mph. 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.

CHAPTER VI.

Mean as had been their conduct towards Mrs. Purling and her son,
Phillipa and her husband were not to be classed with common
adventurers of the ordinary type. Born in a lower station, Gilly
Jillingham might have taken honours as a "prig"; in his own with less
luck he might have been an Ishmaelite generally shunned. Phillipa also
might have degenerated into a mere soured cackling hanger-on; but they
were not pariahs by caste, but Brahmins, and entitled to all due
honour so long as they floated on top of the wave. Perhaps if near
drowning no finger would have been outstretched to save; but there
were plenty to pat them on the back as they disported themselves on
the sound dry land. Fair-weather friends and needy relatives rallied
round their prosperity, of course; but they were also accepted as
successful social facts by the whole of that great world which judges
for the most part by appearances, being too idle or too much engrossed
by folly to apply more accurate or searching tests. In good society
those who cared to talk twice of the matter blamed Harold; he was
absent; besides, he had gone to the wall, therefore he must be in the
wrong. On the other hand, the Jillinghams deserved the