“I did,” and Adah spoke sadly now.  “It was kind in God to save me, and I’ve tried to love Him better since; but there’s something savage in my nature, something I must have inherited from one of my parents, and sometimes my heart, which at first was full of love for George, goes out against him for his base treachery.”

“And yet you love him still?” Alice said, as she smoothed the beautiful brown hair.

“I suppose I do.  A kind word from him would bring me back, but will it ever be spoken?  Shall we ever meet again?”

“Where did he go?” Alice asked.

“He went to Europe, so he said.”

There was a voluntary shudder as Alice recalled the time when Dr. Richards came home from Europe, and she had been flattered with his attentions.

“I may be unjust to him,” she thought, then to Adah she said:  “As you have told me your story in part, will you tell me the whole?”

There was no vindictiveness now in Adah’s face, nothing save a calm, gentle expression such as it was used to wear, and the soft brown eyes drooped mournfully beneath the heavy lashes as she told the story of her wrongs.

“And Hugh?” Alice said.  “Why did you come to him?  Had you known him before?”

“Hugh was the other witness, bribed by my guardian to lend himself a party to the deception!  I never saw him till that night; neither, I think, did George.  My guardian planned the whole.”

“Hugh Worthington is not the man I took him for,” and Alice spoke bitterly.

“You mistake him,” she cried eagerly.  “My guardian, Mr. Monroe, was pleased with the young Kentuckian, and led him easily.  He coaxed him to drink a glass of wine, which Hugh says must have been drugged, for it took away his power to act as he would otherwise have done, and when in this condition he consented to whatever Mr. Monroe proposed, keeping silent while the horrid farce went on.  But he has repented so bitterly, and been so kind to me and Willie.”

“And your guardian,” interrupted Alice, “is it not strange that he should have acted so cruel a part?”

“Yes, that’s the strangest part of all, and he was so kind to me.  I cannot understand it, or where he is, though I’ve sometimes imagined he must be dead; or in prison,” and Adah thought of what Sam had said concerning Sullivan, the negro-stealer.

“What do you mean; why should he be in prison?” Alice asked, and Adah replied by telling her what Sam had said, and the reason she had for thinking Sullivan and her guardian, Monroe, one and the same.

“I too am marked,” and with a quick, nervous motion, she touched the spot where the blue lines were faintly visible.  “I know not how I came by it, but it annoys me terribly.  Mr. Monroe knew how I felt about it, and the day before that marriage he said to me:  ’It will disappear with your children.  They will not be marked,’ and Willie isn’t.”

Just then Willie’s voice was heard in the hall, and Alice admitted him into the room.  She kissed his rosy cheek, and said to Adah:  “Do you know I think he looks like Hugh.”