There was silence between them then.  Henrietta sat in pale and speechless horror.

“But how long is it since my poor Edith has been so awfully widowed?” at length inquired Mrs. Waugh.

“Nearly four months,” replied Marian, in a tremulous voice.  “For six weeks succeeding his death, she was not able to rise from her bed.  I came from school to nurse her.  I found her completely prostrated under the blow.  I wonder she had not died.  What power of living on some delicate frames seem to have.  As soon as she was able to sit up, I began to think that it would be better to remove her from the strange country, the theatre of her dreadful sufferings, and to bring her to her own native land, among her own friends and relatives, where she might resume the life and habits of her girlhood, and where, with nothing to remind her of her loss, she might gradually come to look upon the few wretched months of her marriage, passed in England, as a dark dream.  Therefore I have brought her back.”

“And you, my dear child,” she said, “you were Michael Shields’ sister?”

“No, madam, no kin to him—­and yet more than kin—­for he loved me, and I loved him more than any one else in the world, as I now love his poor young widow.  This was the way of it, Mrs. Waugh:  Michael’s father and my mother had both been married before, and we were children of the first marriages; when Michael was fourteen years old, and I was seven, our parents were united, and we grew up together.  About two years ago, Michael’s father died.  My mother survived him only five months, and departed, leaving me in charge of her stepson.  We had no friends but each other.  Our parents, since their union, had been isolated beings, for this reason—­his father was a Jew—­my mother a Christian—­therefore the friends and relatives on either side were everlastingly offended by their marriage.  Therefore we had no one but each other.  The little property that was left was sold, and the proceeds enabled Michael to purchase a commission in the regiment about to sail for America, and also to place me at a good boarding school, where I remained until his return, and the catastrophe that followed it.

“Lady, all passed so suddenly, that I knew no word of his return, much less of his trial or execution, until I received a visit from the chaplain who had attended his last moments, and who brought me his farewell letter, and his last informal will, in which the poor fellow consigned me to the care of his wife, soon to be a widow, and enjoined me to leave school and seek her at once, and inclosed a check for the little balance he had in bank.  I went immediately, found her insensible through grief, as I said—­and, lady, I told you the rest.”

Henrietta was weeping softly behind the handkerchief she held at her eyes.  At last she repeated: 

“You say he left you in his widow’s charge?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Left his widow in yours, rather, you good and faithful sister.”