eceived me so?"

"Katy," and Wilford grew very earnest in his attempts to defend himself,
"do you remember that day we sat under the buttonwood tree and you
promised to be mine? Try and recall the incidents of that hour and see
if I did not hint at some things past which I wished had been
otherwise--did not offer to show you the blackest page of my whole life
and you would not see it. Was that so, Katy?"

"Yes," she answered, and he continued: "You said you were satisfied
to take me as I was. You would not hear evil against me and so I
acquiesced, bidding you not shrink back if ever the time should come
when you must read that page. I was to blame, I know, but there were
many extenuating circumstances, much to excuse me for withholding what
you would not hear."

Wilford did not like to be censured, neither did he like to censure
himself, and now that Katy was out of danger and comparatively calm, he
began to build about himself a fortress of excuses for having kept from
her the secret of his life.

"Would not most any man have done just as I did?" he continued. "Can you
mention one who would not?"

"Yes, Cousin Morris," Katy answered; "he would never have deceived me
thus."

A little vexed at the mention of Dr. Grant, Wilford replied: "I do not
pretend to be a saint, and I believe your cousin does; but I doubt
whether even he, with all his goodness, would do very differently from
what I have done; but tell me how, where did you hear of Genevra?"

Amid sobs and tears Katy told him how she had repented of her decision
not to join him at his mother's, coming to the conclusion that she was
doing wrong to seclude herself so much and trying her best to look well
again in his eyes.

"I meant to surprise you," she said, "and when I heard your mother was
out I went into the library to wait, thinking you would come there, but
you did not, and I started to go to you when my feet were stopped, for
you were talking of me, Wilford, not bad, perhaps, but as you would not
have talked had you known that I was there where I heard the words which
burned like coals of fire, so that I could have screamed in my
distress."

Katy was not weeping now and her face was like that of some accusing
angel as she continued: "I thought my heart was broken when I heard you
talk so of me and Silverton, but that was nothing compared with what
came next, when your mother spoke of Genevra. I thought it was my baby
she meant at first, and the tig