“No, Frank,” she answered, having now regained her composure; “no; I have no wish to give you up to sin and ruin. It will rest with yourself. I cannot promise absolutely that I will be yours. It will depend upon—upon—upon what you are yourself when the time comes that we might marry.”
“And you have promised your mother—”
“I have promised—oh, Frank, dear Frank, pardon me if I wound you by plain, rough words, but they must be spoken—I have promised that I will never be the wife of a drunkard.”
He bowed his head on his hand, and there was a long and painful silence. Poor Mary, her heart bled for him, as she saw the tears forcing their way between his thin, pale fingers.
“Mary,” he said at last, “you must be mine; I cannot live without you. Trust me; you shall have no cause to be ashamed of me. I know—I feel that I have been in great danger of sliding into intemperate habits; but you shall see me and hear of me henceforth as strictly moderate. I solemnly promise you this; and on the very day that makes us one, I will be one with you in total abstinence also. Dearest, will this satisfy you?”
“Yes, dear Frank; I have no right to ask more, if you can be strictly moderate; but oh, do not trust in your own strength. Pray for help, dear Frank, and then you will be able to conquer.”
“Oh, of course,” he said hastily; “but never fear, I give you my solemn promise that you shall never see nor hear of any excess in me.”
And did he keep his resolution? Yes; for a while. But, alas! how little do those in circumstances like his really appreciate the awful difficulties which beset those who are struggling to maintain strict moderation. This makes drunkenness such a fearful and exceptional sin,—
“The bow well bent, and smart the spring,
Vice seems already slain.”
The resolution is firmly set; the man walks forth strong as a rock in his determination. He begins to drink; his rock is but a piece of ice after all, but he knows it not; it is beginning to melt with the warmth of the first glass; he is cheered and encouraged by the second glass, and his resolution seems to himself stronger than ever, while in very truth it is only melting faster and faster. At last he is over the border of moderation before he conceives that he had so much as approached it. Then, alas! the word “moderation” stands for an unknown quantity, easy to use but hard to define, since one man’s moderation may be another man’s excess, and to-day’s moderation may be an excess to-morrow.