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.