Katharine said nothing, not knowing what to say. During what seemed to her a long time, old Lauderdale lay quite still. Then he seemed to rouse himself, and as he turned his head he coughed painfully.

“I want you to know how I’ve left the money,” he said abruptly, when he had recovered his breath.

“Do you think I ought to know?” asked Katharine, in some surprise.

“Yes—I don’t know whether you ought—no. But I want you to know. I’ve confidence in your judgment, my dear.”

“Oh, uncle Robert! As though your own were not a thousand times better!”

“In matters of business it may be. But this is quite another thing. You see, there are a good many who ought to have a share, and a good many who expect some of it, whether they have any claim or not. I want to know if you think I’ve acted fairly by everybody. Will you tell me, quite honestly? Nobody else would—except Katharine Ralston, perhaps.”

“But I don’t want to be made the judge of your actions, dear uncle Robert!” protested Katharine.

“Well—make a sacrifice, then, and do something you don’t like,” answered the old man, gruffly.

It would have pleased Doctor Routh to see how soon his temper rose at the merest sign of opposition.

“Well—tell me, then,” said Katharine, reluctantly.

“It’s a simple will,” began the old man, and then he paused, as though reflecting upon it. “Well—you see,” he continued, presently, “I argued in this way. I said to myself that the money ought either to go back to its original source—I’ve thought a great deal about that, too, and I’ve made sketches of wills leaving everything to the poor, in a big trust—I suppose every rich man has made rough sketches of queer wills at one time or another.” He paused a moment and seemed to be thinking. “Yes,” he resumed, presently, “either it should go back to the people, or else it ought to go amongst the Lauderdales, as directly as possible. Now there’s my brother, first—your grandfather. He’s older than I am, but he’s careless and foolish about money. He’d give it all away—better leave something to his asylums and things, and give him an income but no capital. He doesn’t want anything for himself—he’s a good man, and I wish I were like him. Then there’s your father, next, and Katharine Ralston—my nephew and niece. They don’t want a lot of money, either, do they?”

Katharine’s eyes expressed a little astonishment in spite of herself, and the old man saw it. He hesitated a while, coughed, cleared his throat, and then seemed to make up his mind.

“It’s been my opinion for a long time,” he said, slowly, “that your father has a good deal of his own.”

“Papa!” exclaimed Katharine. “Why—he always says he’s so poor! You don’t know how economical he is, and makes us be. I’m sure he can’t be rich.”

“Rich—h’m—that’s a relative expression nowadays. He’s not rich, compared with me—but he has enough, he has quite enough.”

“Oh—enough—yes,” answered the young girl. “The house is comfortable, and we have plenty to eat.” She laughed a little. “But as for clothes, you know—well, if my mother didn’t sell her miniatures, I don’t know exactly what she and I should do—nor what Charlotte would have done, before she was married.”

Robert Lauderdale looked at her intently for several seconds.

“Do you mean to say,” he asked, at length, “that when your dear mother sells her little paintings, it’s to get money for her and you to dress on?”

“Yes—of course. What did you think?”

“I thought it was for her small charities,” he answered, bending his rough brows with an expression of mingled pain and anger. “It seemed to me a good thing that she should have that interest. If I’d known that your father kept you all so close—”

“But I really think he’s poor, uncle Robert.”

“Poor! Nonsense! He’s got a million, anyway. I know it. Don’t look at me like that—as though you didn’t believe me. I tell you, I know it. I don’t know how much more he has, but he’s got that.”

He moved restlessly on his side, with more energy than he had yet shown, for he was growing angry.

“There’s some money in the drawer of that little table,” he said, pointing with his hand, which trembled a little. “It’s open—just get what there is and bring it here, will you?”

Katharine rose.

“I don’t want any money, if you mean to give it to me,” she said, as she crossed the room.

She brought him a roll of bills.

“Count it,” he said.

She counted carefully, turning back the crisp green notes over her delicate fingers. It was new money.

