And now this story must again pass over a period of ten years in the
history of Eben and Hetty Williams. During all these years, Hetty had
been working faithfully in St. Mary's; and Dr. Eben had been working
faithfully in Welbury. Hetty was now fifty-six years old. Her hair was
white, and clustered round her temples in a rim of snowy curls, peeping
out from under the close lace cap she always wore. But the snowy curls
were hardly less becoming than the golden brown ones had been. Her
cheeks were still pink, and her lips red. She looked far less old for
her age at fifty-six than she had looked ten years before.
Dr. Eben, on the other hand, had grown old fast. His work had not been
to him as complete and healthful occupation as Hetty's had been to her.
He had lived more within himself; and he had never ceased to sorrow. His
sorrow, being for one dead, was without hope; save that intangible hope
to which our faith so pathetically clings, of the remote and undefined
possibilities of eternity. Hetty's sorrow was full of hope, being
persuaded that all was well with those whom she did not see.
Dr. Eben loved no one warmly or with absorption. Hetty loved every
suffering one to whom she ministered. Dr. Eben had never ceased living
too much in the past. Hetty had learned to live almost wholly in the
present. Hetty had suffered, had suffered intensely; but all that she
had suffered was as nothing in comparison with the sufferings of her
husband. Moreover, Hetty had kept through all these years her superb
health. Dr. Eben had had severe illnesses, which had told heavily upon
his strength. From all these things it had come to pass, that now he
looked older and more worn than Hetty. She looked vigorous; he looked
feeble; she was still comely, he had lost all the fineness of color
and outline, which had made him at forty so handsome a man. He had been
growing restless, too, and discontented.
Raby was away at college; old Cæsar and Nan had both died, and their
places were filled by new white servants, who, though they served Dr.
Eben well, did not love him. Deacon Little had died also, and Jim and
Sally had been obliged to go back to the old homestead to live, to take
care of Mrs. Little, who was now a helpless paralytic.
“Gunn's,” as it was still called, and always would be, was no longer
the brisk and cheerful place which it had once been. The farm was slowly
falling off, from its master's lack of interest in details; and the old
stone house had come to wear a certain look of desolation. The pines met
and interlaced their boughs over the whole length of the road from the
gate to the front-door; and, in a dark day, it was like an underground
passage-way, cold and damp. If Hetty could have been transported to
the spot, how would her heart have ached! How would she have seen, in
terrible handwriting, the record of her mistaken act; the blight which
her one wrong step had cast, not only upon hearts and lives, but even
upon the visible face of nature. But Hetty did not dream of this.
Whenever she permitted her fancy to dwell upon imaginings of her old
home, she saw it bright with sunshine, merry with the voices of little
children: and her husband handsome still, and young, walking by the side
of a beautiful woman, mother of his children. At last Dr. Eben took
a sudden resolution; the result, partly, of his restless discontent;
partly of his consciousness that he was in danger of breaking down and
becoming a chronic invalid. He offered “Gunn's” for sale, and announced
that he was going abroad for some years. Spite of the dismay with which
this news was received throughout the whole county, everybody's second
thought was: “Poor fellow! I'm glad of it. It's the best thing he can
do.”
Hetty's cousin, Josiah Gunn, the man that she had so many years ago
predicted would ultimately have the estate, bought it in, out-bidding
the most determined bidders (for “Gunn's” was much coveted); and paying
finally a sum even larger than the farm was really worth. Dr. Eben was
now a rich man, and free. The world lay before him. When all was done,
he felt a strange unwillingness to leave Welbury. The travel, the
change, which had looked so desirable and attractive, now looked
formidable; and he lingered week after week, unable to tear himself
away from home. One day he rode over to Springton, to bid Rachel Barlow
good-by. Rachel was now twenty-eight years old, and a very beautiful
woman. Many men had sought to marry her, but Dr. Eben's prediction
had been realized. Rachel would not marry. Her health was perfectly
established, and she had been for years at the head of the Springton
Academy. Doctor Eben rarely saw her; but when he did her manner had
the same child-like docility and affectionate gratitude that had
characterized it when she was seventeen. She had never ceased to feel
that she owed her life, and more than her life, to him: how much more
she felt, Dr. Eben had never dreamed until this day. When he told her
that he was going to Europe, she turned pale, but said earnestly:
“Oh, I am very glad! you have needed the change so much. How long will
you stay?”
