The rain continued to fall, and even if the weather had changed it would have been too late for Katharine to go and see Robert Lauderdale after her sister had left her. On the whole, she thought, it would probably have been a mistake to speak to him beforehand. She had felt a strong temptation to do so, but it had not been the part of wisdom. She waited for Ralston’s note.

At last it came. It was short and clear. He had, with great difficulty, found a clergyman who was willing to marry them, and who would perform the ceremony on the following morning at half-past nine o’clock. The clergyman had only consented on Ralston’s strong representations, and on the distinct understanding that there was to be no unnecessary secrecy after the fact, and that the couple should solemnly promise to inform their parents of what they had done at the earliest moment consistent with their welfare. Ralston had written out his very words in regard to that matter, for he liked them, and felt that Katharine should.

John had been fortunate in his search, for he had accidentally come upon a man whose own life had been marred by the opposition of a young girl’s family to her marriage with him. He himself had in consequence never married; the young girl had taken a husband and had been a most unhappy woman. He sympathized with Ralston, liked his face, and agreed to marry Ralston and Katharine immediately. His church lay in a distant part of the city, and he had nothing to do with society, and therefore nothing to fear from it. If trouble arose he was justified beforehand by the fact that no clergyman has an absolute right to refuse marriage to those who ask it, and by the thought that he was contributing to happiness of the kind which he himself had most desired, but which had been withheld from him under just such circumstances as those in which Ralston and Katharine were placed. The good man admired, too, the wisdom of the course they were taking. When he had said that he would consider the matter favourably, provided that there was no legal obstacle, Ralston had told him the whole truth, and had explained exactly what Katharine and he intended to do. Of course, he had to explain the relationship which existed between them and old Robert Lauderdale, and the clergyman, to Ralston’s considerable surprise, took Katharine’s view of the possibilities. He only insisted that the plan should be conscientiously carried out as soon as might be, and that Katharine should therefore go, in the course of the same day, and tell her story to Mr. Robert Lauderdale. Ralston made no difficulty about that, and agreed to be at the door of the clergyman’s house on the following morning at half-past nine. The latter would open the church himself. It was very improbable that any one should see them at that hour, and in that distant part of the city.

There is no necessity for entering upon a defence of the clergyman’s action in the affair. It was a case, not of right or wrong, nor of doing anything irregular, but possibly excusable. Theoretically, it was his duty to comply with Ralston’s request. In practice, it was a matter of judgment and of choice, since if he had flatly refused, as several others had done without so much as knowing the names of the parties, Ralston would certainly have found it out of the question to force his consent. He believed that he was doing right, he wished to do what was kind, and he knew that he was acting legally and that the law must support him. He ran the risk of offending his own congregation if the story got abroad, but he remembered his own youth and he cheerfully took that risk. He would not have done as much for any two who might have chanced to present themselves, however. But Ralston impressed him as a man of honour, a gentleman and very truthful, and there was just enough of socialistic tendency in the good man, as the pastor of a very poor congregation, to enjoy the idea that the rich man should be forced, as a matter of common decency, to do something for his less fortunate relation. With his own life and experience behind him, he could not possibly have seen things as Robert Lauderdale saw them.

So the matter was settled, and Katharine had Ralston’s note. He added that he would be in Clinton Place at half-past eight o’clock in the morning, on foot. They might be seen walking together at almost any hour, by right of cousinship, but to appear together in a carriage, especially at such an hour, was out of the question.

It would have been unlike her to hesitate now. She had made up her mind long before she had spoken to Ralston on Monday evening, and there was nothing new to her in the idea. But she could not help wondering about the future, as she had been doing when Charlotte Slayback had unexpectedly appeared in the afternoon. Meanwhile the evening was before her. She was going to a dinner-party of young people and afterwards to the dance at the Thirlwalls’, of which she had spoken to Ralston. He would be there, but would not be at the dinner, as she knew. At the latter there were to be two young married women who were to chaperon the young girls to the other house afterwards.

At eight o’clock Katharine sat down to table between two typical, fashion-struck youths, one of whom took more champagne than was good for him, and talked to her of college sports and football matches in which he had not taken part, but which excited his enthusiasm, while the other drank water, and asked if she preferred Schopenhauer or Hegel. Of the two, she preferred the critic of athletics. But the dinner seemed a very long one to Katharine, though it was really of the short and fashionable type.

