Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/178

168 "I thought not," he muttered, as if to himself, looking thoughtfully on the ground.

"Are you not lately returned from London?" I asked.

"Only yesterday."

"And did you see him there?"

"Yes—I saw him."

"Was he well?"

"Yes—that is," said he, with increasing hesitation and an appearance of suppressed indignation, "he was as well as—as he deserved to be, but under circumstances I should have deemed incredible for a man so favoured as he is." He here looked up and pointed the sentence with a serious bow to me. I suppose my face was crimson.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Huntingdon," he continued, "but I cannot suppress my indignation when I behold such infatuated blindness and perversion of taste;—but, perhaps you are not aware—" He paused.

"I am aware of nothing sir—except that he