ce asked in an unsteady
voice:

"Will my Minnie's child plead with her, for the long-lost husband of
her youth?"

"Oh, father! there is no need. Her love must have triumphed long ago
over the sense of cruel wrong and the memory of the past, for since
we learned that you were among those who perished she has silently
mourned as only a wife can for the husband she loves. Because she
sees in my face the reflex of yours, it has of late grown doubly dear
to her; and sometimes at night when she believes me asleep, she
touches me softly, and whispers, 'My Cuthbert's baby.' But why have
you so long allowed us to believe you were lost on that vessel?"

Briefly Mr. Laurance outlined the facts of his escape upon a raft,
which was hastily constructed by several of the crew when the boats
were beyond their reach. Upon this he had placed Maud, and on the
morning after the wreck of the vessel they succeeded in getting into
one of the boats which was floating bottom upward, and providentially
drifted quite near the raft. For several days they were tossed
helplessly from wave to wave, exposed to heavy rains, and on the
third evening, poor little Maud who had been unconscious for some
hours, died in her father's arms. At midnight when the moon shone
full and bright, he had wrapped the little form in his coat, and
consigned her to a final resting-place beneath the blue billows,
where her mother had already gone down amid the fury of the gale. He
knew from the colour and lettering of the boat, that it was the same
in which he had placed his terrified wife, and when it floated to
their raft he could not doubt her melancholy fate. A few hours after
Maud's burial, a Danish brig bound for Valparaiso discovered the
boat and its signals of distress, and taking on board the four
survivors, sailed away on its destined track. Mr. Laurance bad made
his way to Rio Janeiro, and subsequently to Havana, but learning from
the published accounts that his wife had indeed perished, and that he
also was numbered among the lost, he determined not to reveal the
fact of his existence to any one. Financially beggared, his ancestral
home covered by mortgages which Mrs. Laurance held, and utterly
hopeless of arousing her compassion or obtaining her pardon, he was
too proud to endure the humiliation that would overwhelm him in the
divorce suit he knew she intended to institute; and resolved never to
return to the United States, where he could expect only disgra