is embrace like a woman of wood; a faint color rose, but
retired directly, and left her cheek as pale as before.

He noticed her strange coldness, and his heart began to quake.

"There is something the matter?" he whispered.

"There is."

"Something you don't like to tell me?"

"Like to tell you! I need all my courage, and you yours."

"Say she is alive, once more."

"She is alive, and not likely to die; but she does not care to live now.
They told her you were dead; they told her you were false; appearances
were such she had no chance not to be deceived. She held out for a long
time; but they got the better of her--her father is much to blame--she
is--married."

"Married!"

"Yes!"

"Married!" He leaned, sick as death, against the mantel-piece, and
gasped so terribly that Jael's fortitude gave way, and she began to cry.

After a long time he got a word or two out in a broken voice.

"The false--inconstant--wretch! Oh Heaven! what I have done and suffered
for her--and now married!--married! And the earth doesn't swallow her,
nor the thunder strike her! Curse her, curse her husband, curse her
children! may her name be a by-word for shame and misery--"

"Hush! hush! or you will curse your own mad tongue. Hear all, before you
judge her."

"I have heard all; she is a wife; she shall soon be a widow. Thought I
was false! What business had she to think I was false? It is only false
hearts that suspect true ones. She thought me dead? Why? Because I was
out of sight. She heard there was a dead hand found in the river. Why
didn't she go and see it? Could all creation pass another hand off on me
for hers? No; for I loved her. She never loved me."

"She loved you, and loves you still. When that dead hand was found, she
fell swooning, and lay at death's door for you, and now she has stained
her hands with blood for you. She tried to kill her husband, the moment
she found you were alive and true, and he had made a fool of her."

"TRIED to kill him! Why didn't she do it? I should not have failed at
such work. I love her."

"Blame me for that; I stopped her arm, and I am stronger than she is. I
say she is no more to blame than you. You have acted like a madman, and
she suffers for it. Why did you slip away at night like that, and not
tell me?"

"I left letters to you and her, and other people besides."

"Yes, left them, and hadn't the sense to post them. Why didn't you TELL
me? Had ever any young man as faithful