When the first information reached Iris of Hugh Mountjoy's dangerous
illness, we were at breakfast. It struck her dumb. She handed the
letter to me, and left the table.
I hate a man who doesn't know what it is to want money; I hate a man
who keeps his temper; I hate a man who pretends to be my wife's friend,
and who is secretly in love with her all the time. What difference did
it make to me whether Hugh Mountjoy ended in living or dying? If I had
any interest in the matter, it ought by rights (seeing that I am
jealous of him) to be an interest in his death. Well! I declare
positively that the alarming news from London spoilt my breakfast. There
is something about that friend of my wife--that smug, prosperous,
well-behaved Englishman--which seems to plead for him (God knows how!)
when my mind is least inclined in his favour. 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. Why were her tears kept hidden in her
own room? When she came back to me, her face was pale and hard and
tearless. Don't you think she might have forgotten my jealousy, when I
was so careful myself not to show it? My own belief is that she was
longing to go to London, and help your wife to nurse the poor man, and
catch the fever, and die with him if he died.