She spoke kindly to him, but he felt it was as she would have spoken to any one in distress, and not as once she had addressed him.  But he knew that he deserved it, and he suffered her to leave him, watching her with streaming eyes as she hurried along the path, and counting the minutes, which seemed to him like hours, ere he saw her returning.  She was very white when she came back, and he noticed that she frequently glanced toward the house, as if haunted by some terror.  Constantly expecting detection, he grasped her arm, as she bent to bathe his swollen foot, and whispered huskily:  “Adah, there’s something on your mind—­some evil you fear.  Tell me, is any one after me!”

Adah nodded; while, like a frightened child, the tall man clung to her neck, saying, piteously:  “Don’t give me up!  Don’t tell; they would hang me, perhaps!”

“They ought to do so,” trembled on Adah’s lips, but she suppressed the words, and went on bandaging up the ankle, and handling it as carefully as if it had not belonged to a deserter.

He did not feel pain now in his anxiety, as he asked:  “Who is it, Adah? who’s after me?” but he started when she replied, with downcast eyes and a flush upon her cheek:  “Major Irving Stanley.  You were in his regiment, the ——­th New York Volunteers.”

Dr. Richards drew a relieved breath.  “I’d rather it were he than Captain Worthington, who hates me so cordially.  Adah, you must hide me; I have so much to tell.  I know your parents, your brother, your husband; and I am he.  It was not a mock marriage.  It has been proved real.  It was a genuine justice who married us, and you are my lawful wife.  Oh, pray, please don’t hurt me so.”  He uttered a scream of pain as Adah’s hands pressed heavily now upon the hard, purple flesh.

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 how 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 powerful task, and sitting down upon the hay, out of reach of his arms, she said: 

“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: