ding her so ill that he sent for me immediately."

"And you do not know that Katy was away from home at all?" was Wilford's
next inquiry, to which his mother replied:

"Esther spoke of her looking very sick when she came in, from which I
inferred she had been driving or shopping, but she was not here, sure."

Esther, it would seem, was the only one who could throw light upon the
mystery, and as by this time the jealous man did not care whom he
questioned, he left his mother without a word of explanation, and
hurried home, where he found Esther, and in a voice which made her
tremble, bade her answer his questions truthfully, without the slightest
attempt at evasion.

"Yes, sir," Esther replied, and Wilford continued:

"Where was your mistress the night before Dr. Grant came here, and she
was so very sick?"

"I don't know, sir. I had the impression that she at your mother's.
Wasn't she there?" and Esther looked very innocent, while Wilford
replied:

"It is your business to answer questions, not to ask them. Tell me then
the particulars of her going away, and what she said."

As nearly as she could remember Esther repeated what had passed between
herself and Katy that morning, but her manner was such as to convince
Wilford she was keeping back something, and in a paroxysm of excitement
he seized her arm, exclaiming:

"You know more than you admit. Tell me then the truth. Who came home
with Mrs. Cameron, and when?"

Esther was afraid of Wilford, and at last between tears and sobs
confessed that Mrs. Wilford said she had been out of town, but asked her
not to tell, that she guessed it was Silverton where she had been, and
also that when she opened the door to her, Dr. Morris was going down the
steps; "not in a hurry--not like making off as if there was something
wrong," she added, in her eagerness to exonerate her mistress.

"Who hinted there was anything wrong?" Wilford exclaimed, in tones which
made poor Esther tremble, for now that he had heard all he cared to
hear, he began to be ashamed of having gained his information in the way
he had.

"Nobody hinted," Esther sobbed, with her face hidden in her apron; "and
if they did it's false. There never was a truer, sweeter lady."

"See that you stick to that whatever may occur, and, mind you, let there
be no repeating this conversation in the kitchen or elsewhere," Wilford
hurled at her savagely, going next to a telegraph office, and sending
over the wires the f