The original bill was appended to the letter and the letter was posted.

Henrietta was bound to receive it next day.
Imagine then the surprise of Hatszegi, who for the last three days had been pacing impatiently up and down his room, naturally expecting every moment that the countess would surrender at discretion and send for him out of sheer gratitude, when the door was suddenly opened with considerable impetuosity and in came--Henrietta.

Before he could sufficiently recover from his amazement to ask her what she was looking for there, his wife fell on his neck, and, sobbing with emotion, came out with some long rigamarole about delicacy,--gratitude--a delightful surprise--and only half suspected kindness of heart--and a lot more of unintelligible nonsense, winding up by begging his pardon if ever she had unwittingly offended him and promising him that _after this_ she would ever be his faithful slave! _After this!_--after _what_?
It was only when his wife told him that she was alluding to that bill for 40,000 florins which he had been so kind as to send her through the countess, that some inkling of the truth burst upon him.
"Oh, that eh! It quite escaped my memory and is not worth mentioning," he cried, hiding his astonishment beneath the affectation of a magnanimity which scorned even to remember such trifles.
Oh, if the countess had been able to see him at that moment, how she would have laughed! Every drop of Leonard's blood seemed to turn to gall.

How ridiculous he had been made to appear by a woman's nobility, and the consciousness thereof was still further embittered by the artless and innocent gratitude of that other woman--his own wife.

He could have torn the pair of them to pieces.