The New Magdalen, Chapters 1 - 15THE NEW MAGDALEN.



TO THE MEMORY OF 
CHARLES ALLSTON COLLINS. 
(9th April, 1873.) 



FIRST SCENE.
The Cottage on the Frontier. 



PREAMBLE.
THE place is France. 
The time is autumn, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy--the year of the 
war between France and Germany. 
The persons are, Captain Arnault, of the French army; Surgeon Surville, of the 
French ambulance; Surgeon Wetzel, of the German army; Mercy Merrick, attached as 
nurse to the French ambulance; and Grace Roseberry, a traveling lady on her way 
to England. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE TWO WOMEN.
IT was a dark night. The rain was pouring in torrents. 
Late in the evening a skirmishing party of the French and a skirmishing party of 
the Germans had met, by accident, near the little village of Lagrange, close to 
the German frontier. In the struggle that followed, the French had (for once) 
got the better of the enemy. For the time, at least, a few hundreds out of the 
host of the invaders had been forced back over the frontier. It was a trifling 
affair, occurring not long after the great German victory of Weissenbourg, and 
the newspapers took little or no notice of it. 
Captain Arnault, commanding on the French side, sat alone in one of the cottages 
of the village, inhabited by the miller of the district. The Captain was 
reading, by the light of a solitary tallow-candle, some intercepted dispatches 
taken from the Germans. He had suffered the wood fire, scattered over the large 
open grate, to burn low; the red embers only faintly illuminated a part of the 
room. On the floor behind him lay some of the miller's empty sacks. In a corner 
opposite to him was the miller's solid walnut-wood bed. On the walls all around 
him were the miller's colored prints, representing a happy mixture of devotional 
and domestic subjects. A door of communication leading into the kitchen of the 
cottage had been torn from its hinges, and used to carry the men wounded in the 
skirmish from the field. They were now comfortably laid at rest in the kitchen, 
under the care of the French surgeon and the English nurse attached to the 
ambulance. A piece of coarse canvas screened the opening between the two rooms 
in place of the door. A second door, leading from the bed-chamber into the yard, 
was locked; and the wooden shutter protecting the one window of the room was 
carefully barred. Sentinels, doubled in number, were placed at all the outposts. 
The French commander had neglected no precaution which could reasonably insure 
for himself and for his men a quiet and comfortable night. 
Still absorbed in his perusal of the dispatches, and now and then making notes 
of what he read by the help of writing materials placed at his side, Captain 
Arnault was interrupted by the appearance of an intruder in the room. Surgeon 
Surville, entering from the kitchen, drew aside the canvas screen, and 
approached the little round table at which his superior officer was sitting. 
"What is it?" said the captain, sharply. 
"A question to ask," replied the surgeon. "Are we safe for the night?" 
"Why do you want to know?" inquired the captain, suspiciously. 
The surgeon pointed to the kitchen, now the hospital devoted to the wounded men. 

"The poor fellows are anxious about the next few hours," he replied. "They dread 
a surprise, and they ask me if there is any reasonable hope of their having one 
night's rest. What do you think of the chances?" 
The captain shrugged his shoulders. The surgeon persisted. 
"Surely you ought to know?" he said. 
"I know that we are in possession of the village for the present," retorted 
Captain Arnault, "and I know no more. Here are the papers of the enemy." He held 
them up and shook them impatiently as he spoke. "They give me no information 
that I can rely on. For all I can tell to the contrary, the main body of the 
Germans, outnumbering us ten to one, may be nearer this cottage than the main 
body of the French. Draw your own conclusions. I have nothing more to say." 
Having answered in those discouraging terms, Captain Arnault got on his feet, 
drew the hood of his great-coat over his head, and lit a cigar at the candle. 
"Where are you going?" asked the surgeon. 
"To visit the outposts." 
"Do you want this room for a little while?" 
"Not for some hours to come. Are you thinking of moving any of your wounded men 
in here?" 
"I was thinking of the English lady," answered the surgeon. "The kitchen is not 
quite the place for her. She would be more comfortable here; and the English 
nurse might keep her company." 
Captain Arnault smiled, not very pleasantly. "They are two fine women," he said, 
"and Surgeon Surville is a ladies' man. Let them come in, if they are rash 
enough to trust themselves here with you." He checked himself on the point of 
going out, and looked back distrustfully at the lighted candle. "Caution the 
women," he said, "to limit the exercise of their curiosity to the inside of this 
room." 
"What do you mean?" 
The captain's forefinger pointed significantly to the closed window-shutter. 
"Did you ever know a woman who could resist looking out of window?" he asked. 
"Dark as it is, sooner or later these ladies of yours will feel tempted to open 
that shutter. Tell them I don't want the light of the candle to betray my 
headquarters to the German scouts. How is the weather? Still raining?" 
"Pouring." 
"So much the better. The Germans won't see us." With that consolatory remark he 
unlocked the door leading into the yard, and walked out. 
The surgeon lifted the canvas screen and called into the kitchen: 
"Miss Merrick, have you time to take a little rest?" 
"Plenty of time," answered a soft voice with an underlying melancholy in it, 
plainly distinguishable though it had only spoken three words. 
"Come in, then," continued the surgeon, "and bring the English lady with you. 
Here is a quiet room all to yourselves." 
He held back the canvas, and the two women appeared. 
The nurse led the way--tall, lithe, graceful--attired in her uniform dress of 
neat black stuff, with plain linen collar and cuffs, and with the scarlet cross 
of the Geneva Convention embroidered on her left shoulder. Pale and sad, her 
expression and manner both eloquently suggestive of suppressed suffering and 
sorrow, there was an innate nobility in the carriage of this woman's head, an 
innate grandeur in the gaze of her large gray eyes and in the lines of her 
finely proportioned face, which made her irresistibly striking and beautiful, 
seen under any circumstances and clad in any dress. Her companion, darker in 
complexion and smaller in stature, possessed attractions which were quite marked 
enough to account for the surgeon's polite anxiety to shelter her in the 
captain's room. The common consent of mankind would have declared her to be an 
unusually pretty woman. She wore the large gray cloak that covered her from head 
to foot with a grace that lent its own attractions to a plain and even a shabby 
article of dress. The languor in her movements, and the uncertainty of tone in 
her voice as she thanked the surgeon suggested that she was suffering from 
fatigue. Her dark eyes searched the dimly-lighted room timidly, and she held 
fast by the nurse's arm with the air of a woman whose nerves had been severely 
shaken by some recent alarm. 
"You have one thing to remember, ladies," said the surgeon. "Beware of opening 
the shutter, for fear of the light being seen through the window. For the rest, 
we are free to make ourselves as comfortable here as we can. Compose yourself, 
dear madam, and rely on the protection of a Frenchman who is devoted to you!" He 
gallantly emphasized his last words by raising the hand of the English lady to 
his lips. At the moment when he kissed it the canvas screen was again drawn 
aside. A person in the service of the ambulance appeared, announcing that a 
bandage had slipped, and that one of the wounded men was to all appearance 
bleeding to death. The surgeon, submitting to destiny with the worst possible 
grace, dropped the charming Englishwoman's hand, and returned to his duties in 
the kitchen. The two ladies were left together in the room. 
"Will you take a chair, madam?" asked the nurse. 
"Don't call me 'madam,'" returned the young lady, cordially. "My name is Grace 
Roseberry. What is your name?" 
The nurse hesitated. "Not a pretty name, like yours," she said, and hesitated 
again. "Call me 'Mercy Merrick,' " she added, after a moment's consideration. 
Had she given an assumed name? Was there some unhappy celebrity attached to her 
own name? Miss Roseberry did not wait to ask herself these questions. "How can I 
thank you," she exclaimed, gratefully, "for your sisterly kindness to a stranger 
like me?" 
"I have only done my duty," said Mercy Merrick, a little coldly. "Don't speak of 
it." 
"I must speak of it. What a situation you found me in when the French soldiers 
had driven the Germans away! My traveling-carriage stopped; the horses seized; I 
myself in a strange country at nightfall, robbed of my money and my luggage, and 
drenched to the skin by the pouring rain! I am indebted to you for shelter in 
this place--I am wearing your clothes--I should have died of the fright and the 
exposure but for you. What return can I make for such services as these?" 
Mercy placed a chair for her guest near the captain's table, and seated herself, 
at some little distance, on an old chest in a corner of the room. "May I ask you 
a question?" she said, abruptly. 
"A hundred questions," cried Grace, "if you like." She looked at the expiring 
fire, and at the dimly visible figure of her companion seated in the obscurest 
corner of the room. "That wretched candle hardly gives any light," she said, 
impatiently. "It won't last much longer. Can't we make the place more cheerful? 
Come out of your corner. Call for more wood and more lights." 
Mercy remained in her corner and shook her head. "Candles and wood are scarce 
things here," she answered. "We must be patient, even if we are left in the 
dark. Tell me," she went on, raising her quiet voice a little, "how came you to 
risk crossing the frontier in wartime?" 
Grace's voice dropped when she answered the question. Grace's momentary gayety 
of manner suddenly left her. 
"I had urgent reasons," she said, "for returning to England." 
"Alone?" rejoined the other. "Without any one to protect you?" 
Grace's head sank on her bosom. "I have left my only protector--my father--in 
the English burial-ground at Rome," she answered simply. "My mother died, years 
since, in Canada." 
The shadowy figure of the nurse suddenly changed its position on the chest. She 
had started as the last word passed Miss Roseberry's lips. 
"Do you know Canada?" asked Grace. 
"Well," was the brief answer--reluctantly given, short as it was. 
"Were you ever near Port Logan?" 
"I once lived within a few miles of Port Logan." 
"When?" 
"Some time since." With those words Mercy Merrick shrank back into her corner 
and changed the subject. "Your relatives in England must be very anxious about 
you," she said. 
Grace sighed. "I have no relatives in England. You can hardly imagine a person 
more friendless than I am. We went away from Canada, when my father's health 
failed, to try the climate of Italy, by the doctor's advice. His death has left 
me not only friendless but poor." She paused, and took a leather letter-case 
from the pocket of the large gray cloak which the nurse had lent to her. "My 
prospects in life," she resumed, "are all contained in this little case. Here is 
the one treasure I contrived to conceal when I was robbed of my other things." 
Mercy could just see the letter-case as Grace held it up in the deepening 
obscurity of the room. "Have you got money in it?" she asked. 
"No; only a few family papers, and a letter from my father, introducing me to an 
elderly lady in England--a connection of his by marriage, whom I have never 
seen. The lady has consented to receive me as her companion and reader. If I 
don't return to England soon, some other person may get the place." 
"Have you no other resource?" 
"None. My education has been neglected--we led a wild life in the far West. I am 
quite unfit to go out as a governess. I am absolutely dependent on this 
stranger, who receives me for my father's sake." She put the letter-case back in 
the pocket of her cloak, and ended her little narrative as unaffectedly as she 
had begun it. "Mine is a sad story, is it not?" she said. 
The voice of the nurse answered her suddenly and bitterly in these strange 
words: 
"There are sadder stories than yours. There are thousands of miserable women who 
would ask for no greater blessing than to change places with you." 
Grace started. "What can there possibly be to envy in such a lot as mine?" 
"Your unblemished character, and your prospect of being established honorably in 
a respectable house." 
Grace turned in her chair, and looked wonderingly into the dim corner of the 
room. 
"How strangely you say that!" she exclaimed. There was no answer; the shadowy 
figure on the chest never moved. Grace rose impulsively, and drawing her chair 
after her, approached the nurse. "Is there some romance in your life?" she 
asked. "Why have you sacrificed yourself to the terrible duties which I find you 
performing here? You interest me indescribably. Give me your hand." 
Mercy shrank back, and refused the offered hand. 
"Are we not friends?" Grace asked, in astonishment. 
"We can never be friends." 
"Why not?" 
The nurse was dumb. Grace called to mind the hesitation that she had shown when 
she had mentioned her name, and drew a new conclusion from it. "Should I be 
guessing right," she asked, eagerly, "if I guessed you to be some great lady in 
disguise?" 
Mercy laughed to herself--low and bitterly. "I a great lady!" she said, 
contemptuously. "For Heaven's sake, let us talk of something else!" 
Grace's curiosity was thoroughly roused. She persisted. "Once more," she 
whispered, persuasively, "let us be friends." She gently laid her hand as she 
spoke on Mercy's shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There was a rudeness in 
the action which would have offended the most patient woman living. Grace drew 
back indignantly. "Ah!" she cried, "you are cruel." 
"I am kind," answered the nurse, speaking more sternly than ever. 
"Is it kind to keep me at a distance? I have told you my story." 
The nurse's voice rose excitedly. "Don't tempt me to speak out," she said; "you 
will regret it." 
Grace declined to accept the warning. "I have placed confidence in you," she 
went on. "It is ungenerous to lay me under an obligation, and then to shut me 
out of your confidence in return." 
"You will have it?" said Mercy Merrick. "You shall have it! Sit down again." 
Grace's heart began to quicken its beat in expectation of the disclosure that 
was to come. She drew her chair closer to the chest on which the nurse was 
sitting. With a firm hand Mercy put the chair back to a distance from her. "Not 
so near me!" she said, harshly. 
"Why not?" 
"Not so near," repeated the sternly resolute voice. "Wait till you have heard 
what I have to say." 
Grace obeyed without a word more. There was a momentary silence. A faint flash 
of light leaped up from the expiring candle, and showed Mercy crouching on the 
chest, with her elbows on her knees, and her face hidden in her hands. The next 
instant the room was buried in obscurity. As the darkness fell on the two women 
the nurse spoke. 



CHAPTER II. 
MAGDALEN--IN MODERN TIMES.
"WHEN your mother was alive were you ever out with her after nightfall in the 
streets of a great city?" 
In those extraordinary terms Mercy Merrick opened the confidential interview 
which Grace Roseberry had forced on her. Grace answered, simply, "I don't 
understand you." 
"I will put it in another way," said the nurse. Its unnatural hardness and 
sternness of tone passed away from her voice, and its native gentleness and 
sadness returned, as she made that reply. "You read the newspapers like the rest 
of the world," she went on; "have you ever read of your unhappy fellow- 
creatures (the starving outcasts of the population) whom Want has driven into 
Sin?" 
Still wondering, Grace answered that she had read of such things often, in 
newspapers and in books. 
"Have you heard--when those starving and sinning fellow-creatures happened to be 
women--of Refuges established to protect and reclaim them?" 
The wonder in Grace's mind passed away, and a vague suspicion of something 
painful to come took its place. "These are extraordinary questions," she said, 
nervously. "What do you mean?" 
"Answer me," the nurse insisted. "Have you heard of the Refuges? Have you heard 
of the Women?" 
"Yes." 
"Move your chair a little further away from me." She paused. Her voice, without 
losing its steadiness, fell to its lowest tones." I was once of those women," 
she said, quietly. 
Grace sprang to her feet with a faint cry. She stood petrified--incapable of 
uttering a word. 
"I have been in a Refuge," pursued the sweet, sad voice of the other woman." I 
have been in a Prison. Do you still wish to be my friend? Do you still insist on 
sitting close by me and taking my hand?" She waited for a reply, and no reply 
came. "You see you were wrong," she went on, gently, "when you called me 
cruel--and I was right when I told you I was kind." 
At that appeal Grace composed herself, and spoke. "I don't wish to offend you--" 
she began, confusedly. 
Mercy Merrick stopped her there. 
"You don't offend me," she said, without the faintest note of displeasure in her 
tone. "I am accustomed to stand in the pillory of my own past life. I sometimes 
ask myself if it was all my fault. I sometimes wonder if Society had no duties 
toward me when I was a child selling matches in the street--when I was a 
hard-working girl fainting at my needle for want of food." Her voice faltered a 
little for the first time as it pronounced those words; she waited a moment, and 
recovered herself. "It's too late to dwell on these things now," she said, 
resignedly. "Society can subscribe to reclaim me; but Society can't take me 
back. You see me here in a place of trust--patiently, humbly, doing all the good 
I can. It doesn't matter! Here, or elsewhere, what I am can never alter what I 
was. For three years past all that a sincerely penitent woman can do I have 
done. It doesn't matter! Once let my past story be known, and the shadow of it 
covers me; the kindest people shrink." 
She waited again. Would a word of sympathy come to comfort her from the other 
woman's lips? No! Miss Roseberry was shocked; Miss Roseberry was confused. "I am 
very sorry for you," was all that Miss Roseberry could say. 
"Everybody is sorry for me," answered the nurse, as patiently as ever; 
"everybody is kind to me. But the lost place is not to be regained. I can't get 
back! I can't get back?" she cried, with a passionate outburst of 
despair--checked instantly the moment it had escaped her. "Shall I tell you what 
my experience has been?" she resumed. "Will you hear the story of Magdalen--in 
modern times?" 
Grace drew back a step; Mercy instantly understood her. 
"I am going to tell you nothing that you need shrink from hearing," she said. "A 
lady in your position would not understand the trials and the struggles that I 
have passed through. My story shall begin at the Refuge. The matron sent me out 
to service with the character that I had honestly earned--the character of a 
reclaimed woman. I justified the confidence placed in me; I was a faithful 
servant. One day my mistress sent for me--a kind mistress, if ever there was one 
yet. 'Mercy, I am sorry for you; it has come out that I took you from a Refuge; 
I shall lose every servant in the house; you must go.' I went back to the 
matron--another kind woman. She received me like a mother. 'We will try again, 
Mercy; don't be cast down.' I told you I had been in Canada?" 
Grace began to feel interested in spite of herself. She answered with something 
like warmth in her tone. She returned to her chair--placed at its safe and 
significant distance from the chest. 
The nurse went on: 
"My next place was in Canada, with an officer's wife: gentlefolks who had 
emigrated. More kindness; and, this time, a pleasant, peaceful life for me. I 
said to myself, 'Is the lost place regained? Have I got back?' My mistress died. 
New people came into our neighborhood. There was a young lady among them--my 
master began to think of another wife. I have the misfortune (in my situation) 
to be what is called a handsome woman; I rouse the curiosity of strangers. The 
new people asked questions about me; my master's answers did not satisfy them. 
In a word, they found me out. The old story again! 'Mercy, I am very sorry; 
scandal is busy with you and with me; we are innocent, but there is no help for 
it--we must part.' I left the place; having gained one advantage during my stay 
in Canada, which I find of use to me here." 
"What is it?" 
"Our nearest neighbors were French-Canadians. I learned to speak the French 
language." 
"Did you return to London?" 
"Where else could I go, without a character?" said Mercy, sadly. "I went back 
again to the matron. Sickness had broken out in the Refuge; I made myself useful 
as a nurse. One of the doctors was struck with me--'fell in love' with me, as 
the phrase is. He would have married me. The nurse, as an honest woman, was 
bound to tell him the truth. He never appeared again. The old story! I began to 
be weary of saying to myself, 'I can't get back! I can't get back!' Despair got 
hold of me, the despair that hardens the heart. I might have committed suicide; 
I might even have drifted back into my old life--but for one man." 
At those last words her voice--quiet and even through the earlier part of her 
sad story--began to falter once more. She stopped, following silently the 
memories and associations roused in her by what she had just said. Had she 
forgotten the presence of another person in the room? Grace's curiosity left 
Grace no resource but to say a word on her side. 
"Who was the man?" she asked. "How did he befriend you?" 
"Befriend me? He doesn't even know that such a person as I am is in existence." 
That strange answer, naturally enough, only strengthened the anxiety of Grace to 
hear more. "You said just now--" she began. 
"I said just now that he saved me. He did save me; you shall hear how. One 
Sunday our regular clergyman at the Refuge was not able to officiate. His place 
was taken by a stranger, quite a young man. The matron told us the stranger's 
name was Julian Gray. I sat in the back row of seats, under the shadow of the 
gallery, where I could see him without his seeing me. His text was from the 
words, 'Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 
ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. 'What happier women 
might have thought of his sermon I cannot say; there was not a dry eye among us 
at the Refuge. As for me, he touched my heart as no man has touched it before or 
since. The hard despair melted in me at the sound of his voice; the weary round 
of my life showed its nobler side again while he spoke. From that time I have 
accepted my hard lot, I have been a patient woman. I might have been something 
more, I might have been a happy woman, if I could have prevailed on myself to 
speak to Julian Gray." 
"What hindered you from speaking to him?" 
"I was afraid." 
"Afraid of what?" 
"Afraid of making my hard life harder still." 
A woman who could have sympathized with her would perhaps have guessed what 
those words meant. Grace was simply embarrassed by her; and Grace failed to 
guess. 
"I don't understand you," she said. 
There was no alternative for Mercy but to own the truth in plain words. She 
sighed, and said the words. "I was afraid I might interest him in my sorrows, 
and might set my heart on him in return." The utter absence of any 
fellow-feeling with her on Grace's side expressed itself unconsciously in the 
plainest terms. 
"You!" she exclaimed, in a tone of blank astonishment. 
The nurse rose slowly to her feet. Grace's expression of surprise told her 
plainly--almost brutally--that her confession had gone far enough. 
"I astonish you?" she said. "Ah, my young lady, you don't know what rough usage 
a woman's heart can bear, and still beat truly! Before I saw Julian Gray I only 
knew men as objects of horror to me. Let us drop the subject. The preacher at 
the Refuge is nothing but a remembrance now--the one welcome remembrance of my 
life! I have nothing more to tell you. You insisted on hearing my story--you 
have heard it." 
"I have not heard how you found employment here," said Grace, continuing the 
conversation with uneasy politeness, as she best might. 
Mercy crossed the room, and slowly raked together the last living embers of the 
fire. 
"The matron has friends in France," she answered, "who are connected with the 
military hospitals. It was not difficult to get me the place, under those 
circumstances. Society can find a use for me here. My hand is as light, my words 
of comfort are as welcome, among those suffering wretches" (she pointed to the 
room in which the wounded men were lying) "as if I was the most reputable woman 
breathing. And if a stray shot comes my way before the war is over--well! 
Society will be rid of me on easy terms." 
She stood looking thoughtfully into the wreck of the fire--as if she saw in it 
the wreck of her own life. Common humanity made it an act of necessity to say 
something to her. Grace considered--advanced a step toward her--stopped--and 
took refuge in the most trivial of all the common phrases which one human being 
can address to another. 
"If there is anything I can do for you--" she began. The sentence, halting 
there, was never finished. Miss Roseberry was just merciful enough toward the 
lost woman who had rescued and sheltered her to feel that it was needless to say 
more. 
The nurse lifted her noble head and advanced slowly toward the canvas screen to 
return to her duties. "Miss Roseberry might have taken my hand!" she thought to 
herself, bitterly. No! Miss Roseberry stood there at a distance, at a loss what 
to say next. "What can you do for me?" Mercy asked, stung by the cold courtesy 
of her companion into a momentary outbreak of contempt. "Can you change my 
identity? Can you give me the name and the place of an innocent woman? If I only 
had your chance! If I only had your reputation and your prospects!" She laid one 
hand over her bosom, and controlled herself. "Stay here," she resumed, "while I 
go back to my work. I will see that your clothes are dried. You shall wear my 
clothes as short a time as possible." 
With those melancholy words--touchingly, not bitterly spoken--she moved to pass 
into the kitchen, when she noticed that the pattering sound of the rain against 
the window was audible no more. Dropping the canvas for the moment, she retraced 
her steps, and, unfastening the wooden shutter, looked out. 
The moon was rising dimly in the watery sky; the rain had ceased; the friendly 
darkness which had hidden the French position from the German scouts was 
lessening every moment. In a few hours more (if nothing happened) the English 
lady might resume her journey. In a few hours more the morning would dawn. 
Mercy lifted her hand to close the shutter. Before she could fasten it the 
report of a rifle-shot reached the cottage from one of the distant posts. It was 
followed almost instantly by a second report, nearer and louder than the first. 
Mercy paused, with the shutter in her hand, and listened intently for the next 
sound. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE GERMAN SHELL.
A THIRD rifle-shot rang through the night air, close to the cottage. Grace 
started and approached the window in alarm. 
"What does that firing mean?" she asked. 
"Signals from the outposts," the nurse quietly replied. 
"Is there any danger? Have the Germans come back?" 
Surgeon Surville answered the question. He lifted the canvas screen, and looked 
into the room as Miss Roseberry spoke. 
"The Germans are advancing on us," he said. "Their vanguard is in sight." 
Grace sank on the chair near her, trembling from head to foot. Mercy advanced to 
the surgeon, and put the decisive question to him. 
"Do we defend the position?" she inquired. 
Surgeon Surville ominously shook his head. 
"Impossible! We are outnumbered as usual--ten to one." 
The shrill roll of the French drums was heard outside. 
"There is the retreat sounded!" said the surgeon. "The captain is not a man to 
think twice about what he does. We are left to take care of ourselves. In five 
minutes we must be out of this place." 
A volley of rifle-shots rang out as he spoke. The German vanguard was attacking 
the French at the outposts. Grace caught the surgeon entreatingly by the arm. 
"Take me with you," she cried. "Oh, sir, I have suffered from the Germans 
already! Don't forsake me, if they come back!" The surgeon was equal to the 
occasion; he placed the hand of the pretty Englishwoman on his breast. "Fear 
nothing, madam," he said, looking as if he could have annihilated the whole 
German force with his own invincible arm. "A Frenchman's heart beats under your 
hand. A Frenchman's devotion protects you." Grace's head sank on his shoulder. 
Monsieur Surville felt that he had asserted himself; he looked round invitingly 
at Mercy. She, too, was an attractive woman. The Frenchman had another shoulder 
at her service. Unhappily the room was dark--the look was lost on Mercy. She was 
thinking of the helpless men in the inner chamber, and she quietly recalled the 
surgeon to a sense of his professional duties. 
"What is to become of the sick and wounded?" she asked. 
Monsieur Surville shrugged one shoulder--the shoulder that was free. 
"The strongest among them we can take away with us," he said. "The others must 
be left here. Fear nothing for yourself, dear lady. There will be a place for 
you in the baggage-wagon." 
"And for me, too?" Grace pleaded, eagerly. 
The surgeon's invincible arm stole round the young lady's waist, and answered 
mutely with a squeeze. 
"Take her with you," said Mercy. "My place is with the men whom you leave 
behind." 
Grace listened in amazement. "Think what you risk," she said "if you stop here." 

Mercy pointed to her left shoulder. 
"Don't alarm yourself on my account," she answered; "the red cross will protect 
me." 
Another roll of the drum warned the susceptible surgeon to take his place as 
director-general of the ambulance without any further delay. He conducted Grace 
to a chair, and placed both her hands on his heart this time, to reconcile her 
to the misfortune of his absence. "Wait here till I return for you," he 
whispered. "Fear nothing, my charming friend. Say to yourself, 'Surville is the 
soul of honor! Surville is devoted to me!'" He struck his breast; he again 
forgot the obscurity in the room, and cast one look of unutterable homage at his 
charming friend. "A bientot!" he cried, and kissed his hand and disappeared. 
As the canvas screen fell over him the sharp report of the rifle-firing was 
suddenly and grandly dominated by the roar of cannon. The instant after a shell 
exploded in the garden outside, within a few yards of the window. 
Grace sank on her knees with a shriek of terror. Mercy, without losing her 
self-possession, advanced to the window and looked out. 
"The moon has risen," she said. "The Germans are shelling the village." 
Grace rose, and ran to her for protection. 
"Take me away!" she cried. "We shall be killed if we stay here." She stopped, 
looking in astonishment at the tall black figure of the nurse, standing 
immovably by the window. "Are you made of iron?" she exclaimed. "Will nothing 
frighten you?" 
Mercy smiled sadly. "Why should I be afraid of losing my life?" she answered. "I 
have nothing worth living for!" 
The roar of the cannon shook the cottage for the second time. A second shell 
exploded in the courtyard, on the opposite side of the building. 
Bewildered by the noise, panic-stricken as the danger from the shells threatened 
the cottage more and more nearly, Grace threw her arms round the nurse, and 
clung, in the abject familiarity of terror, to the woman whose hand she had 
shrunk from touching not five minutes since. "Where is it safest?" she cried. 
"Where can I hide myself?" 
"How can I tell where the next shell will fall?" Mercy answered, quietly. 
The steady composure of the one woman seemed to madden the other. Releasing the 
nurse, Grace looked wildly round for a way of escape from the cottage. Making 
first for the kitchen, she was driven back by the clamor and confusion attending 
the removal of those among the wounded who were strong enough to be placed in 
the wagon. A second look round showed her the door leading into the yard. She 
rushed to it with a cry of relief. She had just laid her hand on the lock when 
the third report of cannon burst over the place. 
Starting back a step, Grace lifted her hands mechanically to her ears. At the 
same moment the third shell burst through the roof of the cottage, and exploded 
in the room, just inside the door. Mercy sprang forward, unhurt, from her place 
at the window. The burning fragments of the shell were already firing the dry 
wooden floor, and in the midst of them, dimly seen through the smoke, lay the 
insensible body of her companion in the room. Even at that dreadful moment the 
nurse's presence of mind did not fail her. Hurrying back to the place that she 
had just left, near which she had already noticed the miller's empty sacks lying 
in a heap, she seized two of them, and, throwing them on the smoldering floor, 
trampled out the fire. That done, she knelt by the senseless woman, and lifted 
her head. 
Was she wounded? or dead? 
Mercy raised one helpless hand, and laid her fingers on the wrist. While she was 
still vainly trying to feel for the beating of the pulse, Surgeon Surville 
(alarmed for the ladies) hurried in to inquire if any harm had been done. 
Mercy called to him to approach. "I am afraid the shell has struck her," she 
said, yielding her place to him. "See if she is badly hurt." 
The surgeon's anxiety for his charming patient expressed itself briefly in an 
oath, with a prodigious emphasis laid on one of the letters in it--the letter R. 
"Take off her cloak," he cried, raising his hand to her neck. "Poor angel! She 
has turned in falling; the string is twisted round her throat." 
Mercy removed the cloak. It dropped on the floor as the surgeon lifted Grace in 
his arms. "Get a candle," he said, impatiently; "they will give you one in the 
kitchen." He tried to feel the pulse: his hand trembled, the noise and confusion 
in the kitchen bewildered him. "Just Heaven!" he exclaimed. "My emotions 
overpower me!" Mercy approached him with the candle. The light disclosed the 
frightful injury which a fragment of the shell had inflicted on the 
Englishwoman's head. Surgeon Surville's manner altered on the instant. The 
expression of anxiety left his face; its professional composure covered it 
suddenly like a mask. What was the object of his admiration now? An inert burden 
in his arms--nothing more. 
The change in his face was not lost on Mercy. Her large gray eyes watched him 
attentively. "Is the lady seriously wounded?" she asked. 
"Don't trouble yourself to hold the light any longer," was the cool reply. "It's 
all over--I can do nothing for her." 
"Dead?" 
Surgeon Surville nodded and shook his fist in the direction of the outposts. 
"Accursed Germans!" he cried, and looked down at the dead face on his arm, and 
shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "The fortune of war!" he said as he lifted 
the body and placed it on the bed in one corner of the room. "Next time, nurse, 
it may be you or me. Who knows? Bah! the problem of human destiny disgusts me." 
He turned from the bed, and illustrated his disgust by spitting on the fragments 
of the exploded shell. "We must leave her there," he resumed. "She was once a 
charming person--she is nothing now. Come away, Miss Mercy, before it is too 
late." 
He offered his arm to the nurse; the creaking of the baggage-wagon, starting on 
its journey, was heard outside, and the shrill roll of the drums was renewed in 
the distance. The retreat had begun. 
Mercy drew aside the canvas, and saw the badly wounded men, left helpless at the 
mercy of the enemy, on their straw beds. She refused the offer of Monsieur 
Surville's arm. 
"I have already told you that I shall stay here," she answered. 
Monsieur Surville lifted his hands in polite remonstrance. Mercy held back the 
curtain, and pointed to the cottage door. 
"Go," she said. "My mind is made up." 
Even at that final moment the Frenchman asserted himself. He made his exit with 
unimpaired grace and dignity. "Madam," he said, "you are sublime!" With that 
parting compliment the man of gallantry--true to the last to his admiration of 
the sex--bowed, with his hand on his heart, and left the cottage. 
Mercy dropped the canvas over the doorway. She was alone with the dead woman. 
The last tramp of footsteps, the last rumbling of the wagon wheels, died away in 
the distance. No renewal of firing from the position occupied by the enemy 
disturbed the silence that followed. The Germans knew that the French were in 
retreat. A few minutes more and they would take possession of the abandoned 
village: the tumult of their approach should become audible at the cottage. In 
the meantime the stillness was terrible. Even the wounded wretches who were left 
in the kitchen waited their fate in silence. 
Alone in the room, Mercy's first look was directed to the bed. 
The two women had met in the confusion of the first skirmish at the close of 
twilight. Separated, on their arrival at the cottage, by the duties required of 
the nurse, they had only met again in the captain's room. The acquaintance 
between them had been a short one; and it had given no promise of ripening into 
friendship. But the fatal accident had roused Mercy's interest in the stranger. 
She took the candle, and approached the corpse of the woman who had been 
literally killed at her side. 
She stood by the bed, looking down in the silence of the night at the stillness 
of the dead face. 
It was a striking face--once seen (in life or in death) not to be forgotten 
afterward. The forehead was unusually low and broad; the eyes unusually far 
apart; the mouth and chin remarkably small. With tender hands Mercy smoothed the 
disheveled hair and arranged the crumpled dress. "Not five minutes since," she 
thought to herself, "I was longing to change places with you!" She turned from 
the bed with a sigh. "I wish I could change places now!" 
The silence began to oppress her. She walked slowly to the other end of the 
room. 
The cloak on the floor--her own cloak, which she had lent to Miss 
Roseberry--attracted her attention as she passed it. She picked it up and 
brushed the dust from it, and laid it across a chair. This done, she put the 
light back on the table, and going to the window, listened for the first sounds 
of the German advance. The faint passage of the wind through some trees near at 
hand was the only sound that caught her ears. She turned from the window, and 
seated herself at the table, thinking. Was there any duty still left undone that 
Christian charity owed to the dead? Was there any further service that pressed 
for performance in the interval before the Germans appeared? 
Mercy recalled the conversation that had passed between her ill- fated companion 
and herself. Miss Roseberry had spoken of her object in returning to England. 
She had mentioned a lady--a connection by marriage, to whom she was personally a 
stranger--who was waiting to receive her. Some one capable of stating how the 
poor creature had met with her death ought to write to her only friend. Who was 
to do it? There was nobody to do it but the one witness of the catastrophe now 
left in the cottage--Mercy herself. 
She lifted the cloak from the chair on which she had placed it, and took from 
the pocket the leather letter-case which Grace had shown to her. The only way of 
discovering the address to write to in England was to open the case and examine 
the papers inside. Mercy opened the case--and stopped, feeling a strange 
reluctance to carry the investigation any farther. 
A moment's consideration satisfied her that her scruples were misplaced. If she 
respected the case as inviolable, the Germans would certainly not hesitate to 
examine it, and the Germans would hardly trouble themselves to write to England. 
Which were the fittest eyes to inspect the papers of the deceased lady--the eyes 
of men and foreigners, or the eyes of her own countrywoman? Mercy's hesitation 
left her. She emptied the contents of the case on the table. 
That trifling action decided the whole future course of her life. 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE TEMPTATION.
Some letters, tied together with a ribbon, attracted Mercy's attention first. 
The ink in which the addresses were written had faded with age. The letters, 
directed alternately to Colonel Roseberry and to the Honorable Mrs. Roseberry, 
contained a correspondence between the husband and wife at a time when the 
Colonel's military duties had obliged him to be absent from home. Mercy tied the 
letters up again, and passed on to the papers that lay next in order under her 
hand. 
These consisted of a few leaves pinned together, and headed (in a woman's 
handwriting) "My Journal at Rome." A brief examination showed that the journal 
had been written by Miss Roseberry, and that it was mainly devoted to a record 
of the last days of her father's life. 
After replacing the journal and the correspondence in the case, the one paper 
left on the table was a letter. The envelope, which was unclosed, bore this 
address: "Lady Janet Roy, Mablethorpe House, Kensington, London." Mercy took the 
inclosure from the open envelope. The first lines she read informed her that she 
had found the Colonel's letter of introduction, presenting his daughter to her 
protectress on her arrival in England 
Mercy read the letter through. It was described by the writer as the last 
efforts of a dying man. Colonel Roseberry wrote affectionately of his daughter's 
merits, and regretfully of her neglected education--ascribing the latter to the 
pecuniary losses which had forced him to emigrate to Canada in the character of 
a poor man. Fervent expressions of gratitude followed, addressed to Lady Janet. 
"I owe it to you," the letter concluded, "that I am dying with my mind at ease 
about the future of my darling girl. To your generous protection I commit the 
one treasure I have left to me on earth. Through your long lifetime you have 
nobly used your high rank and your great fortune as a means of doing good. I 
believe it will not be counted among the least of your virtues hereafter that 
you comforted the last hours of an old soldier by opening your heart and your 
home to his friendless child." 
So the letter ended. Mercy laid it down with a heavy heart. What a chance the 
poor girl had lost! A woman of rank and fortune waiting to receive her--a woman 
so merciful and so generous that the father's mind had been easy about the 
daughter on his deathbed--and there the daughter lay, beyond the reach of Lady 
Janet's kindness, beyond the need of Lady Janet's help! 
The French captain's writing-materials were left on the table. Mercy turned the 
letter over so that she might write the news of Miss Roseberry's death on the 
blank page at the end. She was still considering what expressions she should 
use, when the sound of complaining voices from the next room caught her ear. The 
wounded men left behind were moaning for help--the deserted soldiers were losing 
their fortitude at last. 
She entered the kitchen. A cry of delight welcomed her appearance--the mere 
sight of her composed the men. From one straw bed to another she passed with 
comforting words that gave them hope, with skilled and tender hands that soothed 
their pain. They kissed the hem of her black dress, they called her their 
guardian angel, as the beautiful creature moved among them, and bent over their 
hard pillows her gentle, compassionate face. "I will be with you when the 
Germans come," she said, as she left them to return to her unwritten letter. 
"Courage, my poor fellows! you are not deserted by your nurse." 
"Courage, madam!" the men replied; "and God bless you!" 
If the firing had been resumed at that moment--if a shell had struck her dead in 
the act of succoring the afflicted, what Christian judgment would have hesitated 
to declare that there was a place for this woman in heaven? But if the war ended 
and left her still living, where was the place for her on earth? Where were her 
prospects? Where was her home? 
She returned to the letter. Instead, however, of seating herself to write, she 
stood by the table, absently looking down at the morsel of paper. 
A strange fancy had sprung to life in her mind on re-entering the room; she 
herself smiled faintly at the extravagance of it. What if she were to ask Lady 
Janet Roy to let her supply Miss Roseberry's place? She had met with Miss 
Roseberry under critical circumstances, and she had done for her all that one 
woman could do to help another. There was in this circumstance some little claim 
to notice, perhaps, if Lady Janet had no other companion and reader in view. 
Suppose she ventured to plead her own cause--what would the noble and merciful 
lady do? She would write back, and say, "Send me references to your character, 
and I will see what can be done." Her character! Her references! Mercy laughed 
bitterly, and sat down to write in the fewest words all that was needed from 
her--a plain statement of the facts. 
No! Not a line could she put on the paper. That fancy of hers was not to be 
dismissed at will. Her mind was perversely busy now with an imaginative picture 
of the beauty of Mablethorpe House and the comfort and elegance of the life that 
was led there. Once more she thought of the chance which Miss Roseberry had 
lost. Unhappy creature! what a home would have been open to her if the shell had 
only fallen on the side of the window, instead of on the side of the yard! 
Mercy pushed the letter away from her, and walked impatiently to and fro in the 
room. 
The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mastered in that way. Her mind only 
abandoned one useless train of reflection to occupy itself with another. She was 
now looking by anticipation at her own future. What were her prospects (if she 
lived through it) when the war was over? The experience of the past delineated 
with pitiless fidelity the dreary scene. Go where she might, do what she might, 
it would always end in the same way. Curiosity and admiration excited by her 
beauty; inquiries made about her; the story of the past discovered; Society 
charitably sorry for her; Society generously subscribing for her; and still, 
through all the years of her life, the same result in the end--the shadow of the 
old disgrace surrounding her as with a pestilence, isolating her among other 
women, branding her, even when she had earned her pardon in the sight of God, 
with the mark of an indelible disgrace in the sight of man: there was the 
prospect! And she was only five-and-twenty last birthday; she was in the prime 
of her health and her strength; she might live, in the course of nature, fifty 
years more! 
She stopped again at the bedside; she looked again at the face of the corpse. 
To what end had the shell struck the woman who had some hope in her life, and 
spared the woman who had none? The words she had herself spoken to Grace 
Roseberry came back to her as she thought of it. "If I only had your chance! If 
I only had your reputation and your prospects!" And there was the chance wasted! 
there were the enviable prospects thrown away! It was almost maddening to 
contemplate that result, feeling her own position as she felt it. In the bitter 
mockery of despair she bent over the lifeless figure, and spoke to it as if it 
had ears to hear her. "Oh!" she said, longingly, "if you could be Mercy Merrick, 
and if I could be Grace Roseberry, now!" 
The instant the words passed her lips she started into an erect position. She 
stood by the bed with her eyes staring wildly into empty space; with her brain 
in a flame; with her heart beating as if it would stifle her. "If you could be 
Mercy Merrick, and if I could be Grace Roseberry, now!" In one breathless moment 
the thought assumed a new development in her mind. In one breathless moment the 
conviction struck her like an electric shock. She might be Grace Roseberry if 
she dared! There was absolutely nothing to stop her from presenting herself to 
Lady Janet Roy under Grace's name and in Grace's place! 
What were the risks? Where was the weak point in the scheme? 
Grace had said it herself in so many words--she and Lady Janet had never seen 
each other. Her friends were in Canada; her relations in England were dead. 
Mercy knew the place in which she had lived--the place called Port Logan--as 
well as she had known it herself. Mercy had only to read the manuscript journal 
to be able to answer any questions relating to the visit to Rome and to Colonel 
Roseberry's death. She had no accomplished lady to personate: Grace had spoken 
herself--her father's letter spoke also in the plainest terms--of her neglected 
education. Everything, literally everything, was in the lost woman's favor. The 
people with whom she had been connected in the ambulance had gone, to return no 
more. Her own clothes were on Miss Roseberry at that moment--marked with her own 
name. Miss Roseberry's clothes, marked with her name, were drying, at Mercy's 
disposal, in the next room. The way of escape from the unendurable humiliation 
of her present life lay open before her at last. What a prospect it was! A new 
identity, which she might own anywhere! a new name, which was beyond reproach! a 
new past life, into which all the world might search, and be welcome! Her color 
rose, her eyes sparkled; she had never been so irresistibly beautiful as she 
looked at the moment when the new future disclosed itself, radiant with new 
hope. 
She waited a minute, until she could look at her own daring project from another 
point of view. Where was the harm of it? what did her conscience say? 
As to Grace, in the first place. What injury was she doing to a woman who was 
dead? The question answered itself. No injury to the woman. No injury to her 
relations. Her relations were dead also. 
As to Lady Janet, in the second place. If she served her new mistress 
faithfully, if she filled her new sphere honorably, if she was diligent under 
instruction and grateful for kindness--if, in one word, she was all that she 
might be and would be in the heavenly peace and security of that new life--what 
injury was she doing to Lady Janet? Once more the question answered itself. She 
might, and would, give Lady Janet cause to bless the day when she first entered 
the house. 
She snatched up Colonel Roseberry's letter, and put it into the case with the 
other papers. The opportunity was before her; the chances were all in her favor; 
her conscience said nothing against trying the daring scheme. She decided then 
and there--"I'll do it!" 
Something jarred on her finer sense, something offended her better nature, as 
she put the case into the pocket of her dress. She had decided, and yet she was 
not at ease; she was not quite sure of having fairly questioned her conscience 
yet. What if she laid the letter-case on the table again, and waited until her 
excitement had all cooled down, and then put the contemplated project soberly on 
its trial before her own sense of right and wrong? 
She thought once--and hesitated. Before she could think twice, the distant tramp 
of marching footsteps and the distant clatter of horses' hoofs were wafted to 
her on the night air. The Germans were entering the village! In a few minutes 
more they would appear in the cottage; they would summon her to give an account 
of herself. There was no time for waiting until she was composed again. Which 
should it be--the new life, as Grace Roseberry? or the old life, as Mercy 
Merrick? 
She looked for the last time at the bed. Grace's course was run; Grace's future 
was at her disposal. Her resolute nature, forced to a choice on the instant, 
held by the daring alternative. She persisted in the determination to take 
Grace's place. 
The tramping footsteps of the Germans came nearer and nearer. The voices of the 
officers were audible, giving the words of command. 
She seated herself at the table, waiting steadily for what was to come. 
The ineradicable instinct of the sex directed her eyes to her dress, before the 
Germans appeared. Looking it over to see that it was in perfect order, her eyes 
fell upon the red cross on her left shoulder. In a moment it struck her that her 
nurse's costume might involve her in a needless risk. It associated her with a 
public position; it might lead to inquiries at a later time, and those inquiries 
might betray her. 
She looked round. The gray cloak which she had lent to Grace attracted her 
attention. She took it up, and covered herself with it from head to foot. 
The cloak was just arranged round her when she heard the outer door thrust open, 
and voices speaking in a strange tongue, and arms grounded in the room behind 
her. Should she wait to be discovered? or should she show herself of her own 
accord? It was less trying to such a nature as hers to show herself than to 
wait. She advanced to enter the kitchen. The canvas curtain, as she stretched 
out her hand to it, was suddenly drawn back from the other side, and three men 
confronted her in the open doorway. 



CHAPTER V. 
THE GERMAN SURGEON.
THE youngest of the three strangers--judging by features, complexion, and 
manner--was apparently an Englishman. He wore a military cap and military boots, 
but was otherwise dressed as a civilian. Next to him stood an officer in 
Prussian uniform, and next to the officer was the third and the oldest of the 
party. He also was dressed in uniform, but his appearance was far from being 
suggestive of the appearance of a military man. He halted on one foot, he 
stooped at the shoulders, and instead of a sword at his side he carried a stick 
in his hand. After looking sharply through a large pair of tortoise-shell 
spectacles, first at Mercy, then at the bed, then all round the room, he turned 
with a cynical composure of manner to the Prussian officer, and broke the 
silence in these words: 
"A woman ill on the bed; another woman in attendance on her, and no one else in 
the room. Any necessity, major, for setting a guard here?" 
"No necessity," answered the major. He wheeled round on his heel and returned to 
the kitchen. The German surgeon advanced a little, led by his professional 
instinct, in the direction of the bedside. The young Englishman, whose eyes had 
remained riveted in admiration on Mercy, drew the canvas screen over the doorway 
and respectfully addressed her in the French language. 
"May I ask if I am speaking to a French lady?" he said. 
"I am an Englishwoman," Mercy replied. 
The surgeon heard the answer. Stopping short on his way to the bed, he pointed 
to the recumbent figure on it, and said to Mercy, in good English, spoken with a 
strong German accent. 
"Can I be of any use there?" 
His manner was ironically courteous, his harsh voice was pitched in one sardonic 
monotony of tone. Mercy took an instantaneous dislike to this hobbling, ugly old 
man, staring at her rudely through his great tortoiseshell spectacles. 
"You can be of no use, sir," she said, shortly. "The lady was killed when your 
troops shelled this cottage." 
The Englishman started, and looked compassionately toward the bed. The German 
refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff, and put another question. 
"Has the body been examined by a medical man?" he asked. 
Mercy ungraciously limited her reply to the one necessary word "Yes." 
The present surgeon was not a man to be daunted by a lady's disapproval of him. 
He went on with his questions. 
"Who has examined the body?" he inquired next. 
Mercy answered, "The doctor attached to the French ambulance." 
The German grunted in contemptuous disapproval of all Frenchmen, and all French 
institutions. The Englishman seized his first opportunity of addressing himself 
to Mercy once more. 
"Is the lady a countrywoman of ours?" he asked, gently. 
Mercy considered before she answered him. With the object she had in view, there 
might be serious reasons for speaking with extreme caution when she spoke of 
Grace. 
"I believe so," she said. "We met here by accident. I know nothing of her." 
"Not even her name?" inquired the German surgeon. 
Mercy's resolution was hardly equal yet to giving her own name openly as the 
name of Grace. She took refuge in flat denial. 
"Not even her name," she repeated obstinately. 
The old man stared at her more rudely than ever, considered with himself, and 
took the candle from the table. He hobbled back to the bed and examined the 
figure laid on it in silence. The Englishman continued the conversation, no 
longer concealing the interest that he felt in the beautiful woman who stood 
before him. 
"Pardon me, "he said, "you are very young to be alone in war-time in such a 
place as this." 
The sudden outbreak of a disturbance in the kitchen relieved Mercy from any 
immediate necessity for answering him. She heard the voices of the wounded men 
raised in feeble remonstrance, and the harsh command of the foreign officers 
bidding them be silent. The generous instincts of the woman instantly prevailed 
over every personal consideration imposed on her by the position which she had 
assumed. Reckless whether she betrayed herself or not as nurse in the French 
ambulance, she instantly drew aside the canvas to enter the kitchen. A German 
sentinel barred the way to her, and announced, in his own language, that no 
strangers were admitted. The Englishman politely interposing, asked if she had 
any special object in wishing to enter the room. 
"The poor Frenchmen!" she said, earnestly, her heart upbraiding her for having 
forgotten them. "The poor wounded Frenchmen!" 
The German surgeon advanced from the bedside, and took the matter up before the 
Englishman could say a word more. 
"You have nothing to do with the wounded Frenchmen," he croaked, in the harshest 
notes of his voice. "The wounded Frenchmen are my business, and not yours. They 
are our prisoners, and they are being moved to our ambulance. I am Ingatius 
Wetzel, chief of the medical staff--and I tell you this. Hold your tongue." He 
turned to the sentinel and added in German, "Draw the curtain again; and if the 
woman persists, put her back into this room with your own hand." 
Mercy attempted to remonstrate. The Englishman respectfully took her arm, and 
drew her out of the sentinel's reach. 
"It is useless to resist," he said. "The German discipline never gives way. 
There is not the least need to be uneasy about the Frenchmen. The ambulance 
under Surgeon Wetzel is admirably administered. I answer for it, the men will be 
well treated." He saw the tears in her eyes as he spoke; his admiration for her 
rose higher and higher. "Kind as well as beautiful, "he thought. "What a 
charming creature!" 
"Well!" said Ignatius Wetzel, eying Mercy sternly through his spectacles. "Are 
you satisfied? And will you hold your tongue?" 
She yielded: it was plainly useless to resist. But for the surgeon's resistance, 
her devotion to the wounded men might have stopped her on the downward way that 
she was going. If she could only have been absorbed again, mind and body, in her 
good work as a nurse, the temptation might even yet have found her strong enough 
to resist it. The fatal severity of the German discipline had snapped asunder 
the last tie that bound her to her better self. Her face hardened as she walked 
away proudly from Surgeon Wetzel, and took a chair. 
The Englishman followed her, and reverted to the question of her present 
situation in the cottage. 
"Don't suppose that I want to alarm you," he said. "There is, I repeat, no need 
to be anxious about the Frenchmen, but there is serious reason for anxiety on 
your own account. The action will be renewed round this village by daylight; you 
ought really to be in a place of safety. I am an officer in the English army--my 
name is Horace Holmcroft. I shall be delighted to be of use to you, and I can be 
of use, if you will let me. May I ask if you are traveling?" 
Mercy gathered the cloak which concealed her nurse's dress more closely round 
her, and committed herself silently to her first overt act of deception. She 
bowed her head in the affirmative. 
"Are you on your way to England?" 
"Yes." 
"In that case I can pass you through the German lines, and forward you at once 
on your journey." 
Mercy looked at him in unconcealed surprise. His strongly-felt interest in her 
was restrained within the strictest limits of good-breeding: he was unmistakably 
a gentleman. Did he really mean what he had just said? 
"You can pass me through the German lines?" she repeated. "You must possess 
extraordinary influence, sir, to be able to do that." 
Mr. Horace Holmcroft smiled. 
"I possess the influence that no one can resist," he answered--"the influence of 
the Press. I am serving here as war correspondent of one of our great English 
newspapers. If I ask him, the commanding officer will grant you a pass. He is 
close to this cottage. What do you say?" 
She summoned her resolution--not without difficulty, even now--and took him at 
his word. 
"I gratefully accept your offer, sir." 
He advanced a step toward the kitchen, and stopped. 
"It may be well to make the application as privately as possible," he said. "I 
shall be questioned if I pass through that room. Is there no other way out of 
the cottage?" 
Mercy showed him the door leading into the yard. He bowed--and left her. 
She looked furtively toward the German surgeon. Ignatius Wetzel was still at the 
bed, bending over the body, and apparently absorbed in examining the wound which 
had been inflicted by the shell. Mercy's instinctive aversion to the old man 
increased tenfold, now that she was left alone with him. She withdrew uneasily 
to the window, and looked out at the moonlight. 
Had she committed herself to the fraud? Hardly, yet. She had committed herself 
to returning to England--nothing more. There was no necessity, thus far, which 
forced her to present herself at Mablethorpe House, in Grace's place. There was 
still time to reconsider her resolution--still time to write the account of the 
accident, as she had proposed, and to send it with the letter-case to Lady Janet 
Roy. Suppose she finally decided on taking this course, what was to become of 
her when she found herself in England again? There was no alternative open but 
to apply once more to her friend the matron. There was nothing for her to do but 
to return to the Refuge! 
The Refuge! The matron! What past association with these two was now presenting 
itself uninvited, and taking the foremost place in her mind? Of whom was she now 
thinking, in that strange place, and at that crisis in her life? Of the man 
whose words had found their way to her heart, whose influence had strengthened 
and comforted her, in the chapel of the Refuge. One of the finest passages in 
his sermon had been especially devoted by Julian Gray to warning the 
congregation whom he addressed against the degrading influences of falsehood and 
deceit. The terms in which he had appealed to the miserable women round 
him--terms of sympathy and encouragement never addressed to them before--came 
back to Mercy Merrick as if she had heard them an hour since. She turned deadly 
pale as they now pleaded with her once more. "Oh!" she whispered to herself, as 
she thought of what she had proposed and planned, "what have I done? what have I 
done?" 
She turned from the window with some vague idea in her mind of following Mr. 
Holmcroft and calling him back. As she faced the bed again she also confronted 
Ignatius Wetzel. He was just stepping forward to speak to her, with a white 
handkerchief--the handkerchief which she had lent to Grace--held up in his hand. 

