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.
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