She was asked to believe that
an invalid from a foreign hospital, who was a perfect stranger to Lord
Harry, had been willingly made welcome to a bedroom at the cottage. She
was asked to believe that this astounding concession had been offered
to the doctor as a tribute of friendship, after her husband had himself
told her that he regretted having invited Vimpany, for the second time,
to become his guest. Here was one improbable circumstance accumulated
on another, and a clever woman was expected to accept the monstrous
excuses, thus produced, as a trustworthy statement of facts.
Irresistibly, the dread of some evil deed in secret contemplation cast
its darkening presence on the wife's mind. Lord Harry's observation had
not misled him, when he saw Iris turn pale, and when the doubt was
forced on him whether he might not have frightened her.
"If my explanation of this little matter has satisfied you," he
ventured to resume, "we need say no more about it."
"I agree with you," she answered, "let us say no more about it."
Conscious, in spite of the effort to resist it, of a feeling of
oppression while she was in the same room with a man who had
deliberately lied to her, and that man her husband, she reminded Lord
Harry that he had proposed to take a walk in the garden.
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