her, seemed to care for me, not much, still he
seemed to care. Then one day all at once he came into the room where I
was, through the window, and told me to come off and get married to him,
wanted me to go away right off. I was a fool in those days, but not all a
fool, and when he tried to put his arm round my waist, my hand went up and
smacked his face.

"We are good enough friends now, but I've often thought of what I escaped
by not marrying him. You saw him and the life he's leading at that out of
the way place, but you didn't see his obstinacy and his queerness, and
Silas is ten times worse, more crazy--well, there, you're warned--but mind
you I don't want to be meddling. I've seen so many carefully prepared
marriages turn out pure miseries, and so many crazy matches turn out
happily, that I'm more than cautious in giving advice. Seems to me that
people before they are married are quite different creatures to what they
turn out after they are married."

"But I don't want to get married," said Phyl.

"No, but, seems to me, Silas does," replied the other.

CHAPTER VI

One bright morning three days later, as Phyl was crossing Meeting Street
near the Charleston Hotel, whom should she meet but Silas.

Silas in town get up, quite a different looking individual from the Silas
of Grangersons, dressed in perfectly fitting light grey tweed, a figure
almost condoning one for the use of that old-time, half-discredited word
"Elegant."

"There you are," said Silas, his face lighting up. "I thought it wouldn't
be long before I met you. Meeting Street is like a rabbit run, and I
reckon the whole of Charleston passes through it twice a day."

His manner was genuinely frank and open, and he seemed to have completely
forgotten the incident of the kissing. Phyl said nothing for a moment; she
felt put out, angry at having been caught like a rabbit, and not over
pleased at being compared to one.

Then she spoke freezingly enough:

"I don't know much about the habits of Charleston; you will not find _me_
here every day. I have only been out twice here alone and--I'm in a
hurry."

"Why, what's the matter with you?" cried Silas in a voice of
astonishment.

"Nothing."

"But there is, you're not angry with me, are you?"

"Not in the least," replied the other, quite determined to avoid being
drawn into explanations.

"Well, that's all right. You don't mind my walking with you a bit?"

"No!"

"I only came here la