To others it might seem a crazy project, but Morris felt that it was right, and he nerved himself to his part of the toil, harnessing his own horse and leading him around to the door, where he left him while he went to get Katy ready.  She was not sleeping now, for the powerful stimulant given just before leaving her had taken effect, and she seemed a great deal better, fastening her cloak herself and tying her own bonnet, while Morris put an extra shawl around her, and Mrs. Hull brought the hot soapstone prepared for her feet.  Then, when all was ready, Morris carried her to the covered sleigh, wrapping robes and furs around her so that it seemed impossible she should take cold.

The storm had now abated, and the moon shone brightly upon the cold, frosty snow, as they sped along, Morris’ bells tinkling in the clear cutting air, and occasionally waking some light sleeper, who knew those musical bells, and said:  “That is the doctor,” wondering who was sick, and as they nestled down again in their warm bed, feeling glad that they were not obliged to be abroad in a wintry night like this.  There was no one at the West Silverton depot except the man who always stayed there, and he was too nearly asleep to notice whether it was one or twenty ladies whom Morris accompanied into the sitting-room, going next to provide for his horse at the hotel nearby.

This done he came back to Katy, staying by her until the early train came swiftly in, pausing only for a moment, and when next it moved forward, bearing him and Katy on the strange journey to New York.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

GETTING HOME.

Springfield was left behind just as the gray daylight came stealing through the frost-bound windows, rousing the sleepy passengers, and making Morris pull his wide collar a little closer about his face as if to avoid observation.  He was not afraid of daylight except as it might disclose some old acquaintance who would perhaps wonder to see him at that hour between Springfield and Hartford, and wonder more whose was the head resting so confidentially upon his shoulder, for after the change at Springfield, Katy, who could no longer keep awake, had leaned against his arm as readily as if he had been her brother.

A secret of any kind makes its possessor suspicious, and Morris felt anxious whenever any one glanced that way, but he would not waken Katy, who slept upon his arm until New York was reached, when with a frightened, startled feeling, she sat up, and pushing her veil from her face, looked about her, nodding half unconsciously to Thomas Tubbs, whom she knew from having seen him in her husband’s office, and who since leaving Hartford had been a passenger on board that train, sitting just behind Dr. Morris, and wondering when he saw who his companion was, “if Mrs. Wilford had been to Silverton.”  Mattie wondered, too, when he told her, as she poured his half-cold coffee, and then it passed from his mind, until the following morning when he heard Mark Ray saying to a client who had asked when Mr. Cameron would probably return: