"More like a daughter you seem to me," she had said to Adah, in speaking
of her going; "and once I had a wild--" here she stopped, leaving the
sentence unfinished, for she did not care to tell Adah of the shock it
had given her when Hugh first pointed out to her the faint mark on
Adah's forehead.
It was fainter now even than then, for with increasing color and health
it seemed to disappear, and Mrs. Worthington could scarcely see it, when
with a caressing movement of her hand she put the silken hair back from
Adah's brow and kissed the bluish veins.
"There is none there. It was all a fancy," she murmured to herself, and
then thinking of 'Lina, she said to Adah what she had all along meant to
say, that if the Richards' family should question her of 'Lina, she was
to divulge nothing to her disparagement, whether she were rich or poor,
high or low. "You must not, of course, tell any untruths. I do not ask
that, but I--oh, I sometimes wish they need not know that you came from
here, as that would save all trouble, and 'Lina is so--so--"
Mrs. Worthington did not finish the sentence, for Adah instantly
silenced her by answering frankly: "I do not intend they shall know, not at present certainly."
Adah retired early, as did both Mrs. Worthington and Densie, for all
were unusually tired; only Hugh, as he supposed, was up, and he sat by
the parlor fire where they had passed the evening. He was very sorry
Adah was going, but it was not so much of her he was thinking as of
Alice. Had she dreamed of his real feelings, she never would have done
what she did, but she was wholly unconscious of it, and so, when, late
that night, she returned to the parlor in quest of something she had
left, and found him sitting there alone, she paused a moment on the
threshold, wondering if she had better join him or go away. His back was
toward her, and he did not hear her light step, so intently was he
gazing into the burning grate, and trying to frame the words he should
say if ever he dared tell Alice Johnson of his love.
There was much girlish playfulness in Alice's nature, and sliding across
the carpet, she clasped both her hands before his eyes, and exclaimed: "A penny for your thoughts."
Hugh started as suddenly as if some apparition had appeared before him,
and blushing guiltily, clasped and held upon his face the little soft,
warm hands which did not tremble, but lay still beneath his own. It was
Providence which sent her there, he thought; Providence indicating that
he might speak, and he would.