“I don't know, Rachel,” he replied sadly. “Perhaps all the rest of my
life. I have done my best to live here; but I can't. It's no use: I
can't bear it. I have sold the place.”
Rachel's lips parted, but she did not speak; her face flushed scarlet,
then turned white; and, without a moment's warning or possibility
of staying the tears, she buried her face in her hands, and wept
convulsively. In the same instant, a magnetic sense of all that this
grief meant thrilled through Doctor Eben's every nerve. No such thought
had ever crossed his mind before. Rachel had never been to him any thing
but the “child” he had first called her. Very reverently seeking now to
shield her womanhood from any after pain of fear, lest she might have
betrayed her secret, he said:
“Why, my child! you must not feel so badly about it. I ought not to have
spoken so. Of course, you must know that my life has been a very lonely
one, and always must be. But I should not give up and go away, simply
for that. I am not well, and I am quite sure that I need several years
of a milder climate. I dare say I shall be home-sick, and come back
after all.”
Rachel lifted her eyes and looked steadily in his. Her tears stopped.
The old clairvoyant gaze, which he had not seen on her face for many
years, returned.
“No. You will never come back,” she said slowly. Then, as one speaking
in a dream, she said still more slowly, and uttering each word with
difficulty and emphasis:
“I--do--not--believe--your--wife--is--dead.” Much shocked, and thinking
that these words were merely the utterance of an hysterical excitement,
Dr. Eben replied:
“Not to me, dear child; she never will be: but you must not let yourself
be excited in this way. You will be ill. I must be your doctor again and
prescribe for you.”
Rachel continued to watch him, with the same bright and unflinching
gaze. He turned from her, and, bringing her a glass of water in which he
had put a few drops from a vial, said in his old tone:
“Drink this, Rachel.”
She obeyed in silence; her eyes drooped; the tension of her whole figure
relaxed; and, with a long sigh, she exclaimed:
“Oh, forgive me!”
“There is nothing to forgive, my child,” said the doctor, much moved,
and, longing to throw his arms around her as she sat there, so gentle,
appealing, beautiful, loving. “Why can I not love her?” “What else is
there better in life for me to do?” he thought, but his heart refused.
Hetty, the lost dead Hetty, stood as much between him and all other
women to-day, as she had stood ten years before.
“I must go now, Rachel,” he said. “Good-by.”
She put her cold hand in his. As he took it, by a curious freak of his
brain, there flashed into his mind the memory of the day when, by the
side of this fragile white little hand lying in his, Hetty, laughingly,
had placed her own, broad and firm and brown. The thought of that hand
of Hetty's, and her laugh at that moment, were too much for him, and he
dropped Rachel's hand abruptly, and moved toward the door. She gave a
low cry: he turned back; she took a step towards him.
“I shall never see you again,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “I
owe my life to you,” and she carried his hand to her lips, and kissed
it again and again. “God bless you, child! Good-by! good-by!” he said.
Rachel did not speak, and he left her standing there, gazing after him
with a look on her face which haunted him as long as he lived.
Why Doctor Eben should have resolved to sail for England in a Canadian
steamer, and why, having reached Canada, he should have resolved to
postpone his voyage, and make a trial of the famous springs of St.
Mary's, are mysteries hid in that book of Fate whose leaves no mortal
may turn. We prate in our shallow wisdom about causes, but the most that
we can trace is a short line of incidental occasions. A pamphlet which
Doctor Eben found in the office of a hotel was apparently the reason of
his going to St. Mary's; all the reason so far as he knew, or as any man
might know. But that man is to be pitied who lives his life out under
the impression that it is within his own guidance. Only one remove from
the life of the leaf which the winds toss where they list would be such
a life as that.
It was with no very keen interest that Doctor Eben arrived in St.
