“Eben! Eben!” she cried, putting both her hands on his shoulders, and bringing her face close to his. “Don't look like that. I tell you I wasn't drowned. I am alive: feel me! feel me! I am Hetty;” and she knelt before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp, the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern. “You were not drowned!” he said. “You have not been dead all these years! You went away! You are not Hetty!” and he pushed her arms rudely from his knees. Then, in the next second, he had clasped her fiercely in his arms, crying aloud: “You are Hetty! I feel you! I know you! Oh Hetty, Hetty, wife, what does this all mean? Who took you away from me?” And tears, blessed saving tears, filled Dr. Eben's eyes. Now began the retribution of Hetty's mistake. In this moment, with her husband's arms around her, his eyes fixed on hers, the whole cloud of misapprehension under which she had acted was revealed to her as by a beam of divine light from heaven. Smitten to the heart by a sudden and overwhelming remorse, Hetty was speechless. She could only look pleadingly into his face, and murmur: “Oh, Eben! Eben!” He repeated his questions, growing calmer with each word, and with each moment's increasing realization of Hetty's presence. “Who took you away?” “Nobody,” answered Hetty. “I came alone.” “Did you not love me, Hetty?” said Dr. Eben in sad tones, struck by a new fear. This question unsealed Hetty's lips. “Love you!” she exclaimed in a piercing voice. “Love you! oh, Eben!” and then she poured out, without reserves or disguises, the whole story of her convictions, her decision, and her flight. Her husband did not interrupt her by word or gesture. As she proceeded with her narrative, he slowly withdrew his eyes from her face, and fixed them on the floor. It was harder for her to speak when he thus looked away from her. Timidly she said: “Do not turn your eyes away from me, Eben. It makes me afraid. I cannot tell you the rest, if you look so.” With an evident effort, he raised his eyes again, and again met her earnest gaze. But it was only for a few seconds. Again his eyes drooped, evaded hers, and rested on the floor. Again Hetty paused; and said still more pleadingly: “Please look at me, Eben. Indeed I can't talk to you if you do not.”