The group of rough-looking men gathered about the office did not suit his mood, and so he came on to the ladies' apartment, just as Adah knew he would. Pausing for a moment on the threshold, he looked hastily in, his glance falling upon the veiled figure sitting there so lonely and motionless. She did not care for him, she would not object to his presence, so he came nearer to the stove, poising his patent leathers upon the hearth, thrusting both hands into his pockets, and even humming to himself snatches of a song, which Lily used to sing up the three flights of stairs in that New York boarding house.
Poor Adah! How white and cold she grew, listening to that air, and gazing upon the face she had loved so well. It was changed since the night when with his kiss warm on her lips he left her forever, changed, and for the worse. There was a harder, a more reckless, determined expression there, a look which better than words could have done, told that self alone was the god he worshiped.
Once, as he walked up and down the room, passing so near to her that she might have touched him with her hand, she felt an almost irresistible desire to thrust her thick brown veil aside, and confronting him to his face, claim from him what she had a right to claim, his name and a position as his wife—only for Willie's sake, however; for herself she did not wish it.
It was a relief when at last the roll of the cars was heard, and buttoning his coat still closer around him, he turned toward the door, half looking back to see if the veiled figure too had risen. It had, and was standing close beside him, its outside garments sweeping his as the crowd increased, pressing her nearer to him, but Adah passed back into the ladies' room, and opening the rear door was out in the street again almost before the train had left the station. George was gone—lost to her forever! and with a piteous moan for her ruined life, Adah kept on her way till the post office was reached.
There were four letters in the box—one for Mrs. Richards, from an absent brother; one for Eudora, from Lottie Gardner; one for Asenath, from an old friend, and at the bottom, last of all, one for Annie Richards, faced with black, and bearing the initial "M." upon the seal of wax.
Adah saw all this, but it conveyed no meaning to her mind except a vague remembrance that at some time or other, very, very long years it seemed, Anna had bidden her keep from her mother any letter directed to herself in a mourning envelope. Adah retained just sense enough to do this, and separating the letter from the others, thrust it into her pocket, and then took her way back to Terrace Hill.
Willie was asleep; and as Pamelia, who brought him up, had thoughtfully undressed and placed him in bed, there was nothing for Adah to do but think. She should go away, of course; she could not stay there longer; but how should she tell them why she went, and who would be her medium for communication?
"Anna, of course," she whispered; and lighting her little lamp, she sat down to write the letter which would tell Anna Richards who was the waiting maid to whom she had been so kind.
"Dear Anna," she wrote. "Forgive me for calling you so this once, for indeed I cannot help it. You have been so kind to me that if my heart could ache, it would ache terribly at leaving you and knowing it was forever. I am going away from you, Anna; and when, in the morning, you wait for me to come as usual, I shall not be here, I could not stay and meet your brother when he returns. Oh, Anna, Anna, how shall I begin to tell you what I know will grieve and shock your pure nature so dreadfully?
"Anna!—I love to call you Anna now, for you seem, near to me; and believe me, while I write this to you, I am conscious of no feeling of inferiority to any one bearing your proud name. I am, or should have been, your equal, your sister; and Willie!—oh, my boy, when I think of him, the feeling comes and I almost seem to be going mad!