Then came another girls’ talk while the young men smoked furiously together in another room. The two married women managed to get into a corner, and told each other long stories in whispers, while the young girls, who were afraid of romping and playing games because they were in their ball-dresses, amused themselves as they could, with a good deal of highly slangy but perfectly harmless chaff, and an occasional attempt at a little music. As all the young men smoked the very longest and strongest cigars, because they had all been told that cigarettes were deadly, it was nearly ten o’clock when they came into the drawing-room. They were all extremely well behaved young fellows, and the one who had talked about athletics to Katharine was the only one who was a little too pink. The dance was an early affair, and in a few moments the whole party began to get ready to go. They transferred themselves from one house to another in big carriages, and all arrived within a short time of one another.

Ralston was in the room when Katharine entered, and she saw instantly that he had been waiting for her and expected a sign at once. She smiled and nodded to him from a distance, for he had far too much tact to make a rush at her as soon as she appeared. It was not until half an hour later that they found themselves together in the crowded entrance hall, and Ralston assured himself more particularly that everything was as she wished it to be.

“So to-morrow is our wedding day,” he said, looking at her face. Like most dark beauties, she looked her best in the evening.

“Yes—it’s to-morrow, Jack. You are glad, aren’t you?” she asked, repeating almost exactly the last words she had spoken that morning as he had left her at the door of the Crowdies’ house.

“Do you doubt that I’m as glad as you are?” asked Ralston, earnestly. “I’ve waited for you a long time—all my life, it seems to me.”

“Have you?”

Her grey eyes turned full upon him as she put the question, which evidently meant more to her than the mere words implied. He paused before answering her, with an over-scrupulous caution, the result of her own earnestness.

“Why do you hesitate?” she asked, suddenly. “Didn’t you mean exactly what you said?”

“I said it seemed to me as though I had waited all my life,” he answered. “I wanted to be—well—accurate!” He laughed a little. “I am trying to remember whether I had ever cared in the least for any one else.”

Katharine laughed too. He sometimes had an almost boyish simplicity about him which pleased her immensely.

“If it takes such an effort of memory, it can’t have been very serious,” she said. “I’m not jealous. I only wish to know that you are.”

“I love you with all my heart,” he answered, with emphasis.

“I know you do, Jack dear,” said Katharine, and a short silence followed.

She was thinking that this was the third time they had met since Monday evening, and that she had not heard again that deep vibration, that heart-stirring quaver, in his words, which had touched her that first time as she had never been touched before. She did not analyze her own desire for it in the least, any more than she doubted the sincerity of his words because they were spoken quietly. She had heard it once and she wanted to hear it again, for the mere momentary satisfaction of the impression.

But Ralston was very calm that evening. He had been extremely careful of what he did since Monday afternoon, for he had suffered acutely when his mother had first met him on the landing, and he was determined that nothing of the sort should happen again. The excitement, too, of arranging his sudden marriage had taken the place of all artificial emotions during the last forty-eight hours. His nerves were young and could bear the strain of sudden excess and equally sudden abstention without troubling him with any physical distress. And this fact easily made him too sure of himself. To a certain extent he was cynical about his taste for strong drink. He said to himself quite frankly that he wanted excitement and cared very little for the form in which he got it. He should have preferred a life of adventure and danger. He would have made a good soldier in war and a bad one in peace—a safe sailor in stormy weather and a dangerous one in a calm. That, at least, was what he believed, and there was a foundation of truth in it, for he was sensible enough to tell himself the truth about himself so far as he was able.

On the evening of the dance at which he met Katharine he had dined at home again. His mother was far too wise to ask many questions about his comings and goings when he was with her, and it was quite natural that he should not tell her how he had spent his day. He wished that he were free to tell her everything, however, and to ask her advice. She was eminently a woman of the world, though of the more serious type, and he knew that her wisdom was great in matters social. For the rest, she had always approved of his attachment for Katharine, whom she liked best of all the family, and she intended that, if possible, her son should marry the young girl before very long. With her temper and inherited impulses it was not likely that she should blame Ralston for any honourable piece of rashness. Having once been convinced that there was nothing underhand or in the least unfair to anybody in what he was doing, Ralston had not the slightest fear of the consequences. The only men of the family whom he considered men were Katharine’s father and Hamilton Bright. The latter could have nothing to say in the matter, and Ralston knew that his friendship could be counted on. As for Alexander Junior, John looked forward with delight to the scene which must take place, for he was a born fighter, and quarrelsome besides. He would be in a position to tell Mr. Lauderdale that neither righteous wrath nor violent words could undo what had been done properly, decently and in order, under legal authority, and by religious ceremony. Alexander Junior’s face would be a study at that moment, and Ralston hoped that the hour of triumph might not be far distant.

