again. It is better for us to
break now than to wait until it is too late."

Her reply I could not hear. Presently he said, and a little
brokenly:

"I have fought it all out. It has been hard, so hard, but I must
meet it as it comes."

Then I heard Phyllis's voice: "It is for the best."

"I believe that you care for me. I know how much I care for you,
and how much this effort is costing me. We were too late. No
other course in honor presents itself. God knows how eagerly and
hopelessly I have sought a way out of this tangle of duty."

Again I heard Phyllis's voice, sunk almost to a whisper: "I have
given my word; it is for the best."

"The governor has been so good to me," Frederick exclaimed
resentfully, "that I feel like a criminal even at this moment
when I am making for him the sacrifice of a life. He has been my
father, my protector. What I am I owe to him, and I must meet him
like a grateful and honest man. You would not have it otherwise?"

And for the third time Phyllis answered: "It is for the best."

Had I been of that remarkable stuff of which your true hero is
made, of which Bunsey's heroes are made, and had I come up to the
very reasonable expectations of the followers of literary
romance, I should have burst through the syringa with passion in
my face and rage in my heart and precipitated a tragedy. Or, on
the other side, I should have taken those ridiculous children by
the hand, and ended their suffering with my blessing then and
there. But as I am only of very common clay, with little liking
for heroics, I did what any selfish and unappreciative man would
have done, and stole quietly away. I even felt a sort of fierce
joy in the knowledge of the security of my position, a mean
exultation in the thought that Phyllis was bound to me, and that
those from whom I might reasonably fear the most, acknowledged
the hopelessness of their case. Most strangely there came to me
no resentment with the knowledge that I had been supplanted by my
nephew in the affections of the girl; the fact that she loved
another surprised rather than agitated me. My argument was upset,
my doctrine of affinities had been seriously damaged in my
individual case, and here was I, who should have been yielding to
the pangs of disappointment, or raging with wounded pride,
reflecting with considerable calmness on the reverses of a
philosopher.

I went into the library and lighted a cigar. I threw myself into
an easy-chair, and