yes she said to him: "There must be no coolness
between you and me. I lost my temper, and spoke shamefully to you. My
dear, I am indeed sorry for it. You are never hard on me--you won't be
hard on me now?"

She offered her hand to him. He had just raised it to his lips--when
the drawing-room door was roughly opened. They both looked round.

The man of all others whom Hugh least desired to see was the man who
now entered the room. The victim of "light claret"--privately directed
to lurk in the street, until he saw a handkerchief fluttering at the
window--had returned to the house; primed with his clever wife's
instructions; ready and eager to be even with Mountjoy for the dinner
at the inn.

CHAPTER IX

MR. VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION

THERE was no unsteadiness in the doctor's walk, and no flush on his
face. He certainly did strut when he entered the room; and he held up
his head with dignity, when he discovered Mountjoy. But he seemed to
preserve his self-control. Was the man sober again already?

His wife approached him with her set smile; the appearance of her lord
and master filled Mrs. Vimpany with perfectly-assumed emotions of
agreeable surprise.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said. "You seldom favour us with
your company, my dear, so early in the evening! Are there fewer
patients in want of your advice than usual?"

"You are mistaken, Arabella. I am here in the performance of a painful
duty."

The doctor's language, and the doctor's manner, presented him to Iris
in a character that was new to her. What effect had he produced on Mrs.
Vimpany? That excellent friend to travellers in distress lowered her
eyes to the floor, and modestly preserved silence. Mr. Vimpany
proceeded to the performance of his duty; his painful responsibility
seemed to strike him at first from a medical point of view.

"If there is a poison which undermines the sources of life," he
remarked, "it is alcohol. If there is a vice that degrades humanity, it
is intoxication. Mr. Mountjoy, are you aware that I am looking at you?"

"Impossible not to be aware of that," Hugh answered. "May I ask why you
are looking at me?" It was not easy to listen gravely to Mr. Vimpany's
denunciation of intemperance, after what had taken place at the dinner
of that day. Hugh smiled. The moral majesty of the doctor entered its
protest.

"This is really shameful," he said. "The least you can do is to take it
seriously."

"What is it?" Mountjoy