While I was reading about
his illness, I found myself hoping that he would recover--and, I give
you my sacred word of honour, I hated him all the time.
My Irish friend is mad--you will say. Your Irish friend, my dear
follow, does not dispute it.
Let us get back to my wife. She showed herself again after a long
absence, having something (at last) to say to her husband.
"I am innocently to blame," she began, "for the dreadful misfortune
that has fallen on Mr. Mountjoy. If I had not given him a message to
Mrs. Vimpany, he would never have insisted on seeing her, and would
never have caught the fever. It may help me to bear my misery of
self-reproach and suspense, if I am kept informed of his illness. There
is no fear of infection by my receiving letters. I am to write to a
friend of Mrs. Vimpany, who lives in another house, and who will answer
my inquiries. Do you object, dear Harry, to my getting news of Hugh
Mountjoy every day, while he is in danger?"
I was perfectly willing that she should get that news, and she ought to
have known it.
It seemed to me to be also a bad sign that she made her request with
dry eyes. She must have cried, when she first heard that he was likely
to sink under an attack of fever.
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