Blind Love

Asking for Miss Henley at the doctor's door, Hugh was informed that she

had gone out, with her invalid maid, for a walk. She had left word, if

Mr. Mountjoy called in her absence, to beg that he would kindly wait

for her return.

On his way up to the drawing-room, Mountjoy heard Mrs. Vimpany's

sonorous voice occupied, as he supposed, in reading aloud. The door

being opened for him, he surprised her, striding up and down the room

with a book in her hand; grandly declaiming without anybody to applaud

her. After what Hugh had already heard, he could only conclude that

reminiscences of her theatrical career had tempted the solitary actress

to make a private appearance, for her own pleasure, in one of those

tragic characters to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her

self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of a mistress

of her art. "Pardon me," she said, holding up her book with one hand,

and tapping it indicatively with the other: "Shakespeare carries me out

of myself. A spark of the poet's fire burns in the poet's humble

servant. May I hope that I have made myself understood? You look as if

you had a fellow-feeling for me."

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. "Have the

people at the inn given you a good dinner?"

"The people did their best," Mountjoy answered cautiously.

"Has my husband returned with you?" Mrs. Vimpany went on.

Mountjoy began to regret that he had not waited for Iris in the street.

He was obliged to acknowledge that the doctor had not returned with

him.

"Where is Mr. Vimpany?"

"At the inn."

"What is he doing there?"

Mountjoy hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany rose again into the regions of tragic

poetry. She stepped up to him, as if he had been Macbeth, and she was

ready to use the daggers. "I understand but too well," she declared in

terrible tones. "My wretched husband's vices are known to me. Mr.

Vimpany is intoxicated."

Hugh tried to make the best of it. "Only asleep," he said. Mrs. Vimpany

looked at him once more. This time, it was Queen Katharine looking at

Cardinal Wolsey. She bowed with lofty courtesy, and opened the door. "I

have occasion," she said, "to go out"----and made an exit.