allow.

"I wonder what he sent me that word for?" he kept repeating to himself.
"We had a letter from Katy yesterday, and there can't be nothing wrong.
I won't tell the folks yet a while anyway till I see what comes of it,
Lucy is so fidgety."

It was this resolution, whether wise or unwise, which kept from Morris
and the deacon's family a knowledge of the telegram, the answer to which
was read by Wilford within half an hour after the deacon's arrival home.

"She has not been to Silverton," Wilford said. "The case then is very
clear."

Indeed, it had been growing clear to the suspicious man ever since Tom
Tubbs' unfortunate remark. There are no glasses as perfect as those
which jealousy wears, no magnifying lens as powerful, and Wilford was
"fully convinced." Had he been asked of what he was convinced he could
hardly have told unless it were that in some way he had been deceived,
that Morris had spoken falsely when he said his love for Katy was not
returned or even suspected, that Katy had acted the hypocrite, and that
both had been guilty of a great indiscretion, at least, by being seen as
they were in the New Haven train, and then keeping the occurrences of
that night a secret from him. Wilford did not believe Katy had fallen,
but she had surely stepped upon forbidden ground, and it was not in his
nature to forgive the error--at least, not then, when he was so sore
with past remembrances which had come so fast upon him. First, the
baby's death, just when he was learning to love it so much, then the
Genevra affair about which Katy had acted so foolishly, then the talk
with Dr. Grant, and then his last offense, so much worse than all the
rest.

It was a sad catalogue of grievances, and Wilford made it sadder by
brooding over and magnifying it until he reached a point from which he
would not swerve.

"I shall do it," he said, and his lips were pressed firmly together, as
before his lonely fire he sat that chill March night, revolving the past
and then turning to the future opening so darkly before him, and making
him shudder as he thought of what it might bring. "I will spare Katy as
much as possible," he said, "for hers is a different nature from
Genevra's. She cannot bear as well," and a bitter groan broke the
silence of the room as Katy came up before him just as she had looked
that very morning standing by the window, with tears in her eyes, and a
wistful, sorry look on her white face.

Could she be false to