Bad Hugh

Then followed more particulars so that there should be no doubt, and

then the half-crazed Adah took up the theme nearest to her heart, her

boy, her beautiful Willie. She could not take him with her. She knew not

where she was going, and Willie must not suffer. Would Anna take the

child?

"I do not ask that the new bride should ever call him hers," she wrote;

"I'd rather she would not. I ask that you should give him a mother's

care, and if his father will sometimes speak kindly to him for the sake

of the older time when he did love the mother, tell him--Willie's

father, I mean--tell him, oh I know not what to bid you tell him, except

that I forgive him, though at first it was so hard, and the words

refused to come; I trusted him so much, loved him so much, and until I

had it from his own lips, believed I was his wife. But that cured me;

that killed the love, if any still existed, and now, if I could, I would

not be his, unless it were for Willie's sake.

"And now farewell. God deal with you, dear Anna, as you deal with my

boy."

Calmly, steadily, Adah folded up the missive, and laying it with the

mourning envelope, busied herself next in making the necessary

preparations for her flight. Anna had been liberal with her in point of

wages, paying her every week, and paying more than at first agreed upon;

and as she had scarcely spent a penny during her three months' sojourn

at Terrace Hill, she had, including what Alice had given to her, nearly

forty dollars. She was trying so hard to make it a hundred, and so send

it to Hugh some day; but she needed it most herself, and she placed it

carefully in her little purse, sighing over the golden coin which Anna

had paid her last, little dreaming for what purpose it would be used.

She would not change her dress until Anna had retired, as that might

excite suspicion; so with the same rigid apathy of manner she sat down

by Willie's side and waited till Anna was heard moving in her room. The

lamp was burning dimly on the bureau, and so Anna failed to see the

frightful expression of Adah's face, as she performed her accustomed

duties, brushing Anna's hair, and letting her hands linger caressingly

amid the locks she might never touch again.

It did strike Anna that something was the matter; for when Adah spoke to

her, the voice was husky and unnatural. Still, she paid no attention

until the chapter was read as usual and "Our Father" said; then, as Adah

lingered a moment, still kneeling by the bed, she laid her soft hand on

the young head, and asked, kindly, "if it ached."