“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 no resentment towards one who had ventured to reprove him. Afterwards 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.
“God will not forgive you for the wrong you have done me.”
Was Genevra right? Had God 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 God 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 circumstances she would rather not have met her, for her presence would keep the letter so constantly in 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’s 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.”
But Mrs. Lennox was too anxious to notice the lady’s haughty manner as she led them to the library and then went for her son. Wilford was not glad to see his mother-in-law, but he tried to be polite, answering her questions civilly, and when she asked if it were true that he had sent for Morris, assuring her that it was not. “Dr. Grant happened here very providentially, and I hope to keep him until the crisis is past, although he has just told me he must go back to-morrow.” It hurt Wilford’s pride that she, whom he considered greatly his inferior, should learn his secret; but it could not now be helped, and within an hour after her arrival she was looking curiously at him for an explanation of the strange things she heard from Katy’s lips.
“Was you a widower when you married my daughter?” she said to him, when at last Helen left the room and she was alone with him.
“Yes, madam,” he replied, “some would call me so, though I was divorced from my wife. As this was a matter which did not in any way concern your daughter, I deemed it best not to tell her. Latterly she has found it out, and it is having a very extraordinary effect upon her.”
And this was all Mrs. Lennox knew until alone with Helen, who told her the story as she had heard it from Morris. His sudden journey to New York was thus accounted for, and Helen explained it to her mother, advising her to say nothing of it, as it might be better for Wilford not to know that Katy had telegraphed for Morris. It seemed very necessary that Dr. Grant should return to Silverton, and the day following Helen’s arrival in New York, he made arrangements to do so.