“I did,” and Adah spoke sadly now. “I forgot God awhile, and He left me to myself, but followed me still, going with me all through those crowded streets, close at my side, though I did not know it, and holding me back at the last moment, when the tempter was about to triumph, and the river rolling at my feet looked so invitingly to poor, half-crazed me, He put other thoughts in my head, and where I went to throw my life away, I knelt down and prayed. It was kind in God to save me, and I’ve tried to love Him better since, to thank Him for His great goodness in leading me to Hugh, as He surely did; but there’s something savage in my nature, which has not been all subdued, and sometimes I’m rebellious, just as you see me now, and my heart, which at first was full of love for George, goes out against him for his base treachery.” “And yet you love him still?” Alice said, inquiringly as she smoothed the beautiful brown hair. “I suppose I do. A kind word from him would bring me back, but will it ever be spoken? Shall we ever meet again?” She was silent a moment, and then Alice said, “I do not seek your confidence unless you are willing to give it. As you have told me your story in part, will you tell me the whole?” There was no vindictiveness now in Adah’s face, and the soft brown eyes drooped mournfully beneath the heavy lashes as she told the story of her wrongs. Told of a young girl at Madam Dupont’s school, of the elegant stranger present at one examination, and who watched her with unfeigned interest as she worked out upon the board a most difficult problem in Euclid, standing so near to her that once when she accidentally dropped her crayon he picked it up and offered it to her with a few whispered words of commendation for her skill in mathematics. Of a chance meeting in the street. Of walks and rides, and blissful interviews at her own cozy little room in the boarding-house, where she had lived for years. Of marriage proposed at last, and sanctioned by her guardian. Of the necessity urged upon her why it should be kept a secret until the proud relatives were reconciled. Of going one night with her lover, her guardian and another witness, far out into the suburbs of the city to the house of a justice, who made her George’s wife. Of her guardian’s sudden departure, she knew not whither. Of a removal to another boarding-house more obscure, and in a part of the city where she never met again with any whom she had known before. Of months of perfect happiness. Of the hope growing within her that she was gradually, leading George to God. Of letters from home which made him blue, and which she never saw. Of his leaving her at last without a word or sign that he was going or had grown weary of her. Of the terrible suspense, the cruel letter, the attempt to take her life, of Willie’s birth, of her being turned from the house as a disreputable character, and coming at last to Spring Bank in quest of Hugh, and of the gradual dying out,