"Miss Johnson, if I knew that George deliberately planned my ruin under the guise of a mock marriage, and then when it suited him deserted me as a toy of which he was tired, I should hate him!--hate him!" "I frighten you, Miss Johnson," she said, as she saw how Alice shrank away from the dark eyes in which there was a fierce, resentful gleam, unlike sweet Adah Hastings.

"I used to frighten myself when I saw in my eyes the demon which whispered suicide." "Oh, Adah," said Alice, "you could not have dreamed that!" "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.