“There are three hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “At least, I think I’ve counted right.”

“Near enough. Make a note of it, my dear. There are pencil and paper on the table. There—just write down the figure. Now put the money into your pocket, and go and spend it on some trifle.”

“I’d rather not,” answered Katharine, hesitating.

She had never had so much money in her hand in her whole life, though she was the grand-niece of Robert the Rich.

“Do as I tell you!” cried the old man, almost fiercely, and in a much stronger voice than he had been able to find hitherto.

Katharine obeyed, seeing that he was really losing his temper.

“You may as well spend it on toys as leave it to the servants,” he said. “They’d have stolen it as soon as I was dead. Not that I mean to die, though. Not till I’ve settled one or two things like this. I feel stronger.”

“I’m so glad!” exclaimed Katharine.

“So am I,” growled the sick man. “You’ve saved my life.”

“I?”

“Yes, child. Go and tell Routh that I said so. Upon my word!” he grumbled, half audibly. “Selling her poor little miniatures to buy clothes for herself and her children—my nieces—that’s just a little too much, you know—can’t see how I could die decently—well—without telling him what I think about it. Katharine,” he said, more loudly, addressing her, “it amounts to this. I’ve left a few charities, and I’ve left the Miners a little something to make them comfortable, and I’ve given a million to the Brights—Hamilton and Hester and their mother—and I’ve left the rest to you three young ones—you and Charlotte and Jack Ralston. That ought to make about twenty-five millions for each of you. I want to know if you think I’ve done right?”

Katharine’s hands dropped by her side. For the first time in her life she was literally struck dumb.

“That doesn’t mean,” continued the old man, watching her keenly, as the light came back to his eyes, “that doesn’t mean that I give you all that money, just as I gave you that roll of bills just now. It’s all tied up in trusts, just as far as the law would allow me to do it. You couldn’t take it and throw it into the street, nor speculate, nor buy a railway, nor do anything of the kind. You and Charlotte will have to pay half your income to your father and mother while they live, and you’ll have to leave it to your children—at least, Charlotte must, and I hope you will, my dear. And Jack must give half of his income to his mother. You see, as there are three parents, that will make it exactly equal. And all three of you have to pay something to make up an income for your grandfather. So it will still be equally shared. I like you best, my dear, but I couldn’t show any favouritism in my will. The end of it will be that you will each have something less than half the income of twenty-five millions to spend. That’s better than selling miniatures to buy clothes, anyway. Isn’t it, now?”

He laughed hoarsely and then coughed.

“Go home, child,” he said, presently. “I’ve talked too much. Stop, though. What I’ve told you is not to be repeated on any account. I wanted to know what you thought of the right and wrong of the thing—but I’ve taken your breath away. Go home and think about it. Come and see me day after to-morrow—there, I shouldn’t have said that an hour ago—give me a little of that beef tea, please, my dear. I’m hungry—and I’d rather have it from your hand than from Mrs. Deems’s. Thank you.”

He drank eagerly, and she took the cup from him and set it down again.

“She’s a good creature, the nurse,” he said. “A very good creature—a sort of holy scarecrow. I shan’t need her much longer.”

“You really do seem better,” said Katharine, wondering how she could ever have believed that he was dying.

“I’m going to get well this time. I told Routh this morning that I wasn’t going to die. You’ve saved my life. There’s nothing like rage for the action of the heart, I believe. I shall be out next week.”

He began to cough again.

“Go home—go home,” he managed to say, between the short spasms. “I’m talking too much.”

Katharine bent down and kissed his forehead quickly, looked at him affectionately and left the room, for she saw that what he said was true. She closed the door softly and found her way to the stairs. She was in haste to get out into the air and to be alone, for she wished, if possible, to realize the stupendous possibilities of life which the last few minutes had brought into her range of mental vision. It was not a light thing to have been told that she was one day to be among the richest of her very rich acquaintances, after having been brought up in such a penurious fashion.

In the hall she came suddenly upon her father and mother, who were parleying with the butler.

