him—­it may be to drink—­to a false sense of honor—­to herself:  Harry being her slave instead of her master.  And the other men around her—­so far as yielding was concerned (here her brow would tighten and her lips straighten)—­were no better.  Even Uncle George must take her own “No” for an answer and believe it when she meant quite a different thing.  And once more would her soul break out in revolt over the web in which she had become entangled, and once more would she cry herself to sleep.

Nobody but her old black mammy knew how tragic had been her sufferings, how many bitter hours she had passed, nor how many bitter tears she had shed.  Yet even old Henny could not comfort her, nor was there any one else to whom the girl could pour out her heart.  She had, it is true, kept up her intimacy with her Uncle George—­hardly a week passed that she was not a visitor at his house or he at hers—­but they had long since refrained from discussing Harry.  Not because he did not want to talk about him, but because she would not let him—­Of course not!

To Richard Horn, however, strange to say, she often turned—­not so much for confidences as for a broader understanding of life.  The thoughtful inventor was not so hedged about by social restrictions, and would break out in spontaneous admiration of Harry, saying with a decisive nod of his head, “A fine, splendid young fellow, my dear Kate; I recognized it first at St. George’s dinner to Mr. Poe, and if I may say so, a much-abused young man whose only sin is that he, like many another about us, has been born under a waning star in a sky full of murky clouds; one that the fresh breeze of a new civilization will some day clear away”—­a deduction which Kate could not quite grasp, but which comforted her greatly.

It delighted her, too, to hear him talk of the notable occurrences taking place about them.  “You are wonderfully intelligent, my dear,” he had said to her on one occasion, “and should miss nothing of the developments that are going on about us;” and in proof of it had the very next day taken her to an exhibition of Mr. Morse’s new telegraph, given at the Institute, at which two operators, each with an instrument, the men in sight of each other, but too far apart to be in collusion, were sending and answering the messages through wires stretched around the hall.  She, at Richard’s suggestion, had written a message herself, which she handed to the nearest operator who had ticked it to his fellow, and who at once read it to the audience.  Even then many doubting Thomases had cried out “Collusion,” until Richard, rising in his seat, had not only endorsed the truth of the reading, but explained the invention, his statement silencing all opposition because of his well-known standing and knowledge of kindred sciences.

Richard’s readings also, from which Kate was never absent, and which had now been resumed at his own house, greatly interested her.  These of late had been devoted to many of Poe’s earlier poems and later tales, for despite the scene at St. George’s the inventor had never ceased to believe in the poet.