Every one knows that story, perhaps the most terrible of its kind for many years—and Heaven grant! for many more to come—when a noble ship, with her full complement of human beings, fought at once with winds, and waves, and fire, until came down upon it, and upon all the homes which that one hour desolated, the certain doom. One shudders even at writing of such things, save that they must of necessity happen, and not rarely. But for one such tale as that of the Amazon, which convulses a whole kingdom with horror, there must be many unknown chronicles of equal dread, save that the little vessel sinks unnoticed into its sea grave, and the destruction carried with it passes not beyond its own immediate sphere. Such was the case with the Ardente.

When the train neared Southampton it was already bright morning. Everybody was moving about on the solid, safe, sunshiny earth—nobody thought of shipwrecks and disasters at sea. Many a one looked lazily at the glittering Southampton-water; no one dreamed how, far beyond the curving line of horizon, human beings—husbands and brothers—might be floating about without food or water, frozen, thirsting, dying or dead, under the same sunny sky.

Passing the spot where the wide reach of bay opens, Marmaduke quickly drew down the carriage-blind. He would not for worlds that the poor Agatha should look at that merry-glancing, cruel sea. She seemed to notice the movement, and stirred from the corner where she had sat during all the journey, motionless, save for her perpetually open eyes.

“How light it is! quite morning!”

Marmaduke turned, felt her pulse, and began softly chafing her cold hand.

“Don't, now,” she said piteously. “Don't be kind to me—please don't! Talk a little. Tell me what you think it best to do first.”

The sharp-lined, worn face, not pallid, or without consciousness—some people, to their misery, never can lose consciousness—mournfully did worthy Duke regard it! But he did not say a word of sympathy; he knew she could not bear it. Her physical powers were so tightly strung that the least soft touch would make them give way altogether.

Mr. Dugdale stated briefly, and as if it had been the most matter-of-fact thing in the world, how he meant to go to the owners of the Ardente and get the first tidings of her there; how, if neither that nor any rumours he could catch in and about the docks, were satisfactory, he should hire a small steamer and beat up and down Channel, calling in at all the ports where it was likely boats might have been picked up.

“They would be, probably, in twenty-four hours or so. If we don't hear in three days—three days at this time of year”—he stopped with a perceptible shudder—“then, Agatha,” and Duke's gentle voice grew gentler, and solemn like a psalm, “then, my child, we'll go home.”

Agatha bowed her head. Bodily exhaustion calmed her mind, and soothed her into a feeling which made even the last dread alternative less fearful. She felt a conviction that such “going home” would only be a prelude to the last going home of all, when she should never part from her husband more. She did not much mind now, even if all were to end so. Perhaps it would be best.

They got out of the carriage. All her limbs were cramped—she could hardly stand. Mr. Dugdale took her unresisting, to a quiet inn he knew, and there made her lie down and take food. Somehow, even in the last extremity, Duke Dugdale could win people over to do his pleasure, which was always for their own good.. He sat by her and talked, but only for a few minutes—he had no thought of wasting even in kindness the time on which might hang life or death.

“I am going now, and you must stay here till my return, which is sure not to be for at least two hours.”

“Two hours!—Oh, take me with you!”

Duke shook his head. “You would only hinder me, I fear. See there, now!”

Trying to rise and cross the parlour, she had nearly fallen. A drowsy weakness stole over her—she let her good brother have his own way entirely. Very soon she found herself alone in the parlour, lying in the dusky light of closed blinds, with the dull murmur creeping up from the street—lying quietly in a state of passive patience.

No human brain can endure a great strain of mental anguish long. A merciful numbness usually seizes it, in which everything grows hazy and unreal, and consequently painless. Agatha felt convinced she was half-asleep, and that she should wake up in her own room at Thorn-hurst or at Kingcombe, and find out everything to be a dream. Or even granting its reality, she seemed to view the whole story like some unconcerned person, or some being from whom this troubled world had passed away, and grown less than nothing and vanity. She gazed down upon herself as it were from a great height, thinking how sad a story it was, and how it would have grieved herself to hear it of any one else. But all her thoughts were disconnected and unnatural. The only tangible feeling was a sort of comfort in remembering the last day they had spent together—in thinking how he loved her, and that, living or dying, he would know how she loved him now.

