“What do you mean?” she asked, in well-feigned surprise, for she would not admit anything until she knew how far she was implicated.
Very briefly her father repeated to her what he had heard from Mr. Warren, and then awaited her answer. At first she thought to deny the charge, but she dared not give the lie to one then lying dead not far away, so she remained silent, trying in vain to frame some excuse with which to appease her father, and also to find some way of again binding Alice to secrecy, so that Mr. Howland should never hear of her falsehoods. He would, perhaps, excuse her deception with regard to her father when she told him, as she should do, that she had done it for the sake of her mother, who could not endure to have the matter known, and if the rest were kept from him, all might yet end well.
At that moment she remembered what Peggy had said, and with a faint voice she asked:
“Does any one know this but yourself?”
“Mr. Warren’s daughter knows it,” he returned. “And the young man—Howland is his name—knows it, too, for he was there all night and heard my conversation with Alice.”
“Mr. Howland!” Adelaide fairly screamed, and in the terrified expression of her face the motive for her conduct was revealed to her father, who rather enjoyed than otherwise the passionate tears of anger and mortification which she shed at finding herself thus betrayed to one whom she had loved as well as such as she could love.
“I understand you perfectly,” said Mr. Huntington, advancing toward her as she lay weeping on the lounge, “and your punishment is just; for a child who can abuse its father as you have abused me, ought never to be the wife of a man like Mr. Howland. I will not reproach you further with your guilt,” he continued, “for your sin has found you out, and I leave you to your own reflections.”
So saying, he passed on in quest of his wife, whose welcome to the repentant man was far more cordial than that of his daughter had been.
Adelaide was, indeed, sorely punished, for all hope of winning Mr. Howland was gone, and, as the days wore on, she experienced more and more that the way of the transgressor is hard.
The story of Mr. Huntington’s existence and return to his family circulated rapidly, and with it, hand in hand, went the rumor of the wrong he had once done to the blind man, who by the people of Oakland was honored more in death than he had been in life, for they came in crowds to his funeral, gazing pityingly at the white face of the dead, and then staring curiously at the dark-browed stranger who was said to be William Huntington. Adelaide was not there, for Miss Elinor, a little given to gossip, it may be, had kindly remembered her, and numerous were the exaggerated stories afloat concerning the deception she had practiced both upon her father and the villagers. Like most people she had one so-called friend who dutifully kept her informed with regard to all that was said concerning her, and completely overwhelmed with shame and mortification, she resolved to keep herself secluded at home, where she vented her disappointment in harsh language and bitter tears, particularly when, on the day succeeding the funeral, she heard that Miss Elinor had taken Alice to live with her.