To Katy the time of his absence had seemed an age, for her thoughts had been busy with the past, gathering up every incident connected with her married life since she came to New York, and deducing from them the conclusion that “Wilford’s folks” were ashamed of her, and that Wilford himself might perhaps become so if he were not already. That would be worse than death itself, and the darkest hours she had ever known were those she spent alone that night, sobbing so violently as to bring on a racking headache, which showed itself upon her face and touched Wilford at once.
Sybil Grandon was forgotten in those moments of contrition, when he ministered so tenderly to his suffering wife, whom he felt that he had wronged. But he could not tell her so then. It was not natural for him to confess his errors. There had always been a struggle between his duty and his pride when he had done so, and now the latter conquered, especially as Katy, grown more calm, began to take the censure to herself, lamenting her short-comings, and promising to do better, even to the imitating of Sybil Grandon, if that would make him forget the past and love her as before.
Wilford could accord forgiveness far more graciously than he could ask it, and so peace was restored, and Katy’s face next day looked bright and happy when seen in her new carriage, which took her down Broadway to Stewart’s, where she encountered Sybil Grandon, and with her Juno Cameron.
From the latter Katy instinctively shrank, but she could not resist the former, who greeted her so familiarly that Katy readily forgave her the pain of which she had been the cause, and spoke of her to Wilford without a pang when he came home to dinner. Still she could not overcome her dread of meeting her, and she grew more and more averse to mingling in society, where she might do many things to mortify her husband or his family, and thus provoke a scene she hoped never again to pass through.
“Oh, if Helen were only here!” she thought, as she began to experience a sensation of loneliness she had never felt before.
But Helen was not there, nor coming there at present. One word from Wilford had settled that, convincing Katy that it was better to wait until the autumn, inasmuch as they were going so soon to Saratoga and Newport, places which Katy dreaded, after she knew that Mrs. Cameron and Juno were to be of the party, and probably Sybil Grandon. Katy did not dislike the latter, but she was never easy in her presence, while she could not deny to herself that since Sybil’s return Wilford had not been quite the same as before. In company he was more attentive than ever, but at home he was sometimes moody and silent, while Katy strove in vain to ascertain the cause.
They were not as happy in the new home as she had expected to be, but the fault did not lie with Katy. She performed her part and more, taking upon her young shoulders the whole of the burden which her husband should have helped her to bear. The easy, indolent life Wilford had led so long as a petted son of a partial mother unfitted him for care, and he was as much a boarder in his own home as he had even been in the hotels in Paris, thoughtlessly requiring of Katy more than he should have required, so that Bell was not far from right when in her journal she described her sister-in-law as “a little servant whose feet were never supposed to be tired, and whose wishes were never consulted.” It is true Bell had put it rather strongly, but the spirit of what she said was right, Wilford seldom considering Katy, or allowing her wishes to interfere with his own plans; while accustomed to every possible attention from his mother, he exacted the same from his wife, whose life was not one of unmixed happiness, notwithstanding that every letter home bore assurances to the contrary.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MARIAN HAZELTON.
The last days of June had come, and Wilford was beginning to make arrangements for removing Katy from the city before the warmer weather. To this he had been urged by Mark Ray’s remarking that Katy was not looking as well as when he first saw her, one year ago. “She has grown thin and pale,” he said. “Had Wilford remarked it?”
Wilford had not. She complained much of headache, but that was only natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain House that afternoon to secure rooms for himself and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out shopping, Esther said, and had not yet returned, adding,