The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 224: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE EVIL GENIUS. 213 The two ladies were sitting in the library, each occupied with a book chosen from the well-stocked shelves. Catherine’s read- ing appeared to be more than once interrupted by Catherine’s thoughts. Noticing this circumstance, Mrs. Presty asked if any remarkable event had happened, and if it was weighing heavily on her daughter's mind. Catherine answered that she was thinking of Kitty, and that anxiety connected with the child did weigh heavily on her mind, Some days had passed (she reminded Mrs. Presty) since the in terview at which Herbert Linley had bidden her farewell. On that occasion he had referred to her proposed marriage (never to be a marriage now!) in terms of forbearance and generosity which claimed her sincere admiration. It might be possible for her to show a grateful appreciation of his conduct. Devotedly fond of his little daughter, he must have felt acutely his long separation from her: and it was quite likely that he might ask to see Kitty. There was now an obstacle in the way of her will- ing compliance with that request which it was impossible to think of without remorse, and which it was imperatively neces- sary toremove. Her mother would understand that she alluded to the shameful falsehood which had led the child to suppose that her father was dead. Strongly disapproving of the language in which her daughter had done justice to the conduct of the divorced husband, Mrs. Presty merely replied: ‘*‘ You are Kitty’s mother; I leave it to you ’—and returned to her reading. Catherine could not feel that she had deserved such an answer as this. ‘‘ Did I plan the deception?’ she asked. ‘‘ Did I tell the lie ?” Mrs. Presty was not in the least offended. ‘‘ You are com- paratively innocent, my dear,” she admitted, with an air of satirical indulgence. You only consented to the deception, and profited by the lie. Suppose we own the truth? You are afraid.” Catherine owned the truth in the plainest terms: ‘* Yes, Iam afraid. ‘‘ And you leave it to me?” ‘‘T leave it to you.” Mrs. Presty complacently closed her book. ‘‘I was quite pre- pared to hear it,” she said; all the unpleasant complications since your divorce—and Heaven only knows how many of them have presented themselves—have been left for me to unravel. It so happens—though I was too modest to mention it prema- turely—that I have unraveled this complication. If you only have eyes to see it, there isa way out of every difficulty that can possibly happen.’ She pushed the book that she had been reading across the table to Catherine. ‘* Turn to page two hun- dred and forty,” she said. ‘* There is the way out.” The title of the book was ‘ Disasters at Sea; and the page contained the narrative of a shipwreck. On evidence appar- ently irresistible, the drowning of every soul on board the lost vessel had been taken for granted, when a remnant of the pas- COMNICLO© S (EC) m