nd 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 le