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You will doubtless, as a good Christian, expect your own reward for him and for you?" "I have mine already," she replied sadly. "Now, Dr. Vimpany, let me pay you, and get rid of your company." He counted the money carefully and put it in the banker's bag in his coat-pocket. "Thank you, my lady. We have exchanged compliments enough over this job."
He had planned, he told her, not to send for her not to let her know or suspect anything of the truth until the money had been paid to the widow by the Insurance Company. As things had turned out, it would be best for both of them to leave Passy at once that very evening before her arrival was known by anybody, and to let Vimpany carry out the rest of the business.
It was then the hour of the afternoon, between the time of luncheon and the time of dinner, when the business of a tavern is generally in a state of suspense. The dining-room was empty when Mr. Vimpany entered it: and the waiter's unoccupied attention was in want of an object. Having nothing else to notice, he looked at the person who had just come in.
Mountjoy did his best to fill the sympathetic part assigned to him, and only succeeded in showing what a bad actor he would have been, if he had gone on the stage. Under the sedative influence thus administered, Mrs. Vimpany put away her book, and descended at once from the highest poetry to the lowest prose. "Let us return to domestic events," she said indulgently.
It may help me to bear my misery of self-reproach and suspense, if I am kept informed of his illness. There is no fear of infection by my receiving letters. I am to write to a friend of Mrs. Vimpany, who lives in another house, and who will answer my inquiries. Do you object, dear Harry, to my getting news of Hugh Mountjoy every day, while he is in danger?"
Vimpany so sincerely repented, so eagerly atoned for had been the right impression after all! Younger, lighter, and quicker than the doctor's wife, Iris reached the door first, and laid her hand on the lock. "Wait a minute," she said. Mrs. Vimpany hesitated. For the first time in her life at a loss what to say, she could only sign to Iris to stand back. Iris refused to move.
Vimpany and the young Irishman sitting together, in the friendliest manner, under the composing influence of tobacco. Primed, as he would have said himself, with only a third glass of grog, the hospitable side of the doctor's character was displayed to view. He at once accepted Mountjoy's visit as offering a renewal of friendly relations between them.
Only waiting until they were alone in the railway-carriage, she opened her heart unreservedly to the man in whose clear intellect and true sympathy she could repose implicit trust. He listened to what she could repeat of Lord Harry's language with but little appearance of surprise. Iris had only reminded him of one, among the disclosures which had escaped Mr. Vimpany at the inn.
"Don't be afraid," he said; "it is impossible that I can degrade myself by quarrelling with Mr. Vimpany. I only wait here to know what you propose to do. You have Mrs. Vimpany to think of." "I have nobody to think of but You," Iris replied. "But for me, you would never have been in this house. After the insult that has been offered to you oh, Hugh, I feel it too! let us return to London together.
The doctor chimed in facetiously: "I'm Lady Harry's medical referee; you'll find her French delicacies half digested for you, sir, before you can open your mouth: signed, Clarence Vimpany, member of the College of Surgeons." Remembering Mrs. Vimpany's caution, Hugh concealed his distrust of this outbreak of hospitable gaiety, and made his excuses.
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