Part 38 (1/2)

”Yes, in part. Of course he cannot make a very connected story out of her ravings; but that he believes you had a wife before Katy, I am sure, just as I am that the world will be none the wiser for his knowledge. I knew Dr. Grant before you did, and there are few men living whom I respect as much, and no one whom I would trust as soon.”

Mrs. Cameron had paid a high compliment to Morris Grant, and Wilford bowed in a.s.sent, asking next how she managed Dr. Craig.

”That was easy, inasmuch as he believed it an insane freak of Katy's to have no other physician than her cousin. It was quite natural, he said, adding that she was as safe with Dr. Grant as any one. So that is settled, and I was glad, for I could not have a stranger know of that affair. If I thought it would save her life to retain him, I should feel differently, of course.”

”Yes, certainly,” Wilford rejoined, while at his heart there was the germ of a feeling which, if in the slightest degree encouraged, would almost have given Katy's life to save his darling self-love and honor in the eyes of the world.

Few men are as thoroughly selfish as Wilford Cameron, and though he was very much concerned for Katy, he thought more of preserving a secret which, if known at this late day, would subject him to much censure and reproach, than he did of her. So when his mother told him next that Helen had been sent for, his morbid fears took alarm.

”Why was it necessary to bring another here?” he asked, so indignantly that tears sprang to his mother's eyes as she pleaded her own weariness and inability to remain always in the sickroom, and charged him with ingrat.i.tude for all she had done in his behalf.

Wilford could not afford to quarrel with his mother, and he quieted her as soon as possible, admitting that if she must have an a.s.sistant he would rather it were Helen than Bell or Juno, or even Esther, who, in spite of the alarm about malignant fever, would willingly have administered to her young mistress, had she been allowed to do so.

”You will go up now,” Mrs. Cameron said to her son, when peace was fully restored, and a moment after Wilford stood in the dimly-lighted room, where Katy was talking of going to the hospitals, and of Marian Hazelton, and was only kept upon her pillow by the strong arm of Morris, who stood over her when Wilford entered, telling her to ”wait until to-morrow--it would be better then, and she had not seen her husband yet.”

”I have no husband,” she replied, her lip curling with scorn, and her eyes just then falling upon Wilford, who stood appalled at the fearful change which had pa.s.sed over her since he left her three days before.

She knew him, and writhing herself away from Morris' arms, she raised up in bed and said to him:

”I've been at the bottom of things, and Genevra is not in that grave at St. Mary's. n.o.body is there; consequently, she is living, and you are not my husband. So if you please you can leave the house at once. Morris will do very well. He will settle the estate, and no bill shall be sent in for your board and lodging.”

In some moods Wilford would have smiled at being thus summarily dismissed from his own house and a.s.sured that no bill should be sent after him for board and lodging; but he was too sore now, too sensitive to smile, and his voice was rather severe as he laid his hand on Katy's, and said:

”Don't be foolish, Katy. Don't you know me? I am Wilford, your husband.”

”That was, you mean,” Katy rejoined, drawing her hand quickly away. ”Go find your first love, where bullets fall like hail, and where there is pain, and blood, and carnage. Genevra is there.”

She would not let Wilford come near her, and grew so excited by his presence that he was forced either to leave the room or sit where she could not see him. He chose the latter, and from his seat by the door watched with a half-jealous, half-angry heart, Morris Grant doing for his wife what he should have done.

With Morris Katy was gentle as a little child, talking still of Genevra, but talking quietly, and in a way which did not wear her out as fast as her excitement did.

”What G.o.d hath joined together let not man put asunder,” was the text from which she preached several short sermons as the night wore on, but just as the morning dawned she fell into the first quiet sleep she had had during the last twenty-four hours. And while she slept Wilford ventured near enough to see the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes which wrung a groan from him as he turned to Morris, asking what he supposed was the immediate cause of her sudden illness?

”A terrible shock, the nature of which I understand, but you have nothing to fear from me,” Morris replied. ”I accuse you to no man, but leave you to settle it with your conscience whether you did right to deceive her so long.”

Morris spoke as one having authority, and Wilford simply bowed his head, feeling then no resentment toward one who had ventured to reprove him.

Afterward he might remember it differently, but now he was too anxious to keep Morris there to quarrel with him, and so he made no reply, but sat watching Katy as she slept, wondering if she would die, and feeling how terrible life would be without her. Suddenly Genevra's warning words rang in his ear:

”G.o.d will not forgive you for the wrong you have done me.”

Was Genevra right? Had G.o.d remembered all this time, and overtaken him at last? It might be, and with a groan Wilford hid his face in his hands, believing that he repented of his sin, and not knowing that his fancied repentance arose merely from the fact that he had been detected.

Could the last few days be blotted out, and Katy stand just where she did, with no suspicion of him, he would have cast his remorse to the winds, and as it is not such repentance G.o.d accepts, Wilford had only begun to sip the cup of retribution presented to his lips.

Worn out with watching and waiting, Mrs. Cameron, who would suffer neither Juno nor Bell to come near the house, waited uneasily for the arrival of the New Haven train, which she hoped would bring Helen to her aid. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances she would rather not have met her, for her presence would keep the letter so constantly in her mind, but now anybody who could be trusted was welcome, and when at last there came a cautious ring she went herself to the hall, starting back with undisguised vexation when she saw the timid-looking woman following close behind Helen, and whom the latter presented as ”My mother, Mrs.

Lennox.”

Convinced that Morris' sudden journey to New York had something to do with Katy's illness, and almost distracted with fears for her daughter's life, Mrs. Lennox could not remain at home and wait for the tardy mail or careless telegraph. She must go to her child, and casting off her dread of Wilford's displeasure, she had come with Helen, and was bowing meekly to Mrs. Cameron, who neither offered her hand nor gave any token of greeting except a distant bow and a simple ”Good-morning, madam.”