Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/477

434 KATE'S WINTER IN WASHINGTON. denly assuming a Roman attitude. ‘No more of this!”

“I will not be silent!" retorted she. Don’t: think you have a child to deal with! I will!  expose you both! I'll have a separation—a divorcee! The whole world shall know what I have endured—shall see this girl for what she is,”

All Kate thought of waa to get out of the house before she was completely insane. She raade another attempt lo reach the door. Lily rushed to a table, snatched a dagger that lay there, and was accustomed to doing duty as a paper-cutter, and sprung toward her, uttering wild imprecations—calling on heaven to nerve her arm and give her strength to avenge her wrongs, and then deal death to herself, that she might die cursing both. “Death! Death!” she howled, and made an other dash at Kate, but Marsden caught her in his arms. She dropped the dagger, and with a prolonged moan in a minor key, she sunk back apparently insensible in his hold.

“Go—go!” cried Philip. ‘“‘Escape while you; can,” t

Kate needed no second bidding; she flew out! of the room, down the hall. Never, in all her life, was there so welcome a sound to her ears as the closing of the outer-door behind her. How she got into the carriage, or gave the order to drive home, she never could tell; she only knew that she must live to get there. After that, no matter—there was nothing but death left for her.

CHAPTER VIII.

Tin moment the house-door closed, Lily raised herself and stood up.

“You oughtn’t to have let her go,” said she, “My plan was to send for old Wallingford.”

“Then what did you tumble into my arms for?” growled her husband. “Never mind—I’m going to the house. it’s Saturday, so there’s no session—he’s sure to be home. He's got to pay at least ten thousand to settle this; he'll do anything rather than have an expose.’

“Say I've gone, left you penniless; that you will, at least, have moneyed satisfaction——”

“Bah! teach your grandmother!” interrupted Lily, irreverently. «Ring the bell for a car- riage! I thought you never would came to point, you were so long about it! You're good al theatricals, but it’s the old-fashioned, slow sort. I go in for a rush myself,”

Philip laughed, and as he rang the bel! he called her a name that most women would have considered an unpleasant epithet; but he did it in an admiring tone, and Lily seemed to take   it as a compliment, for she laughed, too, and  pirouetted away to the mirror to arrange her  hair, which had tumbled about her shoulders  in the fervor of her histrionic efforts. The carriage stopped before her home, and Kate darted out and got into the house. What she meant to do she could not have told—meet  her uncle, tell him, was impossible. There was some vague idea in her mind of dying, or run- ning away and hiding herself forever; for that there, could be any release, any hope of extricating herself from this horrible strait she did not once dream; and to remain, to bear the exposure, the disgrace, was out of the question.

It all came up before her during that drive, which had seemed endless—her uncle’s grief, the trial, the crowd, she forced before it; the horrible talk, the newspaper paragraphs going over the length and breadth of the land. No hope, no way out; if she could only die—fall dead then and there, and so end it.

She was in the house, and instinctively turned toward the little room where she was accus- tomed to sit during the day, certain to be un- tenanted.

She opened the door; as it closed she gave a groan, which was answered by a quick exclamation. She looked up, and found herself face to face with Harry Everett.

“Kate! Kate! In heaven’s name, what is the matter?”

She was past speech now—the sight of him was the crowning blow. Her features worked fearfully—with one long, gasping breath she fell at his feet in horrible convulsions.

He raised her and placed her on a sofa, in- stinctively feeling that she had brought some dreadful catastrophe upon her head. Having sense enough not to call for assistance, and for all he was frightened, and only a man, retain- ing sufficient self-possession to get her bonnet off and sprinkle water in her face, and do his best to restore her.

Kate was perfectly conscious all the while, but she could not speak or open her eyes; the nervous spasm made such a sense of weight on her chest, such an oppression in her throat, that she believed herself suffocating. She hoped so, she was mentally praying that it might be depth; and through it all she could hear Harry Everett’s voice calling her by every tender epithet, assuring her of his love, only urging her to be calm, and to tell him everything.

The force of the paroxysm spent itself at last. She was shaking and icy cold still, but