Dr. Richards drew a relieved breath. “I’d rather it were he than Captain Worthington, who hates me so cordially. Adah, you must hide me; I have so much to tell. I know your parents, your brother, your husband; and I am he. It was not a mock marriage. It has been proved real. It was a genuine Justice who married us, and you are my lawful wife. Oh, pray, please don’t hurt me so,” and he uttered a scream of pain as Adah’s hands pressed heavily upon the hard, purple flesh.
She scarcely knew what she was doing as she listened to his words, and heard that she was indeed his wife. Two years before, such news would have overwhelmed her with delight, but now for a single instant a fierce and almost resentful pang shot through her heart as she thought of being bound for life to one for whom she had no love, and whose very caresses made her loathe him more and more. But when she thought of Willie, and that the stain upon his birth was washed away, the hard look left her eyes, and her hot tears dropped upon the ankle she was bandaging.
“You are glad?” he asked, looking at her curiously, for her manner puzzled him.
“Yes, very glad for Willie,” she replied, keeping her face bent down so he could not see its expression.
Then when her task was done, she seemed to nerve herself for some painful task, and sitting down upon the hay said to him,
“Tell me now all that has happened since I left Terrace Hill; but first of Willie. You say Anna has him?”
“Yes, Anna—Mrs. Millbrook,” he replied, and was about to say more, when Adah interrupted him with,
“It may spare you some pain if I tell you first what I know of the tragedy at Spring Bank. I know that ’Lina is dead, and that the fact of my existence prevented the marriage. So much I heard Mrs. Ellsworth tell her brother. I had just come to her then. She was prouder toward me than she is now, and I dared not question her. Go on, you spoke of my parents, my brother. Who are they?”
Her manner perplexed him greatly, but he controlled himself, while he repeated rapidly the story known already to our readers, the story which made Adah reel, and turn so white that he attempted to reach her and so keep her from falling. But just the touch of his hand had power to rouse her, and drawing back she laid her face in the hay, and moaned.
“It’s more than I ever hoped. Oh, Heavenly Father accept my thanks for this great happiness. A mother and a brother found.”