She awoke to consciousness at last. It was in the grey dawn of the morning, when Adam was sitting by her, while her mother and Mildred rested in the adjoining room. Eagerly she seemed to be searching for something, and when Adam asked for what, she answered: “The note; I had it in my hand when I went to sleep.”
Bending over her, Adam said: “I found it; I gave it to him.”
There was a perceptible start, a flushing of Anna’s cheek and a frightened, half pleading look in her eyes; but she asked no questions, and thinking she would rather not have him there, Adam went quietly out to her mother with the good news of Anna’s consciousness.
Days went by after that, days of slow convalescence; but now that he was no longer needed in the sick-room, Adam stayed away. Tokens of his thoughtful care, however, were visible everywhere, in the tasteful bouquets arranged each morning, just as he knew Anna liked them—in the luscious fruit and tempting delicacies procured by him for the weak invalid who at last asked Mildred to call him and leave them alone together.
At first there was much constraint on either side, but at last Anna burst out impetuously, “Oh, Adam, I do not know what I said in my delirium, or how much you know, and so I must tell you everything.”
Then, as rapidly as possible and without excusing herself in the least, she told her story and what she had intended to do.
For a moment Adam did not speak, and when he did it was to ask if Mildred had told her about Herbert. But his name had not been mentioned between the two girls and thus it devolved upon Adam to explain. Herbert had left the neighborhood and gone abroad immediately after Anna’s convalescence was a settled thing.
“Perhaps he will soon come back,” Adam said, and Anna cried, “Oh, Adam, I never wish him to return, I know now that I never loved him as—I—oh, I wish I had died.”
“You were not prepared, and God spared you to us. We are very glad to have you back,” Adam said.
These were the first words he had spoken which had in them anything like his former manner, and Anna involuntarily stretched her hand toward him. He took it, and letting it rest on his broad, warm palm, smoothed it a little as he would have smoothed a little child’s, but what Anna longed to hear was not spoken, and in a tremor of pain she sobbed out,