THE EFFECT.
Very cautiously the lid was opened, and a lock of soft brown hair fell
out, clinging to Katy’s hand and making her shudder as she shook off the
silken tress and remembered that the head it once adorned was lying in
St. Mary’s churchyard, where the English daisies grew.
“She had pretty hair,” she thought; “darker, richer than mine,” and into
Katy’s heart there crept a feeling akin to jealousy, lest Genevra had
been fairer than herself, as well as better loved. “I won’t be foolish
any longer,” she said, and turning resolutely to the light, she opened
the lid again and saw Genevra Lambert, starting quickly, then looking
again more closely—then, with a gasp, panting for breath; while like
lightning flashes the past came rushing over her, as, with her eyes
fixed upon that picture, she tried to whisper, “_It is—it is!_”
She could not then say whom, for if she were right in her belief,
Genevra was not dead. There were no daisies growing on her grave, for
she still walked the earth a living woman, whom Katy knew so
well—_Marian Hazelton_. That was the name Katy could not speak, as, with
the blood curdling in her veins and freezing about her heart, she sat
comparing the face she remembered so well with the one before her. In
some points they were unlike, for thirteen years had slightly marred the
youthful contour of the face she knew once—had sharpened the features
and thinned the abundant hair; but still there could be no mistake. The
eyes, the brow, the smile, the nose, all were the same, and with a pang
bitterer than she yet had felt, poor Katy fell upon her face and asked
that she might die. In her utter ignorance of law, she fancied that if
Genevra were alive, she had no right to Wilford’s name—no right to be
his wife—especially as the sin for which Genevra was divorced had by her
never been committed, and burning tears of bitter shame ran down her
cheeks as she whispered, “‘What God has joined together let no man put
asunder,’ Those are God’s words, and how dare the world act otherwise?
she _is_ his wife, and I—oh! I don’t know what I am!” and on the carpet
where she was kneeling Katy writhed in agony as she tried to think what
she must do. Not stay there—she could not do that now—not, at least,
until she knew for sure that she was Wilford’s wife, in spite of
Genevra’s living. “Oh, if there was only some one to advise me—some one
who knew and would tell me what was right,” Katy moaned, feeling herself
inadequate to meet the dark hour alone.
But to whom should she go? To Father Cameron? No, nor to his mother.
They might counsel wrong for the sake of secrecy. Would Mark Ray or Mrs.
Banker know? Perhaps; but they were strangers;—her trouble must not be
told to them, and then with a great bound her heart turned at last to
_Morris_. He knew everything. He would not sanction a wrong. He would
tell her just what was right, and she could trust him fully in
everything. There was no other person whom she could believe just as she
could him. Uncle Ephraim was equally as good and conscientious, but he
did not know as much as Morris—he did not understand everything. Morris
was her refuge, and to him she would go that very day, leaving a note
for Wilford in case she never came back, as possibly she might not. Had
Marian been in the city she would have gone to her at once, but Marian
was where long rows of cots were ranged against the hospital walls, each
holding a maimed and suffering soldier, to whom she ministered so
tenderly, the brightness of her smile and the beauty of her face
deluding the delirious ones into the belief that the journey of life for
them was ended and heaven reached at last, where an angel in woman’s
garb attended upon them. Marian was impossible, and Dr. Grant was the
only alternative left.
But when she attempted to prepare for the journey to Silverton, she
found herself wholly inadequate to the exertion. The terrible excitement
through which she had passed had exhausted her strength, and every nerve
was quivering, while spasms of pain darted through her head, warning her
that Silverton was impossible. “I can telegraph and Morris will come,”
she whispered, and without pausing to think what the act might involve,
she wrote upon a slip of paper, “Cousin Morris, come to me in the next
train. I am in great trouble, Katy.”
She would not add the Cameron. She had no right to that name, she
feared, and folding the paper, she rang for Esther, bidding her give the
telegram to the boy Phil, with instructions to take it at once to the
office and see that it went immediately.