“Then who, in the name of Heaven, are you? How came you to hail by another's name as well as by another sex?”
“What could a woman do, whose husband had desarted her in a strange land?”
“That is remarkable! So you've been married? I should not have thought that possible; and your husband desarted you, too. Well, such things do happen.”
Jack now felt a severe pang. She could not but see that her ungainly—we had almost said her unearthly appearance—prevented the captain from even yet suspecting the truth; and the meaning of his language was not easily to be mistaken. That any one should have married her, seemed to her husband as improbable as it was probable he would run away from her as soon as it was in his power after the ceremony.
“Stephen Spike,” resumed Jack, solemnly, “I am Mary Swash—I am your wife!”
Spike started in his bed; then he buried his face in the coverlet—and he actually groaned. In bitterness of spirit the woman turned away and wept. Her feelings had been blunted by misfortune and the collisions of a selfish world; but enough of former self remained to make this the hardest of all the blows she had ever received. Her husband, dying as he was, as he must and did know himself to be, shrunk from one of her appearance, unsexed as she had become by habits, and changed by years and suffering.
CHAPTER IX.
The trusting heart's repose, the paradise
Of home, with all its loves, doth fate allow
The crown of glory unto woman's brow.
Mrs. Hemans.
It has again become necessary to advance the time; and we shall take the occasion thus offered to make a few explanations touching certain events which have been passed over without notice.