Mary's. He had some faint hope that the waters might do him good: but he
found the sandy stretches and long lines of straight firs in Canada very
monotonous; and he was already beginning to be oppressed by the sense of
homelessness. His quiet and domestic life had unfitted him for being a
wanderer, and he was already looking forward to the greater excitements
of European travel; hoping that they would prove more diverting and
entertaining than he had thus far found travel in America.
He entered St. Mary's as Hetty had done, just at sunset. It was a warm
night in June; and, after his tea at the little inn, Dr. Eben sauntered
out listlessly. The sound of merry voices in the Square repelled him;
unlike Hetty, he shrank from strange faces: turning in the direction
where it seemed stillest, he walked slowly towards the woods. He looked
curiously at the little red chapel, and at Father Antoine's cottage, now
literally imbedded in flowers. Then he paused before Hetty's tiny house.
A familiar fragrance arrested him; leaning on the paling he looked over
into the garden, started, and said, under his breath: “How strange! How
strange!” There were long straight beds of lavender and balm, growing
together, as they used to grow in the old garden at “Gunn's.” Both the
balm and the lavender were in full blossom; and the two scents mingled
and separated and mingled in the warm air, like the notes of two
instruments unlike, yet in harmony. The strong lemon odor of the balm,
was persistently present like the mastering chords of the violoncello,
and the fine and subtle fragrances from the myriad cells of the
pale lavender floated above and below, now distant, now melting and
disappearing, like a delicate melody. Dr. Eben was borne away from the
present, out of himself. He thrust his hand through the palings, and
gathered a crushed handful of the lavender blossoms: eagerly he inhaled
their perfume. Drawers and chests at “Gunn's” had been thick strewn with
lavender for half a century. All Hetty's clothes--Hetty herself--had
been full of the exquisite fragrance. The sound of quick pattering steps
roused him from his reverie. A bare-footed boy was driving a flock of
goats past. The child stopped and gazed intently at the stranger.
“Child, who lives in this little house?” said Dr. Eben, cautiously
hiding his stolen handful of lavender.
“Tantibba,” replied the boy.
“What!” exclaimed the doctor. “I don't understand you. What is the
name?”
“Tantibba! Tantibba!” the child shouted, looking back over his shoulder,
as he raced on to overtake his goats. “Bo Tantibba.”
“Some old French name I suppose,” thought Dr. Eben: “but, it is very odd
about the herbs; the two growing together, so exactly as Hetty used
to have them;” and he walked reluctantly away, carrying the bruised
lavender blossoms in his hand, and breathing in their delicious
fragrance. As he drew near the inn, he observed on the other side of
the way a woman hurrying in the opposite direction. She had a sturdy
thick-set figure, and her step, although rapid, was not the step of a
young person. She wore on her head only a close white cap; and her gray
gown was straight and scant: on her arm she carried a basket of scarlet
plaited straw, which made a fine bit of color against the gray and
white of her costume. It was just growing dusk, and the doctor could not
distinguish her features. At that moment, a lad came running from the
inn, and darted across the road, calling aloud, “Tantibba! Tantibba!”
The woman turned her head, at the name, and waited till the lad came
to her. Dr. Eben stood still, watching them. “So that is Tantibba?”
he thought, “what can the name be?” Presently the lad came back with a
bunch of long drooping balm-stalks in his hand.
“Who was that you spoke to then?” asked the doctor.
“Tantibba!” replied the lad, hurrying on. Dr. Eben caught him by the
shoulder. “Look here!” he exclaimed, “just tell me that name again. This
is the fourth time I've heard it tonight. Is it the woman's first name
or what?” The lad was a stupid English lad, who had but recently come
to service in St. Mary's, and had never even thought to wonder what the
name “Tantibba,” meant. He stared vacantly for a moment, and then said:
“Indeed, sir, and I don't know. She's never called any thing else that
I've heard.”
“Who is she? what does she do?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, sir! she's a great nurse, from foreign parts: she has a power of
healing-herbs in her garden, and she goes each day to the English House
to heal the sick. There's nobody like her. If she do but lay her hand on
one, they do say it is a cure.”
