Unnamed Second Wife of Zilphia's Husband

The title character of "Miss Zilphia Gant" learns from a newspaper about this woman "in another state" who marries the man to whom she herself had been married (379); from the detective agency she hires, Zilphia learns about "the birth of a daughter and of the mother's death," a sequence that suggests this woman died in childbirth (381). Although from the agency's reports Zilphia learns enough about this woman's marriage to live "vicariously" inside it (380), what the story passes on to readers is vague and confusing. For example, at least 13 years before her death this unnamed woman was reported to be pregnant, but the only child mentioned in the text is the daughter who is born at the same time both her parents die.