“Well, dear Frank, papa has been having a long talk on the very subject at the hall, and has convinced both your father and mother that total abstinence is not the objectionable thing they have hitherto thought it to be. Oh, dear Frank, there is no hindrance there then, if you still think as you once seemed to think on this subject.”
The colour came into his face, and his brow was troubled as he said,—
“Why should you distress yourself about this matter, my own dear Mary. Cannot you trust me? Cannot you believe that I will be strictly moderate? Have I not promised?”
“You have promised; and I would hope and believe that—that—” She could not go on, her tears choked her words.
“Ah, I know what you would say,” he replied passionately; “you would reproach me with my failure—my one failure, my failure under extraordinary excitement and weakness—I thought you had forgiven me that. Have I not kept my promise since then? Cannot you trust me, unless I put my hand to a formal pledge? If honour, love, religion, will not bind me, do you think that signing a pledge will do it?”
“I have not asked you to sign any pledge,” she replied sorrowfully; “though I should indeed rejoice to see you do it. I only hoped—oh, how fervently!—that you might see it to be your wisdom, your safety, to become a total abstainer. Oh, dearest Frank, you are so kind, so open, so unsuspecting, that you are specially liable to be taken off your guard, unless fortified by a strength superior to your own. Have you really sought that strength? Oh, ask God to show you your duty in this matter. It would make me so very, very happy were you to be led to renounce at once and for ever those stimulants which have ruined thousands of noble souls.”
“Dearest Mary, were this necessary, I would promise it you in a moment. But it is not necessary. I am no longer a child. I am not acting in the dark. I see what is my duty. I see that to exceed moderation is a sin. I have had my fall and my warnings, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Trust me, dear Mary—trust me without a pledge, trust me without total abstinence. You shall not have cause to blush for me again. Believe me, I love you too well.”
And with this she was forced to be content. Alas! poor Frank; he little knew the grasp which the insidious taste for strong drink had fixed upon him. He liked it once, he loved it now. And beside this he shrank from the cross, which pledged total abstinence would call upon him to take up. His engaging manners made him universally popular, and he shrank from anything that would endanger or diminish that popularity. He winced under a frown, but he withered under a sneer; still he had secret misgivings that he should fall, that he should disgrace himself; that he should forfeit Mary’s love for ever if he did not take the decided step; and more than once he half resolved to make the bold plunge, and sign the pledge, and come out nobly and show his colours like a man.
It was while this half resolve was on him that he was one evening returning home after a day’s fishing, Juniper Graves being with him. He had refused the spirit-flask which his servant held out to him more than once, alleging disinclination. At last he said,—
“I’ve been seriously thinking, Juniper, of becoming a total abstainer; and it would do you a great deal of good if you were to be one too.”