"I have found this in her pocket," he said. "Here is her name written on it. She 
must be a countrywoman of yours." He read the letters marked on the handkerchief 
with some difficulty. "Her name is--Mercy Merrick." 
His lips had said it--not hers! He had given her the name. 
"'Mercy Merrick' is an English name?" pursued Ignatius Wetzel, with his eyes 
steadily fixed on her. "Is it not so?" 
The hold on her mind of the past association with Julian Gray began to relax. 
One present and pressing question now possessed itself of the foremost place in 
her thoughts. Should she correct the error into which the German had fallen? The 
time had come--to speak, and assert her own identity; or to be silent, and 
commit herself to the fraud. 
Horace Holmcroft entered the room again at the moment when Surgeon Wetzel's 
staring eyes were still fastened on her, waiting for her reply. 
"I have not overrated my interest," he said, pointing to a little slip of paper 
in his hand. "Here is the pass. Have you got pen and ink? I must fill up the 
form." 
Mercy pointed to the writing materials on the table. Horace seated himself, and 
dipped the pen in the ink. 
"Pray don't think that I wish to intrude myself into your affairs," he said. "I 
am obliged to ask you one or two plain questions. What is your name?" 
A sudden trembling seized her. She supported herself against the foot of the 
bed. Her whole future existence depended on her answer. She was incapable of 
uttering a word. 
Ignatius Wetzel stood her friend for once. His croaking voice filled the empty 
gap of silence exactly at the right time. He doggedly held the handkerchief 
under her eyes. He obstinately repeated: "Mercy Merrick is an English name. Is 
it not so?" 
Horace Holmcroft looked up from the table. "Mercy Merrick?" he said. "Who is 
Mercy Merrick?" 
Surgeon Wetzel pointed to the corpse on the bed. 
"I have found the name on the handkerchief, "he said. "This lady, it seems, had 
not curiosity enough to look for the name of her own countrywoman." He made that 
mocking allusion to Mercy with a tone which was almost a tone of suspicion, and 
a look which was almost a look of contempt. Her quick temper instantly resented 
the discourtesy of which she had been made the object. The irritation of the 
moment--so often do the most trifling motives determine the most serious human 
actions--decided her on the course that she should pursue. She turned her back 
scornfully on the rude old man, and left him in the delusion that he had 
discovered the dead woman's name. 
Horace returned to the business of filling up the form. "Pardon me for pressing 
the question," he said. "You know what German discipline is by this time. What 
is your name?" 
She answered him recklessly, defiantly, without fairly realizing what she was 
doing until it was done. 
"Grace Roseberry," she said. 
The words were hardly out of her mouth before she would have given everything 
she possessed in the world to recall them. 
"Miss?" asked Horace, smiling. 
She could only answer him by bowing her head. 
He wrote: "Miss Grace Roseberry"--reflected for a moment--and then added, 
interrogatively, "Returning to her friends in England?" Her friends in England? 
Mercy's heart swelled: she silently replied by another sign. He wrote the words 
after the name, and shook the sandbox over the wet ink. "That will be enough," 
he said, rising and presenting the pass to Mercy; "I will see you through the 
lines myself, and arrange for your being sent on by the railway. Where is your 
luggage?" 
Mercy pointed toward the front door of the building. "In a shed outside the 
cottage," she answered. "It is not much; I can do everything for myself if the 
sentinel will let me pass through the kitchen." 
Horace pointed to the paper in her hand. "You can go where you like now," he 
said. "Shall I wait for you here or outside?" 
Mercy glanced distrustfully at Ignatius Wetzel. He was again absorbed in his 
endless examination of the body on the bed. If she left him alone with Mr. 
Holmcroft, there was no knowing what the hateful old man might not say of her. 
She answered: 
"Wait for me outside, if you please." 
The sentinel drew back with a military salute at the sight of the pass. All the 
French prisoners had been removed; there were not more than half-a-dozen Germans 
in the kitchen, and the greater part of them were asleep. Mercy took Grace 
Roseberry's clothes from the corner in which they had been left to dry, and made 
for the shed--a rough structure of wood, built out from the cottage wall. At the 
front door she encountered a second sentinel, and showed her pass for the second 
time. She spoke to this man, asking him if he understood French. He answered 
that he understood a little. Mercy gave him a piece of money, and said: "I am 
going to pack up my luggage in the shed. Be kind enough to see that nobody 
disturbs me." The sentinel saluted, in token that he understood. Mercy 
disappeared in the dark interior of the shed. 
Left alone with Surgeon Wetzel, Horace noticed the strange old man still bending 
intently over the English lady who had been killed by the shell. 
"Anything remarkable," he asked, "in the manner of that poor creature's death?" 
"Nothing to put in a newspaper," retorted the cynic, pursuing his investigations 
as attentively as ever. 
"Interesting to a doctor--eh?" said Horace. 
"Yes. Interesting to a doctor," was the gruff reply. 
Horace good-humoredly accepted the hint implied in those words. He quitted the 
room by the door leading into the yard, and waited for the charming 
Englishwoman, as he had been instructed, outside the cottage. 
Left by himself, Ignatius Wetzel, after a first cautious look all round him, 
opened the upper part of Grace's dress, and laid his left hand on her heart. 
Taking a little steel instrument from his waistcoat pocket with the other hand, 
he applied it carefully to the wound, raised a morsel of the broken and 
depressed bone of the skull, and waited for the result. "Aha!" he cried, 
addressing with a terrible gayety the senseless creature under his hands. "The 
Frenchman says you are dead, my dear--does he? The Frenchman is a Quack! The 
Frenchman is an Ass!" He lifted his head, and called into the kitchen. "Max!" A 
sleepy young German, covered with a dresser's apron from his chin to his feet, 
drew the curtain, and waited for his instructions. "Bring me my black bag," said 
Ignatius Wetzel. Having given that order, he rubbed his hands cheerfully, and 
shook himself like a dog. "Now I am quite happy," croaked the terrible old man, 
with his fierce eyes leering sidelong at the bed. "My dear, dead Englishwoman, I 
would not have missed this meeting with you for all the money I have in the 
world. Ha! you infernal French Quack, you call it death, do you? I call it 
suspended animation from pressure on the brain!" 
Max appeared with the black bag. 
Ignatius Wetzel selected two fearful instruments, bright and new, and hugged 
them to his bosom. "My little boys," he said, tenderly, as if they were his 
children; "my blessed little boys, come to work!" He turned to the assistant. 
"Do you remember the battle of Solferino, Max--and the Austrian soldier I 
operated on for a wound on the head?" 
The assistant's sleepy eyes opened wide; he was evidently interested. "I 
remember," he said. "I held the candle." 
The master led the way to the bed. 
"I am not satisfied with the result of that operation at Solferino," he said; "I 
have wanted to try again ever since. It's true that I saved the man's life, but 
I failed to give him back his reason along with it. It might have been something 
wrong in the operation, or it might have been something wrong in the man. 
Whichever it was, he will live and die mad. Now look here, my little Max, at 
this dear young lady on the bed. She gives me just what I wanted; here is the 
case at Solferino once more. You shall hold the candle again, my good boy; stand 
there, and look with all your eyes. I am going to try if I can save the life and 
the reason too this time." 
He tucked up the cuffs of his coat and began the operation. As his fearful 
instruments touched Grace's head, the voice of the sentinel at the nearest 
outpost was heard, giving the word in German which permitted Mercy to take the 
first step on her journey to England: 
"Pass the English lady!" 
The operation proceeded. The voice of the sentinel at the next post was heard 
more faintly, in its turn: " Pass the English lady!" 
The operation ended. Ignatius Wetzel held up his hand for silence and put his 
ear close to the patient's mouth. 
The first trembling breath of returning life fluttered over Grace Roseberry's 
lips and touched the old man's wrinkled cheek. "Aha!" he cried. "Good girl! you 
breathe--you live!" As he spoke, the voice of the sentinel at the final limit of 
the German lines (barely audible in the distance) gave the word for the last 
time: 
"Pass the English lady!" 



SECOND SCENE. 
Mablethorpe House. 



PREAMBLE.
THE place is England. 
The time is winter, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy. 
The persons are, Julian Gray, Horace Holmcroft, Lady Janet Roy, Grace Roseberry, 
and Mercy Merrick. 



CHAPTER VI. 
LADY JANET'S COMPANION.
IT is a glorious winter's day. The sky is clear, the frost is hard, the ice 
bears for skating. 
The dining-room of the ancient mansion called Mablethorpe House, situated in the 
London suburb of Kensington, is famous among artists and other persons of taste 
for the carved wood-work, of Italian origin, which covers the walls on three 
sides. On the fourth side the march of modern improvement has broken in, and has 
varied and brightened the scene by means of a conservatory, forming an entrance 
to the room through a winter-garden of rare plants and flowers. On your right 
hand, as you stand fronting the conservatory, the monotony of the paneled wall 
is relieved by a quaintly patterned door of old inlaid wood, leading into the 
library, and thence, across the great hall, to the other reception-rooms of the 
house. A corresponding door on the left hand gives access to the billiard-room, 
to the smoking-room next to it, and to a smaller hall commanding one of the 
secondary entrances to the building. On the left side also is the ample 
fireplace, surmounted by its marble mantelpiece, carved in the profusely and 
confusedly ornate style of eighty years since. To the educated eye the 
dining-room, with its modern furniture and conservatory, its ancient walls and 
doors, and its lofty mantelpiece (neither very old nor very new), presents a 
startling, almost a revolutionary, mixture of the decorative workmanship of 
widely differing schools. To the ignorant eye the one result produced is an 
impression of perfect luxury and comfort, united in the friendliest combination, 
and developed on the largest scale. 
The clock has just struck two. The table is spread for luncheon. 
The persons seated at the table are three in number. First, Lady Janet Roy. 
Second, a young lady who is her reader and companion. Third, a guest staying in 
the house, who has already appeared in these pages under the name of Horace 
Holmcroft--attached to the German army as war correspondent of an English 
newspaper. 
Lady Janet Roy needs but little introduction. Everybody with the slightest 
pretension to experience in London society knows Lady Janet Roy. 
Who has not heard of her old lace and her priceless rubies? Who has not admired 
her commanding figure, her beautifully dressed white hair, her wonderful black 
eyes, which still preserve their youthful brightness, after first opening on the 
world seventy years since? Who has not felt the charm of her frank, easily 
flowing talk, her inexhaustible spirits, her good-humored, gracious sociability 
of manner? Where is the modern hermit who is not familiarly acquainted, by 
hearsay at least, with the fantastic novelty and humor of her opinions; with her 
generous encouragement of rising merit of any sort, in all ranks, high or low; 
with her charities, which know no distinction between abroad and at home; with 
her large indulgence, which no ingratitude can discourage, and no servility 
pervert? Everybody has heard of the popular old lady--the childless widow of a 
long-forgotten lord. Everybody knows Lady Janet Roy. 
But who knows the handsome young woman sitting on her right hand, playing with 
her luncheon instead of eating it? Nobody really knows her. 
She is prettily dressed in gray poplin, trimmed with gray velvet, and set off by 
a ribbon of deep red tied in a bow at the throat. She is nearly as tall as Lady 
Janet herself, and possesses a grace and beauty of figure not always seen in 
women who rise above the medium height. Judging by a certain innate grandeur in 
the carriage of her head and in the expression of her large melancholy gray 
eyes, believers in blood and breeding will be apt to guess that this is another 
noble lady. Alas! she is nothing but Lady Janet's companion and reader. Her 
head, crowned with its lovely light brown hair, bends with a gentle respect when 
Lady Janet speaks. Her fine firm hand is easily and incessantly watchful to 
supply Lady Janet's slightest wants. The old lady--affectionately familiar with 
her--speaks to her as she might speak to an adopted child. But the gratitude of 
the beautiful companion has always the same restraint in its acknowledgment of 
kindness; the smile of the beautiful companion has always the same underlying 
sadness when it responds to Lady Janet's hearty laugh. Is there something wrong 
here, under the surface? Is she suffering in mind, or suffering in body? What is 
the matter with her? 
The matter with her is secret remorse. This delicate and beautiful creature 
pines under the slow torment of constant self-reproach. 
To the mistress of the house, and to all who inhabit it or enter it, she is 
known as Grace Roseberry, the orphan relative by marriage of Lady Janet Roy. To 
herself alone she is known as the outcast of the London streets; the inmate of 
the London Refuge; the lost woman who has stolen her way back--after vainly 
trying to fight her way back--to Home and Name. There she sits in the grim 
shadow of her own terrible secret, disguised in another person's identity, and 
established in another person's place. Mercy Merrick had only to dare, and to 
become Grace Roseberry if she pleased. She has dared, and she has been Grace 
Roseberry for nearly four months past. 
At this moment, while Lady Janet is talking to Horace Holmcroft, something that 
has passed between them has set her thinking of the day when she took the first 
fatal step which committed her to the fraud. 
How marvelously easy of accomplishment the act of personation had been! At first 
sight Lady Janet had yielded to the fascination of the noble and interesting 
face. No need to present the stolen letter; no need to repeat the ready-made 
story. The old lady had put the letter aside unopened, and had stopped the story 
at the first words. "Your face is your introduction, my dear; your father can 
say nothing for you which you have not already said for yourself." There was the 
welcome which established her firmly in her false identity at the outset. Thanks 
to her own experience, and thanks to the "Journal" of events at Rome, questions 
about her life in Canada and questions about Colonel Roseberry's illness found 
her ready with answers which (even if suspicion had existed) would have disarmed 
suspicion on the spot. While the true Grace was slowly and painfully winning her 
way back to life on her bed in a German hospital, the false Grace was presented 
to Lady Janet's friends as the relative by marriage of the Mistress of 
Mablethorpe House. From that time forward nothing had happened to rouse in her 
the faintest suspicion that Grace Roseberry was other than a dead-and-buried 
woman. So far as she now knew--so far as any one now knew--she might live out 
her life in perfect security (if her conscience would let her), respected, 
distinguished, and beloved, in the position which she had usurped. 
She rose abruptly from the table. The effort of her life was to shake herself 
free of the remembrances which haunted her perpetually as they were haunting her 
now. Her memory was her worst enemy; her one refuge from it was in change of 
occupation and change of scene. 
"May I go into the conservatory, Lady Janet?" she asked. 
"Certainly, my dear." 
She bent her head to her protectress, looked for a moment with a steady, 
compassionate attention at Horace Holmcroft, and, slowly crossing the room, 
entered the winter-garden. The eyes of Horace followed her, as long as she was 
in view, with a curious contradictory expression of admiration and disapproval. 
When she had passed out of sight the admiration vanished, but the disapproval 
remained. The face of the young man contracted into a frown: he sat silent, with 
his fork in his hand, playing absently with the fragments on his plate. 
"Take some French pie, Horace," said Lady Janet. 
"No, thank you." 
"Some more chicken, then?" 
"No more chicken." 
"Will nothing tempt you?" 
"I will take some more wine, if you will allow me." 
He filled his glass (for the fifth or sixth time) with claret, and emptied it 
sullenly at a draught. Lady Janet's bright eyes watched him with sardonic 
attention; Lady Janet's ready tongue spoke out as freely as usual what was 
passing in her mind at the time. 
"The air of Kensington doesn't seem to suit you, my young friend," she said. 
"The longer you have been my guest, the oftener you fill your glass and empty 
your cigar-case. Those are bad signs in a young man. When you first came here 
you arrived invalided by a wound. In your place, I should not have exposed 
myself to be shot, with no other object in view than describing a battle in a 
newspaper. I suppose tastes differ. Are you ill? Does your wound still plague 
you?" 
"Not in the least." 
"Are you out of spirits?" 
Horace Holmcroft dropped his fork, rested his elbows on the table, and answered: 

"Awfully." 
Even Lady Janet's large toleration had its limits. It embraced every human 
offense except a breach of good manners. She snatched up the nearest weapon of 
correction at hand--a tablespoon--and rapped her young friend smartly with it on 
the arm that was nearest to her. 
"My table is not the club table," said the old lady. "Hold up your head. Don't 
look at your fork--look at me. I allow nobody to be out of spirits in My house. 
I consider it to be a reflection on Me. If our quiet life here doesn't suit you, 
say so plainly, and find something else to do. There is employment to be had, I 
suppose--if you choose to apply for it? You needn't smile. I don't want to see 
your teeth--I want an answer." 
Horace admitted, with all needful gravity, that there was employment to be had. 
The war between France and Germany, he remarked, was still going on: the 
newspaper had offered to employ him again in the capacity of correspondent. 
"Don't speak of the newspapers and the war!" cried Lady Janet, with a sudden 
explosion of anger, which was genuine anger this time. "I detest the newspapers! 
I won't allow the newspapers to enter this house. I lay the whole blame of the 
blood shed between France and Germany at their door." 
Horace's eyes opened wide in amazement. The old lady was evidently in earnest. 
"What can you possibly mean?" he asked. "Are the newspapers responsible for the 
war?" 
"Entirely responsible, "answered Lady Janet. "Why, you don't understand the age 
you live in! Does anybody do anything nowadays (fighting included) without 
wishing to see it in the newspapers? I subscribe to a charity; thou art 
presented with a testimonial; he preaches a sermon; we suffer a grievance; you 
make a discovery; they go to church and get married. And I, thou, he; we, you, 
they, all want one and the same thing--we want to see it in the papers. Are 
kings, soldiers, and diplomatists exceptions to the general rule of humanity? 
Not they! I tell you seriously, if the newspapers of Europe had one and all 
decided not to take the smallest notice in print of the war between France and 
Germany, it is my firm conviction the war would have come to an end for want of 
encouragement long since. Let the pen cease to advertise the sword, and I, for 
one, can see the result. No report--no fighting." 
"Your views have the merit of perfect novelty, ma'am," said Horace. "Would you 
object to see them in the newspapers?" 
Lady Janet worsted her young friend with his own weapons. 
"Don't I live in the latter part of the nineteenth century?" she asked. "In the 
newspapers, did you say? In large type, Horace, if you love me!" 
Horace changed the subject. 
"You blame me for being out of spirits," he said; "and you seem to think it is 
because I am tired of my pleasant life at Mablethorpe House. I am not in the 
least tired, Lady Janet." He looked toward the conservatory: the frown showed 
itself on his face once more. "The truth is," he resumed, "I am not satisfied 
with Grace Roseberry." 
"What has Grace done?" 
"She persists in prolonging our engagement. Nothing will persuade her to fix the 
day for our marriage." 
It was true! Mercy had been mad enough to listen to him, and to love him. But 
Mercy was not vile enough to marry him under her false character, and in her 
false name. Between three and four months had elapsed since Horace had been sent 
home from the war, wounded, and had found the beautiful Englishwoman whom he had 
befriended in France established at Mablethorpe House. Invited to become Lady 
Janet's guest (he had passed his holidays as a school-boy under Lady Janet's 
roof)--free to spend the idle time of his convalescence from morning to night in 
Mercy's society--the impression originally produced on him in a French cottage 
soon strengthened into love. Before the month was out Horace had declared 
himself, and had discovered that he spoke to willing ears. From that moment it 
was only a question of persisting long enough in the resolution to gain his 
point. The marriage engagement was ratified--most reluctantly on the lady's 
side--and there the further progress of Horace Holmcroft's suit came to an end. 
Try as he might, he failed to persuade his betrothed wife to fix the day for the 
marriage. There were no obstacles in her way. She had no near relations of her 
own to consult. As a connection of Lady Janet's by marriage, Horace's mother and 
sisters were ready to receive her with all the honors due to a new member of the 
family. No pecuniary considerations made it necessary, in this case, to wait for 
a favorable time. Horace was an only son; and he had succeeded to his father's 
estate with an ample income to support it. On both sides alike there was 
absolutely nothing to prevent the two young people from being married as soon as 
the settlements could be drawn. And yet, to all appearance, here was a long 
engagement in prospect, with no better reason than the lady's incomprehensible 
perversity to explain the delay. "Can you account for Grace's conduct?" asked 
Lady Janet. Her manner changed as she put the question. She looked and spoke 
like a person who was perplexed and annoyed 
"I hardly like to own it," Horace answered, "but I am afraid she has some motive 
for deferring our marriage which she cannot confide either to you or to me." 
Lady Janet started. 
"What makes you think that?" she asked. 
"I have once or twice caught her in tears. Every now and then--sometimes when 
she is talking quite gayly--she suddenly changes color and becomes silent and 
depressed. Just now, when she left the table (didn't you notice it?), she looked 
at me in the strangest way--almost as if she was sorry for me. What do these 
things mean?" 
Horace's reply, instead of increasing Lady Janet's anxiety, seemed to relieve 
it. He had observed nothing which she had not noticed herself. "You foolish 
boy!" she said, "the meaning is plain enough. Grace has been out of health for 
some time past. The doctor recommends change of air. I shall take her away with 
me." 
"It would be more to the purpose," Horace rejoined, "if I took her away with me. 
She might consent, if you would only use your influence. Is it asking too much 
to ask you to persuade her? My mother and my sisters have written to her, and 
have produced no effect. Do me the greatest of all kindnesses--speak to her 
to-day!" He paused, and possessing himself of Lady Janet's hand, pressed it 
entreatingly. "You have always been so good to me," he said, softly, and pressed 
it again. 
The old lady looked at him. It was impossible to dispute that there were 
attractions in Horace Holmcroft's face which made it well worth looking at. Many 
a woman might have envied him his clear complexion, his bright blue eyes, and 
the warm amber tint in his light Saxon hair. Men--especially men skilled in 
observing physiognomy--might have noticed in the shape of his forehead and in 
the line of his upper lip the signs indicative of a moral nature deficient in 
largeness and breadth--of a mind easily accessible to strong prejudices, and 
obstinate in maintaining those prejudices in the face of conviction itself. 
To the observation of women these remote defects were too far below the surface 
to be visible. He charmed the sex in general by his rare personal advantages, 
and by the graceful deference of his manner. To Lady Janet he was endeared, not 
by his own merits only, but by old associations that were connected with him. 
His father had been one of her many admirers in her young days. Circumstances 
had parted them. Her marriage to another man had been a childless marriage. In 
past times, when the boy Horace had come to her from school, she had cherished a 
secret fancy (too absurd to be communicated to any living creature) that he 
ought to have been her son, and might have been her son, if she had married his 
father! She smiled charmingly, old as she was--she yielded as his mother might 
have yielded--when the young man took her hand and entreated her to interest 
herself in his marriage. "Must I really speak to Grace?" she asked, with a 
gentleness of tone and manner far from characteristic, on ordinary occasions, of 
the lady of Mablethorpe House. Horace saw that he had gained his point. He 
sprang to his feet; his eyes turned eagerly in the direction of the 
conservatory; his handsome face was radiant with hope. Lady Janet (with her mind 
full of his father) stole a last look at him, sighed as she thought of the 
vanished days, and recovered herself. 
"Go to the smoking-room," she said, giving him a push toward the door. "Away 
with you, and cultivate the favorite vice of the nineteenth century." Horace 
attempted to express his gratitude. "Go and smoke!" was all she said, pushing 
him out. "Go and smoke!" 
Left by herself, Lady Janet took a turn in the room, and considered a little. 
Horace's discontent was not unreasonable. There was really no excuse for the 
delay of which he complained. Whether the young lady had a special motive for 
hanging back, or whether she was merely fretting because she did not know her 
own mind, it was, in either case, necessary to come to a distinct understanding, 
sooner or later, on the serious question of the marriage. The difficulty was, 
how to approach the subject without giving offense. "I don't understand the 
young women of the present generation," thought Lady Janet. "In my time, when we 
were fond of a man, we were ready to marry him at a moment's notice. And this is 
an age of progress! They ought to be readier still." 
Arriving, by her own process of induction, at this inevitable conclusion, she 
decided to try what her influence could accomplish, and to trust to the 
inspiration of the moment for exerting it in the right way. "Grace!" she called 
out, approaching the conservatory door. The tall, lithe figure in its gray dress 
glided into view, and stood relieved against the green background of the 
winter-garden. 
"Did your ladyship call me?" 
"Yes; I want to speak to you. Come and sit down by me." 
With those words Lady Janet led the way to a sofa, and placed her companion by 
her side. 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE MAN IS COMING.
"You look very pale this morning, my child." 
Mercy sighed wearily. "I am not well," she answered. "The slightest noises 
startle me. I feel tired if I only walk across the room." 
Lady Janet patted her kindly on the shoulder. "We must try what a change will do 
for you. Which shall it be? the Continent or the sea-side?" 
"Your ladyship is too kind to me." 
"It is impossible to be too kind to you." 
Mercy started. The color flowed charmingly over her pale face. "Oh!" she 
exclaimed, impulsively. "Say that again!" 
"Say it again?" repeated Lady Janet, with a look of surprise. 
"Yes! Don't think me presuming; only think me vain. I can't hear you say too 
often that you have learned to like me. Is it really a pleasure to you to have 
me in the house? Have I always behaved well since I have been with you?" 
(The one excuse for the act of personation--if excuse there could be--lay in the 
affirmative answer to those questions. It would be something, surely, to say of 
the false Grace that the true Grace could not have been worthier of her welcome, 
if the true Grace had been received at Mablethorpe House!) 
Lady Janet was partly touched, partly amused, by the extraordinary earnestness 
of the appeal that had been made to her. 
"Have you behaved well?" she repeated. "My dear, you talk as if you were a 
child!" She laid her hand caressingly on Mercy's arm, and continued, in a graver 
tone: "It is hardly too much to say, Grace, that I bless the day when you first 
came to me. I do believe I could be hardly fonder of you if you were my own 
daughter." 
Mercy suddenly turned her head aside, so as to hide her face. Lady Janet, still 
touching her arm, felt it tremble. "What is the matter with you?" she asked, in 
her abrupt, downright manner. 
"I am only very grateful to your ladyship--that is all." The words were spoken 
faintly, in broken tones. The face was still averted from Lady Janet's view. 
"What have I said to provoke this?" wondered the old lady. "Is she in the 
melting mood to-day? If she is, now is the time to say a word for Horace!" 
Keeping that excellent object in view, Lady Janet approached the delicate topic 
with all needful caution at starting. 
"We have got on so well together," she resumed, "that it will not be easy for 
either of us to feel reconciled to a change in our lives. At my age, it will 
fall hardest on me. What shall I do, Grace, when the day comes for parting with 
my adopted daughter?" 
Mercy started, and showed her face again. The traces of tears were in her eyes. 
"Why should I leave you?" she asked, in a tone of alarm. 
"Surely you know!" exclaimed Lady Janet. 
"Indeed I don't. Tell me why." 
"Ask Horace to tell you." 
The last allusion was too plain to be misunderstood. Mercy's head drooped. She 
began to tremble again. Lady Janet looked at her in blank amazement. 
"Is there anything wrong between Horace and you?" she asked. 
"No." 
"You know your own heart, my dear child? You have surely not encouraged Horace 
without loving him?" 
"Oh no!" 
"And yet--" 
For the first time in their experience of each other Mercy ventured to interrupt 
her benefactress. "Dear Lady Janet," she interposed, gently, "I am in no hurry 
to be married. There will be plenty of time in the future to talk of that. You 
had something you wished to say to me. What is it?" 
It was no easy matter to disconcert Lady Janet Roy. But that last question 
fairly reduced her to silence. After all that had passed, there sat her young 
companion, innocent of the faintest suspicion of the subject that was to be 
discussed between them! "What are the young women of the present time made of?" 
thought the old lady, utterly at a loss to know what to say next. Mercy waited, 
on her side, with an impenetrable patience which only aggravated the 
difficulties of the position. The silence was fast threatening to bring the 
interview to a sudden and untimely end, when the door from the library opened, 
and a man-servant, bearing a little silver salver, entered the room. 
Lady Janet's rising sense of annoyance instantly seized on the servant as a 
victim. "What do you want?" she asked, sharply. "I never rang for you." 
"A letter, my lady. The messenger waits for an answer." 
The man presented his salver with the letter on it, and withdrew. 
Lady Janet recognized the handwriting on the address with a look of surprise. 
"Excuse me, my dear," she said, pausing, with her old-fashioned courtesy, before 
she opened the envelope. Mercy made the necessary acknowledgment, and moved away 
to the other end of the room, little thinking that the arrival of the letter 
marked a crisis in her life. Lady Janet put on her spectacles. "Odd that he 
should have come back already!" she said to herself, as she threw the empty 
envelope on the table. 
The letter contained these lines, the writer of them being no other than the man 
who had preached in the chapel of the Refuge: 
"DEAR AUNT--I am back again in London before my time. My friend the rector has 
shortened his holiday, and has resumed his duties in the country. I am afraid 
you will blame me when you hear of the reasons which have hastened his return. 
The sooner I make my confession, the easier I shall feel. Besides, I have a 
special object in wishing to see you as soon as possible. May I follow my letter 
to Mablethorpe House? And may I present a lady to you--a perfect stranger--in 
whom I am interested? Pray say Yes, by the bearer, and oblige your affectionate 
nephew, 
"JULIAN GRAY." 
Lady Janet referred again suspiciously to the sentence in the letter which 
alluded to the "lady." 
Julian Gray was her only surviving nephew, the son of a favorite sister whom she 
had lost. He would have held no very exalted position in the estimation of his 
aunt--who regarded his views in politics and religion with the strongest 
aversion--but for his marked resemblance to his mother. This pleaded for him 
with the old lady, aided as it was by the pride that she secretly felt in the 
early celebrity which the young clergyman had achieved as a writer and a 
preacher. Thanks to these mitigating circumstances, and to Julian's 
inexhaustible good-humor, the aunt and the nephew generally met on friendly 
terms. Apart from what she called "his detestable opinions," Lady Janet was 
sufficiently interested in Julian to feel some curiosity about the mysterious 
"lady" mentioned in the letter. Had he determined to settle in life? Was his 
choice already made? And if so, would it prove to be a choice acceptable to the 
family? Lady Janet's bright face showed signs of doubt as she asked herself that 
last question. Julian's liberal views were capable of leading him to dangerous 
extremes. His aunt shook her head ominously as she rose from the sofa and 
advanced to the library door. 
"Grace," she said, pausing and turning round, "I have a note to write to my 
nephew. I shall be back directly." 
Mercy approached her, from the opposite extremity of the room, with an 
exclamation of surprise. 
"Your nephew?" she repeated. "Your ladyship never told me you had a nephew." 
Lady Janet laughed. "I must have had it on the tip of my tongue to tell you, 
over and over again," she said. "But we have had so many things to talk 
about--and, to own the truth, my nephew is not one of my favorite subjects of 
conversation. I don't mean that I dislike him; I detest his principles, my dear, 
that's all. However, you shall form your own opinion of him; he is coming to see 
me to-day. Wait here till I return; I have something more to say about Horace." 
Mercy opened the library door for her, closed it again, and walked slowly to and 
fro alone in the room, thinking. 
Was her mind running on Lady Janet's nephew? No. Lady Janet's brief allusion to 
her relative had not led her into alluding to him by his name. Mercy was still 
as ignorant as ever that the preacher at the Refuge and the nephew of her 
benefactress were one and the same man. Her memory was busy now with the tribute 
which Lady Janet had paid to her at the outset of the interview between them: 
"It is hardly too much to say, Grace, that I bless the day when you first came 
to me." For the moment there was balm for her wounded spirit in the remembrance 
of those words. Grace Roseberry herself could surely have earned no sweeter 
praise than the praise that she had won. The next instant she was seized with a 
sudden horror of her own successful fraud. The sense of her degradation had 
never been so bitterly present to her as at that moment. If she could only 
confess the truth--if she could innocently enjoy her harmless life at 
Mablethorpe House --what a grateful, happy woman she might be! Was it possible 
(if she made the confession) to trust to her own good conduct to plead her 
excuse? No! Her calmer sense warned her that it was hopeless. The place she had 
won--honestly won--in Lady Janet's estimation had been obtained by a trick. 
Nothing could alter, nothing could excuse, that. She took out her handkerchief 
and dashed away the useless tears that had gathered in her eyes, and tried to 
turn her thoughts some other way. What was it Lady Janet had said on going into 
the library? She had said she was coming back to speak about Horace. Mercy 
guessed what the object was; she knew but too well what Horace wanted of her. 
How was she to meet the emergency? In the name of Heaven, what was to be done? 
Could she let the man who loved her--the man whom she loved--drift blindfold 
into marriage with such a woman as she had been? No! it was her duty to warn 
him. How? Could she break his heart, could she lay his life waste by speaking 
the cruel words which might part them forever? "I can't tell him! I won't tell 
him!" she burst out, passionately. "The disgrace of it would kill me!" Her 
varying mood changed as the words escaped her. A reckless defiance of her own 
better nature--that saddest of all the forms in which a woman's misery can 
express itself--filled her heart with its poisoning bitterness. She sat down 
again on the sofa with eyes that glittered and cheeks suffused with an angry 
red. "I am no worse than another woman!" she thought. "Another woman might have 
married him for his money." The next moment the miserable insufficiency of her 
own excuse for deceiving him showed its hollowness, self-exposed. She covered 
her face with her hands, and found refuge--where she had often found refuge 
before--in the helpless resignation of despair. "Oh, that I had died before I 
entered this house! Oh, that I could die and have done with it at this moment!" 
So the struggle had ended with her hundreds of times already. So it ended now. 
The door leading into the billiard-room opened softly. Horace Holmcroft had 
waited to hear the result of Lady Janet's interference in his favor until he 
could wait no longer. 
He looked in cautiously, ready to withdraw again unnoticed if the two were still 
talking together. The absence of Lady Janet suggested that the interview had 
come to an end. Was his betrothed wife waiting alone to speak to him on his 
return to the room? He advanced a few steps. She never moved; she sat heedless, 
absorbed in her thoughts. Were they thoughts of him? He advanced a little 
nearer, and called to her. 
"Grace!" 
She sprang to her feet, with a faint cry. "I wish you wouldn't startle me," she 
said, irritably, sinking back on the sofa. "Any sudden alarm sets my heart 
beating as if it would choke me." 
Horace pleaded for pardon with a lover's humility. In her present state of 
nervous irritation she was not to be appeased. She looked away from him in 
silence. Entirely ignorant of the paroxysm of mental suffering through which she 
had just passed, he seated himself by her side, and asked her gently if she had 
seen Lady Janet. She made an affirmative answer with an unreasonable impatience 
of tone and manner which would have warned an older and more experienced man to 
give her time before he spoke again. Horace was young, and weary of the suspense 
that he had endured in the other room. He unwisely pressed her with another 
question. 
"Has Lady Janet said anything to you--" 
She turned on him angrily before he could finish the sentence. "You have tried 
to make her hurry me into marrying you," she burst out. "I see it in your face!" 

Plain as the warning was this time, Horace still failed to interpret it in the 
right way. "Don't be angry!" he said, good-humoredly. "Is it so very inexcusable 
to ask Lady Janet to intercede for me? I have tried to persuade you in vain. My 
mother and my sisters have pleaded for me, and you turn a deaf ear--" 
She could endure it no longer. She stamped her foot on the door with hysterical 
vehemence. "I am weary of hearing of your mother and your sisters!" she broke in 
violently. "You talk of nothing else." 
It was just possible to make one more mistake in dealing with her--and Horace 
made it. He took offense, on his side, and rose from the sofa. His mother and 
sisters were high authorities in his estimation; they variously represented his 
ideal of perfection in women. He withdrew to the opposite extremity of the room, 
and administered the severest reproof that he could think of on the spur of the 
moment. 
"It would be well, Grace, if you followed the example set you by my mother and 
my sisters," he said. "They are not in the habit of speaking cruelly to those 
who love them." 
To all appearance the rebuke failed to produce the slightest effect. She seemed 
to be as indifferent to it as if it had not reached her ears. There was a spirit 
in her--a miserable spirit, born of her own bitter experience--which rose in 
revolt against Horace's habitual glorification of the ladies of his family. "It 
sickens me," she thought to herself, "to hear of the virtues of women who have 
never been tempted! Where is the merit of living reputably, when your life is 
one course of prosperity and enjoyment? Has his mother known starvation? Have 
his sisters been left forsaken in the street?" It hardened her heart--it almost 
reconciled her to deceiving him--when he set his relatives up as patterns for 
her. Would he never understand that women detested having other women exhibited 
as examples to them? She looked round at him with a sense of impatient wonder. 
He was sitting at the luncheon-table, with his back turned on her, and his head 
resting on his hand. If he had attempted to rejoin her, she would have repelled 
him; if he had spoken, she would have met him with a sharp reply. He sat apart 
from her, without uttering a word. In a man's hands silence is the most terrible 
of all protests to the woman who loves him. Violence she can endure. Words she 
is always ready to meet by words on her side. Silence conquers her. After a 
moment's hesitation, Mercy left the sofa and advanced submissively toward the 
table. She had offended him--and she alone was in fault. How should he know it, 
poor fellow, when he innocently mortified her? Step by step she drew closer and 
closer. He never looked round; he never moved. She laid her hand timidly on his 
shoulder. "Forgive me, Horace," she whispered in his ear. "I am suffering this 
morning; I am not myself. I didn't mean what I said. Pray forgive me." There was 
no resisting the caressing tenderness of voice and manner which accompanied 
those words. He looked up; he took her hand. She bent over him, and touched his 
forehead with her lips. "Am I forgiven?" she asked. 
"Oh, my darling," he said, "if you only knew how I loved you!" 
"I do know it," she answered, gently, twining his hair round her finger, and 
arranging it over his forehead where his hand had ruffled it. 
They were completely absorbed in each other, or they must, at that moment, have 
heard the library door open at the other end of the room. 
Lady Janet had written the necessary reply to her nephew, and had returned, 
faithful to her engagement, to plead the cause of Horace. The first object that 
met her view was her client pleading, with conspicuous success, for himself! "I 
am not wanted, evidently," thought the old lady. She noiselessly closed the door 
again and left the lovers by themselves. 
Horace returned, with unwise persistency, to the question of the deferred 
marriage. At the first words that he spoke she drew back directly--sadly, not 
angrily. 
"Don't press me to-day," she said; "I am not well to-day." 
He rose and looked at her anxiously. "May l speak about it to-morrow?" 
"Yes, to-morrow." She returned to the sofa, and changed the subject. "What a 
time Lady Janet is away!" she said. "What can be keeping her so long?" 
Horace did his best to appear interested in the question of Lady Janet's 
prolonged absence. "What made her leave you?" he asked, standing at the back of 
the sofa and leaning over her. 
"She went into the library to write a note to her nephew. By-the-by, who is her 
nephew?" 
"Is it possible you don't know?" 
"Indeed, I don't." 
"You have heard of him, no doubt," said Horace. "Lady Janet's nephew is a 
celebrated man." He paused, and stooping nearer to her, lifted a love-lock that 
lay over her shoulder and pressed it to his lips. "Lady Janet's nephew," he 
resumed, "is Julian Gray." 
She started off her seat, and looked round at him in blank, bewildered terror, 
as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses. 
Horace was completely taken by surprise. "My dear Grace!" he exclaimed; "what 
have I said or done to startle you this time?" 
She held up her hand for silence. "Lady Janet's nephew is Julian Gray," she 
repeated; "and I only know it now!" 
Horace's perplexity increased. "My darling, now you do know it, what is there to 
alarm you?" he asked. 
(There was enough to alarm the boldest woman living--in such a position, and 
with such a temperament as hers. To her mind the personation of Grace Roseberry 
had suddenly assumed a new aspect: the aspect of a fatality. It had led her 
blindfold to the house in which she and the preacher at the Refuge were to meet. 
He was coming--the man who had reached her inmost heart, who had influenced her 
whole life! Was the day of reckoning coming with him?) 
"Don't notice me," she said, faintly. "I have been ill all the morning. You saw 
it yourself when you came in here; even the sound of your voice alarmed me. I 
shall be better directly. I am afraid I startled you?" 
"My dear Grace, it almost looked as if you were terrified at the sound of 
Julian's name! He is a public celebrity, I know; and I have seen ladies start 
and stare at him when he entered a room. But you looked perfectly 
panic-stricken." 
She rallied her courage by a desperate effort; she laughed--a harsh, uneasy 
laugh--and stopped him by putting her hand over his mouth. "Absurd!" she said, 
lightly. "As if Mr. Julian Gray had anything to do with my looks! I am better 
already. See for yourself!" She looked round at him again with a ghastly gayety; 
and returned, with a desperate assumption of indifference, to the subject of 
Lady Janet's nephew. "Of course I have heard of him," she said. "Do you know 
that he is expected here to-day? Don't stand there behind me--it's so hard to 
talk to you. Come and sit down." 
He obeyed--but she had not quite satisfied him yet. His face had not lost its 
expression of anxiety and surprise. She persisted in playing her part, 
determined to set at rest in him any possible suspicion that she had reasons of 
her own for being afraid of Julian Gray. "Tell me about this famous man of 
yours," she said, putting her arm familiarly through his arm. "What is he like?" 

