Early the next morning Helen went to Linwood, and the same afternoon Morris returned her call. He had been there two or three times since his return from Washington, but not since Katy's refusal, and her cheeks were scarlet as he met him in the parlor and tried to be natural. He did not look unhappy. He was not taking his rejection very hard, after all, she thought, and the little lady felt a very little piqued to find him so cheerful, and even gay, when she had scarcely known a moment's quiet since the day she carried him the custards, and forgot to bring away her umbrella. As it had rained that day, so it did now, a decided, energetic rain, which set in after Morris came, and precluded the possibility of his going home that night.
"He would catch his death of cold," Aunt Betsy said, while Helen, too, joined her entreaties until Morris consented, and the carriage which came around for him at dark returned to Linwood, with the message that the doctor would pass the night at Deacon Barlow's. A misty, rainy night, who does not enjoy it when sitting by a cheerful fire, they listen dreamily to the falling rain sifting softly through the leafless trees, and answering to the faint sighing of the autumn wind. Morris enjoyed it very much, and but for the green glasses he still wore would have looked and appeared like his former self as he sat in his armchair, now holding the skein of yarn which Aunt Betsy wound, now talking with the deacon of the probable exchange of all the prisoners, a theme which quickened Helen's pulse and sent the blood to her pale cheeks, and again standing by Katy as she played his favorite airs, his rich bass voice mingling with hers and Helen's, the three making finer music, Aunt Betsy said, than that for which she paid two dollars at the playhouse.
He did not often address Katy directly, but he knew each time she moved, and watched every varying expression of her face, feeling a kind of pity for her, when without appearing to do so intentionally, the family, one by one, stole from the room—Uncle Ephraim and Aunt Hannah without any excuse; Aunt Betsy to raise the cakes for breakfast; Mrs. Lennox to wind the clock, and Helen to find a book for which Morris had asked.
Katy might not have thought strange of their departure were it not that neither one came back again, and after the lapse of ten minutes or more she felt convinced that she had purposely been left alone with Morris.
The weather and the family had conspired against her, but after one throb of fear she resolved to brave the difficulty and meet whatever might happen as became a woman of twenty-three, and a widow, too. She knew Morris was regarding her intently as she fashioned into shape the coarse wool sock, intended for some soldier, and she could almost hear her heart beat in the silence which fell between them ere Morris said to her, in a tone which reassured her at once:
"And so you told me a falsehood the other day, and your conscience has troubled you ever since?"
"Yes, Morris," and Katy dropped her stitch as she replied. "Yes; that is, I told you I was sorry that you ever loved me, which was not exactly true, for, after I knew you did, I was happier than before."
Her words implied a knowledge of his love previous to that night at Linwood when he had himself confessed it, and he said to her, inquiringly:
"You knew it then before I told you?"
"From Wilford—yes," Katy faltered, a tear dropping on her cheek as she recalled the circumstances of Wilford's telling her.