For more than twenty years he had been her husband. He had always been kind and chivalrous in his treatment of her. At first she had been proud of him for his honor and manliness, then her pride had gradually developed into a strong, deep affection, which, however, she had never allowed herself to parade before him, because of his unvarying reticence toward her. She had tried to be a good wife to him, to win his respect by her faithfulness to duty, her devotion as a mother, and his admiration by preserving her beauty and shining a star in the society they frequented; and now, after succeeding for so long a time, it drove her nearly crazy to think that perhaps the confession of her early folly would undo all this and breed contempt for her, or worse—his pity. His own deception seemed very trivial compared with hers, for a cruel fate alone had prevented him from acknowledging his wife and child whom he had fondly loved and would have cherished as long as they had been spared to him, while she had deliberately planned to abandon her delicate babe and cast it unloved upon the care of strangers. The wine which she had drank, however, served to steady her nerves, and to give her strength for the trial before her, and after a few minutes she raised her white, drawn face, saying: “Sit down, all of you, for my story is not a short one, though for all our sakes I will make it as brief as possible. “You will remember, William, that after I came into possession of my half of Uncle Jabez’s fortune, I went abroad. I had always had an intense longing to see Europe, and when the means to do so were at my disposal, I resolved to gratify that desire. You know, too, that as a family we had always been poor. It had been a continual struggle with us to secure even the necessaries of life, and the battle with poverty had been a most bitter one to me. Now, I was bound to get the most I could out of life, to make up for the deprivations of my youth. I indignantly refused to marry as my uncle desired, for I, as well as you, considered that he had no right to make any such stipulations in disposing of his money; but I was young, I had seven years before me in which to enjoy my wealth, and I said I would spend every dollar of my income in being happy and making up to my family for the hardships of previous years. So I settled a comfortable income on my father and mother, and then, taking my sister Nellie for a companion, I sailed for Europe to gratify my taste for travel and sight-seeing. We both spoke French and German fluently, for we had been faithful students, and fitted ourselves for teaching; both were self-reliant and courageous in spite of our youth—our conflict with our unfavorable surroundings had made us so—therefore we felt competent to travel by ourselves without a chaperon, who, we felt, would hamper our movements. Some of the time we had a guide, but in England, France, and Germany we were able to go about quite independently.