Family Pride; Or, Purified by SufferingHolmes, Mary Jane
General
Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction; Dime novels
She could not then say whom, for if she were right in her belief,
Genevra was not dead. There were no daisies growing on her grave, for
she still walked the earth a living woman, whom Katy knew so
well--Marian Hazelton. That was the name Katy could not speak, as, with
the blood curdling in her veins and freezing about her heart, she sat
comparing the face she remembered so well with the one before her. In
some points they were unlike, for thirteen years had slightly marred the
youthful contour of the face she knew--had sharpened the features and
thinned the abundant hair; but still there could be no mistake. The
eyes, the brow, the smile, the nose, all were the same, and with a pang
bitterer than she yet had felt, poor Katy fell upon her face and asked
that she might die. In her utter ignorance of law, she fancied that if
Genevra were alive, she had no right to Wilford's name--no right to be
his wife--especially as the sin for which Genevra was divorced had by
her never been committed, and burning tears of bitter shame ran down her
cheeks as she whispered, "'What God hath joined together let no man put
asunder.' Those are God's words, and how dare the world act otherwise?
She is his wife, and I--oh! I don't know what I am!" and on the carpet
where she was kneeling Katy writhed in agony as she tried to think what
she must do. Not stay there--she could not do that now--not, at least,
until she knew for sure that she was Wilford's wife, in spite of
Genevra's living. Maybe she was; there was a Mrs. Grainier in the city
divorced from her first husband and living with her second; but then the
man was a profligate, a most abandoned wretch, who had not been proved
innocent, as Genevra had, and that must make a difference. "Oh, if there
was only some one to advise me--some one who knew and would tell me what
was right," Katy moaned, feeling herself inadequate to meet the dark
hour alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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