Bad Hugh

Drearily the morning dawned, but there were no bridal slumbers to be

broken, no bridal farewells said. There were indeed good-byes to be

spoken, for Anna was impatient to be gone. But for Adah, who must be

found, and Willie, who must be cared for, and Charlie, who was waiting

for her, she would have tarried longer, and helped to nurse the girl

whom she pitied so much. But even Alice said she had better go, and so

at an early hour she was ready to leave the house she had entered under

so unpleasant circumstances.

"I would like to see 'Lina," she said to Alice, who carried the request

to the sick room.

But 'Lina refused. "I can't," she said; "she hates, she despises me, and

she has reason. Tell her I was not worthy to be her sister; tell her

anything you like; but the doctor--oh, Alice, do you think he'll come,

just for a minute, before he goes?"

It was not a pleasant thing for the doctor to meet 'Lina now face to

face, for of course she wished to reproach him for his treachery. But

she did not--she thought only of herself; and when at last, urged on by

Anna and Alice, he entered into her presence, she only offered him her

hand at first, without a single word. He was shocked to find her so

sick, for a few hours had worked a marvelous change in her, and he

shrank from the bright eyes fixed so eagerly on his face.

"Oh Dr. Richards," she began at last, "if I loved you less it would not

be so hard to tell you what I must. I did love you, bad as I am, but I

meant to deceive you. It was for me that Adah kept silence at Terrace

Hill. Adah, I almost hate her for having crossed my path."

There was a fearfully vindictive gleam in the bright eyes now, and the

doctor shudderingly looked away, while 'Lina, with a soft tone,

continued: "You believed me rich, and whether you loved me afterward or

not, you sought me first for my money. I kept up the delusion, for in no

other way could I have won you. Dr. Richards, if I die, as perhaps I

may, I shall have one less sin for which to atone, if I confess to you

that instead of the heiress you imagined me to be, I had scarcely money

enough to pay my board at that hotel. Hugh, who himself is poor,

furnished what means I had, and most of my jewelry was borrowed. Do you

hear that? Do you know what you have escaped?"

She almost shrieked at the last.

"Go," she continued, "find your Adah. It's nothing but Adah now. I see

her name in everything. Hugh thinks of nothing else, and why should he?

She's his sister, and I--oh! I'm nobody but a beggarly servant's brat. I

wish I was dead! I wish I was dead! and I will be pretty soon."