The thing that, more than all else, kept Mack from rapid ruin was his engagement. Love has a certain power, and there are some men it will reform or hold from evil, but it could not hold Mack. The yearning for alcohol had found its place in his system before Amy had found her place in his heart. The very night of his engagement was celebrated in Dan Reilly's; Amy's kiss was hardly dry on his lips before he moistened them with whisky, and it probably never occurred to him that he was doing wrong. Before he had received all the congratulations that were pushed over the bar, however, he was sickeningly intoxicated. Amy's father, returning home from a late session with a trial balance, ran across Mack and two of his companions swaying perilously on the curb of Main Street, each maudlinly insisting that he was sober and should see the other two safely home. It was ridiculous and laughable, but Mr. Manning did not laugh; he knew Amy was more than fond of Mack. He told Amy about Mack before she had a good opportunity to tell him of her engagement. This was the next morning. Mack, of course, came to see Amy that evening. In spite of a full day spent in trying to remove the traces of the night's spree he showed evidences that he had taken one or two drinks to steady his nerves before seeing Amy. He was a little too hilarious when he met her at the door, not offensive, but too talkative. It was a cruel position for the girl. She loved Mack and loved him tremendously, but she had more than common sense. She knew she had but one life to live, and she had set her ideals of happiness long before. A drunken husband was not one of them. She talked to Mack. She did not have, to help her, an older woman's experience of the world, and she had against her the love that urged her to throw herself in Mack's arms and weep away the seriousness of the affair. She had against her, too--for it was against her with a man like Mack--her overflowing religious eagerness which would have led another girl to press the church and prayer upon him as a cure. No doubt it was a strange conglomeration of love, religion and common sense she gave him, but the steel frame of it all was that she could not marry a man who drank. She left no doubt of that. “Why, that's all right, Amy, that's all right!” Mack said. “I'll quit the stuff. I can quit whenever I want to. Last night I just happened to meet the boys and I was feeling happy--say, no fellow ever had a bigger right to feel happy!--and maybe I took one or two too many. No more for little Mack!”