It is hard to keep a secret from a wife, especially such a wife as mine, so I told my wife the tale, as we sat one night - it was a mid-winter night - over the dying brands of our hearth, after the family had retired to rest, her hand locked in mine, even as it is now.

‘I thought she would have shrunk from me with horror; but she did not; her hand, it is true, trembled once or twice; but that was all. At last she gave mine a gentle pressure; and, looking up in my face, she said - what do you think my wife said, young man?’

‘It is impossible for me to guess,’ said I.

"Let us go to rest, my love; your fears are all groundless."’