.

'Is the tie that once bound us completely broken? Am I as entirelyparted from the good and evil fortune of his life as if we had nevermet and never loved?' Agnes looked at the clock on the mantel-piece.Not ten minutes since, those serious questions had been on her lips.It almost shocked her to think of the common-place manner inwhich they had already met with their reply. The mail of thatnight would appeal once more to Montbarry's remembrance of her--in the choice of a servant.

Two days later, the post brought a few grateful lines from Emily.Her husband had got the place. Ferrari was engaged, for sixmonths certain, as Lord Montbarry's courier.