t give you a sort of prelude to what has just occurred," he began.
"You remember, when you were last here, how abruptly Phyllis and her
mother left the Abbey?"

I nodded. I remembered well.

"On the morning after you had left us I had a long letter from Phyllis,"
continued Allen. "In it she told me of an extraordinary request my
father had made to her during that moonlight walk--nothing more nor less
than an earnest wish that she would herself terminate our engagement.
She spoke quite frankly, as she always does, assuring me of her
unalterable love and devotion, but saying that under the circumstances
it was absolutely necessary to have an explanation. Frantic with almost
ungovernable rage, I sought my father in his study. I laid Phyllis's
letter before him and asked him what it meant. He looked at me with the
most unutterable expression of weariness and pathos.

"'Yes, my boy, I did it,' he said. 'Phyllis is quite right. I did ask of
her, as earnestly as a very old man could plead, that she would bring
the engagement to an end.'

"'But why?' I asked. 'Why?'

"'That I am unable to tell you,' he replied.

"I lost my temper and said some words to him which I now regret. He made
no sort of reply. When I had done speaking he said slowly,--

"'I make all allowance for your emotion, Allen; your feelings are no
more than natural.'

"'You have done me a very sore injury,' I retorted. 'What can Phyllis
think of this? She will never be the same again. I am going to see her
to-day.'

"He did not utter another word, and I left him. I was absent from home
for about a week. It took me nearly that time to induce Phyllis to
overlook my father's extraordinary request, and to let matters go on
exactly as they had done before.

"After fixing our engagement, if possible, more firmly than ever, and
also arranging the date of our wedding, I returned home. When I did so I
told my father what I had done.

"'As you will,' he replied, and then he sank into great gloom. From that
moment, although I watched him day and night, and did everything that
love and tenderness could suggest, he never seemed to rally. He scarcely
spoke, and remained, whenever we were together, bowed in deep and
painful reverie. A week ago he took to his bed."

Here Allen paused.

"I now come to events up to date," he said. "Of course, as you may
suppose, I was with my father to the last. A few hours before he passed
away he called me to his bedside, and to