“Of course this only made me more eager, particularly as during the next two weeks she avoided me as much as possible, never stopping alone with me for a moment or giving me a chance to say a word in private.  Madly in love, and fancying I could not live without her, I besieged her with letters, some of which she returned unopened, while on the others she wrote a few hurried lines, calling me a boy, who did not know my own mind, and asking what my friends would say.

“I cared little for friends, urging my suit the more vehemently, as we were about going into Scotland, where our marriage could be celebrated in private at any time.  I say in private, for I did not contemplate making the affair public at once.  That would take from the interest and romance, while, unknown to myself, there was at heart a fear of my family.

“But not to dwell too long upon those days, which seem to me now so like a dream, we went to Scotland and were married privately, for I won her to this at last.  And now comes the part where Jamie is concerned.  On the night of our marriage, Genevra, who had obtained permission to be absent on a plea of visiting a friend, had procured some one to take charge of Jamie, a red-faced girl from Edinburgh, who, unused to children, perched the child upon her shoulder, and while in this condition let him fall, injuring his spine and making him a cripple for life.  Genevra never forgave herself for that sad accident, which would not have happened had she remained at her post, while to me Jamie has ever since been a sacred thing, his helplessness which he bears so meekly a constant reproach, reminding me of what I would had never been.”

“Then you are sorry you married Genevra?” Katy exclaimed, turning partly toward him, and giving the first token she as yet had given that she was listening to the story.

Sometimes Wilford was sorry and sometimes he was not, for there was a world of pleasurable excitement connected with those months of secrecy, those private interviews, those stolen kisses, and little acts of endearment, which so intoxicated and bewildered him that the talking of them now brought something of the olden thrill he had experienced, when for a moment he held Genevra’s hand in his or wound his arm around her waist, knowing he had a perfect right to do so.  But it was better not to confess this to Katy, and so he evaded the question, and continued: 

“My brother’s failing health, as well as Hatty’s, prevented them from suspecting what was going on, and when at last we went to Italy they had no idea that Genevra was my wife.  At Rome her beautiful face attracted much attention from tourists and residents, among whom were a few young men, who, looking upon her as Jamie’s nurse, or at most a companion for his mother, made no attempt to disguise their admiration.  For this I had no redress except in an open avowal of the relation in which I stood to her, and this I could not then do, for the longer it was deferred the harder I found it to acknowledge her my wife.  I loved her devotedly, and that perhaps was one great cause of the jealousy which began to spring up and embitter my life.