s. He was, however, very
watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and
could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his
own self-indulgence more. There was a constraint, however, when they
met. He could not fully meet her deep truthful eyes with a steady gaze
of his own. Her words would often lead him to prayer, but then he
regarded iniquity in his heart--he did not wish to be taken at his
prayer--he did not wish to be led into pledged abstinence, or even into
undeviating moderation at all times--he wished to keep in reserve a
right to fuller indulgence. Poor Mary! she was not happy; she felt
there was something wrong. If she tried to draw out that something from
Frank, his only reply was an assurance of ardent affection and devotion.
There was no apparent evil on the surface of his life. He was regular
at church, steady at home, moderate in what he drank at his father's
table and at other houses. She felt, indeed, that he had no real
sympathy with her on the highest subjects, but he never refused to
listen, only he turned away with evident relief from religious to other
topics. Yet all this while he was getting more deeply entangled in the
meshes of the net which the drink, in the skilful hands of Juniper
Graves, was weaving round him. That cruel tempter was biding his time.
He saw with malicious delight that the period must arrive before very
long when his young master's drinking excesses would no longer be
confined to the darkness and the night, but would break out in open
daylight, and then, then for his revenge.

It was now between two and three years since the harvest-home which had
ended so unhappily. Frank was twenty-one and Mary Oliphant eighteen.
This was in the year in which we first introduced them to our readers,
the same year in which it was intended that Hubert Oliphant should join
his uncle Abraham, at any rate for a time, in South Australia. For the
last six months dim rumours, getting gradually more clear and decided,
had found their way to the rectory that Frank Oldfield was occasionally
drinking to excess. Mary grew heart-sick, and began to lose her health
through anxiety and sorrow; yet there was nothing, so far, sufficiently
definite to make her sure that Frank, since his promise to observe
strict moderation, had ever over-passed the bounds of sobriety. He
never, of course, alluded to the subject himself; and when he could not
help remar