“Do you believe in God?”
“Oh, Mr. Worthington. Don’t you? You do, you must, you will,” and Adah shrank away from him as from a monster.
The action reminded him of the Golden Haired, when on the deck of the St. Helena he had asked her a similar question, and anxious further to probe the opinion of the girl beside him, he continued,
“If, as you think, there is a God who knew and saw when you were about to drown yourself, why didn’t he prevent the cruel wrong to you? Why did he suffer it?”
“What He does we know not now, but we shall know hereafter,” Adah said, reverently, adding, “If George had feared God, he would not have left me so; but he didn’t, and perhaps he says there is no God—but you don’t, Mr. Worthington. Your face don’t look like it. Tell me you believe,” and in her eagerness Adah grasped his arm beseechingly.
“Yes, Adah, I believe,” Hugh answered, half jestingly, “but it’s such as you that make me believe, and as persons of your creed think every thing is ordered for good, so possibly you were permitted to suffer that you might come here and benefit me. I think I must keep you until he is found.”
“No, no,” and the tears flowed at once, “I cannot be a burthen to you. I have no claim.”
“Why then did you come at all?” Hugh asked, and Adah answered,
“For a time after I received the letter every thing was so dark that I didn’t realize, and couldn’t think of any thing. But when the landlady hinted those terrible things, and finally told me I must leave to give place to a respectable woman, that’s just what she said, a respectable woman, with a child who knew its own father, then I woke up and tried to think of something, but the more I tried, the more I couldn’t, till at last I prayed so hard one night, that God would tell me what to do, and suddenly I remembered you and your good, kind, honest face, just as it looked when you spoke to me after it was over, and called me by the new name. Oh, dear, oh, dear,” and gasping for breath, Adah leaned against Hugh’s arm, sobbing bitterly.
After a moment she grew calm again, and continued,