“This was the first time the idea of a _divorce_ had entered my mind, and I shrank from a final separation. But mother felt differently. It was not a new thought to her, knowing as she did that the validity of a Scotch marriage, such as ours, was frequently contested in the English Courts. Once free from Genevra the world this side the water would never know of that mistake, and she set herself steadily to accomplish her purpose. To tell you all that followed our return to England, and the steps by which I was brought to sue for a divorce, would make my story too long, and so I will only state that, chiefly by the testimony of the anonymous letter-writer, whose acquaintance we made, a divorce was obtained, Genevra putting in no defence, but, as I heard afterwards, settling down into an apathy from which nothing had power to rouse her until the news of her freedom from me was carried to her, when, amid a paroxysm of tears and sobs, she wrote me a few lines, assuring me of her innocence, refusing to send back her wedding ring, and saying God would not forgive me for the great wrong I had done her. I saw her once after that by appointment, and her face haunted me for years, for, Katy, _Genevra was innocent_, as I found after the time was past when reparation could be made.” Wilford’s voice trembled, and for a moment there was silence in the room, while he composed himself to go on with the story: “She would not live with me again if she could, she said, denouncing bitterly the Cameron pride, and saying she was happier to be free; and there we parted, but not until she told me that her traducer was the old discarded suitor who had sworn to have revenge, and who, since the divorce, had dared seek her again. A vague suspicion of this had crossed my mind once before, but the die was cast, and even if the man were false, what I saw myself in Rome still stood against her, and so my conscience was quieted, while mother was more than glad to be rid of a daughter-in-law of whose family I knew nothing. Rumors I did hear of a cousin whose character was not the best, and of the father who for some crime had fled the country, and died in a foreign land, but as that was nothing to me now, I passed it by, feeling it was best to be released from one of so doubtful antecedents.