She scarcely knew what she was doing as she listened to his words, and
heard that she was indeed his wife. Two years before, such news would
have overwhelmed her with delight, but now for a single instant a fierce
and almost resentful pang shot through her heart as she thought of being
bound for life to one for whom she had no love, and whose very caresses
made her loathe him more and more. But when she thought of Willie, and
that the stain upon his birth was washed away, the hard look left her
eyes, and her hot tears dropped upon the ankle she was bandaging.
“You are glad?” he asked, looking at her curiously, for her manner
puzzled him.
“Yes, very glad for Willie,” she replied, keeping her face bent down so
he could not see its expression.
Then when her task was done, she seemed to nerve herself for some
painful task, and sitting down upon the hay said to him,
“Tell me now all that has happened since I left Terrace Hill; but first
of Willie. You say Anna has him?”
“Yes, Anna—Mrs. Millbrook,” he replied, and was about to say more, when
Adah interrupted him with,
“It may spare you some pain if I tell you first what I know of the
tragedy at Spring Bank. I know that _’Lina_ is dead, and that the fact
of my existence prevented the marriage. So much I heard Mrs. Ellsworth
tell her brother. I had just come to her then. She was prouder toward me
than she is now, and I dared not question her. Go on, you spoke of my
parents, my brother. Who are they?”
Her manner perplexed him greatly, but he controlled himself, while he
repeated rapidly the story known already to our readers, the story which
made Adah reel, and turn so white that he attempted to reach her and so
keep her from falling. But just the touch of his hand had power to rouse
her, and drawing back she laid her face in the hay, and moaned.
“It’s more than I ever hoped. Oh, Heavenly Father accept my thanks for
this great happiness. A mother and a brother found.”
“And husband, too,” chimed in the doctor, eagerly, “thank him for me,
Adah. You are glad to find me?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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