She made a gesture as though she were not to be beguiled by soft words.

“As for the money, it matters little.  Thank God, I have my profession.”

“At which you will starve.”

“By which I shall earn my bread as my father did.  Besides, I can fall back upon the reputation of the Family Pills.”

“I see you wish to goad me beyond endurance, Harold.  Go!”

“For good and all?”

“Yes; except on the one alternative.  Will you give up this idiotic passion?  You refuse.  It is on your own head, then.  Go—­go till I send for you, which will be never!”

Harold went without another word—­to Harbridge, overcame Dolly’s scruples, secured the practice, and within a month was married and settled.

Mrs. Purling, in Phillipa’s presence, made a great parade of burning her will.

“He has brought it all on himself, unnatural boy!  But you, darling Phillipa, will never treat me thus. Noblesse oblige. The bright blue blood that fills your veins would curdle at a mesalliance, I know.”

Mrs. Purling was quite calm and self-possessed, while Miss Fanshawe, strange to say, seemed agitated enough for both.  Her hands trembled, she looked away; only with positive repugnance she submitted to her new mother’s affectionate embrace.  A woman who is capable of the most cold-blooded calculating intrigue may yet have an access of remorse.  Phillipa’s heart was heavy now at the moment of her triumph.  It cost her more than a passing pang to remember that she had robbed Harold Purling of his birthright, and had turned to her own base purpose the foolish cravings of the silly mother’s heart.

But she had put aside self-upbraiding when she met her lover in town.

“Faith, you are a trump, Phillipa; but it’s not much too soon.  When will you take your reward?”

“Meaning Mr. Jillingham?  Is the reward worth taking, I wonder?” For a moment she held him at bay.  “Suppose I were to refuse you now at the eleventh hour?  It is for you to sue.  I am not what I was.  Mrs. Purling calls me the heiress of the Purlings, and we may not consider Mr. Gilbert Jillingham a very eligible parti.”

“You dare not refuse me, Phillipa,” said Gilly very seriously.  “I should expose your schemes, and we should go to the wall together.  No, there is no escape for you now; our interests are identical.”

“How am I to introduce you upon the scene?”

“Quite naturally; I shall go and stay at Compton Revel.  They will have me, for your sake, if not for my own.  I shall begin de novo—­at the very beginning:  be smitten, pay you court, win over the heiress, and propose.”

So it fell out, and they also were married before the end of the year.

CHAPTER VI.