and she waited for him so anxiously, starting when she heard a manly step and knew that he was coming. For an instant she scanned his face curiously to assure herself that it was he, then with an imploring cry as if for him to save her from some dreaded evil, she stretched her little hands toward him and sobbed: "Mr. Worthington, was it true? Was it as his letter said?" and shedding back from her white face the wealth of flowing hair, Adah waited for the answer, which did not come at once. In utter amazement Hugh gazed upon the stranger, and then exclaimed:
"Adah, Adah Hastings, why are you here?"
In the tone of his voice surprise and pity were mingled with disapprobation, the latter of which Adah detected at once, and as if it had crushed out the last lingering hope, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed piteously.
"Don't you turn against me, or I'll surely die, and I've come so far to find you."
By this time Hugh was himself again. His rapid, quick-seeing mind had come to a decision, and turning to his mother and sister, he said:
"Leave us alone for a time."
Rather reluctantly Mrs. Worthington and her daughter left the room. Deliberately turning the key in the lock, Hugh advanced to her side, groaning as his eye fell upon the child, which had fallen asleep again.
"I hoped this might have been spared her," he thought, as, kneeling by the couch, he said, kindly: "Adah, I am more pained to see you here than I can express. Why did you come, and where is—"
The name was lost to 'Lina, and muttering to herself: "It does not sound much like a man and wife," she rather unwillingly quitted her position, and Hugh was really alone with Adah.
Never was Hugh in so awkward a position before, or so uncertain how to act. The sight of that sobbing, trembling wretched creature, whose heart he had helped to crush, had perfectly unmanned him, making him almost as much a woman as herself.
"Oh, what made you? Why didn't you save me?" she said, looking up to him with an expression of reproach.
He had no excuse. He knew how innocent she was, and he held her in his arms as he would once have held the Golden Haired, had she come to him with a tale of woe.
"Let me see that letter again," he said.
She gave it to him; and he read once more the cruel lines, in which there was still much of love for the poor thing, to whom they were addressed.
"You will surely find friends who will care for you, until the time when I may come to really make you mine."
Hugh repeated these words twice, aloud, his heart throbbing with the noble resolve, that the confidence she had placed in him by coming there, should not be abused, for he would be true to the trust, and care for the poor, little, half-crazed Adah, moaning so piteously beside him, and as he read the last line, saying eagerly:
"He speaks of coming back. Do you think he ever will? or could I find him if I should try? I thought of starting once, but it was so far; and there was Willie. Oh, if he could see Willie! Mr. Worthington, do you believe he loves me one bit?"
Hugh said at last, that the letter contained many assurances of affection.
"It seems family pride has something to do with it. I wonder where his people live, or who they are? Did he never tell you?"
"No," and Adah shook her head mournfully.
"Would you go to them?" Hugh asked quickly; and Adah answered:
"Sometimes I've thought I would. I'd brave his proud mother—I'd lay Willie in her lap. I'd tell her whose he was, and then I'd go away and die." Then, after a pause, she continued: "Once, Mr. Worthington, I went down to the river, and said I'd end my wretched life, but God held me back. He cooled my scorching head—He eased the pain, and on the very spot where I meant to jump, I kneeled down and said: 'Our Father.' No other words would come, only these: 'Lead us not into temptation.' Wasn't it kind in God to save me?"
There was a radiant expression in the sweet face as Adah said this, but it quickly passed away and was succeeded by one of deep concern when Hugh abruptly said:
"Do you believe in God?"
"Oh, Mr. Worthington. Don't you? You do, you must, you will," and Adah shrank away from him as from a monster.
The action reminded him of the Golden Haired, when on the deck of theSt. Helenahe had asked her a similar question, and anxious further to probe the opinion of the girl beside him, he continued:
"If, as you think, there is a God who knew and saw when you were about to drown yourself, why didn't He prevent the cruel wrong to you? Why did He suffer it?"
"What He does we know not now, but we shall know hereafter," Adah said, reverently, adding: "If George had feared God, he would not have left me so; but he didn't, and perhaps he says there is no God—but you don't, Mr. Worthington. Your face don't look like it. Tell me you believe," and in her eagerness Adah grasped his arm beseechingly.
"Yes, Adah, I believe," Hugh answered, half jestingly, "but it's such as you that make me believe, and as persons of your creed think everything is ordered for good, so possibly you were permitted to suffer that you might come here and benefit me. I think I must keep you, Adah, at least, until he is found."
"No, no," and the tears flowed at once, "I cannot be a burden to you. I have no claim."
After a moment she grew calm again, and continued:
"You whispered, you know, that if I was ever in trouble, come to you, and that's why I remembered you so well, maybe. I wrote down your name, and where you lived, though why I did not know, and I forgot where I put it, but as if God really were helping me I found it in my old portfolio, and something bade me come, for you would know if it was true, and your words had a meaning of which I did not dream when I was so happy. George left me money, and sent more, but it's most gone now. I can take care of myself."
"What can you do?" Hugh asked, and Adah replied:
"I don't know, but God will find me something. I never worked much, but I can learn, and I can already sew neatly, too; besides that, a few days before I decided to come here, I advertised in theHeraldfor some place as governess or ladies' waiting maid. Perhaps I'll hear from that."
"It's hardly possible. Such advertisements are thick as blackberries," Hugh said, and then in a few brief words, he marked out Adah's future course.
George Hastings might or might not return to claim her, and whether he did or didn't, she must live meantime, and where so well as at Spring Bank, or who, next to Mr. Hastings, was more strongly bound to care for her than himself?"
"To be sure, he did not like women much," he said; "their artificial fooleries disgusted him. There wasn't one woman in ten thousand that was what she seemed to be. But even men are not all alike," he continued, with something like a sneer, for when Hugh got upon his favorite hobby, "women and their weaknesses," he generally grew bitter and sarcastic. "Now, there's the one of whom you are continually thinking. I dare say you have contrasted him with me and thought how much more elegant he was in his appearance. Isn't it so?" and Hugh glanced at Adah, who, in a grieved tone, replied:
"No, Mr. Worthington, I have not compared you with him—I have only thought how good you were."
Hugh
