University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
ANNA AND JOHN.

He found her in a tasteful dressing gown, its heavy tassels
almost sweeping the floor, while her long glossy hair
loosened from its confinement of ribbon and comb, covered
her neck and shoulders as she sat before the fire always
kindled in her room.

“How picturesque you look,” he said gaily, bending his

knees in mock homage before her. Then seating himself
upon the sofa at her side, he wound his arm around her
and waited for her to speak.

“John,” and Anna's voice was soft and pleading, “tell
me more of that young girl. Did you love her very
much?”

“Love her! yes,” and John spoke excitedly while the
flush deepened on his cheek when Anna continued, “why
didn't you marry her then?”

“Why didn't I? yes, why didn't I?” and John started
to his feet; then resuming his seat again he continued,
“why didn't you marry that Missionary who used to
be here so much? Anna, I tell you there's a heap of
wrong for somebody to answer for, but it is not you, and
it is not me — it's — its mother!” and John whispered
the word, as if fearful lest the proud, overbearing woman
should hear.

“You are mistaken,” Anna replied, “for as far as Charlie
was concerned father had more to do with it than
mother. He objected to Charlie because he was poor —
because he was a missionary — because he was not an
Episcopalian, and because he loved me. He turned Charlie
from the house — he locked me in my room, lest I
should get out to meet him, and from that window I
watched him going from my sight. I've never seen him
since, though I wrote to him once or twice, bidding him
forget me and marry some one else. He did marry
another, but I've never quite believed that he forgot me.
I know, though, that as Hattie's husband he would do
right and be true to her, for he was good, and when I was
with him I was better; but I've forgotten most all he
taught me, and the way he pointed out so clearly seems
dark and hard to find, but I shall find it — yes, Charlie, I
shall find it out at last, so we may meet in Heaven.”

Anna was talking more to herself than to John, and
Charlie, could he have seen her, would have said she was

not far from the narrow way which leadeth unto life. To
John her white face, irradiated with gleams of the soft
firelight, was as the face of an angel, and for a time he
kept silence before her, then suddenly exclaimed.

“Anna, you are good, and so was she, and that made
it hard to leave her, to give her up. Anna do you know
what my mother wrote me? Listen, while I tell, then
see if she is not to blame. She cruelly reminded me that
by my father's will all of us, save you, were wholly dependent
upon her, and said the moment I threw myself
away upon a low, vulgar, penniless girl, that moment she
cast me off, and I might earn my bread and hers as best I
could. She said, too, my sisters, Anna and all, sanctioned
what she wrote, and your opinion had more weight than
all the rest.”

“Oh, John, mother could not have so misconstrued my
words. I said I thought it would be best for you not to
marry her, unless you were too far committed; at least
you might wait awhile, and when you started for Europe
so abruptly, I thought you had concluded to wait and see
how absence would affect you. Surely my note explained
— I sent one in mother's letter.”

“It never reached me,” John said bitterly, while Anna
sighed at this proof of her mother's treachery.

Always conciliatory, however, she soon remarked,

“You are sole male heir to the Richards name. Mother's
heart and pride are bound up in you. She wishes
you to make a brilliant match, such as she is sure you
can, and if she has erred, it was from her love to you and
her wish for your success. A poor, unknown girl would
only add to our expenses, and not help you in the least,
so it's for the best that you left her, though I'm sorry for
the girl. Did she suffer much? What was her name?
I've never heard.”

John hesitated a moment and then answered, “I called
her Lily, she was so fair and pure.”

Anna was never in the least suspicious, or on the watch
for quibbles, but took all things for granted, so now she
thought within herself, “Lillian, most likely. What a
sweet name it is.” Then she said aloud. “You were
not engaged to her outright, were you?”

John started forward and gazed into his sister's face
with an expression as if he wished she would question
him more closely, for confession to such as she might ease
his burdened conscience, but Anna never dreamed of a
secret, and seeing him hesitate, she said,

“You need not tell me unless you like. I only thought
maybe, you and Lilly were not engaged.”