“She is French, I suppose,” said the doctor; thinking to himself, “Some
adventuress, doubtless.”
“Ay, sir, I think so,” answered the lad; “but I must not stay to speak
any more, for the mistress waits for this balm to make tea for the cook
Jean, who is like to have a fever;” and the lad disappeared under the
low archway of the basement.
Dr. Eben walked back and forth in front of the inn, still crushing in
his fingers the lavender flowers and inhaling their fragrance. Idly he
watched “Tantibba's” figure till it disappeared in the distance.
“This is just the sort of place for a tricky old French woman to make
a fortune in,” he said to himself: “these people are simple enough
to believe any thing;” and Dr. Eben went to his room, and tossed the
lavender blossoms down on his pillow.
When he waked in the morning, his first thoughts were bewildered:
nothing in nature is so powerful in association as a perfume. A sound, a
sight, is feeble in comparison; the senses are ever alert, and the mind
is accustomed always to act promptly on their evidence. But a subtle
perfume, which has been associated with a person, a place, a scene, can
ever afterward arrest us; can take us unawares, and hold us spell-bound,
while both memory and knowledge are drugged by its charm.
Dr. Eben did not open his eyes. In an ecstasy of half consciousness
he murmured, “Hetty.” As he stirred, his hand came in contact with the
withered flowers. Touch was more potent than smell. He roused, lifted
his head, saw the little blossoms now faded and gray lying near his
cheek; and saying, “Oh, I remember,” sank back again into a few moments'
drowsy reverie.
The morning was clear and cool, one window of the doctor's room looked
east; the splendor of the sunrise shone in and illuminated the whole
place. While he was dressing, he found himself persistently thinking of
the strange name, “Tantibba.” “It is odd how that name haunts me,” he
thought. “I wish I could see it written: I haven't the least idea how it
is spelled. I wonder if she is an impostor. Her garden didn't look like
it.” Presently he sauntered out: the morning stir was just beginning in
the village. The child to whom he had spoken at “Tantibba's” gate,
the night before, came up, driving the same flock of goats. The little
fellow, as he passed, pulled the ragged tassel of his cap in token of
recognition of the stranger who had accosted him. Without any definite
purpose, Dr. Eben followed slowly on, watching a pair of young kids,
who fell behind the flock, frolicking and half-fighting in antics so
grotesque that they looked more like gigantic grasshoppers than like
goats. Before he knew how far he had walked, he suddenly perceived that
he was very near “Tantibba's” house.
“I'll walk on and steal another handful of the lavender,” he thought;
“and if the old woman's up, perhaps I'll get a sight of her. I'd like to
see what sort of a face answers to that outlandish name.”
As the doctor leaned over the paling, and looked again at Hetty's
garden, he saw something which had escaped his notice before, and at
which he started again, and muttered--this time aloud, and with
an expression almost of terror,--“Good Heavens, if there isn't a
chrysanthemum bed too, exactly like ours! what does this mean?” Hetty
had little thought when she was laying out her garden, as nearly as
possible like the garden she had left behind her, that she was writing a
record which any eye but her own would note.
“I believe I'll go in and see this old French woman,” he thought: “it
is such a strange thing that she should have just the same flowers Hetty
had. I don't believe she's an adventuress, after all.”
Dr. Eben had his hand on the latch of the gate. At that instant, the
cottage door opened, and “Tantibba,” in her white cap and gray gown, and
with her scarlet basket on her arm, appeared on the threshold. Dr. Eben
lifted his hat courteously, and advanced.
“I was just about to take the liberty of knocking at your door, madame,”
he said, “to ask if you would give me a few of your lavender blossoms.”
As he began to speak, “Tantibba's” basket fell from her hand. As he
advanced towards her, her eyes grew large with terror, and all color
left her cheeks.
“Why do I terrify her so?” thought Dr. Eben, quickening his steps, and
hastening to reassure her, by saying still more gently:
“Pray forgive me for intruding. I”--the words died on his lips: he stood
like one stricken by paralysis; his hands falling helplessly by his
side, and his eyes fixed in almost ghastly dread on this gray-haired
woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry:
“Eben! oh! Eben!”
