"I do really think he is reviving, Jack," said Rose, "and that you may yet hope to have an intelligent conversation with him." "They all agree he _must_ die," answered Jack Tier--for it was _he_, appearing in the garb of his proper sex, after a disguise that had now lasted fully twenty years--"and he will never know who I am, and that I forgive him. He must think of me in another world, though he isn't able to do it in this; but it would be a great relief to his soul to know that I forgive him." "To be sure, a man must like to take a kind leave of his own wife before he closes his eyes forever; and I dare say it would be a great relief to you to tell him that you have forgotten his desertion of you, and all the hardships it has brought upon you in searching for him, and in earning your own livelihood as a common sailor." "I shall not tell him I've _forgotten_ it, Miss Rose; that would be untrue--and there shall be no more deception between us; but I shall tell him that I _forgive_ him, as I hope God will one day forgive me all _my_ sins." "It is, certainly, not a light offence to desert a wife in a foreign land, and then to seek to deceive another woman," quietly observed Rose. "He's a willian!" muttered the wife--"but--but--" "You forgive him, Jack--yes, I'm sure you do. You are too good a Christian to refuse to forgive him." "I'm a woman a'ter all, Miss Rose; and that, I believe, is the truth of it. I suppose I ought to do as you say, for the reason you mention; but I'm his wife--and once he loved me, though that has long been over. When I first knew Stephen, I'd the sort of feelin's you speak of, and was a very different creatur' from what you see me to-day. Change comes over us all with years and sufferin'."