“To father Cameron’s,” she said to the driver, who turned his horses towards Fifth Avenue, where, just coming down the steps of his own house, they met the elder Cameron. Katy would rather see him first alone, and motioning him to her side she whispered: “Oh, father, is Wilford here?” “Wilford be——”; the old man did not say what, for the expression of Katy’s face startled him. That there was something wrong, and father Cameron knew it, was Katy’s conviction, and she gasped out, “Tell me the worst. Is Wilford dead?” Father Cameron was in the carriage by this time, and riding towards Madison Square, for he did not care to introduce Katy into his household, which, just at present, presented a scene of dire confusion and dismay, occasioned by a note received from Wilford to the intent that he had left New York, and did not know when he should return. “Katy can tell you why I go,” he added, and father Cameron was going to Katy when she met him at his door. To Katy’s repeated question, “Is he dead?” he answered, “Worse than that, I fear. He has left the city, and no one knows for what, unless you do. From something he wrote, my wife is led to suppose there was trouble between you two. Was there?” and father Cameron’s gray eyes rested earnestly on the white, frightened face which looked up so quickly as Katy gasped, “_There has_ been trouble—that is, he has not appeared quite the same since——” She was interrupted by the carriage stopping before her door; but when they were in the parlor, father Cameron said, “Go on now. Wilford has not been the same since when?” Thus importuned, Katy continued, “Since baby died. I think he blamed me as the cause of its death.” “Don’t babies die every day?” father Cameron growled, while Katy, without considering that he had never heard of Genevra, continued, “And then it was worse after I found out about Genevra, his first wife.” “Genevra! Genevra, Wilford’s first wife! Thunder and lightning! what are you talking about?” and father Cameron bent down to look in Katy’s face, thinking she was going mad. But Katy was not mad, and knowing it was now too late to retract, she told the story of Genevra Lambert to the old man, who, utterly confounded, stalked up and down the room, kicking away chairs and footstools, and whatever came in his way, and swearing promiscuously at his wife and Wilford, whom he pronounced a precious pair of fools, with a dreadful adjective appended to the _fools_, and an emphasis in his voice which showed he meant what he said.