CHAPTER X

THE MOCKERY OF DECEIT

HAD Mountjoy arrived to take Iris away, before her preparations for
travelling were complete? Both the ladies hurried to the window, but
they were too late. The rapid visitor, already hidden from them under
the portico, was knocking smartly at the door. In another minute, a
man's voice in the hall asked for "Miss Henley." The tones--clear,
mellow, and pleasantly varied here and there by the Irish accent--were
not to be mistaken by any one who had already hear them. The man in the
hall was Lord Harry.

In that serious emergency, Mrs. Vimpany recovered her presence of mind.

She made for the door, with the object of speaking to Lord Harry before
he could present himself in the drawing-room. But Iris had heard him
ask for her in the hall; and that one circumstance instantly stripped
of its concealments the character of the woman in whose integrity she
had believed. Her first impression of Mrs. 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. She put her terrible question in the plainest words: