"Where the dishonesty, sir!" exclaimed Mary, astounded. "To take wages from you, and pretend to Mrs. Redmain I was going without!"
"Ha! ha! The first time, no doubt, you ever pretended anything!"
"It would be," said Mary, "so far as I can, at the moment, remember."
"Go along," cried Mr. Redmain, losing, or pretending to lose, patience with her; "you are too unscrupulous a liar for me to deal with."
Mary turned and left the room. As she went, his keen glance caught the expression of her countenance, and noted the indignant red that flushed her cheeks, and the lightning of wronged innocence in her eyes.
"I ought not to have said it," he remarked to himself.
He did not for a moment fancy she had spoken the truth; but the look of her went to a deeper place in him than he knew even the existence of.
"Hey! stop," he cried, as she was disappearing. "Come back, will you?"
"I will find Mr. Mewks," she answered, and went.
After this, Mary naturally dreaded conference with Mr. Redmain; and he, thinking she must have time to get over the offense he had given her, made for the present no fresh attempt to come, by her own aid, at a bird's-eye view of her character and scheme of life. His curiosity, however, being in no degree assuaged concerning the odd human animal whose spoor he had for the moment failed to track, he meditated how best to renew the attempt in London. Not small, therefore, was his annoyance to find, a few days after his arrival, that she was no longer in the house. He questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, and told her she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and nurse her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw or fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no longer caused the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to write to her—as if taking it for granted she had meant to return as soon as she was able. And to prick the sides of this intent came another spur, as will be seen from the letter she wrote: