“I heard Mr. Stanley talking of you once to his sister, and among other things he spoke of your dislike for children, and referred to an occasion in the cars, when a little boy, for whom his heart ached, was suffering acutely and for whom you evinced no interest, except to say that you _hated_ children, and to push his feet from your lap. I never knew till then that you were so near to me.” “It’s true, it’s true,” the doctor cried, tears rolling down his soiled face; “but I never guessed it was you. Lily, I supposed it some ordinary woman.” “So did Irving Stanley,” was Adah’s quiet, cutting answer; “but his heart was open to sympathy, even for an ordinary woman.” The doctor could only moan, with his face still hidden in his hands, until a sudden thought like a revelation flashed upon him, and forgetting his wounded foot, he sprang like a tiger to the spot where Adah sat, and winding his arm firmly around her, whispered hoarsely, “Adah, you _love Irving Stanley_. My wife loves another than her husband.” Adah did not struggle to release herself from his grasp, but her whole soul loathed that close embrace, and the loathing expressed itself in the tone of her voice, as she replied, “Until within an hour I did not suppose you were my husband. You said you were not in that letter; I have it yet; the one in which you told me it was a mock marriage, as, by your own confession, it seems you meant it should be.” “Oh, darling, you kill me, yet I deserve it all; but Adah, I have suffered enough to atone for the dreadful past; and I tried so hard to find you. Forgive me, Lily, forgive,” and falling again on his knees, the wretched man poured forth a torrent of entreaties for her forgiveness, her love, without which he should die. Holding fast her cold hands, he pleaded with all his eloquence, until, maddened by her silence, he even taunted her with loving another, while her own husband was living. Then Adah started, and pushing him away, sprang to her feet, while the hot blood stained her face and neck, and a resentful fire gleamed from her brown eyes. “It is not well for you to reproach me with faithlessness,” she said, “you, who have dealt so treacherously by me; you, who deliberately planned my ruin, and would have effected it but for the deeper-laid scheme of one you say is my father. No thanks to you that I am a lawful wife. You did not make me so of your own free will. You did to me the greatest wrong a man can do a woman, then cruelly deserted me, and now you would chide me for respecting another more than I do you.” “Not respecting him, Adah, no, not for respecting him. You should do that. He’s worthier than I; but, oh, Adah, Lily, wife, mother of my boy, do you love Irving Stanley?” He was sobbing bitterly, and the words came between the sobs, while he tried to clutch her dress. Staggering backward against the wooden beam, Adah leaned there for support, while she replied,