The caressing action and the easy tone had their effect on Horace. His face 
began to clear; he answered her lightly on his side. 
"Prepare yourself to meet the most unclerical of clergymen," he said. "Julian is 
a lost sheep among the parsons, and a thorn in the side of his bishop. Preaches, 
if they ask him, in Dissenters' chapels. Declines to set up any pretensions to 
priestly authority and priestly power. Goes about doing good on a plan of his 
own. Is quite resigned never to rise to the high places in his profession. Says 
it's rising high enough for him to be the Archdeacon of the afflicted, the Dean 
of the hungry, and the Bishop of the poor. With all his oddities, as good a 
fellow as ever lived. Immensely popular with the women. They all go to him for 
advice. I wish you would go, too." 
Mercy changed color. "What do you mean?" she asked, sharply. 
"Julian is famous for his powers of persuasion," said Horace, smiling. "If he 
spoke to you, Grace, he would prevail on you to fix the day. Suppose I ask 
Julian to plead for me?" 
He made the proposal in jest. Mercy's unquiet mind accepted it as addressed to 
her in earnest. "He will do it," she thought, with a sense of indescribable 
terror, "if I don't stop him!" There is but one chance for her. The only certain 
way to prevent Horace from appealing to his friend was to grant what Horace 
wished for before his friend entered the house. She laid her hand on his 
shoulder; she hid the terrible anxieties that were devouring her under an 
assumption of coquetry painful and pitiable to see. 
"Don't talk nonsense!" she said, gayly. "What were we saying just now--before we 
began to speak of Mr. Julian Gray?" 
"We were wondering what had become of Lady Janet," Horace replied. 
She tapped him impatiently on the shoulder. "No! no! It was something you said 
before that." 
Her eyes completed what her words had left unsaid. Horace's arm stole round her 
waist. 
"I was saying that I loved you," he answered, in a whisper. 
"Only that?" 
"Are you tired of hearing it?" 
She smiled charmingly . "Are you so very much in earnest about--about--" She 
stopped, and looked away from him. 
"About our marriage?" 
"Yes." 
"It is the one dearest wish of my life." 
"Really?" 
"Really." 
There was a pause. Mercy's fingers toyed nervously with the trinkets at her 
watch-chain. "When would you like it to be?" she said, very softly, with her 
whole attention fixed on the watch-chain. 
She had never spoken, she had never looked, as she spoke and looked now. Horace 
was afraid to believe in his own good fortune. "Oh, Grace!" he exclaimed, "you 
are not trifling with me?" 
"What makes you think I am trifling with you?" 
Horace was innocent enough to answer her seriously. "You would not even let me 
speak of our marriage just now, "he said. 
"Never mind what I did just now," she retorted, petulantly. "They say women are 
changeable. It is one of the defects of the sex." 
"Heaven be praised for the defects of the sex!" cried Horace, with devout 
sincerity. "Do you really leave me to decide?" 
"If you insist on it." 
Horace considered for a moment--the subject being the law of marriage. "We may 
be married by license in a fortnight," he said. "I fix this day fortnight." 
She held up her hands in protest. 
"Why not? My lawyer is ready. There are no preparations to make. You said when 
you accepted me that it was to be a private marriage." 
Mercy was obliged to own that she had certainly said that. 
"We might be married at once--if the law would only let us. This day fortnight! 
Say--Yes!" He drew her closer to him. There was a pause. The mask of 
coquetry--badly worn from the first--dropped from her. Her sad gray eyes rested 
compassionately on his eager face. "Don't look so serious!" he said. "Only one 
little word, Grace! Only Yes." 
She sighed, and said it. He kissed her passionately. It was only by a resolute 
effort that she released herself. 
"Leave me!" she said, faintly. "Pray leave me by myself!" 
She was in earnest--strangely in earnest. She was trembling from head to foot. 
Horace rose to leave her. "I will find Lady Janet," he said; "I long to show the 
dear old lady that I have recovered my spirits, and to tell her why." He turned 
round at the library door. "You won't go away? You will let me see you again 
when you are more composed?" 
"I will wait here," said Mercy. 
Satisfied with that reply, he left the room. 
Her hands dropped on her lap; her head sank back wearily on the cushions at the 
head of the sofa. There was a dazed sensation in her: her mind felt stunned. She 
wondered vacantly whether she was awake or dreaming. Had she really said the 
word which pledged her to marry Horace Holmcroft in a fortnight? A fortnight! 
Something might happen in that time to prevent it: she might find her way in a 
fortnight out of the terrible position in which she stood. Anyway, come what 
might of it, she had chosen the preferable alternative to a private interview 
with Julian Gray. She raised herself from her recumbent position with a start, 
as the idea of the interview--dismissed for the last few minutes--possessed 
itself again of her mind. Her excited imagination figured Julian Gray as present 
in the room at that moment, speaking to her as Horace had proposed. She saw him 
seated close at her side--this man who had shaken her to the soul when he was in 
the pulpit, and when she was listening to him (unseen) at the other end of the 
chapel--she saw him close by her, looking her searchingly in the face; seeing 
her shameful secret in her eyes; hearing it in her voice; feeling it in her 
trembling hands; forcing it out of her word by word, till she fell prostrate at 
his feet with the confession of the fraud. Her head dropped again on the 
cushions; she hid her face in horror of the scene which her excited fancy had 
conjured up. Even now, when she had made that dreaded interview needless, could 
she feel sure (meeting him only on the most distant terms) of not betraying 
herself? She could not feel sure. Something in her shuddered and shrank at the 
bare idea of finding herself in the same room with him. She felt it, she knew 
it: her guilty conscience owned and feared its master in Julian Gray! 
The minutes passed. The violence of her agitation began to tell physically on 
her weakened frame. 
She found herself crying silently without knowing why. A weight was on her head, 
a weariness was in all her limbs. She sank lower on the cushions--her eyes 
closed--the monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece grew drowsily 
fainter and fainter on her ear. Little by little she dropped into 
slumber--slumber so light that she started when a morsel of coal fell into the 
grate, or when the birds chirped and twittered in their aviary in the 
winter-garden. 
Lady Janet and Horace came in. She was faintly conscious of persons in the room. 
After an interval she opened her eyes, and half rose to speak to them. The room 
was empty again. They had stolen out softly and left her to repose. Her eyes 
closed once more. She dropped back into slumber, and from slumber, in the 
favoring warmth and quiet of the place, into deep and dreamless sleep. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE MAN APPEARS.
After an interval of rest Mercy was aroused by the shutting of a glass door at 
the far end of the conservatory. This door, leading into the garden, was used 
only by the inmates of the house, or by old friends privileged to enter the 
reception-rooms by that way. Assuming that either Horace or Lady Janet was 
returning to the dining-room, Mercy raised herself a little on the' sofa and 
listened. 
The voice of one of the men-servants caught her ear. It was answered by another 
voice, which instantly set her trembling in every limb. 
She started up, and listened again in speechless terror. Yes! there was no 
mistaking it. The voice that was answering the servant was the unforgotten voice 
which she had heard at the Refuge. The visitor who had come in by the glass door 
was--Julian Gray! 
His rapid footsteps advanced nearer and nearer to the dining-room. She recovered 
herself sufficiently to hurry to the library door. Her hand shook so that she 
failed at first to open it. She had just succeeded when she heard him 
again--speaking to her. 
"Pray don't run away! I am nothing very formidable. Only Lady Janet's 
nephew--Julian Gray." 
She turned slowly, spell-bound by his voice, and confronted him in silence. 
He was standing, hat in hand, at the entrance to the conservatory, dressed in 
black, and wearing a white cravat, but with a studious avoidance of anything 
specially clerical in the make and form of his clothes. Young as he was, there 
were marks of care already on his face, and the hair was prematurely thin and 
scanty over his forehead. His slight, active figure was of no more than the 
middle height. His complexion was pale. The lower part of his face, without 
beard or whiskers, was in no way remarkable. An average observer would have 
passed him by without notice but for his eyes. These alone made a marked man of 
him. The unusual size of the orbits in which they were set was enough of itself 
to attract attention; it gave a grandeur to his head, which the head, broad and 
firm as it was, did not possess. As to the eyes themselves, the soft, lustrous 
brightness of them defied analysis No two people could agree about their color; 
divided opinion declaring alternately that they were dark gray or black. 
Painters had tried to reproduce them, and had given up the effort, in despair of 
seizing any one expression in the bewildering variety of expressions which they 
presented to view. They were eyes that could charm at one moment and terrify at 
another; eyes that could set people laughing or crying almost at will. In action 
and in repose they were irresistible alike. When they first descried Mercy 
running to the door, they brightened gayly with the merriment of a child. When 
she turned and faced him, they changed instantly, softening and glowing as they 
mutely owned the interest and the admiration which the first sight of her had 
roused in him. His tone and manner altered at the same time. He addressed her 
with the deepest respect when he spoke his next words. 
"Let me entreat you to favor me by resuming your seat," he said. "And let me ask 
your pardon if I have thoughtlessly intruded on you." 
He paused, waiting for her reply before he advanced into the room. Still 
spell-bound by his voice, she recovered self-control enough to bow to him and to 
resume her place on the sofa. It was impossible to leave him now. After looking 
at her for a moment, he entered the room without speaking to her again. She was 
beginning to perplex as well as to interest him. "No common sorrow," he thought, 
"has set its mark on that woman's face; no common heart beats in that woman's 
breast. Who can she be?" 
Mercy rallied her courage, and forced herself to speak to him. 
"Lady Janet is in the library, I believe," she said, timidly. "Shall I tell her 
you are here?" 
"Don't disturb Lady Janet, and don't disturb yourself." With that answer he 
approached the luncheon-table, delicately giving her time to feel more at her 
ease. He took up what Horace had left of the bottle of claret, and poured it 
into a glass. "My aunt's claret shall represent my aunt for the present," he 
said, smiling, as he turned toward her once more. "I have had a long walk, and I 
may venture to help myself in this house without invitation. Is it useless to 
offer you anything?" 
Mercy made the necessary reply. She was beginning already, after her remarkable 
experience of him, to wonder at his easy manners and his light way of talking. 
He emptied his glass with the air of a man who thoroughly understood and enjoyed 
good wine. "My aunt's claret is worthy of my aunt," he said, with comic gravity, 
as he set down the glass. "Both are the genuine products of Nature." He seated 
himself at the table and looked critically at the different dishes left on it. 
One dish especially attracted his attention. "What is this?" he went on. "A 
French pie! It seems grossly unfair to taste French wine and to pass over French 
pie without notice." He took up a knife and fork, and enjoyed the pie as 
critically as he had enjoyed the wine. "Worthy of the Great Nation!" he 
exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "Vive la France!" 
Mercy listened and looked, in inexpressible astonishment. He was utterly unlike 
the picture which her fancy had drawn of him in everyday life. Take off his 
white cravat, and nobody would have discovered that this famous preacher was a 
clergyman! 
He helped himself to another plateful of the pie, and spoke more directly to 
Mercy, alternately eating and talking as composedly and pleasantly as if they 
had known each other for years. 
"I came here by way of Kensington Gardens," he said. "For some time past I have 
been living in a flat, ugly, barren, agricultural district. You can't think how 
pleasant I found the picture presented by the Gardens, as a contrast. The ladies 
in their rich winter dresses, the smart nursery maids, the lovely children, the 
ever moving crowd skating on the ice of the Round Pond; it was all so 
exhilarating after what I have been used to, that I actually caught myself 
whistling as I walked through the brilliant scene! (In my time boys used always 
to whistle when they were in good spirits, and I have not got over the habit 
yet.) Who do you think I met when I was in full song?" 
As well as her amazement would let her, Mercy excused herself from guessing. She 
had never in all her life before spoken to any living being so confusedly and so 
unintelligently as she now spoke to Julian Gray! 
He went on more gayly than ever, without appearing to notice the effect that he 
had produced on her. 
"Whom did I meet," he repeated, "when I was in full song? My bishop! If I had 
been whistling a sacred melody, his lordship might perhaps have excused my 
vulgarity out of consideration for my music. Unfortunately, the composition I 
was executing at the moment (I am one of the loudest of living whistlers) was by 
Verdi--" La Donna e Mobile"--familiar, no doubt, to his lordship on the street 
organs. He recognized the tune, poor man, and when I took off my hat to him he 
looked the other way. Strange, in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow, 
to treat such a trifle seriously as a cheerful clergyman whistling a tune!" He 
pushed away his plate as he said the last words, and went on simply and 
earnestly in an altered tone. "I have never been able," he said, "to see why we 
should assert ourselves among other men as belonging to a particular caste, and 
as being forbidden, in any harmless thing, to do as other people do. The 
disciples of old set us no such example; they were wiser and better than we are. 
I venture to say that one of the worst obstacles in the way of our doing good 
among our fellow-creatures is raised by the mere assumption of the clerical 
manner and the clerical voice. For my part, I set up no claim to be more sacred 
and more reverend than any other Christian man who does what good he can." He 
glanced brightly at Mercy, looking at him in helpless perplexity. The spirit of 
fun took possession of him again. "Are you a Radical?" he asked, with a humorous 
twinkle in his large lustrous eyes. "I am!" 
Mercy tried hard to understand him, and tried in vain. Could this be the 
preacher whose words had charmed, purified, ennobled her? Was this the man whose 
sermon had drawn tears from women about her whom she knew to be shameless and 
hardened in crime? Yes! The eyes that now rested on her humorously were the 
beautiful eyes which had once looked into her soul. The voice that had just 
addressed a jesting question to her was the deep and mellow voice which had once 
thrilled her to the heart. In the pulpit he was an angel of mercy; out of the 
pulpit he was a boy let loose from school. 
"Don't let me startle you," he said, good-naturedly, noticing her confusion. 
"Public opinion has called me by harder names than the name of 'Radical.' I have 
been spending my time lately--as I told you just now--in an agricultural 
district. My business there was to perform the duty for the rector of the place, 
who wanted a holiday. How do you think the experiment has ended? The Squire of 
the parish calls me a Communist; the farmers denounce me as an Incendiary; my 
friend the rector has been recalled in a hurry, and I have now the honor of 
speaking to you in the character of a banished man who has made a respectable 
neighborhood too hot to hold him." 
With that frank avowal he left the luncheon table, and took a chair near Mercy. 
"You will naturally be anxious," he went on, "to know what my offense was. Do 
you understand Political Economy and the Laws of Supply and Demand?" 
Mercy owned that she did not understand them. 
"No more do I--in a Christian country," he said. "That was my offense. You shall 
hear my confession (just as my aunt will hear it) in two words." He paused for a 
little while; his variable manner changed again. Mercy, shyly looking at him, 
saw a new expression in his eyes--an expression which recalled her first remem 
brance of him as nothing had recalled it yet. "I had no idea," he resumed, "of 
what the life of a farm-laborer really was, in some parts of England, until I 
undertook the rector's duties. Never before had I seen such dire wretchedness as 
I saw in the cottages. Never before had I met with such noble patience under 
suffering as I found among the people. The martyrs of old could endure, and die. 
I asked myself if they could endure, and live, like the martyrs whom I saw round 
me?--live, week after week, month after month, year after year, on the brink of 
starvation; live, and see their pining children growing up round them, to work 
and want in their turn; live, with the poor man's parish prison to look to as 
the end, when hunger and labor have done their worst! Was God's beautiful earth 
made to hold such misery as this? I can hardly think of it, I can hardly speak 
of it, even now, with dry eyes!" 
His head sank on his breast. He waited--mastering his emotion before he spoke 
again. Now, at last, she knew him once more. Now he was the man, indeed, whom 
she had expected to see. Unconsciously she sat listening, with her eyes fixed on 
his face, with his heart hanging on his words, in the very attitude of the 
by-gone day when she had heard him for the first time! 
"I did all I could to plead for the helpless ones," he resumed. "I went round 
among the holders of the land to say a word for the tillers of the land. 'These 
patient people don't want much' (I said); 'in the name of Christ, give them 
enough to live on!' Political Economy shrieked at the horrid proposal; the Laws 
of Supply and Demand veiled their majestic faces in dismay. Starvation wages 
were the right wages, I was told. And why? Because the laborer was obliged to 
accept them! I determined, so far as one man could do it, that the laborer 
should not be obliged to accept them. I collected my own resources--I wrote to 
my friends--and I removed some of the poor fellows to parts of England where 
their work was better paid. Such was the conduct which made the neighborhood too 
hot to hold me. So let it be! I mean to go on. I am known in London; I can raise 
subscriptions. The vile Laws of Supply and Demand shall find labor scarce in 
that agricultural district; and pitiless Political Economy shall spend a few 
extra shillings on the poor, as certainly as I am that Radical, Communist, and 
Incendiary--Julian Gray!" 
He rose--making a little gesture of apology for the warmth with which he had 
spoken--and took a turn in the room. Fired by his enthusiasm, Mercy followed 
him. Her purse was in her hand, when he turned and faced her. 
"Pray let me offer my little tribute--such as it is!" she said, eagerly. 
A momentary flush spread over his pale cheeks as he looked at the beautiful 
compassionate face pleading with him. 
"No! no!" he said, smiling; "though I am a parson, I don't carry the begging-box 
everywhere." Mercy attempted to press the purse on him. The quaint humor began 
to twinkle again in his eyes as he abruptly drew back from it. "Don't tempt me!" 
he said. "The frailest of all human creatures is a clergyman tempted by a 
subscription." Mercy persisted, and conquered; she made him prove the truth of 
his own profound observation of clerical human nature by taking a piece of money 
from the purse. "If I must take it--I must!" he remarked. "Thank you for setting 
the good example! thank you for giving the timely help! What name shall I put 
down on my list?" 
Mercy's eyes looked confusedly away from him. "No name," she said, in a low 
voice. "My subscription is anonymous." 
As she replied, the library door opened. To her infinite relief--to Julian's 
secret disappointment--Lady Janet Roy and Horace Holmcroft entered the room 
together. 
"Julian!" exclaimed Lady Janet, holding up her hands in astonishment. 
He kissed his aunt on the cheek. "Your ladyship is looking charmingly." He gave 
his hand to Horace. Horace took it, and passed on to Mercy. They walked away 
together slowly to the other end of the room. Julian seized on the chance which 
left him free to speak privately to his aunt. 
"I came in through the conservatory," he said. "And I found that young lady in 
the room. Who is she?" 
"Are you very much interested in her?" asked Lady Janet, in her gravely ironical 
way. 
Julian answered in one expressive word. "Indescribably!" 
Lady Janet called to Mercy to join her. 
"My dear," she said, "let me formally present my nephew to you. Julian, this is 
Miss Grace Roseberry--" She suddenly checked herself. The instant she pronounced 
the name, Julian started as if it was a surprise to him. "What is it?" she 
asked, sharply. 
"Nothing," he answered, bowing to Mercy, with a marked absence of his former 
ease of manner. She returned the courtesy a little restrainedly on her side. 
She, too, had seen him start when Lady Janet mentioned the name by which she was 
known. The start meant something. What could it be? Why did he turn aside, after 
bowing to her, and address himself to Horace, with an absent look in his face, 
as if his thoughts were far away from his words? A complete change had come over 
him; and it dated from the moment when his aunt had pronounced the name that was 
not her name---the name that she had stolen! 
Lady Janet claimed Julian's attention, and left Horace free to return to Mercy. 
"Your room is ready for you," she said. "You will stay here, of course?" Julian 
accepted the invitation---still with the air of a man whose mind was 
preoccupied. Instead of looking at his aunt when he made his reply, he looked 
round at Mercy with a troubled curiosity in his face, very strange to see. Lady 
Janet tapped him impatiently on the shoulder. "I expect people to look at me 
when people speak to me," she said. "What are you staring at my adopted daughter 
for?" 
"Your adopted daughter?" Julian repeated--looking at his aunt this time, and 
looking very earnestly. 
"Certainly! As Colonel Roseberry's daughter, she is connected with me by 
marriage already. Did you think I had picked up a foundling?" 
Julian's face cleared; he looked relieved. "I had forgotten the Colonel," he 
answered. "Of course the young lady is related to us, as you say." 
"Charmed, I am sure, to have satisfied you that Grace is not an impostor," said 
Lady Janet, with satirical humility. She took Julian's arm and drew him out of 
hearing of Horace and Mercy. "About that letter of yours?" she proceeded. "There 
is one line in it that rouses my curiosity. Who is the mysterious 'lady' whom 
you wish to present to me?" 
Julian started, and changed color. 
"I can't tell you now," he said, in a whisper. 
"Why not?" 
To Lady Janet's unutterable astonishment, instead of replying, Julian looked 
round at her adopted daughter once more. 
"What has she got to do with it?" asked the old lady, out of all patience with 
him. 
"It is impossible for me to tell you," he answered, gravely, "while Miss 
Roseberry is in the room." 



CHAPTER IX. 
NEWS FROM MANNHEIM.
LADY JANET'S curiosity was by this time thoroughly aroused. Summoned to explain 
who the nameless lady mentioned in his letter could possibly be, Julian had 
looked at her adopted daughter. Asked next to explain what her adopted daughter 
had got to do with it, he had declared that he could not answer while Miss 
Roseberry was in the room. 
What did he mean? Lady Janet determined to find out. 
"I hate all mysteries," she said to Julian. "And as for secrets, I consider them 
to be one of the forms of ill-breeding. People in our rank of life ought to be 
above whispering in corners. If you must have your mystery, I can offer you a 
corner in the library. Come with me." 
Julian followed his aunt very reluctantly. Whatever the mystery might be, he was 
plainly embarrassed by being called upon to reveal it at a moment's notice. Lady 
Janet settled herself in her chair, prepared to question and cross-question her 
nephew, when an obstacle appeared at the other end of the library, in the shape 
of a man-servant with a message. One of Lady Janet's neighbors had called by 
appointment to take her to the meeting of a certain committee which assembled 
that day. The servant announced that the neighbor--an elderly lady--was then 
waiting in her carriage at the door. 
Lady Janet's ready invention set the obstacle aside without a moment's delay. 
She directed the servant to show her visitor into the drawing-room, and to say 
that she was unexpectedly engaged, but that Miss Roseberry would see the lady 
immediately. She then turned to Julian, and said, with her most satirical 
emphasis of tone and manner: "Would it be an additional convenience if Miss 
Roseberry was not only out of the room before you disclose your secret, but out 
of the house?" 
Julian gravely answered: "It may possibly be quite as well if Miss Roseberry is 
out of the house." 
Lady Janet led the way back to the dining-room. 
"My dear Grace, "she said, "you looked flushed and feverish when I saw you 
asleep on the sofa a little while since. It will do you no harm to have a drive 
in the fresh air. Our friend has called to take me to the committee meeting. I 
have sent to tell her that I am engaged--and I shall be much obliged if you will 
go in my place." 
Mercy looked a little alarmed. "Does your ladyship mean the committee meeting of 
the Samaritan Convalescent Home? The members, as I understand it, are to decide 
to-day which of the plans for the new building they are to adopt. I cannot 
surely presume to vote in your place?" 
"You can vote, my dear child, just as well as I can," replied the old lady. 
"Architecture is one of the lost arts. You know nothing about it; I know nothing 
about it; the architects themselves know nothing about it. One plan is, no 
doubt, just as bad as the other. Vote, as I should vote, with the majority. Or 
as poor dear Dr. Johnson said, 'Shout with the loudest mob.' Away with you--and 
don't keep the committee waiting." 
Horace hastened to open the door for Mercy. 
"How long shall you be away?" he whispered, confidentially. "I had a thousand 
things to say to you, and they have interrupted us." 
"I shall be back in an hour." 
"We shall have the room to ourselves by that time. Come here when you return. 
You will find me waiting for you." 
Mercy pressed his hand significantly and went out. Lady Janet turned to Julian, 
who had thus far remained in the background, still, to all appearance, as 
unwilling as ever to enlighten his aunt. 
"Well?" she said. "What is tying your tongue now? Grace is out of the room; why 
won't you begin? Is Horace in the way?" 
"Not in the least. I am only a little uneasy--" 
"Uneasy about what?" 
"I am afraid you have put that charming creature to some inconvenience in 
sending her away just at this time " 
Horace looked up suddenly, with a flush on his face. 
"When you say 'that charming creature,'" he asked, sharply, "I suppose you mean 
Miss Roseberry?" 
"Certainly," answered Julian. "Why not?" 
Lady Janet interposed. "Gently, Julian," she said. "Grace has only been 
introduced to you hitherto in the character of my adopted daughter--" 
"And it seems to be high time," Horace added, haughtily, "that I should present 
her next in the character of my engaged wife." 
Julian looked at Horace as if he could hardly credit the evidence of his own 
ears. "Your wife!" he exclaimed, with an irrepressible outburst of 
disappointment and surprise. 
"Yes. My wife," returned Horace. "We are to be married in a fortnight. May I 
ask," he added, with angry humility, "if you disapprove of the marriage?" 
Lady Janet interposed once more. "Nonsense, Horace," she said. "Julian 
congratulates you, of course." 
Julian coldly and absently echoed the words. "Oh, yes! I congratulate you, of 
course." 
Lady Janet returned to the main object of the interview. 
"Now we thoroughly understand one another," she said, "let us speak of a lady 
who has dropped out of the conversation for the last minute or two. I mean, 
Julian, the mysterious lady of your letter. We are alone, as you desired. Lift 
the veil, my reverend nephew, which hides her from mortal eyes! Blush, if you 
like--and can. Is she the future Mrs. Julian Gray?" 
"She is a perfect stranger to me," Julian answered, quietly. 
"A perfect stranger! You wrote me word you were interested in her." 
"I am interested in her. And, what is more, you are interested in her, too." 
Lady Janet's fingers drummed impatiently on the table. "Have I not warned you, 
Julian, that I hate mysteries? Will you, or will you not, explain yourself?" 
Before it was possible to answer, Horace rose from his chair. "Perhaps I am in 
the way?" he said. 
Julian signed to him to sit down again. 
"I have already told Lady Janet that you are not in the way," he answered. "I 
now tell you--as Miss Roseberry's future husband--that you, too, have an 
interest in hearing what I have to say." 
Horace resumed his seat with an air of suspicious surprise. Julian addressed 
himself to Lady Janet. 
"You have often heard me speak," he began, "of my old friend and school-fellow, 
John Cressingham?" 
"Yes. The English consul at Mannheim?" 
"The same. When I returned from the country I found among my other letters a 
long letter from the consul. I have brought it with me, and I propose to read 
certain passages from it, which tell a very strange story more plainly and more 
credibly than I can tell it in my own words." 
"Will it be very long?" inquired Lady Janet, looking with some alarm at the 
closely written sheets of paper which her nephew spread open before him. 
Horace followed with a question on his side. 
"You are sure I am interested in it?" he asked. "The consul at Mannheim is a 
total stranger to me." 
"I answer for it, "replied Julian, gravely, "neither my aunt's patience nor 
yours, Horace, will be thrown away if you will favor me by listening attentively 
to what I am about to read." 
With those words he began his first extract from the consul's letter. 
* * * "'My memory is a bad one for dates. But full three months must have passed 
since information was sent to me of an English patient, received at the hospital 
here, whose case I, as English consul, might feel an interest in investigating. 
"'I went the same day to the hospital, and was taken to the bedside. 
"'The patient was a woman--young, and (when in health), I should think, very 
pretty. When I first saw her she looked, to my uninstructed eye, like a dead 
woman. I noticed that her head had a bandage over it, and I asked what was the 
nature of the injury that she had received. The answer informed me that the poor 
creature had been present, nobody knew why or wherefore, at a skirmish or night 
attack between the Germans and the French, and that the injury to her head had 
been inflicted by a fragment of a German shell.'" 
Horace--thus far leaning back carelessly in his chair--suddenly raised himself 
and exclaimed, "Good heavens! can this be the woman I saw laid out for dead in 
the French cottage?" 
"It is impossible for me to say," replied Julian. "Listen to the rest of it. The 
consul's letter may answer your question." 
He went on with his reading: 
"'The wounded woman had been reported dead, and had been left by the French in 
their retreat, at the time when the German forces took possession of the enemy's 
position. She was found on a bed in a cottage by the director of the German 
ambulance--" 
"Ignatius Wetzel?" cried Horace. 
"Ignatius Wetzel," repeated Julian, looking at the letter. 
"It is the same!" said Horace. "Lady Janet, we are really interested in this. 
You remember my telling you how I first met with Grace? And you have heard more 
about it since, no doubt, from Grace herself?" 
"She has a horror of referring to that part of her journey home," replied Lady 
Janet. "She mentioned her having been stopped on the frontier, and her finding 
herself accidentally in the company of another Englishwoman, a perfect stranger 
to her. I naturally asked questions on my side, and was shocked to hear that she 
had seen the woman killed by a German shell almost close at her side. Neither 
she nor I have had any relish for returning to the subject since. You were quite 
right, Julian, to avoid speaking of it while she was in the room. I understand 
it all now. Grace, I suppose, mentioned my name to her fellow-traveler. The 
woman is, no doubt, in want of assistance, and she applies to me through you. I 
will help her; but she must not come here until I have prepared Grace for seeing 
her again, a living woman. For the present there is no reason why they should 
meet." 
"I am not sure about that," said Julian, in low tones, without looking up at his 
aunt. 
"What do you mean? Is the mystery not at an end yet?" 
"The mystery has not even begun yet. Let my friend the consul proceed." 
Julian returned for the second time to his extract from the letter: 
"'After a careful examination of the supposed corpse, the German surgeon arrived 
at the conclusion that a case of suspended animation had (in the hurry of the 
French retreat) been mistaken for a case of death. Feeling a professional 
interest in the subject, he decided on putting his opinion to the test. He 
operated on the patient with complete success. After performing the operation he 
kept her for some days under his own care, and then transferred her to the 
nearest hospital--the hospital at Mannheim. He was obliged to return to his 
duties as army surgeon, and he left his patient in the condition in which I saw 
her, insensible on the bed. Neither he nor the hospital authorities knew 
anything whatever about the woman. No papers were found on her. All the doctors 
could do, when I asked them for information with a view to communicating with 
her friends, was to show me her linen marked with her, name. I left the hospital 
after taking down the name in my pocket-book. It was "Mercy Merrick."'" 
Lady Janet produced her pocket-book. "Let me take the name down too," she said. 
"I never heard it before, and I might otherwise forget it. Go on, Julian." 
Julian advanced to his second extract from the consul 's letter: 
"'Under these circumstances, I could only wait to hear from the hospital when 
the patient was sufficiently recovered to be able to speak to me. Some weeks 
passed without my receiving any communication from the doctors. On calling to 
make inquiries I was informed that fever had set in, and that the poor 
creature's condition now alternated between exhaustion and delirium. In her 
delirious moments the name of your aunt, Lady Janet Roy, frequently escaped her. 
Otherwise her wanderings were for the most part quite unintelligible to the 
people at her bedside. I thought once or twice of writing to you, and of begging 
you to speak to Lady Janet. But as the doctors informed me that the chances of 
life or death were at this time almost equally balanced, I decided to wait until 
time should determine whether it was necessary to trouble you or not.'" 
"You know best, Julian," said Lady Janet. "But I own I don't quite see in what 
way I am interested in this part of the story." 
"Just what I was going to say," added Horace. "It is very sad, no doubt. But 
what have we to do with it?" 
"Let me read my third extract," Julian answered, "and you will see." 
He turned to the third extract, and read as follows: 
"'At last I received a message from the hospital informing me that Mercy Merrick 
was out of danger, and that she was capable (though still very weak) of 
answering any questions which I might think it desirable to put to her. On 
reaching the hospital, I was requested, rather to my surprise, to pay my first 
visit to the head physician in his private room. "I think it right," said this 
gentleman, "to warn you, before you see the patient, to be very careful how you 
speak to her, and not to irritate her by showing any surprise or expressing any 
doubts if she talks to you in an extravagant manner. We differ in opinion about 
her here. Some of us (myself among the number) doubt whether the recovery of her 
mind has accompanied the recovery of her bodily powers. Without pronouncing her 
to be mad--she is perfectly gentle and harmless--we are nevertheless of opinion 
that she is suffering under a species of insane delusion. Bear in mind the 
caution which I have given you--and now go and judge for yourself." I obeyed, in 
some little perplexity and surprise. The sufferer, when I approached her bed, 
looked sadly weak and worn; but, so far as I could judge, seemed to be in full 
possession of herself. Her tone and manner were unquestionably the tone and 
manner of a lady. After briefly introducing myself, I assured her that I should 
be glad, both officially and personally, if I could be of any assistance to her. 
In saying these trifling words I happened to address her by the name I had seen 
marked on her clothes. The instant the words "Miss Merrick" passed my lips a 
wild, vindictive expression appeared in her eyes. She exclaimed angrily, "Don't 
call me by that hateful name! It's not my name. All the people here persecute me 
by calling me Mercy Merrick. And when I am angry with them they show me the 
clothes. Say what I may, they persist in believing they are my clothes. Don't 
you do the same, if you want to be friends with me." Remembering what the 
physician had said to me, I made the necessary excuses and succeeded in soothing 
her. Without reverting to the irritating topic of the name, I merely inquired 
what her plans were, and assured her that she might command my services if she 
required them. "Why do you want to know what my plans are?" she asked, 
suspiciously. I reminded her in reply that I held the position of English 
consul, and that my object was, if possible, to be of some assistance to her. 
"You can be of the greatest assistance to me," she said, eagerly. "Find Mercy 
Merrick!" I saw the vindictive look come back into her eyes, and an angry flush 
rising on her white cheeks. Abstaining from showing any surprise, I asked her 
who Mercy Merrick was. "A vile woman, by her own confession," was the quick 
reply. "How am I to find her?" I inquired next. "Look for a woman in a black 
dress, with the Red Geneva Cross on her shoulder; she is a nurse in the French 
ambulance." "What has she done?" "I have lost my papers; I have lost my own 
clothes; Mercy Merrick has taken them." "How do you know that Mercy Merrick has 
taken them?" "Nobody else could have taken them--that's how I know it. Do you 
believe me or not?" She as beginning to excite herself again; I assured her that 
I would at once send to make inquiries after Mercy Merrick. She turned round 
contented on the pillow. "There's a good man!" she said. "Come back and tell me 
when you have caught her." Such was my first interview with the English patient 
at the hospital at Mannheim. It is needless to say that I doubted the existence 
of the absent person described as a nurse. However, it was possible to make 
inquiries by applying to the surgeon, Ignatius Wetzel, whose whereabouts was 
known to his friends in Mannheim. I wrote to him, and received his answer in due 
time. After the night attack of the Germans had made them masters of the French 
position, he had entered the cottage occupied by the French ambulance. He had 
found the wounded Frenchmen left behind, but had seen no such person in 
attendance on them as the nurse in the black dress with the red cross on her 
shoulder. The only living woman in the place was a young English lady, in a gray 
traveling cloak, who had been stopped on the frontier, and who was forwarded on 
her way home by the war correspondent of an English journal.'" 
"That was Grace," said Lady Janet. 
"And I was the war correspondent," added Horace. 
"A few words more," said Julian, "and you will understand my object in claiming 
your attention." 
He returned to the letter for the last time, and concluded his extracts from it 
as follows: 
"'Instead of attending at the hospital myself, I communicated by letter the 
failure of my attempt to discover the missing nurse. For some little time 
afterward I heard no more of the sick woman, whom I shall still call Mercy 
Merrick. It was only yesterday that I received another summons to visit the 
patient. She had by this time sufficiently recovered to claim her discharge, and 
she had announced her intention of returning forthwith to England. The head 
physician, feeling a sense of responsibility, had sent for me. It was impossible 
to detain her on the ground that she was not fit to be trusted by herself at 
large, in consequence of the difference of opinion among the doctors on the 
case. All that could be done was to give me due notice, and to leave the matter 
in my hands. On seeing her for the second time, I found her sullen and reserved. 
She openly attributed my inability to find the nurse to want of zeal for her 
interests on my part. I had, on my side, no authority whatever to detain her. I 
could only inquire whether she had money enough to pay her traveling expenses. 
Her reply informed me that the chaplain of the hospital had mentioned her 
forlorn situation in the town, and that the English residents had subscribed a 
small sum of money to enable her to return to her own country. Satisfied on this 
head, I asked next if she had friends to go to in England. "I have one friend," 
she answered, "who is a host in herself--Lady Janet Roy." You may imagine my 
surprise when I heard this. I found it quite useless to make any further 
inquiries as to how she came to know your aunt, whether your aunt expected her, 
and so on. My questions evidently offended her; they were received in sulky 
silence. Under these circumstances, well knowing that I can trust implicitly to 
your humane sympathy for misfortune, I have decided (after careful reflection) 
to insure the poor creature's safety when she arrives in London by giving her a 
letter to you. You will hear what she says, and you will be better able to 
discover than I am whether she really has any claim on Lady Janet Roy. One last 
word of information, which it may be necessary to add, and I shall close this 
inordinately long letter. At my first interview with her I abstained, as I have 
already told you, from irritating her by any inquiries on the subject of her 
name. On this second occasion, however, I decided on putting the question.'" 
As he read those last words, Julian became aware of a sudden movement on the 
part of his aunt. Lady Janet had risen softly from her chair and had passed 
behind him with the purpose of reading the consul's letter for herself over her 
nephew's shoulder. Julian detected the action just in time to frustrate Lady 
Janet's intention by placing his hand over the last two lines of the letter. 
"What do you do that for?" inquired his aunt, sharply. 
"You are welcome, Lady Janet, to read the close of the letter for yourself," 
Julian replied. "But before you do so I am anxious to prepare you for a very 
great surprise. Compose yourself and let me read on slowly, with your eye on me, 
until I uncover the last two words which close my friend's letter." 
He read the end of the letter, as he had proposed, in these terms: 
"'I looked the woman straight in the face, and I said to her, "You have denied 
that the name marked on the clothes which you wore when you came here was your 
name. If you are not Mercy Merrick, who are you?" She answered, instantly, "My 
name is--"'" 
Julian removed his hand from the page. Lady Janet looked at the next two words, 
and started back with a loud cry of astonishment, which brought Horace instantly 
to his feet. 
"Tell me, one of you!" he cried. "What name did she give?" 
Julian told him. 
"GRACE ROSEBERRY." 



CHAPTER X. 
A COUNCIL OF THREE.
FOR a moment Horace stood thunderstruck, looking in blank astonishment at Lady 
Janet. His first words, as soon as he had recovered himself, were addressed to 
Julian. "Is this a joke?" he asked, sternly. "If it is, I for one don't see the 
humor of it." 
Julian pointed to the closely written pages of the consul's letter. "A man 
writes in earnest," he said, "when he writes at such length as this. The woman 
seriously gave the name of Grace Roseberry, and when she left Mannheim she 
traveled to England for the express purpose of presenting herself to Lady Janet 
Roy." He turned to his aunt. "You saw me start," he went on, "when you first 
mentioned Miss Roseberry's name in my hearing. Now you know why." He addressed 
himself once more to Horace. "You heard me say that you, as Miss Roseberry's 
future husband, had an interest in being present at my interview with Lady 
Janet. Now you know why." 
"The woman is plainly mad," said Lady Janet. "But it is certainly a startling 
form of madness when one first hears of it. Of course we must keep the matter, 
for the present at least, a secret from Grace." 
"There can be no doubt," Horace agreed, "that Grace must be kept in the dark, in 
her present state of health. The servants had better be warned beforehand, in 
case of this adventuress or madwoman, whichever she may be, attempting to make 
her way into the house." 
"It shall be done immediately," said Lady Janet. "What surprises me Julian (ring 
the bell, if you please), is that you should describe yourself in your letter as 
feeling an interest in this person." 
Julian answered--without ringing the bell. 
"I am more interested than ever," he said, "now I find that Miss Roseberry 
herself is your guest at Mablethorpe House." 
'You were always perverse, Julian, as a child, in your likings and dislikings," 
Lady Janet rejoined. "Why don't you ring the bell?" 
"For one good reason, my dear aunt. I don't wish to hear you tell your servants 
to close the door on this friendless creature." 
Lady Janet cast a look at her nephew which plainly expressed that she thought he 
had taken a liberty with her. 
"You don't expect me to see the woman?" she asked, in a tone of cold surprise. 
"I hope you will not refuse to see her," Julian answered, quietly. "I was out 
when she called. I must hear what she has to say--and I should infinitely prefer 
hearing it in your presence. When I got your reply to my letter, permitting me 
to present her to you, I wrote to her immediately, appointing a meeting here." 
Lady Janet lifted her bright black eyes in mute expostulation to the carved 
Cupids and wreaths on the dining-room ceiling. 
"When am I to have the honor of the lady's visit?" she inquired, with ironical 
resignation. 
"To-day," answered her nephew, with impenetrable patience. 
"At what hour?" 
Julian composedly consulted his watch. "She is ten minutes after her time," he 
said, and put his watch back in his pocket again. 
At the same moment the servant appeared, and advanced to Julian, carrying a 
visiting card on his little silver tray. 
"A lady to see you, sir." 
Julian took the card, and, bowing, handed it to his aunt. 
"Here she is, "he said, just as quietly as ever. 
Lady Janet looked at the card, and tossed it indignantly back to her nephew. 
"Miss Roseberry!" she exclaimed. "Printed--actually printed on her card! Julian, 
even MY patience has its limits. I refuse to see her!" 
The servant was still waiting--not like a human being who took an interest in 
the proceedings, but (as became a perfectly bred footman) like an article of 
furniture artfully constructed to come and go at the word of command. Julian 
gave the word of command, addressing the admirably constructed automaton by the 
name of "James." 
"Where is the lady now?" he asked. 
"In the breakfast-room, sir." 
"Leave her there, if you please, and wait outside within hearing of the bell." 
The legs of the furniture-footman acted, and took him noiselessly out of the 
room. Julian turned to his aunt. 
"Forgive me," he said, "for venturing to give the man his orders in your 
presence. I am very anxious that you should not decide hastily. Surely we ought 
to hear what this lady has to say?" 
Horace dissented widely from his friend's opinion. "It's an insult to Grace," he 
broke out, warmly, "to hear what she has to say!" 
Lady Janet nodded her head in high approval. "I think so, too," said her 
ladyship, crossing her handsome old hands resolutely on her lap. 
Julian applied himself to answering Horace first. 
"Pardon me," he said. "I have no intention of presuming to reflect on Miss 
Roseberry, or of bringing her into the matter at all.--The consul's letter," he 
went on, speaking to his aunt, "mentions, if you remember, that the medical 
authorities of Mannheim were divided in opinion on their patient's case. Some of 
them--the physician-in-chief being among the number--believe that the recovery 
of her mind has not accompanied the recovery of her body." 
"In other words," Lady Janet remarked, "a madwoman is in my house, and I am 
expected to receive her!" 
"Don't let us exaggerate," said Julian, gently. "It can serve no good interest, 
in this serious matter, to exaggerate anything. The consul assures us, on the 
authority of the doctor, that she is perfectly gentle and harmless. If she is 
really the victim of a mental delusion, the poor creature is surely an object of 
compassion, and she ought to be placed under proper care. Ask your own kind 
heart, my dear aunt, if it would not be downright cruelty to turn this forlorn 
woman adrift in the world without making some inquiry first." 
Lady Janet's inbred sense of justice admitted not over willingly--the 
reasonableness as well as the humanity of the view expressed in those words. 
"There is some truth in that, Julian," she said, shifting her position uneasily 
in her chair, and looking at Horace. "Don't you think so, too?" she added. 
"I can't say I do," answered Horace, in the positive tone of a man whose 
obstinacy is proof against every form of appeal that can be addressed to him. 
The patience of Julian was firm enough to be a match for the obstinacy of 
Horace. "At any rate," he resumed, with undiminished good temper," we are all 
three equally interested in setting this matter at rest. I put it to you, Lady 
Janet, if we are not favored, at this lucky moment, with the very opportunity 
that we want? Miss Roseberry is not only out of the room, but out of the house. 
If we let this chance slip, who can say what awkward accident may not happen in 
the course of the next few days?" 
"Let the woman come in," cried Lady Janet, deciding headlong, with her customary 
impatience of all delay. "At once, Julian--before Grace can come back. Will you 
ring the bell this time?" 
This time Julian rang it. "May I give the man his orders?" he respectfully 
inquired of his aunt. 
"Give him anything you like, and have done with it!" retorted the irritable old 
lady, getting briskly on her feet, and taking a turn in the room to compose 
herself. 
The servant withdrew, with orders to show the visitor in. 
Horace crossed the room at the same time--apparently with the intention of 
leaving it by the door at the opposite end. 
"You are not going away?" exclaimed Lady Janet. 
"I see no use in my remaining here," replied Horace, not very graciously. 
"In that case," retorted Lady Janet, "remain here because I wish it." 
"Certainly--if you wish it. Only remember," he added, more obstinately than 
ever," that I differ entirely from Julian's view. In my opinion the woman has no 
claim on us." 
A passing movement of irritation escaped Julian for the first time. "Don't be 
hard, Horace," he said, sharply. "All women have a claim on us." 
They had unconsciously gathered together, in the heat of the little debate, 
turning their backs on the library door. At the last words of the reproof 
administered by Julian to Horace, their attention was recalled to passing events 
by the slight noise produced by the opening and closing of the door. With one 
accord the three turned and looked in the direction from which the sounds had 
come. 



CHAPTER XI. 
THE DEAD ALIVE.
JUST inside the door there appeared the figure of a small woman dressed in plain 
and poor black garments. She silently lifted her black net veil and disclosed a 
dull, pale, worn, weary face. The forehead was low and broad; the eyes were 
unusually far apart; the lower features were remarkably small and delicate. In 
health (as the consul at Mannheim had remarked) this woman must have possessed, 
if not absolute beauty, at least rare attractions peculiarly her own. As it was 
now, suffering--sullen, silent, self-contained suffering--had marred its beauty. 
Attention and even curiosity it might still rouse. Admiration or interest it 
could excite no longer. 
The small, thin, black figure stood immovably inside the door. The dull, worn, 
white face looked silently at the three persons in the room. 
The three persons in the room, on their side, stood for a moment without moving, 
and looked silently at the stranger on the threshold. There was something either 
in the woman herself, or in the sudden and stealthy manner of her appearance in 
the room, which froze, as if with the touch of an invisible cold hand, the 
sympathies of all three. Accustomed to the world, habitually at their ease in 
every social emergency, they were now silenced for the first time in their lives 
by the first serious sense of embarrassment which they had felt since they were 
children in the presence of a stranger. 
Had the appearance of the true Grace Roseberry aroused in their minds a 
suspicion of the woman who had stolen her name, and taken her place in the 
house? 
Not so much as the shadow of a suspicion of Mercy was at the bottom of the 
strange sense of uneasiness which had now deprived them alike of their habitual 
courtesy and their habitual presence of mind. It was as practically impossible 
for any one of the three to doubt the identity of the adopted daughter of the 
house as it would be for you who read these lines to doubt the identity of the 
nearest and dearest relative you have in the world. Circumstances had fortified 
Mercy behind the strongest of all natural rights--the right of first possession. 
C!circumstances had armed her with the most irresistible of all natural 
forces--the force of previous association and previous habit. Not by so much as 
a hair-breadth was the position of the false Grace Roseberry shaken by the first 
appearance of the true Grace Roseberry within the doors of Mablethorpe House. 
Lady Janet felt suddenly repelled, without knowing why. Julian and Horace felt 
suddenly repelled, without knowing why. Asked to describe their own sensations 
at the moment, they would have shaken their heads in despair, and would have 
answered in those words. The vague presentiment of some misfortune to come had 
entered the room with the entrance of the woman in black. But it moved 
invisibly; and it spoke as all presentiments speak, in the Unknown Tongue. 
A moment passed. The crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock were the 
only sounds audible in the room. 
The voice of the visitor--hard, clear, and quiet--was the first voice that broke 
the silence. 
"Mr. Julian Gray?" she said, looking interrogatively from one of the two 
gentlemen to the other. 
Julian advanced a few steps, instantly recovering his self-possession. "I am 
sorry I was not at home," he said, "when you called with your letter from the 
consul. Pray take a chair." 
By way of setting the example, Lady Janet seated herself at some little 
distance, with Horace in attendance standing near. She bowed to the stranger 
with studious politeness, but without uttering a word, before she settled 
herself in her chair. "I am obliged to listen to this person," thought the old 
lady. "But I am not obliged to speak to her. That is Julian's business--not 
mine. Don't stand, Horace! You fidget me. Sit down." Armed beforehand in her 
policy of silence, Lady Janet folded her handsome hands as usual, and waited for 
the proceedings to begin, like a judge on the bench. 
"Will you take a chair?" Julian repeated, observing that the visitor appeared 
neither to heed nor to hear his first words of welcome to her. 
At this second appeal she spoke to him. "Is that Lady Janet Roy?" she asked, 
with her eyes fixed on the mistress of the house. 
Julian answered, and drew back to watch the result. 
The woman in the poor black garments changed her position for the first time. 
She moved slowly across the room to the place at which Lady Janet was sitting, 
and addressed her respectfully with perfect self-possession of manner. Her whole 
demeanor, from the moment when she had appeared at the door, had expressed--at 
once plainly and becomingly--confidence in the reception that awaited her. 
"Almost the last words my father said to me on his death-bed, "she began, "were 
words, madam, which told me to expect protection and kindness from you." 
It was not Lady Janet's business to speak. She listened with the blandest 
attention. She waited with the most exasperating silence to hear more. 
Grace Roseberry drew back a step--not intimidated--only mortified and surprised. 
"Was my father wrong?" she asked, with a simple dignity of tone and manner which 
forced Lady Janet to abandon her policy of silence, in spite of herself. 
"Who was your father?" she asked, coldly. 
Grace Roseberry answered the question in a tone of stern surprise. 
"Has the servant not given you my card?" she said. "Don't you know my name?" 
"Which of your names?" rejoined Lady Janet. 
"I don't understand your ladyship." 
"I will make myself understood. You asked me if I knew your name. I ask you, in 
return, which name it is? The name on your card is 'Miss Roseberry.' The name 
marked on your clothes, when you were in the hospital, was 'Mercy Merrick.'" 
The self-possession which Grace had maintained from the moment when she had 
entered the dining-room, seemed now, for the first time, to be on the point of 
failing her. She turned, and looked appealingly at Julian, who had thus far kept 
his place apart, listening attentively. 
"Surely," she said, "your friend, the consul, has told you in his letter about 
the mark on the clothes?" 
Something of the girlish hesitation and timidity which had marked her demeanor 
at her interview with Mercy in the French cottage re-appeared in her tone and 
manner as she spoke those words. The changes--mostly changes for the 
worse--wrought in her by the suffering through which she had passed since that 
time were now (for the moment) effaced. All that was left of the better and 
simpler side of her character asserted itself in her brief appeal to Julian. She 
had hitherto repelled him. He began to feel a certain compassionate interest in 
her now. 
"The consul has informed me of what you said to him," he answered, kindly. "But, 
if you will take my advice, I recommend you to tell your story to Lady Janet in 
your own words." 
Grace again addressed herself with submissive reluctance to Lady Janet. 
"The clothes your ladyship speaks of," she said, "were the clothes of another 
woman. The rain was pouring when the soldiers detained me on the frontier. I had 
been exposed for hours to the weather--I was wet to the skin. The clothes marked 
'Mercy Merrick' were the clothes lent to me by Mercy Merrick herself while my 
own things were drying. I was struck by the shell in those clothes. I was 
carried away insensible in those clothes after the operation had been performed 
on me." 
Lady Janet listened to perfection--and did no more. She turned confidentially to 
Horace, and said to him, in her gracefully ironical way: "She is ready with her 
explanation." 
Horace answered in the same tone: "A great deal too ready." 
Grace looked from one of them to the other. A faint flush of color showed itself 
in her face for the first time. 
"Am I to understand," she asked, with proud composure, "that you don't believe 
me?" 
Lady Janet maintained her policy of silence. She waved one hand courteously 
toward Julian, as if to say, "Address your inquiries to the gentleman who 
introduces you." Julian, noticing the gesture, and observing the rising color in 
Grace's cheeks, interfered directly in the interests of peace 
"Lady Janet asked you a question just now," he said; "Lady Janet inquired who 
your father was." 
"My father was the late Colonel Roseberry." 
Lady Janet made another confidential remark to Horace. "Her assurance amazes 
me!" she exclaimed. 
Julian interposed before his aunt could add a word more. "Pray let us hear her," 
he said, in a tone of entreaty which had something of the imperative in it this 
time. He turned to Grace. "Have you any proof to produce," he added, in his 
gentler voice, "which will satisfy us that you are Colonel Roseberry's 
daughter?" 
Grace looked at him indignantly. "Proof!" she repeated. "Is my word not enough?" 

