There was a shadow on her fair face, a grieved, injured expression, as if her mother's treachery had hurt her cruelly.
She knew the letter was withheld, and her first impulse was to demand it at once.

But Anna dreaded a scene, and dreaded her mother, too, and after a moment's reflection that her Charlie would write again, and Adah, who now went regularly to the office, would get it and bring it to her, she said: "Does mother always look over the letters ?" "Not at first," was Adah's reply, "but now she meets me at the door, and takes them from my hand." Anna was puzzled.

Turning again to Adah, she said: "I wish you to go always to the office, and if there comes another letter for me, bring it up at once.

It's mine." Anna had no desire now to talk with Adah of the recreant lover, or ask that John should hear the story.

Her mind was too much disturbed, and for more than half an hour she sat, looking intently into the fire, seeing there visions of what might be in case Charlie loved her still, and wished her to be his wife.