“Have you seen Will Granger about going to India?” “Not yet; no, I thought I would wait till to-night,” Mr. Beresford replied, and Phil continued: “Don’t see him, then; I will take the place. Write so to your uncle at once, or perhaps I had better write myself.” Something in the tone of his voice made Mr. Beresford turn quickly and look at him. “Why, Phil,” he said, “what ails you? What has happened to make you look so white and strange?” “Nothing,” Phil answered—“that is, nothing of any consequence to any one but myself.” Then, moved by a sudden impulse to tell somebody, Phil burst out: “Beresford, I can trust you, I know, for you have always been my friend.” “Yes,” faltered Mr. Beresford, thinking remorsefully of what he said to Reinette, and wondering if Phil would think that friendly, if he knew. “I must tell somebody—talk to somebody, or go crazy,” Phil continued. “The fact is, I have made a fool of myself and been _rejected_, as I deserved.” “You rejected! By whom?” Mr. Beresford asked, although he felt that he knew perfectly well what the answer would be. “By Reinette, of course. What other woman is there on the face of the earth whose no is worth caring for? I asked her to be my wife, and she refused, and made me know she meant it; and now I am going to India, for I cannot stay here.” “What reason did she give for her refusal?” Mr. Beresford asked, feeling like a guilty hypocrite, and Phil replied: “She had three reasons, each of them good and sufficient in her own mind. First, she did not love me in _that way_, as she expressed it; second, I am her cousin, and, with her Roman Catholic notions, it is an unpardonable sin to marry one’s cousin; and third, she could not marry a man with no aim, no occupation, no business except to loop up dresses and run a sewing-machine. That’s what she said, or something like it, and that hurt me worst of all, for it made me feel so small, so contemptible: and, after she said it, I knew how impossible it was for her even to respect such a dawdling, effeminate Sardanapalus as I must appear to her.” At the mention of Sardanapalus Mr. Beresford started, for that was the name he had used when speaking of Phil to Reinette. Had she told him? It was not likely, else he had never come there with his confidence, which seemed so like a stab to the conscience-stricken man, who at last could bear it no longer, and as Phil went on with his story, showing in all he said how implicitly he trusted him, he burst out: “Stop, Phil, stop a minute, while I make a confession to you, and then you will not think me so much your friend, though Heaven knows I am, and that there is no man living I like as well. But, Phil, I went back on you once, and in a moment of weakness said things for which I blush. I, too, have offered myself to Reinette Hetherton.” “You! When?” Phil exclaimed, and Mr. Beresford replied: