“I haven’t the least idea; I am not in secret correspondence with him!” And Mrs. Penniman wished indeed that she were, so that she might let him know how Catherine abused her, after all she had done.
“Was it a plan of his, then, to break off—?” By this time Catherine had become completely quiet.
Mrs. Penniman began again to have a glimpse of her chance for explaining. “He shrank—he shrank,” she said. “He lacked courage, but it was the courage to injure you! He couldn’t bear to bring down on you your father’s curse.”
Catherine listened to this with her eyes fixed upon her aunt, and continued to gaze at her for some time afterwards. “Did he tell you to say that?”
“He told me to say many things—all so delicate, so discriminating. And he told me to tell you he hoped you wouldn’t despise him.”
“I don’t,” said Catherine. And then she added: “And will he stay away forever?”
“Oh, forever is a long time. Your father, perhaps, won’t live forever.”
“Perhaps not.”
“I am sure you appreciate—you understand—even though your heart bleeds,” said Mrs. Penniman. “You doubtless think him too scrupulous. So do I, but I respect his scruples. What he asks of you is that you should do the same.”
Catherine was still gazing at her aunt, but she spoke at last, as if she had not heard or not understood her. “It has been a regular plan, then. He has broken it off deliberately; he has given me up.”
“For the present, dear Catherine. He has put it off only.”
“He has left me alone,” Catherine went on.
“Haven’t you me?” asked Mrs. Penniman, with much expression.
Catherine shook her head slowly. “I don’t believe it!” and she left the room.
XXXI
Though she had forced herself to be calm, she preferred practising this virtue in private, and she forbore to show herself at tea—a repast which, on Sundays, at six o’clock, took the place of dinner. Dr. Sloper and his sister sat face to face, but Mrs. Penniman never met her brother’s eye. Late in the evening she went with him, but without Catherine, to their sister Almond’s, where, between the two ladies, Catherine’s unhappy situation was discussed with a frankness that was conditioned by a good deal of mysterious reticence on Mrs. Penniman’s part.
“I am delighted he is not to marry her,” said Mrs. Almond, “but he ought to be horsewhipped all the same.”
Mrs. Penniman, who was shocked at her sister’s coarseness, replied that he had been actuated by the noblest of motives—the desire not to impoverish Catherine.
“I am very happy that Catherine is not to be impoverished—but I hope he may never have a penny too much! And what does the poor girl say to you?” Mrs. Almond asked.
“She says I have a genius for consolation,” said Mrs. Penniman.
This was the account of the matter that she gave to her sister, and it was perhaps with the consciousness of genius that, on her return that evening to Washington Square, she again presented herself for admittance at Catherine’s door. Catherine came and opened it; she was apparently very quiet.
“I only want to give you a little word of advice,” she said. “If your father asks you, say that everything is going on.”
Catherine stood there, with her hand on the knob looking at her aunt, but not asking her to come in. “Do you think he will ask me?”
“I am sure he will. He asked me just now, on our way home from your Aunt Elizabeth’s. I explained the whole thing to your Aunt Elizabeth. I said to your father I know nothing about it.”
“Do you think he will ask me when he sees—when he sees—?” But here Catherine stopped.
“The more he sees the more disagreeable he will be,” said her aunt.
“He shall see as little as possible!” Catherine declared.
“Tell him you are to be married.”
“So I am,” said Catherine softly; and she closed the door upon her aunt.
She could not have said this two days later—for instance, on Tuesday, when she at last received a letter from Morris Townsend. It was an epistle of considerable length, measuring five large square pages, and written at Philadelphia. It was an explanatory document, and it explained a great many things, chief among which were the considerations that had led the writer to take advantage of an urgent “professional” absence to try and banish from his mind the image of one whose path he had crossed only to scatter it with ruins. He ventured to expect but partial success in this attempt, but he could promise her that, whatever his failure, he would never again interpose between her generous heart and her brilliant prospects and filial duties. He closed with an intimation that his professional pursuits might compel him to travel for some months, and with the hope that when they should each have accommodated themselves to what was sternly involved in their respective positions—even should this result not be reached for years—they should meet as friends, as fellow-sufferers, as innocent but philosophic victims of a great social law. That her life should be peaceful and happy was the dearest wish of him who ventured still to subscribe himself her most obedient servant. The letter was beautifully written, and Catherine, who kept it for many years after this, was able, when her sense of the bitterness of its meaning and the hollowness of its tone had grown less acute, to admire its grace of expression. At present, for a long time after she received it, all she had to help her was the determination, daily more rigid, to make no appeal to the compassion of her father.
He suffered a week to elapse, and then one day, in the morning, at an hour at which she rarely saw him, he strolled into the back parlour. He had watched his time, and he found her alone. She was sitting with some work, and he came and stood in front of her. He
