sweet friend. Go! I entreat you, go home!"

She retired up the stage--no, no; she withdrew to the other end of the
room--and burst into the most becoming of all human tears, theatrical
tears. Impulsive Iris hastened to comfort the personification of
self-sacrifice, the model of all that was most unselfish in female
submission. "For shame! for shame!" she whispered, as she passed
Mountjoy.

Beaten again by Mrs. Vimpany--with no ties of relationship to justify
resistance to Miss Henley; with two women against him, entrenched
behind the privileges of their sex--the one last sacrifice of his own
feelings, in the interests of Iris, that Hugh could make was to control
the impulse which naturally urged him to leave the house. In the
helpless position in which he had now placed himself, he could only
wait to see what course Mrs. Vimpany might think it desirable to take.
Would she request him, in her most politely malicious way, to bring his
visit to an end? No: she looked at him--hesitated--directed a furtive
glance towards the view of the street from the window--smiled
mysteriously--and completed the sacrifice of her own feelings in these
words:

"Dear Miss Henley, let me help you to pack up."

Iris positively refused.

"No," she said, "I don't agree with Mr. Mountjoy. My father leaves it
to me to name the day when we meet. I hold you, my dear, to our
engagement--I don't leave an affectionate friend as I might leave a
stranger."