“Here’s Miss Katharine, sir,” said the servant, and he immediately fell back, glad to avoid further discussion with such a very obstinate person as Alexander Junior.

“Why, Katharine!” exclaimed Mrs. Lauderdale, in surprise. “Do you mean to say you’re here?”

“Yes—didn’t you know? Doctor Routh sent me up in his carriage. He met me on the steps just as he was going in to see you. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No—how very extraordinary!”

Mrs. Lauderdale’s face assumed a grave expression not untinged with displeasure.

“This is very strange,” said her husband. “And Leek has just been telling us that uncle Robert could see no one.”

“I beg pardon, sir,” said the butler, coming forward respectfully. “There were orders that when Miss Katharine came, Mr. Lauderdale was not to be disturbed.”

“Yes,” answered Alexander Junior, coldly. “I understand. Come, Emma—come, Katharine—we shall be late for luncheon.”

“It isn’t half-past twelve yet,” observed Katharine, glancing at the great old clock, which at that moment gave ‘warning’ of the coming chime for the half-hour.

“It’s of no consequence what time it is,” said her father, more coldly than ever. “Come!”

They went out together, and the door closed behind them. Alexander Lauderdale stood still upon the pavement and faced his daughter, with a peculiarly hard look in his eyes.

“What does this all mean, Katharine?” he enquired, severely. “Your mother and I desire some explanation.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” answered the young girl. “Uncle Robert wanted to see me, and Doctor Routh told me so, and was kind enough to send me up in his carriage. I was coming away when I met you. There’s nothing to explain.”

Alexander Junior very nearly lost his temper. He could not recollect having done so since he had refused to accept John Ralston as his son-in-law, nearly eighteen months ago. But his steely grey eyes began to gleam now, and his clear, pale skin grew paler. It was evident that his mind was working rapidly in a direction which Katharine could not understand.

“I wish to know what he said to you,” he replied.

“Why do you want to know?” asked Katharine, unwisely, for she herself was agitated.

“I have a right to know,” answered her father, peremptorily.

It was unlike him to go to such lengths of insistence at once, and even Mrs. Lauderdale was surprised, and glanced at him somewhat timidly.

“Shall we walk on?” she suggested. “I’m cold—there’s a chilly wind from the corner.”

They began to move, Alexander Junior walking between them, with Katharine on his left. She did not reply to his last speech at once, and his anger rose.

“When I speak to you, Katharine, I expect to be answered,” he said.

“Yes,” replied Katharine, coolly. “I was thinking of what I should say.”

She had been taken unawares, and found it hard to decide how to act. She thought he was angry because he suspected her of trying to influence the old millionaire to do something which might facilitate her marriage with John Ralston, little guessing that in the eyes of the church and the law she was married already. So far as revealing anything about the dispositions of her great-uncle’s will might be concerned, she had not the slightest intention of saying anything about it, nor of even hinting that he had spoken of it. She was capable of quite as much obstinacy as her father, and she was far more intelligent; but she disliked a quarrel of any sort, and yet, placed as she was, she could not see how to avoid one, if he continued to insist. Mrs. Lauderdale saw that trouble was imminent, and tried to come to the rescue.

“How did he seem to be, dear?” she enquired, speaking across her husband. “Doctor Routh was not very encouraging.”

“He is better—really better, I’m sure,” answered Katharine, seizing the opportunity of turning the conversation. “When I first went in, he looked dreadfully ill. His eyes are quite sunken and his cheeks are positively hollow. But gradually, as we talked, he revived, and when I left him he really seemed quite cheerful.”

She paused, not seeing how she could go on talking about the old gentleman’s appearance much longer. She hoped her mother would ask another question, but her father interposed again, with senseless and almost brutal persistence.

“I’m glad to hear that he is better,” he said. “But I’m still waiting for an answer to my question. What was the nature of the conversation between you, Katharine? I insist upon knowing.”

