'Did you know that when you married him?'

'I did not, if I had, sooner would I have yielded my life than united my
fortune, desperate as it was, with his. When I discovered his true
character, I was his wife, on board of his vessel, and in his power,
with no avenue through which I could escape, and for the sake of my
child, I was forced to humble myself, and submit to his caprices.'

'Your situation must have been terrible beyond expression,' ejaculated
Ellen, who had become deeply interested in the story of the unfortunate
woman.

'God knows that it was so,' answered Elvira. 'The discovery of his
deception came upon me suddenly, like a thunderbolt from the clouds of
heaven, and I upbraided him for it in the bitterness of my heart, and he
answered my reproaches at first with scornful laughter, and afterwards
with a relation of the history of his past life, during which, to my
utter astonishment and surprise, I learnt that he had been once before
married, but that his wife had recently died, leaving two children, a
son who was at that time in the vessel with his father, and an infant
daughter, concerning whom, I could only then learn from Rowland, that
she had been left in London, in the hands of such persons as would take
good care of her.

'It was in vain after this, that I begged my cruel husband to return me
and my child to Havana, he was utterly deaf to all my entreaties,
although about two months after our embarcation he landed me on this
desolate, but beautiful island, where, in his hours of leisure, he had
with the assistance of his companions, erected and furnished with his