“Hugh was that other witness. I never saw him till that night, neither, I think, did George. My guardian planned the whole.”
“Hugh Worthington is not the man I took him for,” and Alice spoke bitterly, a look of horror on her face which Adah quickly detected.
“You mistake him,” she cried eagerly. “He is all you imagine him to be, the noblest, truest man, and the best friend I ever had. My guardian possessed a most singular power over all young men, and Hugh was fresh from the country. I don’t know where or how they met, but at a hotel, I think. He did not know it was a farce. He went in perfect good faith, although he says since that it did once occur to him that something might be wrong.
“And your guardian,” interrupted Alice, “is it not strange that he should have acted so cruel a part, particularly if, as you sometimes fancied, he was your father?”
“Yes, that’s the strangest part of all. I cannot understand it, or where he is, though I sometimes imagined he must be dead, or in prison,” and Adah thought of what Sam had said concerning Sullivan, the negro-stealer.
“What do you mean; why should he be in prison?” Alice asked in some surprise, and Adah replied by telling her what Sam had said, and the reason she had for thinking Sullivan and her guardian, Redfield, one and the same.
Just then Willie’s voice was heard in the hall, and hastening to the door Alice admitted him into the room. Taking him in her lap she kissed his rosy cheek, and pushing back his soft curls said to Adah, “Do you know I think he looks like Hugh?”
“Yes,” and Adah spoke sadly. “I know he does, and I am sorry for Hugh’s sake, as it must annoy him. Neither can I account for it, for I am certainly nothing to Hugh. But there’s another look in Willie’s face, his father’s. Oh, Miss Johnson, George was handsome, and ’twas his face which first attracted me.”
“Can you describe him, or will it be too painful?” Alice asked, and forcing back her tears, Adah told how George Hastings looked, while Alice’s hands worked nervously together, and her heart beat almost audibly, for, save the absence of moustache and whiskers, which might have been grown since, Adah was describing Dr. Richards.
“And you’ve never seen him since, nor heard from him, nor guessed where his mother lived?”