“Yes! I was staying with her at the Red House until last night, and then she was so cruel to me that I left. Her son Bobby is dead, and she accused me of having killed him. She said that my father was a murderer and my mother a negress--that they were both so wicked that their own servants killed them, and that I have inherited all their vices. She said that it was _I_ who killed Mrs. Pullen’s baby and that I had vampire blood in me, and should poison everyone I came in contact with. What does she mean? Tell me the truth, for God’s sake, for more depends upon it than you have any idea of.” “Madame Gobelli was extremely wrong to speak in such a manner, and I do not know on what authority she did so. What can she know of your parents or their antecedents?” “But you--you--” cried Harriet feverishly, “what do _you_ say?” Doctor Phillips was silent. He did not know what to say. He was not a man who could tell a lie glibly and appear as if he were speaking the truth. Patients always guessed when he had no hope to give them, however soothing and carefully chosen his words might be. He regarded the distracted girl before him for some moments in compassionate silence, and then he answered: “I have said already that if a daughter cannot hear any good of her parents, she had better hear nothing at all!” “Then it is true--my father and mother were people so wicked and so cruel that their names are only fit for execration. If you could have said a good word for them, you would! I can read that in your eyes!” “The purity and charity of your own life can do much to wipe out the stain upon theirs,” said the doctor. “You have youth and money, and the opportunity of doing good. You may be as beloved, as they were----” “Hated,” interposed the girl, “I understand you perfectly! But what about my possessing the fatal power of injuring those I come in contact with! What truth is there in that? Answer me, for God’s sake! Have I inherited the vampire’s blood? Who bequeathed to me that fatal heritage?” “My dear Miss Brandt, you must not talk of such a thing! You are alluding only to a superstition!” “But have I got it, whatever it may be?” persisted Harriet. “Had I anything to do with the baby’s death, or with that of Bobby Bates? I loved them both! Was it my love that killed them? Shall I always kill everybody I love? I _must_ know--I _will_!”