Part 23 (1/2)

”Maybe in three weeks. In a month at most. I have n.o.body here but a stupid servant girl. We ought to have a competent nurse. I can get a thoroughly trained person from the hospital; but there's a little difficulty. I am an outspoken man. When I am poor, I own I am poor. My lord must be well fed; the nurse must be well fed. Would you mind advancing a small loan, to provide beforehand for the payment of expenses?”

Iris handed her purse to him, sick of the sight of Mr. Vimpany. ”Is that all?” she asked, making for the door.

”Much obliged. That's all.”

As they approached the room on the ground floor, Iris stopped: her eyes rested on the doctor. Even to that coa.r.s.e creature, the eloquent look spoke for her. f.a.n.n.y noticed it, and suddenly turned her head aside.

Over the maid's white face there pa.s.sed darkly an expression of unutterable contempt. Her mistress's weakness had revealed itself--weakness for one of the betrayers of women; weakness for a man!

In the meantime, Mr. Vimpany (having got the money) was ready to humour the enviable young lady with a well-filled purse.

”Do you want to see my lord before you go?” he asked, amused at the idea. ”Mind! you mustn't disturb him! No talking, and no crying. Ready?

Now look at him.”

There he lay on a shabby little sofa, in an ugly little room; his eyes closed; one helpless hand hanging down; a stillness on his ghastly face, horribly suggestive of the stillness of death--there he lay, the reckless victim of his love for the woman who had desperately renounced him again and again, who had now saved him for the third time. Ah, how her treacherous heart pleaded for him! Can you drive him away from you after this? You, who love him, what does your cold-blooded prudence say, when you look at him now?

She felt herself drawn, roughly and suddenly, back into the pa.s.sage.

The door was closed; the doctor was whispering to her. ”Hold up, Miss!

I expected better things of you. Come! come!--no fainting. You'll find him a different man to-morrow. Pay us a visit, and judge for yourself.”

After what she had suffered, Iris hungered for sympathy. ”Isn't it pitiable?” she said to her maid as they left the house.

”I don't know, Miss.”

”You don't know? Good heavens, are you made of stone? Have you no such thing as a heart in you?”

”Not for the men,” f.a.n.n.y answered. ”I keep my pity for the women.”

Iris knew what bitter remembrances made their confession in those words. How she missed Rhoda Bennet at that moment!

CHAPTER XIX

MR. HENLEY AT HOME

FOR a month, Mountjoy remained in his cottage on the sh.o.r.es of the Solway Firth, superintending the repairs.

His correspondence with Iris was regularly continued; and, for the first time in his experience of her, was a cause of disappointment to him.

Her replies revealed an incomprehensible change in her manner of writing, which became more and more marked in each succeeding instance.

Notice it as he might in his own letters, no explanation followed on the part of his correspondent. She, who had so frankly confided her joys and sorrows to him in past days, now wrote with a reserve which seemed only to permit the most vague and guarded allusion to herself.

The changes in the weather; the alternation of public news that was dull, and public news that was interesting; the absence of her father abroad, occasioned by doubt of the soundness of his investments in foreign securities; vague questions relating to Hugh's new place of abode, which could only have proceeded from a preoccupied mind--these were the topics on which Iris dwelt, in writing to her faithful old friend. It was hardly possible to doubt that something must have happened, which she had reasons--serious reasons, as it seemed only too natural to infer--for keeping concealed from Mountjoy. Try as he might to disguise it from himself, he now knew how dear, how hopelessly dear, she was to him by the anxiety that he suffered, and by the jealous sense of injury which defied his self-command. His immediate superintendence of the workmen at the cottage was no longer necessary.

Leaving there a representative whom he could trust, he resolved to answer his last letter, received from Iris, in person.

The next day he was in London.

Calling at the house, he was informed that Miss Henley was not at home, and that it was impossible to say with certainty when she might return.

While he was addressing his inquiries to the servant, Mr. Henley opened the library door. ”Is that you, Mountjoy?” he asked. ”Come in: I want to speak to you.”