"Don't you know where?" asked Catherine without waiting to be
questioned.
"Where was it?"
"In my picture! Mr. Wharton gave me her eyes. I am sure that woman is
his wife."
"Catherine, you shall go back to Colorado. You have been reading too
many novels. You are as romantic as a man."
Catherine did not care whether she were romantic or not; she knew the
woman was Wharton's wife.
"Perhaps she means to kill him," she ran on in a blood-curdling tone.
"Wouldn't it be like Mr. Wharton to be stabbed to the heart on the steps
of a church, just as his great work was done? Do you know I think he
would like it. He is dying to be tragic like the Venetians, and have
some one write a poem about him." Then after a moment's pause, she
added, in the same indifferent tone of voice: "All the same, if he's not
there, I mean to go back and look out for him. I'm not going to let that
woman kill him if I can help it!"
A warm dispute arose between the two girls which continued after they
reached their scaffold and found that Wharton was not there. Esther
declared that Catherine should not go back; it was ridiculous and
improper; Mr. Wharton would laugh in her face and think her bold and
impertinent; the woman was probably a beggar who wanted to see Mr.
Hazard; and when all this was of no avail Esther insisted that Catherine
should not go alone. Catherine, on her part, declared that she was not
afraid of the woman, or of any woman, or man either, or of Mr.
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