“No need, father: I am as honest as anybody,” said she. “Look at this.”
Reed’s hand shook so that he could not open the paper, or understand it at first when he had opened it. Cathy flung off her bonnet and caught the children to her. They began to know her then and ceased their cries. Presently Reed held the paper across to me, his hand trembling more than before, and his face, that illness had left white enough, yet more ghastly with emotion.
“Please read it, sir.”
I did not understand it at first either, but the sense came to me soon. It was a certificate of the marriage of Spencer Gervoise Daubeney Parrifer and Catherine Reed. They had been married at Liverpool the very day after Cathy disappeared from home; now just a year ago.
A sound of sobbing broke the stillness. Reed had fallen back in his chair in a sort of hysterical fit. Defiant, hard, strong-minded Reed! But the man was three parts dead from weakness. It lasted only a minute or two; he roused himself as if ashamed, and swallowed down his sobs.
“How came he to marry you, Cathy?”
“Because I would not go away with him without it father. We have been staying in Ireland.”
“And be you repenting of it yet?” asked Mrs. Reed, in ungracious tones.
“Pretty near,” answered Cathy, with candour.