Julian kept his temper perfectly. "Pardon me," he rejoined, "you forget that you 
and Lady Janet meet now for the first time. Try to put yourself in my aunt's 
place. How is she to know that you are the late Colonel Roseberry's daughter?" 
Grace's head sunk on her breast; she dropped into the nearest chair. The 
expression of her face changed instantly from anger to discouragement. "Ah," she 
exclaimed, bitterly, "if I only had the letters that have been stolen from me!" 
"Letters, "asked Julian, "introducing you to Lady Janet?" 
"Yes." She turned suddenly to Lady Janet. "Let me tell you how I lost them," she 
said, in the first tones of entreaty which had escaped her yet. 
Lady Janet hesitated. It was not in her generous nature to resist the appeal 
that had just been made to her. The sympathies of Horace were far less easily 
reached. He lightly launched a new shaft of satire--intended for the private 
amusement of Lady Janet. "Another explanation!" he exclaimed, with a look of 
comic resignation. 
Julian overheard the words. His large lustrous eyes fixed themselves on Horace 
with a look of unmeasured contempt. 
"The least you can do," he said, sternly, "is not to irritate her. It is so easy 
to irritate her!" He addressed himself again to Grace, endeavoring to help her 
through her difficulty in a new way. "Never mind explaining yourself for the 
moment," he said. "In the absence of your letters, have you any one in London 
who can speak to your identity?" 
Grace shook her head sadly. "I have no friends in London," she answered. It was 
impossible for Lady Janet--who had never in her life heard of anybody without 
friends in London--to pass this over without notice. "No friends in London!" she 
repeated, turning to Horace. 
Horace shot another shaft of light satire. "Of course not!" he rejoined. 
Grace saw them comparing notes. "My friends are in Canada," she broke out, 
impetuously. "Plenty of friends who could speak for me, if I could only bring 
them here." 
As a place of reference--mentioned in the capital city of England--Canada, there 
is no denying it, is open to objection on the ground of distance. Horace was 
ready with another shot. "Far enough off, certainly," he said. 
"Far enough off, as you say," Lady Janet agreed. 
Once more Julian's inexhaustible kindness strove to obtain a hearing for the 
stranger who had been confided to his care. "A little patience, Lady Janet," he 
pleaded. "A little consideration, Horace, for a friendless woman." 
"Thank you, sir," said Grace. "It is very kind of you to try and help me, but it 
is useless. They won't even listen to me." She attempted to rise from her chair 
as she pronounced the last words. Julian gently laid his hand on her shoulder 
and obliged her to resume her seat. 
"I will listen to you," he said. "You referred me just now to the consul's 
letter. The consul tells me you suspected some one of taking your papers and 
your clothes." 
"I don't suspect," was the quick reply; "I am certain! I tell you positively 
Mercy Merrick was the thief. She was alone with me when I was struck down by the 
shell. She was the only person who knew that I had letters of introduction about 
me. She confessed to my face that she had been a bad woman--she had been in a 
prison--she had come out of a refuge--" 
Julian stopped her there with one plain question, which threw a doubt on the 
whole story. 
"The consul tells me you asked him to search for Mercy Merrick," he said. "Is it 
not true that he caused inquiries to be made, and that no trace of any such 
person was to be heard of?" 
"The consul took no pains to find her," Grace answered, angrily. "He was, like 
everybody else, in a conspiracy to neglect and misjudge me." 
Lady Janet and Horace exchanged looks. This time it was impossible for Julian to 
blame them. The further the stranger's narrative advanced, the less worthy of 
serious attention he felt it to be. The longer she spoke, the more 
disadvantageously she challenged comparison with the absent woman, whose name 
she so obstinately and so audaciously persisted in assuming as her own. 
"Granting all that you have said," Julian resumed, with a last effort of 
patience, "what use could Mercy Merrick make of your letters and your clothes?" 
"What use?" repeated Grace, amazed at his not seeing the position as she saw it. 
"My clothes were marked with my name. One of my papers was a letter from my 
father, introducing me to Lady Janet. A woman out of a refuge would be quite 
capable of presenting herself here in my place." 
Spoken entirely at random, spoken without so much as a fragment of evidence to 
support them, those last words still had their effect. They cast a reflection on 
Lady Janet's adopted daughter which was too outrageous to be borne. Lady Janet 
rose instantly. "Give me your arm, Horace," she said, turning to leave the room. 
"I have heard enough." 
Horace respectfully offered his arm. "Your ladyship is quite right," he 
answered. "A more monstrous story never was invented." 
He spoke, in the warmth of his indignation, loud enough for Grace to hear him. 
"What is there monstrous in it?" she asked, advancing a step toward him, 
defiantly. 
Julian checked her. He too--though he had only once seen Mercy--felt an angry 
sense of the insult offered to the beautiful creature who had interested him at 
his first sight of her. "Silence!" he said, speaking sternly to Grace for the 
first time. "You are offending--justly offending--Lady Janet. You are talking 
worse than absurdly--you are talking offensively--when you speak of another 
woman presenting herself here in your place." 
Grace's blood was up. Stung by Julian's reproof, she turned on him a look which 
was almost a look of fury. 
"Are you a clergyman? Are you an educated man?" she asked. "Have you never read 
of cases of false personation, in newspapers and books? I blindly confided in 
Mercy Merrick before I found out what her character really was. She left the 
cottage--I know it, from the surgeon who brought me to life again--firmly 
persuaded that the shell had killed me. My papers and my clothes disappeared at 
the same time. Is there nothing suspicious in these circumstances? There were 
people at the Hospital who thought them highly suspicious--people who warned me 
that I might find an impostor in my place." She suddenly paused. The rustling 
sound of a silk dress had caught her ear. Lady Janet was leaving the room, with 
Horace, by way of the conservatory. With a last desperate effort of resolution, 
Grace sprung forward and placed herself in front of them. 
"One word, Lady Janet, before you turn your back on me," she said, firmly. "One 
word, and I will be content. Has Colonel Roseberry's letter found its way to 
this house or not? If it has, did a woman bring it to you?" 
Lady Janet looked--as only a great lady can look, when a person of inferior rank 
has presumed to fail in respect toward her. 
"You are surely not aware," she said, with icy composure, "that these questions 
are an insult to Me?" 
"And worse than an insult," Horace added, warmly, "to Grace!" 
The little resolute black figure (still barring the way to the conservatory) was 
suddenly shaken from head to foot. The woman's eyes traveled backward and 
forward between Lady Janet and Horace with the light of a new suspicion in them. 

"Grace!" she exclaimed. "What Grace? That's my name. Lady Janet, you have got 
the letter! The woman is here!" 
Lady Janet dropped Horace's arm, and retraced her steps to the place at which 
her nephew was standing. 
"Julian, "she said. "You force me, for the first time in my life, to remind you 
of the respect that is due to me in my own house. Send that woman away." 
Without waiting to be answered, she turned back again, and once more took 
Horace's arm. 
"Stand back, if you please," she said, quietly, to Grace. 
Grace held her ground. 
"The woman is here!" she repeated. "Confront me with her--and then send me away, 
if you like." 
Julian advanced, and firmly took her by the arm. "You forget what is due to Lady 
Janet," he said, drawing her aside. "You forget what is due to yourself." 
With a desperate effort, Grace broke away from him, and stopped Lady Janet on 
the threshold of the conservatory door. 
"Justice!" she cried, shaking her clinched hand with hysterical frenzy in the 
air. "I claim my right to meet that woman face to face! Where is she? Confront 
me with her! Confront me with her!" 
While those wild words were pouring from her lips, the rumbling of carriage 
wheels became audible on the drive in front of the house. In the all-absorbing 
agitation of the moment, the sound of the wheels (followed by the opening of the 
house door) passed unnoticed by the persons in the dining-room. Horace's voice 
was still raised in angry protest against the insult offered to Lady Janet; Lady 
Janet herself (leaving him for the second time) was vehemently ringing the bell 
to summon the servants; Julian had once more taken the infuriated woman by the 
arms and was trying vainly to compose her--when the library door was opened 
quietly by a young lady wearing a mantle and a bonnet. Mercy Merrick (true to 
the appointment which she had made with Horace) entered the room. 
The first eyes that discovered her presence on the scene were the eyes of Grace 
Roseberry. Starting violently in Julian's grasp, she pointed toward the library 
door. "Ah!" she cried, with a shriek of vindictive delight. "There she is!" 
Mercy turned as the sound of the scream rang through the room, and met--resting 
on her in savage triumph--the living gaze of the woman whose identity she had 
stolen, whose body she had left laid out for dead. On the instant of that 
terrible discovery--with her eyes fixed helplessly on the fierce eyes that had 
found her--she dropped senseless on the floor. 



CHAPTER XII. 
EXIT JULIAN.
JULIAN happened to be standing nearest to Mercy. He was the first at her side 
when she fell. 
In the cry of alarm which burst from him, as he raised her for a moment in his 
arms, in the expression of his eyes when he looked at her death-like face, there 
escaped the plain--too plain--confession of the interest which he felt in her, 
of the admiration which she had aroused in him. Horace detected it. There was 
the quick suspicion of jealousy in the movement by which he joined Julian; there 
was the ready resentment of jealousy in the tone in which he pronounced the 
words, "Leave her to me." Julian resigned her in silence. A faint flush appeared 
on his pale face as he drew back while Horace carried her to the sofa. His eyes 
sunk to the ground; he seemed to be meditating self-reproachfully on the tone in 
which his friend had spoken to him. After having been the first to take an 
active part in meeting the calamity that had happened, he was now, to all 
appearance, insensible to everything that was passing in the room. 
A touch on his shoulder roused him. 
He turned and looked round. The woman who had done the mischief--the stranger in 
the poor black garments--was standing behind him. She pointed to the prostrate 
figure on the sofa, with a merciless smile. 
"You wanted a proof just now," she said. "There it is!" 
Horace heard her. He suddenly left the sofa and joined Julian. His face, 
naturally ruddy, was pale with suppressed fury. 
"Take that wretch away!" he said. "Instantly! or I won't answer for what I may 
do." 
Those words recalled Julian to himself. He looked round the room. Lady Janet and 
the housekeeper were together, in attendance on the swooning woman. The startled 
servants were congregated in the library doorway. One of them offered to run to 
the nearest doctor; another asked if he should fetch the police. Julian silenced 
them by a gesture, and turned to Horace. "Compose yourself," he said. "Leave me 
to remove her quietly from the house." He took Grace by the hand as he spoke. 
She hesitated, and tried to release herself. Julian pointed to the group at the 
sofa, and to the servants looking on. "You have made an enemy of every one in 
this room," he said, "and you have not a friend in London. Do you wish to make 
an enemy of me? Her head drooped; she made no reply; she waited, dumbly obedient 
to the firmer will than her own. Julian ordered the servants crowding together 
in the doorway to withdraw. He followed them into the library, leading Grace 
after him by the hand. Before closing the door he paused, and looked back into 
the dining-room. 
"Is she recovering?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation. 
Lady Janet's voice answered him. "Not yet." 
"Shall I send for the nearest doctor?" 
Horace interposed. He declined to let Julian associate himself, even in that 
indirect manner, with Mercy's recovery. 
"If the doctor is wanted," he said, "I will go for him myself." 
Julian closed the library door. He absently released Grace; he mechanically 
pointed to a chair. She sat down in silent surprise, following him with her eyes 
as he walked slowly to and fro in the room. 
For the moment his mind was far away from her, and from all that had happened 
since her appearance in the house. It was impossible that a man of his fineness 
of perception could mistake the meaning of Horace's conduct toward him. He was 
questioning his own heart, on the subject of Mercy, sternly and unreservedly as 
it was his habit to do. "After only once seeing her," he thought, "has she 
produced such an impression on me that Horace can discover it, before I have 
even suspected it myself? Can the time have come already when I owe it to my 
friend to see her no more?" He stopped irritably in his walk. As a man devoted 
to a serious calling in life, there was something that wounded his self-respect 
in the bare suspicion that he could be guilty of the purely sentimental 
extravagance called "love at first sight." 
He had paused exactly opposite to the chair in which Grace was seated. Weary of 
the silence, she seized the opportunity of speaking to him. 
"I have come here with you as you wished," she said. "Are you going to help me? 
Am I to count on you as my friend?" 
He looked at her vacantly. It cost him an effort before he could give her the 
attention that she had claimed. 
"You have been hard on me," Grace went on. "But you showed me some kindness at 
first; you tried to make them give me a fair hearing. I ask you, as a just man, 
do you doubt now that the woman on the sofa in the next room is an impostor who 
has taken my place? Can there be any plainer confession that she is Mercy 
Merrick than the confession she has made? You saw it; they saw it. She fainted 
at the sight of me." 
Julian crossed the room--still without answering her--and rang the bell. When 
the servant appeared, he told the man to fetch a cab. 
Grace rose from her chair. "What is the cab for?" she asked, sharply. 
"For you and for me," Julian replied. "I am going to take you back to your 
lodgings." 
"I refuse to go. My place is in this house. Neither Lady Janet nor you can get 
over the plain facts. All I asked was to be confronted with her. And what did 
she do when she came into the room? She fainted at the sight of me." 
Reiterating her one triumphant assertion, she fixed her eyes on Julian with a 
look which said plainly: Answer that if you can. In mercy to her, Julian 
answered it on the spot. 
"As far as I understand," he said, "you appear to take it for granted that no 
innocent woman would have fainted on first seeing you. I have something to tell 
you which will alter your opinion. On her arrival in England this lady informed 
my aunt that she had met with you accidentally on the French frontier, and that 
she had seen you (so far as she knew) struck dead at her side by a shell. 
Remember that, and recall what happened just now. Without a word to warn her of 
your restoration to life, she finds herself suddenly face to face with you, a 
living woman--and this at a time when it is easy for any one who looks at her to 
see that she is in delicate health. What is there wonderful, what is there 
unaccountable, in her fainting under such circumstances as these?" 
The question was plainly put. Where was the answer to it? 
There was no answer to it. Mercy's wisely candid statement of the manner in 
which she had first met with Grace, and of the accident which had followed had 
served Mercy's purpose but too well. It was simply impossible for persons 
acquainted with that statement to attach a guilty meaning to the swoon. The 
false Grace Roseberry was still as far beyond the reach of suspicion as ever, 
and the true Grace was quick enough to see it. She sank into the chair from 
which she had risen; her hands fell in hopeless despair on her lap. 
"Everything is against me," she said. "The truth itself turns liar, and takes 
her side." She paused, and rallied her sinking courage. "No!" she cried, 
resolutely, "I won't submit to have my name and my place taken from me by a vile 
adventuress! Say what you like, I insist on exposing her; I won't leave the 
house!" 
The servant entered the room, and announced that the cab was at the door. 
Grace turned to Julian with a defiant wave of her hand. "Don't let me detain 
you," she said. "I see I have neither advice nor help to expect from Mr. Julian 
Gray." 
Julian beckoned to the servant to follow him into a corner of the room. 
"Do you know if the doctor has been sent for?" he asked. 
"I believe not, sir. It is said in the servants' hall that the doctor is not 
wanted." 
Julian was too anxious to be satisfied with a report from the servants' hall. He 
hastily wrote on a slip of paper: "Has she recovered?" and gave the note to the 
man, with directions to take it to Lady Janet. 
"Did you hear what I said?" Grace inquired, while the messenger was absent in 
the dining room. 
"I will answer you directly," said Julian. 
The servant appeared again as he spoke, with some lines in pencil written by 
Lady Janet on the back of Julian's note. "Thank God, we have revived her. In a 
few minutes we hope to be able to take her to her room." 
The nearest way to Mercy's room was through the library. Grace's immediate 
removal had now become a necessity which was not to be trifled with. Julian 
addressed himself to meeting the difficulty the instant he was left alone with 
Grace. 
"Listen to me," he said. "The cab is waiting, and I have my last words to say to 
you. You are now (thanks to the consul's recommendation) in my care. Decide at 
once whether you will remain under my charge, or whether you will transfer 
yourself to the charge of the police." 
Grace started. "What do you mean?" she asked, angrily. 
"If you wish to remain under my charge," Julian proceeded, "you will accompany 
me at once to the cab. In that case I will undertake to give you an opportunity 
of telling your story to my own lawyer. He will be a fitter person to advise you 
than I am. Nothing will induce we to believe that the lady whom you have accused 
has committed, or is capable of committing, such a fraud as you charge her with. 
You will hear what the lawyer thinks, if you come with me. If you refuse, I 
shall have no choice but to send into the next room, and tell them that you are 
still here. The result will be that you will find yourself in charge of the 
police. Take which course you like: I will give you a minute to decide in. And 
remember this--if I appear to express myself harshly, it is your conduct which 
forces me to speak out. I mean kindly toward you; I am advising you honestly for 
your good." 
He took out his watch to count the minute. 
Grace stole one furtive glance at his steady, resolute face. She was perfectly 
unmoved by the manly consideration for her which Julian's last words had 
expressed. All she understood was that he was not a man to be trifled with. 
Future opportunities would offer themselves of returning secretly to the house. 
She determined to yield--and deceive him. 
"I am ready to go," she said, rising with dogged submission. "Your turn now," 
she muttered to herself, as she turned to the looking-glass to arrange her 
shawl. "My turn will come." 
Julian advanced toward her, as if to offer her his arm, and checked himself. 
Firmly persuaded as he was that her mind was deranged--readily as he admitted 
that she claimed, in virtue of her affliction, every indulgence that he could 
extend to her--there was something repellent to him at that moment in the bare 
idea of touching her. The image of the beautiful creature who was the object of 
her monstrous accusation--the image of Mercy as she lay helpless for a moment in 
his arms--was vivid in his mind while he opened the door that led into the hall, 
and drew back to let Grace pass out before him. He left the servant to help her 
into the cab. The man respectfully addressed him as he took his seat opposite to 
Grace. 
"I am ordered to say that your room is ready, sir, and that her ladyship expects 
you to dinner." 
Absorbed in the events which had followed his aunt's invitation, Julian had 
forgotten his engagement to stay at Mablethorpe House. Could he return, knowing 
his own heart as he now knew it? Could he honorably remain, perhaps for weeks 
together, in Mercy's society, conscious as he now was of the impression which 
she had produced on him? No. The one honorable course that he could take was to 
find an excuse for withdrawing from his engagement. "Beg her ladyship not to 
wait dinner for me," he said. "I will write and make my apologies." The cab 
drove off. The wondering servant waited on the doorstep, looking after it. "I 
wouldn't stand in Mr. Julian's shoes for something," he thought, with his mind 
running on the difficulties of the young clergyman's position. "There she is 
along with him in the cab. What is he going to do with her after that?" 
Julian himself, if it had been put to him at the moment, could not have answered 
the question. 
-------- 
Lady Janet's anxiety was far from being relieved when Mercy had been restored to 
her senses and conducted to her own room. 
Mercy's mind remained in a condition of unreasoning alarm, which it was 
impossible to remove. Over and over again she was told that the woman who had 
terrified her had left the house, and would never be permitted to enter it more; 
over and over again she was assured that the stranger's frantic assertions were 
regarded by everybody about her as unworthy of a moment's serious attention. She 
persisted in doubting whether they were telling her the truth. A shocking 
distrust of her friends seemed to possess her. She shrunk when Lady Janet 
approached the bedside. She shuddered when Lady Janet kissed her. She flatly 
refused to let Horace see her. She asked the strangest questions about Julian 
Gray, and shook her head suspiciously when they told her that he was absent from 
the house. At intervals she hid her face in the bedclothes and murmured to 
herself piteously, "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" At other times her 
one petition was to be left alone. "I want nobody in my room"--that was her 
sullen cry--"nobody in my room." 
The evening advanced, and brought with it no change for the better. Lady Janet, 
by the advice of Horace, sent for her own medical adviser. 
The doctor shook his head. The symptoms, he said, indicated a serious shock to 
the nervous system. He wrote a sedative prescription; and he gave (with a happy 
choice of language) some sound and safe advice. It amounted briefly to this: 
"Take her away, and try the sea-side." Lady Janet's customary energy acted on 
the advice, without a moment's needless delay. She gave the necessary directions 
for packing the trunks overnight, and decided on leaving Mablethorpe House with 
Mercy the next morning. 
Shortly after the doctor had taken his departure a letter from Julian, addressed 
to Lady Janet, was delivered by private messenger. 
Beginning with the necessary apologies for the writer's absence, the letter 
proceeded in these terms: 
"Before I permitted my companion to see the lawyer, I felt the necessity of 
consulting him as to my present position toward her first. 
"I told him--what I think it only right to repeat to you--that I do not feel 
justified in acting on my own opinion that her mind is deranged. In the case of 
this friendless woman I want medical authority, and, more even than that, I want 
some positive proof, to satisfy my conscience as well as to confirm my view. 
"Finding me obstinate on this point, the lawyer undertook to consult a physician 
accustomed to the treatment of the insane, on my behalf. 
"After sending a message and receiving the answer, he said, 'Bring the lady 
here--in half an hour; she shall tell her story to the doctor instead of telling 
it to me.' The proposal rather staggered me; I asked how it was possible to 
induce her to do that. He laughed, and answered, 'I shall present the doctor as 
my senior partner; my senior partner will be the very man to advise her.' You 
know that I hate all deception, even where the end in view appears to justify 
it. On this occasion, however, there was no other alternative than to let the 
lawyer take his own course, or to run the risk of a delay which might be 
followed by serious results. 
"I waited in a room by myself (feeling very uneasy, I own) until the doctor 
joined me, after the interview was over. 
"His opinion is, briefly, this: 
"After careful examination of the unfortunate creature, he thinks that there are 
unmistakably symptoms of mental aberration. But how far the mischief has gone, 
and whether her case is, or is not, sufficiently grave to render actual 
restraint necessary, he cannot positively say, in our present state of ignorance 
as to facts. 
"'Thus far,' he observed, 'we know nothing of that part of her delusion which 
relates to Mercy Merrick. The solution of the difficulty, in this case, is to be 
found there. I entirely agree with the lady that the inquiries of the consul at 
Mannheim are far from being conclusive. Furnish me with satisfactory evidence 
either that there is, or is not, such a person really in existence as Mercy 
Merrick, and I will give you a positive opinion on the case whenever you choose 
to ask for it.' 
"Those words have decided me on starting for the Continent and renewing the 
search for Mercy Merrick. 
"My friend the lawyer wonders jocosely whether I am in my right senses. His 
advice is that I should apply to the nearest magistrate, and relieve you and 
myself of all further trouble in that way. 
"Perhaps you agree with him? My dear aunt (as you have often said), I do nothing 
like other people. I am interested in this case. I cannot abandon a forlorn 
woman who has been confided to me to the tender mercies of strangers, so long as 
there is any hope of my making discoveries which may be instrumental in 
restoring her to herself--perhaps, also, in restoring her to her friends. 
"I start by the mail-train of to-night. My plan is to go first to Mannheim and 
consult with the consul and the hospital doctors; then to find my way to the 
German surgeon and to question him; and, that done, to make the last and hardest 
effort of all--the effort to trace the French ambulance and to penetrate the 
mystery of Mercy Merrick. 
"Immediately on my return I will wait on you, and tell you what I have 
accomplished, or how I have failed. 
"In the meanwhile, pray be under no alarm about the reappearance of this unhappy 
woman at your house. She is fully occupied in writing (at my suggestion) to her 
friends in Canada; and she is under the care of the landlady at her lodgings--an 
experienced and trustworthy person, who has satisfied the doctor as well as 
myself of her fitness for the charge that she has undertaken. 
"Pray mention this to Miss Roseberry (whenever you think it desirable), with the 
respectful expression of my sympathy, and of my best wishes for her speedy 
restoration to health. And once more forgive me for failing, under stress of 
necessity, to enjoy the hospitality of Mablethorpe House." 
Lady Janet closed Julian's letter, feeling far from satisfied with it. She sat 
for a while, pondering over what her nephew had written to her. 
"One of two things," thought the quick-witted old lady. "Either the lawyer is 
right, and Julian is a fit companion for the madwoman whom he has taken under 
his charge, or he has some second motive for this absurd journey of his which he 
has carefully abstained from mentioning in his letter. What can the motive be?" 
At intervals during the night that question recurred to her ladyship again and 
again. The utmost exercise of her ingenuity failing to answer it, her one 
resource left was to wait patiently for Julian's return, and, in her own 
favorite phrase, to "have it out of him" then. 
The next morning Lady Janet and her adopted daughter left Mablethorpe House for 
Brighton; Horace (who had begged to be allowed to accompany them) being 
sentenced to remain in London by Mercy's express desire. Why--nobody could 
guess; and Mercy refused to say. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
ENTER JULIAN.
A WEEK has passed. The scene opens again in the dining-room at Mablethorpe 
House. 
The hospitable table bears once more its burden of good things for lunch. But on 
this occasion Lady Janet sits alone. Her attention is divided between reading 
her newspaper and feeding her cat. The cat is a sleek and splendid creature. He 
carries an erect tail. He rolls luxuriously on the soft carpet. He approaches 
his mistress in a series of coquettish curves. He smells with dainty hesitation 
at the choicest morsels that can be offered to him. The musical monotony of his 
purring falls soothingly on her ladyship's ear. She stops in the middle of a 
leading article and looks with a careworn face at the happy cat. "Upon my 
honor," cries Lady Janet, thinking, in her inveterately ironical manner, of the 
cares that trouble her, "all things considered, Tom, I wish I was You!" 
The cat starts--not at his mistress's complimentary apostrophe, but at a knock 
at the door, which follows close upon it. Lady Janet says, carelessly enough, 
"Come in;" looks round listlessly to see who it is; and starts, like the cat, 
when the door opens and discloses--Julian Gray! 
"You--or your ghost?" she exclaims. 
She has noticed already that Julian is paler than usual, and that there is 
something in his manner at once uneasy and subdued--highly uncharacteristic of 
him at other times. He takes a seat by her side, and kisses her hand. But--for 
the first time in his aunt's experience of him--he refuses the good things on 
the luncheon table, and he has nothing to say to the cat! That neglected animal 
takes refuge on Lady Janet's lap. Lady Janet, with her eyes fixed expectantly on 
her nephew (determining to "have it out of him" at the first opportunity), waits 
to hear what he has to say for himself. Julian has no alternative but to break 
the silence, and tell his story as he best may. 
"I got back from the Continent last night," he began. "And I come here, as I 
promised, to report myself on my return. How does your ladyship do? How is Miss 
Roseberry?" 
Lady Janet laid an indicative finger on the lace pelerine which ornamented the 
upper part of her dress. "Here is the old lady, well," she answered--and pointed 
next to the room above them. "And there," she added, "is the young lady, ill. Is 
anything the matter with you, Julian?" 
"Perhaps I am a little tired after my journey. Never mind me. Is Miss Roseberry 
still suffering from the shock?" 
"What else should she be suffering from? I will never forgive you, Julian, for 
bringing that crazy impostor into my house." 
"My dear aunt, when I was the innocent means of bringing her here I had no idea 
that such a person as Miss Roseberry was in existence. Nobody laments what has 
happened more sincerely than I do. Have you had medical advice?" 
"I took her to the sea-side a week since by medical advice." 
"Has the change of air done her no good?" 
"None whatever. If anything, the change of air has made her worse. Sometimes she 
sits for hours together, as pale as death, without looking at anything, and 
without uttering a word. Sometimes she brightens up, and seems as if she was 
eager to say something; and then Heaven only knows why, checks herself suddenly 
as if she was afraid to speak. I could support that. But what cuts me to the 
heart, Julian, is, that she does not appear to trust me and to love me as she 
did. She seems to be doubtful of me; she seems to be frightened of me. If I did 
not know that it was simply impossible that such a thing could be, I should 
really think she suspected me of believing what that wretch said of her. In one 
word (and between ourselves), I begin to fear she will never get over the fright 
which caused that fainting-fit. There is serious mischief somewhere; and, try as 
I may to discover it, it is mischief beyond my finding." 
"Can the doctor do nothing?" 
Lady Janet's bright black eyes answered before she replied in words, with a look 
of supreme contempt. 
"The doctor!" she repeated, disdainfully. "I brought Grace back last night in 
sheer despair, and I sent for the doctor this morning. He is at the head of his 
profession; he is said to be making ten thousand a year; and he knows no more 
about it than I do. I am quite serious. The great physician has just gone away 
with two guineas in his pocket. One guinea, for advising me to keep her quiet; 
another guinea for telling me to trust to time. Do you wonder how he gets on at 
this rate? My dear boy, they all get on in the same way. The medical profession 
thrives on two incurable diseases in these modern days--a He-disease and a 
She-disease. She-disease--nervous depression; He-disease--suppressed gout. 
Remedies, one guinea, if you go to the doctor; two guineas if the doctor goes to 
you. I might have bought a new bonnet," cried her ladyship, indignantly, "with 
the money I have given to that man! Let us change the subject. I lose my temper 
when I think of it. Besides, I want to know something. Why did you go abroad?" 
At that plain question Julian looked unaffectedly surprised. "I wrote to 
explain," he said. "Have you not received my letter?" 
"Oh, I got your letter. It was long enough, in all conscience; and, long as it 
was, it didn't tell me the one thing I wanted to know." 
"What is the 'one thing'?" 
Lady Janet's reply pointed--not too palpably at first--at that second motive for 
Julian's journey which she had suspected Julian of concealing from her. 
"I want to know," she said, "why you troubled yourself to make your inquiries on 
the Continent in person? You know where my old courier is to be found. You have 
yourself pronounced him to be the most intelligent and trustworthy of men. 
Answer me honestly--could you not have sent him in your place?" 
"I might have sent him," Julian admitted, a little reluctantly. 
"You might have sent the courier--and you were under an engagement to stay here 
as my guest. Answer me honestly once more. Why did you go away?" 
Julian hesitated. Lady Janet paused for his reply, with the air of a women who 
was prepared to wait (if necessary) for the rest of the afternoon. 
"I had a reason of my own for going," Julian said at last. 
"Yes?" rejoined Lady Janet, prepared to wait (if necessary) till the next 
morning. 
"A reason," Julian resumed, "which I would rather not mention." 
"Oh!" said Lady Janet. "Another mystery--eh? And another woman at the bottom of 
it, no doubt. Thank you--that will do--I am sufficiently answered. No wonder, as 
a clergyman, that you look a little confused. There is, perhaps, a certain 
grace, under the circumstances, in looking confused. We will change the subject 
again. You stay here, of course, now you have come back?" 
Once more the famous pulpit orator seemed to find himself in the inconceivable 
predicament of not knowing what to say. Once more Lady Janet looked resigned to 
wait (if necessary) until the middle of next week. 
Julian took refuge in an answer worthy of the most commonplace man on the face 
of the civilized earth. 
"I beg your ladyship to accept my thanks and my excuses," he said. 
Lady Janet's many-ringed fingers, mechanically stroking the cat in her lap, 
began to stroke him the wrong way. 
Lady Janet's inexhaustible patience showed signs of failing her at last. 
"Mighty civil, I am sure," she said. "Make it complete. Say, Mr. Julian Gray 
presents his compliments to Lady Janet Roy, and regrets that a previous 
engagement-- Julian!" exclaimed the old lady, suddenly pushing the cat off her 
lap, and flinging her last pretense of good temper to the winds--"Julian, I am 
not to be trifled with! There is but one explanation of your conduct--you are 
evidently avoiding my house. Is there somebody you dislike in it? Is it me?" 
Julian intimated by a gesture that his aunt's last question was absurd. (The 
much-injured cat elevated his back, waved his tail slowly, walked to the 
fireplace, and honored the rug by taking a seat on it.) 
Lady Janet persisted. "Is it Grace Roseberry?" she asked next. 
Even Julian's patience began to show signs of yielding. His manner assumed a 
sudden decision, his voice rose a tone louder. 
"You insist on knowing?" he said. "It is Miss Roseberry." 
"You don't like her?" cried Lady Janet, with a sudden burst of angry surprise. 
Julian broke out, on his side: "If I see any more of her," he answered, the rare 
color mounting passionately in his cheeks, "I shall be the unhappiest man 
living. If I see any more of her, I shall be false to my old friend, who is to 
marry her. Keep us apart. If you have any regard for my peace of mind, keep us 
apart." 
Unutterable amazement expressed itself in his aunt's lifted hands. Ungovernable 
curiosity uttered itself in his aunt's next words. 
"You don't mean to tell me you are in love with Grace?" 
Julian sprung restlessly to his feet, and disturbed the cat at the fireplace. 
(The cat left the room.) 
"I don't know what to tell you," he said; "I can't realize it to myself. No 
other woman has ever roused the feeling in me which this woman seems to have 
called to life in an instant. In the hope of forgetting her I broke my 
engagement here; I purposely seized the opportunity of making those inquiries 
abroad. Quite useless. I think of her, morning, noon, and night. I see her and 
hear her, at this moment, as plainly as I see and hear you. She has made herself 
a part of myself. I don't understand my life without her. My power of will seems 
to be gone. I said to myself this morning, 'I will write to my aunt; I won't go 
back to Mablethorpe House.' Here I am in Mablethorpe House, with a mean 
subterfuge to justify me to my own conscience. 'I owe it to my aunt to call on 
my aunt.' That is what I said to myself on the way here; and I was secretly 
hoping every step of the way that she would come into the room when I got here. 
I am hoping it now. And she is engaged to Horace Holmcroft--to my oldest friend, 
to my best friend! Am I an infernal rascal? or am I a weak fool? God knows--I 
don't. Keep my secret, aunt. I am heartily ashamed of myself; I used to think I 
was made of better stuff than this. Don't say a word to Horace. I must, and 
will, conquer it. Let me go." 
He snatched up his hat. Lady Janet, rising with the activity of a young woman, 
pursued him across the room, and stopped him at the door. 
"No," answered the resolute old lady, "I won't let you go. Come back with me." 
As she said those words she noticed with a certain fond pride the brilliant 
color mounting in his cheeks--the flashing brightness which lent an added luster 
to his eyes. He had never, to her mind, looked so handsome before. She took his 
arm, and led him to the chairs which they had just left. It was shocking, it was 
wrong (she mentally admitted) to look on Mercy, under the circumstances, with 
any other eye than the eye of a brother or a friend. In a clergyman (perhaps) 
doubly shocking, doubly wrong. But, with all her respect for the vested 
interests of Horace, Lady Janet could not blame Julian. Worse still, she was 
privately conscious that he had, somehow or other, risen, rather than fallen, in 
her estimation within the last minute or two. Who could deny that her adopted 
daughter was a charming creature? Who could wonder if a man of refined tastes 
admired her? Upon the whole, her ladyship humanely decided that her nephew was 
rather to be pitied than blamed. What daughter of Eve (no matter whether she was 
seventeen or seventy) could have honestly arrived at any other conclusion? Do 
what a man may--let him commit anything he likes, from an error to a crime--so 
long as there is a woman at the bottom of it, there is an inexhaustible fund of 
pardon for him in every other woman's heart. "Sit down," said Lady Janet, 
smiling in spite of herself; "and don't talk in that horrible way again. A man, 
Julian--especially a famous man like you--ought to know how to control himself." 

Julian burst out laughing bitterly. 
"Send upstairs for my self-control," he said. "It's in her possession--not in 
mine. Good morning, aunt." 
He rose from his chair. Lady Janet instantly pushed him back into it. 
"I insist on your staying here," she said, "if it is only for a few minutes 
longer. I have something to say to you." 
"Does it refer to Miss Roseberry?" 
"It refers to the hateful woman who frightened Miss Roseberry. Now are you 
satisfied?" 
Julian bowed, and settled himself in his chair. 
"I don't much like to acknowledge it," his aunt went on. "But I want you to 
understand that I have something really serious to speak about, for once in a 
way. Julian! that wretch not only frightens Grace--she actually frightens me." 
"Frightens you? She is quite harmless, poor thing." 
"'Poor thing'!" repeated Lady Janet. "Did you say 'poor thing'?" 
"Yes." 
"Is it possible that you pity her?" 
"From the bottom of my heart." 
The old lady's temper gave way again at that reply. "I hate a man who can't hate 
anybody!" she burst out. "If you had been an ancient Roman, Julian, I believe 
you would have pitied Nero himself." 
Julian cordially agreed with her. "I believe I should," he said, quietly. "All 
sinners, my dear aunt, are more or less miserable sinners. Nero must have been 
one of the wretchedest of mankind." 
"Wretched!" exclaimed Lady Janet. "Nero wretched! A man who committed robbery, 
arson and murder to his own violin accompaniment--only wretched! What next, I 
wonder? When modern philanthropy begins to apologize for Nero, modern 
philanthropy has arrived at a pretty pass indeed! We shall hear next that Bloody 
Queen Mary was as playful as a kitten; and if poor dear Henry the Eighth carried 
anything to an extreme, it was the practice of the domestic virtues. Ah, how I 
hate cant! What were we talking about just now? You wander from the subject, 
Julian; you are what I call bird-witted. I protest I forget what I wanted to say 
to you. No, I won't be reminded of it. I may be an old woman, but I am not in my 
dotage yet! Why do you sit there staring? Have you nothing to say for yourself? 
Of all the people in the world, have you lost the use of your tongue?" 
Julian's excellent temper and accurate knowledge of his aunt's character exactly 
fitted him to calm the rising storm. He contrived to lead Lady Janet insensibly 
back to the lost subject by dexterous reference to a narrative which he had thus 
far left untold--the narrative of his adventures on the Continent. 
"I have a great deal to say, aunt," he replied. "I have not yet told you of my 
discoveries abroad." 
Lady Janet instantly took the bait. 
"I knew there was something forgotten," she said. "You have been all this time 
in the house, and you have told me nothing. Begin directly." 
Patient Julian began. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.
"I WENT first to Mannheim, Lady Janet, as I told you I should in my letter, and 
I heard all that the consul and the hospital doctors could tell me. No new fact 
of the slightest importance turned up. I got my directions for finding the 
German surgeon, and I set forth to try what I could make next of the man who 
performed the operation. On the question of his patient's identity he had (as a 
perfect stranger to her) nothing to tell me. On the question of her mental 
condition, however, he made a very important statement. He owned to me that he 
had operated on another person injured by a shell-wound on the head at the 
battle of Solferino, and that the patient (recovering also in this case) 
recovered--mad. That is a remarkable admission; don't you think so?" 
Lady Janet's temper had hardly been allowed time enough to subside to its 
customary level. 
"Very remarkable, I dare say," she answered, "to people who feel any doubt of 
this pitiable lady of yours being mad. I feel no doubt--and, thus far, I find 
your account of yourself, Julian, tiresome in the extreme. Go on to the end. Did 
you lay your hand on Mercy Merrick?" 
"No." 
"Did you hear anything of her?" 
"Nothing. Difficulties beset me on every side. The French ambulance had shared 
in the disasters of France--it was broken up. The wounded Frenchmen were 
prisoners somewhere in Germany, nobody knew where. The French surgeon had been 
killed in action. His assistants were scattered--most likely in hiding. I began 
to despair of making any discovery, when accident threw in my way two Prussian 
soldiers who had been in the French cottage. They confirmed what the German 
surgeon told the consul, and what Horace himself told me--namely, that no nurse 
in a black dress was to be seen in the place. If there had been such a person, 
she would certainly (the Prussians inform me) have been found in attendance on 
the injured Frenchmen. The cross of the Geneva Convention would have been amply 
sufficient to protect her: no woman wearing that badge of honor would have 
disgraced herself by abandoning the wounded men before the Germans entered the 
place." 
"In short, "interposed Lady Janet, "there is no such person as Mercy Merrick." 
"I can draw no other conclusion, "said Julian, "unless the English doctor's idea 
is the right one. After hearing what I have just told you, he thinks the woman 
herself is Mercy Merrick." 
Lady Janet held up her hand as a sign that she had an objection to make here. 
"You and the doctor seem to have settled everything to your entire satisfaction 
on both sides," she said. "But there is one difficulty that you have neither of 
you accounted for yet." 
"What is it, aunt?" 
"You talk glibly enough, Julian, about this woman's mad assertion that Grace is 
the missing nurse, and that she is Grace. But you have not explained yet how the 
idea first got into her head; and, more than that, how it is that she is 
acquainted with my name and address, and perfectly familiar with Grace's papers 
and Grace's affairs. These things are a puzzle to a person of my average 
intelligence. Can your clever friend, the doctor, account for them?" 
"Shall I tell you what he said when I saw him this morning?" 
"Will it take long?" 
"It will take about a minute." 
"You agreeably surprise me. Go on." 
"You want to know how she gained her knowledge of your name and of Miss 
Roseberry's affairs," Julian resumed. "The doctor says in one of two ways. 
Either Miss Roseberry must have spoken of you and of her own affairs while she 
and the stranger were together in the French cottage, or the stranger must have 
obtained access privately to Miss Roseberry's papers. Do you agree so far?" 
Lady Janet began to feel interested for the first time. 
"Perfectly," she said. "I have no doubt Grace rashly talked of matters which an 
older and wiser person would have kept to herself." 
"Very good. Do you also agree that the last idea in the woman's mind when she 
was struck by the shell might have been (quite probably) the idea of Miss 
Roseberry's identity and Miss Roseberry's affairs? You think it likely enough? 
Well, what happens after that? The wounded woman is brought to life by an 
operation, and she becomes delirious in the hospital at Mannheim. During her 
delirium the idea of Miss Roseberry's identity ferments in her brain, and 
assumes its present perverted form. In that form it still remains. As a 
necessary consequence, she persists in reversing the two identities. She says 
she is Miss Roseberry, and declares Miss Roseberry to be Mercy Merrick. There is 
the doctor's explanation. What do you think of it?" 
"Very ingenious, I dare say. The doctor doesn't quite satisfy me, however, for 
all that. I think--" 
What Lady Janet thought was not destined to be expressed. She suddenly checked 
herself, and held up her hand for the second time. 
"Another objection?" inquired Julian. 
"Hold your tongue!" cried the old lady. "If you say a word more I shall lose it 
again." 
"Lose what, aunt?" 
"What I wanted to say to you ages ago. I have got it back again--it begins with 
a question. (No more of the doctor--I have had enough of him!) Where is 
she--your pitiable lady, my crazy wretch--where is she now? Still in London?" 
"Yes." 
"And still at large?" 
"Still with the landlady, at her lodgings." 
"Very well. Now answer me this! What is to prevent her from making another 
attempt to force her way (or steal her way) into my house? How am I to protect 
Grace, how am I to protect myself, if she comes here again?" 
"Is that really what you wished to speak to me about?" 
"That, and nothing else." 
They were both too deeply interested in the subject of their conversation to 
look toward the conservatory, and to notice the appearance at that moment of a 
distant gentleman among the plants and flowers, who had made his way in from the 
garden outside. Advancing noiselessly on the soft Indian matting, the gentleman 
ere long revealed himself under the form and features of Horace Holmcroft. 
Before entering the dining-room he paused, fixing his eyes inquisitively on the 
back of Lady Janet's visitor--the back being all that he could see in the 
position he then occupied. After a pause of an instant the visitor spoke, and 
further uncertainty was at once at an end. Horace, nevertheless, made no 
movement to enter the room. He had his own jealous distrust of what Julian might 
be tempted to say at a private interview with his aunt; and he waited a little 
longer on the chance that his doubts might be verified. 
"Neither you nor Miss Roseberry need any protection from the poor deluded 
creature," Julian went on. "I have gained great influence over her--and I have 
satisfied her that it is useless to present herself here again." 
"I beg your pardon," interposed Horace, speaking from the conservatory door. 
"You have done nothing of the sort." 
(He had heard enough to satisfy him that the talk was not taking the direction 
which his Suspicions had anticipated. And, as an additional incentive to show 
himself, a happy chance had now offered him the opportunity of putting Julian in 
the wrong.) 
"Good heavens, Horace!" exclaimed Lady Janet. "Where did you come from? And what 
do you mean?" 
"I heard at the lodge that your ladyship and Grace had returned last night. And 
I came in at once without troubling the servants, by the shortest way." He 
turned to Julian next. "The woman you were speaking of just now," he proceeded, 
"has been here again already--in Lady Janet's absence." 
Lady Janet immediately looked at her nephew. Julian reassured her by a gesture. 
"Impossible," he said. "There must be some mistake." 
"There is no mistake," Horace rejoined. "I am repeating what I have just heard 
from the lodge-keeper himself. He hesitated to mention it to Lady Janet for fear 
of alarming her. Only three days since this person had the audacity to ask him 
for her ladyship's address at the sea-side. Of course he refused to give it." 
"You hear that, Julian?" said Lady Janet. 
No signs of anger or mortification escaped Julian. The expression in his face at 
that moment was an expression of sincere distress. 
'Pray don't alarm yourself," he said to his aunt, in his quietest tones. "If she 
attempts to annoy you or Miss Roseberry again, I have it in my power to stop her 
instantly." 
"How?" asked Lady Janet. 
"How, indeed!" echoed Horace. "If we give her in charge to the police, we shall 
become the subject of a public scandal." 
"I have managed to avoid all danger of scandal," Julian answered; the expression 
of distress in his face becoming more and more marked while he spoke. "Before I 
called here to-day I had a private consultation with the magistrate of the 
district, and I have made certain arrangements at the police station close by. 
On receipt of my card, an experienced man, in plain clothes, will present 
himself at any address that I indicate, and will take her quietly away. The 
magistrate will hear the charge in his private room, and will examine the 
evidence which I can produce, showing that she is not accountable for her 
actions. The proper medical officer will report officially on the case, and the 
law will place her under the necessary restraint." 
Lady Janet and Horace looked at each other in amazement. Julian was, in their 
opinion, the last man on earth to take the course--at once sensible and 
severe--which Julian had actually adopted. Lady Janet insisted on an 
explanation. 
"Why do I hear of this now for the first time?" she asked. "Why did you not tell 
me you had taken these precautions before?" 
Julian answered frankly and sadly. 
"Because I hoped, aunt, that there would be no necessity for proceeding to 
extremities. You now force me to acknowledge that the lawyer and the doctor 
(both of whom I have seen this morning) think, as you do, that she is not to be 
trusted. It was at their suggestion entirely that I went to the magistrate. They 
put it to me whether the result of my inquiries abroad--unsatisfactory as it may 
have been in other respects--did not strengthen the conclusion that the poor 
woman's mind is deranged. I felt compelled in common honesty to admit that it 
was so. Having owned this, I was bound to take such precautions as the lawyer 
and the doctor thought necessary. I have done my duty--sorely against my own 
will. It is weak of me, I dare say; but I can not bear the thought of treating 
this afflicted creature harshly. Her delusion is so hopeless! her situation is 
such a pitiable one!" 
His voice faltered. He turned away abruptly and took up his hat. Lady Janet 
followed him, and spoke to him at the door. Horace smiled satirically, and went 
to warm himself at the fire. 
"Are you going away, Julian?" 
"I am only going to the lodge-keeper. I want to give him a word of warning in 
case of his seeing her again." 
"You will come back here?" (Lady Janet lowered her voice to a whisper.) "There 
is really a reason, Julian, for your not leaving the house now." 
"I promise not to go away, aunt, until I have provided for your security. If 
you, or your adopted daughter, are alarmed by another intrusion, I give you my 
word of honor my card shall go to the police station, however painfully I may 
feel it myself." (He, too, lowered his voice at the next words ) "In the 
meantime, remember what I confessed to you while we were alone. For my sake, let 
me see as little of Miss Roseberry as possible. Shall I find you in this room 
when I come back?" 
"Yes." 
"Alone?" 
He laid a strong emphasis, of look as well as of tone, on that one word. Lady 
Janet understood what the emphasis meant. 
"Are you really," she whispered, "as much in love with Grace as that?" 
Julian laid one hand on his aunt's arm, and pointed with the other to 
Horace--standing with his back to them, warming his feet on the fender. 
"Well?" said Lady Janet. 
"Well," said Julian, with a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye, "I never 
envied any man as I envy him!" 
With those words he left the room. 



CHAPTER XV. 
A WOMAN'S REMORSE.
HAVING warmed his feet to his own entire satisfaction, Horace turned round from 
the fireplace, and discovered that he and Lady Janet were alone. 
"Can I see Grace?" he asked. 
The easy tone in which he put the question--a tone, as it were, of 
proprietorship in "Grace"--jarred on Lady Janet at the moment. For the first 
time in her life she found herself comparing Horace with Julian--to Horace's 
disadvantage. He was rich; he was a gentleman of ancient lineage; he bore an 
unblemished character. But who had the strong brain? who had the great heart? 
Which was the Man of the two? 
"Nobody can see her," answered Lady Janet. "Not even you!" 
The tone of the reply was sharp, with a dash of irony in it. But where is the 
modern young man, possessed of health and an independent income, who is capable 
of understanding that irony can be presumptuous enough to address itself to him? 
Horace (with perfect politeness) declined to consider himself answered. 
"Does your ladyship mean that Miss Roseberry is in bed?" he asked. 
"I mean that Miss Roseberry is in her room. I mean that I have twice tried to 
persuade Miss Roseberry to dress and come downstairs, and tried in vain. I mean 
that what Miss Roseberry refuses to do for Me, she is not likely to do for 
You--" 
How many more meanings of her own Lady Janet might have gone on enumerating, it 
is not easy to calculate. At her third sentence a sound in the library caught 
her ear through the incompletely closed door and suspended the next words on her 
lips. Horace heard it also. It was the rustling sound (traveling nearer and 
nearer over the library carpet) of a silken dress. 
(In the interval while a coming event remains in a state of uncertainty, what is 
it the inevitable tendency of every Englishman under thirty to do? His 
inevitable tendency is to ask somebody to bet on the event. He can no more 
resist it than he can resist lifting his stick or his umbrella, in the absence 
of a gun, and pretending to shoot if a bird flies by him while he is out for a 
walk.) 
"What will your ladyship bet that this is not Grace?" cried Horace. 
Her ladyship took no notice of the proposal; her attention remained fixed on the 
library door. The rustling sound stopped for a moment. The door was softly 
pushed open. The false Grace Roseberry entered the room. 
Horace advanced to meet her, opened his lips to speak, and stopped--struck dumb 
by the change in his affianced wife since he had seen her last. Some terrible 
oppression seemed to have crushed her. It was as if she had actually shrunk in 
height as well as in substance. She walked more slowly than usual; she spoke 
more rarely than usual, and in a lower tone. To those who had seen her before 
the fatal visit of the stranger from Mannheim, it was the wreck of the woman 
that now appeared instead of the woman herself. And yet there was the old charm 
still surviving through it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the delicate 
symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every movement--in a word, the 
unconquerable beauty which suffering cannot destroy, and which time itself is 
powerless to wear out. Lady Janet advanced, and took her with hearty kindness by 
both hands. 
"My dear child, welcome among us again! You have come down stairs to please me?" 

