CHAPTER XXXVII.THE CONFESSION.
Gradually, the noise in the streets died away; the tread of feet, the rumbling wheels, and the tinkle of car bells ceased, and not a sound was heard, save as the distant fire bells pealed forth their warning voices, or some watchman went hurrying by. The great city was asleep, and to Morris the silence brooding over the countless throng was deeper, more solemn, than the silence of the country, where nature gives out her own mysterious notes and lullabies for her sleeping children. Slowly the minutes went by, and Morris became at last aware that Wilford’seyes, instead of resting on the pallid face, which seemed to grow each moment more pallid and ghastly, were fixed onhimwith an expression which made him drop the pale hand he was holding between his own,pooringit occasionally, as a mother mightpoorand pity the hand of her dying baby.
Before his marriage, a jealous thought of Morris Grant had found a lodgment in Wilford’s breast; but he had tried to drive it out, and fancied that he had succeeded, experiencing a sudden shock when he felt it lifting its green head, and poisoning his mind against the man who was doing for Katy only what a brother might do. He forgot that it was his own entreaties which kept Morris there, away from his Silverton patients, who were missing him so much, and complaining of his absence. Jealous men never reason clearly, and in this case, Wilford did not reason at all, but jumped readily at his conclusion, calling to his aid as proof all that he had ever seen pass between Katy and her cousin. That Morris Grant loved Katy was, after a few moments’ reflection, as fixed a fact in his mind, as that she lay there between them, moaning feebly, as if about to speak. Years before, jealousy had made Wilford almost a madman, and it now held him again in its powerful grasp, whispering suggestions he would have spurned in a calm frame of mind. There was a clenching of his fist, a knitting of his brows, and a gathering blackness in his eyes as he listened while Katy, rousing partially from her lethargy, talked of the days when she was a little girl, and Morris had built the play-house for her by the brook, where the thorn-apples grew and the waters fell over the smooth, white rocks.
“Take me back there,” she said, “and let me lie on the grass again. It is so long since I was there, and I’ve suffered so much since then. Wilford meant to be kind, but he did not understand or know how I loved the country with its birds and flowers and the grass by the well, where the shadows come and go. I used to wonder where they were going, and one day when I watched them I was waiting for Wilford and wondering if he would ever come again. Would it have been better if he never had?”
Wilford’s body shook as he bent forward to listen, while Katy continued:
“Were there no Genevra, I should not think so, but there is, and yet Morris said that made no difference when I telegraphed for him to come and take me away.”
Morris felt keenly the awkwardness of his position, but he could offer no explanation then. He could not speak with those fiery eyes upon him, and he sat erect in his chair, while Katy talked of Silverton, until her voice grew very faint, ceasing at last as she fell into a second sleep, heavier, more death-like, than the first. Something in her face alarmed Morris, and in spite of the eyes watching him he bent every energy to retain the feeble pulse, and the breath which grew shorter with each respiration.
“Do you think her dying?” Wilford asked, and Morris replied, “The look about the mouth and nose is like the look which so often precedes death.”
And that was all they said until another hour went by, when Morris’s hand was laid upon the forehead and moved up under the golden hair where there were drops of perspiration.
“She is saved! thank God, Katy is saved!” was his joyful exclamation, and burying his face in his hands, he wept for a moment like a child.
On Wilford’s face there was no trace of tears. On the contrary, he seemed hardening into stone, and in his heart fierce passions were contending for the mastery. What did Katy mean by sending for Morris to take her away? Did she send for him, and was that the cause of his being there? If so, there was something between the cousins more than mere friendship. The thought was a maddening one. And, rising slowly at last, Wilford came round to Morris’s side, and grasping his shoulder, said,
“Morris Grant, you love Katy Cameron.”
Like the peal of a bell on the frosty air the words rang through the room, starting Morris from his bowed attitude, and for an instant curdling the blood in his veins, for he understood now the meaning of the look whichhad so puzzled him. In Morris’s heart there was a moment’s hesitancy to know just what to answer—an ejaculatory prayer for guidance—and then lifting up his head, his calm blue eyes met the eyes of black unflinchingly as he replied,
“I have loved her always.”
A blaze like sheet lightning shot from beneath Wilford’s eyelashes, and a taunting sneer curled his lip as he said,
“You, asaint, confess to this?”
It was in keeping with human nature for Wilford to thrust Morris’s religion in his face, forgetting that never on this side the eternal world can man cease wholly to sin; that so long as flesh and blood remain, there will be temptation, error, and wrong, even among God’s children. Morris felt the sneer keenly; but the consciousness of peace with his Maker sustained him in the shock, and with the same tone he had at first assumed, he said,
“Should my being what you call a saint prevent my confessing what I did?”
“No, not the confession, but the fact,” Wilford answered, savagely. “How do you reconcile your acknowledged love for Katy with the injunctions of the Bible whose doctrines you indorse?”
“A man cannot always control his feelings, but he can strive to overcome them and put them aside. One does not sin inbeingtempted, but in listeningtothe temptation.”
“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 painwhich, 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 ofyou, 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 itHelencame, 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 whichI 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,
“Forgive me that I ever doubted you. It was natural that you should come, but foolish in Katy to send or think Genevra is living. I have seen her grave myself. I know that she is dead. Did Katy name any one whom she believed to be Genevra?”
“No one. She merely said she had seen the original of the picture,” Morris replied.
“A fancy,—a mere whim,” Wilford muttered to himself, as, greatly disquieted and terribly humbled, he paced the room moodily, trying not to think hard thoughts either against his wife or Dr. Grant, who, feeling that it would be pleasanter for Wilford if he were gone, suggested returning to Silverton at once, inasmuch as the crisis was past and Katy out of danger. There was a struggle in Wilford’s mind as to the answer he should make to this suggestion, but at last he signified his willingness for the doctor to leave when he thought best.
It was broad day when Katy woke, so weak as to be unable to turn her head upon the pillow, but in her eyes the light of reason was shining, and she glanced wonderingly, first at Helen, who had come in, and then at Wilford, as if trying to comprehend what had happened.
“Have I been sick?” she asked in a whisper, and Wilford, bending over her, replied, “Yes, very sick for nearly two whole weeks—ever since I left home that morning, you know?”
“Yes,” and Katy shivered a little. “Yes, I know. But where is Morris? He was here the last I can remember.”
Wilford’s face grew dark at once, and stepping back as Morris came in, he said, “She asks for you.” Then with a rising feeling of resentment he watched them, while Morris spoke to Katy, telling her she must not allow herself in any way to be excited.
“Have I been crazy? Have I talked much?” she asked; and when Morris replied in the affirmative, she said, “Of whom have I talked most?”
“OfGenevra,” was the answer, and Katy continued,
“Did I mention any one else?”
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 thefirst 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 oncemade 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.