I know I am going to cry. Already are my eyes suffusing; my nose develops a tickling sensation. I am indignant with myself at the bare thought, but nevertheless I feel assured if I open my mouth it will be to give utterance to a sob. If I cry before him now he will think--- "Phyllis, do you really wish to marry me?" asks Mr. Carrington, suddenly, trying to read my hot and averted face. "If you repent your promise, say so: it is not yet too late to withdraw. Better bear pain now than lasting misery hereafter. Answer me truly: do you wish to be my wife?" "I do," I return, earnestly. "I shall be happier with you, who are always kind to me, than I am at home. It is only at times I feel regretful. But of course--if you don't want to marry me---" I pause, overcome by the ignominy of this thought. Mr. Carrington takes my hand. "I would give half my possessions to gain your love," he says, softly; "but, even as it is, no bribe on earth could induce me to relinquish you. Don't talk about my giving you up. That is out of the question. I could as easily part with my life as with my Phyllis. Perhaps," with a rather sad little smile, "some time in the future you may deem me worthy to be placed in the category with Billy and Roland and the rest of them." A mournful sound breaks from me. I search my pocket for a handkerchief wherewith to wipe away the solitary tear that meanders down my cheek. Need I say it is not there? Mr. Carrington, guessing my want, produces a very snowy article from somewhere and hands it to me. "Do you want one?" he asks, tenderly, and presently I am dissolved in tears, my nose buried in my lover's cambric. "I am sure you must hate me," I whisper, dismally. "I make you unhappy almost every time we meet. Mr. Carrington, will you try to forget what I said just now, and forgive me?" "How can I forgive you anything when you call me Mr. Carrington?" "Marmaduke, then." He presses me closer to him, and I rub my stained and humid countenance up and down against his coat. I am altogether penitent. "After all, Marmaduke, may be I didn't say anything so very dreadful," I venture, at the end of a slight pause. "I was only thinking, and deciding on what I would like to give everybody when--when I was your wife. Was that very bad?" "No; there was nothing to vex me in all that; it only showed me what a loving, generous little heart my pet has. But then, Phyllis, why did you give me so plainly to understand you were marrying me only for the sake of my odious money, by saying--what you did in your last speech?" "What did I say?" "That for the sake of being rich you would marry me (or any one else, your tone meant) even were I 'as ugly as sin.'" "If I said that, it was an untruth, because if you were us ugly as Bobby De Vere, for instance, I most certainly would not marry you. I detest plain people." "Well, at all events, I think you owe me some reparation for the pain you have inflicted."