It must end soon, in any case." Lucia rushed to the bed-side, drew back the curtains-- "Tom!" moaned Elsley.
"Not Tom!--Lucia!" "Lucia ?--Lucia St.Just!" answered he, in a low abstracted voice, as if trying to recollect.
"Lucia Vavasour!--your Lucia!" Elsley slowly raised himself upon his elbow, and looked into her face with a sad inquiring gaze.
"Elsley--darling Elsley!--don't you know me ?" "Yes, very well indeed; better than you know me.

I am not Vavasour at all.

My name is Briggs--John Briggs, the apothecary's son, come home to Whitbury to die." She did not hear, or did not care for those last words.
"Elsley! I am your wife!--your own wife!--who never loved any one but you--never, never, never!" "Yes, my wife, at least!--Curse them, that they cannot deny!" said he, in the same abstracted voice.
"Oh God! is he mad ?" thought she.

"Elsley, speak to me!--I am your Lucia--your love--" And she tore off her bonnet, and threw herself beside him on the bed, and clasped him in her arms, murmuring,--"Your wife! who never loved any one but you!" Slowly his frozen heart and frozen brain melted beneath the warmth of her great love: but he did not speak: only he passed his weak arm round her neck; and she felt that his cheek was wet with tears, while she murmured on, like a cooing dove, the same sweet words again-- "Call me your love once more, and I shall know that all is past." "Then call me no more Elsley, love!" whispered he.

"Call me John Briggs, and let us have done with shams for ever." "No; you are my Elsley--my Vavasour! and I am your wife once more!" and the poor thing fondled his head as it lay upon the pillow.