I will not have you talk any more of this nonsense,” said
Pennell, half annoyed by her perseverance, “and to prove to you what a
little silly you are to imagine that everyone who falls ill, or dies,
or who comes within the range of your acquaintance, owes it to your
influence, tell me how it is that your father and mother, who must have
lived nearer to you than anybody else, did not fall sick and die also.”

“My parents saw less of me than anybody,” replied Harriet, sadly, “they
were ashamed of their ‘bastard’, I suppose! But old Pete loved me, and
took me with him everywhere, and he didn’t get sick,” she concluded,
with a faint smile. “Of course not! See! what rubbish you have been talking--making
yourself and me unhappy for nothing at all! So now let me take you in
my arms and kiss the remembrance of it away!”

He was about to put his suggestion into execution, but she still shrank
from him. “No! no! indeed you must not! It is all true! I cannot forget Olga
Brimont, and Mrs. Pullen, and the baby, and poor Bobby! It is true,
indeed it is, and I have been accursed from my birth.”

And she burst into a torrent of passionate tears. Pennell let her expend some of her emotion, before he continued,

“Well! and what is to be the upshot of it all!”

“I must part from you,” replied the girl, “Indeed, indeed I must! I
cannot injure you as I have done others! Doctor Phillips said I was not
fit for marriage--that I should always weaken and hurt those whom I
loved most--and that I should draw from them, physically and mentally,
until I had sapped all their strength--that I have the blood of the
vampire in me, the vampire that sucks its victims’ breaths until they
die!”

“Doctor Phillips be damned!” exclaimed Pennell, “what right has he
to promulgate his absurd and untenable theories, and to poison the
happiness of a girl’s life, with his folly? He is an old fool, a
dotard, a senseless ass, and I shall tell him so! Vampire be hanged! And if it were the truth, I for one could not wish for a sweeter death! Come along, Hally, and try your venom upon me! I am quite ready to run
the risk!”

He held out his arms to her again, as he spoke, and she sank on her
knees beside him. “Oh! Tony! Tony! cannot you read the truth? I love you, dear, I love
you! I never loved any creature in this world before I loved you. I did
not know that it was given to mortals to love so much! And my love has
opened my eyes! Sooner than injure you, whom I would die to save from
harm, I will separate myself from you! I will give you up! I will live
my lonely life without you, I _could_ do that, but I can never, never
consent to sap your manhood and your brains, which do not belong to me
but to the world, and see you wither, like a poisoned plant, the leaves
of which lie discoloured and dead upon the garden path.”

Never in the course of their acquaintanceship had Harriet Brandt seemed
so sweet, so pathetic, so unselfish to Anthony Pennell as then. If he
had resolved not to resign her from the first, he did so a thousand
times more now. He threw his arms around her kneeling figure and
lowered his head until it lay upon the crown of her dusky hair. “My darling! my darling! my own sweet girl!” he murmured, “our
destinies are interwoven for ever! No one and nothing shall come
between us! You cannot give me up unless you have my consent to doing
so. I hold your sacred promise to become my wife, and I shall not
release you from it!”

“But if I harmed you?” she said fearfully. “I do not believe in the possibility of your harming me,” he replied,
“but if I am to die, which is what I suppose you mean, I claim my right
to die in your arms. But whenever it happens, you will have neither
hastened, nor retarded it!”

“Oh! if I could only think so!” she murmured. “You must! Why cannot you trust my judgment as much as that of Madame
Gobelli or old Phillips--a couple of mischief-makers. And now, Hally,
when shall it be?”

“When shall ‘what’ be?” she whispered. “You know what I mean as well as I do! When shall we be married? We
have no one to consult but ourselves! I am my own master and you are
alone in the world! These things are very easily managed, you know. I
have but to go to Doctors’ Commons for a special license to enable us
to be married at a registrar’s office to-morrow. Shall it be to-morrow,
love?”

“Oh! no! no! I could not make up my mind so soon!”

“But why not? Would you live in this dull hotel all by yourself, Hally?”

“I do not know! I am so very unhappy! Leave me, Anthony, for God’s
sake, leave me, whilst there is time! You do not know the risk you may
be running by remaining by my side! How can I consent to let you, whom
I love like my very life, run any risk for my sake! Oh! I love you--I
love you!” cried the impassioned girl, as she clung tightly to him. “You are my lord and master and my king, and I will never, _never_ be
so selfish as to harm you for the sake of my own gratification. You
must go away--put the seas between us--never see me, never write or
speak to me more--only save yourself, my beloved, save yourself!”

He smiled compassionately, as he would have smiled at the ravings of
a child, as he raised her from her lowly position and placed her in a
chair. “Do you know what I am going to do, little woman?” he said cheerfully. “I am going to leave you all alone to think this matter over until
to-morrow. By that time you will have been able to compare the opinions
of two people who do not care a jot about you, with those of mine who
love you so dearly. Think well over what they have said to you, and
I have said to you, and you have said to me! Remember, that if you
adhere to your present determination, you will make both yourself and
me most unhappy, and do no one any good. As for myself, I venture to
say that if I lose you my grief and disappointment will be so great,
that, in all probability, I shall never do any good work again. But be
a sensible girl--make up your mind to marry me, and give the lie to
all this nonsense, and I’ll write a book that will astonish the world! Come, Hally, is it to be ruin or success for me?--Ruin to spend my life
without the only woman I have ever cared for, or success to win my
wife and a companion who will help me in my work and make my happiness
complete?”

He kissed her tear-stained face several times, and left her with a
bright smile. “This time to-morrow, remember, and I shall come with the licence in my
pocket.”




CHAPTER XVII. Doctor Phillips did not meet Margaret and her husband until luncheon
time and then they were full of an encounter which they had had during
their morning walk. “Only fancy, Doctor!” exclaimed Margaret, with more animation than
she had displayed of late, “Arthur and I have been shopping in Regent
Street, and whom do you think we met?”

“I give it up, my dear,” replied the doctor, helping himself to cold
beef. “I am not good at guessing riddles.”

“Ralph and Elinor!