She bent her head in silent acknowledgment that it was so. Lady Janet pointed to 
Horace: "Here is somebody who has been longing to see you, Grace." 
She never looked up; she stood submissive, her eyes fixed on a little basket of 
colored wools which hung on her arm. "Thank you, Lady Janet," she said, faintly. 
"Thank you, Horace." 
Horace placed her arm in his, and led her to the sofa. She shivered as she took 
her seat, and looked round her. It was the first time she had seen the 
dining-room since the day when she had found herself face to face with the 
dead-alive. 
"Why do you come here, my love?" asked Lady Janet. "The drawing-room would have 
been a warmer and a pleasanter place for you." 
"I saw a carriage at the front door. I was afraid of meeting with visitors in 
the drawing-room." 
As she made that reply, the servant came in, and announced the visitors' names. 
Lady Janet sighed wearily. "I must go and get rid of them," she said, resigning 
herself to circumstances. "What will you do, Grace?" 
"I will stay here, if you please." 
"I will keep her company," added Horace. 
Lady Janet hesitated. She had promised to see her nephew in the dining-room on 
his return to the house--and to see him alone. Would there be time enough to get 
rid of the visitors and to establish her adopted daughter in the empty 
drawing-room before Julian appeared? It was ten minutes' walk to the lodge, and 
he had to make the gate-keeper understand his instructions. Lady Janet decided 
that she had time enough at her disposal. She nodded kindly to Mercy, and left 
her alone with her lover. 
Horace seated himself in the vacant place on the sofa. So far as it was in his 
nature to devote himself to any one he was devoted to Mercy. "I am grieved to 
see how you have suffered," he said, with honest distress in his face as he 
looked at her. "Try to forget what has happened." 
"I am trying to forget. Do you think of it much?" 
"My darling, it is too contemptible to be thought of." 
She placed her work-basket on her lap. Her wasted fingers began absently sorting 
the wools inside. 
"Have you seen Mr. Julian Gray?" she asked, suddenly. 
"Yes." 
"What does he say about it?" She looked at Horace for the first time, steadily 
scrutinizing his face. Horace took refuge in prevarication. 
"I really haven't asked for Julian's opinion," he said. 
She looked down again, with a sigh, at the basket on her lap--considered a 
little--and tried him once more. 
"Why has Mr. Julian Gray not been here for a whole week?" she went on. "The 
servants say he has been abroad. Is that true?" 
It was useless to deny it. Horace admitted that the servants were right. 
Her fingers, suddenly stopped at their restless work among the wools; her breath 
quickened perceptibly. What had Julian Gray been doing abroad? Had he been 
making inquiries? Did he alone, of all the people who saw that terrible meeting, 
suspect her? Yes! His was the finer intelligence; his was a clergyman's (a 
London clergyman's) experience of frauds and deceptions, and of the women who 
were guilty of them. Not a doubt of it now! Julian suspected her. 
"When does he come back?" she asked, in tones so low that Horace could barely 
hear her. 
"He has come back already. He returned last night." 
A faint shade of color stole slowly over the pallor of her face. She suddenly 
put her basket away, and clasped her hands together to quiet the trembling of 
them, before she asked her next question. 
"Where is--" She paused to steady her voice. "Where is the person," she resumed, 
"who came here and frightened me?" 
Horace hastened to re-assure her. "The person will not come again," he said. 
"Don't talk of her! Don't think of her!" 
She shook her head. "There is something I want to know," she persisted. "How did 
Mr. Julian Gray become acquainted with her?" 
This was easily answered. Horace mentioned the consul at Mannheim, and the 
letter of introduction. She listened eagerly, and said her next words in a 
louder, firmer tone. 
"She was quite a stranger, then, to Mr. Julian Gray--before that?" 
"Quite a stranger," Horace replied. "No more questions--not another word about 
her, Grace! I forbid the subject. Come, my own love!" he said, taking her hand 
and bending over her tenderly, "rally your spirits! We are young--we love each 
other--now is our time to be happy!" 
Her hand turned suddenly cold, and trembled in his. Her head sank with a 
helpless weariness on her breast. Horace rose in alarm. 
"You are cold--you are faint, "he said. "Let me get you a glass of wine!--let me 
mend the fire!" 
The decanters were still on the luncheon-table. Horace insisted on her drinking 
some port-wine. She barely took half the contents of the wine-glass. Even that 
little told on her sensitive organization; it roused her sinking energies of 
body and mind. After watching her anxiously, without attracting her notice, 
Horace left her again to attend to the fire at the other end of the room. Her 
eyes followed him slowly with a hard and tearless despair. "Rally your spirits," 
she repeated to herself in a whisper. "My spirits! O God!" She looked round her 
at the luxury and beauty of the room, as those look who take their leave of 
familiar scenes. The moment after, her eyes sank, and rested on the rich dress 
that she wore a gift from Lady Janet. She thought of the past; she thought of 
the future. Was the time near when she would be back again in the Refuge, or 
back again in the streets?--she who had been Lady Janet's adopted daughter, and 
Horace Holmcroft's betrothed wife! A sudden frenzy of recklessness seized on her 
as she thought of the coming end. Horace was right! Why not rally her spirits? 
Why not make the most of her time? The last hours of her life in that house were 
at hand. Why not enjoy her stolen position while she could? "Adventuress!" 
whispered the mocking spirit within her, "be true to your character. Away with 
your remorse! Remorse is the luxury of an honest woman." She caught up her 
basket of wools, inspired by a new idea. "Ring the bell!" she cried out to 
Horace at the fire-place. 
He looked round in wonder. The sound of her voice was so completely altered that 
he almost fancied there must have been another woman in the room. 
"Ring the bell!" she repeated. "I have left my work upstairs. If you want me to 
be in good spirits, I must have my work." 
Still looking at her, Horace put his hand mechanically to the bell and rang. One 
of the men-servants came in. 
"Go upstairs and ask my maid for my work," she said, sharply. Even the man was 
taken by surprise: it was her habit to speak to the servants with a gentleness 
and consideration which had long since won all their hearts. "Do you hear me?" 
she asked, impatiently. The servant bowed, and went out on his errand. She 
turned to Horace with flashing eyes and fevered cheeks. 
"What a comfort it is," she said, "to belong to the upper classes! A poor woman 
has no maid to dress her, and no footman to send upstairs. Is life worth having, 
Horace, on less than five thousand a year?" 
The servant returned with a strip of embroidery. She took it with an insolent 
grace, and told him to bring her a footstool. The man obeyed. She tossed the 
embroidery away from her on the sofa. "On second thoughts, I don't care about my 
work," she said. "Take it upstairs again." The perfectly trained servant, 
marveling privately, obeyed once more. Horace, in silent astonishment, advanced 
to the sofa to observe her more nearly. "How grave you look!" she exclaimed, 
with an air of flippant unconcern. "You don't approve of my sitting idle, 
perhaps? Anything to please you! I haven't got to go up and downstairs. Ring the 
bell again." 
"My dear Grace," Horace remonstrated, gravely, "you are quite mistaken. I never 
even thought of your work." 
"Never mind; it's inconsistent to send for my work, and then send it away again. 
Ring the bell." 
Horace looked at her without moving. "Grace," he said, "what has come to you?" 
"How should I know?" she retorted, carelessly. "Didn't you tell me to rally my 
spirits? Will you ring the bell, or must I?" 
Horace submitted. He frowned as he walked back to the bell. He was one of the 
many people who instinctively resent anything that is new to them. This strange 
outbreak was quite new to him. For the first time in his life he felt sympathy 
for a servant, when the much-enduring man appeared once more. 
"Bring my work back; I have changed my mind." With that brief explanation she 
reclined luxuriously on the soft sofa-cushions, swinging one of her balls of 
wool to and fro above her head, and looking at it lazily as she lay back. "I 
have a remark to make, Horace," she went on, when the door had closed on her 
messenger. "It is only people in our rank of life who get good servants. Did you 
notice? Nothing upsets that man's temper. A servant in a poor family should have 
been impudent; a maid-of-all-work would have wondered when I was going to know 
my own mind." The man returned with the embroidery. This time she received him 
graciously; she dismissed him with her thanks. "Have you seen your mother 
lately, Horace?" she asked, suddenly sitting up and busying herself with her 
work. 
"I saw her yesterday," Horace answered. 
"She understands, I hope, that I am not well enough to call on her? She is not 
offended with me?" 
Horace recovered his serenity. The deference to his mother implied in Mercy's 
questions gently flattered his self-esteem. He resumed his place on the sofa. 
"Offended with you!" he answered, smiling." My dear Grace, she sends you her 
love. And, more than that, she has a wedding present for you." 
Mercy became absorbed in her work; she stooped close over the embroidery--so 
close that Horace could not see her face. "Do you know what the present is?" she 
asked, in lowered tones, speaking absently. 
"No. I only know it is waiting for you. Shall I go and get it to-day?" 
She neither accepted nor refused the proposal--she went on with her work more 
industriously than ever. 
"There is plenty of time," Horace persisted. "I can go before dinner." 
Still she took no notice: still she never looked up. "Your mother is very kind 
to me," she said, abruptly. "I was afraid, at one time, that she would think me 
hardly good enough to be your wife." 
Horace laughed indulgently: his self-esteem was more gently flattered than ever. 

"Absurd!" he exclaimed. "My darling, you are connected with Lady Janet Roy. Your 
family is almost as good as ours." 
"Almost?" she repeated. "Only almost?" 
The momentary levity of expression vanished from Horace's face. The family 
question was far too serious a question to be lightly treated A becoming shadow 
of solemnity stole over his manner. He looked as if it was Sunday, and he was 
just stepping into church. 
"In OUR family," he said, "we trace back--by my father, to the Saxons; by my 
mother, to the Normans. Lady Janet's family is an old family--on her side only." 

Mercy dropped her embroidery, and looked Horace full in the face. She, too, 
attached no common importance to what she had next to say. 
"If I had not been connected with Lady Janet," she began, "would you ever have 
thought of marrying me?" 
"My love! what is the use of asking? You are connected with Lady Janet." 
She refused to let him escape answering her in that way. 
"Suppose I had not been connected with Lady Janet?" she persisted. "Suppose I 
had only been a good girl, with nothing but my own merits to speak for me. What 
would your mother have said then?" 
Horace still parried the question--only to find the point of it pressed home on 
him once more. 
"Why do you ask?" he said. 
"I ask to be answered," she rejoined. "Would your mother have liked you to marry 
a poor girl, of no family--with nothing but her own virtues to speak for her?" 
Horace was fairly pressed back to the wall. 
"If you must know," he replied, "my mother would have refused to sanction such a 
marriage as that." 
"No matter how good the girl might have been?" 
There was something defiant--almost threatening--in her tone. Horace was 
annoyed--and he showed it when he spoke. 
"My mother would have respected the girl, without ceasing to respect herself," 
he said. "My mother would have remembered what was due to the family name." 
"And she would have said, No?" 
"She would have said, No." 
"Ah!" 
There was an undertone of angry contempt in the exclamation which made Horace 
start. "What is the matter?" he asked. 
"Nothing," she answered, and took up her embroidery again. There he sat at her 
side, anxiously looking at her--his hope in the future centered in his marriage! 
In a week more, if she chose, she might enter that ancient family of which he 
had spoken so proudly, as his wife. "Oh!" she thought, "if I didn't love him! if 
I had only his merciless mother to think of!" 
Uneasily conscious of some estrangement between them, Horace spoke again. 
"Surely I have not offended you?" he said. 
She turned toward him once more. The work dropped unheeded on her lap. Her grand 
eyes softened into tenderness. A smile trembled sadly on her delicate lips. She 
laid one hand caressingly on his shoulder. All the beauty of her voice lent its 
charm to the next words that she said to him. The woman's heart hungered in its 
misery for the comfort that could only come from his lips. 
"You would have loved me, Horace--without stopping to think of the family name?" 

The family name again! How strangely she persisted in coming back to that! 
Horace looked at her without answering, trying vainly to fathom what was passing 
in her mind. 
She took his hand, and wrung it hard--as if she would wring the answer out of 
him in that way. 
"You would have loved me?" she repeated. 
The double spell of her voice and her touch was on him. He answered, warmly, 
"Under any circumstances! under any name!" 
She put one arm round his neck, and fixed her eyes on his. "Is that true?" she 
asked. 
"True as the heaven above us!" 
She drank in those few commonplace words with a greedy delight. She forced him 
to repeat them in a new form. 
"No matter who I might have been? For myself alone?" 
"For yourself alone." 
She threw both arms round him, and laid her head passionately on his breast. "I 
love you! I love you!! I love you!!!" Her voice rose with hysterical vehemence 
at each repetition of the words--then suddenly sank to a low hoarse cry of rage 
and despair. The sense of her true position toward him revealed itself in all 
its horror as the confession of her love escaped her lips. Her arms dropped from 
him; she flung herself back on the sofa-cushions, hiding her face in her hands. 
"Oh, leave me!" she moaned, faintly. "Go! go!" 
Horace tried to wind his arm round her, and raise her. She started to her feet, 
and waved him back from her with a wild action of her hands, as if she was 
frightened of him. "The wedding present!" she cried, seizing the first pretext 
that occurred to her. "You offered to bring me your mother's present. I am dying 
to see what it is. Go and get it!" 
Horace tried to compose her. He might as well have tried to compose the winds 
and the sea. 
"Go!" she repeated, pressing one clinched hand on her bosom. "I am not well. 
Talking excites me--I am hysterical; I shall be better alone. Get me the 
present. Go!" 
"Shall I send Lady Janet? Shall I ring for your maid?" 
"Send for nobody! ring for nobody! If you love me--leave me here by myself! 
leave me instantly!" 
"I shall see you when I come back?" 
"Yes! yes!" 
There was no alternative but to obey her. Unwillingly and forebodingly, Horace 
left the room. 
She drew a deep breath of relief, and dropped into the nearest chair. If Horace 
had stayed a moment longer--she felt it, she knew it--her head would have given 
way; she would have burst out before him with the terrible truth. "Oh!" she 
thought, pressing her cold hands on her burning eyes, "if I could only cry, now 
there is nobody to see me!" 
The room was empty: she had every reason for concluding that she was alone. And 
yet at that very moment there were ears that listened--there were eyes waiting 
to see her. 
Little by little the door behind her which faced the library and led into the 
billiard-room was opened noiselessly from without, by an inch at a time. As the 
opening was enlarged a hand in a black glove, an arm in a black sleeve, 
appeared, guiding the movement of the door. An interval of a moment passed, and 
the worn white face of Grace Roseberry showed itself stealthily, looking into 
the dining-room. 
Her eyes brightened with vindictive pleasure as they discovered Mercy sitting 
alone at the further end of the room. Inch by inch she opened the door more 
widely, took one step forward, and checked herself. A sound, just audible at the 
far end of the conservatory, had caught her ear. 
She listened--satisfied herself that she was not mistaken--and drawing back with 
a frown of displeasure, softly closed the door again, so as to hide herself from 
view. The sound that had disturbed her was the distant murmur of men's voices 
(apparently two in number) talking together in lowered tones, at the garden 
entrance to the conservatory. 
Who were the men? and what would they do next? They might do one of two things: 
they might enter the drawing-room, or they might withdraw again by way of the 
garden. Kneeling behind the door, with her ear at the key-hole, Grace Roseberry 
waited the event. 

The New Magdalen, Chapters 16 - 29CHAPTER XVI. 
THEY MEET AGAIN.
ABSORBED in herself, Mercy failed to notice the opening door or to hear the 
murmur of voices in the conservatory. 
The one terrible necessity which had been present to her mind at intervals for a 
week past was confronting her at that moment. She owed to Grace Roseberry the 
tardy justice of owning the truth. The longer her confession was delayed, the 
more cruelly she was injuring the woman whom she had robbed of her identity--the 
friendless woman who had neither witnesses nor papers to produce, who was 
powerless to right her own wrong. Keenly as she felt this, Mercy failed, 
nevertheless, to conquer the horror that shook her when she thought of the 
impending avowal. Day followed day, and still she shrank from the unendurable 
ordeal of confession--as she was shrinking from it now! 
Was it fear for herself that closed her lips? 
She trembled--as any human being in her place must have trembled--at the bare 
idea of finding herself thrown back again on the world, which had no place in it 
and no hope in it for her. But she could have overcome that terror--she could 
have resigned herself to that doom. 
No! it was not the fear of the confession itself, or the fear of the 
consequences which must follow it, that still held her silent. The horror that 
daunted her was the horror of owning to Horace and to Lady Janet that she had 
cheated them out of their love. 
Every day Lady Janet was kinder and kinder. Every day Horace was fonder and 
fonder of her. How could she confess to Lady Janet? how could she own to Horace 
that she had imposed upon him? "I can't do it. They are so good to me--I can't 
do it!" In that hopeless way it had ended during the seven days that had gone 
by. In that hopeless way it ended again now. 
The murmur of the two voices at the further end of the conservatory ceased. The 
billiard-room door opened again slowly, by an inch at a time. 
Mercy still kept her place, unconscious of the events that were passing round 
her. Sinking under the hard stress laid on it, her mind had drifted little by 
little into a new train of thought. For the first time she found the courage to 
question the future in a new way. Supposing her confession to have been made, or 
supposing the woman whom she had personated to have discovered the means of 
exposing the fraud, what advantage, she now asked herself, would Miss Roseberry 
derive from Mercy Merrick's disgrace? 
Could Lady Janet transfer to the woman who was really her relative by marriage 
the affection which she had given to the woman who had pretended to be her 
relative? No! All the right in the world would not put the true Grace into the 
false Grace's vacant place. The qualities by which Mercy had won Lady Janet's 
love were the qualities which were Mercy's won. Lady Janet could do rigid 
justice--but hers was not the heart to give itself to a stranger (and to give 
itself unreservedly) a second time. Grace Roseberry would be formally 
acknowledged--and there it would end. 
Was there hope in this new view? 
Yes! There was the false hope of making the inevitable atonement by some other 
means than by the confession of the fraud. 
What had Grace Roseberry actually lost by the wrong done to her? She had lost 
the salary of Lady Janet's "companion and reader." Say that she wanted money, 
Mercy had her savings from the generous allowance made to her by Lady Janet; 
Mercy could offer money. Or say that she wanted employment, Mercy's interest 
with Lady Janet could offer employment, could offer anything Grace might ask 
for, if she would only come to terms. 
Invigorated by the new hope, Mercy rose excitedly, weary of inaction in the 
empty room. She, who but a few minutes since had shuddered at the thought of 
their meeting again, was now eager to devise a means of finding her way 
privately to an interview with Grace. It should be done without loss of time--on 
that very day, if possible; by the next day at latest. She looked round her 
mechanically, pondering how to reach the end in view. Her eyes rested by chance 
on the door of the billiard-room. 
Was it fancy? or did she really see the door first open a little, then suddenly 
and softly close again? 
Was it fancy? or did she really hear, at the same moment, a sound behind her as 
of persons speaking in the conservatory? 
She paused; and, looking back in that direction, listened intently. The 
sound--if she had really heard it--was no longer audible. She advanced toward 
the billiard-room to set her first doubt at rest. She stretched out her hand to 
open the door, when the voices (recognizable now as the voices of two men) 
caught her ear once more. 
This time she was able to distinguish the words that were spoken. 
"Any further orders, sir?" inquired one of the men. 
"Nothing more," replied the other. 
Mercy started, and faintly flushed, as the second voice answered the first. She 
stood irresolute close to the billiard-room, hesitating what to do next. 
After an interval the second voice made itself heard again, advancing nearer to 
the dining-room: "Are you there, aunt?" it asked cautiously. There was a 
moment's pause. Then the voice spoke for the third time, sounding louder and 
nearer. "Are you there?" it reiterated; "I have something to tell you." Mercy 
summoned her resolution and answered: "Lady Janet is not here." She turned as 
she spoke toward the conservatory door, and confronted on the threshold Julian 
Gray. 
They looked at one another without exchanging a word on either side. The 
situation--for widely different reasons--was equally embarrassing to both of 
them. 
There--as Julian saw her--was the woman forbidden to him, the woman whom he 
loved. 
There--as Mercy saw him--was the man whom she dreaded, the man whose actions (as 
she interpreted them) proved that he suspected her. 
On the surface of it, the incidents which had marked their first meeting were 
now exactly repeated, with the one difference that the impulse to withdraw this 
time appeared to be on the man's side and not on the woman's. It was Mercy who 
spoke first. 
"Did you expect to find Lady Janet here?" she asked, constrainedly. He answered, 
on his part, more constrainedly still. 
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Another time will do." 
He drew back as he made the reply. She advanced desperately, with the deliberate 
intention of detaining him by speaking again. 
The attempt which he had made to withdraw, the constraint in his manner when he 
had answered, had instantly confirmed her in the false conviction that he, and 
he alone, had guessed the truth! If she was right--if he had secretly made 
discoveries abroad which placed her entirely at his mercy--the attempt to induce 
Grace to consent to a compromise with her would be manifestly useless. Her first 
and foremost interest now was to find out how she really stood in the estimation 
of Julian Gray. In a terror of suspense, that turned her cold from head to foot, 
she stopped him on his way out, and spoke to him with the piteous counterfeit of 
a smile. 
"Lady Janet is receiving some visitors," she said. "If you will wait here, she 
will be back directly." 
The effort of hiding her agitation from him had brought a passing color into her 
cheeks. Worn and wasted as she was, the spell of her beauty was strong enough to 
hold him against his own will. All he had to tell Lady Janet was that he had met 
one of the gardeners in the conservatory, and had cautioned him as well as the 
lodge-keeper. It would have been easy to write this, and to send the note to his 
aunt on quitting the house. For the sake of his own peace of mind, for the sake 
of his duty to Horace, he was doubly bound to make the first polite excuse that 
occurred to him, and to leave her as he had found her, alone in the room. He 
made the attempt, and hesitated. Despising himself for doing it, he allowed 
himself to look at her. Their eyes met. Julian stepped into the dining-room. 
"If I am not in the way," he said, confusedly, "I will wait, as you kindly 
propose." 
She noticed his embarrassment; she saw that he was strongly restraining himself 
from looking at her again. Her own eyes dropped to the ground as she made the 
discovery. Her speech failed her; her heart throbbed faster and faster. 
"If I look at him again" (was the thought in her mind) "I shall fall at his feet 
and tell him all that I have done!" 
"If I look at her again" (was the thought in his mind) "I shall fall at her feet 
and own that I am in love with her!" 
With downcast eyes he placed a chair for her. With downcast eyes she bowed to 
him and took it. A dead silence followed. Never was any human misunderstanding 
more intricately complete than the misunderstanding which had now established 
itself between those two. 
Mercy's work-basket was near her. She took it, and gained time for composing 
herself by pretending to arrange the colored wools. He stood behind her chair, 
looking at the graceful turn of her head, looking at the rich masses of her 
hair. He reviled himself as the weakest of men, as the falsest of friends, for 
still remaining near her--and yet he remained. 
The silence continued. The billiard-room door opened again noiselessly. The face 
of the listening woman appeared stealthily behind it. 
At the same moment Mercy roused herself and spoke: "Won't you sit down?" she 
said, softly, still not looking round at him, still busy with her basket of 
wools. 
He turned to get a chair--turned so quickly that he saw the billiard-room door 
move, as Grace Roseberry closed it again. 
"Is there any one in that room?" he asked, addressing Mercy. 
"I don't know," she answered. "I thought I saw the door open and shut again a 
little while ago." 
He advanced at once to look into the room. As he did so Mercy dropped one of her 
balls of wool. He stopped to pick it up for her--then threw open the door and 
looked into the billiard-room. It was empty. 
Had some person been listening, and had that person retreated in time to escape 
discovery? The open door of the smoking-room showed that room also to be empty. 
A third door was open--the door of the side hall, leading into the grounds. 
Julian closed and locked it, and returned to the dining-room. 
"I can only suppose," he said to Mercy, "that the billiard-room door was not 
properly shut, and that the draught of air from the hall must have moved it." 
She accepted the explanation in silence. He was, to all appearance, not quite 
satisfied with it himself. For a moment or two he looked about him uneasily. 
Then the old fascination fastened its hold on him again. Once more he looked at 
the graceful turn of her head, at the rich masses of her hair. The courage to 
put the critical question to him, now that she had lured him into remaining in 
the room, was still a courage that failed her. She remained as busy as ever with 
her work--too busy to look at him; too busy to speak to him. The silence became 
unendurable. He broke it by making a commonplace inquiry after her health. "I am 
well enough to be ashamed of the anxiety I have caused and the trouble I have 
given," she answered. "To-day I have got downstairs for the first time. I am 
trying to do a little work." She looked into the basket. The various specimens 
of wool in it were partly in balls and partly in loose skeins. The skeins were 
mixed and tangled. "Here is sad confusion!" she exclaimed, timidly, with a faint 
smile. "How am I to set it right again?" 
"Let me help you," said Julian. 
"You!" 
"Why not?" he asked, with a momentary return of the quaint humor which she 
remembered so well. "You forget that I am a curate. Curates are privileged to 
make themselves useful to young ladies. Let me try." 
He took a stool at her feet, and set himself to unravel one of the tangled 
skeins. In a minute the wool was stretched on his hands, and the loose end was 
ready for Mercy to wind. There was something in the trivial action, and in the 
homely attention that it implied, which in some degree quieted her fear of him. 
She began to roll the wool off his hands into a ball. Thus occupied, she said 
the daring words which were to lead him little by little into betraying his 
suspicions, if he did indeed suspect the truth. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
"You were here when I fainted, were you not?" Mercy began. "You must think me a 
sad coward, even for a woman." 
He shook his head. "I am far from thinking that, "he replied. "No courage could 
have sustained the shock which fell on you. I don't wonder that you fainted. I 
don't wonder that you have been ill." 
She paused in rolling up the ball of wool. What did those words of unexpected 
sympathy mean? Was he laying a trap for her? Urged by that serious doubt, she 
questioned him more boldly. 
"Horace tells me you have been abroad," she said. "Did you enjoy your holiday?" 
"It was no holiday. I went abroad because I thought it right to make certain 
inquiries--" He stopped there, unwilling to return to a subject that was painful 
to her. 
Her voice sank, her fingers trembled round the ball of wool; but she managed to 
go on. 
"Did you arrive at any results?" she asked. 
"At no results worth mentioning." 
The caution of that reply renewed her worst suspicions of him. In sheer despair, 
she spoke out plainly. 
"I want to know your opinion--" she began. 
"Gently!" said Julian. "You are entangling the wool again." 
"I want to know your opinion of the person who so terribly frightened me. Do you 
think her--" 
"Do I think her--what?" 
"Do you think her an adventuress?" 
(As she said those words the branches of a shrub in the conservatory were 
noiselessly parted by a hand in a black glove. The face of Grace Roseberry 
appeared dimly behind the leaves. Undiscovered, she had escaped from the 
billiard-room, and had stolen her way into the conservatory as the safer 
hiding-place of the two. Behind the shrub she could see as well as listen. 
Behind the shrub she waited as patiently as ever.) 
"I take a more merciful view," Julian answered. "I believe she is acting under a 
delusion. I don't blame her: I pity her." 
"You pity her?" As Mercy repeated the words, she tore off Julian's hands the 
last few lengths of wool left, and threw the imperfectly wound skein back into 
the basket. "Does that mean," she resumed, abruptly, "that you believe her?" 
Julian rose from his seat, and looked at Mercy in astonishment. 
"Good heavens, Miss Roseberry! what put such an idea as that into your head?" 
"I am little better than a stranger to you," she rejoined, with an effort to 
assume a jesting tone. "You met that person before you met with me. It is not so 
very far from pitying her to believing her. How could I feel sure that you might 
not suspect me?" 
"Suspect you!" he exclaimed. "You don't know how you distress, how you shock me. 
Suspect you! The bare idea of it never entered my mind. The man doesn't live who 
trusts you more implicitly, who believes in you more devotedly, than I do." 
His eyes, his voice, his manner, all told her that those words came from the 
heart. She contrasted his generous confidence in her (the confidence of which 
she was unworthy) with her ungracious distrust of him. Not only had she wronged 
Grace Roseberry--she had wronged Julian Gray. Could she deceive him as she had 
deceived the others? Could she meanly accept that implicit trust, that devoted 
belief? Never had she felt the base submissions which her own imposture 
condemned her to undergo with a loathing of them so overwhelming as the loathing 
that she felt now. In horror of herself, she turned her head aside in silence 
and shrank from meeting his eye. He noticed the movement, placing his own 
interpretation on it. Advancing closer, he asked anxiously if he had offended 
her. 
"You don't know how your confidence touches me," she said, without looking up. 
"You little think how keenly I feel your kindness." 
She checked herself abruptly. Her fine tact warned her that she was speaking too 
warmly--that the expression of her gratitude might strike him as being strangely 
exaggerated. She handed him her work-basket before he could speak again. 
"Will you put it away for me?" she asked, in her quieter tones. "I don't feel 
able to work just now." 
His back was turned on her for a moment, while he placed the basket on a 
side-table. In that moment her mind advanced at a bound from present to future. 
Accident might one day put the true Grace in possession of the proofs that she 
needed, and might reveal the false Grace to him in the identity that was her 
own. What would he think of her then? Could she make him tell her without 
betraying herself? She determined to try. 
"Children are notoriously insatiable if you once answer their questions, and 
women are nearly as bad," she said, when Julian returned to her. "Will your 
patience hold out if I go back for the third time to the person whom we have 
been speaking of?" 
"Try me," he answered, with a smile. 
"Suppose you had not taken your merciful view of her?" 
"Yes?" 
"Suppose you believed that she was wickedly bent on deceiving others for a 
purpose of her own--would you not shrink from such a woman in horror and 
disgust?" 
"God forbid that I should shrink from any human creature!" he answered, 
earnestly. "Who among us has a right to do that?" 
She hardly dared trust herself to believe him. "You would still pity her?" she 
persisted, "and still feel for her?" 
"With all my heart." 
"Oh, how good you are!" 
He held up his hand in warning. The tones of his voice deepened, the luster of 
his eyes brightened. She had stirred in the depths of that great heart the faith 
in which the man lived--the steady principle which guided his modest and noble 
life. 
"No!" he cried. "Don't say that! Say that I try to love my neighbor as myself. 
Who but a Pharisee can believe that he is better than another? The best among us 
to-day may, but for the mercy of God, be the worst among us tomorrow. The true 
Christian virtue is the virtue which never despairs of a fellow-creature. The 
true Christian faith believes in Man as well as in God. Frail and fallen as we 
are, we can rise on the wings of repentance from earth to heaven. Humanity is 
sacred. Humanity has its immortal destiny. Who shall dare say to man or woman, 
'There is no hope in you?' Who shall dare say the work is all vile, when that 
work bears on it the stamp of the Creator's hand?" 
He turned away for a moment, struggling with the emotion which she had roused in 
him. 
Her eyes, as they followed him, lighted with a momentary enthusiasm--then sank 
wearily in the vain regret which comes too late. Ah! if he could have been her 
friend and her adviser on the fatal day when she first turned her steps toward 
Mablethorpe House! She sighed bitterly as the hopeless aspiration wrung her 
heart. He heard the sigh; and, turning again, looked at her with a new interest 
in his face. 
"Miss Roseberry," he said. 
She was still absorbed in the bitter memories of the past: she failed to hear 
him. 
"Miss Roseberry," he repeated, approaching her. 
She looked up at him with a start. 
"May I venture to ask you something?" he said, gently. 
She shrank at the question. 
"Don't suppose I am speaking out of mere curiosity," he went on. "And pray don't 
answer me unless you can answer without betraying any confidence which may have 
been placed in you." 
"Confidence!" she repeated. "What confidence do you mean?" 
"It has just struck me that you might have felt more than a common interest in 
the questions which you put to me a moment since," he answered. "Were you by any 
chance speaking of some unhappy woman--not the person who frightened you, of 
course--but of some other woman whom you know?" 
Her head sank slowly on her bosom. He had plainly no suspicion that she had been 
speaking of herself: his tone and manner both answered for it that his belief in 
her was as strong as ever. Still those last words made her tremble; she could 
not trust herself to reply to them. 
He accepted the bending of her head as a reply. 
"Are you interested in her?" he asked next. 
She faintly answered this time. "Yes." 
"Have you encouraged her?" 
"I have not dared to encourage her." 
His face lighted up suddenly with enthusiasm. "Go to her," he said, "and let me 
go with you and help you!" 
The answer came faintly and mournfully. "She has sunk too low for that!" 
He interrupted her with a gesture of impatience. 
"What has she done?" he asked. 
"She has deceived--basely deceived--innocent people who trusted her. She has 
wronged--cruelly wronged--another woman." 
For the first time Julian seated himself at her side. The interest that was now 
roused in him was an interest above reproach. He could speak to Mercy without 
restraint; he could look at Mercy with a pure heart. 
"You judge her very harshly," he said. "Do you know how she may have been tried 
and tempted?" 
There was no answer. 
"Tell me," he went on, "is the person whom she has injured still living?" 
"Yes." 
"If the person is still living, she may atone for the wrong. The time may come 
when this sinner, too, may win our pardon and deserve our respect." 
"Could you respect her?" Mercy asked, sadly. "Can such a mind as yours 
understand what she has gone through?" 
A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his attentive face. 
"You forget my melancholy experience," he answered. "Young as I am, I have seen 
more than most men of women who have sinned and suffered. Even after the little 
that you have told me, I think I can put myself in her place. I can well 
understand, for instance, that she may have been tempted beyond human 
resistance. Am I right?" 
"You are right." 
"She may have had nobody near at the time to advise her, to warn her, to save 
her. Is that true?" 
"It is true." 
"Tempted and friendless, self-abandoned to the evil impulse of the moment, this 
woman may have committed herself headlong to the act which she now vainly 
repents. She may long to make atonement, and may not know how to begin. All her 
energies may be crushed under the despair and horror of herself, out of which 
the truest repentance grows. Is such a woman as this all wicked, all vile? I 
deny it! She may have a noble nature; and she may show it nobly yet. Give her 
the opportunity she needs, and our poor fallen fellow-creature may take her 
place again among the best of us--honored, blameless, happy, once more!" 
Mercy's eyes, resting eagerly on him while he was speaking, dropped again 
despondingly when he had done. 
"There is no such future as that," she answered, "for the woman whom I am 
thinking of. She has lost her opportunity. She has done with hope." 
Julian gravely considered with himself for a moment. 
"Let us understand each other," he said. "She has committed an act of deception 
to the injury of another woman. Was that what you told me?" 
"Yes." 
"And she has gained something to her own advantage by the act." 
"Yes." 
"Is she threatened with discovery?" 
"She is safe from discovery--for the present, at least." 
"Safe as long as she closes her lips?" 
"As long as she closes her lips." 
"There is her opportunity!" cried Julian. "Her future is before her. She has not 
done with hope!" 
With clasped hands, in breathless suspense, Mercy looked at that inspiriting 
face, and listened to those golden words. 
"Explain yourself," she said. "Tell her, through me, what she must do." 
"Let her own the truth," answered Julian, "without the base fear of discovery to 
drive her to it. Let her do justice to the woman whom she has wronged, while 
that woman is still powerless to expose her. Let her sacrifice everything that 
she has gained by the fraud to the sacred duty of atonement. If she can do 
that--for conscience' sake, and for pity's sake--to her own prejudice, to her 
own shame, to her own loss--then her repentance has nobly revealed the noble 
nature that is in her; then she is a woman to be trusted, respected, beloved! If 
I saw the Pharisees and fanatics of this lower earth passing her by in contempt, 
I would hold out my hand to her before them all. I would say to her in her 
solitude and her affliction, 'Rise, poor wounded heart! Beautiful, purified 
soul, God's angels rejoice over you! Take your place among the noblest of God's 
creatures!'" 
In those last sentences he unconsciously repeated the language in which he had 
spoken, years since, to his congregation in the chapel of the Refuge. With 
tenfold power and tenfold persuasion they now found their way again to Mercy's 
heart. Softly, suddenly, mysteriously, a change passed over her. Her troubled 
face grew beautifully still. The shifting light of terror and suspense vanished 
from her grand gray eyes, and left in them the steady inner glow of a high and 
pure resolve. 
There was a moment of silence between them. They both had need of silence. 
Julian was the first to speak again. 
"Have I satisfied you that her opportunity is still before her?" he asked. "Do 
you feel, as I feel, that she has not done with hope?" 
"You have satisfied me that the world holds no truer friend to her than you," 
Mercy answered, gently and gratefully. "She shall prove herself worthy of your 
generous confidence in her. She shall show you yet that you have not spoken in 
vain." 
Still inevitably failing to understand her, he led the way to the door. 
"Don't waste the precious time," he said. "Don't leave her cruelly to herself. 
If you can't go to her, let me go as your messenger, in your place." 
She stopped him by a gesture. He took a step back into the room, and paused, 
observing with surprise that she made no attempt to move from the chair that she 
occupied. 
"Stay here," she said to him, in suddenly altered tones. 
"Pardon me, "he rejoined, "I don't understand you." 
"You will understand me directly. Give me a little time." 
He still lingered near the door, with his eyes fixed inquiringly on her. A man 
of a lower nature than his, or a man believing in Mercy less devotedly than he 
believed, would now have felt his first suspicion of her. Julian was as far as 
ever from suspecting her, even yet. "Do you wish to be alone?" he asked, 
considerately. "Shall I leave you for a while and return again?" 
She looked up with a start of terror. "Leave me?" she repeated, and suddenly 
checked herself on the point of saying more. Nearly half the length of the room 
divided them from each other. The words which she was longing to say were words 
that would never pass her lips unless she could see some encouragement in his 
face. "No!" she cried out to him, on a sudden, in her sore need, "don't leave 
me! Come back to me!" 
He obeyed her in silence. In silence, on her side, she pointed to the chair near 
her. He took it. She looked at him, and checked herself again; resolute to make 
her terrible confession, yet still hesitating how to begin. Her woman's instinct 
whispered to her, "Find courage in his touch!" She said to him, simply and 
artlessly said to him, "Give me encouragement. Give me strength. Let me take 
your hand." He neither answered nor moved. His mind seemed to have become 
suddenly preoccupied; his eyes rested on her vacantly. He was on the brink of 
discovering her secret; in another instant he would have found his way to the 
truth. In that instant, innocently as his sister might have taken it, she took 
his hand. The soft clasp of her fingers, clinging round his, roused his senses, 
fired his passion for her, swept out of his mind the pure aspirations which had 
filled it but the moment before, paralyzed his perception when it was just 
penetrating the mystery of her disturbed manner and her strange words. All the 
man in him trembled under the rapture of her touch. But the thought of Horace 
was still present to him: his hand lay passive in hers; his eyes looked uneasily 
away from her. 
She innocently strengthened her clasp of his hand. She innocently said to him, 
"Don't look away from me. Your eyes give me courage." 
His hand returned the pressure of hers. He tasted to the full the delicious joy 
of looking at her. She had broken down his last reserves of self-control. The 
thought of Horace, the sense of honor, became obscured in him. In a moment more 
he might have said the words which he would have deplored for the rest of his 
life, if she had not stopped him by speaking first. "I have more to say to you," 
she resumed abruptly, feeling the animating resolution to lay her heart bare 
before him at last; "more, far more, than I have said yet. Generous, merciful 
friend, let me say it here!" 
She attempted to throw herself on her knees at his feet. He sprung from his seat 
and checked her, holding her with both his hands, raising her as he rose 
himself. In the words which had just escaped her, in the startling action which 
had accompanied them, the truth burst on him. The guilty woman she had spoken of 
was herself! 
While she was almost in his arms, while her bosom was just touching his, before 
a word more had passed his lips or hers, the library door opened. 
Lady Janet Roy entered the room. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
THE SEARCH IN THE GROUNDS.
GRACE ROSEBERRY, still listening in the conservatory, saw the door open, and 
recognized the mistress of the house. She softly drew back, and placed herself 
in safer hiding, beyond the range of view from the dining-room. 
Lady Janet advanced no further than the threshold. She stood there and looked at 
her nephew and her adopted daughter in stern silence. 
Mercy dropped into the chair at her side. Julian kept his place by her. His mind 
was still stunned by the discovery that had burst on it; his eyes still rested 
on her in mute terror of inquiry. He was as completely absorbed in the one act 
of looking at her as if they had been still alone together in the room. 
Lady Janet was the first of the three who spoke. She addressed herself to her 
nephew. 
"You were right, Mr. Julian Gray," she said, with her bitterest emphasis of tone 
and manner. "You ought to have found nobody in this room on your return but me. 
I detain you no longer. You are free to leave my house." 
Julian looked round at his aunt. She was pointing to the door. In the excited 
state of his sensibilities at that moment the action stung him to the quick. He 
answered without his customary consideration for his aunt's age and his aunt's 
position toward him. 
"You apparently forget, Lady Janet, that you are not speaking to one of your 
footmen," he said. "There are serious reasons (of which you know nothing) for my 
remaining in your house a little longer. You may rely upon my trespassing on 
your hospitality as short a time as possible." 
He turned again to Mercy as he said those words, and surprised her timidly 
looking up at him. In the instant when their eyes met, the tumult of emotions 
struggling in him became suddenly stilled. Sorrow for her--compassionating 
sorrow--rose in the new calm and filled his heart. Now, and now only, he could 
read in the wasted and noble face how she had suffered. The pity which he had 
felt for the unnamed woman grew to a tenfold pity for her. The faith which he 
professed--honestly professed--in the better nature of the unnamed woman 
strengthened into a tenfold faith in her. He addressed himself again to his 
aunt, in a gentler tone. "This lady," he resumed, "has something to say to me in 
private which she has not said yet. That is my reason and my apology for not 
immediately leaving the house." 
Still under the impression of what she had seen on entering the room, Lady Janet 
looked at him in angry amazement. Was Julian actually ignoring Horace 
Holmcroft¹s claims, in the presence of Horace Holmcroft¹s betrothed wife? She 
appealed to her adopted daughter. "Grace!" she exclaimed, "have you heard him? 
Have you nothing to say? Must I remind you--" 
She stopped. For the first time in Lady Janet's experience of her young 
companion, she found herself speaking to ears that were deaf to her. Mercy was 
incapable of listening. Julian's eyes had told her that Julian understood her at 
last! 
Lady Janet turned to her nephew once more, and addressed him in the hardest 
words that she had ever spoken to her sister's son. 
"If you have any sense of decency," she said --"I say nothing of a sense of 
honor--you will leave this house, and your acquaintance with that lady will end 
here. Spare me your protests and excuses; I can place but one interpretation on 
what I saw when I opened that door." 
"You entirely misunderstand what you saw when you opened that door," Julian 
answered, quietly. 
"Perhaps I misunderstand the confession which you made to me not an hour ago?" 
retorted Lady Janet. 
Julian cast a look of alarm at Mercy. "Don't speak of it!" he said, in a 
whisper. "She might hear you." 
"Do you mean to say she doesn't know you are in love with her?" 
"Thank God, she has not the faintest suspicion of it!" 
There was no mistaking the earnestness with which he made that reply. It proved 
his innocence as nothing else could have proved it. Lady Janet drew back a 
step--utterly bewildered; completely at a loss what to say or what to do next. 
The silence that followed was broken by a knock at the library door. The 
man-servant--with news, and bad news, legibly written in his disturbed face and 
manner--entered the room. In the nervous irritability of the moment, Lady Janet 
resented the servant's appearance as a positive offense on the part of the 
harmless man. "Who sent for you?" she asked, sharply. "What do you mean by 
interrupting us?" 
The servant made his excuses in an oddly bewildered manner. 
"I beg your ladyship's pardon. I wished to take the liberty--I wanted to speak 
to Mr. Julian Gray." 
"What is it?" asked Julian. 
The man looked uneasily at Lady Janet, hesitated, and glanced at the door, as if 
he wished himself well out of the room again. 
"I hardly know if I can tell you, sir, before her ladyship," he answered. 
Lady Janet instantly penetrated the secret of her servant's hesitation. 
"I know what has happened," she said; "that abominable woman has found her way 
here again. Am I right?" 
The man's eyes helplessly consulted Julian. 
"Yes, or no?" cried Lady Janet, imperatively. 
"Yes, my lady." 
Julian at once assumed the duty of asking the necessary questions. 
"Where is she?" he began. 
"Somewhere in the grounds, as we suppose, sir." 
"Did you see her?" 
"No, sir." 
"Who saw her?" 
"The lodge-keeper's wife." 
This looked serious. The lodge-keeper's wife had been present while Julian had 
given his instructions to her husband. She was not likely to have mistaken the 
identity of the person whom she had discovered. 
"How long since?" Julian asked next. 
"Not very long, sir." 
"Be more particular. How long?" 
"I didn't hear, sir." 
"Did the lodge-keeper's wife speak to the person when she saw her?" 
"No, sir: she didn't get the chance, as I understand it. She is a stout woman, 
if you remember. The other was too quick for her-- discovered her, sir, and (as 
the saying is) gave her the slip." 
"In what part of the grounds did this happen?" 
The servant pointed in the direction of the side hall. "In that part, sir. 
Either in the Dutch garden or the shrubbery. I am not sure which." 
It was plain, by this time, that the man's information was too imperfect to be 
practically of any use. Julian asked if the lodge-keeper's wife was in the 
house. 
"No, sir. Her husband has gone out to search the grounds in her place, and she 
is minding the gate. They sent their boy with the message. From what I can make 
out from the lad, they would be thankful if they could get a word more of advice 
from you, sir." 
Julian reflected for a moment. 
So far as he could estimate them, the probabilities were that the stranger from 
Mannheim had already made her way into the house; that she had been listening in 
the billiard-room; that she had found time enough to escape him on his 
approaching to open the door; and that she was now (in the servant's phrase) 
"somewhere in the grounds," after eluding the pursuit of the lodgekeeper's wife. 

