"A richer gift than anything I can lose," said Philip.
Philip left the rector's study one of the happiest men in the world, and went away to the drawing room, where Phyllis and her mother were sure to be found at this hour of the night. He heard the voices of the boys in their smoke room, and congratulated himself on the chance of Phyllis being alone with her mother. It was just what he had hoped for.
But Phyllis was so entangled and encumbered with some fancywork when he opened the door, that she could not spring forward delightedly to meet him. She sat still; and he stooped over her and pressed his lips to her soft cheek, and then turned to kiss her mother, who also did not greet him with her accustomed rapture.
"How could you run away from your mother so soon after getting home?" she inquired reproachfully.
"Did you think I could keep away till to-morrow?" he rejoined. "My mother knew I was coming here, and she is not jealous of Phyllis. She knows I love Phyllis as much as herself, though differently. I do not love my mother less because Phyllis is so dear to me."
He lingered on the name Phyllis, slightly emphasizing it, with a delicate caress in the tone of his voice. The color flushed her pale and grave face, and her sight grew a little misty; but she went on with her embroidery as if she did not hear him.
"Now, Philip," said Laura, "sit down, and let us talk sensibly. Everything is so changed, so shockingly changed by this sad discovery. Your father made a false step, and cannot retrace it; but it alters all your position and your prospects."
"Yes," he assented.
"I want you to look at it as the world looks at it," pursued Laura. "After all, we are living in this world, not in the next, as your mother fancies. You are now comparatively a poor man; you are, in fact, a penniless man, for you are altogether dependent upon your father. Formerly you were the heir, and no caprice of your father's, or any failure in his business, could deprive you of the inheritance. You were quite secure of the future. But now you have not a penny, either in possession or prospect, which does not depend upon your father. And city businesses are so uncertain; you may be rolling in wealth one day and a bankrupt the next. Suppose your father failed, he would be all right for his life, and Martin would be all right, and so would Hugh. But where would you be?"
Philip made no answer. His eyes were fastened upon Phyllis, whose fingers went on busily with their work as if she had heard her mother's words over and over again.