t is only the
husband; and he has but one thing to say: that she who was his wife died
to him, to her country, to her friends, to the law. There is even in her
village a beautiful and high monument of marble which sets forth all the
recountal of her death. She would go back to that country with him,
and confess to every man the thing she had done. She prayed him that he
would take her. But he will not. He says it would be shame; and the name
of his wife that died shall never be shamed. It is a narrow strait for
a man who loves a woman. I cannot say that it is clear to me what my own
will would be in such a case. I am much moved by each when I hear them
talk of it. Ah, but she has the grand honesty! Thou shouldst have heard
her cry out when he said that to confess all would be a shame.

"'Nay, nay!' cried she, 'to conceal is a shame.' "'Ay!' replied her
husband, 'but thou hast thought it no shame to conceal thyself for these
ten years, and to lie about thy name.' He speaketh with a great anger
to her at times, spite of his love. "'Ah,' she answered him, in a voice
which nigh set me to weeping: 'Ah, my husband, I did think it shame: but
I bore it, for sake of my love to thee; and now that I know I was wrong,
all the more do I long to confess all, both that and this, and to stand
forgiven or unforgiven, as I may, clear in the eyes of all who ever knew
me.'

"But he will not, and I have counselled her to pray him no more. For he
has already endured heavy things at her hands; and, if this one thing
be to her a grievous burden, all the more doth it show her love, if she
accept it and bear it to the end."

"Well, well," said Dr. Macgowan, somewhat wearied with Father Antoine's
sentiments and emotions, "I have lost the best nurse I ever had, or
shall have. I'll say that much for her; but I can't help feeling that
there was something wrong in her brain somewhere, which might have
cropped out again any day. Most extraordinary! most extraordinary!" And
Dr. Macgowan walked away with a certain lofty, indifferent air, which
English people so well understand, of washing one's hands of matters
generally.

There had, indeed, been a sore struggle between Hetty and her husband
on this matter of their being remarried by Father Antoine. When Dr. Eben
first said to her: "And now, what are we to do, Hetty?" she looked at
him in an agony of terror and gasped:

"Why, Eben, there is only one thing for us to do; don't we belong to
each othe