“No, you are not. You must not faint; you shall not,” Anna exclaimed, shaking him energetically and applying to his nostrils the bottle of strong hartshorn she had procured in Versailles for just such an emergency as this.
The odor half strangled him, but Anna’s object was attained. He did not faint, but sat like an idiotic thing, listening while she read the letter through, and demanded if it were true. Was it Adah Gordon whom he deserted, and was it a mock marriage? She would have the truth, and he had no desire to conceal it.
“Yes, true—all true—but I thought she was dead. I did, Anna. Oh, Lily, where is she now? I’m going to——”
“Sit down,” Anna said, imperatively; and with all the air of an imbecile he crouched at her feet, asking what he should do.
This was a puzzle to Anna, and she replied by asking him another question. “Do you love ’Lina Worthington?”
“I—I—no, I guess I don’t; but she’s rich, and——”
With a motion of disgust Anna cut him short, saying, “Don’t make me despise you more than I do. Until your lips confessed it, I had faith that Lily was mistaken, that your marriage was honorable, at least, even if you tired of it afterward. You are worse than I supposed and now you speak of money. What shall you do? Get up, and not sit whining at my feet like a puppy. Find Lily, of course, and if she will stoop to listen a second time to your suit, make her your wife, working to support her until your hands are blistered, if need be.”
Anna hardly knew herself in this phase of her character, and her brother certainly did not.
“Don’t be hard on me, Anna,” he said, “I’ll do what you say, only don’t be hard. It’s come so sudden, that my head is like a whirlpool. Lily, Willie, Willie. The child I saw, you mean—yes, the child—I—saw—did it say he—was—my—boy?”
The words were thick and far apart. The head drooped lower and lower, the color all left the lips, and in spite of Anna’s vigorous shakes, or still more vigorous hartshorn, overtaxed nature gave way, and the doctor fainted at last. It was Anna’s turn now to wonder what she should do, and she was about summoning aid from some quarter when the door opened suddenly, and Hugh ushered in a stranger—the convict, who had kept his word, and came to tell what he knew of this complicated mystery. No one had seen him as he entered the house but Hugh, who was expecting him, and who, in reply to his inquiries for the doctor, told where he was, and that a stranger was with him. There was a low, hurried conversation between the two, a partial revelation of the business which had brought Sullivan there, and at its close Hugh’s face was deadly white, for he knew now that he had met Dr. Richards before, and that ’Lina could not be his wife.