The matter was serious. Any mistake in dealing with it might lead to very 
painful results. 
If Julian had correctly anticipated the nature of the confession which Mercy had 
been on the point of addressing to him, the person whom he had been the means of 
introducing into the house was--what she had vainly asserted herself to be--no 
other than the true Grace Roseberry. 
Taking this for granted, it was of the utmost importance that he should speak to 
Grace privately, before she committed herself to any rashly renewed assertion of 
her claims, and before she could gain access to Lady Janet's adopted daughter. 
The landlady at her lodgings had already warned him that the object which she 
held steadily in view was to find her way to "Miss Roseberry" when Lady Janet 
was not present to take her part, and when no gentleman were at hand to protect 
her. "Only let me meet her face to face" (she had said), "and I will make her 
confess herself the impostor that she is!" As matters now stood, it was 
impossible to estimate too seriously the mischief which might ensue from such a 
meeting as this. Everything now depended on Julian's skillful management of an 
exasperated woman; and nobody, at that moment, knew where the woman was. 
In this position of affairs, as Julian understood it, there seemed to be no 
other alternative than to make his inquiries instantly at the lodge and then to 
direct the search in person. 
He looked toward Mercy's chair as he arrived at this resolution. It was at a 
cruel sacrifice of his own anxieties and his own wishes that he deferred 
continuing the conversation with her from the critical point at which Lady 
Janet's appearance had interrupted it. 
Mercy had risen while he had been questioning the servant. The attention which 
she had failed to accord to what had passed between his aunt and himself she had 
given to the imperfect statement which he had extracted from the man. Her face 
plainly showed that she had listened as eagerly as Lady Janet had listened; with 
this remarkable difference between there, that Lady Janet looked frightened, and 
that Lady Janet's companion showed no signs of alarm. She appeared to be 
interested; perhaps anxious--nothing more. 
Julian spoke a parting word to his aunt. 
"Pray compose yourself," he said "I have little doubt, when I can learn the 
particulars, that we shall easily find this person in the grounds. There is no 
reason to be uneasy. I am going to superintend the search myself. I will return 
to you as soon as possible." 
Lady Janet listened absently. There was a certain expression in her eyes which 
suggested to Julian that her mind was busy with some project of its own. He 
stopped as he passed Mercy, on his way out by the billiard-room door. It cost 
him a hard effort to control the contending emotions which the mere act of 
looking at her now awakened in him. His heart beat fast, his voice sank low, as 
he spoke to her. 
"You shall see me again," he said. "I never was more in earnest in promising you 
my truest help and sympathy than I am now." 
She understood him. Her bosom heaved painfully; her eyes fell to the ground--she 
made no reply. The tears rose in Julian's eyes as he looked at her. He hurriedly 
left the room. 
When he turned to close the billiard-room door, he heard Lady Janet say, "I will 
be with you again in a moment, Grace; don't go away." 
Interpreting these words as meaning that his aunt had some business of her own 
to attend to in the library, he shut the door. He had just advanced into the 
smoking-room beyond, when he thought he heard the door open again. He turned 
round. Lady Janet had followed him. 
"Do you wish to speak to me?" he asked. 
"I want something of you," Lady Janet answered, "before you go." 
"What is it?" 
"Your card." 
"My card?" 
"You have just told me not to be uneasy," said the old lady. "I am uneasy, for 
all that. I don't feel as sure as you do that this woman really is in the 
grounds. She may be lurking somewhere in the house, and she may appear when your 
back in turned. Remember what you told me." 
Julian understood the allusion. He made no reply. 
"The people at the police station close by," pursued Lady Janet, "have 
instructions to send an experienced man, in plain clothes, to any address 
indicated on your card the moment they receive it. That is what you told me. For 
Grace's protection, I want your card before you leave us." 
It was impossible for Julian to mention the reasons which now forbade him to 
make use of his own precautions--in the very face of the emergency which they 
had been especially intended to meet. How could he declare the true Grace 
Roseberry to be mad? How could he give the true Grace Roseberry into custody? On 
the other hand, he had personally pledged himself (when the circumstances 
appeared to require it) to place the means of legal protection from insult and 
annoyance at his aunt's disposal. And now, there stood Lady Janet, unaccustomed 
to have her wishes disregarded by anybody, with her band extended, waiting for 
the card! 
What was to be done? The one way out of the difficulty appeared to be to submit 
for the moment. If he succeeded in discovering the missing woman, he could 
easily take care that she should be subjected to no needless indignity. If she 
contrived to slip into the house in his absence, he could provide against that 
contingency by sending a second card privately to the police station, forbidding 
the officer to stir in the affair until he had received further orders. Julian 
made one stipulation only before he handed his card to his aunt. 
"You will not use this, I am sure, without positive and pressing necessity," he 
said. "But I must make one condition. Promise me to keep my plan for 
communicating with the police a strict secret--" 
"A strict secret from Grace?" interposed Lady Janet. (Julian bowed.) "Do you 
suppose I want to frighten her? Do you think I have not had anxiety enough about 
her already? Of course I shall keep it a secret from Grace!" 
Re-assured on this point, Julian hastened out into the grounds. As soon as his 
back was turned Lady Janet lifted the gold pencil-case which hung at her 
watch-chain, and wrote on her nephew's card (for the information of the officer 
in plain clothes), "You are wanted at Mablethorpe House." This done, she put the 
card into the old-fashioned pocket of her dress, and returned to the 
dining-room. 
Grace was waiting, in obedience to the instructions which she had received. 
For the first moment or two not a word was spoken on either side. Now that she 
was alone with her adopted daughter, a certain coldness and hardness began to 
show itself in Lady Janet's manner. The discovery that she had made on opening 
the drawing-room door still hung on her mind. Julian had certainly convinced her 
that she had misinterpreted what she had seen; but he had convinced her against 
her will. She had found Mercy deeply agitated; suspiciously silent. Julian might 
be innocent, she admitted--there was no accounting for the vagaries of men. But 
the case of Mercy was altogether different. Women did not find themselves in the 
arms of men without knowing what they were about. Acquitting Julian, Lady Janet 
declined to acquit Mercy. "There is some secret understanding between them," 
thought the old lady, "and she's to blame; the women always are!" 
Mercy still waited to be spoken to; pale and quiet, silent and submissive. Lady 
Janet--in a highly uncertain state of temper--was obliged to begin. 
"My dear!" she called out, sharply. 
"Yes, Lady Janet." 
"How much longer are you going to sit there with your mouth shut up and your 
eyes on the carpet? Have you no opinion to offer on this alarming state of 
things? You heard what the man said to Julian--I saw you listening. Are you 
horribly frightened?" 
"No, Lady Janet." 
"Not even nervous?" 
"No, Lady Janet." 
"Ha! I should hardly have given you credit for so much courage after my 
experience of you a week ago. I congratulate you on your recovery." 
"Thank you, Lady Janet." 
"I am not so composed as you are. We were an excitable set in my youth--and I 
haven't got the better of it yet. I feel nervous. Do you hear? I feel nervous." 
"I am sorry, Lady Janet." 
"You are very good. Do you know what I am going to do?" 
"No, Lady Janet." 
"I am going to summon the household. When I say the household, I mean the men; 
the women are no use. I am afraid I fail to attract your attention?" 
"You have my best attention, Lady Janet." 
"You are very good again. I said the women were of no use." 
"Yes, Lady Janet." 
"I mean to place a man-servant on guard at every entrance to the house. I am 
going to do it at once. Will you come with me?" 
"Can I be of any use if I go with your ladyship?" 
"You can't be of the slightest use. I give the orders in this house--not you. I 
had quite another motive in asking you to come with me. I am more considerate of 
you than you seem to think--I don't like leaving you here by yourself. Do you 
understand? 
"I am much obliged to your ladyship. I don't mind being left here by myself." 
"You don't mind? I never heard of such heroism in my life--out of a novel! 
Suppose that crazy wretch should find her way in here?" 
"She would not frighten me this time as she frightened me before." 
"Not too fast, my young lady! Suppose--Good heavens! now I think of it, there is 
the conservatory. Suppose she should be hidden in there? Julian is searching the 
grounds. Who is to search the conservatory?" 
"With your ladyship's permission, I will search the conservatory." 
"You!!!" 
"With your ladyship's permission." 
"I can hardly believe my own ears! Well, 'Live and learn' is an old proverb. I 
thought I knew your character. This is a change!" 
"You forget, Lady Janet (if I may venture to say so), that the circumstances are 
changed. She took me by surprise on the last occasion; I am prepared for her 
now." 
"Do you really feel as coolly as you speak?" 
"Yes, Lady Janet." 
"Have your own way, then. I shall do one thing, however, in case of your having 
overestimated your own courage. I shall place one of the men in the library. You 
will only have to ring for him if anything happens. He will give the alarm--and 
I shall act accordingly. I have my plan," said her Ladyship, comfortably 
conscious of the card in her pocket. "Don't look the ordeal of the confession. 
She was not only anxious--she was impatient for Julian's return. Before she 
slept that night Julian's confidence in her should be a confidence that she had 
deserved. 
"Let her own the truth, without the base fear of discovery to drive her to it. 
Let her do justice to the woman whom she has wronged, while that woman is still 
powerless to expose her. Let her sacrifice everything that she has gained by the 
fraud to the sacred duty of atonement. If she can do that, then her repentance 
has nobly revealed the noble nature that is in her; then she is a woman to be 
trusted, respected, beloved." Those words were as vividly present to her as if 
she still heard them falling from his lips. Those other words which had followed 
them rang as grandly as ever in her ears: "Rise, poor wounded heart! Beautiful, 
purified soul, God's angels rejoice over you! Take your place among the noblest 
of God's creatures!" Did the woman live who could hear Julian Gray say that, and 
who could hesitate, at any sacrifice, at any loss, to justify his belief in her? 
"Oh!" she thought, longingly while her eyes followed Lady Janet to the end of 
the library, "if your worst fears could only be realized! If I could only see 
Grace Roseberry in this room, how fearlessly I could meet her now!" 
She closed the library door, while Lady Janet opened the other door which led 
into the hall. 
As she turned and looked back into the dining-room a cry of astonishment escaped 
her. 
There--as if in answer to the aspiration which was still in her mind; there, 
established in triumph on the chair that she had just left--sat Grace Roseberry, 
in sinister silence, waiting for her. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
THE EVIL GENIUS.
RECOVERING from the first overpowering sensation of surprise, Mercy rapidly 
advanced, eager to say her first penitent words. Grace stopped her by a warning 
gesture of the hand. "No nearer to me," she said, with a look of contemptuous 
command. "Stay where you are." 
Mercy paused. Grace's reception had startled her. She instinctively took the 
chair nearest to her to support herself. Grace raised a warning hand for the 
second time, and issued another command: "I forbid you to be seated in my 
presence. You have no right to be in this house at all. Remember, if you please, 
who you are, and who I am." 
The tone in which those words were spoken was an insult in itself. Mercy 
suddenly lifted her head; the angry answer was on her lips. She checked it, and 
submitted in silence. "I will be worthy of Julian Gray's confidence in me," she 
thought, as she stood patiently by the chair. "I will bear anything from the 
woman whom I have wronged." 
In silence the two faced each other; alone together, for the first time since 
they had met in the French cottage. The contrast between them was strange to 
see. Grace Roseberry, seated in her chair, little and lean, with her dull white 
complexion, with her hard, threatening face, with her shrunken figure clad in 
its plain and poor black garments, looked like a being of a lower sphere, 
compared with Mercy Merrick, standing erect in her rich silken dress; her tall, 
shapely figure towering over the little creature before her; her grand head bent 
in graceful submission; gentle, patient, beautiful; a woman whom it was a 
privilege to look at and a distinction to admire. If a stranger had been told 
that those two had played their parts in a romance of real life--that one of 
them was really connected by the ties of relationship with Lady Janet Roy, and 
that the other had successfully attempted to personate her--he would inevitably, 
if it had been left to him to guess which was which, have picked out Grace as 
the counterfeit and Mercy as the true woman. 
Grace broke the silence. She had waited to open her lips until she had eyed her 
conquered victim all over, with disdainfully minute attention, from head to foot 

"Stand there. I like to look at you," she said, speaking with a spiteful relish 
of her own cruel words. "It's no use fainting this time. You have not got Lady 
Janet Roy to bring you to. There are no gentlemen here to-day to pity you and 
pick you up. Mercy Merrick, I have got you at last. Thank God, my turn has come! 
You can't escape me now!" 
All the littleness of heart and mind which had first shown itself in Grace at 
the meeting in the cottage, when Mercy told the sad story of her life, now 
revealed itself once more. The woman who in those past times had felt no impulse 
to take a suffering and a penitent fellow-creature by the hand was the same 
woman who could feel no pity, who could spare no insolence of triumph, now. 
Mercy's sweet voice answered her patiently, in low, pleading tones. 
"I have not avoided you," she said. "I would have gone to you of my own accord 
if I had known that you were here. It is my heartfelt wish to own that I have 
sinned against you, and to make all the atonement that I can. I am too anxious 
to deserve your forgiveness to have any fear of seeing you." 
Conciliatory as the reply was, it was spoken with a simple and modest dignity of 
manner which roused Grace Roseberry to fury. 
"How dare you speak to me as if you were any equal?" she burst out. "You stand 
there and answer me as if you had your right and your place in this house. You 
audacious woman! I have my right and my place here--and what am I obliged to do? 
I am obliged to hang about in the grounds, and fly from the sight of the 
servants, and hide like a thief, and wait like a beggar, and all for what? For 
the chance of having a word with you. Yes! you, madam! with the air of the 
Refuge and the dirt of the streets on you!" 
Mercy's head sank lower; her hand trembled as it held by the back of the chair. 
It was hard to bear the reiterated insults heaped on her, but Julian's influence 
still made itself felt. She answered as patiently as ever. 
"If it is your pleasure to use hard words to me," she said, "I have no right to 
resent them." 
"You have no right to anything!" Grace retorted. "You have no right to the gown 
on your back. Look at yourself, and look at Me!" Her eyes traveled with a 
tigerish stare over Mercy's costly silk dress. "Who gave you that dress? who 
gave you those jewels? I know! Lady Janet gave them to Grace Roseberry. Are you 
Grace Roseberry? That dress is mine. Take off your bracelets and your brooch. 
They were meant for me." 
"You may soon have them, Miss Roseberry. They will not be in my possession many 
hours longer." 
"What do you mean?" 
"However badly you may use me, it is my duty to undo the harm that I have done. 
I am bound to do you justice--I am determined to confess the truth." 
Grace smiled scornfully. 
"You confess!" she said. "Do you think I am fool enough to believe that? You are 
one shameful brazen lie from head to foot! Are you the woman to give up your 
silks and your jewels, and your position in this house, and to go back to the 
Refuge of your own accord? Not you-- not you!" 
A first faint flush of color showed itself, stealing slowly over Mercy's face; 
but she still held resolutely by the good influence which Julian had left behind 
him. She could still say to herself, "Anything rather than disappoint Julian 
Gray." Sustained by the courage which he had called to life in her, she 
submitted to her martyrdom as bravely as ever. But there was an ominous change 
in her now: she could only submit in silence; she could no longer trust herself 
to answer. 
The mute endurance in her face additionally exasperated Grace Roseberry. 
"You won't confess," she went on. "You have had a week to confess in, and you 
have not done it yet. No, no! you are of the sort that cheat and lie to the 
last. I am glad of it; I shall have the joy of exposing you myself before the 
whole house. I shall be the blessed means of casting you back on the streets. 
Oh! it will be almost worth all I have gone through to see you with a 
policeman's hand on your arm, and the mob pointing at you and mocking you on 
your way to jail!" 
This time the sting struck deep; the outrage was beyond endurance. Mercy gave 
the woman who had again and again deliberately insulted her a first warning. 
"Miss Roseberry," she said, "I have borne without a murmur the bitterest words 
you could say to me. Spare me any more insults. Indeed, indeed, I am eager to 
restore you to your just rights. With my whole heart I say it to you--I am 
resolved to confess everything!" 
She spoke with trembling earnestness of tone. can, and will, before I rest 
to-night, tell the whole truth to Mr. Julian Gray." 
Grace burst out laughing. "Aha!" she exclaimed, with a cynical outburst of 
gayety. "Now we have come to it at last!" 
"Take care!" said Mercy. "Take care!" 
"Mr. Julian Gray! I was behind the billiard-room door--I saw you coax Mr. Julian 
Gray to come in! confession loses all its horrors, and becomes quite a luxury, 
with Mr. Julian Gray!" 
"No more, Miss Roseberry! no more! For God's sake, don't put me beside myself! 
You have tortured me enough already." 
"You haven't been on the streets for nothing. You are a woman with resources; 
you know the value of having two strings to your bow. If Mr. Holmcroft fails 
you, you have got Mr. Julian Gray. Ah! you sicken me. I'll see that Mr. 
Holmcroft's eyes are opened; he shall know what a woman he might have married 
but for Me--" 
She checked herself; the next refinement of insult remained suspended on her 
lips. 
The woman whom she had outraged suddenly advanced on her. Her eyes, staring 
helplessly upward, saw Mercy Merrick's face, white with the terrible anger which 
drives the blood back on the heart, bending threateningly over her. 
"'You will see that Mr. Holmcroft's eyes are opened,'" Mercy slowly repeated; 
"'he shall know what a woman he might have married but for you!'" 
She paused, and followed those words by a question which struck a creeping 
terror through Grace Roseberry, from the hair of her head to the soles of her 
feet: 
"Who are you?" 
The suppressed fury of look and tone which accompanied that question told, as no 
violence could have told it, that the limits of Mercy's endurance had been found 
at last. In the guardian angel's absence the evil genius had done its evil work. 
The better nature which Julian Gray had brought to life sank, poisoned by the 
vile venom of a womanly spiteful tongue. An easy and a terrible means of 
avenging the outrages heaped on her was within Mercy's reach, if she chose to 
take it. In the frenzy of her indignation she never hesitated--she took it. 
"Who are you?" she asked for the second time. 
Grace roused herself and attempted to speak. Mercy stopped her with a scornful 
gesture of her hand. 
"I remember!" she went on, with the same fiercely suppressed rage. "You are the 
madwoman from the German hospital who came here a week ago. I am not afraid of 
you this time. Sit down and rest yourself, Mercy Merrick " 
Deliberately giving her that name to her face, Mercy turned from her and took 
the chair which Grace had forbidden her to occupy when the interview began. 
Grace started to her feet. 
"What does this mean?" she asked. 
"It means," answered Mercy, contemptuously, "that I recall every word I said to 
you just now. It means that I am resolved to keep my place in this house." 
"Are you out of your senses?" 
"You are not far from the bell. Ring it. Do what you asked me to do. Call in the 
whole household, and ask them which of us is mad--you or I." 
"Mercy Merrick! you shall repent this to the last hour of your life!" 
Mercy rose again, and fixed her flashing eyes on the woman who still defied her. 

"I have had enough of you!" she said. "Leave the house while you can leave it. 
Stay here, and I will send for Lady Janet Roy." 
"You can't send for her! You daren't send for her!" 
"I can and I dare. You have not a shadow of a proof against me. I have got the 
papers; I am in possession of the place; I have established myself in Lady 
Janet's confidence. I mean to deserve your opinion of me--I will keep my dresses 
and my jewels and my position in the house. I deny that I have done wrong. 
Society has used me cruelly; I owe nothing to Society. I have a right to take 
any advantage of it if I can. I deny that I have injured you. How was I to know 
that you would come to life again? Have I degraded your name and your character? 
I have done honor to both. I have won everybody's liking and everybody's 
respect. Do you think Lady Janet would have loved you as she loves me? Not she! 
I tell you to your face I have filled the false position more creditably than 
you could have filled the true one, and I mean to keep it. I won't give up your 
name; I won't restore your character! Do your worst; I defy you!" 
She poured out those reckless words in one headlong flow which defied 
interruption. There was no answering her until she was too breathless to say 
more. Grace seized her opportunity the moment it was within her reach. 
"You defy me?" she returned, resolutely. "You won't defy me long. I have written 
to Canada. My friends will speak for me." 
"What of it, if they do? Your friends are strangers here. I am Lady Janet's 
adopted daughter. Do you think she will believe your friends? She will believe 
me. She will burn their letters if they write. She will forbid the house to them 
if they come. I shall be Mrs. Horace Holmcroft in a week's time. Who can shake 
my position? Who can injure Me?" 
"Wait a little. You forget the matron at the Refuge." 
"Find her, if you can. I never told you her name. I never told you where the 
Refuge was." 
"I will advertise your name, and find the matron in that way." 
"Advertise in every newspaper in London. Do you think I gave a stranger like you 
the name I really bore in the Refuge? I gave you the name I assumed when I left 
England. No such person as Mercy Merrick is known to the matron. No such person 
is known to Mr. Holmcroft. He saw me at the French cottage while you were 
senseless on the bed. I had my gray cloak on; neither he nor any of them saw me 
in my nurse's dress. Inquiries have been made about me on the Continent--and (I 
happen to know from the person who made them) with no result. I am safe in your 
place; I am known by your name. I am Grace Roseberry; and you are Mercy Merrick. 
Disprove it, if you can!" 
Summing up the unassailable security of her false position in those closing 
words, Mercy pointed significantly to the billiard-room door. 
"You were hiding there, by your own confession," she said. "You know your way 
out by that door. Will you leave the room?" 
"I won't stir a step!" 
Mercy walked to a side-table, and struck the bell placed on it. 
At the same moment the billiard-room door opened. Julian Gray 
appeared--returning from his unsuccessful search in the grounds. 
He had barely crossed the threshold before the library door was thrown open next 
by the servant posted in the room. The man drew back respectfully, and gave 
admission to Lady Janet Roy. She was followed by Horace Holmcroft with his 
mother's wedding present to Mercy in his hand. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE POLICEMAN IN PLAIN CLOTHES.
JULIAN looked round the room, and stopped at the door which he had just opened. 
His eyes rested first on Mercy, next on Grace. 
The disturbed faces of both the women told him but too plainly that the disaster 
which he had dreaded had actually happened. They had met without any third 
person to interfere between them. To what extremities the hostile interview 
might have led it was impossible for him to guess. In his aunt's presence he 
could only wait his opportunity of speaking to Mercy, and be ready to interpose 
if anything was ignorantly done which might give just cause of offense to Grace. 

Lady Janet's course of action on entering the dining-room was in perfect harmony 
with Lady Janet's character. 
Instantly discovering the intruder, she looked sharply at Mercy. "What did I 
tell you?" she asked. "Are you frightened? No! not in the least frightened! 
Wonderful!" She turned to the servant. "Wait in the library; I may want you 
again." She looked at Julian. "Leave it all to me; I can manage it." She made a 
sign to Horace. "Stay where you are, and hold your tongue." Having now said all 
that was necessary to every one else, she advanced to the part of the room in 
which Grace was standing, with lowering brows and firmly shut lips, defiant of 
everybody. 
"I have no desire to offend you, or to act harshly toward you," her ladyship 
began, very quietly. "I only suggest that your visits to my house cannot 
possibly lead to any satisfactory result. I hope you will not oblige me to say 
any harder words than these--I hope you will understand that I wish you to 
withdraw." 
The order of dismissal could hardly have been issued with more humane 
consideration for the supposed mental infirmity of the person to whom it was 
addressed. Grace instantly resisted it in the plainest possible terms. 
"In justice to my father's memory and in justice to myself," she answered, "I 
insist on a hearing. I refuse to withdraw." She deliberately took a chair and 
seated herself in the presence of the mistress of the house. 
Lady Janet waited a moment--steadily controlling her temper. In the interval of 
silence Julian seized the opportunity of remonstrating with Grace. 
"Is this what you promised me?" he asked, gently. "You gave me your word that 
you would not return to Mablethorpe House." 
Before he could say more Lady Janet had got her temper under command. She began 
her answer to Grace by pointing with a peremptory forefinger to the library 
door. 
"If you have not made up your mind to take my advice by the time I have walked 
back to that door," she said, "I will put it out of your power to set me at 
defiance. I am used to be obeyed, and I will be obeyed. You force me to use hard 
words. I warn you before it is too late. Go!" 
She returned slowly toward the library. Julian attempted to interfere with 
another word of remonstrance. His aunt stopped him by a gesture which said, 
plainly, "I insist on acting for myself." He looked next at Mercy. Would she 
remain passive? Yes. She never lifted her head; she never moved from the place 
in which she was standing apart from the rest. Horace himself tried to attract 
her attention, and tried in vain. 
Arrived at the library door, Lady Janet looked over her shoulder at the little 
immovable black figure in the chair. 
"Will you go?" she asked, for the last time. 
Grace started up angrily from her seat, and fixed her viperish eyes on Mercy. 
"I won't be turned out of your ladyship's house in the presence of that 
impostor," she said. "I may yield to force, but I will yield to nothing else. I 
insist on my right to the place that she has stolen from me. It's no use 
scolding me," she added, turning doggedly to Julian. "As long as that woman is 
here under my name I can't and won't keep away from the house. I warn her, in 
your presence, that I have written to my friends in Canada! I dare her before 
you all to deny that she is the outcast and adventuress, Mercy Merrick!" 
The challenge forced Mercy to take part in the proceedings in her own defense. 
She had pledged herself to meet and defy Grace Roseberry on her own ground. She 
attempted to speak--Horace stopped her. 
"You degrade yourself if you answer her," he said. "Take my arm, and let us 
leave the room." 
"Yes! Take her out!" cried Grace. "She may well be ashamed to face an honest 
woman. It's her place to leave the room--not mine!" 
Mercy drew her hand out of Horace's arm. "I decline to leave the room," she 
said, quietly. 
Horace still tried to persuade her to withdraw. "I can't bear to hear you 
insulted," he rejoined. "The woman offends me, though I know she is not 
responsible for what she says." 
"Nobody's endurance will be tried much longer," said Lady Janet. She glanced at 
Julian, and taking from her pocket the card which he had given to her, opened 
the library door. 
"Go to the police station," she said to the servant in an undertone, "and give 
that card to the inspector on duty. Tell him there is not a moment to lose." 
"Stop!" said Julian, before his aunt could close the door again. 
"Stop?" repeated Lady Janet, sharply. "I have given the man his orders. What do 
you mean?" 
"Before you send the card I wish to say a word in private to this lady," replied 
Julian, indicating Grace. "When that is done," he continued, approaching Mercy, 
and pointedly addressing himself to her, "I shall have a request to make--I 
shall ask you to give me an opportunity of speaking to you without 
interruption." 
His tone pointed the allusion. Mercy shrank from looking at him. The signs of 
painful agitation began to show themselves in her shifting color and her uneasy 
silence. Roused by Julian's significantly distant reference to what had passed 
between them, her better impulses were struggling already to recover their 
influence over her. She might, at that critical moment, have yielded to the 
promptings of her own nobler nature--she might have risen superior to the 
galling remembrance of the insults that had been heaped upon her--if Grace's 
malice had not seen in her hesitation a means of referring offensively once 
again to her interview with Julian Gray. 
"Pray don't think twice about trusting him alone with me," she said, with a 
sardonic affectation of politeness. "I am not interested in making a conquest of 
Mr. Julian Gray." 
The jealous distrust in Horace (already awakened by Julian's request) now 
attempted to assert itself openly. Before he could speak, Mercy's indignation 
had dictated Mercy's answer. 
"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Gray," she said, addressing Julian (but still not 
raising her eyes to his). "I have nothing more to say. There is no need for me 
to trouble you again." 
In those rash words she recalled the confession to which she stood pledged. In 
those rash words she committed herself to keeping the position that she had 
usurped, in the face of the woman whom she had deprived of it! 
Horace was silenced, but not satisfied. He saw Julian's eyes fixed in sad and 
searching attention on Mercy's face while she was speaking. He heard Julian sigh 
to himself when she had done. He observed Julian--after a moment's serious 
consideration, and a moment's glance backward at the stranger in the poor black 
clothes--lift his head with the air of a man who had taken a sudden resolution. 
"Bring me that card directly," he said to the servant. His tone announced that 
he was not to be trifled with. The man obeyed. 
Without answering Lady Janet--who still peremptorily insisted on her right to 
act for herself--Julian took the pencil from his pocketbook and added his 
signature to the writing already inscribed on the card. When he had handed it 
back to the servant he made his apologies to his aunt. 
"Pardon me for venturing to interfere," he said "There is a serious reason for 
what I have done, which I will explain to you at a fitter time. In the meanwhile 
I offer no further obstruction to the course which you propose taking. On the 
contrary, I have just assisted you in gaining the end that you have in view." 
As he said that he held up the pencil with which he had signed his name. 
Lady Janet, naturally perplexed, and (with some reason, perhaps) offended as 
well, made no answer. She waved her hand to the servant, and sent him away with 
the card. 
There was silence in the room. The eyes of all the persons present turned more 
or less anxiously on Julian. Mercy was vaguely surprised and alarmed. Horace, 
like Lady Janet, felt offended, without clearly knowing why. Even Grace 
Roseberry herself was subdued by her own presentiment of some coming 
interference for which she was completely unprepared. Julian's words and 
actions, from the moment when he had written on the card, were involved in a 
mystery to which not one of the persons round him held the clew. 
The motive which had animated his conduct may, nevertheless, be described in two 
words: Julian still held to his faith in the inbred nobility of Mercy's nature. 
He had inferred, with little difficulty, from the language which Grace had used 
toward Mercy in his presence, that the injured woman must have taken pitiless 
advantage of her position at the interview which he had interrupted. Instead of 
appealing to Mercy's sympathies and Mercy's sense of right--instead of accepting 
the expression of her sincere contrition, and encouraging her to make the 
completest and the speediest atonement--Grace had evidently outraged and 
insulted her. As a necessary result, her endurance had given way-- under her own 
sense of intolerable severity and intolerable wrong. 
The remedy for the mischief thus done was, as Julian had first seen it, to speak 
privately with Grace, to soothe her by owning that his opinion of the justice of 
her claims had undergone a change in her favor, and then to persuade her, in her 
own interests, to let him carry to Mercy such expressions of apology and regret 
as might lead to a friendly understanding between them. 
With those motives, he had made his request to be permitted to speak separately 
to the one and the other. The scene that had followed, the new insult offered by 
Grace, and the answer which it had wrung from Mercy, had convinced him that no 
such interference as he had contemplated would have the slightest prospect of 
success. 
The only remedy now left to try was the desperate remedy of letting things take 
their course, and trusting implicitly to Mercy's better nature for the result. 
Let her see the police officer in plain clothes enter the room. Let her 
understand clearly what the result of his interference would be. Let her 
confront the alternative of consigning Grace Roseberry to a mad-house or of 
confessing the truth--and what would happen? If Julian's confidence in her was a 
confidence soundly placed, she would nobly pardon the outrages that had been 
heaped upon her, and she would do justice to the woman whom she had wronged. 
If, on the other hand, his belief in her was nothing better than the blind 
belief of an infatuated man--if she faced the alternative and persisted in 
asserting her assumed identity--what then? 
Julian's faith in Mercy refused to let that darker side of the question find a 
place in his thoughts. It rested entirely with him to bring the officer into the 
house. He had prevented Lady Janet from making any mischievous use of his card 
by sending to the police station and warning them to attend to no message which 
they might receive unless the card produced bore his signature. Knowing the 
responsibility that he was taking on himself--knowing that Mercy had made no 
confession to him to which it was possible to appeal--he had signed his name 
without an instant's hesitation: and there he stood now, looking at the woman 
whose better nature he was determined to vindicate, the only calm person in the 
room. 
Horace's jealousy saw something suspiciously suggestive of a private 
understanding in Julian's earnest attention and in Mercy's downcast face. Having 
no excuse for open interference, he made an effort to part them. 
"You spoke just now," he said to Julian, "of wishing to say a word in private to 
that person." (He pointed to Grace.) "Shall we retire, or will you take her into 
the library?" 
"I refuse to have anything to say to him," Grace burst out, before Julian could 
answer. "I happen to know that he is the last person to do me justice. He has 
been effectually hoodwinked. If I speak to anybody privately, it ought to be to 
you. You have the greatest interest of any of them in finding out the truth." 
"What do you mean?" 
"Do you want to marry an outcast from the streets?" 
Horace took one step forward toward her. There was a look in his face which 
plainly betrayed that he was capable of turning her out of the house with his 
own hands. Lady Janet stopped him. 
"You were right in suggesting just now that Grace had better leave the room," 
she said. "Let us all three go. Julian will remain here and give the man his 
directions when he arrives. Come." 
No. By a strange contradiction it was Horace himself who now interfered to 
prevent Mercy from leaving the room. In the heat of his indignation he lost all 
sense of his own dignity; he descended to the level of a woman whose intellect 
he believed to be deranged. To the surprise of every one present, he stepped 
back and took from the table a jewel-case which he had placed there when he came 
into the room. It was the wedding present from his mother which he had brought 
to his betrothed wife. His outraged self-esteem seized the opportunity of 
vindicating Mercy by a public bestowal of the gift. 
"Wait!" he called out, sternly. "That wretch shall have her answer. She has 
sense enough to see and sense enough to hear. Let her see and hear!" 
He opened the jewel-case, and took from it a magnificent pearl necklace in an 
antique setting. 
"Grace," he said, with his highest distinction of manner, "my mother sends you 
her love and her congratulations on our approaching marriage. She begs you to 
accept, as part of your bridal dress, these pearls. She was married in them 
herself. They have been in our family for centuries. As one of the family, 
honored and beloved, my mother offers them to my wife." 
He lifted the necklace to clasp it round Mercy's neck. 
Julian watched her in breathless suspense. Would she sustain the ordeal through 
which Horace had innocently condemned her to pass? 
Yes! In the insolent presence of Grace Roseberry, what was there now that she 
could not sustain? Her pride was in arms. Her lovely eyes lighted up as only a 
woman's eyes can light up when they see jewelry. Her grand head bent gracefully 
to receive the necklace. Her face warmed into color; her beauty rallied its 
charms. Her triumph over Grace Roseberry was complete! Julian's head sank. For 
one sad moment he secretly asked himself the question: "Have I been mistaken in 
her?" 
Horace arrayed her in the pearls. 
"Your husband puts these pearls on your neck, love," he said, proudly, and 
paused to look at her. "Now," he added, with a contemptuous backward glance at 
Grace, "we may go into the library. She has seen, and she has heard." 
He believed that he had silenced her. He had simply furnished her sharp tongue 
with a new sting. 
"You will hear, and you will see, when my proofs come from Canada," she 
retorted. "You will hear that your wife has stolen my name and my character! You 
will see your wife dismissed from this house!" 
Mercy turned on her with an uncontrollable outburst of passion. 
"You are mad!" she cried. 
Lady Janet caught the electric infection of anger in the air of the room. She, 
too, turned on Grace. She, too, said it: 
"You are mad!" 
Horace followed Lady Janet. He was beside himself. He fixed his pitiless eyes on 
Grace, and echoed the contagious words: 
"You are mad!" 
She was silenced, she was daunted at last. The treble accusation revealed to 
her, for the first time, the frightful suspicion to which she had exposed 
herself. She shrank back with a low cry of horror, and struck against a chair. 
She would have fallen if Julian had not sprung forward and caught her. 
Lady Janet led the way into the library. She opened the door-- started--and 
suddenly stepped aside, so as to leave the entrance free. 
A man appeared in the open doorway. 
He was not a gentleman; he was not a workman; he was not a servant. He was 
vilely dressed, in glossy black broadcloth. His frockcoat hung on him instead of 
fitting him. His waistcoat was too short and too tight over the chest. His 
trousers were a pair of shapeless black bags. His gloves were too large for him. 
His highly-polished boots creaked detestably whenever he moved. He had odiously 
watchful eyes--eyes that looked skilled in peeping through key-holes. His large 
ears, set forward like the ears of a monkey, pleaded guilty to meanly listening 
behind other people's doors. His manner was quietly confidential when he spoke, 
impenetrably self-possessed when he was silent. A lurking air of secret service 
enveloped the fellow, like an atmosphere of his own, from head to foot. He 
looked all round the magnificent room without betraying either surprise or 
admiration. He closely investigated every person in it with one glance of his 
cunningly watchful eyes. Making his bow to Lady Janet, he silently showed her, 
as his introduction, the card that had summoned him. And then he stood at ease, 
self-revealed in his own sinister identity--a police officer in plain clothes. 
Nobody spoke to him. Everybody shrank inwardly as if a reptile had crawled into 
the room. 
He looked backward and forward, perfectly unembarrassed, between Julian and 
Horace. 
"Is Mr. Julian Gray here?" he asked. 
Julian led Grace to a seat. Her eyes were fixed on the man. She trembled--she 
whispered, "Who is he?" Julian spoke to the police officer without answering 
her. 
"Wait there," he said, pointing to a chair in the most distant corner of the 
room. "I will speak to you directly." 
The man advanced to the chair, marching to the discord of his creaking boots. He 
privately valued the carpet at so much a yard as he walked over it. He privately 
valued the chair at so much the dozen as he sat down on it. He was quite at his 
ease: it was no matter to him whether he waited and did nothing, or whether he 
pried into the private character of every one in the room, as long as he was 
paid for it. 
Even Lady Janet's resolution to act for herself was not proof against the 
appearance of the policeman in plain clothes. She left it to her nephew to take 
the lead. Julian glanced at Mercy before he stirred further in the matter. He 
alone knew that the end rested now not with him but with her. 
She felt his eye on her while her own eyes were looking at the man. She turned 
her head--hesitated--and suddenly approached Julian. Like Grace Roseberry, she 
was trembling. Like Grace Roseberry, she whispered, "Who is he?" 
Julian told her plainly who he was. 
"Why is he here?" 
"Can't you guess?" 
"No!" 
Horace left Lady Janet, and joined Mercy and Julian--impatient of the private 
colloquy between them. 
"Am I in the way?" he inquired. 
Julian drew back a little, understanding Horace perfectly. He looked round at 
Grace. Nearly the whole length of the spacious room divided them from the place 
in which she was sitting. She had never moved since he had placed her in a 
chair. The direst of all terrors was in possession of her--terror of the 
unknown. There was no fear of her interfering, and no fear of her hearing what 
they said so long as they were careful to speak in guarded tones. Julian set the 
example by lowering his voice. 
"Ask Horace why the police officer is here?" he said to Mercy. 
She put the question directly. "Why is he here?" 
Horace looked across the room at Grace, and answered, "He is here to relieve us 
of that woman." 
"Do you mean that he will take her away?" 
"Yes." 
"Where will he take her to?" 
"To the police station." 
Mercy started, and looked at Julian. He was still watching the slightest changes 
in her face. She looked back again at Horace. 
"To the police station!" she repeated. "What for?" 
"How can you ask the question?" said Horace, irritably. "To be placed under 
restraint, of course." 
"Do you mean prison?" 
"I mean an asylum." 
Again Mercy turned to Julian. There was horror now, as well as surprise, in her 
face. "Oh!" she said to him, "Horace is surely wrong? It can't be?" 
Julian left it to Horace to answer. Every facility in him seemed to be still 
absorbed in watching Mercy's face. She was compelled to address herself to 
Horace once more. 
"What sort of asylum?" she asked. "You don't surely mean a madhouse?" 
"I do," he rejoined. "The workhouse first, perhaps--and then the madhouse. What 
is there to surprise you in that? You yourself told her to her face she was mad. 
Good Heavens! how pale you are! What is the matter?" 
She turned to Julian for the third time. The terrible alternative that was 
offered to her had showed itself at last, without reserve or disguise. Restore 
the identity that you have stolen, or shut her up in a madhouse--it rests with 
you to choose! In that form the situation shaped itself in her mind. She chose 
on the instant. Before she opened her lips the higher nature in her spoke to 
Julian, in her eyes. The steady inner light that he had seen in them once 
already shone in them again, brighter and purer than before. The conscience that 
he had fortified, the soul that he had saved, looked at him and said, Doubt us 
no more! 
"Send that man out of the house." 
Those were her first words. She spoke (pointing to the police officer) in clear, 
ringing, resolute tones, audible in the remotest corner of the room. 
Julian's hand stole unobserved to hers, and told her, in its momentary pressure, 
to count on his brotherly sympathy and help. All the other persons in the room 
looked at her in speechless surprise. Grace rose from her chair. Even the man in 
plain clothes started to his feet. Lady Janet (hurriedly joining Horace, and 
fully sharing his perplexity and alarm) took Mercy impulsively by the arm, and 
shook it, as if to rouse her to a sense of what she was doing. Mercy held firm; 
Mercy resolutely repeated what she had said: "Send that man out of the house." 
Lady Janet lost all her patience with her. "What has come to you?" she asked, 
sternly. "Do you know what you are saying? The man is here in your interest, as 
well as in mine; the man is here to spare you, as well as me, further annoyance 
and insult. And you insist-- insist, in my presence--on his being sent away! 
What does it mean?" 
"You shall know what it means, Lady Janet, in half an hour. I don't insist--I 
only reiterate my entreaty. Let the man be sent away." 
Julian stepped aside (with his aunt's eyes angrily following him) and spoke to 
the police officer. "Go back to the station, " he said, "and wait there till you 
hear from me." 
The meanly vigilant eyes of the man in plain clothes traveled sidelong from 
Julian to Mercy, and valued her beauty as they had valued the carpet and the 
chairs. "The old story," he thought. "The nice-looking woman is always at the 
bottom of it; and, sooner or later, the nice-looking woman has her way." He 
marched back across the room, to the discord of his own creaking boots, bowed, 
with a villainous smile which put the worst construction on everything, and 
vanished through the library door. 
Lady Janet's high breeding restrained her from saying anything until the police 
officer was out of hearing. Then, and not till then, she appealed to Julian. 
"I presume you are in the secret of this?" she said. "I suppose you have some 
reason for setting my authority at defiance in my own house?" 
"I have never yet failed to respect your ladyship," Julian answered. "Before 
long you will know that I am not failing in respect toward you now." 
Lady Janet looked across the room. Grace was listening eagerly, conscious that 
events had taken some mysterious turn in her favor within the last minute. 
"Is it part of your new arrangement of my affairs," her ladyship continued, 
"that this person is to remain in the house?" 
The terror that had daunted Grace had not lost all hold of her yet. She left it 
to Julian to reply. Before he could speak Mercy crossed the room and whispered 
to her, "Give me time to confess it in writing. I can't own it before them--with 
this round my neck." She pointed to the necklace. Grace cast a threatening 
glance at her, and suddenly looked away again in silence. 
Mercy answered Lady Janet's question. "I beg your ladyship to permit her to 
remain until the half hour is over," she said. "My request will have explained 
itself by that time." 
Lady Janet raised no further obstacles. For something in Mercy's face, or in 
Mercy's tone, seemed to have silenced her, as it had silenced Grace. Horace was 
the next who spoke. In tones of suppressed rage and suspicion he addressed 
himself to Mercy, standing fronting him by Julian's side. 
"Am I included," he asked, "in the arrangement which engages you to explain your 
extraordinary conduct in half an hour?" 
His hand had placed his mother's wedding present round Mercy's neck. A sharp 
pang wrung her as she looked at Horace, and saw how deeply she had already 
distressed and offended him. The tears rose in her eyes; she humbly and faintly 
answered him. 
"If you please," was all she could say, before the cruel swelling at her heart 
rose and silenced her. 
Horace's sense of injury refused to be soothed by such simple submission as 
this. 
"I dislike mysteries and innuendoes," he went on, harshly. "In my family circle 
we are accustomed to meet each other frankly. Why am I to wait half an hour for 
an explanation which might be given now? What am I to wait for?" 
Lady Janet recovered herself as Horace spoke. 
"I entirely agree with you," she said. "I ask, too, what are we to wait for?" 
Even Julian's self-possession failed him when his aunt repeated that cruelly 
plain question. How would Mercy answer it? Would her courage still hold out? 
"You have asked me what you are to wait for," she said to Horace, quietly and 
firmly. "Wait to hear something more of Mercy Merrick" 
Lady Janet listened with a look of weary disgust. 
"Don't return to that!" she said. "We know enough about Mercy Merrick already." 
"Pardon me--your ladyship does not know. I am the only person who can inform 
you." 
"You?" 
She bent her head respectfully. 
"I have begged you, Lady Janet, to give me half an hour," she went on. "In half 
an hour I solemnly engage myself to produce Mercy Merrick in this room. Lady 
Janet Roy, Mr. Horace Holmcroft, you are to wait for that." 
Steadily pledging herself in those terms to make her confession, she unclasped 
the pearls from her neck, put them away in their cases and placed it in Horace's 
hand. "Keep it," she said, with a momentary faltering in her voice, "until we 
meet again." 
Horace took the case in silence; he looked and acted like a man whose mind was 
paralyzed by surprise. His hand moved mechanically. His eyes followed Mercy with 
a vacant, questioning look. Lady Janet seemed, in her different way, to share 
the strange oppression that had fallen on him. A vague sense of dread and 
distress hung like a cloud over her mind. At that memorable moment she felt her 
age, she looked her age, as she had never felt it or looked it yet. 
"Have I your ladyship's leave," said Mercy, respectfully, "to go to my room?" 
Lady Janet mutely granted the request. Mercy's last look, before she went out, 
was a look at Grace. "Are you satisfied now?" the grand gray eyes seemed to say, 
mournfully. Grace turned her head aside, with a quick, petulant action. Even her 
narrow nature opened for a moment unwillingly, and let pity in a little way, in 
spite of itself. 
Mercy's parting words recommended Grace to Julian's care: 
"You will see that she is allowed a room to wait in? You will warn her yourself 
when the half hour has expired?" 
Julian opened the library door for her. 
"Well done! Nobly done!" he whispered. "All my sympathy is with you--all my help 
is yours." 
Her eyes looked at him, and thanked him, through her gathering tears. His own 
eyes were dimmed. She passed quietly down the room, and was lost to him before 
he had shut the door again. 



CHAPTER XXI. 
THE FOOTSTEP IN THE CORRIDOR.
MERCY was alone. 
She had secured one half hour of retirement in her own room, designing to devote 
that interval to the writing of her confession, in the form of a letter 
addressed to Julian Gray. 
No recent change in her position had, as yet, mitigated her horror of 
acknowledging to Horace and to Lady Janet that she had won her way to their 
hearts in disguise. Through Julian only could she say the words which were to 
establish Grace Roseberry in her right position in the house. 
How was her confession to be addressed to him? In writing? or by word of mouth? 
After all that had happened, from the time when Lady Janet's appearance had 
interrupted them, she would have felt relief rather than embarrassment in 
personally opening her heart to the man who had so delicately understood her, 
who had so faithfully befriended her in her sorest need. But the repeated 
betrayals of Horace's jealous suspicion of Julian warned her that she would only 
be surrounding herself with new difficulties, and be placing Julian in a 
position of painful embarrassment, if she admitted him to a private interview 
while Horace was in the house. 
The one course left to take was the course that she had adopted. Determining to 
address the narrative of the Fraud to Julian in the form of a letter, she 
arranged to add, at the close, certain instructions, pointing out to him the 
line of conduct which she wished him to pursue, 
These instructions contemplated the communication of her letter to Lady Janet 
and to Horace in the library, while Mercy--self-confessed as the missing woman 
whom she had pledged herself to produce--awaited in the adjoining room whatever 
sentence it pleased them to pronounce on her. Her resolution not to screen 
herself behind Julian from any consequences which might follow the confession 
had taken root in her mind from the moment when Horace had harshly asked her 
(and when Lady Janet had joined him in asking) why she delayed her explanation, 
and what she was keeping them waiting for. Out of the very pain which those 
questions inflicted, the idea of waiting her sentence in her own person in one 
room, while her letter to Julian was speaking for her in another, had sprung to 
life. "Let them break my heart if they like," she had thought to herself, in the 
self-abasement of that bitter moment; "it will be no more than I have deserved." 

She locked her door and opened her writing-desk. Knowing what she had to do, she 
tried to collect herself and do it. 
The effort was in vain. Those persons who study writing as an art are probably 
the only persons who can measure the vast distance which separates a conception 
as it exists in the mind from the reduction of that conception to form and shape 
in words. The heavy stress of agitation that had been laid on Mercy for hours 
together had utterly unfitted her for the delicate and difficult process of 
arranging the events of a narrative in their due sequence and their due 
proportion toward each other. Again and again she tried to begin her letter, and 
again and again she was baffled by the same hopeless confusion of ideas. She 
gave up the struggle in despair. 
A sense of sinking at her heart, a weight of hysterical oppression on her bosom, 
warned her not to leave herself unoccupied, a prey to morbid self-investigation 
and imaginary alarms. 
She turned instinctively, for a temporary employment of some kind, to the 
consideration of her own future. Here there were no intricacies or 
entanglements. The prospect began and ended with her return to the Refuge, if 
the matron would receive her. She did no injustice to Julian Gray; that great 
heart would feel for her, that kind hand would be held out to her, she knew. But 
what would happen if she thoughtlessly accepted all that his sympathy might 
offer? Scandal would point to her beauty and to his youth, and would place its 
own vile interpretation on the purest friendship that could exist between them. 
And he would be the sufferer, for he had a character--a clergyman's 
character--to lose. No. For his sake, out of gratitude to him, the farewell to 
Mablethorpe House must be also the farewell to Julian Gray. 
The precious minutes were passing. She resolved to write to the matron and ask 
if she might hope to be forgiven and employed at the Refuge again. Occupation 
over the letter that was easy to write might have its fortifying effect on her 
mind, and might pave the way for resuming the letter that was hard to write. She 
waited a moment at the window, thinking of the past life to which she was soon 
to return, before she took up the pen again. 
Her window looked eastward. The dusky glare of lighted London met her as her 
eyes rested on the sky. It seemed to beckon her back to the horror of the cruel 
streets--to point her way mockingly to the bridges over the black river--to lure 
her to the top of the parapet, and the dreadful leap into God's arms, or into 
annihilation--who knew which? 
She turned, shuddering, from the window. "Will it end in that way," she asked 
herself, "if the matron says No?" 
She began her letter. 
"DEAR MADAM--So long a time has passed since you heard from me that I almost 
shrink from writing to you. I am afraid you have already given me up in your own 
mind as a hard-hearted, ungrateful woman. 
"I have been leading a false life; I have not been fit to write to you before 
to-day. Now, when I am doing what I can to atone to those whom I have 
injured--now, when I repent with my whole heart--may I ask leave to return to 
the friend who has borne with me and helped me through many miserable years? Oh, 
madam, do not cast me off! I have no one to turn to but you. 
"Will you let me own everything to you? Will you forgive me when you know what I 
have done? Will you take me back into the Refuge, if you have any employment for 
me by which I may earn my shelter and my bread? 
"Before the night comes I must leave the house from which I am now writing. I 
have nowhere to go to. The little money, the few valuable possessions I have, 
must be left behind me: they have been obtained under false pretenses; they are 
not mine. No more forlorn creature than I am lives at this moment. You are a 
Christian woman. Not for my sake--for Christ's sake--pity me and take me back. 
"I am a good nurse, as you know, and I am a quick worker with my needle. In one 
way or the other can you not find occupation for me? 
"I could also teach, in a very unpretending way. But that is useless. Who would 
trust their children to a woman without a character? There is no hope for me in 
this direction. And yet I am so fond of children! I think I could be, not happy 
again, perhaps, but content with my lot, if I could be associated with them in 
some way. Are there not charitable societies which are trying to help and 
protect destitute children wandering about the streets? I think of my own 
wretched childhood--and oh! I should so like to be employed in saving other 
children from ending as I have ended. I could work, for such an object as that, 
from morning to night, and never feel weary. All my heart would be in it; and I 
should have this advantage over happy and prosperous women--I should have 
nothing else to think of. Surely they might trust me with the poor little 
starving wanderers of the streets--if you said a word for me? If I am asking too 
much, please forgive me. I am so wretched, madam--so lonely and so weary of my 
life. 
"There is only one thing more. My time here is very short. Will you please reply 
to this letter (to say yes or no) by telegram? 
"The name by which you know me is not the name by which I have been known here. 
I must beg you to address the telegram to 'The Reverend Julian Gray, Mablethorpe 
House, Kensington.' He is here, and he will show it to me. No words of mine can 
describe what I owe to him. He has never despaired of me--he has saved me from 
myself. God bless and reward the kindest, truest, best man I have ever known! 
"I have no more to say, except to ask you to excuse this long letter, and to 
believe me your grateful servant, ----." 
She signed and inclosed the letter, and wrote the address. Then, for the first 
time, an obstacle which she ought to have seen before showed itself, standing 
straight in her way. 
There was no time to forward her letter in the ordinary manner by post. It must 
be taken to its destination by a private messenger. Lady Janet's servants had 
hitherto been, one and all, at her disposal. Could she presume to employ them on 
her own affairs, when she might be dismissed from the house, a disgraced woman, 
in half an hour's time? Of the two alternatives it seemed better to take her 
chance, and present herself at the Refuge without asking leave first. 
While she was still considering the question she was startled by a knock at her 
door. On opening it she admitted Lady Janet's maid, with a morsel of folded 
note-paper in her hand. 
"From my lady, miss," said the woman, giving her the note. "There is no answer." 

