She had settled, several years before, in this place, whither he had unawares followed her.

In an interview--the first for nearly half a lifetime--all the old errors and falsehoods were cleared up.

She told him how her husband's heartlessness and insolent indifference had made her leave him; and how, for the sake of her son, and partly also out of pride, she had made no attempt to repossess herself of the fortune with which she had endowed her husband at their marriage.

The hardest of all had been to leave her son, whom she loved with her whole heart; but he was sickly, and she dared not expose him to the chances of privation and hardship, such as she expected to endure.

With some three thousand dollars in her pocket, she had come to America, and since then had never heard a word of those she had left, nor had they of her.
"About three years after his arrival, the minister's wife died.