or love of me, monstrous
though it sounds to say so. But when you refuse now to do the only thing
which seems to me possible to be done to repair the mistake, and say
your reason for not doing it is that it would be a lie, how can I help
pointing back to the long ten years' lie you have lived, acted, told?
If your love for me bore you up through that lie, it can bear you up
through this."

"Shall we never go home, Eben?" asked Hetty sadly. "To Welbury? to New
England? never!" replied her husband with a terrible emphasis. "Never
will I take you there to draw down upon our heads all the intolerable
shame, and gossiping talk which would follow. I tell you, Hetty, you are
dead! I am shielding your name, the name of my dead wife! You don't seem
to comprehend in the least that you have been dead for ten years. You
talk as if it would be nothing more to explain your reappearance than if
you had been away somewhere for a visit longer than you intended."

The longer they discussed the subject, the more vehement Dr. Eben grew,
and the feebler grew Hetty's opposition. She could not gainsay his
arguments. She had nothing to oppose to them, except her wifely instinct
that the old bond and ceremony were by implication desecrated in
assuming a second: "But what right have I to fall back on that old
bond," thought poor Hetty, wringing her hands as the burden of her long,
sad ten years' mistake weighed upon her.

Not until Hetty had yielded this point was there any real joy between
her and her husband. As soon as it was yielded, his happiness began to
grow and increase, like a plant in spring-time.

"Now you are mine again! Now we will be happy! Life and the world are
before us!" he exclaimed.

"But where shall we live, Eben?" asked the practical Hetty.

"Live! live!" he cried, like a boy; "live anywhere, so that we live
together!"

"There is always plenty to do, everywhere," said Hetty, reflectively:
"we should not have to be idle."

Dr. Eben looked at her with mingled admiration and anger.

"Hetty!" he exclaimed, "I wish you'd leave off 'doing,' for a while. All
our misery came of that. At any rate, don't ever try to 'do' any thing
for me again as long as you live! I'll look out for my own happiness,
the rest of the time, if you please."

His healing had begun when he could make an affectionate jest, like
this; but healing would come far slower to Hetty than to him. Complete
healing could perhaps never come. Remorse could