“I wonder whether it seems sudden to you,” said Katharine, presently. “It doesn’t to me. You and I had thought about it ever so long.”

“Long before you spoke to me on Monday?” asked John. “I thought it had just struck you then.”

“No, indeed! I began to think of it last year—soon after you had seen papa. One doesn’t come to such conclusions suddenly, you know.”

“Some people do. Of course, I might have seen that you had thought it all out, from the way you spoke. But you took me by surprise.”

“I know I did. But I had gone over it again and again. It’s not a light matter, Jack. I’m putting my whole life into your hands because I love you. I shan’t regret it—I know that. No—you needn’t protest, dear. I know what I’m doing very well, but I don’t mean to magnify it into anything heroic. I’m not the sort of girl to make a heroine, for I’m far too sensible and practical. But it’s practical to run risks sometimes.”

“It depends on the risk, I suppose,” said Ralston. “Many people would tell you that I’m not a safe person to—”

“Nonsense! I didn’t mean that,” interrupted the young girl. “If you were a milksop, trotting along at your mother’s apron strings, I wouldn’t look at you. Indeed, I wouldn’t! I know you’re rather fast, and I like it in you. There was a little boy next to me at dinner this evening—a dear little pale-faced thing, who talked to me about Schopenhauer and Hegel, and drank five glasses of Apollinaris—I counted them. There are lots of them about nowadays—all the fittest having survived, it’s the turn of the unfit, I suppose. But I wouldn’t have you one little tiny bit better than you are. You don’t gamble, and you don’t drink, and you’re merely supposed to be fast because you’re not a bore.”

Ralston was silent, and his face turned a little pale. A violent struggle arose in his thoughts, all at once, without the slightest warning nor even the previous suspicion that it could ever arise at all.

“That’s not the risk,” continued Katharine. “Oh, no! And perhaps what I mean isn’t such a very great risk after all. I don’t believe there is any, myself—but I suppose other people might. It’s that uncle Robert might not, after all—oh, well! We won’t talk about such things. If one only takes enough for granted, one is sure to get something in the end. That isn’t exactly Schopenhauer, is it? But it’s good philosophy.”

Katharine laughed happily and looked at him. But his face was unusually grave, and he would not laugh.

“It’s too absurd that I should be telling you to take courage and be cheerful, Jack!” she said, a moment later. “I feel as though you were reproaching me with not being serious enough for the occasion. That isn’t fair. And it is serious—it is, indeed.” Her tone changed. “I’m putting my very life into your hands, dear, as I told you, because I trust you. What’s the matter, Jack? You seem to be thinking—”

“I am,” answered Ralston, rather gloomily. “I was thinking about something very, very important.”

“May I know?” asked Katharine, gently. “Is it anything you should like me to know—or to ask me about, before to-morrow?”

“To-morrow!” Ralston repeated the word in a low voice, as though he were meditating upon its meaning.

They were seated on a narrow little sofa against the lower woodwork of the carved staircase. The hall was crowded with young people coming and going between the other rooms. Katharine was leaning back, her head supported against the dark panel, her eyes apparently half closed—for she was looking down at him as he bent forward. He held one elbow on his knee and his chin rested in his hand, as he looked up sideways at her.

“Katharine”—he began, and then stopped suddenly, and she saw now that he was turning very pale, as though in fear or pain.

“Yes?” She paused. “What is it, Jack dear? There’s something on your mind—are you afraid to tell me? Or aren’t you sure that you should?”

“I’m afraid,” said Ralston. “And so I’m going to do it,” he added a moment later. “Did you ever hear that I was what they call dissipated?”

“Is that it?” Katharine laughed, almost carelessly. “No, I never heard that said of you. People say you’re fast, and rather wild—and all that. I told you what I thought of that—I like it in you. Perhaps it isn’t right, exactly, to like a dash of naughtiness—is it?”

“I don’t know,” answered Ralston, evidently not comprehending the question, but intent upon his own thoughts. In the short pause which followed he did not change his position, but the veins swelled in his temples, and his eyelids drooped a little when he spoke again. “Katharine—I sometimes drink too much.”

Katharine trembled a little, but he did not see it. For some seconds she did not move, and did not take her eyes from him. Then she very slowly raised her hand and passed it over her brow, as though she were confused, and presently she bent forward, as he was bending, resting one elbow on her knee and looking earnestly into his face.

“Why do you do it, Jack? Don’t you love me?” She asked the two questions slowly and distinctly, but in the one there was all her pity—in the other all her love.

