There had, indeed, been a sore struggle between Hetty and her husband on this matter of their being remarried by Father Antoine. When Dr. Eben first said to her: “And now, what are we to do, Hetty?” she looked at him in an agony of terror and gasped:
“Why, Eben, there is only one thing for us to do; don't we belong to each other? don't you love me? don't you mean to take me home with you?”
“Would you go home with me, Hetty?” he asked emphatically; “go back to Welbury? let every man, woman, and child in the county, nay, in the State, know that all my grief for you had been worse than needless, that I had been a deserted husband for ten years, and that you had been living under an assumed name all that time? Would you do this?”
Hetty's face paled. “What else is there to do?” she said.
He continued:
“Could you bear to have your name, your father's name, my name, all dragged into notoriety, all tarnished by being linked with this monstrous tale of a woman who fled—for no reason whatever—from her home, friends, husband, and hid herself, and was found only by an accident?”
“Oh, Eben! spare me,” moaned Hetty.
“I can't spare you now, Hetty,” he answered. “You must look the thing in the face. I have been looking it in the face ever since the first hour in which I found you. What are we to do?”
“I will stay on here if you think it best,” said Hetty. “If you will be happier so. Nobody need ever know that I am alive.”
Doctor Eben threw his arms around her. “Leave you here! Why, Hetty, will you never understand that I love you?” he exclaimed; “love you, love you, would no more leave you than I would kill myself?”