"Madam," cried he, angrily, "what does this mean? Here I have been chasing you all over the house, without being able to catch you. What company have you just dismissed?"
"What company?" asked Lizzie.
"Yes, madam, what company?"
"Do not speak so angrily, dear Ammy. Why are you so impatient?"
"Because I wish to know what gentleman has been favouring you with such a confidential visit!"
Hamilton remembered other occasions when, on his coming home unexpectedly, his wife had shown signs of embarrassment; and, added to this, her present equivocation rendered him violently jealous. She appeared to shrink from him in fear, and became alternately red and pale, as she answered—
"There has been no gentleman here to see me!"
"No one?"
"No one, dear Ammy!"
Mr. Burgess was on the point of demanding to know who was the owner of the cap which he had seen on his wife's table, and which had now mysteriously disappeared; but emotion checked him, and he paced the floor in silence.