Appealing next to Anna, she continued: "Pray, make him comprehend that his wife is at Terrace Hill." Very gently Anna answered: "She was there, but she has gone. He knows it; I came to tell him, but she fled immediately after recognizing my brother, and left a letter revealing the whole." It had come to 'Lina by this time that Dr. Richards could never be her husband, and with a bitter cry, she covered her face with her hands, and went shivering to the corner where Mrs. Worthington sat, as if a mother's sympathy were needed now, and coveted as it had never been before. "Oh, mother," she sobbed, laying her head in Mrs. Worthington's lap, "I wish I had never been born." Sadly her wail of disappointment rang through the room, and then the convict went on with his interrupted narrative. "When the marriage was over, Mr. Hastings took his wife to another part of the city, hiding her from his fashionable associates, staying with her most of the time, and appearing to love her so much that I thought it would not be long before I should venture to tell him the truth. I went South on a little business which a companion and myself had planned together--the very laudable business of stealing negroes from one State and selling them in another. Some of you know that I was caught in my traffic, and that the negro stealer Sullivan, was safely lodged in prison, from which he was released but two days since. Fearing there might be some mistake, I wrote from my prison home to Adah herself, but suppose it did not reach New York till after she had left it. My poor, dear little girl, thoughts of her have helped to make me a better man than I ever was before. I am not perfect now, but I certainly am not as hard, as wicked, or bad as when I first wore the felon's dress." A casual observer would have said that Densie Densmore had heard less of that strange story than any one else, but her hearing faculties had been sharpened, and not a word was missed by her--not a link lost in the entire narrative, and when the narrator expressed his love for his daughter, she darted upon him again, shrieking wildly: "And that child whom you loved was the baby you stole, and I shall see her again--shall hear that blessed name of mother from her own sweet lips." A little apart from the others, his eyes fixed earnestly upon the convict, stood Hugh. His mind, too, had gathered in every fact, but he had reached a widely different conclusion from what poor Densie had. "Answer her," he said, gravely, as the convict did not reply. "Tell her if Adah be her child, or--'Lina--which?" Had a clap of thunder cleft the air around her, 'Lina could not have started up sooner than she did. The convict took his eyes away from her, pitying her so much, while Densie's bony hand was raised as if to thrust her off, and Densie's voice exclaimed: "Not this, not this. She despises me, a white nigger. I will not be her mother. The other one--Densie, I named her--she is mine--"