business to transact for his father. And this was why he did not reach
New York until late in the afternoon of the following day.

He was intending to tell his mother everything, except indeed that he
paid Katy's bills. He would rather keep that to himself, as it might
shock his mother's sense of propriety and make her think less of Katy,
impulsive, confiding Katy, little dreaming as on that rainy afternoon
she sat in the kitchen at Silverton, with her feet in the stove-oven and
the cat asleep in her lap, of the conversation taking place between
Wilford Cameron and his mother. They had left the dinner table, and
lighting his cigar, which for that one time the mother permitted in the
parlor, Wilford opened the subject by asking her to guess what took him
off so suddenly with Mrs. Woodhull.

The mother did not know--unless--and a strange light gleamed in her
eyes, as she asked if it were some girl.

"Yea, mother, it was," and without any reservation Wilford frankly told
the story of his interest in Katy Lennox.

He admitted that she was poor and unaccustomed to society, but he loved
her more than words could express.

"Not as I loved Genevra," he said, as he saw his mother about to speak,
and there came a look of intense pain into his fine eyes as he
continued: "That was the passion of a boy of nineteen, simulated by
secrecy, but this is different--this is the love of a mature man of
thirty, who feels that he is capable of judging for himself."

In Wilford's voice there was a tone warning the mother that opposition