’O most lame and impotent conclusion!’ — Shakespeare.

Agatha was naturally very vexed when she heard from her sisters what had happened.  She was sometimes laughed at by her friends for her devotion to the clergy, and all her hopes of doing good were centred in the country church and its organizations.

‘It is most unfortunate,’ she said; ’I was hoping that perhaps some of them might call before Sunday, but really after such an encounter they may totally ignore us.  It was not right to do such a thing, Elfie, without permission.  I can’t think how Gwen could have allowed it.’

‘Well, really, I am not up in propriety and etiquette in such matters,’ was Gwen’s rather impatient response.  ’We are not in town now, thank goodness!  In the country you are supposed to have a little freedom.  If they don’t wish people to try the organ, they should not leave it open, or they should chain a bulldog to the organ stool.  Wasn’t that her suggestion, Clare?  My dear Agatha, don’t fuss yourself.  This old woman must be quite a character, and would abuse anybody, I feel certain.  We didn’t tell her who we were, so if she comes to call on you, we will keep out of the way.  She seemed half blind, so I don’t expect she would recognise us again.’

‘Jane says she lives alone with her brother, who is unmarried,’ said Clare, ’and she is quite a Tartar in the village, though she is very good in relieving the villagers’ wants.’

‘What does Jane know about it?’

’Oh, she gets her gossip from Mrs. Tucker, who also told her that Miss Miller sees better through her green glasses than most people do without any glasses at all!’

‘Mrs. Tucker talks a lot of rubbish, I expect,’ said Gwen, rather loftily; then, changing the conversation, she said, ’I am going to unpack my books now.  Who will come and help me?  I am longing to fill up those empty bookshelves in Mr. Lester’s study.  What a good thing he left them as fixtures!’

‘I will help you, if you like,’ said Clare.  ’Are you going to take sole possession of that study, may I ask?’

Gwen looked across at her rather queerly.

‘Not if you dispute it,’ she said, with a little laugh.  ’Agatha is in love with the drawing-room.  She has already arranged a corner for herself there; her writing-table in the west window, her work-basket and books in the corner by it, and her pet canary is now singing himself hoarse at the view he has from the window.’

‘Yes,’ Agatha replied, ’it is an ideal old maid’s corner, and that is where you will always find me, when my housekeeping duties are not keeping me away.’

‘I wish we could have a sitting-room each,’ said Clare; ’we get so in each other’s way.’

‘You can share the study with me when you want to be quiet,’ said Gwen.  ‘I won’t have you there if you talk!’

’You’re quite the owner of it already, then?  And what are you going to do, Elfie?’

’Oh, I shall be everywhere.  Agatha never minds my music.  I shall be practising a good deal, and if I’m voted a bore, I shall take my violin up to the bedroom.  You and Gwen are the blue stockings, so the study will be given over to you.’

This seemed satisfactory.  Gwen was a great reader, and possessed already a most valuable library.  She wrote essays for some periodical occasionally, but would never bind herself to any steady contributions, and she was never so happy as when deeply engrossed in some ancient histories of Egypt or Nineveh.  The buried past had a fascination for her, and perhaps she of all the others had most reason for regretting the departure from London, for her constant visits to the reading-room at the British Museum had been a keen delight and pleasure to her.  When quite a schoolgirl she used to say, with that masterful toss of her head, ’I am quite determined that I will understand and master every “ology” under the sun!’

And Gwen and her ‘ologies’ had been a perpetual joke in her family ever since.  She had dabbled in a good many sciences — geology, astronomy, architecture, physiology, botany, natural history, and archaeology all had their turn, and she certainly seemed to get a good deal of interest and amusement out of them all.  She announced to Clare, as a little later they were seated on the study floor surrounded by pyramids of books, that she intended to give her thoughts now to gardening and agriculture.

’I have some delightful old books on horticulture, which I shall read up,’ she said enthusiastically; ’and there is an old Dutch writer amongst them who gives the most minute directions for laying out a flower and vegetable garden.  I have told Agatha I shall take the garden into my charge.  I am certain I shall succeed with it.’

‘Do you ever doubt your capability for doing anything?’

Clare put the question gravely.

‘No, I don’t think I do, except teach a Sunday school class!’ said Gwen, laughing.

