“No—­oh, no,” and Marian quietly laid aside the packages which would find their way to many an humble garret or cellar, where biting poverty had its abode.

It would choke her to eat whatever came from Wilford Cameron, but she could not tell Katy so, though she did say:  “I will keep these because you brought them, but do not do so again.  There are many far more needy.  I saved something in Silverton.  I shall not suffer so long as my health is spared.”

Then after a few more inquiries concerning the work, about which she could now talk calmly, she asked where Katy went when she was abroad, her blue eyes growing almost black as Katy talked of Rome, of Venice, of Paris, and then of Alnwick, where they had stopped so long.

“By the way, you were born in England?  Were you ever at Alnwick?” Katy asked, and Marian replied:  “Once, yes.  I’ve seen the castle and the church.  Did you go there—­to St. Mary’s, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, and I was never tired of that old churchyard, Wilford liked it, too, and we wandered by the hour among the sunken graves and quaint headstones.”

“Do you remember any of the names upon the stones?  Perhaps I may know them?” Marian asked; but Katy did not remember any, or if she did, it was not “Genevra Lambert, aged twenty-two.”  And so Marian asked her no more questions concerning St. Mary’s, at Alnwick, but talked instead of London and other places, until three hours went by, and down in the street the coachman chafed and fretted at the long delay, wandering what kept his mistress in that neighborhood so long.  Had she friends, or had she come on some errand of mercy?  The latter most likely, he concluded, and so his face was not quite so cross when Katy at last appeared, looking at her watch and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour.  But when, as they turned into the avenue, Katy called to him to stop, bidding him drive back, as she had forgotten something, he showed unmistakable signs of irritation, but nevertheless obeyed, and Katy was soon mounting a second time to the fourth story of No. ——­, where Marian Hazelton knelt upon the floor, her head resting upon the costly fabrics and her frame quivering with the anguish of the sobs which reached Katy’s ear even before she opened the unbolted door.

“What is it, Marian?” she asked, in great distress, while Marian, struggling to her feet, remained for a moment speechless.

She had not expected Katy to return, else she had never given way as she did, calling on her God to help her bear what she now knew she was not prepared to bear.  She had thought the heart struggle conquered, and that she could calmly look upon Wilford Cameron’s wife; but the sight of Katy, together with the errand on which she came, had unnerved her, and she wept bitterly in her desolation, until Katy’s reappearance startled her from her position on the floor, making her stammer out some excuse about “homesickness and the seeing Katy bringing back the past.”