Twelve o'clock at last comes, and with it the summons to the supper room. Here the well-spread table, the brilliant lights, the flowers, the music and the gay conversation are all sources of the greatest pleasure to the unaccustomed girl, but there is one thing which does not please her. It is the fact that wine is flowing freely and that all are partaking of it. She feels that she can never consent to drink. It is something she has never done in her life. Yet she dares not refuse, for all the others are drinking, and she knows that to refuse would bring upon herself the ridicule of all the party.
She hears her companion order a bottle of wine opened. He pours and offers it, saying, "Just a social glass, it will refresh you." She looks at him as if to protest, but he returns the gaze and hands her the fatal glass, and she has not the moral courage to say no.
As they raise their glasses he murmurs softly, "Here's hoping we may be perfectly happy in each other's love, and that the cup of bliss now raised to our lips may never spill."
One glass and then another and the brain unaccustomed to wine is whirling and giddy. The vile wretch sees that his game is won.
He whispers in her ear many soft and foolish lies, tells her that he loves her, and that if she can return that love, he is hers, and hers alone, so long as life shall last.
She sits tipped back in one chair, with her feet in another, laughs loudly at every poor little joke, and responds, in a silly affectionate manner, to all his words of love, and when he makes proposals to which she would have scorned to listen at any other time, she not only listens but gives consent to all, and does not leave the house that night.
When she awakens next morning, it is in a strange room. Her head whirls, she gazes abstractedly about her and tries to shake off what seems to her to be a horrid dream, but she is brought suddenly to realize that it is no sleeping fancy, but a steam reality, as a low voice by her side says,
"Did you rest easy, my dear?"
"My God!" she fairly shrieks, as the awful truth bursts upon her, "is it possible, or am I dreaming?" and she passes her hand wildly across her face.
"Do not excite yourself, my dear; you are not well. You will feel better presently."