"You told him the truth," said Phil, with a laugh, "in the most judgmatical way. You stuck to it like a—woman. There's nothing like a woman for sticking to a text. You didn't say a word too much. And I say, Nell, that little defiant bit of yours—'Was there any reason why it shouldn't be the sixth?' was grand. That was quite magnificent, my pet. I never thought you had such spirit in you."
"Oh, Phil," she cried, "why did you make me say it? What was it I said? I don't know; I don't understand a bit. Whatever it was, I know that it was wrong. I deceived the man."
"That's not so great a sin," he said. "I've known worse things done. Put an old reynard off the scent to save his prey. I don't see what's wrong in that, especially as the innocent chicken to be saved was your own poor old Phil."
"Phil, Phil," she cried, "what could that man have done to you? What had put you in his power? You have made me lose all my innocence. I have got horrible things in my head. What could he have done to you that you made me tell a lie?"
"What lie did I make you tell? be reasonable; I did arrive on the sixth, you know that just as well as I do. Don't you really remember the calendar in the hall? You saw it, Nell, as well as I."
"I know, I know," she cried, putting her hands up to her eyes, "I see it everywhere staring at me, that big, dreadful 6. But how is it the 8th now? There is something in it—something I don't understand."
He laughed loudly and long: one of those boisterous laughs which always jarred upon Elinor. "I don't in the least mind how it was," he said. "It was, and that's quite enough for me; and let it be for you too, Nell. I hope you're not going to search into the origin of things like this; we've quite enough to do in this world to take things as they come."
"Oh, Phil! if at least I could understand—I don't understand: or if I had not been made to say what is so mysterious—what must be false."
"Hush, Nell; how could it be false when you saw with your own eyes it was true? Now let us be done with this, my darling. The incident is terminated, as the French say. I came here as fast as I could come to have a good laugh with you over it, and lo! you're nearer crying. Why should you have Stanny on your conscience, Nell? a fellow that would like no better than to hang me if he could get the chance."
"But Phil, Phil—oh, tell me, what could this man have done to you? Why are you afraid of him? Why, why have you made me tell him——"