The letter contained the detail of his sad and yet hopeful end. It dropped from Mr. Barham’s hands after he had read it, and crossing his arms on the desk before him, he laid down his head and groaned aloud. The manly, feeling tone of the letter, and all the sad thoughts it had called up, oppressed him deeply.
His daughter looking up and seeing his emotion, went close to his chair, and stroking his head as a child might do, she said, in a fondling voice:
“Poor papa! poor papa! what is the matter?”
This completely overpowered him, he sobbed like a boy.
“Don’t cry, papa—yes, do—I wish I could, too: I never cry now—I have no tears left—if I could only cry, the great weight on my head might go.”
Then, in her childish way, she took the letter he had dropped, and said: “I think I will read it too.”
She did so, for her father was too much overwhelmed to think.
“Father,” said she, “I think—I remember—did I dream it, or was it true, that I once married Charles Huyton—that I was called his wife?”
Her tone was altered, it was her own voice; her father raised his head in amazement, and looked at her. Strange gleams of thought flitted across her face, like lights and shadows on a still ocean; memory and mind were struggling with the dull torpor of disease. Her brain was awaking! she slowly read again the touching words of Maurice Duncan; she looked on his name at the conclusion of the letter. She thought—she felt—she remembered the past.
“He was my husband,” said she.