Morris guessed of whom she was thinking, and answered indifferently, “You spoke of Miss Hazelton in connection with baby, but that was all.”
Katy was satisfied, and closing her eyes fell away to sleep again, while Morris made his preparations for leaving. It hardly seemed right for him to go just then, but the only one who could have kept him maintained a frigid silence with regard to a longer stay, and so the first train which left New York for Springfield carried Dr. Grant, and Katy was without a physician.
Wilford had hoped that Mrs. Lennox, too, would see the propriety of accompanying Morris, but she would not leave Katy, and Wilford was fain to submit to what he could not help. No explanation whatever had he given to Mrs. Lennox or Helen with regard to Genevra. He was too proud for that, but his mother had deemed it wise to smooth the matter over as much as possible, and enjoin upon them both the necessity of secrecy.
“When I tell you that neither my husband nor daughters know it, you will understand that I am greatly in earnest in wishing it kept,” she said. “It was a most unfortunate affair, and though the divorce is, of course, to be lamented, it is better that she died. We never could have received her as our equal.”
“Was anything the matter, except that she was poor?” Mrs. Lennox asked, with as much dignity as was in her nature to assume.
“Well, no. She had a good education, I believe, and was very pretty; but it makes trouble always where there is a great inequality between a husband’s family and that of his wife.”
Poor Mrs. Lennox understood this perfectly, but she was too much afraid of the great lady to venture a reply, and a tear rolled down her cheek as she wet the napkin for Katy’s head, and wished she had back again the daughter whose family the Camerons despised. The atmosphere of Madison Square did not suit Mrs. Lennox, especially when, as the days went by and Katy began to amend, troops of gay ladies called, mistaking her for the nurse, and staring a little curiously when told she was Mrs. Cameron’s mother. Of course Wilford chafed and fretted at what he could not help, making himself so generally disagreeable that Helen at last suggested returning home. There was a faint remonstrance on his part, but Helen did not waver in her decision, and the next day was fixed upon for her departure.
“You don’t know how I dread your going, or how wretched I shall be without you,” Katy said, when for a few moments they were alone. “Everything which once made me happy has been removed or changed. Baby is dead, and Wilford, oh! Helen, I sometimes wish I had not heard of Genevra, for I am afraid it can never be with us as it was once; I have not the same trust in him, and he seems so changed.”
As well as she could, Helen comforted her sister, and commending her to One who would care for her far more than earthly friends could do, she bade her good-bye, and with her mother went back to Silverton.