Blind Love

"Yes."

"There's no such person here."

It was Mountjoy's turn to be puzzled. "Is this Mr. Vimpany's house?" he

said.

"Yes, to be sure it is."

"And yet Mrs. Vimpany doesn't live here?"

"No Mrs. Vimpany has darkened these doors," the girl declared

positively.

"Are you sure you are not making a mistake?"

"Quite sure. I have been in the doctor's service since he first took

the house."

Determined to solve the mystery, if it could be done, Mountjoy asked if

he could see the doctor. No: Mr. Vimpany had gone out.

"There's a young person comes to us," the servant continued. "I wonder

whether you mean her, when you ask for Mrs. Vimpany? The name she

gives is Henley."

"Is Miss Henley here, now?"

"You can't see her--she's engaged."

She was not engaged with Mrs. Vimpany, for no such person was known in

the house. She was not engaged with the doctor, for the doctor had gone

out. Mountjoy looked at the hat-stand in the passage, and discovered a

man's hat and a man's greatcoat. To whom did they belong? Certainly not

to Mr. Vimpany, who had gone out. Repellent as it was, Mr. Henley's

idea that the explanation of his daughter's conduct was to be found in

the renewed influence over her of the Irish lord, now presented itself

to Hugh's mind under a new point of view. He tried in vain to resist

the impression that had been produced on him. A sense of injury, which

he was unable to justify to himself, took possession of him. Come what

might of it, he determined to set at rest the doubts of which he was

ashamed, by communicating with Iris. His card-case proved to be empty

when he opened it; but there were letters in his pocket, addressed to

him at his hotel in London. Removing the envelope from one of these, he

handed it to the servant: "Take that to Miss Henley, and ask when I can

see her."

The girl left him in the passage, and went upstairs to the

drawing-room.

In the flimsily-built little house, he could hear the heavy step of a

man, crossing the room above, and then the resonant tones of a man's

voice raised as if in anger. Had she given him already the right to be

angry with her? He thought of the time, when the betrayal of Lord

Harry's vindictive purpose in leaving England had frightened her--when

he had set aside his own sense of what was due to him, for her

sake--and had helped her to communicate, by letter, with the man whose

fatal ascendency over Iris had saddened his life. Was what he heard,

now, the return that he had deserved?