If you prefer it, I will,” he answered in the same
indifferent tone. “_Who_ is that young lady sitting opposite, with the dark eyes?”
demanded Doctor Phillips of Mrs. Pullen. “The same I spoke to you of, upstairs, as having been kind to
baby--Miss Harriet Brandt!”

“I knew a Brandt once,” he answered. “Has she anything to do with the
West Indies?”

“O! yes! she comes from Jamaica! She is an orphan, the daughter of
Doctor Henry Brandt, and has been educated in the Ursuline Convent
there! She is a young lady with an independent fortune, and considered
to be quite a catch in Heyst!”

“And you and Miss Leyton are intimate with her?”

“She has attached herself very much to us since coming here. She has
few friends, poor girl!”

“Will you introduce me?”

“Miss Brandt, my friend, Doctor Phillips, wishes for an introduction to
you.”

The usual courtesies passed between them, and then the doctor said,

“I fancy I knew your father, Miss Brandt, when I was quartered in
Jamaica with the Thirteenth Lances. Did he not live on the top of the
Hill, on a plantation called Helvetia?”

“That was the name of our place,” replied Harriet, “but I left it when
I was only eleven. My trustee, Mr. Trawler, lives there now!”

“Ah! Trawler the attorney! I have no doubt he made as much out of the
property as he could squeeze.”

“Do you mean that he cheated me?” asked Harriet, naïvely. “God forbid! my dear young lady. But he was a great crony of your
father’s, and a d--d sharp lawyer, and those sort of gentry generally
feather their own nest pretty well, in payment of their friendship.”

“He can’t do me any harm now,” said Harriet, “for I have my property in
my own hands!”

“Quite right! quite right! that is, if you’re a business woman,”
rejoined the doctor. “And are you travelling all by yourself?”

Harriet was about to answer in the affirmative, when the Baroness took
the words out of her mouth. “No, Sir, she ain’t! She came over with her friend, Mademoiselle
Brimont, and now she’s under my chaperonage. She’s a deal too ’andsome,
ain’t she? to be travelling about the world alone, with her money-bags
under her arm. My name’s the Baroness Gobelli,--this is my ’usband,
Baron Gustave Gobelli, and this is my little boy, Bobby Bates--by my
first ’usband, you’ll understand--and when you return to London, if you
like to come and see Miss Brandt at our ’ouse--the Red ’Ouse, ’Olloway,
we shall be very pleased to see you!”

“I am sure, Madame, you are infinitely kind,” replied Doctor Phillips
gravely. “Not at all! You’ll meet no end of swells there, Prince Loris of
Taxelmein, and Prince Adalbert of Waxsquiemer, and ’eaps of others. But
all the same we’re in trade, the Baron and I--and we’re not ashamed of
it either. We make boots and shoes! Our firm is Fantaisie et Cie, of
Oxford Street, and though I say it, you won’t find better boots and
shoes in all London than ours. No brown paper soles, and rotten uppers! Not a bit of it! It’s all genuine stuff with us. You can take any boot
out of the shop and rip it to pieces, and prove what I say! The best
materials, and the best workmen, that’s our principle, and it answers. We can’t make ’em fast enough!”

“I have no doubt of it,” again gravely responded the old doctor. “Ah! you might send some of your patients to us, Doctor, and we’ll pay
back by recommending you to our friends. Are you a Gout man? Prince
Adalbert ’as the gout awfully! I’ve rubbed ’is feet with Elliman’s
Embrocation, by the hour together, but nothing gives ’im relief! Now
if you could cure ’im your fortune would be made! ’E says it’s all the
English climate, but _I_ say it’s over-eating, and ’e’d attend more to
a medical man, if ’e told ’im to diet, than ’e will to me!”

“Doubtless, doubtless!” said the Doctor, in a dreamy manner. He seemed
to be lost in a reverie, and Margaret had to touch his arm to remind
him that the meal was concluded. She wanted him to join the others in a promenade and see the beauties
of Heyst, but he was strangely eager in declining it. “No! no! let the youngsters go and enjoy themselves, but I want to
speak to you, _alone_.”

“My dear doctor, you frighten me! Nothing about baby, I hope!”

“Not at all! Don’t be foolish! But I want to talk to you where we
cannot be overheard.”

“I think we had better wait till the rest have dispersed then, and go
down upon the sands. It is almost impossible to be private in a hotel
like this!”

“All right! Get your hat and we will stroll off together.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, he commenced abruptly,

“It is about that Miss Brandt! You seem pretty intimate with her! You
must stop it at once. You must have nothing more to do with her.”

Margaret’s eyes opened wide with distress. “But, Doctor Phillips, for what reason? I don’t see how we could give
her up now, unless we leave the place.”

“Then leave the place! You mustn’t know her, neither must Miss
Leyton. She comes of a terrible parentage. No good can ever ensue of
association with her.”

“You must tell me more than this, Doctor, if you wish me to follow your
advice!”

“I will tell you all I know myself! Some twelve or thirteen years ago I
was quartered in medical charge of the Thirteenth Lances, and stationed
in Jamaica, where I knew of, rather than knew, the father of this girl,
Henry Brandt. You called him a doctor--he was not worthy of the name. He was a scientist perhaps--a murderer certainly!”

“How horrible! Do you really mean it?”

“Listen to me! This man Brandt matriculated in the Swiss hospitals,
whence he was expelled for having caused the death of more than one
patient by trying his scientific experiments upon them. The Swiss
laboratories are renowned for being the foremost in Vivisection and
other branches of science that gratify the curiosity and harden the
heart of man more than they confer any lasting benefit on humanity. Even there, Henry Brandt’s barbarity was considered to render him
unfit for association with civilised practitioners, and he was expelled
with ignominy. Having a private fortune he settled in Jamaica, and set
up his laboratory there, and I would not shock your ears by detailing
one hundredth part of the atrocities that were said to take place under
his supervision, and in company of this man Trawler, whom the girl
calls her trustee, and who is one of the greatest brutes unhung.”

“Are you not a little prejudiced, dear Doctor?”

“Not at all! If when you have heard all, you still say so, you are not
the woman I have taken you for. Brandt did not confine his scientific
investigations to the poor dumb creation. He was known to have decoyed
natives into his Pandemonium, who were never heard of again, which
raised, at last, the public feeling so much against him, that I am
glad to say that his negroes revolted, and after having murdered him
with appropriate atrocity, set fire to his house and burned it and all
his property to the ground. Don’t look so shocked!