Wilford was in a most unhappy frame of mind. He had been humbled to the very dust, and it was Katy who had done it—Katy, towards whom his heart kept hardening as he thought over all the past. What right had she to go to his mother’s after having once declined; or, being there, what right had she to listen and thus learn the secret he would almost have died to keep; or, having learned it, why need she have been so much excited, and sent for Dr. Grant to tell her if she were really a wife, and if not to take her away? That was the point which hurt him most, for added to it was the galling fact that Morris Grant loved his wife, and was undoubtedly more worthy of her than himself. He had said that he forgave Morris, and at the time he said it he fancied he did, but as the days went by, and thought was all the busier from the moody silence he maintained, there gradually came to life a feeling of hatred for the man whose name he could not hear without a frown, while he watched Katy closely to detect, if possible, some sign by which he should know that Morris’s love was reciprocated. But Katy was innocence itself, and tried so hard to do her duty as a wife, going often to the Friend of whom Helen had told her, and finding there the grace which helped her bear what otherwise she could not have borne and lived. The entire history of her life during that wretched winter was never told save as it was written on her face, which was a volume in itself of meek and patient suffering.
Wilford had never mentioned Genevra to her since the day of his return, and Katy sometimes felt it would be well to talk that matter over. It might lead to a better understanding than existed between them now, and dissipate the cloud which hung so darkly on their domestic horizon. But Wilford repulsed all her advances on that subject, and Genevra was a dead name in their household. Times there were when for an entire day he would appear like his former self, caressing her with unwonted tenderness, but never asked her forgiveness for all he had made her suffer. He was too proud to do that, and his tenderness always passed away when he remembered Morris Grant and Katy’s remark to Helen which he accidentally overheard. “I am afraid it can never be with us as it was once. I have not the same trust in him.”
“She had no right to complain of me,” he thought, forgetting the time when he had been guilty of a similar offence in a more aggravated form. He could not reason upon anything naturally, and matters grew daily worse, while Katy’s face grew whiter and her voice sadder in its tone.
When the Lenten days came on, oh how Katy longed to be in Silverton—to kneel again in its quiet church, and offer up her penitential prayers with the loved ones at home. At last she ventured to ask Wilford if she might go, her spirits rising when he did not refuse her request at once, but asked,
“Whom do you wish to see the most?”
His black eyes seemed reading her through, and something in their expression brought to her face the blush he construed according to his jealousy, and when she answered, “I wish to see them all,” he retorted,
“Say, rather, you wish to see that doctor, who has loved you so long, and who but for me would have asked you to be his wife!”
“What doctor, Wilford? whom do you mean?” she asked, and Wilford replied,
“Dr. Grant, of course. Did you never suspect it?”
“Never,” and Katy’s face grew very white, while Wilford continued,