Mrs. Ellsworth hesitated no longer, and ten days after the receipt of this letter, Adah was duly installed as governess to the delighted little Jennie, who learned to love her gentle teacher with a love almost amounting to idolatry.

“You were in Europe then, and that is the reason why we could not find you,” Dr. Richards said, adding, after a moment:  “And Irving Stanley went with you—­was your companion all the while?”

“Yes, all the while,” and Adah’s cold fingers worked nervously at the wisp of hay she was twisting in her hand.  “I had seen him before—­he was in the cars when Willie and I were on our way to Terrace Hill.  Willie had the earache, and he was so kind to us both.”

Adah looked fixedly now at the craven doctor, who could not meet her glance, for well he remembered the dastardly part he had played in that scene, where his own child was screaming with pain, and he sat selfishly idle.

“She don’t know I was there, though,” he thought, and that gave him some comfort.

But Adah did know, and she meant he should know she did.  Keeping her calm brown eyes still fixed upon him, she continued: 

“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 call him a brat, and wonder why his mother did not stay at home.  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, Lily, tell me you love this Irving Stanley.  My wife loves another than her husband.”

Adah did not struggle to release herself from his close grasp.  It was punishment she ought to bear, she thought, 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.