He considered it quite natural that she should be a trifle hysterical in anticipating her new life--that strange untraveled country! Ah, is there anything more pathetic, he thought, than a girl's anticipations of wifehood?
But he would do his duty, and he fancied that he was doing his duty when he put aside her earnest, almost passionate protestations, and told her how happy she would be with the man who was lucky enough to have won the pure treasure of her love.
What could she do?
The terrible doubts of that month of doubting broadened into certainties.

She knew that she did not love George Holland; but she had not the courage to face Philistia as the girl who did not know her own mind.

Philistia was very solid on such points as the sacredness of an engagement between a man and a woman.

It was a contract practically as abiding as marriage, in the eyes of Philistia; and, indeed, Phyllis herself had held this belief, and had never hesitated to express it.

So nothing was left to her but to marry George Holland.