‘I sometimes feel I am incapable of living even,’ said Clare dreamily.

Gwen stared at her.  These two understood each other better than one would have thought possible with such opposite characteristics.  Clare admired Gwen’s intellect, and there were times when Gwen knew that Clare had depths of which she knew nothing.  Reason and practical common sense had full sway in the one, imagination and mysticism in the other, and none of these qualities were tempered with real religion.

‘You must be in the blues!’ exclaimed Gwen, with a laugh.

‘No,’ said Clare, looking up, ’I am not, at all.  I am longing to be up and doing, and leave some mark behind me as I go.  Is that Browning you have in your hand?  Just let me look up a passage!’ Gwen laughed again as she handed across the book.

‘No hope for any more help from you, if you once get hold of him!’

And for an hour Clare sat amongst the piles of books with her fair head resting against the carved cupboard, and not a word or sign could Gwen get out of her.

Elfie spent her time in helping Agatha to unpack, and it was a very tired little party that gathered round the drawing-room fire that evening.

‘I wonder,’ said Clare, ’if we shall find we have made a mistake in coming here.  It seems so very quiet, and different to either London or Dane Hall.  When we used to stay there with Aunt Mildred, there was always such a lot going on that it didn’t seem quite like the country.’

‘My dear Clare,’ said Agatha quietly, ’you would be much happier yourself, and would make others happier too, if you always made the best of your circumstances.  I remember you used to complain at Dane Hall of the frivolity and empty-headedness of aunt’s visitors, and would say it was a mere waste of life to live as we did!’

‘Oh, don’t be so prosy, Agatha!’ Clare returned impatiently.  ’If you were dropped into a workhouse ward, you would look round and remark how comfortable you were, and how at last you had found your vocation!’

Elfie laughed aloud at this, but Agatha leant back in her chair and looked into the glowing coals in front of her with a smile that showed she was not destitute of humour.  ‘I daresay I might,’ she said.  ’I always love a community of old women, and if I could have chats with them, I am sure I should enjoy myself.’

‘Well, I only wish I could be so easily contented,’ said Clare, in a tone that showed she would be very sorry for herself if she were.  She soon went off to bed, and Elfie followed, and then the two elder ones drew their chairs together and had a confidential talk over ways and means.

Agatha, though apparently apathetic at times and of a yielding disposition, had not always been so.  When she first came home from school, she had all the bright hopes and restless longings of a young girl, and her aunt did all in her power to make life pleasant and bright for her.  She went out into society, and was a general favourite, owing to her sweet temper and extreme unselfishness.  Then one came on the scene who attracted her heart from the first.  He was an earnest, whole-hearted Christian man, a vicar of an East End parish, and it was his influence that made Agatha view life in a different light.  She vexed her aunt at first by gradually withdrawing from gaieties, and it was only with great difficulty that she was given permission to visit in the slums.  The vicar was soon her betrothed, and Agatha had a few months of perpetual sunshine.  But hard work, and a not very strong constitution, soon brought about a serious break-down, and he was ordered to the south of France to recruit his health.  The parting was a sad one, and Agatha had wild thoughts of marrying then and there, and going with him as his wife and nurse.  But this Miss Dane strenuously opposed, and poor Agatha had to bear the strain of five months away from the one who needed her so badly.  He died, and for a time she was broken-hearted; but gradually she came to prove the reality and comfort of her religion, and then, taking up the interests of those around her, she had cheerfully buried her own sorrow, and became the mainstay of her aunt and her household.  Perhaps Agatha felt most keenly being shut out from her aunt’s dying room, she certainly uttered with heartfelt fervour morning and evening, ’Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.’

And she had never trusted herself to mention her cousin’s unjust dealing to anyone; even her sisters had little idea how deep her feelings were about it.

The next few days were very busy ones.  Saturday brought Captain Knox, to stay with them till Monday, and Clare showed him over house and garden in the best of spirits.  ‘It is rather strange,’ he said, as he sat at dinner with them that night, ’but one of my sisters knows a lady in this neighbourhood, and she thinks you will like her.  She lives somewhere on the outskirts of Brambleton.  A Miss Villars.  She is a charming woman, I hear, very comfortably off, but rather eccentric in the way she spends her money.  My sister wrote to her when she knew of your arrival here, so you may have a visit from her soon.’

