id timidly, with a hesitation very unlike Elinor, "it was
the sixth." She seemed to see suddenly as she said the words that
calendar with the date hanging in the hall: the big 6 seemed to hang
suspended in the air. It was true, though she could not tell how it
could be so.

"Oh," said Stanfield, in a tone which betrayed a little surprise, and
something like disappointment, "the sixth? I knew you had left Scotland,
but we did not know where you had gone."

"That's not to be wondered at," said Phil, with a laugh, "for I should
have gone to Ireland, to tell the truth; I ought to have been there now.
I'm going to-morrow, ain't I, Nell? I had not a bit of business to be
here. Winding up affairs in the bachelor line, don't you know; but I had
to come on my way west to see this young lady first. It plays the deuce
and all with one's plans when there's such a temptation in the way."

"You could have gone from Scotland to Ireland," said Stanfield, gravely,
"without coming to town at all."

"Very true, old man. You speak like a book. But, as you perceive, I have
not gone to Ireland at all; I am here. Depends upon your motive, I
suppose, which way you go."

"It is a good way roundabout," said the other, without relaxing the
intent look on his face.

"Well," said Phil, "that's as one feels. I go by Holyhead wherever I may
be--even if I had nowhere else to go to on the way."

"And Mr. Compton got here on the sixth?--this is the eighth," said the
stranger, pointedly. He turned to Elinor, and it seemed to the girl that
his eyes, though they were not remarkable eyes, went through and through
her. He spoke very slowly, with a curious meaning. "But it was on the
sixth, you say, that he got here?"

That big 6 on the calendar stood out before her eyes; it seemed to cover
all the man's figure that stood before her. Elinor's heart and mind went
through the strangest convulsion. Was it false--was it true? What was
she saying? What did it all mean? She repeated mechanically, "It was on
the sixth," and then she recovered a kind of desperate courage, and
throwing off the strange spell that seemed to be upon her, "Is there any
reason," she asked, suddenly, with a little burst of impatience, looking
from one to another, "why it should not be the sixth, that you repeat it
so?"

"I beg your pardon," said the stranger, visibly startled. "I did not
mean to imply--only thought----Pray, Mr. Compton, tell the lady I had no
intention of offendi