its conception?  She felt that Mr. Hazard would think her wayward and weak.  She could not tell him the real reason of her perplexity.  She would have liked to work on patiently under Wharton’s orders without a thought of herself, but how could she do so when Hazard was day by day coming nearer and nearer until already their hands almost touched.  If she had not liked him, the question could easily have been settled, but she did like him, and when she said this to herself she turned scarlet at the thought that he liked her, and—­what should she do?

With a heavy heart she made up her mind that there was but one thing to be done; she must retreat into her own house and bar the doors.  If he did not see that such an intimacy was sure to make trouble for him, she, who felt, if she did not see, the gulf that separated them, must teach him better.

Whether she would have held to this wise and prudent course against his entreaties and Wharton’s commands will never be known, for the question, which at the moment seemed to her so hard to decide, was already answered by fates which left her no voice in the matter.  The next morning when the two girls, rather later than usual, reached the south door of the church where a stern guardian always stood to watch lest wolves entered under pretense of business, they saw a woman standing on the steps and gazing at them as they approached from the avenue.  In this they found nothing to surprise them, but as they came face to face with her they noticed that the stranger’s dress and features were peculiar and uncommon even in New York, the sink of races.  Although the weather was not cold, she wore a fur cap, picturesque but much worn, far from neat, and matching in dirt as in style a sort of Polish or Hungarian capote thrown over her shoulders.  Her features were strong, coarse and bloated; her eyes alone were fine.  When she suddenly spoke to Esther her voice was rough, like her features; and though Esther had seen too little of life to know what depths of degradation such a face and voice meant, she drew back with some alarm.  The woman spoke in French only to ask whether this was the church of St. John.  Replying shortly that it was, Esther passed in without waiting for another question; but as she climbed the narrow and rough staircase to her gallery, she said to Catherine who was close behind: 

“Somewhere I have seen that woman’s eyes.”

“So have I!” answered Catherine, in a tone of suppressed excitement so unusual that Esther stopped short on the step and turned round.

“Don’t you know where?” asked Catherine without waiting to be questioned.

“Where was it?”

“In my picture!  Mr. Wharton gave me her eyes.  I am sure that woman is his wife.”

“Catherine, you shall go back to Colorado.  You have been reading too many novels.  You are as romantic as a man.”

Catherine did not care whether she were romantic or not; she knew the woman was Wharton’s wife.