ly dread on this gray-haired
woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry:

"Eben! oh! Eben!"

Hetty was the first to recover herself. Seeing with terror how rigid and
pale her husband's face had become; how motionless, like one turned to
stone, he stood--she hastened down the steps, and, taking him by the
hand, said, in a trembling whisper:

"Oh, come into the house, Eben."

Mechanically he followed her; she still leading him by the hand, like a
child. Like a child, or rather like a blind man, he sat down in the
chair which she placed for him. His eyes did not move from her face; but
they looked almost like sightless eyes. Hetty stood before him, with her
hands clasped tight. Neither spoke. At last Dr. Eben said feebly:

"Are you Hetty?"

"Yes, Eben," answered Hetty, with a tearless sob. He did not speak
again: still with a strange unseeing look, his eyes roved over her face,
her figure. Then he reached out one hand and touched her gown;
curiously, he lifted the soft gray serge, and fingered it; then he said
again:

"Are you Hetty?"

"Oh, Eben! dear Eben! indeed I am," broke forth Hetty. "Do forgive me.
Can't you?"

"Forgive you?" repeated Dr. Eben, helplessly. "What for?"

"Oh, my God! he thinks we are both dead: what shall I do to rouse him?"
thought Hetty, all the nurse in her coming to the rescue of the woman
and wife.

"For going away and leaving you, Eben," she said in a clear resolute
voice. "I wasn't drowned. I came away."

Dr. Eben smiled; a smile which terrified Hetty more than his look or
voice or words had done.

"Eben! Eben!" she cried, putting both her hands on his shoulders, and
bringing her face close to his. "Don't look like that. I tell you I
wasn't drowned. I am alive: feel me! feel me! I am Hetty;" and she knelt
before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp,
the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and
brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and
ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern.

"You were not drowned!" he said. "You have not been dead all these
years! You went away! You are not Hetty!" and he pushed her arms rudely
from his knees. Then, in the next second, he had clasped her fiercely in
his arms, crying aloud:

"You are Hetty! I feel you! I know you! Oh Hetty, Hetty, wife, what does
this all mean? Who took you away from me?" And tears, blessed saving
tears, f