"Oh, I wish I could think before I speak: how insolent and ill-tempered I have been! But suppose I turn out to be right, Hugh, what will you do then ?" "Then, my dear, it will be my duty to take you and your maid away from this house, and to tell your father what serious reasons there are"---- He abruptly checked himself.

Mrs.Vimpany had returned; she was in perfect possession of her lofty courtesy, sweetened by the modest dignity of her smile.
"I have left you, Miss Henley, in such good company," she said, with a gracious inclination of her head in the direction of Mountjoy, "that I need hardly repeat my apologies--unless, indeed, I am interrupting a confidential conversation." It was possible that Iris might have betrayed herself, when the doctor's wife had looked at her after examining the address on the packet.

In this case Mrs.Vimpany's allusion to "a confidential conversation" would have operated as a warning to a person of experience in the by-ways of deceit.

Mountjoy's utmost exertion of cunning was not capable of protecting him on such conditions as these.
The opportunity of trying his proposed experiment with Lord Harry's name seemed to have presented itself already.

He rashly seized on it.
"You have interrupted nothing that was confidential," he hastened to assure Mrs.Vimpany.