Poor 'Lina

"Oh Dr. Richards," she began at last, "if I loved you less it would not
be so hard to tell you what I must. I did love you, bad as I am, but I
meant to deceive you. It was for me that Adah kept silence at Terrace
Hill. Adah, I almost hate her for having crossed my path."

There was a fearfully vindictive gleam in the bright eyes now, and the
doctor shudderingly looked away, while 'Lina, with a soft tone,
continued: "You believed me rich, and whether you loved me afterward or
not, you sought me first for my money. I kept up the delusion, for in no
other way could I have won you. Dr. Richards, if I die, as perhaps I
may, I shall have one less sin for which to atone, if I confess to you
that instead of the heiress you imagined me to be, I had scarcely money
enough to pay my board at that hotel. Hugh, who himself is poor,
furnished what means I had, and most of my jewelry was borrowed. Do you
hear that? Do you know what you have escaped?"

She almost shrieked at the last.

"Go," she continued, "find your Adah. It's nothing but Adah now. I see
her name in everything. Hugh thinks of nothing else, and why should he?
She's his sister, and I--oh! I'm nobody but a beggarly servant's brat. I
wish I was dead! I wish I was dead! and I will be pretty soon."