"Friends?" said Kate, half to herself. "Friends? Have I any
friends?"

"My child, why do you speak in this way?" asked her mother, in a
voice half sorrowful, half reproving.

"_Friends_ seek your good, not their own pleasure," continued Kate.
"Have I any who may be called by so excellent a name?"

And she shook her head mournfully.

"Have you not a husband?" said Mrs. Harrison.

Kate again shook her head; and then, after a pause, replied--

"There is a man who calls himself my husband; but he is so only in
name."

"Kate! Kate!" exclaimed her mother, "are you mad? How dare you utter
such language?"

"A heart that is breaking, mother," said the unhappy creature, "may
be pardoned, if, in a moment of intense suffering, it is betrayed
into an expression of pain."

A long and gloomy silence followed this remark, which smote with the
apparent force of a hammer upon the heart of Mrs. Harrison. No
further attempt was made, at the time, to induce Kate to yield to
the wishes of her friends. Her mother endeavoured, rather, to draw
off her mind from thoughts such as those to which she had just given
utterance. But, she was none the less deeply impressed with the
belief that the change proposed would be beneficial; nor did she
intend abandoning her efforts to induce her daughter to go from home
for a short season. At the first opportunity she had an interview
with Mr. Edwards, and held a conference with him on the subject of
Kate's mental disease. She found him rather reserved, and
disinclined to much conversation on the subject. But, on pressing
the matter upon him, he was more free to say what was in his mind.
To her expressions of concern for Kate, he responded with much
apparent earnestness; said that it gave him great concern, and that
he was satisfied she could not live over a few years if some change
did not take place.

"Since the birth of her child," said he, "she has never regained her
strength. That dangerous fever gave her system a terrible shock."

"I'm afraid," returned her mother, "that we erred in not permitting
her to nurse her child--what she so earnestly desired to do. She
cannot, it seems, get over that."

"She has never said so to me."

"But no later than yesterday she alluded to it while I talked with
her, and in a way that satisfied me of her having taken the matter
far more deeply to heart than I had imagined."

"That is a weakness, as you must yourself see, Mrs. Harrison. Apart
from consi