Harriet thought of little Caroline; of her two nurses; of Sister
Theodosia--of Mrs. Pullen’s baby; of Bobby Bates; until she felt as
though she should go mad. No! no! she would never bring that curse upon
her Beloved; he must go far away, he must never see her again, or else
she would destroy herself in order that he might escape! But if she persuaded Anthony to consent to her wishes--if she insisted
upon a total separation between them, what would become of her? What
should she do? She had no friends in England; Madame Gobelli had
turned against her--she was all alone! She would live and die alone. How should she ever get to know people, or to obtain an entrance to
Society. She would be a pariah to the end of her life! And if she
did surmount all these obstacles, what would be the result, except
a repetition of what had gone before? Strangers would come to know
her--to like her--would grow more intimate, and she would respond to
their kindness--with the same result. They would droop and fail, die
perhaps, like Bobby and the baby--find out that she was the cause, and
shun her ever after. “Oh! God!” cried Harriet in her perplexity and anguish, “I am accursed! My parents have made me not fit to live!”

She passed that night through the agonies of Death--not the death
that overtakes the believer in a God and a Future--but the darkness
and uncertainty that enwraps the man who knows he is full of sin and
yet has no knowledge that His Lord has paid his debt to the uttermost
farthing--the doubt and anxiety that beset the unbeliever when he is
called upon to enter the dark Valley. The poor child saw her destiny
entangling her as in a net--she longed to break through it, but saw no
means of escape--and she rebelled against the cruel lot that heredity
had marked out for her. “Why am _I_ to suffer?” she exclaimed aloud; “I have youth and health
and good looks, and money--everything, the world would say, calculated
to make my life a pleasant one, and yet, I am tortured by this awful
thought--that I must keep aloof from everybody, that I am a social
leper, full of contagion and death! Doctor Phillips said that the more
I loved a person, the more I must keep away from him! It is incredible! unheard-of! Could he have had any motive in saying such a thing?”

The remembrance of her flirtation with Ralph Pullen recurred to her
mind, and she seized it, as a drowning man clutches at a straw. “Was it a plant, after all? Did the old man want to put me off the
track of Captain Pullen? Margaret Pullen is staying in the house--he
said so--had she asked him to get rid of me if possible? After all,
am I torturing myself by believing the story of my fatal power to be
true, when it was only a ruse to get rid of me? The Baroness said
the same thing, but she was mad about poor Bobby and would have said
anything to annoy me--and, after all, what does it amount to? The
baby died in teething--heaps of babies do--and Bobby was consumptive
from the first--I have heard Miss Wynward say so, and would have died
anyway, as he grew to be a man and had larger demands made upon his
physical strength. And for the others--what happened to them, happens
to all the world. It is _fortune de guerre_; people drop every day like
rotten sheep;--everyone might accuse himself of causing the death of
his neighbour. I have been frightening myself with a chimera. Anthony
said so, and he must know better than I! And I can’t give up Tony--_I
can’t, I can’t, I can’t!_ It is of no use thinking of it! Besides, he
wouldn’t let me! He would never leave me alone, until I had consented
to marry him, so I may as well do it at the first as at the last.”

But the tide of triumphant feeling would be succeeded by a wave of
despondency, which threatened to upset all her casuistry. “But if--_if_--it should be true, and Anthony should--should--Oh! God! Oh! God! I dare not think of it! I will kill myself before it shall
occur.”

When the morning dawned it found her quite undecided--lamenting her
unfortunate fate one instant, and declaring that she could never give
up her lover the next. She tore off her clothes and took a cold bath,
and re-robed herself, but she was looking utterly ill and exhausted
when Pennell burst in upon her at eleven o’clock. “Well, darling,” he exclaimed, “and have you made up your mind by this
time? Which death am I to die?--suffocated in your dear embrace, or
left to perish of cold and hunger outside?”

“O! Tony,” she cried, throwing herself into his arms, “I don’t know
what to say! I have not closed my eyes all night, trying to decide what
will be for the best. And I am as far off as ever--only I can never,
_never_ consent to do anything that shall work you harm!”

“Then I shall decide for you,” exclaimed her lover, “and that is that
you make me and yourself happy, and forget all the rubbish these people
have been telling you! Depend upon it, whatever they may have said was
for their own gratification, and not yours, and that they would be
quick enough to accept the lot that lies before you, were it in their
power!”

“I have been so lonely and friendless all my life,” said Harriet,
sobbing in his arms, “and I have longed for love and sympathy so much,
and now that they have come to me, it is hard, Oh! _so_ hard, to have
to give them up.”

“So hard, Hally, for _me_, remember, as well as yourself, that we will
not make the attempt. Now, I want you to place yourself in my hands,
and start for Paris to-night!”

“To-night?” she cried, lifting such a flushed, startled, happy face
from his breast, that he had no alternative but to kiss it again. “Yes! to-night! What did I tell you yesterday--that I should come with
the ring and the license in my pocket! I am as good as my word, and
better--for I have given notice to the registrar of marriages in my
district, that he is to be ready for us at twelve o’clock to-day. Am I
not a good manager?”

“Tony! Tony! but I have not made up my mind!”

“I have made it up for you, and I will take no refusal! I have
calculated it all to a nicety! Married at twelve--back here at one for
lunch--a couple of hours to pack up, and off by the four o’clock train
for Dover--sleep at the Castle Warden, and cross to-morrow to Paris! How will that do, Mrs. Pennell, eh?”

“Oh! ought I to do it, ought I to do it?” exclaimed Harriet, with a
look of despair. “If you don’t I’ll shoot myself. I swear it!”

“No! no! darling, don’t say that! It is of you alone that I am
thinking! God forgive me if I am doing wrong, but I feel that I cannot
refuse you! Take me and do with me as you think best.”

After which it came to pass, that Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Pennell started
in very high spirits for Dover, by the four o’clock train that
afternoon. CHAPTER XVIII. A fortnight afterwards, the married couple found themselves at Nice. Much as has been said and sung of the _lune de miel_, none ever
surpassed, if it ever reached, this one in happiness. Harriet passed
the time in a silent ecstasy of delight.