In this state she lay for an indefinite time—a period that had no human measurement. It seemed at once a day and a moment. No counted time could ever appear so like eternity.

At last there was a hand upon the door. Mr. Dugdale had come back. Agatha started up, and sat frozen. For her life she could not have uttered a sound. He took her hand, saying, gently:

“My dear child!”

Surely he could not have spoken so, if—No, in that case his lips would have been paralysed, like her own.

“We must bear up yet, little sister. There is a chance.”

The flood broke forth. Agatha flung herself on the sofa-cushions, sobbing, weeping, and laughing at once. Duke patted her on the shoulder, walked round her, stood eyeing her with his mild, investigating look, as if he were pondering some great new problem in human nature. Finally, he sat down beside her, and cried likewise.

Agatha for the first time spoke naturally. “Thank you, brother—you are a very good brother to me. Now, tell me everything.”

“Everything is but little. It's like hanging on a thread—but we'll hold on.”

“We will,” said Agatha, setting her lips together, and sitting down firmly to listen. She was in her right senses now. She had undergone the shock, and risen from it another woman.

“I wish you would make haste and tell me. You don't know how quiet I am now, nor how much I can bear—only tell me.”

Marmaduke began, speaking in fragments hurriedly put together, looking steadily down on his hands, using a brief business tone—just as if every syllable had not been planned by him on his way back, so that the tidings might fall most gradually on the poor wife's ear.

“It was indeed the Ardente. Four sailors were picked up yesterday, in one of her boats. They say it's likely that others may have got off in the same way.”

“Ah!” That wild sob of thanksgiving! Marmaduke seemed to dread it more than despair. He hastily added:

“But they had many things against them. The fire happened at midnight. When it broke out there was no one on deck but one passenger, walking up and down. He was a young man, the sailors say, tall, with long light hair.”

The speaker's voice faltered; he could not bear to see the misery he inflicted. At last Agatha motioned to hear more.

“One sailor remembers him particularly, because during all the tumult he was almost the only person who seemed to have his wits about him. He was seen everywhere—getting out the boats, quieting the passengers—doing it all, the man says, as steadily as if he had been in his own house on shore, instead of in a burning ship. If there was any one likely to have saved his own life and the lives of others, the sailors think it must be that young man.”

“When did they see him last?”

“Not five minutes before the ship went down. He was in a boat with several more. They think it was he because of his light hair. He was leaning over towards a floating spar, helping in a woman and child.”

“Ah, then it was he! It was my husband!” cried Agatha, clasping her hands, while her countenance glowed like that of some Roman wife, who, dearer even than his life, esteemed her husband's honour.

“I believe,” she said, as that rapture faded, and the natural pang returned—“I firmly believe that he has been saved. God would not let him perish. He must have got safe off from the wreck in that boat. Don't you think he has?”

Duke could not meet those eager eyes; he fidgeted in his seat, looked down on his hands, and told them over, finger by finger. At last he said, with that peculiar upward look which, amidst all his eccentricities, showed the beautiful serenity of a righteous man—a man who “walked with God:”

“Child, we can none of us be certain either way. We can only do all that lies in human power, and leave the event in the hand of One who is wiser and more loving than us all.”

Agatha bowed her head, and her heart with it, almost to the dust. She remembered Anne Valery's saying—how much those who loved have need to trust in God. Poor Anne! Never until this minute had any one thought of Anne at home at Thornhurst. Shocked at the selfishness that often comes with great misery, Agatha cried eagerly:

“Did you hear anything about Uncle Brian?”

“No—nothing.” The quick, husky tone, as Marmaduke turned and walked away, betrayed how keenly the good man suffered, though he never spoke of any sufferings but Agatha's. She was deeply touched.

“Take hope,” she said earnestly. “He will be saved. My husband would never forsake Uncle Brian.”