Mercy stopped her as she was about to leave the room. The appearance of the maid 
suggested an inquiry to her. She asked if any of the servants were likely to be 
going into town that afternoon. 
"Yes, miss. One of the grooms is going on horseback, with a message to her 
ladyship's coach-maker." 
The Refuge was close by the coach-maker's place of business. Under the 
circumstances, Mercy was emboldened to make use of the man. It was a pardonable 
liberty to employ his services now. 
"Will you kindly give the groom that letter for me?" she said. "It will not take 
him out of his way. He has only to deliver it--nothing more." 
The woman willingly complied with the request. Left once more by herself, Mercy 
looked at the little note which had been placed in her hands. 
It was the first time that her benefactress had employed this formal method of 
communicating with her when they were both in the house. What did such a 
departure from established habits mean? Had she received her notice of 
dismissal? Had Lady Janet's quick intelligence found its way already to a 
suspicion of the truth? Mercy's nerves were unstrung. She trembled pitiably as 
she opened the folded note. 
It began without a form of address, and it ended without a signature. Thus it 
ran: 
"I must request you to delay for a little while the explanation which you have 
promised me. At my age, painful surprises are very trying things. I must have 
time to compose myself, before I can hear what you have to say. You shall not be 
kept waiting longer than I can help. In the meanwhile everything will go on as 
usual. My nephew Julian, and Horace Holmcroft, and the lady whom I found in the 
dining-room, will, by my desire, remain in the house until I am able to meet 
them, and to meet you, again." 
There the note ended. To what conclusion did it point? 
Had Lady Janet really guessed the truth? or had she only surmised that her 
adopted daughter was connected in some discreditable manner with the mystery of 
"Mercy Merrick"? The line in which she referred to the intruder in the 
dining-room as "the lady" showed very remarkably that her opinions had undergone 
a change in that quarter. But was the phrase enough of itself to justify the 
inference that she had actually anticipated the nature of Mercy's confession? It 
was not easy to decide that doubt at the moment--and it proved to be equally 
difficult to throw any light on it at an aftertime. To the end of her life Lady 
Janet resolutely refused to communicate to any one the conclusions which she 
might have privately formed, the griefs which she might have secretly stifled, 
on that memorable day. 
Amid much, however, which was beset with uncertainty, one thing at least was 
clear. The time at Mercy's disposal in her own room had been indefinitely 
prolonged by Mercy's benefactress. Hours might pass before the disclosure to 
which she stood committed would be expected from her. In those hours she might 
surely compose her mind sufficiently to be able to write her letter of 
confession to Julian Gray. 
Once more she placed the sheet of paper before her. Resting her head on her hand 
as she sat at the table, she tried to trace her way through the labyrinth of the 
past, beginning with the day when she had met Grace Roseberry in the French 
cottage, and ending with the day which had brought them face to face, for the 
second time, in the dining-room at Mablethorpe House. 
The chain of events began to unroll itself in her mind clearly, link by link. 
She remarked, as she pursued the retrospect, how strangely Chance, or Fate, had 
paved the way for the act of personation, in the first place. 
If they had met under ordinary circumstances, neither Mercy nor Grace would have 
trusted each other with the confidences which had been exchanged between them. 
As the event had happened, they had come together, under those extraordinary 
circumstances of common trial and common peril, in a strange country, which 
would especially predispose two women of the same nation to open their hearts to 
each other. In no other way could Mercy have obtained at a first interview that 
fatal knowledge of Grace's position and Grace's affairs which had placed 
temptation before her as the necessary consequence that followed the bursting of 
the German shell. 
Advancing from this point through the succeeding series of events which had so 
naturally and yet so strangely favored the perpetration of the fraud, Mercy 
reached the later period when Grace had followed her to England. Here again she 
remarked, in the second place, how Chance, or Fate, had once more paved the way 
for that second meeting which had confronted them with one another at 
Mablethorpe House. 
She had, as she well remembered, attended at a certain assembly (convened by a 
charitable society) in the character of Lady Janet's representative, at Lady 
Janet's own request. For that reason she had been absent from the house when 
Grace had entered it. If her return had been delayed by a few minutes only, 
Julian would have had time to take Grace out of the room, and the terrible 
meeting which had stretched Mercy senseless on the floor would never have taken 
place. As the event had happened, the period of her absence had been fatally 
shortened by what appeared at the time to be, the commonest possible occurrence. 
The, persons assembled at the society's rooms had disagreed so seriously on the 
business which had brought them together as to render it necessary to take the 
ordinary course of adjourning the proceedings to a future day. And Chance, or 
Fate, had so timed that adjournment as to bring Mercy back into the dining-room 
exactly at the moment when Grace Roseberry insisted on being confronted with the 
woman who had taken her place. 
She had never yet seen the circumstances in this sinister light. She was alone 
in her room, at a crisis in her life. She was worn and weakened by emotions 
which had shaken her to the soul. 
Little by little she felt the enervating influences let loose on her, in her 
lonely position, by her new train of thought. Little by little her heart began 
to sink under the stealthy chill of superstitious dread. Vaguely horrible 
presentiments throbbed in her with her pulses, flowed through her with her 
blood. Mystic oppressions of hidden disaster hovered over her in the atmosphere 
of the room. The cheerful candle-light turned traitor to her and grew dim. 
Supernatural murmurs trembled round the house in the moaning of the winter wind. 
She was afraid to look behind her. On a sudden she felt her own cold hands 
covering her face, without knowing when she had lifted them to it, or why. 
Still helpless, under the horror that held her, she suddenly heard footsteps--a 
man's footsteps--in the corridor outside. At other times the sound would have 
startled her: now it broke the spell. The footsteps suggested life, 
companionship, human interposition--no matter of what sort. She mechanically 
took up her pen; she found herself beginning to remember her letter to Julian 
Gray. 
At the same moment the footsteps stopped outside her door. The man knocked. 
She still felt shaken. She was hardly mistress of herself yet. A faint cry of 
alarm escaped her at the sound of the knock. Before it could be repeated she had 
rallied her courage, and had opened the door. 
The man in the corridor was Horace Holmcroft. 
His ruddy complexion had turned pale. His hair (of which he was especially 
careful at other times) was in disorder. The superficial polish of his manner 
was gone; the undisguised man, sullen, distrustful, irritated to the last degree 
of endurance, showed through. He looked at her with a watchfully suspicious eye; 
he spoke to her, without preface or apology, in a coldly angry voice. 
"Are you aware," he asked, "of what is going on downstairs?" 
"I have not left my room," she answered. "I know that Lady Janet has deferred 
the explanation which I had promised to give her, and I know no more." 
"Has nobody told you what Lady Janet did after you left us? Has nobody told you 
that she politely placed her own boudoir at the disposal of the very woman whom 
she had ordered half an hour before to leave the house? Do you really not know 
that Mr. Julian Gray has himself conducted this suddenly-honored guest to her 
place of retirement? and that I am left alone in the midst of these changes, 
contradictions, and mysteries--the only person who is kept out in the dark?" 
"It is surely needless to ask me these questions," said Mercy, gently. "Who 
could possibly have told me what was going on below stairs before you knocked at 
my door?" 
He looked at her with an ironical affectation of surprise. 
"You are strangely forgetful to-day," he said. "Surely your friend Mr. Julian 
Gray might have told you? I am astonished to hear that he has not had his 
private interview yet." 
"I don't understand you, Horace." 
"I don't want you to understand me," he retorted, irritably. "The proper person 
to understand me is Julian Gray. I look to him to account to me for the 
confidential relations which seem to have been established between you behind my 
back. He has avoided me thus far, but I shall find my way to him yet." 
His manner threatened more than his words expressed. In Mercy's nervous 
condition at the moment, it suggested to her that he might attempt to fasten a 
quarrel on Julian Gray. 
"You are entirely mistaken," she said, warmly. "You are ungratefully doubting 
your best and truest friend. I say nothing of myself. You will soon discover why 
I patiently submit to suspicions which other women would resent as an insult." 
"Let me discover it at once. Now! Without wasting a moment more!" 
There had hitherto been some little distance between them. Mercy had listened, 
waiting on the threshold of her door; Horace had spoken, standing against the 
opposite wall of the corridor. When he said his last words he suddenly stepped 
forward, and (with something imperative in the gesture) laid his hand on her 
arm. The strong grasp of it almost hurt her. She struggled to release herself. 
"Let me go!" she said. "What do you mean?" 
He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken it. 
"You shall know what I mean," he replied. "A woman who has grossly outraged and 
insulted you--whose only excuse is that she is mad--is detained in the house at 
your desire, I might almost say at your command, when the police officer is 
waiting to take her away. I have a right to know what this means. I am engaged 
to marry you. If you won't trust other people, you are bound to explain yourself 
to Me. I refuse to wait for Lady Janet's convenience. I insist (if you force me 
to say so)--I insist on knowing the real nature of your connection with this 
affair. You have obliged me to follow you here; it is my only opportunity of 
speaking to you. You avoid me; you shut yourself up from me in your own room. I 
am not your husband yet--I have no right to follow you in. But there are other 
rooms open to us. The library is at our disposal, and I will take care that we 
are not interrupted. I am now going there, and I have a last question to ask. 
You are to be my wife in a week's time: will you take me into your confidence or 
not?" 
To hesitate was, in this case, literally to be lost. Mercy's sense of justice 
told her that Horace had claimed no more than his due. She answered instantly: 
"I will follow you to the library, Horace, in five minutes." 
Her prompt and frank compliance with his wishes surprised and touched him. He 
took her hand. 
She had endured all that his angry sense of injury could say. His gratitude 
wounded her to the quick. The bitterest moment she had felt yet was the moment 
in which he raised her hand to his lips, and murmured tenderly, "My own true 
Grace!" She could only sign to him to leave her, and hurry back into her own 
room. 
Her first feeling, when she found herself alone again, was wonder--wonder that 
it should never have occurred to her, until he had himself suggested it, that 
her betrothed husband had the foremost right to her confession. Her horror at 
owning to either of them that she had cheated them out of their love had 
hitherto placed Horace and Lady Janet on the same level. She now saw for the 
first time that there was no comparison between the claims which they 
respectively had on her. She owned an allegiance to Horace to which Lady Janet 
could assert no right. Cost her what it might to avow the truth to him with her 
own lips, the cruel sacrifice must be made. 
Without a moment's hesitation she put away her writing materials. It amazed her 
that she should ever have thought of using Julian Gray as an interpreter between 
the man to whom she was betrothed and herself. Julian's sympathy (she thought) 
must have made a strong impression on her indeed to blind her to a duty which 
was beyond all compromise, which admitted of no dispute! 
She had asked for five minutes of delay before she followed Horace. It was too 
long a time. 
Her one chance of finding courage to crush him with the dreadful revelation of 
who she really was, of what she had really done, was to plunge headlong into the 
disclosure without giving herself time to think. The shame of it would overpower 
her if she gave herself time to think. 
She turned to the door to follow him at once. 
Even at that terrible moment the most ineradicable of all a woman's 
instincts--the instinct of personal self-respect--brought her to a pause. She 
had passed through more than one terrible trial since she had dressed to go 
downstairs. Remembering this, she stopped mechanically, retraced her steps, and 
looked at herself in the glass. 
There was no motive of vanity in what she now did. The action was as unconscious 
as if she had buttoned an unfastened glove, or shaken out a crumpled dress. Not 
the faintest idea crossed her mind of looking to see if her beauty might still 
plead for her, and of trying to set it off at its best. 
A momentary smile, the most weary, the most hopeless, that ever saddened a 
woman's face, appeared in the reflection which her mirror gave her back. 
"Haggard, ghastly, old before my time!" she said to herself. "Well! better so. 
He will feel it less--he will not regret me." 
With that thought she went downstairs to meet him in the library. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE MAN IN THE DINING-ROOM.
IN the great emergencies of life we feel, or we act, as our dispositions incline 
us. But we never think. Mercy's mind was a blank as she descended the stairs. On 
her way down she was conscious of nothing but the one headlong impulse to get to 
the library in the shortest possible space of time. Arrived at the door, the 
impulse capriciously left her. She stopped on the mat, wondering why she had 
hurried herself, with time to spare. Her heart sank; the fever of her excitement 
changed suddenly to a chill as she faced the closed door, and asked herself the 
question, Dare I go in? 
Her own hand answered her. She lifted it to turn the handle of the lock. It 
dropped again helplessly at her side. 
The sense of her own irresolution wrung from her a low exclamation of despair. 
Faint as it was, it had apparently not passed unheard. The door was opened from 
within--and Horace stood before her. 
He drew aside to let her pass into the room. But he never followed her in. He 
stood in the doorway, and spoke to her, keeping the door open with his hand. 
"Do you mind waiting here for me?" he asked. 
She looked at him, in vacant surprise, doubting whether she had heard him 
aright. 
"It will not be for long," he went on. "I am far too anxious to hear what you 
have to tell me to submit to any needless delays. The truth is, I have had a 
message from Lady Janet." 
(From Lady Janet! What could Lady Janet want with him, at a time when she was 
bent on composing herself in the retirement of her own room?) 
"I ought to have said two messages," Horace proceeded. "The first was given to 
me on my way downstairs. Lady Janet wished to see me immediately. I sent an 
excuse. A second message followed. Lady Janet would accept no excuse. If I 
refused to go to her I should be merely obliging her to come to me. It is 
impossible to risk being interrupted in that way; my only alternative is to get 
the thing over as soon as possible. Do you mind waiting?" 
"Certainly not. Have you any idea of what Lady Janet wants with you?" 
"No. Whatever it is, she shall not keep me long away from you. You will be quite 
alone here; I have warned the servants not to show any one in." With those words 
he left her. 
Mercy's first sensation was a sensation of relief--soon lost in a feeling of 
shame at the weakness which could welcome any temporary relief in such a 
position as hers. The emotion thus roused merged, in its turn, into a sense of 
impatient regret. "But for Lady Janet's message," she thought to herself, "I 
might have known my fate by this time!" 
The slow minutes followed each other drearily. She paced to and fro in the 
library, faster and faster, under the intolerable irritation, the maddening 
uncertainty, of her own suspense. Ere long, even the spacious room seemed to be 
too small for her. The sober monotony of the long book-lined shelves oppressed 
and offended her. She threw open the door which led into the dining-room, and 
dashed in, eager for a change of objects, athirst for more space and more air. 
At the first step she checked herself; rooted to the spot, under a sudden 
revulsion of feeling which quieted her in an instant. 
The room was only illuminated by the waning fire-light. A man was obscurely 
visible, seated on the sofa, with his elbows on his knees and his head resting 
on his hands. He looked up as the open door let in the light from the library 
lamps. The mellow glow reached his face and revealed Julian Gray. 
Mercy was standing with her back to the light; her face being necessarily hidden 
in deep shadow. He recognized her by her figure, and by the attitude into which 
it unconsciously fell. That unsought grace, that lithe long beauty of line, 
belonged to but one woman in the house. He rose, and approached her. 
"I have been wishing to see you," he said, "and hoping that accident might bring 
about some such meeting as this." 
He offered her a chair. Mercy hesitated before she took her seat. This was their 
first meeting alone since Lady Janet had interrupted her at the moment when she 
was about to confide to Julian the melancholy story of the past. Was he anxious 
to seize the opportunity of returning to her confession? The terms in which he 
had addressed her seemed to imply it. She put the question to him in plain words 

"I feel the deepest interest in hearing all that you have still to confide to 
me," he answered. "But anxious as I may be, I will not hurry you. I will wait, 
if you wish it." 
"I am afraid I must own that I do wish it," Mercy rejoined. "Not on my 
account--but because my time is at the disposal of Horace Holmcroft. I expect to 
see him in a few minutes." 
"Could you give me those few minutes?" Julian asked. "I have something on my 
side to say to you which I think you ought to know before you see any 
one--Horace himself included." 
He spoke with a certain depression of tone which was not associated with her 
previous experience of him. His face looked prematurely old and careworn in the 
red light of the fire. Something had plainly happened to sadden and to 
disappoint him since they had last met. 
"I willingly offer you all the time that I have at my own command," Mercy 
replied. "Does what you have to tell me relate to Lady Janet?" 
He gave her no direct reply. "What I have to tell you of Lady Janet," he said, 
gravely, "is soon told. So far as she is concerned you have nothing more to 
dread. Lady Janet knows all." 
Even the heavy weight of oppression caused by the impending interview with 
Horace failed to hold its place in Mercy's mind when Julian answered her in 
those words. 
"Come into the lighted room," she said, faintly. "It is too terrible to hear you 
say that in the dark." 
Julian followed her into the library. Her limbs trembled under her. She dropped 
into a chair, and shrank under his great bright eyes, as he stood by her side 
looking sadly down on her. 
"Lady Janet knows all!" she repeated, with her head on her breast, and the tears 
falling slowly over her cheeks. "Have you told her?" 
"I have said nothing to Lady Janet or to any one. Your confidence is a sacred 
confidence to me, until you have spoken first." 
"Has Lady Janet said anything to you?" 
"Not a word. She has looked at you with the vigilant eyes of love; she has 
listened to you with the quick hearing of love--and she has found her own way to 
the truth. She will not speak of it to me-- she will not speak of it to any 
living creature. I only know now how dearly she loved you. In spite of herself 
she clings to you still. Her life, poor soul, has been a barren one; unworthy, 
miserably unworthy, of such a nature as hers. Her marriage was loveless and 
childless. She has had admirers, but never, in the higher sense of the word, a 
friend. All the best years of her life have been wasted in the unsatisfied 
longing for something to love. At the end of her life You have filled the void. 
Her heart has found its youth again, through You. At her age--at any age--is 
such a tie as this to be rudely broken at the mere bidding of circumstances? No! 
She will suffer anything, risk anything, forgive anything, rather than own, even 
to herself, that she has been deceived in you. There is more than her happiness 
at stake; there is pride, a noble pride, in such love as hers, which will ignore 
the plainest discovery and deny the most unanswerable truth. I am firmly 
convinced--from my own knowledge of her character, and from what I have observed 
in her to-day--that she will find some excuse for refusing to hear your 
confession. And more than that, I believe (if the exertion of her influence can 
do it) that she will leave no means untried of preventing you from acknowledging 
your true position here to any living creature. I take a serious responsibility 
on myself in telling you this--and I don't shrink from it. You ought to know, 
and you shall know, what trials and what temptations may yet lie before you." 
He paused--leaving Mercy time to compose herself, if she wished to speak to him. 

She felt that there was a necessity for her speaking to him. He was plainly not 
aware that Lady Janet had already written to her to defer her promised 
explanation. This circumstance was in itself a confirmation of the opinion which 
he had expressed. She ought to mention it to him; she tried to mention it to 
him. But she was not equal to the effort. The few simple words in which he had 
touched on the tie that bound Lady Janet to her had wrung her heart. Her tears 
choked her. She could only sign to him to go on. 
"You may wonder at my speaking so positively," he continued, "with nothing 
better than my own conviction to justify me. I can only say that I have watched 
Lady Janet too closely to feel any doubt. I saw the moment in which the truth 
flashed on her, as plainly as I now see you. It did not disclose itself 
gradually--it burst on her, as it burst on me. She suspected nothing--she was 
frankly indignant at your sudden interference and your strange language--until 
the time came in which you pledged yourself to produce Mercy Merrick. Then (and 
then only) the truth broke on her mind, trebly revealed to her in your words, 
your voice, and your look. Then (and then only) I saw a marked change come over 
her, and remain in her while she re mained in the room. I dread to think of what 
she may do in the first reckless despair of the discovery that she has made. I 
distrust--though God knows I am not naturally a suspicious man--the most 
apparently trifling events that are now taking place about us. You have held 
nobly to your resolution to own the truth. Prepare yourself, before the evening 
is over, to be tried and tempted again." 
Mercy lifted her head. Fear took the place of grief in her eyes, as they rested 
in startled inquiry on Julian's face. 
"How is it possible that temptation can come to me now?" she asked. 
"I will leave it to events to answer that question," he said. "You will not have 
long to wait. In the meantime I have put you on your guard." He stooped, and 
spoke his next words earnestly, close at her ear. "Hold fast by the admirable 
courage which you have shown thus far," he went on. "Suffer anything rather than 
suffer the degradation of yourself. Be the woman whom I once spoke of--the woman 
I still have in my mind--who can nobly reveal the noble nature that is in her. 
And never forget this-- my faith in you is as firm as ever!" 
She looked at him proudly and gratefully. 
"I am pledged to justify your faith in me," she said. "I have put it out of my 
own power to yield. Horace has my promise that I will explain everything to him, 
in this room." 
Julian started. 
"Has Horace himself asked it of you?" he inquired. "He, at least, has no 
suspicion of the truth." 
"Horace has appealed to my duty to him as his betrothed wife," she answered. "He 
has the first claim to my confidence--he resents my silence, and he has a right 
to resent it. Terrible as it will be to open his eyes to the truth, I must do it 
if he asks me." 
She was looking at Julian while she spoke. The old longing to associate with the 
hard trial of the confession the one man who had felt for her, and believed in 
her, revived under another form. If she could only know, while she was saying 
the fatal words to Horace, that Julian was listening too, she would be 
encouraged to meet the worst that could happen! As the idea crossed her mind, 
she observed that Julian was looking toward the door through which they had 
lately passed. In an instant she saw the means to her end. Hardly waiting to 
hear the few kind expressions of sympathy and approval which he addressed to 
her, she hinted timidly at the proposal which she had now to make to him. 
"Are you going back into the next room?" she asked. 
"Not if you object to it," he replied. 
"I don't object. I want you to be there." 
"After Horace has joined you?" 
"Yes. After Horace has joined me." 
"Do you wish to see me when it is over?" 
She summoned her resolution, and told him frankly what she had in her mind. 
"I want you to be near me while I am speaking to Horace," she said. "It will 
give me courage if I can feel that I am speaking to you as well as to him. I can 
count on your sympathy--and sympathy is so precious to me now! Am I asking too 
much, if I ask you to leave the door unclosed when you go back to the 
dining-room? Think of the dreadful trial--to him as well as to me! I am only a 
woman; I am afraid I may sink under it, if I have no friend near me. And I have 
no friend but you." 
In those simple words she tried her powers of persuasion on him for the first 
time. 
Between perplexity and distress Julian was, for the moment, at a loss how to 
answer her. The love for Mercy which he dared not acknowledge was as vital a 
feeling in him as the faith in her which he had been free to avow. To refuse 
anything that she asked of him in her sore need--and, more even than that, to 
refuse to hear the confession which it had been her first impulse to make to 
him--these were cruel sacrifices to his sense of what was due to Horace and of 
what was due to himself. But shrink as he might, even from the appearance of 
deserting her, it was impossible for him (except under a reserve which was 
almost equivalent to a denial) to grant her request. 
"All that I can do I will do," he said. "The doors shall be left unclosed, and I 
will remain in the next room, on this condition, that Horace knows of it as well 
as you. I should be unworthy of your confidence in me if I consented to be a 
listener on any other terms. You understand that, I am sure, as well as I do." 
She had never thought of her proposal to him in this light. Woman-like, she had 
thought of nothing but the comfort of having him near her. She understood him 
now. A faint flush of shame rose on her pale cheeks as she thanked him. He 
delicately relieved her from her embarrassment by putting a question which 
naturally occurred under the circumstances. 
"Where is Horace all this time?" he asked. "Why is he not here?" 
"He has been called away," she answered, "by a message from Lady Janet." 
The reply more than astonished Julian; it seemed almost to alarm him. He 
returned to Mercy's chair; he said to her, eagerly, "Are you sure?" 
"Horace himself told me that Lady Janet had insisted on seeing him." 
"When?" 
"Not long ago. He asked me to wait for him here while he went upstairs." 
Julian's face darkened ominously. 
"This confirms my worst fears," he said. "Have you had any communication with 
Lady Janet?" 
Mercy replied by showing him his aunt's note. He read it carefully through. 
"Did I not tell you," he said, "that she would find some excuse for refusing to 
hear your confession? She begins by delaying it, simply to gain time for 
something else which she has it in her mind to do. When did you receive this 
note? Soon after you went upstairs?" 
"About a quarter of an hour after, as well as I can guess." 
"Do you know what happened down here after you left us?" 
"Horace told me that Lady Janet had offered Miss Roseberry the use of her 
boudoir." 
"Any more?" 
"He said that you had shown her the way to the room." 
"Did he tell you what happened after that?" 
"No." 
"Then I must tell you. If I can do nothing more in this serious state of things, 
I can at least prevent your being taken by surprise. In the first place, it is 
right you should know that I had a motive for accompanying Miss Roseberry to the 
boudoir. I was anxious (for your sake) to make some appeal to her better 
self--if she had any better self to address. I own I had doubts of my 
success--judging by what I had already seen of her. My doubts were confirmed. In 
the ordinary intercourse of life I should merely have thought her a commonplace, 
uninteresting woman. Seeing her as I saw her while we were alone--in other 
words, penetrating below the surface--I have never, in all my sad experience, 
met with such a hopelessly narrow, mean, and low nature as hers. Understanding, 
as she could not fail to do, what the sudden change in Lady Janet's behavior 
toward her really meant, her one idea was to take the cruelest possible 
advantage of it. So far from feeling any consideration for you, she was only 
additionally imbittered toward you. She protested against your being permitted 
to claim the merit of placing her in her right position here by your own 
voluntary avowal of the truth. She insisted on publicly denouncing you, and on 
forcing Lady Janet to dismiss you, unheard, before the whole household! 'Now I 
can have my revenge! At last Lady Janet is afraid of me!' Those were her own 
words--I am almost ashamed to repeat them--those, on my honor, were her own 
words! Every possible humiliation to be heaped on you; no consideration to be 
shown for Lady Janet's age and Lady Janet's position; nothing, absolutely 
nothing, to be allowed to interfere with Miss Roseberry's vengeance and Miss 
Roseberry's triumph! There is this woman's shameless view of what is due to her, 
as stated by herself in the plainest terms. I kept my temper; I did all I could 
to bring her to a better frame of mind. I might as well have pleaded--I won't 
say with a savage; savages are sometimes accessible to remonstrance, if you know 
how to reach them--I might as well have pleaded with a hungry animal to abstain 
from eating while food was within its reach. I had just given up the hopeless 
effort in disgust, when Lady Janet's maid appeared with a message for Miss 
Roseberry from her mistress: 'My lady's compliments, ma'am, and she will be glad 
to see you at your earliest convenience, in her room.'" 
Another surprise! Grace Roseberry invited to an interview with Lady Janet! It 
would have been impossible to believe it, if Julian had not heard the invitation 
given with his own ears. 
"She instantly rose," Julian proceeded. "'I won't keep her ladyship waiting a 
moment,' she said; 'show me the way.' She signed to the maid to go out of the 
room first, and then turned round and spoke to me from the door. I despair of 
describing the insolent exultation of her manner. I can only repeat her words: 
'This is exactly what I wanted! I had intended to insist on seeing Lady Janet: 
she saves me the trouble. I am infinitely obliged to her.' With that she nodded 
to me, and closed the door. I have not seen her, I have not heard of her, since. 
For all I know, she may be still with my aunt, and Horace may have found her 
there when he entered the room." 
"What can Lady Janet have to say to her?" Mercy asked, eagerly. 
"It is impossible even to guess. When you found me in the dining-room I was 
considering that very question. I cannot imagine that any neutral ground can 
exist on which it is possible for Lady Janet and this woman to meet. In her 
present frame of mind she will in all probability insult Lady Janet before she 
has been five minutes in the room. I own I am completely puzzled. The one 
conclusion I can arrive at is that the note which my aunt sent to you, the 
private interview with Miss Roseberry which has followed, and the summons to 
Horace which has succeeded in its turn, are all links in the same chain of 
events, and are all tending to that renewed temptation against which I have 
already warned you." 
Mercy held up her hand for silence. She looked toward the door that opened on 
the hall; had she heard a footstep outside? No. All was still. Not a sign yet of 
Horace's return. 
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "what would I not give to know what is going on upstairs!" 
"You will soon know it now," said Julian. "It is impossible that our present 
uncertainty can last much longer." 
He turned away, intending to go back to the room in which she had found him. 
Looking at her situation from a man's point of view, he naturally assumed that 
the best service he could now render to Mercy would be to leave her to prepare 
herself for the interview with Horace. Before he had taken three steps away from 
her she showed him the difference between the woman's point of view and the 
man's. The idea of considering beforehand what she should say never entered her 
mind. In her horror of being left by herself at that critical moment, she forgot 
every other consideration. Even the warning remembrance of Horace's jealous 
distrust of Julian passed away from her, for the moment, as completely as if it 
never had a place in her memory. "Don't leave me!" she cried. "I can't wait here 
alone. Come back--come back!" 
She rose impulsively while she spoke, as if to follow him into the dining-room, 
if he persisted in leaving her. 
A momentary expression of doubt crossed Julian's face as he retraced his steps 
and signed to her to be seated again. Could she be depended on (he asked 
himself) to sustain the coming test of her resolution, when she had not courage 
enough to wait for events in a room by herself? Julian had yet to learn that a 
woman's courage rises with the greatness of the emergency. Ask her to accompany 
you through a field in which some harmless cattle happen to be grazing, and it 
is doubtful, in nine cases out of ten, if she will do it. Ask her, as one of the 
passengers in a ship on fire, to help in setting an example of composure to the 
rest, and it is certain, in nine cases out of ten, that she will do it. As soon 
as Julian had taken a chair near her, Mercy was calm again. 
"Are you sure of your resolution?" he asked. 
"I am certain of it," she answered, "as long as you don't leave me by myself." 
The talk between them dropped there. They sat together in silence, with their 
eyes fixed on the door, waiting for Horace to come in. 
After the lapse of a few minutes their attention was attracted by a sound 
outside in the grounds. A carriage of some sort was plainly audible approaching 
the house. 
The carriage stopped; the bell rang; the front door was opened. Had a visitor 
arrived? No voice could be heard making inquiries. No footsteps but the 
servant's footsteps crossed the hall. Along pause followed, the carriage 
remaining at the door. Instead of bringing some one to the house, it had 
apparently arrived to take some one away. 
The next event was the return of the servant to the front door. They listened 
again. Again no second footstep was audible. The door was closed; the servant 
recrossed the hall; the carriage was driven away. Judging by sounds alone, no 
one had arrived at the house, and no one had left the house. 
Julian looked at Mercy. "Do you understand this?" he asked. 
She silently shook her head. 
"If any person has gone away in the carriage," Julian went on, "that person can 
hardly have been a man, or we must have heard him in the hall." 
The conclusion which her companion had just drawn from the noiseless departure 
of the supposed visitor raised a sudden doubt in Mercy's mind. 
"Go and inquire!" she said, eagerly. 
Julian left the room, and returned again, after a brief absence, with signs of 
grave anxiety in his face and manner. 
"I told you I dreaded the most trifling events that were passing about us," he 
said. "An event, which is far from being trifling, has just happened. The 
carriage which we heard approaching along the drive turns out to have been a cab 
sent for from the house. The person who has gone away in it--" 
"Is a woman, as you supposed?" 
"Yes." 
Mercy rose excitedly from her chair. 
"It can't be Grace Roseberry?" she exclaimed. 
"It is Grace Roseberry." 
"Has she gone away alone?" 
"Alone--after an interview with Lady Janet." 
"Did she go willingly?" 
"She herself sent the servant for the cab." 
"What does it mean?" 
"It is useless to inquire. We shall soon know." 
They resumed their seats, waiting, as they had waited already, with their eyes 
on the library door. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
LADY JANET AT BAY.
THE narrative leaves Julian and Mercy for a while, and, ascending to the upper 
regions of the house, follows the march of events in Lady Janet's room. 
The maid had delivered her mistress's note to Mercy, and had gone away again on 
her second errand to Grace Roseberry in her boudoir. Lady Janet was seated at 
her writing-table, waiting for the appearance of the woman whom she had summoned 
to her presence. A single lamp difused its mild light over the books, pictures, 
and busts round her, leaving the further end of the room, in which the bed was 
placed, almost lost in obscurity. The works of art were all portraits; the books 
were all presentation copies from the authors. It was Lady Janet's fancy to 
associate her bedroom with memorials of the various persons whom she had known 
in the long course of her life--all of them more or less distinguished, most of 
them, by this time, gathered with the dead. 
She sat near her writing-table, lying back in her easy-chair--the living 
realization of the picture which Julian's description had drawn. Her eyes were 
fixed on a photographic likeness of Mercy, which was so raised upon a little 
gilt easel as to enable her to contemplate it under the full light of the lamp. 
The bright, mobile old face was strangely and sadly changed. The brow was fixed; 
the mouth was rigid; the whole face would have been like a mask, molded in the 
hardest forms of passive resistance and surpressed rage, but for the light and 
life still thrown over it by the eyes. There was something unutterably touching 
in the keen hungering tenderness of the look which they fixed on the portrait, 
intensified by an underlying expression of fond and patient reproach. The danger 
which Julian so wisely dreaded was in the rest of the face; the love which he 
had so truly described was in the eyes alone. They still spoke of the cruelly 
profaned affection which had been the one immeasurable joy, the one 
inexhaustible hope of Lady Janet's closing life. The brow expressed nothing but 
her obstinate determination to stand by the wreck of that joy, to rekindle the 
dead ashes of that hope. The lips were only eloquent of her unflinching 
resolution to ignore the hateful present and to save the sacred past. "My my 
duty to request an interview, if you had not sent your maid to invite me up 
here." 
"You would have felt it your duty to request an interview?" Lady Janet repeated, 
very quietly. "Why?" 
The tone in which that one last word was spoken embarrassed Grace at the outset. 
It established as great a distance between Lady Janet and herself as if she had 
been lifted in her chair and conveyed bodily to the other end of the room. 
"I am surprised that your ladyship should not understand me," she said, 
struggling to conceal her confusion. "Especially after your kind offer of your 
own boudoir." 
Lady Janet remained perfectly unmoved. "I do not understand you," she answered, 
just as quietly as ever. 
Grace's temper came to her assistance. She recovered the assurance which had 
marked her first appearance on the scene. 
"In that case," she resumed, "I must enter into particulars, in justice to 
myself. I can place but one interpretation on the extraordinary change in your 
ladyship's behavior to me downstairs. The conduct of that abominable woman has 
at last opened your eyes to the deception that has been practiced on you. For 
some reason of your own, however, you have not yet chosen to recognize me 
openly. In this painful position something is due to my own self-respect. I 
cannot, and will not, permit Mercy Merrick to claim the merit of restoring me to 
my proper place in this house. After what I have suffered it is quite impossible 
for me to endure that. I should have requested an interview (if you had not sent 
for me) for the express purpose of claiming this person's immediate expulsion 
from the house. I claim it now as a proper concession to Me. Whatever you or Mr. 
Julian Gray may do, I will not tamely permit her to exhibit herself as an 
interesting penitent. It is really a little too much to hear this brazen 
adventuress appoint her own time for explaining herself. It is too deliberately 
insulting to see her sail out of the room--with a clergyman of the Church of 
England opening the door for her--as if she was laying me under an obligation! I 
can forgive much, Lady Janet--including the terms in which you thought it decent 
to order me out of your house. I am quite willing to accept the offer of your 
boudoir, as the expression on your part of a better frame of mind. But even 
Christian Charity has its limits. The continued presence of that wretch under 
your roof is, you will permit me to remark, not only a monument of your own 
weakness, but a perfectly insufferable insult to Me." 
There she stopped abruptly--not for want of words, but for want of a listener. 
Lady Janet was not even pretending to attend to her. Lady Janet, with a 
deliberate rudeness entirely foreign to her usual habits, was composedly busying 
herself in arranging the various papers scattered about the table. Some she tied 
together with little morsels of string; some she placed under paper-weights; 
some she deposited in the fantastic pigeon-holes of a little Japanese 
cabinet--working with a placid enjoyment of her own orderly occupation, and 
perfectly unaware, to all outward appearance, that any second person was in the 
room. She looked up, with her papers in both hands, when Grace stopped, and 
said, quietly, 
"Have you done?" 
"Is your ladyship's purpose in sending for me to treat me with studied 
rudeness?" Grace retorted, angrily. 
"My purpose in sending for you is to say something as soon as you will allow me 
the opportunity." 
The impenetrable composure of that reply took Grace completely by surprise. She 
had no retort ready. In sheer astonishment she waited silently with her eyes 
riveted on the mistress of the house. 
Lady Janet put down her papers, and settled herself comfortably in the 
easy-chair, preparatory to opening the interview on her side. 
"The little that I have to say to you," she began, "may be said in a question. 
Am I right in supposing that you have no present employment, and that a little 
advance in money (delicately offered) would be very acceptable to you?" 
"Do you mean to insult me, Lady Janet?" 
"Certainly not. I mean to ask you a question." 
"Your question is an insult." 
"My question is a kindness, if you will only understand it as it is intended. I 
don't complain of your not understanding it. I don't even hold you responsible 
for any one of the many breaches of good manners which you have committed since 
you have been in this room. I was honestly anxious to be of some service to you, 
and you have repelled my advances. I am sorry. Let us drop the subject." 
Expressing herself in the most perfect temper in those terms, Lady Janet resumed 
the arrangement of her papers, and became unconscious once more of the presence 
of any second person in the room. 
Grace opened her lips to reply with the utmost intemperance of an angry woman, 
and thinking better of it, controlled herself. It was plainly useless to take 
the violent way with Lady Janet Roy. Her age and her social position were enough 
of themselves to repel any violence. She evidently knew that, and trusted to it. 
Grace resolved to meet the enemy on the neutral ground of politeness, as the 
most promising ground that she could occupy under present circumstances. 
"If I have said anything hasty, I beg to apologize to your ladyship," she began. 
"May I ask if your only object in sending for me was to inquire into my 
pecuniary affairs, with a view to assisting me?" 
"That," said Lady Janet, "was my only object." 
"You had nothing to say to me on the subject of Mercy Merrick?" 
"Nothing whatever. I am weary of hearing of Mercy Merrick. Have you any more 
questions to ask me?" 
"I have one more." 
"Yes?" 
"I wish to ask your ladyship whether you propose to recognize me in the presence 
of your household as the late Colonel Roseberry's daughter?" 
"I have already recognized you as a lady in embarrassed circumstances, who has 
peculiar claims on my consideration and forbearance. If you wish me to repeat 
those words in the presence of the servants (absurd as it is), I am ready to 
comply with your request." 
Grace's temper began to get the better of her prudent resolutions. 
"Lady Janet!" she said; "this won't do. I must request you to express yourself 
plainly. You talk of my peculiar claims on your forbearance. What claims do you 
mean?" 
"It will be painful to both of us if we enter into details," replied Lady Janet. 
"Pray don't let us enter into details." 
"I insist on it, madam." 
"Pray don't insist on it." 
Grace was deaf to remonstrance. 
"I ask you in plain words," she went on, "do you acknowledge that you have been 
deceived by an adventuress who has personated me? Do you mean to restore me to 
my proper place in this house?" 
Lady Janet returned to the arrangement of her papers. 
"Does your ladyship refuse to listen to me?" 
Lady Janet looked up from her papers as blandly as ever. 
"If you persist in returning to your delusion," she said, "you will oblige me to 
persist in returning to my papers." 
"What is my delusion, if you please?" 
"Your delusion is expressed in the questions you have just put to me. Your 
delusion constitutes your peculiar claim on my forbearance. Nothing you can say 
or do will shake my forbearance. When I first found you in the dining-room, I 
acted most improperly; I lost my temper. I did worse; I was foolish enough and 
imprudent enough to send for a police officer. I owe you every possible 
atonement (afflicted as you are) for treating you in that cruel manner. I 
offered you the use of my boudoir, as part of my atonement. I sent for you, in 
the hope that you would allow me to assist you, as part of my atonement. You may 
behave rudely to me, you may speak in the most abusive terms of my adopted 
daughter; I will submit to anything, as part of my atonement. So long as you 
abstain from speaking on one painful subject, I will listen to you with the 
greatest pleasure. Whenever you return to that subject I shall return to my 
papers." 
Grace looked at Lady Janet with an evil smile. 
"I begin to understand your ladyship," she said. "You are ashamed to acknowledge 
that you have been grossly imposed upon. Your only alternative, of course, is to 
ignore everything that has happened. Pray count on my forbearance. I am not at 
all offended--I am merely amused. It is not every day that a lady of high rank 
exhibits herself in such a position as yours to an obscure woman like me. Your 
humane consideration for me dates, I presume, from the time when your adopted 
daughter set you the example, by ordering the police officer out of the room?" 
Lady Janet's composure was proof even against this assault on it. She gravely 
accepted Grace's inquiry as a question addressed to her in perfect good faith. 
"I am not at all surprised," she replied, "to find that my adopted daughter's 
interference has exposed her to misrepresentation. She ought to have 
remonstrated with me privately before she interfered. But she has one fault--she 
is too impulsive. I have never, in all my experience, met with such a 
warm-hearted person as she is. Always too considerate of others; always too 
forgetful of herself! The mere appearance of the police officer placed you in a 
situation to appeal to her compassion, and her impulses carried her away as 
usual. My fault! All my fault!" 
Grace changed her tone once more. She was quick enough to discern that Lady 
Janet was a match for her with her own weapons. 
"We have had enough of this," she said. "It is time to be serious. Your adopted 
daughter (as you call her) is Mercy Merrick, and you know it." 
Lady Janet returned to her papers. 
"I am Grace Roseberry, whose name she has stolen, and you know that." 
Lady Janet went on with her papers. 
Grace got up from her chair. 
"I accept your silence, Lady Janet," she said, "as an acknowledgment of your 
deliberate resolution to suppress the truth. You are evidently determined to 
receive the adventuress as the true woman; and you don't scruple to face the 
consequences of that proceeding, by pretending to my face to believe that I am 
mad. I will not allow myself to be impudently cheated out of my rights in this 
way. You will hear from me again madam, when the Canadian mail arrives in 
England." 
She walked toward the door. This time Lady Janet answered, as readily and as 
explicitly as it was possible to desire. 
"I shall refuse to receive your letters," she said. 
Grace returned a few steps, threateningly. 
"My letters shall be followed by my witnesses," she proceeded. 
"I shall refuse to receive your witnesses." 
"Refuse at your peril. I will appeal to the law." 
Lady Janet smiled. 
"I don't pretend to much knowledge of the subject," she said; "but I should be 
surprised indeed if I discovered that you had any claim on me which the law 
could enforce. However, let us suppose that you can set the law in action. You 
know as well as I do that the only motive power which can do that is--money. I 
am rich; fees, costs, and all the rest of it are matters of no sort of 
consequence to me. May I ask if you are in the same position?" 
The question silenced Grace. So far as money was concerned, she was literally at 
the end of her resources. Her only friends were friends in Canada. After what 
she had said to him in the boudoir, it would be quite useless to appeal to the 
sympathies of Julian Gray. In the pecuniary sense, and in one word, she was 
absolutely incapable of gratifying her own vindictive longings. And there sat 
the mistress of Mablethorpe House, perfectly well aware of it. 
Lady Janet pointed to the empty chair. 
"Suppose you sit down again?" she suggested. "The course of our interview seems 
to have brought us back to the question that I asked you when you came into my 
room. Instead of threatening me with the law, suppose you consider the propriety 
of permitting me to be of some use to you. I am in the habit of assisting ladies 
in embarrassed circumstances, and nobody knows of it but my steward--who keeps 
the accounts--and myself. Once more, let me inquire if a little advance of the 
pecuniary sort (delicately offered) would be acceptable to you?" 
Grace returned slowly to the chair that she had left. She stood by it, with one 
hand grasping the top rail, and with her eyes fixed in mocking scrutiny on Lady 
Janet's face. 
"At last your ladyship shows your hand," she said. "Hush-money!" 
"You will send me back to my papers," rejoined Lady Janet. "How obstinate you 
are!" 
Grace's hand closed tighter and tighter round the rail of the chair. Without 
witnesses, without means, without so much as a refuge--thanks to her own coarse 
cruelties of language and conduct-- in the sympathies of others, the sense of 
her isolation and her helplessness was almost maddening at that final moment. A 
woman of finer sensibilities would have instantly left the room. Grace's 
impenetrably hard and narrow mind impelled her to meet the emergency in a very 
different way. A last base vengeance, to which Lady Janet had voluntarily 
exposed herself, was still within her reach. "For the present," she thought, 
"there is but one way of being even with your ladyship. I can cost you as much 
as possible." 
"Pray make some allowances for me," she said. "I am not obstinate--I am only a 
little awkward at matching the audacity of a lady of high rank. I shall improve 
with practice. My own language is, as I am painfully aware, only plain English. 
Permit me to withdraw it, and to substitute yours. What advance is your ladyship 
(delicately) prepared to offer me?" 
Lady Janet opened a drawer, and took out her check-book. 
The moment of relief had come at last! The only question now left to discuss was 
evidently the question of amount. Lady Janet considered a little. The question 
of amount was (to her mind) in some sort a question of conscience as well. Her 
love for Mercy and her loathing for Grace, her horror of seeing her darling 
degraded and her affection profaned by a public exposure, had hurried her--there 
was no disputing it--into treating an injured woman harshly. Hateful as Grace 
Roseberry might be, her father had left her, in his last moments, with Lady 
Janet's full concurrence, to Lady Janet's care. But for Mercy she would have 
been received at Mablethorpe House as Lady Janet's companion, with a salary of 
one hundred pounds a year. On the other hand, how long (with such a temper as 
she had revealed) would Grace have remained in the service of her protectress? 
She would probably have been dismissed in a few weeks, with a year's salary to 
compensate her, and with a recommendation to some suitable employment. What 
would be a fair compensation now? Lady Janet decided that five years' salary 
immediately given, and future assistance rendered if necessary, would represent 
a fit remembrance of the late Colonel Roseberry's claims, and a liberal 
pecuniary acknowledgment of any harshness of treatment which Grace might have 
sustained at her hands. At the same time, and for the further satisfying of her 
own conscience, she determined to discover the sum which Grace herself would 
consider sufficient by the simple process of making Grace herself propose the 
terms. 
"It is impossible for me to make you an offer," she said, "for this reason--your 
need of money will depend greatly on your future plans. I am quite ignorant of 
your future plans." 
"Perhaps your ladyship will kindly advise me?" said Grace, satirically. 
"I cannot altogether undertake to advise you," Lady Janet replied. "I can only 
suppose that you will scarcely remain in England, where you have no friends. 
Whether you go to law with me or not, you will surely feel the necessity of 
communicating personally with your friends in Canada. Am I right?" 
Grace was quite quick enough to understand this as it was meant. Properly 
interpreted, the answer signified--"If you take your compensation in money, it 
is understood, as part of the bargain that you don't remain in England to annoy 
me." 
"Your ladyship is quite right," she said. "I shall certainly not remain in 
England. I shall consult my friends--and," she added, mentally, "go to law with 
you afterward, if I possibly can, with your own money!" 
"You will return to Canada," Lady Janet proceeded; "and your prospects there 
will be, probably, a little uncertain at first. Taking this into consideration, 
at what amount do you estimate, in your own mind, the pecuniary assistance which 
you will require?" 
"May I count on your ladyship's, kindness to correct me if my own ignorant 
calculations turn out to be wrong?" Grace asked, innocently. 
Here again the words, properly interpreted, had a special signification of their 
own: "It is stipulated, on my part, that I put myself up to auction, and that my 
estimate shall be regulated by your ladyship's highest bid." Thoroughly 
understanding the stipulation, Lady Janet bowed, and waited gravely. 
Gravely, on her side, Grace began. 
"I am afraid I should want more than a hundred pounds," she said. 
Lady Janet made her first bid. "I think so too." 
"More, perhaps, than two hundred?" 
Lady Janet made her second bid. "Probably." 
"More than three hundred? Four hundred? Five hundred?" 
Lady Janet made her highest bid. "Five hundred pounds will do," she said. 
In spite of herself, Grace's rising color betrayed her ungovernable excitement. 
From her earliest childhood she had been accustomed to see shillings and 
sixpences carefully considered before they were parted with. She had never known 
her father to possess so much as five golden sovereigns at his own disposal 
(unencumbered by debt) in all her experience of him. The atmosphere in which she 
had lived and breathed was the all-stifling one of genteel poverty. There was 
something horrible in the greedy eagerness of her eyes as they watched Lady 
Janet, to see if she was really sufficiently in earnest to give away five 
hundred pounds sterling with a stroke of her pen. 
Lady Janet wrote the check in a few seconds, and pushed it across the table. 
Grace's hungry eyes devoured the golden line, "Pay to myself or bearer five 
hundred pounds," and verified the signature beneath, "Janet Roy." Once sure of 
the money whenever she chose to take it, the native meanness of her nature 
instantly asserted itself. She tossed her head, and let the check lie on the 
table, with an overacted appearance of caring very little whether she took it or 
not. 
"Your ladyship is not to suppose that I snap at your check," she said. 
Lady Janet leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The very sight of Grace 
Roseberry sickened her. Her mind filled suddenly with the image of Mercy. She 
longed to feast her eyes again on that grand beauty, to fill her ears again with 
the melody of that gentle voice. 
"I require time to consider--in justice to my own self-respect," Grace went on. 
Lady Janet wearily made a sign, granting time to consider. 
"Your ladyship's boudoir is, I presume, still at my disposal?" 
Lady Janet silently granted the boudoir. 
"And your ladyship's servants are at my orders, if I have occasion to employ 
them?" 
Lady Janet suddenly opened her eyes. "The whole household is at your orders," 
she cried, furiously. "Leave me!" 
Grace was far from being offended. If anything, she was gratified-- there was a 
certain triumph in having stung Lady Janet into an open outbreak of temper. She 
insisted forthwith on another condition. 
"In the event of my deciding to receive the check," she said, "I cannot, 
consistently with my own self-respect, permit it to be delivered to me otherwise 
than inclosed. Your ladyship will (if necessary) be so kind as to inclose it. 
Good-evening." 
She sauntered to the door, looking from side to side, with an air of supreme 
disparagement, at the priceless treasures of art which adorned the walls. Her 
eyes dropped superciliously on the carpet (the design of a famous French 
painter), as if her feet condescended in walking over it. The audacity with 
which she had entered the room had been marked enough; it shrank to nothing 
before the infinitely superior proportions of the insolence with which she left 
it. 
The instant the door was closed Lady Janet rose from her chair. Reckless of the 
wintry chill in the outer air, she threw open one of the windows. "Pah!" she 
exclaimed, with a shudder of disgust, "the very air of the room is tainted by 
her!" 
She returned to her chair. Her mood changed as she sat down again--her heart was 
with Mercy once more. "Oh, my love!" she murmured "how low I have stooped, how 
miserably I have degraded myself--and all for You!" The bitterness of the 
retrospect was unendurable. The inbred force of the woman's nature took refuge 
from it in an outburst of defiance and despair. "Whatever she has done, that 
wretch deserves it! Not a living creature in this house shall say she has 
deceived me. She has not deceived me--she loves me! What do I care whether she 
has given me her true name or not! She has given me her true heart. What right 
had Julian to play upon her feelings and pry into her secrets? My poor, tempted, 
tortured child! I won't hear her confession. Not another word shall she say to 
any living creature. I am mistress--I will forbid it at once!" She snatched a 
sheet of notepaper from the case; hesitated, and threw it from her on the table. 
"Why not send for my darling?" she thought. "Why write?" She hesitated once 
more, and resigned the idea. "No! I can't trust myself! I daren't see her yet!" 
She took up the sheet of paper again, and wrote her second message to Mercy. 
This time the note began fondly with a familiar form of address. 
"MY DEAR CHILD--I have had time to think and compose myself a little, since I 
last wrote, requesting you to defer the explanation which you had promised me. I 
already understand (and appreciate) the motives which led you to interfere as 
you did downstairs, and I now ask you to entirely abandon the explanation. It 
will, I am sure, be painful to you (for reasons of your own into which I have no 
wish to inquire) to produce the person of whom you spoke, and as you know 
already, I myself am weary of hearing of her. Besides, there is really no need 
now for you to explain anything. The stranger whose visits here have caused us 
so much pain and anxiety will trouble us no more. She leaves England of her own 
free will, after a conversation with me which has perfectly succeeded in 
composing and satisfying her. Not a word more, my dear, to me, or to my nephew, 
or to any other human creature, of what has happened in the dining-room to-day. 
When we next meet, let it be understood between us that the past is henceforth 
and forever buried to oblivion. This is not only the earnest request--it is, if 
necessary, the positive command, of your mother and friend,
JANET ROY. 
"P.S.--I shall find opportunities (before you leave your room) of speaking 
separately to my nephew and to Horace Holmcroft. You need dread no 
embarrassment, when you next meet them. I will not ask you to answer my note in 
writing. Say yes to the maid who will bring it to you, and I shall know we 
understand each other." 
After sealing the envelope which inclosed these lines, Lady Janet addressed it, 
as usual, to "Miss Grace Roseberry." She was just rising to ring the bell, when 
the maid appeared with a message from the boudoir. The woman's tones and looks 
showed plainly that she had been made the object of Grace's insolent 
self-assertion as well as her mistress. 
"If you please, my lady, the person downstairs wishes--" 
Lady Janet, frowning contemptuously, interrupted the message at the outset . "I 
know what the person downstairs wishes. She has sent you for a letter from me?" 
"Yes, my lady." 
"Anything more?" 
" She has sent one of the men-servants, my lady, for a cab. If your ladyship had 
only heard how she spoke to him!" 
Lady Janet intimated by a sign that she would rather not hear. She at once 
inclosed the check in an undirected envelope. 
"Take that to her," she said, "and then come back to me." 
Dismissing Grace Roseberry from all further consideration, Lady Janet sat, with 
her letter to Mercy in her hand, reflecting on her position, and on the efforts 
which it might still demand from her. Pursuing this train of thought, it now 
occurred to her that accident might bring Horace and Mercy together at any 
moment, and that, in Horace's present frame of mind, he would certainly insist 
on the very explanation which it was the foremost interest of her life to 
suppress. The dread of this disaster was in full possession of her when the maid 
returned. 
"Where is Mr. Holmcroft?" she asked, the moment the woman entered the room. 
"I saw him open the library door, my lady, just now, on my way upstairs." 
"Was he alone?" 
"Yes, my lady." 
"Go to him, and say I want to see him here immediately." 
The maid withdrew on her second errand. Lady Janet rose restlessly, and closed 
the open window. Her impatient desire to make sure of Horace so completely 
mastered her that she left her room, and met the woman in the corridor on her 
return. Receiving Horace's message of excuse, she instantly sent back the 
peremptory rejoinder, "Say that he will oblige me to go to him, if be persists 
in refusing to come to me. And, stay!" she added, remembering the undelivered 
letter. "Send Miss Roseberry's maid here; I want her." 
Left alone again, Lady Janet paced once or twice up and down the corridor--then 
grew suddenly weary of the sight of it, and went back to her room. The two maids 
returned together. One of them, having announced Horace's submission, was 
dismissed. The other was sent to Mercy's room with Lady Janet's letter. In a 
minute or two the messenger appeared again, with the news that she had found the 
room empty. 
"Have you any idea where Miss Roseberry is?" 
"No, my lady." 
Lady Janet reflected for a moment. If Horace presented himself without any 
needless delay, the plain inference would he that she had succeeded in 
separating him from Mercy. If his appearance was suspiciously deferred, she 
decided on personally searching for Mercy in the reception rooms on the lower 
floor of the house. 
"What have you done with the letter?" she asked. 
"I left it on Miss Roseberry's table, my lady." 
"Very well. Keep within hearing of the bell, in case I want you again." 
Another minute brought Lady Janet's suspense to an end. She heard the welcome 
sound of a knock at her door from a man's hand. Horace hurriedly entered the 
room. 
"What is it you want with me, Lady Janet?" he inquired, not very graciously. 
"Sit down, Horace, and you shall hear." 
Horace did not accept the invitation. "Excuse me," he said, "if I mention that I 
am rather in a hurry." 
"Why are you in a hurry?" 
"I have reasons for wishing to see Grace as soon as possible." 
"And I have reasons," Lady Janet rejoined, "for wishing to speak to you about 
Grace before you see her; serious reasons. Sit down." 
Horace started. "Serious reasons?" he repeated. "You surprise me." 
"I shall surprise you still more before I have done " 
Their eyes met as Lady Janet answered in those terms. Horace observed signs of 
agitation in her, which he now noticed for the first time. His face darkened 
with an expression of sullen distrust--and he took the chair in silence. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
LADY JANET'S LETTER.
THE narrative leaves Lady Janet and Horace Holmcroft together, and returns to 
Julian and Mercy in the library. 
An interval passed--a long interval, measured by the impatient reckoning of 
suspense--after the cab which had taken Grace Roseberry away had left the house. 
The minutes followed each other; and still the warning sound of Horace's 
footsteps was not heard on the marble pavement of the hall. By common (though 
unexpressed) consent, Julian and Mercy avoided touching upon the one subject on 
which they were now both interested alike. With their thoughts fixed secretly in 
vain speculation on the nature of the interview which was then taking place in 
Lady Janet's room, they tried to speak on topics indifferent to both of 
them--tried, and failed, and tried again. In a last and longest pause of silence 
between them, the next event happened. The door from the hall was softly and 
suddenly opened. 
Was it Horace? No--not even yet. The person who had opened the door was only 
Mercy's maid. 
"My lady's love, miss; and will you please to read this directly?" 
Giving her message in those terms, the woman produced from the pocket of her 
apron Lady Janet's second letter to Mercy, with a strip of paper oddly pinned 
round the envelope. Mercy detached the paper, and found on the inner side some 
lines in pencil, hurriedly written in Lady Janet's hand. They ran thus. 
"Don't lose a moment in reading my letter. And mind this, when H. returns to 
you--meet him firmly: say nothing." 
Enlightened by the warning words which Julian had spoken to her, Mercy was at no 
loss to place the right interpretation on those strange lines. Instead of 
immediately opening the letter, she stopped the maid at the library door. 
Julian's suspicion of the most trifling events that were taking place in the 
house had found its way from his mind to hers. "Wait!" she said. "I don't 
understand what is going on upstairs; I want to ask you something." 
The woman came back--not very willingly. 
"How did you know I was here?" Mercy inquired. 
"If you please, miss, her ladyship ordered me to take the letter to you some 
little time since. You were not in your room, and I left it on your table." 
"I understand that. But how came you to bring the letter here?" 
"My lady rang for me, miss. Before I could knock at her door she came out into 
the corridor with that morsel of paper in her hand--" 
"So as to keep you from entering her room?" 
"Yes, miss. Her ladyship wrote on the paper in a great hurry, and told me to pin 
it round the letter that I had left in your room. I was to take them both 
together to you, and to let nobody see me. 'You will find Miss Roseberry in the 
library' (her ladyship says), 'and run, run, run! there isn't a moment to lose!' 
Those were her own words, miss." 
"Did you hear anything in the room before Lady Janet came out and met you?" 
The woman hesitated, and looked at Julian. 
"I hardly know whether I ought to tell you, miss." 
Julian turned away to leave the library. Mercy stopped him by a motion of her 
hand. 
"You know that I shall not get you into any trouble," she said to the maid. "And 
you may speak quite safely before Mr. Julian Gray." 
Thus re-assured, the maid spoke. 
"To own the truth, miss, I heard Mr. Holmcroft in my lady's room. His voice 
sounded as if he was angry. I may say they were both angry--Mr. Holmcroft and my 
lady." (She turned to Julian.) "And just before her ladyship came out, sir, I 
heard your name, as if it was you they were having words about. I can't say 
exactly what it was; I hadn't time to hear. And I didn't listen, miss; the door 
was ajar; and the voices were so loud nobody could help hearing them." 
It was useless to detain the woman any longer. Having given her leave to 
withdraw, Mercy turned to Julian. 
"Why were they quarreling about you?" she asked. 
Julian pointed to the unopened letter in her hand. 
"The answer to your question may be there," he said. "Read the letter while you 
have the chance. And if I can advise you, say so at once." 
With a strange reluctance she opened the envelope. With a sinking heart she read 
the lines in which Lady Janet, as "mother and friend," commanded her absolutely 
to suppress the confession which she had pledged herself to make in the sacred 
interests of justice and truth. A low cry of despair escaped her, as the cruel 
complication in her position revealed itself in all its unmerited hardship. "Oh, 
Lady Janet, Lady Janet!" she thought, "there was but one trial more left in my 
hard lot--and it comes to me from you!" 
She handed the letter to Julian. He took it from her in silence. His pale 
complexion turned paler still as he read it. His eyes rested on her 
compassionately as he handed it back. 
"To my mind," he said, "Lady Janet herself sets all further doubt at rest. Her 
letter tells me what she wanted when she sent for Horace, and why my name was 
mentioned between them." 
"Tell me!" cried Mercy, eagerly. 
He did not immediately answer her. He sat down again in the chair by her side, 
and pointed to the letter. 
"Has Lady Janet shaken your resolution?" he asked. 
"She has strengthened my resolution," Mercy answered. "She has added a new 
bitterness to my remorse." 
She did not mean it harshly, but the reply sounded harshly in Julian's ears. It 
stirred the generous impulses, which were the strongest impulses in his nature. 
He who had once pleaded with Mercy for compassionate consideration for herself 
now pleaded with her for compassionate consideration for Lady Janet. With 
persuasive gentleness he drew a little nearer, and laid his hand on her arm. 
"Don't judge her harshly," he said. "She is wrong, miserably wrong. She has 
recklessly degraded herself; she has recklessly tempted you. Still, is it 
generous--is it even just--to hold her responsible for deliberate sin? She is at 
the close of her days; she can feel no new affection; she can never replace you. 
View her position in that light, and you will see (as I see) that it is no base 
motive which has led her astray. Think of her wounded heart and her wasted 
life--and say to yourself forgivingly, She loves me!" 
Mercy's eyes filled with tears. 
"I do say it!" she answered. "Not forgivingly--it is I who have need of 
forgiveness. I say it gratefully when I think of her--I say it with shame and 
sorrow when I think of myself." 
He took her hand for the first time. He looked, guiltlessly looked, at her 
downcast face. He spoke as he had spoken at the memorable interview between them 
which had made a new woman of her. 
"I can imagine no crueler trial," he said, "than the trial that is now before 
you. The benefactress to whom you owe everything asks nothing from you but your 
silence. The person whom you have wronged is no longer present to stimulate your 
resolution to speak. Horace himself (unless I am entirely mistaken) will not 
hold you to the explanation that you have promised. The temptation to keep your 
false position in this house is, I do not scruple to say, all but irresistible. 
Sister and friend! can you still justify my faith in you? Will you still own the 
truth, without the base fear of discovery to drive you to it?" 
She lifted her head, with the steady light of resolution shining again in her 
grand, gray eyes. Her low, sweet voice answered him, without a faltering note in 
it, 
"I will!" 
"You will do justice to the woman whom you have wronged--unworthy as she is; 
powerless as she is to expose you?" 
"I will!" 
"You will sacrifice everything you have gained by the fraud to the sacred duty 
of atonement? You will suffer anything--even though you offend the second mother 
who has loved you and sinned for you-- rather than suffer the degradation of 
yourself?" 
Her hand closed firmly on his. Again, and for the last time, she answered, 
"I will!" 
His voice had not trembled yet. It failed him now. His next words were spoken in 
faint whispering tones--to himself; not to her. 
"Thank God for this day!" he said. "I have been of some service to one of the 
noblest of God's creatures!" 
Some subtle influence, as he spoke, passed from his hand to hers. It trembled 
through her nerves; it entwined itself mysteriously with the finest 
sensibilities in her nature; it softly opened her heart to a first vague 
surmising of the devotion that she had inspired in him. A faint glow of color, 
lovely in its faintness, stole over her face and neck. Her breathing quickened 
tremblingly . She drew her hand away from him, and sighed when she had released 
it. 
He rose suddenly to his feet and left her, without a word or a look, walking 
slowly down the length of the room. When he turned and came back to her, his 
face was composed; he was master of himself again. 
Mercy was the first to speak. She turned the conversation from herself by 
reverting to the proceedings in Lady Janet's room. 
"You spoke of Horace just now," she said, "in terms which surprised me. You 
appeared to think that he would not hold me to my explanation. Is that one of 
the conclusions which you draw from Lady Janet's letter?" 
"Most assuredly," Julian answered. "You will see the conclusion as I see it if 
we return for a moment to Grace Roseberry's departure from the house." 
Mercy interrupted him there. "Can you guess," she asked, "how Lady Janet 
prevailed upon her to go?" 
"I hardly like to own it," said Julian. "There is an expression in the letter 
which suggests to me that Lady Janet has offered her money, and that she has 
taken the bribe." 
"Oh, I can't think that!" 
"Let us return to Horace. Miss Roseberry once out of the house, but one serious 
obstacle is left in Lady Janet's way. That obstacle is Horace Holmcroft." 
"How is Horace an obstacle?" 
"He is an obstacle in this sense. He is under an engagement to marry you in a 
week's time; and Lady Janet is determined to keep him (as she is determined to 
keep every one else) in ignorance of the truth. She will do that without 
scruple. But the inbred sense of honor in her is not utterly silenced yet. She 
cannot, she dare not, let Horace make you his wife under the false impression 
that you are Colonel Roseberry's daughter. You see the situation? On the one 
hand, she won't enlighten him. On the other hand, she cannot allow him to marry 
you blindfold. In this emergency what is she to do? There is but one alternative 
that I can discover. She must persuade Horace (or she must irritate Horace) into 
acting for himself, and breaking off the engagement on his own responsibility." 
Mercy stopped him. "Impossible!" she cried, warmly. "Impossible!" 
"Look again at her letter," Julian rejoined. "It tells, you plainly that you 
need fear no embarrassment when you next meet Horace. If words mean anything, 
those words mean that he will not claim from you the confidence which you have 
promised to repose in him. On what condition is it possible for him to abstain 
from doing that? On the one condition that you have ceased to represent the 
first and foremost interest of his life." 
Mercy still held firm. "You are wronging Lady Janet, " she said . 
Julian smiled sadly. 
"Try to look at it," he answered, "from Lady Janet's point of view. Do you 
suppose she sees anything derogatory to her in attempting to break off the 
marriage? I will answer for it, she believes she is doing you a kindness. In one 
sense it would be a kindness to spare you the shame of a humiliating confession, 
and to save you (possibly) from being rejected to your face by the man you love. 
In my opinion, the thing is done already. I have reasons of my own for believing 
that my aunt will succeed far more easily than she could anticipate. Horace's 
temper will help her." 
Mercy's mind began to yield to him, in spite of herself. 
"What do you mean by Horace's temper?" she inquired. 
"Must you ask me that?" he said, drawing back a little from her. 
"I must." 
"I mean by Horace's temper, Horace's unworthy distrust of the interest that I 
feel in you." 
She instantly understood him. And more than that, she secretly admired him for 
the scrupulous delicacy with which he had expressed himself. Another man would 
not have thought of sparing her in that way. Another man would have said, 
plainly, "Horace is jealous of me." 
Julian did not wait for her to answer him. He considerately went on. 
"For the reason that I have just mentioned," he said, "Horace will be easily 
irritated into taking a course which, in his calmer moments, nothing would 
induce him to adopt. Until I heard what your maid said to you I had thought (for 
your sake) of retiring before he joined you here. Now I know that my name has 
been introduced, and has made mischief upstairs, I feel the necessity (for your 
sake again) of meeting Horace and his temper face to face before you see him. 
Let me, if I can, prepare him to hear you without any angry feeling in his mind 
toward you. Do you object to retire to the next room for a few minutes in the 
event of his coming back to the library?" 
Mercy's courage instantly rose with the emergency. She refused to leave the two 
men together. 
"Don't think me insensible to your kindness," she said. "If I leave you with 
Horace I may expose you to insult. I refuse to do that. What makes you doubt his 
coming back?" 
"His prolonged absence makes me doubt it," Julian replied. "In my belief, the 
marriage is broken off. He may go as Grace Roseberry has gone. You may never see 
him again." 
The instant the opinion was uttered, it was practically contradicted by the man 
himself. Horace opened the library door. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
THE CONFESSION
HE stopped just inside the door. His first look was for Mercy; his is second 
look was for Julian. 
"I knew it!" he said, with an assumption of sardonic composure. "If I could only 
have persuaded Lady Janet to bet, I should have won a hundred pounds." He 
advanced to Julian, with a sudden change from irony to anger. "Would you like to 
hear what the bet was?" he asked. 
"I should prefer seeing you able to control yourself in the presence of this 
lady," Julian answered, quietly. 
"I offered to lay Lady Janet two hundred pounds to one," Horace proceeded, "that 
I should find you here, making love to Miss Roseberry behind my back." 
Mercy interfered before Julian could reply. 
"If you cannot speak without insulting one of us," she said, "permit me to 
request that you will not address yourself to Mr. Julian Gray." 
Horace bowed to her with a mockery of respect. 
"Pray don't alarm yourself--I am pledged to be scrupulously civil to both of 
you," he said. "Lady Janet only allowed me to leave her on condition of my 
promising to behave with perfect politeness. What else can I do? I have two 
privileged people to deal with--a parson and a woman. The parson's profession 
protects him, and the woman's sex protects her. You have got me at a 
disadvantage, and you both of you know it. I beg to apologize if I have 
forgotten the clergyman's profession and the lady's sex." 
"You have forgotten more than that," said Julian. "You have forgotten that you 
were born a gentleman and bred a man of honor. So far as I am concerned, I don't 
ask you to remember that I am a clergyman--I obtrude my profession on nobody--I 
only ask you to remember your birth and your breeding. It is quite bad enough to 
cruelly and unjustly suspect an old friend who has never forgotten what he owes 
to you and to himself. But it is still more unworthy of you to acknowledge those 
suspicions in the hearing of a woman whom your own choice has doubly bound you 
to respect." 
He stopped. The two eyed each other for a moment in silence. 
It was impossible for Mercy to look at them, as she was looking now, without 
drawing the inevitable comparison between the manly force and dignity of Julian 
and the womanish malice and irritability of Horace. A last faithful impulse of 
loyalty toward the man to whom she had been betrothed impelled her to part them, 
before Horace had hopelessly degraded himself in her estimation by contrast with 
Julian. 
"You had better wait to speak to me," she said to him, "until we are alone." 
"Certainly," Horace answered with a sneer, "if Mr. Julian Gray will permit it." 
Mercy turned to Julian, with a look which said plainly, "Pity us both, and leave 
us!" 
"Do you wish me to go?" he asked. 
"Add to all your other kindnesses to me," she answered. "Wait for me in that 
room." 
She pointed to the door that led into the dining-room. Julian hesitated. 
"You promise to let me know it if I can be of the smallest service to you?" he 
said. 
"Yes, yes!" She followed him as he withdrew, and added, rapidly, in a whisper, 
"Leave the door ajar!" 
He made no answer. As she returned to Horace he entered the dining-room. The one 
concession he could make to her he did make. He closed the door so noiselessly 
that not even her quick hearing could detect that he had shut it. 
Mercy spoke to Horace, without waiting to let him speak first. 
"I have promised you an explanation of my conduct," she said, in accents that 
trembled a little in spite of herself. "I am ready to perform my promise." 
"I have a question to ask you before you do that," he rejoined. "Can you speak 
the truth?" 
"I am waiting to speak the truth." 
"I will give you an opportunity. Are you or are you not in love with Julian 
Gray?" 
"You ought to be ashamed to ask the question!" 
"Is that your only answer?" 
"I have never been unfaithful to you, Horace, even in thought. If I had not been 
true to you, should I feel my position as you see I feel it now?" 
He smiled bitterly. "I have my own opinion of your fidelity and of his honor," 
he said. "You couldn't even send him into the next room without whispering to 
him first. Never mind that now. At least you know that Julian Gray is in love 
with you." 
"Mr. Julian Gray has never breathed a word of it to me." 
"A man can show a woman that he loves her, without saying it in words." 
Mercy's power of endurance began to fail her. Not even Grace Roseberry had 
spoken more insultingly to her of Julian than Horace was speaking now. "Whoever 
says that of Mr. Julian Gray, lies!" she answered, warmly. 
"Then Lady Janet lies," Horace retorted. 
"Lady Janet never said it! Lady Janet is incapable of saying it!" 
"She may not have said it in so many words; but she never denied it when I said 
it. I reminded her of the time when Julian Gray first heard from me that I was 
going to marry you: he was so overwhelmed that he was barely capable of being 
civil to me. Lady Janet was present, and could not deny it. I asked her if she 
had observed, since then, signs of a confidential understanding between you two. 
She could not deny the signs. I asked if she had ever found you two together. 
She could not deny that she had found you together, this very day, under 
circumstances which justified suspicion. Yes! yes! Look as angry as you like! 
you don't know what has been going on upstairs. Lady Janet is bent on breaking 
off our engagement--and Julian Gray is at the bottom of it." 
As to Julian, Horace was utterly wrong. But as to Lady Janet, he echoed the 
warning words which Julian himself had spoken to Mercy. She was staggered, but 
she still held to her own opinion. "I don't believe it," she said, firmly. 
He advanced a step, and fixed his angry eyes on her searchingly. 
"Do you know why Lady Janet sent for me?" he asked. 
"No." 
"Then I will tell you. Lady Janet is a stanch friend of yours, there is no 
denying that. She wished to inform me that she had altered her mind about your 
promised explanation of your conduct. She said, 'Reflection has convinced me 
that no explanation is required; I have laid my positive commands on my adopted 
daughter that no explanation shall take place.' Has she done that?" 
"Yes." 
"Now observe! I waited till she had finished, and then I said, 'What have I to 
do with this?' Lady Janet has one merit--she speaks out. 'You are to do as I 
do,' she answered. 'You are to consider that no explanation is required, and you 
are to consign the whole matter to oblivion from this time forth.' 'Are you 
serious?' I asked. 'Quite serious.' 'In that case I have to inform your ladyship 
that you insist on more than you may suppose: you insist on my breaking my 
engagement to Miss Roseberry. Either I am to have the explanation that she has 
promised me, or I refuse to marry her.' How do you think Lady Janet took that? 
She shut up her lips, and she spread out her hands, and she looked at me as much 
as to say, 'Just as you please! Refuse if you like; it's nothing to me!'" 
He paused for a moment. Mercy remained silent, on her side: she foresaw what was 
coming. Mistaken in supposing that Horace had left the house, Julian had, beyond 
all doubt, been equally in error in concluding that he had been entrapped into 
breaking off the engagement upstairs. 
"Do you understand me so far?" Horace asked. 
"I understand you perfectly." 
"I will not trouble you much longer," he resumed. "I said to Lady Janet, 'Be so 
good as to answer me in plain words. Do you still insist on closing Miss 
Roseberry's lips?' 'I still insist,' she answered. 'No explanation is required. 
If you are base enough to suspect your betrothed wife, I am just enough to 
believe in my adopted daughter.' I replied--and I beg you will give your best 
attention to what I am now going to say--I replied to that, 'It is not fair to 
charge me with suspecting her. I don't understand her confidential relations 
with Julian Gray, and I don't understand her language and conduct in the 
presence of the police officer. I claim it as my right to be satisfied on both 
those points--in the character of the man who is to marry her.' There was my 
answer. I spare you all that followed. I only repeat what I said to Lady Janet. 
She has commanded you to be silent. If you obey her commands, I owe it to myself 
and I owe it to my family to release you from your engagement. Choose between 
your duty to Lady Janet and your duty to Me." 
He had mastered his temper at last: he spoke with dignity, and he spoke to the 
point. His position was unassailable; he claimed nothing but his right. 
"My choice was made," Mercy answered, "when I gave you my promise upstairs." 
She waited a little, struggling to control herself on the brink of the terrible 
revelation that was coming. Her eyes dropped before his; her heart beat faster 
and faster; but she struggled bravely. With a desperate courage she faced the 
position. "If you are ready to listen," she went on, "I am ready to tell you why 
I insisted on having the police officer sent out of the house." 
Horace held up his hand warningly. 
"Stop!" he said; "that is not all." 
His infatuated jealousy of Julian (fatally misinterpreting her agitation) 
distrusted her at the very outset. She had limited herself to clearing up the 
one question of her interference with the officer of justice. The other question 
of her relations with Julian she had deliberately passed over. Horace instantly 
drew his own ungenerous conclusion. 
"Let us not misunderstand one another," he said. "The explanation of your 
conduct in the other room is only one of the explanations which you owe me. You 
have something else to account for. Let us begin with that, if you please." 
She looked at him in unaffected surprise. 
"What else have I to account for?" she asked. 
He again repeated his reply to Lady Janet. 
"I have told you already," he said. "I don't understand your confidential 
relations with Julian Gray." 
Mercy's color rose; Mercy's eyes began to brighten. 
"Don't return to that!" she cried, with an irrepressible outbreak of disgust. 
"Don't, for God's sake, make me despise you at such a moment as this!" 
His obstinacy only gathered fresh encouragement from that appeal to his better 
sense. 
"I insist on returning to it." 
She had resolved to bear anything from him-- as her fit punishment for the 
deception of which she had been guilty. But it was not in womanhood (at the 
moment when the first words of her confession were trembling on her lips) to 
endure Horace's unworthy suspicion of her. She rose from her seat and met his 
eye firmly. 
"I refuse to degrade myself, and to degrade Mr. Julian Gray, by answering you," 
she said 
Consider what you are doing," he rejoined. Change your mind, before it is too 
late!" 
"You have had my reply." 
Those resolute words, that steady resistance, seemed to infuriate him. He caught 
her roughly by the arm. 
"You are as false as hell!" he cried. "It's all over between you and me!" 
The loud threatening tone in which he had spoken penetrated through the closed 
door of the dining-room. The door instantly opened. Julian returned to the 
library. 
He had just set foot in the room, when there was a knock at the other door--the 
door that opened on the hall. One of the men-servants appeared, with a 
telegraphic message in his hand. Mercy was the first to see it. It was the 
Matron's answer to the letter which she had sent to the Refuge. 
"For Mr. Julian Gray?" she asked. 
"Yes, miss." 
"Give it to me." 
She signed to the man to withdraw, and herself gave the telegram to Julian. "It 
is addressed to you, at my request," she said. "You will recognize the name of 
the person who sends it, and you will find a message in it for me." 
Horace interfered before Julian could open the telegram. 
"Another private understanding between you!" he said. "Give me that telegram." 
Julian looked at him with quiet contempt. 
"It is directed to Me," he answered--and opened the envelope. 
The message inside was expressed in these terms: "I am as deeply interested in 
her as you are. Say that I have received her letter, and that I welcome her back 
to the Refuge with all my heart. I have business this evening in the 
neighborhood. I will call for her myself at Mablethorpe House." 
The message explained itself. Of her own free-will she had made the expiation 
complete! Of her own free-will she was going back to the martyrdom of her old 
life! Bound as he knew himself to be to let no compromising word or action 
escape him in the presence of Horace, the irrepressible expression of Julian's 
admiration glowed in his eyes as they rested on Mercy. Horace detected the look. 
He sprang forward and tried to snatch the telegram out of Julian's hand. 
"Give it to me!" he said. "I will have it!" 
Julian silently put him back at arms-length. 
Maddened with rage, he lifted his hand threateningly. "Give it to me!" he 
repeated between his set teeth, "or it will be the worse for you!" 
"Give it to me!" said Mercy, suddenly placing herself between them. 
Julian gave it. She turned, and offered it to Horace, looking at him with a 
steady eye, holding it out to him with a steady hand. 
"Read it," she said. 
Julian's generous nature pitied the man who had insulted him. Julian's great 
heart only remembered the friend of former times. 
"Spare him!" he said to Mercy. "Remember he is unprepared." 
She neither answered nor moved. Nothing stirred the horrible torpor of her 
resignation to her fate. She knew that the time had come. 
Julian appealed to Horace. 
"Don't read it!" he cried. "Hear what she has to say to you first!" 
Horace's hand answered him with a contemptuous gesture. Horace's eyes devoured, 
word by word, the Matron's message. 
He looked up when he had read it through. There was a ghastly change in his face 
as he turned it on Mercy. 
She stood between the two men like a statue. The life in her seemed to have died 
out, except in her eyes. Her eyes rested on Horace with a steady, glittering 
calmness. 
The silence was only broken by the low murmuring of Julian's voice. His face was 
hidden in his hands--he was praying for them. 
Horace spoke, laying his finger on the telegram. His voice had changed with the 
change in his face. The tone was low and trembling: no one would have recognized 
it as the tone of Horace's voice. 
"What does this mean?" he said to Mercy. "It can't be for you?" 
"It is for me." 
"What have You to do with a Refuge?" 
Without a change in her face, without a movement in her limbs, she spoke the 
fatal words: 
"I have come from a Refuge, and I am going back to a Refuge. Mr. Horace 
Holmcroft, I am Mercy Merrick." 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
GREAT HEART AND LITTLE HEART.
THERE was a pause. 
The moments passed--and not one of the three moved. The moments passed--and not 
one of the three spoke. Insensibly the words of supplication died away on 
Julian's lips. Even his energy failed to sustain him, tried as it now was by the 
crushing oppression of suspense. The first trifling movement which suggested the 
idea of change, and which so brought with it the first vague sense of relief, 
came from Mercy. Incapable of sustaining the prolonged effort of standing, she 
drew back a little and took a chair. No outward manifestation of emotion escaped 
her. There she sat--with the death-like torpor of resignation in her 
face--waiting her sentence in silence from the man at whom she had hurled the 
whole terrible confession of the truth in one sentence! 
Julian lifted his head as she moved. He looked at Horace, and advancing a few 
steps, looked again. There was fear in his face, as he suddenly turned it toward 
Mercy. 
"Speak to him!" he said, in a whisper. "Rouse him, before it's too late!" 
She moved mechanically in her chair; she looked mechanically at Julian. 
"What more have I to say to him?" she asked, in faint, weary tones. "Did I not 
tell him everything when I told him my name?" 
The natural sound of her voice might have failed to affect Horace. The altered 
sound of it roused him. He approached Mercy's chair, with a dull surprise in his 
face, and put his hand, in a weak, wavering way, on her shoulder. In that 
position he stood for a while, looking down at her in silence. 
The one idea in him that found its way outward to expression was the idea of 
Julian. Without moving his hand, without looking up from Mercy, he spoke for the 
first time since the shock had fallen on him. 
"Where is Julian?" he asked, very quietly. 
"I am here, Horace--close by you." 
"Will you do me a service?" 
"Certainly. How can I help you?" 
He considered a little before he replied. His hand left Mercy's shoulder, and 
went up to his head--then dropped at his side. His next words were spoken in a 
sadly helpless, bewildered way. 
"I have an idea, Julian, that I have been somehow to blame. I said some hard 
words to you. It was a little while since. I don't clearly remember what it was 
all about. My temper has been a good deal tried in this house; I have never been 
used to the sort of thing that goes on here--secrets and mysteries, and hateful 
low-lived quarrels. We have no secrets and mysteries at home. And as for 
quarrels-- ridiculous! My mother and my sisters are highly bred women (you know 
them); gentlewomen, in the best sense of the word. When I am with them I have no 
anxieties. I am not harassed at home by doubts of who people are, and confusion 
about names, and so on. I suspect the contrast weighs a little on my mind and 
upsets it. They make me over-suspicious among them here, and it ends in my 
feeling doubts and fears that I can't get over: doubts about you and fears about 
myself. I have got a fear about myself now. I want you to help me. Shall I make 
an apology first?" 
"Don't say a word. Tell me what I can do." 
He turned his face toward Julian for the first time. 
"Just look at me," he said. "Does it strike you that I am at all wrong in my 
mind? Tell me the truth, old fellow." 
"Your nerves are a little shaken, Horace. Nothing more." 
He considered again after that reply, his eyes remaining anxiously fixed on 
Julian's face. 
"My nerves are a little shaken," he repeated. "That is true; I feel they are 
shaken. I should like, if you don't mind, to make sure that it's no worse. Will 
you help me to try if my memory is all right?" 
"I will do anything you like." 
"Ah! you are a good fellow, Julian--and a clear-headed fellow too, which is very 
important just now. Look here! I say it's about a week since the troubles began 
in this house. Do you say so too?" 
"Yes." 
"The troubles came in with the coming of a woman from Germany, a stranger to us, 
who behaved very violently in the dining-room there. Am I right, so far?" 
"Quite right." 
"The woman carried matters with a high hand. She claimed Colonel Roseberry--I 
wish to be strictly accurate--she claimed the late Colonel Roseberry as her 
father. She told a tiresome story about her having been robbed of her papers and 
her name by an impostor who had personated her. She said the name of the 
impostor was Mercy Merrick. And she afterward put the climax to it all: she 
pointed to the lady who is engaged to be my wife, and declared that she was 
Mercy Merrick. Tell me again, is that right or wrong?" 
Julian answered him as before. He went on, speaking more confidently and more 
excitedly than he had spoken yet. 
"Now attend to this, Julian. I am going to pass from my memory of what happened 
a week ago to my memory of what happened five minutes since. You were present; I 
want to know if you heard it too." He paused, and, without taking his eyes off 
Julian, pointed backward to Mercy. "There is the lady who is engaged to marry 
me," he resumed. "Did I, or did I not, hear her say that she had come out of a 
Refuge, and that she was going back to a Refuge? Did I, or did I not, hear her 
own to my face that her name was Mercy Merrick? Answer me, Julian. My good 
friend, answer me, for the sake of old times." 
His voice faltered as he spoke those imploring words. Under the dull blank of 
his face there appeared the first signs of emotion slowly forcing its way 
outward. The stunned mind was reviving faintly. Julian saw his opportunity of 
aiding the recovery, and seized it. He took Horace gently by the arm, and 
pointed to Mercy. 
"There is your answer!" he said. "Look!-- and pity her." 
She had not once interrupted them while they had been speaking: she had changed 
her position again, and that was all. There was a writing-table at the side of 
her chair; her outstretched arms rested on it. Her head had dropped on her arms, 
and her face was hidden. Julian's judgment had not misled him; the utter 
self-abandonment of her attitude answered Horace as no human language could have 
answered him. He looked at her. A quick spasm of pain passed across his face. He 
turned once more to the faithful friend who had forgiven him. His head fell on 
Julian's shoulder, and he burst into tears. 
Mercy started wildly to her feet, and looked at the two men. 
"O God" she cried, "what have I done!" 
Julian quieted her by a motion of his hand. 
"You have helped me to save him," he said. "Let his tears have their way. Wait." 

