Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

For an instant the hands stopped in their work, and Katy's eyes filled with tears, which dropped into her lap as she replied:

"More than I wish I did, seeing I must always tell him no. It's strange, too, how the love for him keeps coming in spite of all I can do. I have not been there since, nor spoken with him until last Sunday, but though I did not know he was coming, I knew the moment he entered the church, and when in the first chant I heard his voice, my fingers trembled so that I could scarcely play, while all the time my heart goes out after the rest I always find with him. But it cannot be."

"Suppose Morris had asked you first, what then?" was Helen's next straightforward question, and Katy, who had no secrets from her sister, answered:

"It might have been, perhaps, though I never thought of it then. Oh, Helen, I wish Wilford had never known that Morris loved me."

She was sobbing now, with her head in Helen's lap, and Helen, smoothing her bright hair, said, gently:

"You have taken a morbid fancy, Katy. You do not reason correctly. It is right for you to answer Morris yes, and Wilford would say so, too. When I received your letter apprising me of the refusal, I read it to Bell, who said she was so sorry, and then told what Wilford said before he died. You must have forgotten it, darling. He referred to a time when you would cease to be his widow, and he said he was willing, said so to her, and you. Do you remember it, Katy?"

"Yes, I do now, but I had forgotten. I was so stunned then, so bewildered, that it made no impression. I did not think he meant Morris. Helen, do you believe he meant Morris?" and lifting up her face, Katy looked at her sister with a wistfulness which told how anxiously she waited for the answer.

"I know that he meant Morris," Helen replied. "Bell thinks so, too. So does her father, and both bade me tell you to revoke your decision, to marry Dr. Grant, with whom you will be so happy."

"I cannot. It is too late. I told him no, and, Helen, I told him a falsehood, too, which I wish I might take back," she added. "I said I was sorry he ever loved me, when I was not, for the knowing that he had made me very happy. My conscience has smitten me cruelly since for that falsehood told, not intentionally, for I did not consider what I said."

Here was an idea at which Helen caught at once. She knew just how conscientious Katy was, and by working upon this principle she hoped to persuade her into going over to Linwood and telling Morris that when she said she was sorry he loved her she did not mean it. But this Katy would not do. Helen could tell him, if she liked, but she must not encourage him to hope for a recantation of all she had said to him. She meant the rest. She could not be his wife.