“Let me see that letter again,” he said, and taking the rumpled sheet, stained with Adah’s tears, he turned it to the light and read once more the cruel lines, in which there was still much of love and pity for the poor helpless thing, to whom they were addressed.
“You will surely find friends who will care for you, until the time when I may come to really make you mine.”
Hugh repeated these words twice, aloud, his lip curling with contempt for the man who could so coolly thrust upon others a charge which should have been so sacred; and his heart, throbbing with the noble resolve, that the confidence she had placed in him by coming there, should not be abused, for he would be true to the trust, and care for poor, little, half-crazed Adah, moaning so piteously beside him, and as he read the last line, saying eagerly,
“He speaks of coming back. Do you think he ever will? or could I find him if I should try? I thought of starting once, but it was so far; and there was Willie. Oh, if he could see Willie! Mr. Worthington, do you believe he loves me one bit?” and in the eyes there was a look as if the poor creature were famishing for the love whose existence she was questioning.
Hugh did not understand the nature of a love which could so deliberately abandon one like Adah. It was not such love as he had cherished for the Golden Haired, but men were not alike; and so he said, at last, that the letter contained many assurances of affection, and pleadings for forgiveness for the great wrong committed.
“It seems family pride has something to do with it. I wonder where his people live, or who they are? Did he never tell you?”
“No,” and Adah shook her head mournfully. “There was something strange about it. He never gave me the slightest clue. He only told how proud they were, and how they would spurn a poor girl like me; and said, we must keep it a secret until he had won them over. If I could only find them!”
“Would you go to them?” Hugh asked quickly; and Adah answered,
“Sometimes I’ve thought I would. I’d brave his proud mother—I’d lay Willie in her lap. I’d tell her whose he was, and then I’d go away and die. They could not harm my Willie!” and the young girl mother glanced proudly at her sleeping boy. Then, after a pause, she continued, “Once, Mr. Worthington, when my brain was all on fire, I went down to the river, and said I’d end my wretched life, but God, who was watching me, held me back. He cooled my scorching head—he eased the pain, and on the very spot where I meant to jump, I kneeled down and said, ‘Our Father.’ No other words would come, only these, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ Wasn’t it kind in God to save me?”
There was a radiant expression in the sweet face as Adah said this, but it quickly passed away and was succeeded by one of deep concern, when Hugh abruptly asked,