Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/418

404 you may be quite sure, Katharine. I was born a pagan, and a pagan I suppose I shall die. If the fear of a world I know so well hasn't stopped me, you may be quite sure fear of one of which I know nothing will affect me little. Good-by, dear, dear Kate! I see the people are beginning to get into their places already. It hasn't been altogether my fault, remember!" And she drew herself away from her cousin's side, and looked across the room toward Grizelda Long.

"Dora," said Katharine, her voice sinking to a whisper, "one thing more. This I think I have a right to ask. What fault have you had to find with Steven, from the hour of your marriage until this?"

"Fault? actual moral delinquency?" answered Dora. "Well, none, I suppose—what can I gain by telling you petty falsehood now? He cared no more for Mademoiselle Barry than for her father. He fought—yes, Kate, I believe in his very heart he fought against his love for you. He has been quite honest, quite faithful to his duty. You may repeat this, as my opinion, to every one."

"And yet you betray him! You, his wife, leave him to loneliness and dishonor!"

"I leave him," said Dora, "because, while our two lives last, they never could flow on peacefully under one roof. I married him (Arabella's work, that!) in a moment of disappointment, and found out my mistake too late. Difference of class, Kate, however pretty radical theories may sound from your lips, is a barrier impossible to get over, between man and wife. Steven Lawrence, with all his virtues, poor fellow, is the son of a laboring yeoman farmer, not a gentleman."

"And so," cried Katharine, quick, as if those words of Dora's had stung her; "and so you become the companion of Mr. Clarendon Whyte. A curious choice, I must allow! Take your own road, Dora. I have nothing more to urge. To escape from being the wife of the laboring yeoman farmer, you run away with the son of the Oxford-street hatter. I have finished; I have not another word to utter."

"The son of whom?" said Dora, growing white to her lips. Katharine, do you mean this?—what is this that you are telling me?"

"The only thing I ever heard concerning Clarendon Whyte that was not to his discredit," answered Katharine, icily. "Has the story not reached Paris? It was well known in London a good many months ago."

She turned, as if to go; but Dot followed; caught her by the hand. Affection, gratitude, honor, religion, had each cried out to her in vain. A chance shaft, aimed without purpose, had found a