But news reached the village from a friend of Phyllis’s father concerning Mr. Humphrey Gould, her cool and patient .  This gentleman had been heard to say in Bath that he considered his to Miss Phyllis to have reached only the stage of a half-understanding; and in view of his enforced absence on his father’s account, who was too great an now to attend to his affairs, he thought it best that there should be no definite promise as yet on either side.  He was not sure, indeed, that he might not cast his eyes elsewhere.  
This account—though only a piece of , and as such entitled to no absolute credit—tallied so well with the infrequency of his letters and their lack of warmth, that Phyllis did not doubt its truth for one moment; and from that hour she felt herself free to her heart as she should choose.  Not so her father; he declared the whole story to be a fabrication.  He had known Mr. Gould’s family from his boyhood; and if there was one proverb which expressed the matrimonial aspect of that family well, it was ‘Love me little, love me long.’  Humphrey was an man, who would not think of treating his engagement so lightly.  ‘Do you wait in patience,’ he said; ‘all will be right enough in time.’
 
From these words Phyllis at first imagined that her father was in correspondence with Mr. Gould; and her heart sank within her; for in spite of her original intentions she had been relieved to hear that her engagement had come to nothing.  But she presently learnt that her father had heard no more of Humphrey Gould than she herself had done; while he would not write and address her affianced directly on the subject, lest it should be deemed an on that bachelor’s honour.
 
‘You want an excuse for encouraging one or other of those foreign fellows to flatter you with his unmeaning attentions,’ her father exclaimed, his mood having of late been a very unkind one towards her.  ‘I see more than I say.  Don’t you ever set foot outside that garden-fence without my permission.  If you want to see the camp I’ll take you myself some Sunday afternoon.’
 
Phyllis had not the smallest intention of disobeying him in her actions, but she assumed herself to be independent with respect to her feelings.  She no longer checked her fancy for the Hussar, though she was far from regarding him as her lover in the serious sense in which an Englishman might have been regarded as such.  The young foreign soldier was almost an ideal being to her, with none of the appurtenances of an ordinary house-dweller; one who had she knew not whence, and would disappear she knew not whither; the subject of a fascinating dream—no more.
 
They met continually now—mostly at dusk—during the brief between the going down of the sun and the minute at which the last trumpet-call summoned him to his tent.  Perhaps her manner had become less restrained latterly; at any rate that of the Hussar was so; he had grown more tender every day, and at parting after these hurried interviews she reached down her hand from the top of the wall that he might press it.  One evening he held it so long that she exclaimed, ‘The wall is white, and somebody in the field may see your shape against it!’
 
He lingered so long that night that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could run across the intervening stretch of ground and enter the camp in time.  On the next occasion of his awaiting her she did not appear in her usual place at the usual hour.  His disappointment was unspeakably keen; he remained staring blankly at the spot, like a man in a trance.  The and sounded, and still he did not go.
 
She had been delayed by an accident.  When she arrived she was anxious because of the lateness of the hour, having heard as well as he the sounds denoting the closing of the camp.  She him to leave immediately.
 
‘No,’ he said gloomily.  ‘I shall not go in yet—the moment you come—I have thought of your coming all day.’
 
‘But you may be disgraced at being after time?’
 
‘I don’t mind that.  I should have disappeared from the world some time ago if it had not been for two persons—my beloved, here, and my mother in Saarbrück.  I hate the army.  I care more for a minute of your company than for all the in the world.’
 
Thus he stayed and talked to her, and told her interesting details of his native place, and incidents of his childhood, till she was in a simmer of at his recklessness in remaining.  It was only because she insisted on bidding him good-night and leaving the wall that he returned to his quarters.
 
The next time that she saw him he was without the stripes that had his sleeve.  He had been broken to the level of private for his lateness that night; and as Phyllis considered herself to be the cause of his disgrace her sorrow was great.  But the position was now rever............