"
"Go along," cried Mr. Redmain, losing, or pretending to lose,
patience with her; "you are too unscrupulous a liar for me to
deal with."
Mary turned and left the room. As she went, his keen glance
caught the expression of her countenance, and noted the indignant
red that flushed her cheeks, and the lightning of wronged
innocence in her eyes.
"I ought not to have said it," he remarked to himself.
He did not for a moment fancy she had spoken the truth; but the
look of her went to a deeper place in him than he knew even the
existence of.
"Hey! stop," he cried, as she was disappearing. "Come back, will
you?"
"I will find Mr. Mewks," she answered, and went.
After this, Mary naturally dreaded conference with Mr. Redmain;
and he, thinking she must have time to get over the offense he
had given her, made for the present no fresh attempt to come, by
her own aid, at a bird's-eye view of her character and scheme of
life. His curiosity, however, being in no degree assuaged
concerning the odd human animal whose spoor he had for the moment
failed to track, he meditated how best to renew the attempt in
London. Not small, therefore, was his annoyance to find, a few
days after his arrival, that she was no longer in the house. He
questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, and told her
she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and nurse
her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor
from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw
or fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no
longer caused the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to
write to her--as if taking it for granted she had meant to return
as soon as she was able.
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