about her.

She was probably surprised at seeing a stranger, but I could discern no
trace of it in her face. She advanced but a few steps into the room, and
then stopped, waiting for me to speak.

"You are Rachel Emmons?" I asked, since a commencement of some sort must
be made.

"Yes."

"I come from Eber Nicholson," said I, fixing my eyes on her face.

Not a muscle moved, not a nerve quivered, but I fancied that a faint
purple flush played for an instant under the white mask. If I were
correct, it was but momentary. She lifted her left hand slowly, pressed
it on her heart, and then let it fall. The motion was so calm that I
should not have noticed it, if I had not been watching her so steadily.

"Well?" she said, after a pause.

"Rachel Emmons," said I,--and more than one cause conspired to make my
voice earnest and authoritative,--"I know all. I come to you not to
meddle with the sorrow--let me say the sin--which has blighted your
life; not because Eber Nicholson sent me; not to defend him or to
accuse you; but from that solemn sense of duty which makes every man
responsible to God for what he does or leaves undone. An equal pity
for him and for you forces me to speak. He cannot plead his cause; you
cannot understand his misery. I will not ask by what wonderful power you
continue to torment his life; I will not even doubt that you pity while
you afflict him; but I ask you to reflect whether the selfishness of
your sorrow may not have hardened your heart, and blinded you to that
consolation which God offers to those who humbly seek it. You say that
you are married to Eber Nicholson, in His sight. Think, Rachel Emmons,
think of that moment when you will stand before His awful bar, and the
poor, broken, suffering soul, whom your forgiveness might still make
yours in the holy marriage of heaven, shrinks from you with fear and
pain, as in the remembered persecutions of earth!"

The words came hot from my very heart, and the ice-crust of years under
which hers lay benumbed gave way before them. She trembled slightly;
and the same sad, hopeless moan which I had heard at midnight in the
Illinois shanty came from her lips. She sank into a chair, letting her
hands fall heavily at her side. There was no movement of her features,
yet I saw that her waxy cheeks were moist, as with the slow ooze of
tears so long unshed that they had forgotten their natural flow.

"I do pity him," she murmured at last, "and I believe I for