“Will you forgive me?” “By no means.” “It will only be for once.” “I don’t know what you mean by once. You must either give him up or continue the acquaintance.” “I wish to explain—to tell him to wait.” “To wait for what?” “Till you know him better—till you consent.” “Don’t tell him any such nonsense as that. I know him well enough, and I shall never consent.” “But we can wait a long time,” said poor Catherine, in a tone which was meant to express the humblest conciliation, but which had upon her father’s nerves the effect of an iteration not characterised by tact. The Doctor answered, however, quietly enough: “Of course you can wait till I die, if you like.” Catherine gave a cry of natural horror. “Your engagement will have one delightful effect upon you; it will make you extremely impatient for that event.” Catherine stood staring, and the Doctor enjoyed the point he had made. It came to Catherine with the force—or rather with the vague impressiveness—of a logical axiom which it was not in her province to controvert; and yet, though it was a scientific truth, she felt wholly unable to accept it. “I would rather not marry, if that were true,” she said. “Give me a proof of it, then; for it is beyond a question that by engaging yourself to Morris Townsend you simply wait for my death.” She turned away, feeling sick and faint; and the Doctor went on. “And if you wait for it with impatience, judge, if you please, what _his_ eagerness will be!” Catherine turned it over—her father’s words had such an authority for her that her very thoughts were capable of obeying him. There was a dreadful ugliness in it, which seemed to glare at her through the interposing medium of her own feebler reason. Suddenly, however, she had an inspiration—she almost knew it to be an inspiration. “If I don’t marry before your death, I will not after,” she said. To her father, it must be admitted, this seemed only another epigram; and as obstinacy, in unaccomplished minds, does not usually select such a mode of expression, he was the more surprised at this wanton play of a fixed idea. “Do you mean that for an impertinence?” he inquired; an inquiry of which, as he made it, he quite perceived the grossness. “An impertinence? Oh, father, what terrible things you say!” “If you don’t wait for my death, you might as well marry immediately; there is nothing else to wait for.” For some time Catherine made no answer; but finally she said: “I think Morris—little by little—might persuade you.” “I shall never let him speak to me again. I dislike him too much.”