Hetty was the first to recover herself. Seeing with terror how rigid and
pale her husband's face had become; how motionless, like one turned to
stone, he stood--she hastened down the steps, and, taking him by the
hand, said, in a trembling whisper:
“Oh, come into the house, Eben.”
Mechanically he followed her; she still leading him by the hand, like
a child. Like a child, or rather like a blind man, he sat down in the
chair which she placed for him. His eyes did not move from her face; but
they looked almost like sightless eyes. Hetty stood before him, with her
hands clasped tight. Neither spoke. At last Dr. Eben said feebly:
“Are you Hetty?”
“Yes, Eben,” answered Hetty, with a tearless sob. He did not speak
again: still with a strange unseeing look, his eyes roved over her
face, her figure. Then he reached out one hand and touched her gown;
curiously, he lifted the soft gray serge, and fingered it; then he said
again:
“Are you Hetty?”
“Oh, Eben! dear Eben! indeed I am,” broke forth Hetty. “Do forgive me.
Can't you?”
“Forgive you?” repeated Dr. Eben, helplessly. “What for?”
“Oh, my God! he thinks we are both dead: what shall I do to rouse him?”
thought Hetty, all the nurse in her coming to the rescue of the woman
and wife.
“For going away and leaving you, Eben,” she said in a clear resolute
voice. “I wasn't drowned. I came away.”
Dr. Eben smiled; a smile which terrified Hetty more than his look or
voice or words had done.
“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.”
Like one stung suddenly by some insupportable pain, he wrenched her
hands from his knees, sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly back and
forth. She remained kneeling by the chair, looking up at him with a most
piteous face. “Hetty,” he exclaimed, “you must be patient with me. Try
and imagine what it is to have believed for ten years that you were
dead; to have mourned you as dead; to have spent ten whole years of
weary, comfortless days; and then to find suddenly that you have been
all this time living,--voluntarily hiding yourself from me; needlessly
torturing me! Why, Hetty! Hetty! you must have been mad. You must be mad
now, I think, to kneel there and tell me all these details so calmly,
and in such a matter-of-fact way. Do you realize what a monstrous thing
you have been doing?” And Dr. Eben's eyes blazed with a passionate
indignation, as he stopped short in his excited walk and looked down
upon Hetty. Then, in the next second, touched by the look on her
uplifted face, so noble, so pure, so benevolent, he forgot all his
resentment, all his perplexity, all his pain; and, stooping over her,
he lifted her from her knees, and, folding her close to his bosom,
exclaimed:
“Oh, my Hetty, my own; forgive me. I am the one that is mad. How can I
think of any thing except the joy of having found you again? No wonder
I thought at first we were both dead. Oh, my precious wife, is it
really you? Are you sure we are alive?” And he kissed her again and
again,--hair, brow, eyes, lips,--with a solemn rapture.
A great silence fell upon them: there seemed no more to say. Suddenly,
Dr. Eben exclaimed:
“Rachel said she did not believe you were dead.”
At mention of Rachel's name, a spasm crossed Hetty's face. In the
excitement of her mingled terror and joy, she had not yet thought of
Rachel.
“Where is Rachel?” she gasped, her very heart standing still as she
asked the question.
“At home,” answered the doctor; and his countenance clouded at the
memory of his last interview with her. Hetty's fears misinterpreted the
reply and the sudden cloud on his face.
“Is she--did you--where is her home?” she stammered.
A great light broke in on Dr. Eben's mind.
“Good God!” he cried. “Hetty, it is not possible that you thought I
loved Rachel?”
“No,” said Hetty. “I only thought you could love her, if it were right;
and if I were dead it would be.”
A look of horror deepened on the doctor's face. The idea thus suggested
to his mind was terrible.
“And supposing I had loved her, thinking you were dead, what then? Do
you know what you would have done?” he said sternly.
“I think you would have been very happy,” replied Hetty, simply. “I have
always thought of you as being probably very happy.”
