“My dear child,” said Doctor Phillips, as he laid his hand on hers and looked her steadily in the face, “you are over-excited. You must try to restrain yourself.”
He went up to a side table and, pouring out some cordial, made her drink it. Harriet gulped it down, and sank back exhausted in a chair. She was weak and worn-out with the excitement she had passed through.
“Come! that is better,” said the doctor, as he saw the tears stealing from beneath her closed eyelids, “now, don’t hurry yourself! Keep quiet till you feel strong enough to speak, and then tell me what it is that brings you here!”
The allusion appeared to stir up all her misery again. She sat upright and grasped the doctor by the arm as she had done at first.
“You must tell me,” she said breathlessly, “you must tell me all I want to know. They say you knew my father and mother in Jamaica! Is that true?”
The old doctor began to feel uncomfortable. It is one thing to warn those in whom you are interested against a certain person, or persons, and another to be confronted with the individual you have spoken of, and forced to repeat your words. Yet Doctor Phillips was innocent of having misjudged, or slandered anyone.
“I did know your father and mother—for a short time!” he answered cautiously.
“And were they married to each other?”
“My dear young lady, what is the use of dragging up such questions now? Your parents are both gone to their account—why not let all that concerned them rest also?”
“No! no! you forget that I live—to suffer the effects of their wrong-doing! I must know the truth—I will not leave the house until you tell me! Were they married? Am I a—a—bastard?”