Mountjoy. She had
pressed him to explain himself---and she had made a discovery which
proved to be the bitterest disappointment of her life. Her husband
suspected her! Her husband was jealous of her! It was too cruel; it was
an insult beyond endurance, an insult to Mr. Mountjoy as well as to
herself. If that best and dearest of good friends was to be forbidden
the house, if he was to go away and never to see her or speak to her
again, of one thing she was determined--he should not leave her without
a kind word of farewell; he should hear how truly she valued him; yes,
and how she admired and felt for him! Would Fanny not do the same
thing, in her place? And Fanny had remembered the time when she might
have done it for such a man as Mr. Mountjoy. "Mind you stay indoors
this evening, sir," the maid continued, looking and speaking so
excitedly that Hugh hardly knew her again. "My mistress is coming to
see you, and I shall come with her."
Such an act of imprudence was incredible. "You must be out of your
senses!" Mountjoy exclaimed.
"I'm out of myself sir, if that's what you mean," Fanny answered. "I do
so enjoy treating a man in that way! The master's going out to
dinner--he'll know nothing about it--and," cried the cool cold woman of
other times, "he richly deserves it.
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