dress?"
Wilford was just then too much occupied in his efforts to rescue Katy from the crowd of plebeians who had seized upon her to hear his friend's query, but Helen heard it, and with a cheek which crimsoned with anger, she replied:
"That, sir, is my aunt, Miss Betsy Barlow."
"I beg your pardon, I really do, I was not aware—" Mark began, lifting his hat involuntarily, and mentally cursing himself for his stupidity in not observing who was near to him before asking personal questions.
With a toss of her head Helen turned away, forgetting her resentment in the more absorbing thought that Katy was really leaving her.
The bell had rung, the heavy machinery groaned and creaked, and the long train was under way, while from an open window a little white hand was thrust, waving its handkerchief until the husband quietly drew it in, experiencing a feeling of relief that all was over, and that unless he chose, his wife need never go back again to that vulgar crowd standing upon the platform and looking with tearful eyes and aching hearts after the fast receding train.
For a moment Mark talked with Morris Grant, explaining how he came there, and adding that on the morrow he, too, intended going on to Boston, to remain for a few days before Wilford sailed; then, feeling that he must in some way atone for his awkward speech regarding Aunt Betsy, he sought out Helen, still standing like a statue and watching the feathery line of smoke rising above the distant trees. Her bonnet had partially fallen from her head, revealing her bands of rich brown hair and the smooth, broad forehead, while her hands were locked together, and a tear trembled on her dark eyelashes. Taken as a whole she made a striking picture standing apart from the rest and totally oblivious to them all, and Mark gazed at her a moment curiously; then as her attitude changed and she drew her hat back to its place he advanced toward her, and making some pleasant remark about the morning and the appearance of the country generally. He knew he could not openly apologize, but he made what amends he could by talking to her so familiarly that Helen almost forgot how she hated him and all others who like him lived in New York and resembled Wilford Cameron. It was Mark who led her to the carriage which Morris said was waiting, Mark who handed her in, smoothing down carefully the folds of her dress, and then stood leaning against the door, chatting with Morris, who thought once of asking him to enter and go back to Linwood. But when he remembered how unequal he was to entertaining any one that day, he hesitated, saying merely:
"On your way from Boston call and see me. I shall be glad of your company then."
"Which means that you do not wish it now," Mark laughingly rejoined, as, offering his hand to both Morris and Helen, he again touched his hat politely and walked away.
CHAPTER XI.
AFTER THE MARRIAGE.
"Why did you invite him to Linwood?" Helen began. "I am sure we have had city guests enough. Oh, if Wilford Cameron had only never come, we should have had Katy now," and the sister-love overcame every other feeling, making Helen cry bitterly as they drove back to the farmhouse.
Morris could not comfort her then, for he needed it the most, and so in silence he left her and went on his way to Linwood, which seemed as if a funeral train had left it, bearing away all Morris' life and love, and leaving only a cheerless blank. It was well for him that there were many sick ones on his list, for in attending to them he forgot himself in part so that the day with him passed faster than at the farmhouse, where life and its interests seemed suddenly to have stopped. Nothing had power to rouse Helen, who never realized how much she loved her young sister until now, when, with swelling heart she listlessly put to rights the room which had been theirs so long, but which was now hers alone. It was a sad task picking up that disordered chamber bearing so many traces of Katy, and Helen's heart ached terribly as she hung away the little pink calico dressing gown in which Katy had looked so pretty, and picked up from the floor the pile of skirts lying just where they had been left the previous night; but when it came to the little half-worn slippers which had been thrown one here and another there as Katy danced out of them, she could control herself no longer, and stopping in her work sobbed bitterly: "Oh, Katy, Katy, how can I live without you?" But tears could not bring Katy back, and knowing this, Helen dried her eyes ere long and joined the family below, who like herself were spiritless and sad.
It was some little solace to them all that day to follow Katy in her journey, saying, she is at Worcester, or Framingham, or Newtown, and when at noon they sat down to their dinner in the tidy kitchen, they said: "She is in Boston," and the saying so made the time which had elapsed since the morning seem interminable. Slowly the hours dragged, and at last, before the sunsetting, Helen, who could bear the loneliness of home no longer, stole across the fields to Linwood, hoping in Morris' companionship to forget her own grief in part. But Morris was a sorry comforter then. If the day had been sad to Helen, it had been doubly so to him. He had ministered as usual to his patients, listening to their complaints and answering patiently their inquiries; but amid it all he walked as in a maze, hearing nothing except the words: "I, Katy, take thee, Wilford, to be my wedded husband," and seeing nothing but the airy little figure which stood up on tiptoe for him to kiss its lips at parting. His work for the day was over now, and he sat alone in his library when Helen came hurriedly in, staring at sight of his face, and asking if he was ill.
"I have had a hard day's work," he said. "I am always tired at night," and he tried to smile and appear natural. "Are you very lonely at the farmhouse?" he asked, and then Helen broke out afresh, mourning sometimes for Katy, and again denouncing Wilford as proud and heartless.
"Positively, Cousin Morris," and Helen's eye flashed as she said it, "he acted all the while he was in the church as if he were doing something of which he was ashamed; and then did you notice how impatient he seemed when the neighbors were shaking hands with Katy at the depot and bidding her good-by? He looked as if he thought they had no right to touch her, she was so much their superior, just because she had married him, and he even hurried her away before Aunt Betsy had time to kiss her. And yet the people think it such a splendid match for Katy, because he is so rich and generous. Gave the clergyman fifty dollars and the sexton five, so I heard; but that does not help him with me. I know it's wicked, Morris, as well as you, but somehow I find myself taking real comfort in hating Wilford Cameron."
"That is wrong, Helen, all wrong," and Morris tried to reason with her; but his arguments this time were not very strong, and he finally said to her, inadvertently: "If I can forgive Wilford Cameron for marrying our Katy, you surely ought to do so, for he has hurt me the most."
"You, Morris! you, you!" Helen kept repeating, standing back still further and further front him, while strange, overwhelming thoughts passed like lightning through her mind as she marked the pallid face, where was written since the morning more than one line of suffering, and saw in the brown eyes a look such as they were not wont to wear. "Morris, tell me—tell me truly—did you love my Sister Katy?" and with an impetuous rush Helen knelt beside him, as, laying his head upon the table he answered:
"Yes, Helen. God forgive me if it were wrong. I did love your Sister Katy, and love her yet, and that is the hardest to bear."
All the tender, pitying woman was roused in Helen, and like a sister she smoothed the locks of damp, dark hair, keeping a perfect silence as the strong man, no longer able to bear up, wept like a very child. For a time Helen felt as if bereft of reason, while earth and sky seemed blended in one wild chaos as she thought: "Oh, why couldn't it have been?
