Vimpany (having got the money) was ready to humour
the enviable young lady with a well-filled purse.
"Do you want to see my lord before you go?" he asked, amused at the
idea. "Mind! you mustn't disturb him! No talking, and no crying. Ready?
Now look at him."
There he lay on a shabby little sofa, in an ugly little room; his eyes
closed; one helpless hand hanging down; a stillness on his ghastly
face, horribly suggestive of the stillness of death--there he lay, the
reckless victim of his love for the woman who had desperately renounced
him again and again, who had now saved him for the third time. Ah, how
her treacherous heart pleaded for him! Can you drive him away from you
after this? You, who love him, what does your cold-blooded prudence
say, when you look at him now?
She felt herself drawn, roughly and suddenly, back into the passage.
The door was closed; the doctor was whispering to her. "Hold up, Miss!
I expected better things of you. Come! come!--no fainting. You'll find
him a different man to-morrow. Pay us a visit, and judge for yourself."
After what she had suffered, Iris hungered for sympathy. "Isn't it
pitiable?" she said to her maid as they left the house.
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