"Mrs. Wimple—who is she?"
"A lady, at whose house I suffered one of my cruellest disappointments," said Mowbray with a shadowed brow; "let us not speak of that!"
"Of what?"
"You do not understand?"
"I? Of course not."
"It was there that I was told, by the woman I loved, how despicable I was," said Mowbray with a cruel tremor of his pale lip.
"Oh—yes—pardon me," Hoffland said; and turning aside his head, he murmured, "Men—men! how blind you are! yes, high-gravel blind!" and looking again at Mowbray, Hoffland perceived that his face had become calm again.
"I promised Lucy to bring home some little articles from this place," he said calmly; "go in with me a moment, Charles."
Hoffland drew back.
"No," he said; "I believe—I have—I think I'd rather not."