Family Pride; Or, Purified by SufferingHolmes, Mary Jane
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Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction; Dime novels
She was standing before him, her slight figure seeming to expand into a
greater height, the features glowing with strong excitement, and her hot
breath coming hurriedly through her dilated nostrils, but never opening
the pale lips set so firmly together. There was something terrible in
her look and attitude, and it startled Wilford, who recoiled a moment
from her, scarcely able to recognize the Katy hitherto so gentle and
quiet. She had learned his secret, but the facts must have been
distorted, he knew, or she had never been so agitated. From beneath his
hair the great sweat drops came pouring, as he tried to approach her and
take the uplifted hands, motioning him aside with the words: "Not touch
me; no, not touch me till you have told me who is Genevra Lambert."
She repeated the question twice, and rallying all his strength Wilford
answered her at last: "Genevra Lambert was my wife!"
"I thought so," and the next moment Katy lay in Wilford's arms, dead, as
he feared, for there was no motion about the eyelids, no motion that he
could perceive about the pulse or heart, as he laid the rigid form upon
the bed and then bent every energy to restore her, even though he feared
that it was hopeless.
"I must do what I can," he said, thinking once to send for a physician
and laying his hand upon the bell rope for the purpose of ringing up a
servant; but a faint, gasping sound met his ear, assuring him there yet
was life and that Katy was not dead.
If possible he would prefer that no one should intrude upon them now,
and he chafed her icy hands and bathed her face until the eyes unclosed
again, but with a shudder turned away as they met his. Then as she grew
stronger and remembered the past she started up, exclaiming: "If Genevra
Lambert is your wife, what then am I? Oh, Wilford, how could you make me
not a wife, when I trusted and loved you so much?"
He knew now that she was laboring under a mistake, and he did not wonder
at the violence of her emotions if she believed he had wronged her so
cruelly, and coming nearer to her he said: "You mistake me; Genevra
Lambert was my wife once, but is not now, for she is dead. Do you hear
me, Katy? Genevra died years ago, when you were a little girl playing in
the fields at home."
By mentioning Silverton he hoped to bring back something of her olden
look, in place of the expression which troubled and frightened him. The
experiment was successful and great tears gathered in Katy's eyes,
washing out the wild, unnatural gleam, while the lips whispered: "And it
was her picture Juno saw. She told me the night I came and I tried to
question you. You remember?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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