and were she my equal her answer might be
otherwise than the decided no.

"Of course this only made me more eager, particularly as during the next
two weeks she avoided me as much as possible, never stopping alone with
me for a moment or giving me a chance to say a word in private. Madly in
love, and fancying I could not live without her, I besieged her with
letters, some of which she returned unopened, while on the others she
wrote a few hurried lines, calling me a boy, who did not know my own
mind, and asking what my friends would say.

"I cared little for friends, urging my suit the more vehemently, as we
were about going into Scotland, where our marriage could be celebrated
in private at any time. I say in private, for I did not contemplate
making the affair public at once. That would take from the interest and
romance, while, unknown to myself, there was at heart a fear of my
family.

"But not to dwell too long upon those days, which seem to me now so like
a dream, we went to Scotland and were married privately, for I won her
to this at last. And now comes the part where Jamie is concerned. On the
night of our marriage, Genevra, who had obtained permission to be absent
on a plea of visiting a friend, had procured some one to take charge of
Jamie, a red-faced girl from Edinburgh, who, unused to children, perched
the child upon her shoulder, and while in this condition let him fall,
injuring his spine and making him a cripple for life. Genevra never
forgave herself for that sad accident, which would not have happened had
she remained at her post, while to me Jamie has ever since been a sacred
thing, his helplessness which he bears so meekly a constant reproach,
reminding me of what I would had never been."

"Then you are sorry you married Genevra?" Katy exclaimed, turning partly
toward him, and giving the first token she as yet had given that she was
listening to the story.

Sometimes Wilford was sorry and sometimes he was not, for there was a
world of pleasurable excitement connected with those months of secrecy,
those private interviews, those stolen kisses, and little acts of
endearment, which so intoxicated and bewildered him that the talking of
them now brought something of the olden thrill he had experienced, when
for a moment he held Genevra's hand in his or wound his arm around her
waist, knowing he had a perfect right to do so. But it was better not to
confess this to Katy, and so he evaded the questio