“Really, papa,” answered the young girl, looking up to him with eyes almost as hard as his own, “I don’t see why you should be so determined to know.”

“It’s of no consequence why I wish to know. It should be sufficient for you to understand my wishes. I expect you to obey me at once and to give a clear account of what took place. Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly—oh, yes!”

It was evident from Katharine’s tone that she did not intend to satisfy him. Her mother thought that she might have excused herself instead of refusing so abruptly. She might have even given a harmless sketch of an imaginary conversation. But that was not her way, as she would have said.

Alexander’s anger increased with every moment, in a way by no means normal with him. He said nothing for a few moments, but walked stiffly on, biting his clean-shaven upper lip with his bright teeth. He felt himself helpless, which made the position worse.

“So uncle Robert is really better,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, pacifically inclined.

“I think so,” answered Katharine, mechanically.

“I’m very glad. Aren’t you glad, Alexander, my dear?” she asked, turning to her husband.

“Of course. What a foolish question!”

Mrs. Lauderdale felt that under the circumstances it had certainly been a very foolish question, and she relapsed into silence. She was, on the whole, a very good woman, and was sincere in saying that she was glad of the old man’s recovery. This was not inconsistent with her recent haste to inform her husband of the supposed danger. It had seemed quite natural to her to think of going instantly to old Robert Lauderdale’s bedside, if there were any possibility of his dying. She knew, also, far better than Katharine had known, what an immense sum was to be divided at his death, and considering the life she had led under her husband’s economic rule, she might be pardoned if, even being strongly attached to the old gentleman, she was a little agitated at the thought of the changes imminent in her own existence. There is a point at which humanity must be forgiven for being human. In the memorable struggle for the great Lauderdale fortune, which divided the tribe against itself, it must not be forgotten that Mrs. Lauderdale was sincerely fond of the man who had accumulated the wealth, though she afterwards took a distinct side in the affairs, and showed herself as eager as many others to obtain as much as possible for her husband and her children.

Meanwhile, in spite of her, the opening skirmish continued sharply. After walking nearly the length of a block in silence, Alexander Junior once more turned his head in the direction of his daughter.

“Am I to understand, Katharine, that you definitely refuse to speak?” he enquired, sternly.

“If you mean that I should tell you in detail all that uncle Robert and I said to each other this morning,—yes. I refuse.”

“Do you know that you are disobedient and undutiful?”

“It isn’t necessary to discuss that. I’m not a child any longer.”

“Very well. We shall see.”

And they continued to walk in silence. Alexander was fond of walking and of all sorts of exercise, when it did not interfere with the rigid punctuality of his business habits. He had been a very strong man in his youth.

This was the beginning of hostilities, and the events hitherto described took place in the month of April.

Robert Lauderdale’s instinct had not deceived him, in prompting him to say that he was not going to die when he seemed most ill. He rallied quickly, and within a fortnight of the day on which he had sent for Katharine, he was able to be driven in the Park, in the noon sunshine. He was changed, and had grown suddenly much thinner, but most of his friends thought that at his age this was no bad sign.

Ever since that crisis there had been a coldness between Katharine and her father. She felt that he was watching her perpetually, looking, perhaps, for an opportunity of making her feel his displeasure, and assuredly trying to find out what she knew. The subject was not mentioned, and Alexander Junior seemed to have accepted his defeat more calmly than might have been expected; but Katharine knew his character well enough to be sure that the humiliation rankled, and that the obstinate determination to find out the secret was as constantly present as ever.

Katharine’s life became more and more difficult and complicated, and she seemed to become more powerless every day, when she tried to see some way of simplifying it. She found herself, indeed, in a very extraordinary position, and one which requires a little elucidation for all those who are not acquainted with her previous history.

