“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.