He had said all this to Eliza.
"Don't!" she cried in great surprise, but with determined opposition. "I shall never think you have any sense again if you do such a foolish and wicked thing."
"Why now, Miss White, as to losing your good opinion, I didn't know as I'd been fortunate enough to get it yet; and as to its being wicked, I don't see how you make that out."
"It's meddling with what you have nothing to do with."
"Well now, what will you give me not to go?" He said these words, as he said most of his words, in a languid, lingering way, but he turned and faced her with an abrupt glance.
He and she were standing at the head of the first staircase in the unfurnished corridor. It was the middle of the afternoon; no one chanced to be passing. He, light-moving, pretty fellow as he was, leaned on the wall and glanced at her sharply. She stood erect, massive, not only in her form, but in the strength of will that she opposed to his, and a red flush slowly mantled her pale, immobile face.
"I don't know what you want of me," she said. "Money's the thing you love, and I haven't any money; but whether I had or not, I would give you nothing." She turned at the last word.
Then Harkness, taking the chiding and jeers of all his companions good-naturedly, and giving them precisely the same excuses that he had given to Eliza, started for Quebec.
What was more remarkable, he actually brought back the old preacher with him—brought him, or rather led him, to the Harmon house, for the old man was seemingly quite passive. This was an accomplished fact when Eliza and Harkness met again.