the engagement--with red eyes, while Phil was sailing to Darjiling--
"a port on the Bengal Ocean," as his mother used to tell her
friends. He was popular enough on board ship, made many
acquaintances and a moderately large liquor bill, and sent off huge
letters to Agnes Laiter at each port. Then he fell to work on this
plantation, somewhere between Darjiling and Kangra, and, though the
salary and the horse and the work were not quite all he had
fancied, he succeeded fairly well, and gave himself much
unnecessary credit for his perseverance.

In the course of time, as he settled more into collar, and his work
grew fixed before him, the face of Agnes Laiter went out of his
mind and only came when he was at leisure, which was not often. He
would forget all about her for a fortnight, and remember her with a
start, like a school-boy who has forgotten to learn his lesson.
She did not forget Phil, because she was of the kind that never
forgets. Only, another man--a really desirable young man--
presented himself before Mrs. Laiter; and the chance of a marriage
with Phil was as far off as ever; and his letters were so
unsatisfactory; and there was a certain amount of domestic pressure
brought to bear on the girl; and the young man really was an
eligible person as incomes go; and the end of all things was that
Agnes married him, and wrote a tempestuous whirlwind of a letter to
Phil in the wilds of Darjiling, and said she should never know a
happy moment all the rest of her life. Which was a true prophecy.

Phil got that letter, and held himself ill-treated. This was two
years after he had come out; but by dint of thinking fixedly of
Agnes Laiter, and looking at her photograph, and patting himself on
the back for being one of the most constant lovers in history, and