Then followed more particulars so that there should be no doubt, and then the half crazed Adah took up the theme nearest to her heart, her boy, her beautiful Willie. She could not take him with her. She knew not where she was going, and Willie must not suffer. Would _Anna_ take the child? Would she love him for his father’s sake? Would she shield him from scorn, and when he was older would she sometimes tell him of the mother who went away that _he_ might be spared shame? “I do not ask that the new bride should ever call him hers,” she wrote; “I’d rather she would not. I ask that you should give him a mother’s care, and if his father will sometimes speak kindly to him for the sake of the olden time when he did love the mother, tell him—Willie’s father, I mean—tell him, oh I know not what to bid you tell him, except that I forgive him, though at first it was so hard, and the words refused to come; I trusted him so much, loved him so much, and until I had it from his own lips, believed I was his wife. But that cured me; that killed the love, if any still existed, and now, if I could, I would not be his, unless it were for Willie’s sake. Don’t deem me too proud when I say, that to be his wife would be to me more terrible than any thing which I yet have borne, except it were for Willie. I say this because it’s possible your kind heart would prompt you at once to bring back your erring brother, and persuade him at the last to do me justice. But I would not have it so. Shield Willie; nurture him tenderly; teach your mother to love him, and if you so desire it, I will never cross his path, never come near to him, though at a distance, if Heaven wills it, I shall watch my child. “And now farewell. God deal with you, dear Anna, as you deal with my boy.” Calmly, steadily, Adah folded up the missive, and laying it with the other letter, busied herself next in making the necessary preparations for her flight. Anna had been very liberal with her in point of wages, paying her every week, and paying more than at first agreed upon; and as she had scarcely spent a penny during her three months’ sojourn at Terrace Hill, she had, including what Alice had given to her, nearly forty dollars. She was trying so hard to make it a hundred, and so send it to Hugh some day; but she needed it most herself, and she placed it carefully in her little purse, sighing over the golden coin which Anna had paid her last, little dreaming for what purpose it would be used. She would not change her dress until Anna had retired, as that might excite suspicion; so with the same rigid apathy of manner she sat down by Willie’s side and waited till Anna was heard moving in her room. The lamp was burning dimly on the bureau, and so Anna failed to see the frightful expression of Adah’s face as she performed her accustomed duties, brushing Anna’s hair, and letting her hands linger caressingly amid the locks she might never touch again.