Slowly the twilight shadows crept over Terrace Hill and into the little room where Adah was preparing for her accustomed walk to the office. Willie was down with Pamelia, who, when she came up for him, had told Adah as something of which she should be proud, that the doctor had actually thrown Willie into the air and pronounced him a splendid-looking child, “considering.”
That “considering” wounded Adah, for she felt the sneer at her position which it implied, and with a faint smile, she dismissed Pamelia, and then went to the closet for the over-shoes she would need in her damp walk. But what was it which fell like a thunderbolt on her ear, riveting her to the spot where she stood, rigid and immovable. Between the closet and Anna’s room there was only a thin partition, and when the door was open every sound was distinctly heard. The doctor had just come in, and it was his voice, heard for the first time, which sent the blood throbbing so madly through Adah’s veins, and made the sparks of fire dance before her eyes. She was not deceived—the tones were too distinct, too full, too well remembered to be mistaken, and stretching out her hands in the dim darkness, she moaned faintly: “George! ’tis George!” then sank upon the floor, powerless but not fainting, nor yet unconscious of the terrible certainty that George was so near to her that but for the partition she might almost have touched him! She could hear him now saying to Anna, “Are we alone? I wish to speak my farewell words in private.”
“Yes, all alone,” Anna replied. “Mrs. Hastings has gone to the Post-office. Was it any thing particular you wished to tell me?”
The Doctor either did not hear the name “Mrs. Hastings,” or did not notice it, and again the familiar tones thrilled on Adah’s ear as he replied, “Nothing very particular. I only wished to say a few words of ’Lina. I want you to like her, to make up, if possible, for the love I ought to give her.”
“Ought to give her! Oh, brother, are you taking ’Lina without love? Better never make the vow than break it after it is made.”
Anna spoke earnestly, and the doctor, who always tried to retain her good opinion, replied evasively, “I suppose I do love her as well as half the world love their wives before marriage, but she is different from any ladies I have known; so different from, what poor Lily was. Anna, let me talk with you again of Lily. I never told you all—but what is that?” he continued, as he indistinctly heard the choking, gasping, stifled sob, which Adah gave at the sound of the dear pet name, which used to make the blood thrill so ecstatically through her veins, and which now, for a single moment, made her heart bound with sudden joy; but only for a moment.
“Poor Lily,” said a hundred times, with a hundred fold more tenderness than he was wont to say it, could not atone for the past; for the cruel desertion, for the deception even of the name; and so the poor, wounded heart grew still again as lead, while Anna answered, “It’s only the rising wind. It sounds so always when it’s in the east. What of Lily? Do you wish you were going after her instead of ’Lina?”
Could Anna have seen then into the darkness of the adjoining room, she would have shrunk in terror from the figure, which, as she asked that question, struggled to its knees, and creeping nearer to the door, turned its white, spectral face toward her, listening eagerly for the answer. Oh, why did the doctor hesitate a moment? Why did he suffer his dread of losing Anna’s respect to triumph over every other feeling? He had meant to tell her all, how he did love the gentle girl, who confided herself to him—how he loved even her memory now far more than he loved ’Lina, but something kept the full confession back, and he answered,
“I don’t know. We must have money, and ’Lina is rich, while Lily was very poor, and the only friend or relation she knew was one with whom I would not dare have you come in contact, he was so wicked and reckless.”
This was what the doctor said, and into the brown eyes, now bloodshot and dim with anguish, there came the hard, fierce look, before which Alice Johnson once had shuddered, when Adah Hastings said,