Again, as more than once lately, Ralston was almost irresistibly impelled to make a promise, simple and decisive, which should change his life, and which at all costs and risks he would keep. The impulse was stronger now, with Katharine’s eyes upon his, and her happiness on his soul, than it had been before. But the arguments for resisting it were also stronger. He was calm enough to know the magnitude of his temptations and his habitual weakness in resisting them. He said nothing.

“Why don’t you answer me, dear?” Katharine asked softly. “They were not hard questions, were they?”

“You know that I love you,” he answered—then hesitated, and then went on. “If I did not love you, I should not have told you. Do you believe that?”

He guessed that she only half realized and half understood all the meaning of what he had said. He had no thought of gaining credit in her opinion for having done what very few men would have risked in his position. The wish to speak had come from the heart, not from the head. But he had not foreseen that it must appear very easy to her for him to overcome a temptation which seemed insignificant in her eyes, compared with a life’s happiness.

“Yes—I know that,” she answered. “But, Jack dear—yes, it was brave and honest of you—but you don’t think I expected a confession, do you? I daresay you have done many things that weren’t exactly wrong and that were not at all dishonourable, but which you shouldn’t like to tell me. Haven’t you?”

“Of course I have. Every man has, by the time he’s five and twenty—lots of things.”

“Well—but now, Jack—now, when we are married, you won’t do such things—whatever they may be—any more—will you?”

“That’s it—I don’t know,” answered Ralston, determined to be honest to the very end, with all his might, in spite of everything.

“You don’t know?” As Katharine repeated the words her face changed in a way that shocked him, and he almost started as he saw her expression.

“No,” he answered, steadily enough. “I don’t—in regard to what I spoke of. For other things, for anything else in the world that you ask me, I can promise, and feel sure. But that one thing—it comes on me sometimes, and it gets the better of me. I know—it’s weak—it’s contemptible, it’s brutal, if you like. But I can’t help it, every time. Of course you can’t understand. Nobody can, who hasn’t felt it.”

“But, Jack—if you promised me that you wouldn’t?”

Her face changed again, and softened, and her voice expressed the absolute conviction that he would and could do anything which he had given his word that he would do. That perfect belief is more flattering than almost anything else to some men.

“Katharine—I can’t!” Ralston shook his head. “I won’t give you a promise which I might break. If I broke it, I should—you wouldn’t see me any more after that. I’ll promise that I’ll try, and perhaps I shall succeed. I can’t do more—indeed, I can’t.”

“Not for me, Jack dear?” Her whole heart was in her voice, pleading, pathetic, maidenly.

“Don’t ask me like that. You don’t know what you’re asking. You’ll make me—no, I won’t say that. But please don’t—”

Once more Katharine’s expression changed. Her face was quite white, and her grey eyes were light and had a cold flash in them. The small, angry frown that came and went quickly when she was annoyed, seemed chiselled upon the smooth forehead. Ralston’s head was bent down and his hand shaded his eyes.

“And you made me think you loved me,” said Katharine, slowly, in a very low voice.

“I do—”

“Don’t say it again. I don’t want to hear it. It means nothing, now that I know—it never can mean anything again. No—you needn’t come with me. I’ll go alone.”

She rose suddenly to her feet, overcome by one of those sudden revulsions of the deepest feelings in her nature, to which strong people are subject at very critical moments, and which generally determine their lives for them, and sometimes the lives of others. She rose to leave him with a woman’s magnificent indifference when her heart speaks out, casting all considerations, all details, all questions of future relation to the winds, or to the accident of a chance meeting at some indefinite date.

There were many people in the hall just then. A dance was beginning, and the crowd was pouring in so swiftly that for a moment the young girl stood still, close to Ralston, unable to move. He did not rise, but remained seated, hidden by her and by the throng. He seized her hand suddenly, as it hung by her side. No one could have noticed the action in the press.

“Katharine—” he cried, in a low, imploring tone.

She drew her hand away instantly. He remembered afterwards that it had felt cold through her glove. He heard her voice, and, looking past her, saw Crowdie’s pale face and red mouth—and met Crowdie’s languorous eyes, gazing at him.

“I want to go somewhere else, Mr. Crowdie,” Katharine was saying. “I’ve been in a draught, and I’m cold.”

Crowdie gave her his arm, and they moved on with the rest. Ralston had risen to his feet as soon as he saw that Crowdie had caught sight of him, and stood looking at the pair. His face was drawn and tired, and his eyes were rather wild.

