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?"
Selfish and hard as she was, 'Lina loved the doctor, and with a shudder
as she thought of the deception imposed on him, and a half regret that
she had so deceived him, she replied: "I am not worthy of you. I do love you very much, and it would kill me
to lose you now. Promise that when you find, as you will, how bad I am,
you will not hate me!"
It was an attempt at confession, but the doctor did not so construe it.
Poor 'Lina. It is not often we have seen her thus--gentle, softened,
womanly; so we will make the most of it, and remember it in the future.
The bright sunlight of the next morning was very exhilarating, and
though the doctor, who had risen early, was disappointed in Spring Bank,
he was not at all suspicious, and greeted his bride-elect kindly,
noticing, while he did so, how her cheeks alternately paled, and then
grew red, while she seemed to be chilly and cold. 'Lina had passed a
wretched night, tossing from side to side, bathing her throbbing head
and rubbing her aching limbs. The severe cold taken in the wet yard was
making itself visible, and she came to the breakfast table jaded,
wretched and sick, a striking contrast to Alice Johnson, who seemed to
the doctor more beautiful than ever. She was unusually gay this morning,
for while talking to Dr. Richards, whom she had met in the parlor, she
had, among other things concerning Snowdon, said to him, casually, as it
seemed: "Anna has a waiting maid at last. You saw her, of course?"