In the first place, she had been secretly married to her second cousin John Ralston, nearly five months before the beginning of this story. John Ralston had faults which could not be concealed. It had been said with some truth that he drank and occasionally played high; that he was a failure, as far as any worldly success was concerned, was evident enough, although he was now making what seemed to be a determined effort at regular work. He was certainly not a particularly good young man. His father, the admiral, who had been dead some years, had been a brave sailor and distinguished in the service, but there were many stories of his wild doings, so that those who trace all character to heredity may find an excuse for John’s evil tendencies in his father’s temperament. Be this as it may, he had undoubtedly been exceedingly ‘lively,’ as his distant cousin and best friend, Hamilton Bright, expressed it.

But he had his good points. He was honourable to a fault. He loved Katharine with a single-hearted devotion very rare in so young a man,—for he was only five and twenty years of age,—and for her sake had been making a desperate attempt to master his worse instincts. He could be said to have succeeded in that, at least, since he had made his good resolutions. Whether he could keep them for the rest of his life was another matter.

Katharine’s father, however, put no faith in him, and never would. Moreover, John was a poor man, a consideration which had great weight. No one could suspect that his great uncle intended to leave him a large share of the fortune, and it was very generally believed that they had quarrelled and that John Ralston was to be cut off with nothing. This opinion was partly due to the fact that John kept away from Robert Lauderdale’s house more than the rest of the family, because he dreaded the idea of being counted among the hangers on of the tribe. But Alexander Lauderdale could not forbid him the house, because he was a relation, but altogether refused to hear of a marriage with Katharine. He hoped to make for her a match as good as her sister’s, if not better. The scene with John had been almost violent, but the young lovers had contrived to see each other with the freedom afforded by society to near relatives.

Almost a year had passed in this way, and there had seemed to be no prospect of a solution, when Katharine had taken the law into her own hands, being at that time nineteen years old. She had persuaded John that if he would marry her secretly, she could at once prevail on old Robert Lauderdale to find him some occupation in the West. After much hesitation John Ralston had consented, on condition that uncle Robert should be told immediately. The pair were secretly married by a clergyman whom John persuaded to perform the ceremony, and an hour later Katharine had told the old gentleman her secret. He at once offered to make her and John independent—for the honour of the family; but John had stipulated that he was to receive nothing of the nature of money. That would have been like begging with a loaded pistol. What he wanted was a position in which he might do some sort of work, and receive an equivalent sufficient to support himself and his wife. Robert Lauderdale at once proved to his grand-niece that such a scheme was wholly impracticable. John could do nothing which could earn him a dollar a day. Katharine had to own at last that he was right. He said that if John would work steadily in an office in New York, even for a year, it would be easy to push him rapidly into success.

The compromise was accepted as the only way out of the difficulty. The secret marriage remained a secret, and a mere accomplished formality. John continued to live with his mother as though he were a bachelor; Katharine stayed under her father’s roof as Miss Lauderdale. John returned to Beman Brothers, and was now working there, as has been said more than once. Katharine had to bear all the difficulties of a totally false position in society. These had been the results of the secret marriage, so far as actual consequences in fact were concerned. Morally speaking, there could be no question but that John Ralston, at least, had profited enormously by the sense of honourable responsibility Katharine had forced upon him. He had made one of those supreme efforts of which natures nervous by temperament, melancholy, and sometimes susceptible of exaltation, are often capable. The almost divine dignity which his mother had taught him to attribute to the code of honour stood him in good stead. He saw by the light which guides heroes, things not heroic in themselves to be done, but brave at least, and they were easy to him, because, for Katharine’s sake, he would have done much more.

So far as Katharine was concerned, the effect upon her was different. It might even be questioned whether it were a good effect. She was helpless to do anything which could improve her position, and the result was a feeling of hostility against her surroundings. The whole fabric of society seemed to her to rest upon a doubtful foundation, since two young people so eminently fitted for each other could be forced by it into such a situation.