Dr. Eben groaned aloud.
“Oh, Hetty! Hetty! How could God have let you think such thoughts?
Hetty!” he exclaimed suddenly, with the manner of one who has taken a
new resolve: “Hetty, listen. We must not talk about this terrible past.
It is impossible for me to be just to you. If any other woman had done
what you have done, I should say she must be mad, or else wicked.”
“I think I was mad,” interrupted Hetty. “It seems so to me now. But,
indeed, Eben, oh, indeed, I thought at the time it was right.”
“I know you did, my darling,” replied the doctor. “I believe it fully;
but for all that I cannot be just to you, when I think of it. We must
put it away from us for ever. We are old now, and have perhaps only a
few years to live together.”
Here Hetty interrupted him with a sudden cry of dismay:
“Oh! oh! I forgot every thing but you. I ought to have been at Dr.
Macgowan's an hour ago. Indeed, Eben, I must go this minute. Do not try
to hinder me. There is a patient there who is so ill. I fear he will not
live through the day. Oh, how selfish of me to have forgotten him for a
single moment! But how can I leave you! How can I leave you!”
As she spoke, she moved hastily about the room, making her preparations
to go. Her husband did not attempt to delay her. A strange feeling was
creeping over him, that, by Hetty's removal of herself from him, by her
new life, her new name, new duties, she had really ceased to be his.
He felt weak and helpless: the shock had been too great, and he was not
strong. When Hetty was ready, he said:
“Shall I walk with you, Hetty?”
She hesitated. She feared to be seen talking in an excited way with this
stranger: she dreaded to lose her husband out of her sight.
“Oh, Eben!” she exclaimed, “I do not know what to do. I cannot bear to
let you go from me for a moment. How shall I get through this day! I
will not go to Dr. Macgowan's any more. I will get Sister Catharine from
the convent to come and take my place at once. Yes, come with me. We
will walk together, but we must not talk, Eben.”
“No,” said her husband.
He understood and shared her feeling. In silence they took their way
through the outskirts of the town. Constantly they stole furtive looks
at each other; Hetty noting with sorrow the lines which grief and
ill-health had made in the doctor's face; he thinking to himself:
“Surely it is a miracle that age and white hair should make a woman more
beautiful.”
But it was not the age, the white hair: it was the transfiguration of
years of self-sacrifice and ministering to others.
“Hetty,” said Dr. Eben, as they drew near Dr. Macgowan's gate, “what
is this name by which the village people call you? I heard it on
everybody's lips, but I could not make it out.”
Hetty colored. “It is French for Aunt Hibba,” she replied. “They speak
it as if it were one word, 'Tantibba.'”
“But there was more to it,” said her husband. “'Bo Tantibba,' they
called you.”
“Oh, that means merely 'Good Aunt Hibba,'” she said confusedly. “You
see some of them think I have been good to them; that's all: but usually
they call me only 'Tantibba.'”
“Why did you call yourself 'Hibba'?” he said.
“I don't know,” replied Hetty. “It came into my head.”
“Don't they know your last name?” asked her husband, earnestly.
“Oh!” said Hetty, “I changed that too.”
Dr. Eben stopped short: his face grew stern.
“Hetty,” he said, “do you mean to tell me that you have put my very name
away from you all these years?”
Tears came to Hetty's eyes.
“Why, Eben,” she replied, “what else could I do? It would have been
absurd to keep my name. Any day it might have been recognized. Don't you
see?”
“Yes, I see,” answered Dr. Eben, bitterly. “You are no longer mine, even
by name.”
Hetty's tears fell. She was dumb before all resentful words, all
passionate outbreaks, from her husband now. All she could say was:
“Oh, Eben! Eben!” Sometimes she added piteously: “I never meant to do
wrong; at least, no wrong to you. I thought if there were wrong, it
would be only to myself, and on my own head.” When they parted, Dr. Eben
said:
“At what hour are you free, Hetty?”
“At six,” she replied. “Will you wait for me at the house? Do not come
here.”
“Very well,” he answered; and, making a formal salutation as to a
stranger, he turned away.