There were tears now in Adah’s eyes, the first which she had shed.

“I’ll try,” she murmured, “try to forgive the wrong, but the strength must all be Thine,” and then, though there came no sound or motion, her heart went out in agonizing prayer, that she might forgive even as she hoped to be forgiven.

“God tell me what to do with Willie?” she sobbed, starting suddenly as the answer to her prayer seemed to come at once.  “Oh, can I do that?” she moaned; “can I leave him here?”

At first her whole soul recoiled from it, but when she remembered Anna, and how much she loved the child, her feelings began to change.  Anna would love him more when she knew he was poor Lily’s and her own brother’s.  She would be kind to him for his father’s sake, and for the sake of the girl she had professed to like.  Mrs. Richards, too, would not cast him off.  She thought too much of the Richards’ blood, and there was surely enough in Willie’s veins to wipe out all taint of hers.  Willie should be bequeathed to Anna.  It would break her heart to leave him, were it not already broken, but it was better so.  It would be better in the end.  He would forget her in time, forget the girlish woman he had called mamma, unless sweet Anna told him of her, as perhaps she might.  Dear Anna, how Adah longed to fold her arms about her once and call her sister, but she must not.  It might not be well received, for Anna had some pride, as her waiting maid had learned.

“A waiting maid!” Adah repeated the name, smiling bitterly as she thought.  “A waiting maid in his own home!  Who would have dreamed that I should ever come to this, when he painted the future so grandly?”

Then there came over her the wild, yearning desire to see his face once more, to know if he had changed, and why couldn’t she?  They supposed her gone to the office, and she would go there now, taking the depot on the way.

* * * * *

Apart in the ladies’ room at Snowdon depot, a veiled figure sat—­Dr. Richards’ deserted wife—­waiting for him, waiting to look on his face once more ere she fled she knew not whither.  He came at last, Jim’s voice speaking to his horses heralding his approach.

The group of rough-looking men gathered about the office did not suit his mood, and so he came on to the ladies’ apartment, just as Adah knew he would.  Pausing for a moment on the threshold, he looked hastily in, his glance falling upon the veiled figure sitting there so lonely and motionless.  She did not care for him, she would not object to his presence, so he came nearer to the stove, poising his patent leathers upon the hearth, thrusting both hands into his pockets, and even humming to himself snatches of a song, which Lily used to sing up the three flights of stairs in that New York boarding house.

Poor Adah!  How white and cold she grew, listening to that air, and gazing upon the face she had loved so well.  It was changed since the night when with his kiss warm on her lips he left her forever, changed, and for the worse.  There was a harder, a more reckless, determined expression there, a look which better than words could have done, told that self alone was the god he worshiped.