Then she began to wonder whether, after all, it would not be better to accept what he offered--the small, settled income which was so good to think of--and to get rid of all this secrecy, which oppressed her much more since she had been told that it must last, than when she had expected that it would involve at most the delay of a week. The deep depression which she began to feel at her heart, now that she was alone again, made the simple means of escape from all her anxieties look very tempting to her, and she dwelt on it. If she begged Ralston to forget his pride for her sake, as she was willing to forget her own for his, and to let her take the money, he would surely yield. Once together, openly married before the world, things would be so much easier. He and she could talk all day, unhindered and unobserved, and plan the future at their leisure, and it was not possible that with all the joint intelligence they could bring to bear upon the problem, it should still remain unsolved. Meanwhile, Ralston had gone up town, very much more disappointed than Katharine knew. Strange to say, their marriage seemed far more important in his eyes than in hers, and he had lived all day, since they had parted at ten o’clock in the morning, in nervous anticipation of seeing her again before night. He had gone home at once, and had spent the hours alone, for his mother had gone out to luncheon. Until the messenger with Katharine’s specially stamped letter rang at the door, he would not have gone out of the house for any consideration, and after he had read it he sat counting the minutes until he could reasonably expect to use up the remaining time in walking to Clinton Place. As it was, he had reached the corner a quarter of an hour before the time, and his extreme punctuality was to be accounted for by the fact that he had set his watch with the Lauderdales’ library clock,--as he always did nowadays,--and that he looked at it every thirty seconds, as he walked up and down the street, timing himself so exactly that the hands were precisely at the hour of three when he took hold of the bell. There are few small disappointments in the world comparable with that of a man who has been told by the woman he loves to come at a certain hour, who appears at her door with military punctuality and who is told to go away again instantly, no adequate excuse being given for the summary dismissal. Men all know that, but few women realize it. “Considering the rather unusual situation,” thought Ralston, angrily, “she might have managed to get her mother out of the way for half an hour. Besides, her mother wouldn’t have stoned me to death, if she had let me come in--and, after last night, I shouldn’t think she would care very much for the sort of privacy one has in a ball-room.”