il when she went out to walk.

Meanwhile, she would break her heart for Vere.

Could matters be any worse if she tried life with him, even if the
experiment eventually proved a failure and ended in a divorce instead of
beginning there? Might not her parents be spared much they most dreaded,
if their friends could be told simply that Phillida had made a love
match and was with her husband?

Finally, Phillida was a human creature with the right to manage her own
life. Had any of us the right to lay hands upon her existence and mould
it to our fancy?

I looked up from my revery to find the eyes of both of them fixed on me
as if I held their doom balanced upon my palm. Perhaps, in a sense, I
did.

"Phil, will you come home to your father and mother, and consider all
this a bit more before you decide?" I asked her.

I thought I knew the answer to this, and I did.

"No, Cousin Roger," she refused firmly. "Please forgive me. I know how
kind you mean to be, but--no! I shall stay with Ethan. If ever you love
anyone, you will understand."

I accepted the decision. There was no reason why I should think of the
woman who had spoken to me across the darkness in a voice of melody and
power, or why I should seem to feel again the exquisite, live softness
of her braid within my hand. But it was so.

"Very well," I said. "Vere, it is to you, then, as Phillida's husband,
that I must address any plans. I do not pretend to like the course she
has taken. I do not know what action her parents may take, although I
believe they will listen to my advice. Putting all that aside, she
refuses to come with me and you agree that she cannot stay here.

"I have just bought a farm in Connecticut, intending to use it as a
summer home. There are some alterations and repairs being made, but
little is to be changed inside the house and it is in perfectly livable
shape. Here is my offer. Take Phillida there, and I will make you
manager of the place. I will pay all reasonable expenses of putting the
land into proper condition and getting such stock and equipment as you
judge best; all expenses and up-keep of the house and whatever salary
usually is drawn by such managers of small estates. I shall be there, on
and off, but you and Phillida must take charge of everything. I am
neither a farmer nor a housekeeper, and do not wish to be either. I
bought the place only because New York is too hot to work in during
three months of the year, and I hate s