“We were;” and rising to his feet John leaned his
forehead upon the marble mantel, which cooled its feverish
throbbings. “Anna, I'm a wretch — a miserable
wretch, and have scarcely known an hour's peace since I
left her.”

“Was there a scene?” Anna asked; and John replied,

“Worse than that. Worse for her. She did not know
I was going till I was gone. I wrote to her from Paris,
for I could not meet her face and tell her how mean I
was. I've thought of her so much, and when I landed in
New York I went at once to find her, or at least to inquire,
hoping she'd forgotten me. The beldame who
kept the place was not the same with whom I had left
Lily, but she knew about her, and told me she died with
cholera last September. She and — oh, Lily, Lily — ”
and hiding his face in Anna's lap, John Richards sobbed
like a little child.

Had Anna been possessed of ordinary penetration, she
would have guessed that behind all this there was something
yet untold, but she had literally no penetration at
all. In her nature there was no deceit, and she never
suspected it in others, until it became too palpable not to
be seen. Very caressingly her white hand smoothed the
daintily perfumed hair resting on her dress, and her own

tears mingled with her wayward brother's as she thought,
“His burden is greater than mine. I will help him bear
it if I can.”

“John,” she said at last, when the sobbing had ceased,
“I do not think you so much to blame as others, and you
must not reproach yourself so bitterly. You say Lily
was good. Do you mean she was a Christian, like Charlie?”

“Yes, if there ever was one. Why, she used to make
a villain like me kneel with her every night, and say the
Lord's Prayer.”

For an instant, a puzzling thought crossed Anna's brain
as to the circumstances which could have brought her
brother every night to Lily's side, but it passed away immediately
as she rejoined,

“Then she is safe in Heaven, and there are no tears
there; no broken hearts, or weary hours of watching.
We'll try to meet her some day. You did right to seek
her out. You could not help her dying. She might
have died had she been your wife, so, I'd try to think it
happened for the best, and you'll soon get to believing it
did. That's my experience. You are young yet, only
twenty-six, and life has much in store for you. You'll
find some one to fill Lily's place; some one whom we
shall all think worthy of you, and we'll be so happy together.”

The Doctor did not reply to this but sat as if lost in
painful thought, until he heard the clock strike the hour
of midnight.

“I did not think it was so late,” he exclaimed, “I must
really leave you now.”

Anna would not keep him longer, and with a kiss she
sent him away, herself holding the door a little ajar to
see what effect the new carpet would have upon him. It
did not have any at first, so much was he absorbed in
thinking of Lily, but he noticed it at last, admiring its

pattern and having a pleasant consciousness that every
thing in his room was in keeping, from the handsome
drapery which shaded the windows to the marble hearth
on which a fire was blazing. He could afford to have a
fire, and he sat enjoying it, thinking far different thoughts
from Hugh Worthington, who, in his scantily furnished
room, sat, with a curl of golden hair upon the stand beside
him, and a well worn Bible in his hand. Dr. Richards
had no Bible of his own; he did not read it now —
had never read it much, but somehow his talk with Anna
had carried him back to the time when just to please his
Lily he had said with her the Lord's Prayer, kneeling at
her side with his arm around her girlish form. He had
not said it since, and he never would again, he thought.
It was sheer nonsense, asking not to be led into temptation,
as if God delighted to lead us there. It was just fit
for weak women to believe, though now that Lily was
dead and gone he was glad that she had believed it, and
he felt that she was better off for having said those prayers
and acted up to what she said. “Poor Lily,” he kept
repeating to himself, while in his dreams that night there
were visions of a lonely grave in a secluded part of Greenwood,
and he heard again the startling words,

“Dead, both she and the child.”

He did not know there was a child, and he staggered
in his sleep, just as he staggered down the creaking stairs,
repeating to himself,

“Lily's child — Lily's child! May Lily's God forgive
me!”