tters stood, when I had
taken so much pain to conceal the truth. I was sorry I had not held my
peace a little longer, or altogether. Men never can understand a woman's
right to resent selfishness, however atrocious; even when they are
knowing to it, which in this case they were not. I might as well have
held my tongue, since every unguarded speech of mine militated against
me afterwards."

"You allowed Mr. Seabrook to have all your earnings?"

"I could not prevent it; he was _my husband_. Sometimes I thought he
meant to save up all he could, to take him out of the country, when the
hoped-for proofs of his crime should arrive. And in that light I was
inclined to rejoice in his avarice. I would have given all I had for
that purpose. Oh, those dreadful, dreadful days! when I was so near
insane with sleeplessness and anxiety, that I seemed to be walking on
the air! Such, indeed, was my mental and physical condition, that
everything seemed unreal, even myself; and it surprises me now that my
reason did not give way."

"Did you never pray?"

"My training had been religious, and I had always prayed. This, I felt,
entitled me to help; and yet help did not come. I felt forsaken of God,
and sullenly shut my lips to prayer or complaint. All severely tried
souls go through a similar experience. Christ himself cried out: 'My
God, my God, why hast _forsaken_ me!'"

"No wonder you felt forsaken, indeed."

"You think I was as tried as I could be then, when I had a hope of
escape; but worse came after that--worse, because more hopeless."

"You were really married to him then?" I cried in alarm: "I thought you
told me in the beginning, that you were not."

"Neither was I; but that did not release me. When at last I received an
answer to my inquiries, confirming the statement of the immigrant from
Ohio, it was too late."

"You do not mean!"--I interrupted, in a frightened voice.

"No, no! I only mean that I had committed a great error, in keeping
silence on the subject at the first. You can imagine one of your
acquaintances who had been several months peaceably living with a man of
good appearance and repute, to whom you had seen her married, suddenly
declaring her husband a bigamist and refusing to live with him; and on
no other evidence than a letter obtained, nobody knew how. To _me_ the
proof was conclusive; and it made me frantic to find that it was not so
received by others."

"What did he say, when you told him that y