Mechanically he took his way to the parlor, while Hugh resumed his seat by the window, where for the last hour he had watched for the coming of one who had said, “I will be there.” Half an hour later, had he looked into the parlor, he would have seen a frightened, white-faced man, crouching at Anna Richards’ side and whispering to her as if all life, all strength, all power to act for himself, were gone. “What must I do? Tell me what to do.” She had given him no time for questioning, but handing him Adah’s letter, had bidden him read it through, as that would explain her presence at Spring Bank. One glance at the handwriting, and the doctor turned white as marble. “Could it be? Had Lily come back to life?” he asked himself, and then eagerly, rapidly, he read the first two pages, every word burning into his heart and bewildering his brain. But when he came to the line, “_I am Lily, and Willie is your brother’s child_,” sight and sense seemed failing him, and tottering to his sister, sternly regarding him, he gasped, “Oh, Anna, read for me. I can’t see any more—it runs together, and I—I’m going to faint!” “_No, you are not._ You must not faint; you shall not,” Anna exclaimed, shaking him energetically and applying to his nostrils the bottle of strong hartshorn she had procured in Versailles for just such an emergency as this. The odor half strangled him, but Anna’s object was attained. He did not faint, but sat like an idiotic thing, listening while she read the letter through, and demanded if it were true. Was it Adah Gordon whom he deserted, and was it a mock marriage? She would have the truth, and he had no desire to conceal it. “Yes, true—all true—but I thought she was dead. I did, Anna. Oh, Lily, where is she now? I’m going to——” “Sit down,” Anna said, imperatively; and with all the air of an imbecile he crouched at her feet, asking what he should do. This was a puzzle to Anna, and she replied by asking him another question. “Do you love ’Lina Worthington?” “I—I—no, I guess I don’t; but she’s rich, and——” With a motion of disgust Anna cut him short, saying, “Don’t make me despise you more than I do. Until your lips confessed it, I had faith that Lily was mistaken, that your marriage was honorable, at least, even if you tired of it afterward. You are worse than I supposed and now you speak of money. What shall you do? Get up, and not sit whining at my feet like a puppy. Find Lily, of course, and if she will stoop to listen a second time to your suit, make her your wife, working to support her until your hands are blistered, if need be.” Anna hardly knew herself in this phase of her character, and her brother certainly did not. “Don’t be hard on me, Anna,” he said, “I’ll do what you say, only don’t be hard. It’s come so sudden, that my head is like a whirlpool. Lily, Willie, Willie. The child I saw, you mean—yes, the child—I—saw—did it say he—was—_my_—boy?”