“Have I found Lily only to lose her?”

Still there was no reply, and the doctor continued:  “You are my wife, Adah.  No power can undo that, save death, and you are my child’s mother.  For Willie’s sake, oh, Adah, for Willie’s sake, forgive.”

When he appealed to her as his wife, Adah seemed turning into stone; but the mention of Willie touched the mother within that girlish woman, and the iceberg melted at once.

“For Willie, my boy,” she gasped, “I could do almost anything; I could die so willingly but—­but—­oh, George, that ever we should come to this.  You a deserter, a traitor to your country—­lamed, disabled, wholly in my power, and begging of me, your outcast wife, for the love which surely is dead—­dead.  No, George, I do forgive, but never, never more can I be to you a wife.”

There was a rising resentment now in the doctor’s manner, as he answered reproachfully:  “Then surrender me at once to the lover hunting for me.  Let him take me back where I can be shot and that will leave you free.”

Adah raised her hand deprecatingly, and when he had finished, rejoined:  “You mistake Major Stanley, if you think he would marry me, knowing what I should tell him.  It’s not for him that I refuse.  It’s for myself.  I could not bear it.  I—­”

“Stay, Adah, Lily, don’t say you should hate me;” and the doctor’s voice was so full of anguish that Adah involuntarily advanced toward him, standing quite near, while he begged of her to say if the past could not be forgotten.  His family were ready, were anxious to receive her.  Sweet Anna Millbrook already loved her as a sister, while he, her husband, words could not tell his love for her.  He would do whatever she required; go back to the Federal army if she said so; seek for the pardon he was sure to gain; fight for his country like a hero, periling life and limb, if she would only give him the shadow of a hope.

“I must have time to think.  I cannot decide alone,” Adah answered, while the doctor clutched her dress, half shrieking with terror: 

“You surely will not consult him, Major Stanley?”

“No,” and Adah spoke reverently, “there’s a mightier friend than he.  One who has never failed me in my need.  He will tell me what to do.”

The doctor knew now what she meant, and with a moan he laid his head again upon the hay, wishing, oh, so much, that the lessons taught him when in that little attic chamber, years ago, he knelt by Adah’s side, and said with her, “Our Father,” had not been all forgotten.  When he lifted up his face again, Adah was gone, but he knew she would return, and waited patiently while just outside the door, with her fair face buried in the sweet Virginia grass, and the warm summer sunshine falling softly upon her, poor half-crazed Adah fought and won the fiercest battle she had ever known, coming off conqueror over self, and feeling sure that God had heard her earnest cry for help, and told her what to do.  There was no wavering now; her step was firm; her voice steady, as she went back to the doctor’s side, and bending over him, said: