“How long were you married before you lost your husband?” “Nobbut a year,” she returned; “scarce a year.” “So short a time! How very sad. It must have seemed hard to you that he should go to sea and leave you—but of course he had to do it.” “Yigh, ma’am, he had to do it—but I took it very ill.” Her voice had sunk, so that the words were scarcely audible; it seemed to me that there were tears in the dark eyes. Impulsively leaving my chair I knelt down by her side, taking the worn hands in mine. “It is all forgiven now,” I said. “The few hasty words are forgotten, but the memory of the love remains.” “Ah,” she said, still speaking half to herself, “all’s forgiven now—all wur forgiven long sin’—before he deed. He thought of me before he deed, and loved me jest same as ever. He looked at me so lovin’—God rest him! He was never one to bear a grudge.” “But I thought you said he died at sea.” “Yigh, he deed at say, fur sure,” she added, looking at me as though in surprise; “but I knowed he loved me and forgave me.” “Some of his comrades told you all about it, I suppose?” “Nay, nay, nobry towd me—nobbut hissel’. His mates was all drownded, too; naught was niver heerd on ’em at arter ship sailed that last time. Noan of ’em ever coom back—nobbut him, and he coomed to nobry but me.” “Do you mean that his spirit came back?” I asked, half-incredulously, half awe-stricken. “Ma’am, I can’t reetly tell you how he coom back, but it was him. He coomed to tell me he wur dead, and to let me know as he’d forgive me.” “Was nothing ever heard of his ship?” I enquired. “Naught was niver heerd of ship, nor captain, nor crew,” she said. “Noan of ’em coom back, nobbut my Will.” The wind raging round the house drove the rain fiercely against the little window, and I glanced towards it fearfully; then, laughing inwardly at my own folly, I turned to the woman again. “Don’t you think it may have been fancy?” I said. “You are so lonely here, you see, and you had been fretting perhaps because of your little quarrel, and because you had, I suppose, no news of him. And then you imagined you saw his face—at the window—was it? he used perhaps to come to the window—”