“He went to Yonkers, Saturday.  I have not seen him since.”

* * * * *

Out at Yonkers on Saturday night, three young wives had waited for their husbands, and none more eagerly than Katy, who, fair as a lily, in her dark dress, with her soft hair curling about her face, sat by the window watching for the carriage from the station, hers the first ear to catch the sound of wheels, and here the first form upon the piazza.

“Where’s Wilford?” she asked, as only two alighted, and neither of them her husband.

But no one could answer that question.  The gentlemen had looked for him at Chambers Street, expecting him every moment to join them.  Perhaps he was detained, he might come yet at twelve, they said, trying to comfort Katy, who, with a sad foreboding, went back into the parlor, and tried to join in the laugh and jest which seemed almost like mockery.  Something had happened to Wilford she was sure when the night train did not bring him; and all the next day, while the Sunday bells pealed their music in her ears, and the sounds of thoughtless mirth came up from the room below, where the elaborate dinner was in progress, she lay upon her pillow, her head almost bursting with pain, and her heart aching so sadly as she tried to pray that no harm had befallen her husband.  She never dreamed of his desertion, even when about noon of the next day a telegram came from Father Cameron, bidding her hasten to the city.  Wilford was sick or dead, probably the latter, was the feeling uppermost in her mind, as she was borne rapidly to New York, where Mr. Cameron met her, his face confirming her fears, but not preparing her for the great shock awaiting her.

“Wilford is not dead,” he said, when at last she was in the carriage.  “It is worse than that, I fear.  We have traced him to the Philadelphia train, which he took on Saturday.  His manner all that day and the previous one was very strange, while from some words he dropped my wife is led to suppose there was trouble between you two.  Was there?” and Father Cameron’s gray eyes rested earnestly on the white, frightened face which looked up so quickly as Katy gasped: 

“No, oh, no; he never was kinder to me than when we parted last Friday morning at Mrs. Mills’.  There is some mistake.  He would not leave me, though he has not been quite the same since—­”

Katy was interrupted by the carriage stopping before her home; but when they had been admitted to the parlor where a fire was lighted, Father Cameron said: 

“Go on now.  Wilford has not been the same since when?”

Thus importuned Katy continued: 

“Since baby died.  I think he blamed me as the cause of its death.”

“Don’t babies die every day?” Father Cameron growled, kicking at the hearth rug, while Katy, without considering that he had never heard of Genevra, continued: 

“And then it was worse after I found out about Genevra, his first wife.”