flattery or not.' He turned to Mrs. Vimpany, and attempted to look into her life from a new point of view. 'When Miss Henley was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance,' he said, 'you were travelling in Ireland. Was it your first visit to that unhappy country?'
'I have been more than once in Ireland.'
Having again deliberately disappointed Mountjoy, she was assisted in keeping clear of the subject of Ireland by a fortunate interruption. It was the hour of delivery by the afternoon-post. The servant came in with a small sealed packet, and a slip of printed paper in her hand.
'It's registered, ma'am,' the woman announced. 'The postman says you are to please sign this. And he seems to be in a hurry.'
She placed the packet and the slip of paper on the table, near the inkstand. Having signed the receipt, Mrs. Vimpany took up the packet, and examined the address. She instantly looked at Iris, and looked away again. 'Will you excuse me for a moment?' saying this she left the room, without opening the packet.
The moment the door closed on her, Iris started up, and hurried to Mountjoy.
'Oh, Hugh,' she said, 'I saw the address on that packet when the servant put it on the table!'
'My dear, what is there to excite you in the address?'
'Don't speak so loud! She may be listening outside the door.'
Not only the words, but the tone in which they were spoken, amazed Mountjoy. 'Your friend, Mrs. Vimpany!' he exclaimed.
'Mrs. Vimpany was afraid to open the packet in our presence,' Iris went on: 'you must have seen that. The handwriting is familiar to me; I am certain of the person who wrote the address.'
'Well? And who is the person?'
She whispered in his ear:
'Lord Harry.'
CHAPTER IV
THE GAME: MOUNTJOY LOSES
SURPRISE silenced Hugh for the moment. Iris understood the look that he fixed on her, and answered it. 'I am quite sure,' she told him, 'of what I say.'
Mountjoy's well-balanced mind hesitated at rushing to a conclusion.
'I am sure you are convinced of what you tell me,' he said. 'But mistakes do sometimes happen in forming a judgment of handwriting.'
In the state of excitement that now possessed her, Iris was easily irritated; she was angry with Hugh for only supposing that she might have made a mistake. He had himself, as she reminded him, seen Lord Harry's handwriting in past days. Was it possible to be mistaken in those bold thickly-written characters, with some of the letters so quaintly formed? 'Oh, Hugh, I am miserable enough as it is,' she broke out; 'don't distract me by disputing what I know! Think of a woman so kind, so disinterested, so charming—the very opposite of a false creature—think of Mrs. Vimpany having deceived me!'
There was not the slightest reason, thus far, for placing that interpretation on what had happened. Mountjoy gently, very gently, remonstrated.
'My dear, we really don't know yet that Mrs. Vimpany has been acting under Lord Harry's instructions. Wait a little before you suspect your fellow-traveller of offering her services for the purpose of deceiving you.'
Iris was angry with him again: 'Why did Mrs. Vimpany never tell me she knew Lord Harry? Isn't that suspicious?'
Mountjoy smiled. 'Let me put a question on my side,' he said. 'Did
With most of a woman's merits, Miss Henley had many of a woman's faults. Still holding to her own conclusion, she asked how they could expect to be sure of anything if they addressed their inquiries to a person who had already deceived them.
Mountjoy's inexhaustible indulgence still made allowances for her. 'When Mrs. Vimpany comes back,' he said, 'I will find an opportunity of mentioning Lord Harry's name. If she tells us that she knows him, there will be good reason in that one circumstance, as it seems to me, for continuing to trust her.'
'Suppose she shams ignorance,' Iris persisted, 'and looks as if she had never heard of his name before?'
'In that case, I shall own that I was wrong, and shall ask you to forgive me.'
The finer and better nature of Iris recovered its influence at these words. 'It is I who ought to beg pardon,' she said. 'Oh, I wish I could think before I speak: how insolent and ill-tempered I have been! But suppose I turn out to be right, Hugh, what will you do then?'
'Then, my dear, it will be my duty to take you and your maid away from this house, and to tell your father what serious reasons there are'—— He abruptly checked himself. Mrs. Vimpany had returned; she was in perfect possession of her lofty courtesy, sweetened by the modest dignity of her smile.
'I have left you, Miss Henley, in such good company,' she said, with a gracious inclination of her head in the direction of Mountjoy, 'that I need hardly repeat my apologies—unless, indeed, I am interrupting a confidential conversation.'
It was possible that Iris might have betrayed herself, when the doctor's wife had looked at her after examining the address on the packet. In this case Mrs. Vimpany's allusion to 'a confidential conversation' would have operated as a warning to a person of experience in the by-ways of deceit. Mountjoy's utmost exertion of cunning was not capable of protecting him on such conditions as these. The opportunity of trying his proposed experiment with Lord Harry's name seemed to have presented itself already. He rashly seized on it.
'You have interrupted nothing that was confidential,' he hastened to assure Mrs. Vimpany. 'We have been
