"Time wore on, and I became a mother. With the first gleam of maternal hopes, such as thrilled my whole being with new-born happiness, I was hastened into the country; and, in a remote estate seldom visited by the family, gave birth to a son. My life was in great peril; a fever set in, and for a week I wandered unconsciously on the very brink of the grave, delirious, and sometimes wild. When reason came back, my father was there: he told me that my child was dead.

"Alas, old man! mine was a dreary life after that. Honors and wealth were showered on my father. By the death of his mother he became Earl of Sefton, and one of the wealthiest peers in England; but all this was embittered by the fact that I, who must inherit all these privileges, was wedded to a man, as he persisted in believing, so utterly beneath me. This thought seemed to pursue him like a demon. At times my very presence appeared hateful to him; there was never affectionate companionship between us. He was content that I should remain in the solitude of the estate to which I had been consigned almost as a prisoner, and I, still hoping against hope, was willing to live in seclusion till my husband should claim me. For, strange as it may appear, I had faith in the accomplishment of his promise, wild as it seemed.

"One day—it was in the second year of my solitary life—Lord Sefton came down to the country, after the rising of parliament; and for the first time since the death of my child was announced to me spoke of William Phipps.

"'Read this,' he said, placing a newspaper before me, 'and thank God that the disgrace of your connection with that man is unknown.'

"I unfolded the paper. It contained a paragraph copied from an American letter, dated two months back.

"How I read this paragraph through—the agony of fear that possessed me—I cannot tell; but every word of the cruel statement reached my heart. My husband was dead—lost at sea! I was a widow.

"This mournful knowledge broke up my life. Even my father was terrified by the state of dejection into which I fell. Thinking that it was only the promptings of compassion that induced him to take me away from England, I was grateful. We travelled for years through Europe, into Egypt and the Holy Land. Sometimes we rested in one place for months and months together; then again we would make long sea-voyages, and visit places far remote from the usual course of English travel. Among other countries we went to Bermuda and the West India islands, taking with us, on our return, a young person, whose history I have no time to give, but with whom my after-life has been strangely associated.

"We returned to England only a year ago. My father was an old man then. I had left youth forever behind, and with it, all hopes of such happiness as a woman's heart craves most. We had long since ceased to talk of the past. It was a sealed subject between us, but as my father drew near the grave, he became more tender and gentle in our companionship.

"A few weeks after we returned to London, Lord Sefton was taken ill. The disease ran its course rapidly, and in three days he was on his death-bed. God forgive the old man! With his last breath he told me of the terrible fraud that had been practised upon me. My husband was living. He had achieved all that seemed audacious in his promise, and had been in England years before to claim his wife. Then another fraud was perpetrated, and they told him that I was dead.

"My father made this confession in broken gasps. I had no details, and could scarcely gather the facts out of his imperfect speech. Something more he would have told me, but death was inexorable, and the secret died on his white lips.

"Thus, striving to retrieve the evil his pride had occasioned, my father died and I became a peeress in my own right, the inheritor of more wealth than I knew how to use. But, far above all, was the certainty that my husband was alive, and had kept the noble promise of his youth.

"At last, my father, whose pride had widowed me while yet scarcely more than a child, was laid with the cold and proud of his ancestors, dust with their dust, and I, the inheritor of his estates, the lady of a proud line, thought nothing of these things, but, urged by one wild wish, turned from his very grave and set forth for America, searching for the husband of my youth—the father of that child which had blessed me for an hour and disappeared, but whose tomb I had never seen.

"Thus, full of hope, I pursued my voyage, counting every hour as a loss till I once more saw the man who had been dearer to me when I thought him beneath the waves than all the earth beside. Never had a voyage seemed so long, and yet the wind was fair. How I wished the good ship that bore us had wings! When a storm blew up hurling us westward, I rejoiced, for through danger we should reach him the sooner. When a calm overtook us my heart was restless with impatience. So much of life had been spent away from him that I grudged each moment as a treasure forfeited.

"Oh, how I loved him, myself, and all the world! I had worshipped him as a girl—you know a little how much. But what was that to the holy affection of mature womanhood, to the yearning tenderness that filled my soul and kindled up every bright idea in my brain that it might do him homage? I thought of the change years must have made in him—not to regret that he was no longer young, but feeling how much grander he would be with age on his brow and a consciousness of power in his bearing.

"On the passage I had thought of myself differently. Sometimes I would look at my hands and wonder if they had lost any thing of the symmetry and whiteness he once so much admired. When I found a few silver hairs dimming the tresses he had praised for their golden hue, it would make me sad; for love grows timid sometimes as it deepens, and though I cared not for his departed youth, every grace that had fled with mine was remembered with regret. But I recalled his last words and had faith in him. For his sake I would have gifted myself with perpetual youth and immortal beauty. There was no good thing on earth or in heaven that I would not gladly have brought him.

"Had it been possible, I would have gathered up sunlit colors from the sky and those rare tints that sparkle in the ocean for his sake. I had never given much thought to the titles and possessions which had fallen to me, but now they grew precious in my estimation, for all that I had was his.

"We came in sight of the coast in the midst of an awful storm, and buffeted by the elements that seemed striving to force me back from my fate. I thought nothing of that. The tedious voyage was over. The land which he governed hove in sight. In a day—in an hour—it was possible to see him. The thought filled me with wild impatience. For the universe I could not have remained on board that ship one half-hour after she cast her anchor.

"The captain and crew expostulated with me, but it was impossible to heed their reasonings with the shore in sight. Careless of danger and with my heart fairly singing with secret hopes, I descended into that boat, with the waves leaping and roaring around it. I had no fear, after suffering so much; it seemed impossible to die within reach of him. You know the rest: it was your hand that dragged me from the breakers, yours and Norman's.

"God sent you to the shore that day, Samuel Parris. I felt it then, I feel it now. Had the waves swallowed me I should have died with a sweet hope in my heart, and the struggle would have been hard. But now that all is lost—nay, nay, I shudder yet!"