sther had said about her mistress appearing sick and
unhappy when her husband left, she repaired to the parlor and summoning
Esther to her presence, asked her again: "When she first observed traces
of indisposition in Mrs. Cameron."

Considerably flurried and anxious to prove true to Katy, Esther replied,
at random: "When she came home from that dinner at your house. She was
just as pale as death, and her teeth fairly chattered as I took off her
things."

"Dinner? What dinner?" Mrs. Cameron asked, and Esther replied: "Why, the
night Mr. Wilford went away or was to go. She changed her mind about
meeting him at your house and said she meant to surprise him. But she
came home before Mr. Cameron, looking like a ghost and saying she was
sick. It's my opinion something she ate at dinner hurt her."

"Very likely; yes. You can go now," Mrs. Cameron said, and Esther
departed, never dreaming how much light she had inadvertently thrown
upon the mystery.

"She must have been in the library and heard all we said," Mrs. Cameron
thought, as she nervously twisted the fringe of her breakfast shawl. "I
remember we talked of Genevra, and I remember, too, that we both heard a
strange sound from some quarter, but thought it came from the kitchen.
That was Katy. She was there all the time and let herself quietly out of
the house. I wonder does Wilford know," and then there came over her an
intense desire for Wilford to come home, a desire which was not lessened
when she returned to Katy's room and heard her talking of Genevra and
the grave at St. Mary's "where nobody was buried."

In a tremor of distress, lest she should betray something which Morris
must not know, Mrs. Cameron tried to hush her, talking as if it was the
baby she meant, the Genevra who died at Silverton; but Katy answered
promptly: "I'm not to be hoodwinked any longer. It's Genevra Lambert I
mean, Wilford's other wife; the one across the sea, whom you and he
browbeat. She was innocent, too--as innocent as I, whom you both
deceived."

Here was a phase of affairs for which Mrs. Cameron was not prepared,
and excessively mortified that Morris should hear Katy's ravings, she
tried again to quiet her, consoling herself with the reflection that as
Morris was Katy's cousin, he would not repeat what he heard, and feeling
gratified now that Dr. Craig was absent, as she could not be so sure of
him. If Katy's delirium continued, no one must be admitted to the room
except those wh