But this was a secret Katie could only tell when she had nestled close up to her husband, and his arm was round her waist. Then she looked up in his face, and said, “I hated you, Frank, because you were making me love you before I thought you loved me.”
“And now, Katie,” Frank said presently, “I must tell you what I have learned from Fred Bingham, and it has affected me very much, dear.”
Katie was all attention now, and took her stand by her husband's chair, so that she could pet him if such a step were necessary.
“It is rather a difficult thing for a man to say, Katie, and it is only because I was really ignorant and wholly innocent in the affair that I can tell you at all. I am very much afraid that, without the slightest intention on my part, I have made a very dear, good girl unhappy.”
Katie drew a little farther off now.
“Alice Heathcote?”
“Yes, dear, Alice Heathcote; Fred says, and he was certainly quite in earnest about it, that my uncle's anger is caused by his disappointment at my not marrying Alice. He says my uncle has harped upon the subject until he thinks with me that his brain has gone a little wrong. But the worst of it is, he is convinced that Alice—well, it seems absurd, Katie—did love me, and that my uncle's indignation and anger are upon her account.”
“You are sure, quite sure, Frank, that you never made love to her?”
“Quite sure, you jealous little thing. I always liked her, Kate, just as I might like a sister. I never had the slightest idea of making love to her. I would tell you if I had, dear, for I do not want to have any secrets from you. She, no doubt, misinterpreted my manner, and her uncle having made up his mind I was to marry her, led her into the mistake. She has been poorly for some time, Katie, and I am really afraid it is from that. It is very absurd, of course.”
“I am really very sorry, Frank,” Katie said, feeling that Frank was speaking the whole truth, and that she could afford to be magnanimous, “but what is to be done? I am afraid it is too late for me to give you up now.”