“But, Tony,” said the girl, still backing from his advances, “listen to me! It is not all nonsense, indeed. I know for myself that it is true! Having been shut up for so many years in the Convent dulled my memory for what went before it, but it has all come back to me now! It seems as if what Madame Gobelli and Doctor Phillips have said, had lifted a veil from my eyes, and I can recall things that had quite escaped my memory before. I can remember now hearing old Pete say, that when I was born, I was given to a black wet nurse, and after a little while she was taken so ill, they had to send her away, and get me another, and the next one--_died_! Pete used to laugh and call me the puma’s cub, but I didn’t know the meaning of it, then. And--Oh! stop a moment, Tony, till I have done--there was a little white child, I can see her so plainly now. They called her little Caroline, I think she must have belonged to the planter who lived next to us, and I was very fond of her. I was quite unhappy when we did not meet, and I used to creep into her nursery door and lie down in the cot beside her. Poor little Caroline! I can see her now! So pale and thin and wan she was! And one night, I remember her mother came in and found me there and called to her husband to send the ‘Brandt bastard’ back to Helvetia. I had no idea what she meant, but I cried because she sent me home, and I asked Pete what a bastard was, but he would not tell me. And,” went on Harriet in a scared tone, “little Caroline _died_! Pete carried me on his shoulder to see the funeral, and I would not believe that Caroline could be in the narrow box, and I struck Pete on the face for saying so!” “Well! my darling! and if you did, are these childish reminiscences to come between our happiness? Why should they distress you, Hally? Madame Gobelli’s insolence must have been very hard to bear--I acknowledge that, and I wish I had been by to prevent it, but you must make excuses for her. I suppose the poor creature was so mad with grief that she did not know what she was saying! But you need never see her again, so you must try to forgive her!” “But, Anthony, you do not understand me! What the Baroness said was _true_! I see it now! _I killed Bobby!_” “My dearest, you are raving! _You killed Bobby!_ What utter, utter folly! How could you have killed Bobby?” Harriet passed her hand wearily across her brow, as if she found it too hard to make her meaning plain. “Oh! yes, I did! We were always together, in the garden or the house! And he used to sit with his head on my shoulder and his arm round my waist, I should not have allowed it! I should have driven him away! But he loved me, poor Bobby, and it will be the same, Doctor Phillips says, with everybody I love! I shall only do them harm!” “Hally! I shall begin to think in another moment that you are ill yourself--that you have a fever or something, and that it is affecting your brain!”