htness around my heart was giving way,
for if you did complain of me to your mother, I could forgive that
because you were baby's father; but Genevra Lambert! oh, Wilford, I died
a thousand deaths in one when I first heard of her and understood why
you objected to the name our baby finally bore. You did not wish to be
so constantly reminded of the other wife. I could not sit there longer,
the room around me grew so black, so I struggled to my feet and reached
the door, going into the street and thinking once I would end my
wretched life in the distant river; but something turned my steps toward
home and I came, thinking it all over and suffering such agony. Oh,
Wilford, why did you keep it from me? What was there about it wrong and
where is she buried?"

"In Alnwick, at St. Mary's," Wilford answered, determining now to hold
nothing back, and by his abruptness wounding Katy afresh.

"In Alnwick, at St. Mary's" Katy cried. "Then I have seen her grave, and
that is why you were so anxious to get there, so unwilling to go away.
Oh, if I were lying there instead of Genevra, it would be so much
better, so much better."

There was sobbing now, in a moaning, plaintive way which touched Wilford
tenderly, and smoothing her tangled hair, he said: "I would not exchange
my Katy for all the Genevras in the world. She was never as dear to me
as you. I was but a boy, and did not know my mind when I met her. Shall
I tell you about her now? Can you bear to hear the story of Genevra?"

There was a nod of assent, and Katy turned her face to the wall,
clasping her hands tightly together, while Wilford drew his chair to her
side and began to read the page he should have read to her long before.

CHAPTER XXXV.

WHAT THE PAGE DISCLOSED.

"I was little more than nineteen years of age when I left Harvard
College and went abroad with my only brother, the John or Jack of whom
you have so often heard. Both himself and wife were in delicate health,
and it was hoped a voyage across the sea would do them good. For nearly
a year we were in various parts of England, stopping for two months at
Brighton, where, among the visitors, was a widow from the vicinity of
Alnwick, and with her an orphan niece whom I often met, and whose
dazzling beauty attracted my youthful fancy. She was not happy with her
aunt, upon whom she was wholly dependent, and my sympathies were all
enlisted, when, with the tears shining in her lustrous eyes, she one day
ac