'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 atone which was meant to express the humblest conciliation, but which had upon her father's nerves the effect of an iteration not characterized 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 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.' Catherine gave a long, low sigh; she tried to stifle it, for she had made up her mind that it was wrong to make a parade of her trouble, and to endeavor to act upon her father by the meretricious aid of emotion. Indeed, she even thought it wrong - in the sense of being inconsiderate - to attempt to act upon his feelings at all; her part was to effect some gentle, gradual change in his intellectual perception of poor Morris's character. But the means of effecting such a change were at present shrouded in mystery, and she felt miserably helpless and hopeless. She had exhausted all arguments, all replies. Her father might have pitied her, and in fact he did so; but he was sure he was right.

'There is one thing you can tell Mr Townsend when you see him again,' he said,'that if you marry without my consent, I don't leave you a farthing of money .I That will interest him more than anything else you can tell him.'

'That would be very right,' Catherine answered.'I ought not in that case to have a farthing of your money.'