"Undoubtedly he was," said John. "A burglar, I dare say, and you were
fortunate, all of you, in not being stolen from your beds as you lay
sleeping."
"Oh, we keep our doors locked," was Anna's demure reply.
"Midnight, as I live!" he exclaimed, and was glad of an excuse for
retiring, as he wished now to be alone.
Anna had not asked him half what she had meant to ask concerning
Charlie, but she would not keep him longer, and with a kiss upon his
handsome brow she sent him away, herself holding the door a little ajar
and listening to see what effect the new carpet would have upon him. It
did not have any at first, so much was he absorbed in that man with the
scar upon his temple. Why had he come there, and why had it not been
told him before? His people were so stupid in their letters, never
telling what was sure to interest him most. But what good could it have
done had he known of the mysterious visit? None whatever--at least
nothing particular had resulted from it, he was sure.
"It must have been just after one of his sprees, when he is always more
than half befogged," he said to himself. "Possibly he was passing this
way and the insane idea seized him to stop and pretend to buy Terrace
Hill. The rascal!" and having thus satisfactorily settled it in his
mind, the doctor did look at Anna's carpet, admiring its pattern, and
having a kind of pleasant consciousness that everything was in keeping,
from the handsome drapery which shaded the windows to the marble hearth
on which a fire was blazing.
In Adah Hastings' dream that night there were visions of a little room
far up in a fourth story, where her fair head was pillowed again upon
the manly arm of one who listened while she chided him gently for his
long delay, and then told him of their Willie boy so much like him, as
the young mother thought.
In Dr. Richards' dreams, when at last he slept, there were visions of a
lonely grave in a secluded part of Greenwood, and he heard again the
startling words: "Dead, both she and the child."
He did not know there was a child, and he staggered in his sleep, just
as he staggered down the creaking stairs, repeating to himself: "Lily's child--Lily's child. May Lily's God forgive me."