“Oh, I don’t know.  I never thought of it before.”

“But you can think of it now,” Wilford continued, his cold, icy tone making Katy shiver, as more to herself than him she said: 

“A life at Linwood would be perfect rest, compared to this.”

Wilford had wrung from her all he cared to know, and believing himself the most injured man in existence, he left the house, and Katy heard his step as it went furiously down the walk.  For a time she seemed stunned with what she had heard, and then there came stealing into her heart a glad feeling that Morris deemed her worthy of his love when she had so often feared the contrary.  It was not a wicked emotion, nor one faithless to Wilford.  She could pray with just as pure a heart as before, and she did pray, thanking God for the love of this good man, and asking that long ere this he might have learned to be content without her.  Never once did the thought “It might have been,” intrude itself upon her, nor did she picture to herself the life which she had missed.  She seemed to rise above all that, and Wilford, had he read her heart, would have found no evil there.

“Poor Morris,” she kept repeating, while little throbs of pleasure went dancing through her veins, and the world was not one-half so dreary for knowing he had loved her.  Toward Wilford, too, her heart went out in a fresh gush of tenderness, for she knew how one of his jealous nature must have suffered.

“I’ll drive down to the office for him this afternoon,” she said.  “That will surely please him; and to prove still further that I never dreamed of Morris’ love, I’ll tell him coming home how in the great sorrow about Genevra I went to him for counsel, and how he sent, or rather, brought me back.”

But this confession would necessitate her telling that Genevra was not dead, and it was better for them both, she thought, that he should not know this until the relations between herself and him were more as they used to be; so she decided finally to withhold the fact for a time at least.  But she would go for him, as she had at first intended, and she counted the hours impatiently, thinking once her watch had stopped, and seeming brighter and happier than she had been since her illness, when at last she stepped into her carriage, and was driven down Broadway.

Business had gone wrong with Wilford that day, and Tom Tubbs had mentally pronounced his master “crosser than a bear,” and sighing secretly for the always cheerful Mark, he had taken up his book, and was quietly reading by the office window when Katy came in, her white face seeming whiter from contrast with her black dress, and her eyes looking unnaturally large and bright as she darted across the room to Wilford, who, surprised to see her there, and a good deal displeased withal, inasmuch as he had often said that the office was no place for his wife, never smiled or spoke, but with pent up brows waited for her to open the conversation.  Katy saw she was not welcome, and with a tremulous voice she began: