Looking at the last entry in my Journal, I see myself anticipating that the event of to-day will decide Philip’s future and mine. This has proved prophetic. All further concealment¹ is now at an end.

Forced to it by fate, or helped to it by chance, Eunice has made the discovery of her lover’s infidelity. “In all human probability” (as my father says in his sermons), we two sisters are enemies for life.

I am not suspected, as Eunice is, of making appointments with a sweetheart. So I am free to go out alone, and to go where I please. Philip and I were punctual to our appointment this afternoon.

Our place of meeting was in a secluded² corner of the town park. We found a rustic³ seat in our retirement⁴, set up (one would suppose) as a concession⁵ to the taste of visitors who are fond of solitude⁶. The view in front of us was bounded by the park wall and railings, and our seat was prettily⁷ approached on one side by a plantation⁸ of young trees. No entrance gate was near; no carriage road crossed the grass. A more safe and more solitary⁹ nook for conversation, between two persons desiring to be alone, it would be hard to find in most public parks. Lovers are said to know it well, and to be especially fond of it toward evening. We were there in broad daylight, and we had the seat to ourselves.

My memory of what passed between us is, in some degree, disturbed by the formidable interruption which brought our talk to an end.

But among other things, I remember that I showed him no mercy at the outset. At one time I was indignant; at another I was scornful. I declared, in regard to my object in meeting him, that I had changed my mind, And had

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