‘Is she an old maid?’ asked Elfie; ’because we have seen one, and, I was going to say, don’t want to see another.’

Clare related their adventure in the church, and Captain Knox was much amused.

’I do not think there is anything queer about Miss Villars, except that she is a very religious woman.’

‘Is that queer?’ questioned Clare, a little wistfully.

‘No,’ Agatha said very quietly; ‘it ought not to be.’

‘But it is in the sight of the world,’ retorted Captain Knox; ’that is, if your religion in an aggressive one.’

‘Well, of course it ought not to be aggressive,’ said Gwen briskly.  ’Religion is a matter to be lived, not talked about.  It only concerns oneself, and no one else.’

‘That is a very selfish creed,’ said Agatha.  ’If you possess something good, you ought to wish to pass it on.’

’But not to thrust it on people who don’t want it.  I am thirsty, and like a glass of water, but need I insist upon your drinking it, when you are not thirsty at all?’

‘Gwen loves an argument,’ said Captain Knox good-naturedly.

‘I am not good at arguing,’ said Agatha, ’only, knowing that thirst can be a blessing, I think we should try to make people thirsty.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Clare with interest, ’thirst is not, generally, a very happy experience.’

’Doesn’t it say, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled"?’

’Oh, come, Agatha, we don’t want a sermon with our dinner.  You are not given to preach, so don’t be trying to show us that you know how to be aggressive.’

Gwen’s tone was a little scornful, and Agatha said no more; but as Clare was pacing up and down in the verandah with Captain Knox, a little time after, she suddenly said, ’I think I am a thirsty person, Hugh, only I never can tell what it is I am thirsting for; tell me, are you perfectly satisfied with yourself and with life?’

Captain Knox looked down at the sweet, pensive face of his betrothed.  ‘I shall be, Clare — on our wedding day.’

Clare frowned.  ’You never will be in earnest about anything; you always turn my thoughts into ridicule.’

’Indeed I do not.  But I am a plain, matter-of-fact soldier, and live on earth; you are in dreamland half your time, or in the clouds.  Clare, darling, I cannot bear the thoughts of Africa sometimes; how shall I be able to stand being away from you so long?  And time is slipping away so fast; only a fortnight more before I am off.’

‘You will come down again before you start, of course?’

’Oh yes, I certainly intend to do so; but I have a lot to do in town — it may be only the last day that you will see me.’

Clare sighed, but said nothing, and then Captain Knox said suddenly, —

’Is Agatha very religious, Clare?

’No, I don’t think so — not particularly.  She is fond of church and all that, but she doesn’t often speak out as she did at dinner to-night.  Now, don’t let us be gloomy; come indoors, and I will show you Bluebeard’s cupboard in the study, It is well worth looking at, for it is beautifully carved, and I am going to try and copy it.  You know how I love carving.’

She took him to the study, and there, by the aid of a lamp, they examined the old oak cupboard in the deep recess at the side of the fireplace.

’The strange thing is that there seems to be no lock or opening at all to it,’ said Clare.  ’I have spent hours in trying to find out where it is opened.  Do you think one day I shall touch a spring, the doors will fly open, and there we shall see his headless wives?’

She was laughing now, and full of animation.  Captain Knox passed his fingers lightly across the carving.

‘I expect one of these carved bits is movable,’ he said.  ’It is a handsome bit of handicraft.  What is this along the bottom, a scroll with writing?’

’That is what I say it is; Gwen says not, but I am sure those hieroglyphics mean something.’

It looks like Arabic characters,’ said Captain Knox with interest.  ’I believe it is so.  Here, stop a minute; let me copy these in my notebook.  I shall be studying Arabic on my way out, and if I find I can translate this, I will let you know.’

‘Perhaps it is a clue to the mystery,’ said Clare, with shining eyes; ’I am dying to know what this cupboard contains.  Mrs. Tucker said she never saw it opened the whole time she was here; but Mr. Lester told her once that he prized this cupboard more than anything else in the house.  She thinks, foolish woman, that it is full of gold!  I only hope she won’t spread that notion about Brambleton.  The next thing will be that we shall have thieves in the house, and perhaps be all murdered in our beds!’ Captain Knox laughed at her fears, and soon after, they joined the others in the drawing-room.