"I don't know, Miss."
"You don't know? Good heavens, are you made of stone? Have you no such
thing as a heart in you?"
"Not for the men," Fanny answered. "I keep my pity for the women."
Iris knew what bitter remembrances made their confession in those
words. How she missed Rhoda Bennet at that moment!
CHAPTER XIX
MR. HENLEY AT HOME
FOR a month, Mountjoy remained in his cottage on the shores of the
Solway Firth, superintending the repairs.
His correspondence with Iris was regularly continued; and, for the
first time in his experience of her, was a cause of disappointment to
him.
Her replies revealed an incomprehensible change in her manner of
writing, which became more and more marked in each succeeding instance.
Notice it as he might in his own letters, no explanation followed on
the part of his correspondent. She, who had so frankly confided her
joys and sorrows to him in past days, now wrote with a reserve which
seemed only to permit the most vague and guarded allusion to herself.
The changes in the weather; the alternation of public news that was
dull, and public news that was interesting; the absence of her father
abroad, occasioned by doubt of the soundness of his investments in
foreign securities; vague questions relating to Hugh's new place of
abode, which could only have proceeded from a preoccupied mind--these
were the topics on which Iris dwelt, in writing to her faithful old
friend.
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