“I know that; but then Nathanael is young, and has something to live for, while Brian is getting on in years—older than I am.—I should like to have seen him again, and have shown him little Brian; but—well it's a strange world! Heaven's mercy is sure to give us a life to come, perhaps many lives—if only to make clear the hard mysteries of this. I should like to have talked that matter over once again with poor Brian.”

And Duke seemed wandering into his mild, dreamy philosophies, till Agatha recalled him.

“Now, what is to be done? You said, if we heard nothing, the boats must be drifting about somewhere in the Channel”—she shivered—“and then we would take a little steamer, and go and look for them?”

“I know. She's getting ready.”

“That is right. Then we will go on board at once,” said Agatha, with decision. She, who a week ago would have been terrified at the bare thought of setting her foot on the deck of any vessel!

“Poor little delicate thing,” muttered Duke, watching her. “It will be a rough sea to-night, and we may be a day or two in getting round the coast. You had better go home, Agatha.”

She shook her head.

“Somebody once told me you had never been at sea in your life; and in winter-time this Dorset coast is rough always, sometimes dangerous.”

“Dangerous! and he is there!” She began tying on her bonnet, hastily, but steadily, as steadily as if preparing for an every-day walk. “Now, I am quite ready. Let us start.”

Her brother made no more objections, but took her through the busy Southampton streets. Once, on the quay, two lounging sailors touched their hats to Mr. Dugdale, and Agatha heard a whisper of “Belongs to some o' the poor fellows as went down in the Ardente.” She shuddered, as if there were already upon her the awful sign of widowhood.

—The wide Southampton harbour, with the crafts of all nations gliding to and fro upon it—the bustle of the landing and embarking place—the hurrying crowd, eager after their own business, none thinking of the one little vessel suddenly whelmed in that wondrous sea-highway, ever thronged, yet ever lonely, or of the wrecked crew drifting hither and thither, no one knew where. The tale had been a day's talk, a day's pity—then forgotten.

Agatha stood in the midst of all, but saw nothing. Nothing but the grey, bleak, merciless sea, howling and dancing to her feet like a victorious enemy, or sweeping off into the silence of the wintry horizon, there grimly folding up its mystery, as if to say, “Of me thou shalt know nothing.” But Agatha felt as if, to win that secret, she was ready to pierce into nethermost hell.

“Quick, let us go,” she said, and almost bounded into the little vessel. She stood on the deck, trembling with excitement, watched the paddles crash into obedience the cruel waves, ride over them, on—on—to the mouth of the bay. And now for the first time she was out on the open sea.

It was one of those gloomy winter days when the whole ocean looks sullen—heavy with brooding storms. No blue foamy sweeps, no lovely sea-green calms; nothing but leaden-coloured hills of water, swelling and sinking, with black valleys between. Agatha remembered a story she had read or heard in her childish days, of some wrecked sailor lad, doomed to death by his mates because the boat was too full for safety, who asked leave to sit on the gunwale until after the curl of the wave, and then quietly dropped off into the smooth hollow below.

It was horrible! She could not look at the sea—it made her mad. She could only look skywards, and try to find a break in the dun clouds; or else over to the horizon, to see something—ever so faint and small a something—breaking the line of water and sky.

The men on board apparently knew Mr. Dugdale, and he them. They worked with a respectful solemnity, as if aware of their sad errand. The boat was a little steam-tug, and she cut her way over the heavy seas like a bird. Two men, and Marmaduke, kept watch constantly with the glass, shorewards and seawards. Sometimes they went so far out that the hazy coast-line almost vanished, and then again they ran in-shore under the gigantic cliffs that lock the south of England coast.

Hour after hour, the poor wife remained on deck, sometimes walking about restlessly, sometimes lying wrapped in sails and rugs, her face turned seaward in a dumb hopelessness that was more piteous than any moans. The seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe, mingled with that compassionate gentleness which sailors almost always show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her food, or put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the sheltering of “the poor lady.”

Late at night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again. She found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compass and the telescope. He had slept by snatches where he sat, never giving up his watch for a single hour.

“E—h!” he said, when she came and touched him. “I was dreaming of the Missus and the little ones at home!”

“Do you want to go home?”

