'Ay, it's over,' responded Dr. Bevary; 'over, in more senses than one. Do you not wonder that Miss Gwinn should have gone back to Ketterford without molesting you again?'
'How can I wonder at anything she does? She comes and she goes, with as little reason as warning.'
Dr. Bevary lowered his voice. 'Have you ever been to see that poor patient in Kerr's asylum?'
The question excited the anger of Mr. Hunter. 'What do you mean by asking it?' he cried. 'When I was led to believe her dead, I shaped my future course according to that belief. I have never acted, nor would I act, upon any other—save in the giving money to Gwinn, for my wife's sake. If Louisa was not my wife legally, she was nothing less in the sight of God.'
'Louisa was your wife,' said Dr. Bevary, quietly. And Mr. Hunter responded by a sharp gesture of pain. He wished the subject at an end. The doctor continued—
'James, had you gone, though it had been but for an instant, to see that unhappy patient of Kerr's, your trammels would have been broken. It was not Emma, your young wife of years ago.'
'It was not!——What do you say?' gasped Mr. Hunter.
'When Agatha Gwinn found you out, here, in this house, she startled you nearly to death by telling you that Emma was alive—was a patient in Kerr's asylum. She told you that, when you had been informed in those past days of Emma's death, you were imposed upon by a lie—a lie invented by herself. James, the lie was uttered then, when she spoke to you here. Emma, your wife, did die; and the young woman in the asylum was her sister.' Mr. Hunter rose. His hands were raised imploringly, his face was stretched forward in its sad yearning. What!—which was true? which was he to believe?—'In the gratification of her revenge, Miss Gwinn concocted the tale that Emma was alive,' resumed Dr. Bevary, 'knowing, as she spoke it, that Emma had been dead years and years. She contrived to foster the same impression upon me; and the same impression, I cannot tell how, has, I am sure, clung to Austin Clay. Louisa was your lawful wife, James.' Mr. Hunter, in the plenitude of his thankfulness, sank upon his chair, a sobbing burst of emotion breaking from him, and the drops of perspiration gathering again on his brow. 'That other one, the sister, the poor patient, is dead,' pursued the doctor. 'As we stood together over her, an hour ago, Miss Gwinn confessed the imposition. It appeared to slip from her involuntarily, in spite of herself. I inquired her motive, and she answered, "To be revenged on you, Lewis Hunter, for the wrong you had done." As you had marred the comfort of her life, so she in return had marred that of yours. As she stood in her impotence, looking on the dead, I asked her which, in her opinion, had inflicted the most wrong, she or you?'
Mr. Hunter lifted his eager face. 'It was a foolish deceit. What did she hope to gain by it? A word at any time might have exposed it.'