His first impulse was to get out of the house, and be alone, as soon as he could, and he began to make his way through the crowd to a small room by the door, where the men had left their coats. But, before he had succeeded in reaching the place, he changed his mind. It looked too much like running away. He allowed himself to be wedged into a corner, and stood still, watching the people absently, and thinking over what had occurred.

In the first place, he wondered whether Katharine had meant as much as her speech and action implied—in other words, whether she intended to let him know that everything was altogether at an end between them. It seemed almost out of the question. After all, he had spoken because he felt that it was a duty to her. He was, indeed, profoundly hurt by her behaviour. If she meant to break off everything so suddenly, she might have done it more kindly. She had been furiously angry because he would not promise an impossibility. It was true that she could not understand. He loved her so much, even then, that he made excuses for her conduct, and set up arguments in her favour.

Was it an impossibility, after all? He stood still in his corner, and thought the matter over. As he considered it, he deliberately called the temptation to him to examine it. And it came, in its full force. Men who have not felt it no more know what it means than Katharine Lauderdale knew, when she accused John Ralston of not loving her, and left him, apparently forever, because he would not promise never to yield to it again.

During forty-eight hours he had scarcely tasted anything stronger than a cup of coffee, for the occurrence of Monday had produced a deep impression on him—and this was Wednesday night. For several years he had been used to drinking whatever he pleased, during the day, merely exercising enough self-control to keep out of women’s society when he had taken more than was good for him, and enough discretion in the matter of hours to avoid meeting his mother when he was not quite himself. There are not so many men in polite society who regulate their lives on such principles as there used to be, but there are many still. Men know, and keep the matter to themselves. Insensibly, of course, John Ralston had grown more or less dependent on a certain amount of something to drink every day, and he had very rarely been really abstemious for so long a time as during the last two days. He had lived, too, in a state of considerable anxiety, and had scarcely noticed the absence of artificial excitement. But now, with the scene of the last quarter of an hour, the reaction had come. He had received a violent shock, and his head clamoured for its accustomed remedy against all nervous disturbances. Then, too, he was very thirsty. He honestly disliked the taste of water—as his father had hated it before him—and he had not really drunk enough of it. He was more thirsty than he had been when he had swallowed a pint of champagne at a draught on Monday afternoon. That, to tell the truth, was the precise form in which the temptation presented itself to him at the present moment. It was painfully distinct. He knew that the Thirlwalls, in whose house he was, always had Irroy Brut, which chanced to be the best dry wine that year, and he knew that he had only to follow the crowd to the supper room and swallow as much of it as he desired. Everybody was drinking it. He could hear the glasses faintly ringing in the distance, as he stood in his corner. He let the temptation come to see how strong it would be.

It was frightfully vivid, as he let the picture rise before his eyes. He was now actually in physical pain from thirst. He could see clearly the tall pint-glass, foaming and sparkling with the ice-cold, pale wine. He could hear the delicious little hiss of the tiny bubbles as thousands of them shot to the surface. He could smell the aromatic essence of the lemon peel as the brim seemed to come beneath his nostrils. He could feel the exquisite sharp tingle, the inexpressible stinging delight of the perfect liquid, all through his mouth, to his very throat—just as he had seen and smelt and tasted it all on Monday afternoon, and a thousand times before that—but not since then.

It became intolerable, or almost intolerable, but still he bore it, with that curious pleasure in the pain of it which some people are able to feel in self-imposed suffering. Then he opened his eyes wide, and tried to drive it away.

But that was not so easy. That diabolical clinking and ringing of distant glasses, away, far away, as it seemed, but high and distinct above the hum of voices, tortured him, and drew him towards it. His mouth and throat were actually parched now. It was no longer imagination. And now, too, the crowd had thinned, and as he looked he saw that it would be very easy for him to get to the supper room.

After all, he thought, it was a perfectly legitimate craving. He was excessively thirsty, and he wanted a glass of champagne. He knew very well that in such a place he should not take more than one glass, and that could not hurt him. Did he ever drink when there were women present, in the sense of drinking too much? On Monday the accident had made a difference. Surely, as he had often heard, the manly course was to limit himself to what he needed, and not go beyond it. All those other people did that—why should not he? What was the difference between them and him? How the thirst burned him, and the ring of the glasses tortured him!

He moved a step from the corner, in the direction of the door, fully intending to have his glass of wine. Then something seemed to snap suddenly over his heart, with a sharp little pain.

“I’ll be damned if I do,” said Ralston, almost audibly.

And he went back to his corner, and tried to think of something else.