Phillida looked down. At this moment her reserve with her lover in a matter so personal to herself seemed to her extremely reprehensible. "I--I was a coward, Charley," she said with a kind of ferocity of remorse. This self-accusation on her part made him unhappy. "You?" he said. "You are no coward. You are a brave woman." He leaned over and lightly kissed her cheek as he finished speaking. "I knew that my course would seem foolish to you, and I couldn't bear that you should know. I was afraid it would mortify you." "You have suffered much yourself, my dear." She nodded her head, the tears brimming in her eyes at this unexpected sign of sympathy. "And borne it bravely all alone. And all for a mistake--a cruel mistake." Millard had not meant to say so much, but his feelings had slipped away from him. However, he softened his words by his action, for he drew out his handkerchief and gently wiped away a tear that had paused a moment in its descent down her cheek. "How can you say it is a mistake?" she asked. "You saw Wilhelmina yourself." "Yes; but it is all a misunderstanding, dear. It's all wrong, I tell you. You haven't seen much of life, and you'll be better able to judge when you are older." Here he paused, for of arguments he had none to offer. "I don't want to see anything of life if a knowledge of the world is to rob me of what is more precious than life itself." Her voice was now firm and resolute, and her tears had ceased. Millard was angry at he knew not what--at whatever thing human or supernal had bound this burden of misbelief upon so noble a soul as Phillida's. He got up and paced the floor a moment, and then looked out of the window, saying from time to time in response to deprecatory or defensive words of hers, "I tell you, dear, it's a cruel mistake." Now and then he felt an impulse to scold Phillida herself; but his affectionate pity held him back. His irritation had the satisfaction of finding an object on which to vent itself at length when Phillida said: "If Mrs. Frankland would admit men to her readings, Charley, I'm sure that if you could only hear her explain the Bible--" "No, thank you," said Millard, tartly. "Mrs. Frankland is eloquent, but she has imposed on you and done you a great deal of harm. Why, Phillida, you are as much superior to that woman as the sky is--" He was about to say, "as the sky is to a mud-puddle," but nothing is so fatal to offhand vigor of denunciation as the confirmed habit of properness. Millard's preference for measured and refined speech got the better of his wrath barely in time, and, after arresting himself a moment, he finished the sentence with more justness as he made a little wave with his right hand--"as the sky is to a scene-painter's illusion."