ugh 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'."

Rose did not answer, but she stood looking intently at the speaker
more than a minute. Change had, indeed, come over her, if she had ever
possessed the power to please the fancy of any living man. Her
features had always seemed diminitive and mean for her assumed sex, as
her voice was small and cracked; but, making every allowance for the
probabilities, Rose found it difficult to imagine that Jack Tier had
ever possessed, even under the high advantages of youth and innocence,
the attractions so common to her sex. Her skin had acquired the
tanning of the sea; the expression of her face had become hard and
worldly; and her habits contributed to render those natural
consequences of exposure and toil even more than usually marked and
decided. By saying "habits," however, we do not mean that Jack had
ever drank to excess, as happens with so many seamen, for this would
have been doing her injustice, but she smoked and chewed--practices
that intoxicate in another form, and lead nearly as many to the grave
as excess in drinking. Thus all the accessories about this singular
being, partook