I have wondered since that the weight of my own happiness did not break my heart, the suspense had been so great.

“You love me?  Say it again, Agatha.  I cannot believe it.  Oh, my darling, it seemed to me easier to reach the golden stars than to win you!”

“You did not try,” she said, with a smile half sweet, half divine.  “You always looked frightened at me.”

“So I was, but I will grow bolder now.  Such beauty, such purity, such goodness as yours would awe anyone.  I can hardly believe now in my own good fortune.  Say it again, darling.”

She raised her sweet face to mine.

“I love you,” she said, simply; and it seemed to me the words died away in the summer wind more sweetly than an echo from heaven would die.

“And you will be my wife?  Agatha, promise me.”

“I will be your wife,” she said; and then, to my thinking, we went straight away to fairyland.

I do not remember the sun setting, although it must have set; for when my senses returned to me a servant was standing before us, saying that Lady Thesiger was afraid it was growing cold.

There lay the dew shining on the trees and flowers, yet we had not even seen it fall.

CHAPTER IX.

I would not leave the manor house until I had seen Sir John.  Agatha did not go back to the drawing-room with me.

“What will mamma think?” she said, in utter dismay.  “See how late it is; and the dew has fallen.”

“I will tell her why I detained you, Agatha.  You are sure that I shall not wake up tomorrow and find all this is a dream?”

“I do not think so,” she replied; and then she would not stop for another word, and I went in to meet Lady Thesiger alone.

She was surprised when I told her.  No matter what Coralie said about maneuvering, if ever I saw real, genuine surprise in any woman’s face, it was in Lady Thesiger’s this evening.

“You have asked Agatha to marry you!” she repeated, looking half bewildered; “and pray, Sir Edgar, what did the child say?”

“She promised to marry me,” I replied, more boldly; “that is, of course, if Sir John and you, Lady Thesiger, have no objection.”

“I am afraid that you have not taken that much into consideration.  Asked the child to marry you!  Why, Sir Edgar, how long have you been in love with her?”

“From the very first moment I ever saw her.”

“Why,” cried her ladyship, “Sir John told me you were in love, and had promised to confide in him.”

Remembering what I had said to him, I explained to her that in speaking as I had done I referred entirely to Agatha.

“It is so utterly unexpected,” she said, “that you must pardon my strange reception of your intelligence.”

She sat quite silent for some minutes, then continued: 

“It seems so strange for you to fall in love with Agatha.  The dearest wish of Sir Barnard’s heart was to have her for a daughter-in-law.”