“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.