“O, how I thank you, dear one, for judging me so charitably,” said she.  “I hope it was temporary insanity; and always when I think it over, it seems to me it must have been.  I fell asleep smiling over the revenge I had taken, and I slept long and heavily.  When I woke, my first wish was to change the dresses back again; but Chloe had gone to the plantation with my babe, and Mr. Duroy hurried me on board the boat before sunrise.  I told no one what I had done; but it filled me with remorse then, and has troubled me ever since.  I resolved to atone for it, as far as I could, by taking the tenderest care of the little changeling, and trying to educate him as well as his own mother could have done.  It was that which gave me strength to work so hard for musical distinction; and that motive stimulated me to appear as an opera-singer, though the publicity was distasteful to me.  When I heard that the poor little creature was dead, I was tormented with self-reproach, and I was all the more unhappy because I could tell no one of my trouble.  Then you came to console and strengthen me with your blessed love, and I grew cheerful again.  If the changeling had been living at the time you asked me to marry you, I should have told you all; but the poor little creature was dead, and there seemed to be no necessity of confessing the wrong I had done.  It was a selfish feeling.  I couldn’t bear the thought of diminishing the love that was so precious to my wounded heart.  I have now told you all, dear husband.”

“Your excuse for concealment is very precious to my own heart,” he replied.  “But I regret you did not tell me while we were in Europe; for then I would not have returned to the United States till I was quite sure all obstacles were removed.  You know I never formed the project until I knew Mr. Fitzgerald was dead.”

“The American gentleman who informed you of his death led me into a mistake, which has proved disastrous,” rejoined she.  “He said that Mrs. Fitzgerald lost her husband and son about the same time.  I was not aware of the existence of a second son, and therefore I supposed that my first-born had died.  I knew that you wanted to spend your old age in your native country, and that you were particularly desirous to have Eulalia marry in New England.  The dread I had of meeting my child as the son of another, and seeming to him a stranger, was removed by his death; and though I shed tears in secret, a load was lifted from my heart.  But the old story of avenging Furies following the criminal wheresoever he goes seems verified in my case.  On the day of Mrs. Green’s ball, I heard two gentlemen in the Revere House talking about Mr. Bell; and one of them said to the other that Mrs. Fitzgerald’s second son and her daughter had died, and that her oldest son was sole heir to Mr. Bell’s property.  My first impulse was to tell you all; but because I had so long concealed my fault, it was all the more difficult to confess it then.  You had so generously overlooked many