However strong my suspicions may have been, they were not increased when, with the evening, Phyllis and Frederick came home from their excursion. Never was Phyllis more unreserved, more cordial, more joyous, more attentive to the little wants, which I, in a mean and shameful test, imposed on her. She could not be acting a part, this New England girl, with her alert conscience, her Puritan impulse and training, her aversion to everything that savored of deceit. And Frederick was as much at his ease as if I knew nothing, as if I had not heard of his duplicity, as if the whole house and grounds were not ringing with accusations of his unworthiness. Such are the phenomena of the philosophy of middle life, I insisted that he should remain for the evening, and, after dinner, with that contrariness accountable only in a true student of psychology, I made a trifling excuse and walked down to the square, leaving them together. The curfew was ringing as, returning, I entered the lower gate at the end of the garden, and passed slowly along by the arbor. It may have been Providence, it may have been chance, it certainly was not philosophy that directed my steps to the far side of the syringa hedge which shut me off from the view of those who might come down to the rustic seat at the foot of the cherry tree. At least I had no intention of playing the spy, and when I heard Frederick's voice, and knew instinctively that Phyllis was with him, I quickened my pace that I might not be a sharer of their secrets. But an irresistible impulse made me pause when I heard the foolish fellow say: "After to-night I shall not come again. It is better for us to break now than to wait until it is too late." Her reply I could not hear. Presently he said, and a little brokenly: "I have fought it all out. It has been hard, so hard, but I must meet it as it comes." Then I heard Phyllis's voice: "It is for the best." "I believe that you care for me. I know how much I care for you, and how much this effort is costing me. We were too late. No other course in honor presents itself. God knows how eagerly and hopelessly I have sought a way out of this tangle of duty." Again I heard Phyllis's voice, sunk almost to a whisper: "I have given my word; it is for the best." "The governor has been so good to me," Frederick exclaimed resentfully, "that I feel like a criminal even at this moment when I am making for him the sacrifice of a life. He has been my father, my protector. What I am I owe to him, and I must meet him like a grateful and honest man. You would not have it otherwise?" And for the third time Phyllis answered: "It is for the best."