"Oh, Miss Johnson," and Adah hid her face in Alice's lap, "I'm thinking
of George--of Willie's father. Will he never come back, or the world
know that I thought I was a lawful wife? Yes, and I sometimes believe so
now, or I should surely go wild, Miss Johnson," and Adah lifted up her
head, disclosing a face which Alice scarcely recognized, for the strange
expression there. "Miss Johnson, if I knew that George deliberately
planned my ruin under the guise of a mock marriage, and then when it
suited him deserted me as a toy of which he was tired, I should hate
him!--hate him!"
"I frighten you, Miss Johnson," she said, as she saw how Alice shrank
away from the dark eyes in which there was a fierce, resentful gleam,
unlike sweet Adah Hastings. "I used to frighten myself when I saw in my
eyes the demon which whispered suicide."
"Oh, Adah," said Alice, "you could not have dreamed that!"
"I did," and Adah spoke sadly now. "It was kind in God to save me, and
I've tried to love Him better since; but there's something savage in my
nature, something I must have inherited from one of my parents, and
sometimes my heart, which at first was full of love for George, goes out
against him for his base treachery."
"And yet you love him still?" Alice said, as she smoothed the beautiful
brown hair.
"I suppose I do. A kind word from him would bring me back, but will it
ever be spoken? Shall we ever meet again?"
"Where did he go?" Alice asked.
"He went to Europe, so he said."
There was a voluntary shudder as Alice recalled the time when Dr.
Richards came home from Europe, and she had been flattered with his
attentions.
"I may be unjust to him," she thought, then to Adah she said: "As you
have told me your story in part, will you tell me the whole?"
There was no vindictiveness now in Adah's face, nothing save a calm,
gentle expression such as it was used to wear, and the soft brown eyes
drooped mournfully beneath the heavy lashes as she told the story of her
wrongs.
"And Hugh?" Alice said. "Why did you come to him? Had you known him
before?"
"Hugh was the other witness, bribed by my guardian to lend himself a
party to the deception! I never saw him till that night; neither, I
think, did George. My guardian planned the whole."
"Hugh Worthington is not the man I took him for," and Alice spoke
bitterly.
"You mistake him," she cried eagerly. "My guardian, Mr. Monroe, was
pleased with the young Kentuckian, and led him easily. He coaxed him to
drink a glass of wine, which Hugh says must have been drugged, for it
took away his power to act as he would otherwise have done, and when in
this condition he consented to whatever Mr. Monroe proposed, keeping
silent while the horrid farce went on. But he has repented so bitterly,
and been so kind to me and Willie."