On his way up to the drawing-room, Mountjoy heard Mrs. Vimpany's sonorous voice occupied, as he supposed, in reading aloud. The door being opened for him, he surprised her, striding up and down the room with a book in her hand; grandly declaiming without anybody to applaud her. After what Hugh had already heard, he could only conclude that reminiscences of her theatrical career had tempted the solitary actress to make a private appearance, for her own pleasure, in one of those tragic characters to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of a mistress of her art. "Pardon me," she said, holding up her book with one hand, and tapping it indicatively with the other: "Shakespeare carries me out of myself. A spark of the poet's fire burns in the poet's humble servant. May I hope that I have made myself understood? You look as if you had a fellow-feeling for me." Mountjoy did his best to fill the sympathetic part assigned to him, and only succeeded in showing what a bad actor he would have been, if he had gone on the stage. Under the sedative influence thus administered, Mrs. Vimpany put away her book, and descended at once from the highest poetry to the lowest prose. "Let us return to domestic events," she said indulgently. "Have the people at the inn given you a good dinner?" "The people did their best," Mountjoy answered cautiously. "Has my husband returned with you?" Mrs. Vimpany went on. Mountjoy began to regret that he had not waited for Iris in the street. He was obliged to acknowledge that the doctor had not returned with him. "Where is Mr. Vimpany?" "At the inn." "What is he doing there?" Mountjoy hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany rose again into the regions of tragic poetry. She stepped up to him, as if he had been Macbeth, and she was ready to use the daggers. "I understand but too well," she declared in terrible tones. "My wretched husband's vices are known to me. Mr. Vimpany is intoxicated." Hugh tried to make the best of it. "Only asleep," he said. Mrs. Vimpany looked at him once more. This time, it was Queen Katharine looking at Cardinal Wolsey. She bowed with lofty courtesy, and opened the door. "I have occasion," she said, "to go out"----and made an exit. Five minutes later, Mountjoy (standing at the window, impatiently on the watch for the return of Iris) saw Mrs. Vimpany in the street. She entered a chemist's shop, on the opposite side of the way, and came out again with a bottle in her hand. It was enclosed in the customary medical wrapping of white paper. Majestically, she passed out of sight. If Hugh had followed her he would have traced the doctor's wife to the door of the inn. The unemployed waiter was on the house-steps, looking about him--with nothing to see. He made his bow to Mrs. Vimpany, and informed her that the landlady had gone out. "You will do as well," was the reply. "Is Mr. Vimpany here?"