But the facts were too palpable; it was useless pretending to ignore them. Phyllis jumped out of the arbour, like an alarmed bird out of its nest, and came strolling towards us, affecting a nonchalant air, but with a face the colour of beetroot with confusion; and that unspeakable doctor, who had caused her so to forget herself, strutted at her side, twirling the tip of his moustache and endeavouring to appear as if he had not been kissing her, but looking all the time the very image of detected guilt. It is not necessary to state that Spencer Gale left immediately, and never darkened our doors again. When, a little later, I had it out with Phyllis, she declared, with a toss of the head, that she wouldn't have taken him if there had been no other marriageable man living--that there was only one husband for her, whom she intended to have whether we liked it or not, even if she were forced to wait for him till she was an old woman. I have often regretted that I did not control myself better, but she, who had no excuse for violence, behaved like a perfect lunatic. She went so far as to say she would never forgive me for the insults I had heaped upon one--meaning Edmund Juke--who had no equal in the universe, and who had saved her brother's life. Of course she did not mean it--and I did not mean it--and we forgave each other long ago; but I never hear the name of Spencer Gale without the memory of that interview coming back to me, like a bitter taste in the mouth. He married about the same time as she did--a significant circumstance! They say that he lost his boom money when the boom burst, and that he drinks rather badly, and makes domestic scandals of various kinds. If he does, it is no more than one might have expected, considering the provocation. It is all very well for my family to repeat these tales to his discredit, and then point to Edmund Juke in Collins Street gradually climbing to the top of his profession; they think this is sufficient to prove that they were always Solomons of wisdom, and I a fool of the first magnitude. It does not occur to them that if some things had been different, all things would have been different. The one man would never have fallen into low habits if he had had Phyllis for his wife, and the other would never have risen so high if he had not had her. That is how I look at it. And as for material prosperity, no one could have foreseen how things were going to turn out, and luck is like the rain that falls on the just and on the unjust--it comes to the people who don't deserve it quite as often as to those who do.