“‘I loved Miss Anna, even if she did turn out bad. She was the sweetest-tempered, prettiest-wayed girl you ever seen, and when they took her to the hospital I felt as bad as if she’d died.’
“‘To the hospital? The lunatic asylum? Did she go there?’ I asked; and Sarah Felton replied:
“‘Oh yes; they hoped ’twould cure her. Seems’s if the trouble all come to once. First, there was Robert, Richard’s twin, who went off, or was murdered, and has never been heard of since.’
“‘Richard’s twin brother ran off? When? How long ago? How long before Anna died, I mean?’ I asked, stopping suddenly as a new light dawned upon me, only, alas! to fade into darkness at the answer.
“‘Oh, better than a year. Yes, a full year; for he’d been gone a good spell before it was known to many. He didn’t live here; ’twas in New York, and he hardly ever come home. He was a wild one, not much like Richard, who was engaged to Anna, and that’s what I can’t make out,—why he didn’t marry her.’
“We were crossing a common now, where there were rustic benches beneath the trees; and feeling that unless I stopped I should fall, I was so faint and sick with what I had heard, I said that I was tired; and seating myself upon a bench, loosened my hat-strings and leaned against a tree, listening, while my loquacious companion continued:
“‘He was engaged for years, so I’ve heard, and I know he thought a sight of her. It was fairly sickish to see ’em together, he with his arm round her and she a lettin’ her head, with them long curls, loll on his shoulder. They was to be married the very day she died. ’Twas an awful sight. I went away from them about the time they sent her to the hospital; but I was back a spell, as the chamber-maid was took sick, and so I was in it all. Dr. Richard kissed her when she was dyin’, and she whispered something in his ear.’
“‘But Robin,’ I gasped; ‘Anna was surely married to somebody.’
“Again the smile I had seen before and hated curled her lip as she answered:
“‘Yes, of course she was married, for she was a very pious girl, runnin’ Sunday-schools, belongin’ to the church, tendin’ to the poor, and all that.’