“Then according to your own reasoning you have sinned, for you not only have been tempted but have yielded to the temptation,” Wilford retorted, with a sinister look of exultation in his black eyes.
For a moment Morris was silent, while a struggle of some kind seemed going on in his mind, and then he said,
“I never thought to lay open to you a secret which, after myself, is, I believe, known to only one living being.”
“And that one—is—is Katy?” Wilford exclaimed, his voice hoarse with passion, and his eyes flashing with fire.
“No, not Katy. She has no suspicion of the pain which, since I saw her made another’s, has eaten into my heart, making me grow old so fast, and blighting my early manhood.”
Something in Morris’s tone and manner made Wilford relax his grasp upon the arm, and sent him back to his chair while Morris continued,
“Most men would shrink from talking to a husband of the love they bore his wife, and an hour ago I should have shrunk from it too, but you have forced me to it, and now you must listen while I tell you of my love for Katy. It began longer ago than she can remember—began when she was my baby sister, and I hushed her in my arms to sleep, kneeling by her cradle and watching her with a feeling I have never been able to define. She was in all my thoughts, her face upon the printed page of every book I studied, and her voice in every strain of music I ever heard. Then when she grew older, I used to watch the frolicsome child by the hour, building castles of the future, when she would be a woman, and I a man, with a man’s right to win her. I know that she shielded me from many a snare into which young men are apt to fall, for when the temptation was greatest, and I was at its verge, a thought of her was sufficient to lead me back to virtue. I carried her in my heart across the sea, and said when I go back I will ask her to be mine. I went back, but at my first meeting with Katy after her return from Canandaigua, she told me of you, and I knew then that hope for me was gone. God grant that you may never experience what I experienced on that day which made her your wife, and I saw her go away. It seemed almost as if God had forgotten me as the night after the bridal I sat alone at home, and met that dark hour of sorrow. In the midst of it Helen came, discovering my secret, and sympathizing with me until the pain at my heart grew less, and I could pray that God would grant me a feeling for Katy which should not be sinful. And He did at last, so I could think of her without a wish that she was mine. Times there were when the old love would burst forth with fearful power, and then I wished that I might die. These were my moments of temptation which I struggled to overcome. Sometimes a song, a strain of music, or a ray of moonlight on the floor would bring the past to me so vividly that I would stagger beneath the burden, and feel that it was greater than I could bear. But God was very merciful, and sent me work which took up all my time, and drove me away from my own pain to soothe the pain of others. When Katy came to us last summer there was an hour of trial, when faith in God grew weak, and I was tempted to question the justice of His dealing with me. But that too passed, and in my love for your child I forgot the mother in part, looking upon her as a sister rather than the Katy I had loved so well. I would have given my life to have saved that child for her, even though it was a bar between us, something which separated her from me more than the words she spoke at the altar. Though dead, that baby is still a bar, and Katy is not the same to me she was before that little life came into being. It is not wrong to love her as I do now. I feel no pang of conscience save when something unexpected carries me back to the old ground where I have fought so many battles.”
Morris paused a moment, while Wilford said, “She spoke of telegraphing for you. Why was that, and when?”
Thus interrogated, Morris told of the message which had brought him to New York, and narrated as cautiously as possible the particulars of the interview which followed.
Morris’s manner was that of a man who spoke with perfect sincerity, and it carried conviction to Wilford’s heart, disarming him for a time of the fierce anger and resentment he had felt while listening to Morris’s story. Acting upon the good impulse of the moment, he arose, and offering his hand to Morris, said,