Free Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green

her high,
unmusical voice.
    "Very," was Miss Halliday's short reply; and for a moment the two
faces were in line as he held open the gate before his departing
guest.
    They were very different faces in feature and expression, and till
that night he had never thought of comparing them. Indeed, the
fascination which beamed from Amabel Page's far from regular
features had put all others out of his mind, but now, as he
surveyed the two girls, the candour and purity which marked
Agnes's countenance came out so strongly under his glance that
Amabel lost all attraction for him, and he drew his young
neighbour hastily away.
    Amabel noted the movement and smiled. Her contempt for Agnes
Halliday's charms amounted to disdain.
    She might have felt less confidence in her own had she been in a
position to note the frequent glances Frederick cast at his old
playmate as they proceeded slowly up the road. Not that there was
any passion in them—he was too full of care for that; but the
curiosity which could prompt him to turn his head a dozen times in
the course of so short a walk, to see why Agnes Halliday held her
face so persistently away from him, had an element of feeling in
it that was more or less significant. As for Agnes, she was so
unlike her accustomed self as to astonish even herself. Whereas
she had never before walked a dozen steps with him without
indulging in some sharp saying, she found herself disinclined to
speak at all, much less to speak lightly. In mutual silence, then,
they reached the gateway leading into the Halliday grounds. But
Agnes having passed in, they both stopped and for the first time
looked squarely at each other. Her eyes fell first, perhaps
because his had changed in his contemplation of her. He smiled as
he saw this, and in a half-careless, half-wistful tone, said
quietly:
    "Agnes, what would you think of a man who, after having committed
little else but folly all his life, suddenly made up his mind to
turn absolutely toward the right and to pursue it in face of every
obstacle and every discouragement?"
    "I should think," she slowly replied, with one quick lift of her
eyes toward his face, "that he had entered upon the noblest effort
of which man is capable, and the hardest. I should have great
sympathy for that man, Frederick."
    "Would you?" he said, recalling Amabel's face with bitter aversion
as he gazed into the womanly countenance he had hitherto slighted
as uninteresting. "It is the first kind word you have ever given
me, Agnes. Possibly it is the first I have ever deserved."
    And without another word he doffed his hat, saluted her, and
vanished down the hillside.
    She remained; remained so long that it was nearly nine when she
entered the family parlour. As she came in her mother looked up
and was startled at her unaccustomed pallor.
    "Why, Agnes," cried her mother, "what is the matter?"
    Her answer was inaudible. What was the matter? She dreaded, even
feared, to ask herself.
    Meantime a strange scene was taking place in the woods toward
which she had seen Frederick go. The moon, which was particularly
bright that night, shone upon a certain hollow where a huge tree
lay. Around it the underbrush was thick and the shadow dark, but
in this especial place the opening was large enough for the rays
to enter freely. Into this circlet of light Frederick Sutherland
had come. Alone and without the restraint imposed upon him by
watching eyes, he showed a countenance so wan and full of trouble
that it was well it could not be seen by either of the two women
whose thoughts were at that moment fixed upon him. To Amabel it
would have given a throb of selfish hope, while to Agnes it would
have brought a pang of despair which might have somewhat too
suddenly interpreted to her the mystery of her own sensations.
    He had bent at once to the hollow space made by the outspreading
roots just mentioned, and was feeling with an air of confidence
along the ground for something he had every reason to expect to
find, when