forgetting the chair he broke over a tutor's head, and the scrapes for
which I paid as high as a thousand at one time. He sowed his wild oats,
and died before he could reap them, died a good man, I believe, and went
to heaven. Juno you know, and you can judge whether she is such as would
delight a parent's heart; while Wilford, my only boy, to deceive me so;
though I knew he was a fool in some things, I did trust Wilford."

The old man's voice shook now, and Katy felt his tears dropping on her
hair as he stooped down over her. Checking them, however, he said:

"And he was cross because you found him out. Was there no other reason?"

Katy thought of Dr. Morris, but she could not tell of that, and so she
answered:

"There was--but please don't ask me now. I can't tell, only I was not to
blame. Believe me, father, I was not to blame."

"I'll swear to that," was the reply, as Father Cameron commenced his
walking again. "He may have left some word, some line," he said.
"Suppose you look. It would probably be upstairs."

Katy had not thought of this, but it seemed reasonable that it should be
so, and going to her room, followed by Father Cameron, she went, as by
some instinct, to the very drawer where the letter lay.

There was perfect silence while she read it through, Mr. Cameron never
taking his eyes from the face which turned first white, then red, then
spotted, and finally took a leaden hue as Katy ran over the lines,
comprehending the truth as she read, and when the letter was finished,
lifting her dry, tearless eyes to Father Cameron, and whispering to
herself:

"Deserted!"

She let him read the letter, and when he had finished explained the
parts he did not understand, telling him now what Morris had confessed,
telling him too that in her first sorrow, when life and sense seemed
reeling, she had gone to Dr. Grant, who had brought her back, as a
brother might have done, and this was the result.

"Why did you say you went to him--that is, what was the special reason?"
Mr. Cameron asked, and after a moment's hesitancy, Katy told him her
belief that Genevra was living--that it was she who made the bridal
trousseau for Wilford's second wife, who nursed his child until it died,
giving to it her own name, arraying it for the grave, and then leaving,
as she always did, before the father came.

"I never told Wilford," Katy said. "I felt as if I would rather he
should not know it yet. Perhaps I was wrong, but if so