Katharine, Chapters XLI-XLII [pp. 833-849]

842 KA TKARIKE. [Sept.,
enough to volunteer. Possibly I should have been sufficiently
idioti~ to go on even had I done so. I knew nothing of her, you
may remember, except that I thought you seemed rather moved
when I notified you of her death. I must have mentally identified her as the cause of some serious trouble to you, but I was
not likely to hit on this one."
"It was a hideous thing to own to, but I have not waited
until now to be sorry that I kept it secret. She must have
spread the report of her death, I suppose. I always thought
that would be a part of her scheme."
"It was a bad move on her part if she made it, since it appears
to have cost her a fortune. That is her tale, at least, and her regret was so genuine that I never had any misgivings on that
score. God knows," he went on, with a sort of suppressed rage,
"that I had plenty of another sort from the moment I laid eyes
on her accursed face, but I might have had the same if I had
watched her from her cradle. What motive could she have had
to abuse her mother's mind to that extent?"
"Two at least. She might naturally suppose that it would
come to me in course of time through that channel, and dam up
one very obvious source of danger. She would also be likely to
desire that all home communications should be broken off out of
a pious regard for the peace of mind of the other man whom she
swindled into marriage."
He did not know of your existence, then?"
"Probably not-certainly not in the capacity of a legally-married husband. Oh!" he went on, answering the question in Norton's eyes, "she is an artist in her way, and immensely careful
about her stage properties. A scandal, or an elopement, or even
the absence of a decent baudage over the eyes of the special dupe
she has on hand, would gall her pride, which is more difficult
than her virtue. For that reason I have sometimes doubted
whether I might not honestly have dispensed myself from believing any of her statements for which I had not independent evidence. But your experience of her must be very unlike mine if
you have not sometimes run against a hard edge of truth in her
and recognized it, if only by the ugly wound it made. I certainly married her, and have never seen good reason to doubt that I
had the honor of precedence in that line. She left me under
that impression when her desire for safety as well as her personal pride would naturally have counselled an explicit statement
to the contrary."
"I don't understand."