As it was, she merely thought Adah tired and nervous.

She had been thinking, perhaps, of the deserted, and she smoothed her hair pityingly as she replied: "Of course I'd care for Willie.

He has won a large place in my heart." "Bless you for that.

It has made me very happy," Adah whispered, arising to her feet and adding: "You may think me bold, but I must kiss you once--only once--for it will be pleasant to remember that I kissed Anna Richards." There was nothing cringing or even pleading in the tone.

Adah seemed to ask it as her right, and ere Anna could answer she had pressed one burning kiss upon the smooth, white forehead which a menial's lips had never touched before, and was gone from the room.
"Was she crazy, or what was it that ailed her ?" Anna asked herself, wondering more and more, the more she thought of the strange conduct, and lying awake long after the usual hour for sleep.
But wakeful as she was, there was one who kept the vigils with her, knowing exactly when she fell away at last into a slumber all the deeper for the restlessness which had preceded it.