“No—no!—not while there's a hope. Keep heart, my child!”

But they looked at each other's faces in the dawn, and saw how pale and disconsolate both were. And still the little lonely boat kept rocking over the sea—the pitiless sea, that returned neither answer nor sign.

Another day—another night: just the same. Once or twice they came on the track of some vessel; a ship outward or homeward bound, and told their story; shouting it out, in brief business-like words—how horrible they sounded! And the ship's people would be seen to come to her side, stand a while looking at the melancholy little steamer on its hopeless search—then pass on. All the world seemed passing on slowly, slowly—leaving them to that blank sea and sky, and to their own despair.

On the evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for several hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at the stern, looking shorewards at two columns of rock, which the watery wear of ages had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright in the sea, a little distance from one another, with the breakers boiling between.

“There's 'Old Harry and his wife,' as the Dorset people call them. We are near home now, Agatha.”

“Home!” She gasped the word in an agony, and turned her face again seawards—towards the grey desolate line where the Channel melted away.

“The steamer can't run on much longer without putting in-shore,” said Duke, after an interval.

Agatha almost shrieked; “You are not going to land? We have been out such a little—little while! And you said yourself the boats would live a long time in the open Channel.”

“But that was three days ago.”

“Three days—oh, Heaven!—three days.”

And the black, black cloud fell over her; the near vision of an existence wherein he was not—the going home a widow—or worse, because she could never have the certainty of widowhood. To be incessantly watching by day, and starting up at night, with the thought that he was come! Never to know when, where, or in what manner he died; to have no last blessing—no last kiss! At the moment, Agatha would have given her whole future life—nay, her immortal soul—to cling for one minute round her husband's neck and tell him how she loved him—with the one perfect love which nothing now could ever alter, weaken, or estrange.

Mr. Dugdale moved aside. He knew that for this burst of anguish there was no consolation. After a time, he came and said those few soothing words which are all that people can say, without being those “miserable comforters” who only torture the more.

Even then, in that last moment of anguish, there was power in the good and soothing influence so peculiar to Marmaduke Dugdale. Agatha grew calmer—at least more passive. Soon, she saw that the little steamer's head was turned to the shore. A convulsion passed over her, but she did not rebel.

“There is a faint hope even yet,” said Duke, with a melancholy voice that almost gave the lie to his words. “They may have drifted safe ashore somewhere—though it would be almost a miracle. Or they may have been carried far out to sea, and been picked up by some outward-bound ship. It's just a chance—but”—

Agatha understood that “but” Nothing but strong conviction would have forced it from her brother-in-law's lips. Her last hope died.

An hour or two more they spent in gliding up the narrow channel of that salt-water swamp, which at high tide appeared so glittering from the Thornhurst road. When approached, it was a muddy chaos, desolate as an uninhabited world.

They went as far up-stream as the little steamer could run, and then landed on the bank which abutted on some rushy meadows. It was a dark winter's night—there was not a soul abroad, though some faint light showed they were near the town. The bells of Kingcombe Church were ringing merrily through the mist.

“I had quite forgotten,” muttered Duke to himself. “This must be Christmas-eve.”

What a Christmas-eve!

He half led, half lifted Agatha through the wet fields and along the road.

“You will go to my house, and let the Missus and me take care of you, my child?”

“No, no; I will go home!”

So, without any further argument, he took her to her own gate. There it was, the familiar gate, with its shiny evergreens glittering in the lamp-light; beyond it, the dusky line of Kingcombe Street.. The cottage within was all dark, except for the faintest ray creeping under the hall-door. Marmaduke opened it, and called Dorcas. She came, and when she saw them, rushed forward sobbing.

“Oh, missus, missus—is it my missus?”

It was indeed the sorrowful mistress, who stood like a spectre in her desolate home. But Dorcas dragged her in, and opened the parlour-door.

There was an odour of warmth—bright light, which so dazzled Agatha that at first she saw nothing. Then she saw some one lying on the sofa. And lo! there—half-buried in pillows, haggard and death-like, yet alive—was a face she knew—a calm, sleeping face—falling round it the long light hair.