“It is your business to answer questions, not to ask them.  Tell me then the particulars of her going away, and what she said.”

As nearly as she could remember Esther repeated what had passed between herself and Katy that morning, but her manner was such as to convince Wilford she was keeping back something, and in a paroxysm of excitement he seized her arm, exclaiming: 

“You know more than you admit.  Tell me then the truth.  Who came home with Mrs. Cameron, and when?”

Esther was afraid of Wilford, and at last between tears and sobs confessed that Mrs. Wilford said she had been out of town, but asked her not to tell, that she guessed it was Silverton where she had been, and also that when she opened the door to her, Dr. Morris was going down the steps; “not in a hurry—­not like making off as if there was something wrong,” she added, in her eagerness to exonerate her mistress.

“Who hinted there was anything wrong?” Wilford exclaimed, in tones which made poor Esther tremble, for now that he had heard all he cared to hear, he began to be ashamed of having gained his information in the way he had.

“Nobody hinted,” Esther sobbed, with her face hidden in her apron; “and if they did it’s false.  There never was a truer, sweeter lady.”

“See that you stick to that whatever may occur, and, mind you, let there be no repeating this conversation in the kitchen or elsewhere,” Wilford hurled at her savagely, going next to a telegraph office, and sending over the wires the following: 

“NEW YORK, March —­, 1862.

“To MR. EPHRAIM BARLOW, Silverton, Mass.

“Has Mrs. Wilford Cameron been in Silverton since last September?  W. CAMERON.”

To this he was prompted by Esther’s having suggested Silverton, as the place where her mistress had possibly been, and taking warning by his past experience with Genevra, he resolved to give Katy the benefit of every doubt, to investigate closely, before taking the decisive step, which even while Tom Tubbs was talking to him had flashed into his mind.  Perhaps Katy had been to Silverton in her excited state, and if so the case was not so bad, though he blamed her much for concealing it from him.  At first he thought of telegraphing to Morris, but pride kept him from that, and Uncle Ephraim was made the recipient of the telegram, which startled him greatly, being the first of the kind sent directly to him.

As it chanced the deacon was in town that day, and at the store just across the street from the telegraph office.  This the agent knew by old Whitey, who was standing meekly at the hitching-post, covered with his blanket, a faded woolen bedspread, which years before Aunt Betsy had spun and woven herself.

“A letter for me!” Uncle Ephraim said, when the message was put into his hands.  “Who writ it?” and he turned it to the light trying to recognize the handwriting.

“I think it wants an answer,” the boy said, as Uncle Ephraim thrust it into his pocket, and taking up his molasses jug and codfish started for the door.