“I tell you, Mary Derwent is your daughter—the child whom you nearly killed in your insanity! and believed dead.”
Catharine started up with a cry, so long and wild that it made the missionary start almost with terror.
“And you,” she gasped; “you——”
“I am Varnham, your husband!”
She fell back with the dull heavy fall of a corpse, burying her face in her robe. The missionary raised her, trembling, and shrinking both from her and himself.
“Caroline—my—wife—look up. Or has God been merciful, and is this death?”
“My husband—my husband—is dead; he is dead—drowned, in the deep, deep unfathomable sea, years and years ago.”
“Caroline, do not longer deceive yourself. Look at this picture, this ring; do you recognize me now?”
“And Heaven has not blasted me!” she moaned. “I live still!”
“Your daughter—our child—Caroline! They will murder her!”