ace. Hugh named the day
and hour, and then asked if Sullivan knew aught of Adah's husband.

"Yes, everything," and the convict said vehemently, "Young man, I cannot
tell you now--there is not time, but wait a little and you shall know
the whole. You are interested in Adah. The wedding, you say, is Thursday
night. My time expires on Tuesday. Don't think me impudent if I ask a
list of the invited guests. Will you give it to me?"

Surely there was some deep mystery here, and he made no reply till
Sullivan again asked for the list. The original paper on which Hugh had
first written the few names of those to be invited chanced to be in his
vest pocket, and mechanically taking it out he passed it to the convict,
who expressed his thanks, and added: "Don't say that you have seen me,
or that I shall be present at that wedding. I shall only come for good,
but I shall surely be there."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING

Dr. Richards had arrived at Spring Bank. Hugh was the first to meet him.
For a moment he scrutinized the stranger's face earnestly, and then
asked if they had never met before.

"Not to my knowledge," the doctor replied in perfect good faith, for he
had no suspicion that the man eying him so closely was the one witness
of his marriage with Adah, the stranger whom he scarcely noticed, and
whose name he had forgotten.

Once fully in the light, where Hugh could discern the features plainer,
he began to be less sure of having met his guest before, for that
immense mustache and those well-trimmed whiskers had changed the
doctor's physiognomy materially.

'Lina was glad to see the doctor. She had even cried at his delay, and
though no one knew it, had sat up nearly the whole preceding night,
waiting and listening by her open window for any sound to herald his
approach.

As the result of this long vigil, her head ached dreadfully the next
day, and even the doctor noticed her burning cheeks and watery eyes, and
feeling her rapid pulse asked if she were ill.

She was not, she said; she had only been troubled because he did not
come, and then for once in her life she did a womanly act. She laid her
head in the doctor's lap and cried, just as she had done the previous
night. He understood the cause of her tears at last, and touched with a
greater degree of tenderness for her than he had ever before
experienced, he smoothed her glossy black hair, and asked:

"Would you be very sorry to lose me?"