They were of equal standing in every way; she had even lately learned that their prospects of fortune, which were little short of colossal, were precisely the same. They loved each other. They were married by church and law. Yet between John’s code of honour, on the one hand, and Alexander Lauderdale’s determined opposition, on the other, they dared not so much as own that they were husband and wife, lest some enormous social scandal should ensue. They had but one alternative—to leave New York together, which meant starvation, or else to accept Robert Lauderdale’s help in the form of money, which John was too proud to do. And though John would have been quite ready to starve alone, he had no intention of subjecting Katharine to any such ordeal. He blamed himself most bitterly for having accepted the secret marriage at all, but since the thing was done, he meant to do his share and bear his burden manfully and honourably. It was all he could do to atone for his weakness in having yielded, and for the trouble he had caused Katharine.

But she had no such active part as he. He must work, for he had chosen that salvation for his self-respect, and it was her portion to wait until he could win his independence on his own merits, since he would not be indebted for it to any one. The waiting is often harder to bear than the working. Katharine grew impatient of the conventions in the midst of which she lived, and found fault with the system of all modern society.

She was strangely repelled, too, by the attentions of the young men she met daily, and danced with, and sat beside at dinner. They had amused her until the last winter. She was not one of those girls who either feign indifference to amusement, or really feel it, and so long as she had been free to enjoy herself without any secondary thoughts about the meaning of enjoyment, she had found the world a pleasant place. Now, however, she was for the first time made conscious that several of the young fellows who surrounded her at parties really wished to marry her. The genuine and pure-hearted convictions concerning the inviolable sanctity of marriage, which are peculiarly strong in American young girls, asserted themselves with Katharine at every moment. Being the lawfully wedded wife of John Ralston, it seemed an outrage that young Van De Water, for instance, should seek occasion to assure her of his devotion. Yet, since he, like the rest, knew nothing of the truth, she could not blame him if he had chanced to fall in love with her. She could only refuse to listen to him and discourage his advances, feeling all the while a most unreasonable and yet womanly desire to hand him over to her husband’s tender mercies, together with a firm faith that John was not only able, but would also be quite disposed, to slay the offender forthwith.

This seems to prove that woman is naturally good, and that harm can only reach her by slow stages. And it is a curious reflection that generally in the world good, when it comes, comes quickly and evil slowly. Great purifying religions have arisen and washed whole nations clean, almost in one man’s lifetime, whereas it has always required generations of luxury and vice to undermine the solidity of any strong people. A first sin is rarely more than an episode, too often exaggerated by those who would direct the conscience, and who leave the offenders to the terrible danger of discovering such exaggerations later, and then of setting down all wrong-doing as insignificant because the first was made to appear greater than it was.

Katharine hated the falseness of her position, and the perpetual irritation to which she was exposed unsettled the balance of her girlish convictions as they had emerged from the process of education, ready-made, honest, and somewhat conventional. The disturbance awakened abnormal activity in her mind, and she fell into the habit of questioning and discussing almost every accepted article of creeds social and spiritual.

Hence her liking for the society of Paul Griggs, whose experience was a fact, but whose convictions were a mystery not easily fathomed. Alexander Lauderdale especially detested the man for his easy way of accepting anybody’s religious beliefs, as though the form of religion were of no importance whatever, while perpetually thrusting forward the humanity of mankind as the principal point of interest in life. But when he was alone with Katharine, or with some kindred spirit, Griggs sometimes talked of other things.

The day on which Katharine, returning from Robert Lauderdale’s house, refused to answer her father’s questions was an important one in her history and in the lives of many closely connected with her; and this has seemed the best place for offering an explanation of such preceding events as bear directly upon all that followed. Here, therefore, ends the prologue to the story which is to tell of the lives of John Ralston and his wife, commonly known as Miss Lauderdale, during the great battle for the Lauderdale fortune. It has been a long prologue, and, as is usually the case in such tiresome preliminary pieces, the majority of the actors in the real play have not yet appeared, and the few who have come before the curtain crave as yet indulgence rather than applause. They have shown their faces and have explained the general nature of what is to be represented, and they retire as gracefully as they can, under rather difficult circumstances, to reappear in such actions and situations as should explain themselves.