He put one arm round Horace to support him. The manly tenderness of the action, 
the complete and noble pardon of past injuries which it implied, touched Mercy 
to the heart. She went back to her chair. Again shame and sorrow overpowered 
her, and again she hid her face from view. 
Julian led Horace to a seat, and silently waited by him until he had recovered 
his self-control. He gratefully took the kind hand that had sustained him: he 
said, simply, almost boyishly, "Thank you, Julian. I am better now." 
"Are you composed enough to listen to what is said to you?" Julian asked. 
"Yes. Do you wish to speak to me?" 
Julian left him without immediately replying, and returned to Mercy. 
"The time has come," he said. "Tell him all--truly, unreservedly, as you would 
tell it to me." 
She shuddered as he spoke. "Have I not told him enough?" she asked. "Do you want 
me to break his heart? Look at him! Look what I have done already!" 
Horace shrank from the ordeal as Mercy shrank from it. 
"No, no! I can't listen to it! I daren't listen to it!" he cried, and rose to 
leave the room. 
Julian had taken the good work in hand: he never faltered over it for an 
instant. Horace had loved her--how dearly Julian now knew for the first time. 
The bare possibility that she might earn her pardon if she was allowed to plead 
her own cause was a possibility still left. To let her win on Horace to forgive 
her, was death to the love that still filled his heart in secret. But he never 
hesitated. With a resolution which the weaker man was powerless to resist, he 
took him by the arm and led him back to his place. 
"For her sake, and for your sake, you shall not condemn her unheard," he said to 
Horace, firmly. "One temptation to deceive you after another has tried her, and 
she has resisted them all. With no discovery to fear, with a letter from the 
benefactress who loves her commanding her to be silent, with everything that a 
woman values in this world to lose, if she owns what she has done--this woman, 
for the truth's sake, has spoken the truth. Does she deserve nothing at your 
hands in return for that? Respect her, Horace--and hear her." 
Horace yielded. Julian turned to Mercy. 
"You have allowed me to guide you so far," he said. "Will you allow me to guide 
you still?" 
Her eyes sank before his; her bosom rose and fell rapidly. His influence over 
her maintained its sway. She bowed her head in speechless submission. 
"Tell him," Julian proceeded, in accents of entreaty, not of command--"tell him 
what your life has been. Tell him how you were tried and tempted, with no friend 
near to speak the words which might have saved you. And then," he added, raising 
her from the chair, "let him judge you--if he can!" 
He attempted to lead her across the room to the place which Horace occupied. But 
her submission had its limits. Half-way to the place she stopped, and refused to 
go further. Julian offered her a chair. She declined to take it. Standing with 
one hand on the back of the chair, she waited for the word from Horace which 
would permit her to speak. She was resigned to the ordeal. Her face was calm; 
her mind was clear. The hardest of all humiliations to endure--the humiliation 
of acknowledging her name--she had passed through. Nothing remained but to show 
her gratitude to Julian by acceding to his wishes, and to ask pardon of Horace 
before they parted forever. In a little while the Matron would arrive at the 
house-- and then it would be over. 
Unwillingly Horace looked at her. Their eyes met. He broke out suddenly with 
something of his former violence. 
"I can't realize it even now!" he cried. "Is it true that you are not Grace 
Roseberry? Don't look at me! Say in one word--Yes or No!" 
She answered him, humbly and sadly, "Yes." 
"You have done what that woman accused you of doing? Am I to believe that?" 
"You are to believe it, sir." 
All the weakness of Horace's character disclosed itself when she made that 
reply. 
"Infamous!" he exclaimed. "What excuse can you make for the cruel deception you 
have practiced on me? Too bad! too bad! There can be no excuse for you!" 
She accepted his reproaches with unshaken resignation. "I have deserved it!" was 
all she said to herself, "I have deserved it!" 
Julian interposed once more in Mercy's defense. 
"Wait till you are sure there is no excuse for her, Horace," he said, quietly. 
"Grant her justice, if you can grant no more. I leave you together." 
He advanced toward the door of the dining-room. Horace's weakness disclosed 
itself once more. 
"Don't leave me alone with her!" he burst out. "The misery of it is more than I 
can bear!" 
Julian looked at Mercy. Her face brightened faintly. That momentary expression 
of relief told him how truly he would be befriending her if he consented to 
remain in the room. A position of retirement was offered to him by a recess 
formed by the central bay-window of the library. If he occupied this place, they 
could see or not see that he was present, as their own inclinations might decide 
them. 
"I will stay with you, Horace, as long as you wish me to be here." Having 
answered in those terms, he stopped as he passed Mercy, on his way to the 
window. His quick and kindly insight told him that he might still be of some 
service to her. A hint from him might show her the shortest and the easiest way 
of making her confession. Delicately and briefly he gave her the hint. "The 
first time I met you," he said, "I saw that your life had had its troubles. Let 
us hear how those troubles began." 
He withdrew to his place in the recess. For the first time, since the fatal 
evening when she and Grace Roseberry had met in the French cottage, Mercy 
Merrick looked back into the purgatory on earth of her past life, and told her 
sad story simply and truly in these words. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
MAGDALEN'S APPRENTICESHIP.
"MR. JULIAN GRAY has asked me to tell him, and to tell you, Mr. Holmcroft, how 
my troubles began. They began before my recollection. They began with my birth. 
"My mother (as I have heard her say) ruined her prospects, when she was quite a 
young girl, by a marriage with one of her father's servants--the groom who rode 
out with her. She suffered, poor creature, the usual penalty of such conduct as 
hers. After a short time she and her husband were separated--on the condition of 
her sacrificing to the man whom she had married the whole of the little fortune 
that she possessed in her right. 
"Gaining her freedom, my mother had to gain her daily bread next. Her family 
refused to take her back. She attached herself to a company of strolling 
players. 
"She was earning a bare living in this way, when my father accidentally met with 
her. He was a man of high rank, proud of his position, and well known in the 
society of that time for his many accomplishments and his refined tastes. My 
mother's beauty fascinated him. He took her from the strolling players, and 
surrounded her with every luxury that a woman could desire in a house of her 
own. 
"I don't know how long they lived together. I only know that my father, at the 
time of my first recollections, had abandoned her. She had excited his 
suspicions of her fidelity--suspicions which cruelly wronged her, as she 
declared to her dying day. I believed her, because she was my mother. But I 
cannot expect others to do as I did--I can only repeat what she said. My father 
left her absolutely penniless. He never saw her again; and he refused to go to 
her when she sent to him in her last moments on earth. 
"She was back again among the strolling players when I first remember her. It 
was not an unhappy time for me. I was the favorite pet and plaything of the poor 
actors. They taught me to sing and to dance at an age when other children are 
just beginning to learn to read. At five years old I was in what is called 'the 
profession,' and had made my poor little reputation in booths at country fairs. 
As early as that, Mr. Holmcroft, I had begun to live under an assumed name--the 
prettiest name they could invent for me 'to look well in the bills.' It was 
sometimes a hard struggle for us, in bad seasons, to keep body and soul 
together. Learning to sing and dance in public often meant learning to bear 
hunger and cold in private, when I was apprenticed to the stage. And yet I have 
lived to look back on my days with the strolling players as the happiest days of 
my life! 
"I was ten years old when the first serious misfortune that I can remember fell 
upon me. My mother died, worn out in the prime of her life. And not long 
afterward the strolling company, brought to the end of its resources by a 
succession of bad seasons, was broken up. 
"I was left on the world, a nameless, penniless outcast, with one fatal 
inheritance--God knows, I can speak of it without vanity, after what I have gone 
through!--the inheritance of my mother's beauty. 
"My only friends were the poor starved-out players. Two of them (husband and 
wife) obtained engagements in another company, and I was included in the bargain 
The new manager by whom I was employed was a drunkard and a brute. One night I 
made a trifling mistake in the course of the performances--and I was savagely 
beaten for it. Perhaps I had inherited some of my father's spirit--without, I 
hope, also inheriting my father's pitiless nature. However that may be, I 
resolved (no matter what became of me) never again to serve the man who had 
beaten me. I unlocked the door of our miserable lodging at daybreak the next 
morning; and, at ten years old, with my little bundle in my hand, I faced the 
world alone. 
"My mother had confided to me, in her last moments, my father's name and the 
address of his house in London. 'He may feel some compassion for you' (she 
said), 'though he feels none for me: try him.' I had a few shillings, the last 
pitiful remains of my wages, in my pocket; and I was not far from London. But I 
never went near my father: child as I was, I would have starved and died rather 
than go to him. I had loved my mother dearly; and I hated the man who had turned 
his back on her when she lay on her deathbed. It made no difference to Me that 
he happened to be my father. 
"Does this confession revolt you? You look at me, Mr. Holmcroft, as if it did. 
"Think a little, sir. Does what I have just said condemn me as a heartless 
creature, even in my earliest years? What is a father to a child--when the child 
has never sat on his knee, and never had a kiss or a present from him? If we had 
met in the street, we should not have known each other. Perhaps in after-days, 
when I was starving in London, I may have begged of my father without knowing 
it; and he may have thrown his daughter a penny to get rid of her, without 
knowing it either! What is there sacred in the relations between father and 
child, when they are such relations as these? Even the flowers of the field 
cannot grow without light and air to help them! How is a child's love to grow, 
with nothing to help it? 
"My small savings would have been soon exhausted, even if I had been old enough 
and strong enough to protect them myself. As things were, my few shillings were 
taken from me by gypsies. I had no reason to complain. They gave me food and the 
shelter of their tents, and they made me of use to them in various ways. After a 
while hard times came to the gypsies, as they had come to the strolling players. 
Some of them were imprisoned; the rest were dispersed. It was the season for 
hop-gathering at the time. I got employment among the hop-pickers next; and that 
done, I went to London with my new friends. 
"I have no wish to weary and pain you by dwelling on this part of my childhood 
in detail. It will be enough if I tell you that I sank lower and lower until I 
ended in selling matches in the street. My mother's legacy got me many a 
sixpence which my matches would never have charmed out of the pockets of 
strangers if I had been an ugly child. My face. which was destined to be my 
greatest misfortune in after-years, was my best friend in those days. 
"Is there anything, Mr. Holmcroft, in the life I am now trying to describe which 
reminds you of a day when we were out walking together not long since? 
"I surprised and offended you, I remember; and it was not possible for me to 
explain my conduct at the time. Do you recollect the little wandering girl, with 
the miserable faded nosegay in her hand, who ran after us, and begged for a 
half-penny? I shocked you by bursting out crying when the child asked us to buy 
her a bit of bread. Now you know why I was so sorry for her. Now you know why I 
offended you the next day by breaking an engagement with your mother and 
sisters, and going to see that child in her wretched home. After what I have 
confessed, you will admit that my poor little sister in adversity had the first 
claim on me. 
"Let me go on. I am sorry if I have distressed you. Let me go on. 
"The forlorn wanderers of the streets have (as I found it) one way always open 
to them of presenting their sufferings to the notice of their rich and 
charitable fellow-creatures. They have only to break the law--and they make a 
public appearance in a court of justice. If the circumstances connected with 
their offense are of an interesting kind, they gain a second advantage: they are 
advertised all over England by a report in the newspapers. 
"Yes! even I have my knowledge of the law. I know that it completely overlooked 
me as long as I respected it. But on two different occasions it became my best 
friend when I set it at defiance! My first fortunate offense was committed when 
I was just twelve years old. 
"It was evening time. I was half dead with starvation; the rain was falling; the 
night was coming on. I begged--openly, loudly, as only a hungry child can beg. 
An old lady in a carriage at a shop door complained of my importunity. The 
policeman did his duty. The law gave me a supper and shelter at the 
station-house that night. I appeared at the police court, and, questioned by the 
magistrate, I told my story truly. It was the every-day story of thousands of 
children like me; but it had one element of interest in it. I confessed to 
having had a father (he was then dead) who had been a man of rank; and I owned 
(just as openly as I owned everything else) that I had never applied to him for 
help, in resentment of his treatment of my mother. This incident was new, I 
suppose; it led to the appearance of my 'case' in the newspapers. The reporters 
further served my interests by describing me as 'pretty and interesting.' 
Subscriptions were sent to the court. A benevolent married couple, in a 
respectable sphere of life, visited the workhouse to see me. I produced a 
favorable impression on them--especially on the wife. I was literally 
friendless; I had no unwelcome relatives to follow me and claim me. The wife was 
childless; the husband was a good-natured man. It ended in their taking me away 
with them to try me in service. 
"I have always felt the aspiration, no matter how low I may have fallen, to 
struggle upward to a position above me; to rise, in spite of fortune, superior 
to my lot in life. Perhaps some of my father's pride may be at the root of this 
restless feeling in me. It seems to be a part of my nature. It brought me into 
this house--and it will go with me out of this house. Is it my curse or my 
blessing? I am not able to decide. 
"On the first night when I slept in my new home I said to myself, 'They have 
taken me to be their servant: I will be something more than that--they shall end 
in taking me for their child.' Before I had been a week in the house I was the 
wife's favorite companion in the absence of her husband at his place of 
business. She was a highly accomplished woman, greatly her husband's superior in 
cultivation, and, unfortunately for herself, also his superior in years. The 
love was all on her side. Excepting certain occasions on which he roused her 
jealousy, they lived together on sufficiently friendly terms. She was one of the 
many wives who resign themselves to be disappointed in their husbands--and he 
was one of the many husbands who never know what their wives really think of 
them. Her one great happiness was in teaching me. I was eager to learn; I made 
rapid progress. At my pliant age I soon acquired the refinements of language and 
manner which characterized my mistress. It is only the truth to say that the 
cultivation which has made me capable of personating a lady was her work. 
"For three happy years I lived under that friendly roof. I was between fifteen 
and sixteen years of age, when the fatal inheritance from my mother cast its 
first shadow on my life. One miserable day the wife's motherly love for me 
changed in an instant to the jealous hatred that never forgives. Can you guess 
the reason? The husband fell in love with me. 
"I was innocent; I was blameless. He owned it himself to the clergyman who was 
with him at his death. By that time years had passed. It was too late to justify 
me. 
"He was at an age (when I was under his care) when men are usually supposed to 
regard women with tranquillity, if not with indifference. It had been the habit 
of years with me to look on him as my second father. In my innocent ignorance of 
the feeling which really inspired him, I permitted him to indulge in little 
paternal familiarities with me, which inflamed his guilty passion. His wife 
discovered him--not I. No words can describe my astonishment and my horror when 
the first outbreak of her indignation forced on me the knowledge of the truth. 
On my knees I declared myself guiltless. On my knees I implored her to do 
justice to my purity and my youth. At other times the sweetest and the most 
considerate of women, jealousy had now transformed her to a perfect fury. She 
accused me of deliberately encouraging him; she declared she would turn me out 
of the house with her own hands. Like other easy-tempered men, her husband had 
reserves of anger in him which it was dangerous to provoke. When his wife lifted 
her hand against me, he lost all self-control, on his side. He openly told her 
that life was worth nothing to him without me. He openly avowed his resolution 
to go with me when I left the house. The maddened woman seized him by the arm--I 
saw that, and saw no more. I ran out into the street, panic-stricken. A cab was 
passing. I got into it before he could open the house door, and drove to the 
only place of refuge I could think of--a small shop, kept by the widowed sister 
of one of our servants. Here I obtained shelter for the night. The next day he 
discovered me. He made his vile proposals; he offered me the whole of his 
fortune; he declared his resolution, say what I might, to return the next day. 
That night, by help of the good woman who had taken care of me-- under cover of 
the darkness, as if I had been to blame!--I was secretly removed to the East End 
of London, and placed under the charge of a trustworthy person who lived, in a 
very humble way, by letting lodgings. 
"Here, in a little back garret at the top of the house, I was thrown again on 
the world-- an age when it was doubly perilous for me to be left to my own 
resources to earn the bread I ate and the roof that covered me. 
"I claim no credit to myself--young as I was, placed as I was between the easy 
life of Vice and the hard life of Virtue--for acting as I did. The man simply 
horrified me: my natural impulse was to escape from him. But let it be 
remembered, before I approach the saddest part of my sad story, that I was an 
innocent girl, and that I was at least not to blame. 
"Forgive me for dwelling as I have done on my early years. I shrink from 
speaking of the events that are still to come. 
"In losing the esteem of my first benefactress, I had, in my friendless 
position, lost all hold on an honest life--except the one frail hold of 
needle-work. The only reference of which I could now dispose was the 
recommendation of me by my landlady to a place of business which largely 
employed expert needle-women. It is needless for me to tell you how miserably 
work of that sort is remunerated: you have read about it in the newspapers. As 
long as my health lasted I contrived to live and to keep out of debt. Few girls 
could have resisted as long as I did the slowly-poisoning influences of crowded 
work-room, insufficient nourishment, and almost total privation of exercise. My 
life as a child had been a life in the open air: it had helped to strengthen a 
constitution naturally hardy, naturally free from all taint of hereditary 
disease. But my time came at last. Under the cruel stress laid on it my health 
gave way. I was struck down by low fever, and sentence was pronounced on me by 
my fellow-lodgers: 'Ah, poor thing, her troubles will soon be at an end!' 
"The prediction might have proved true--I might never have committed the errors 
and endured the sufferings of after years--if I had fallen ill in another house. 

"But it was my good, or my evil, fortune--I dare not say which--to have 
interested in myself and my sorrows an actress at a suburban theatre, who 
occupied the room under mine. Except when her stage duties took her away for two 
or three hours in the evening, this noble creature never left my bedside. Ill as 
she could afford it, her purse paid my inevitable expenses while I lay helpless. 
The landlady, moved by her example, accepted half the weekly rent of my room. 
The doctor, with the Christian kindness of his profession, would take no fees. 
All that the tenderest care could accomplish was lavished on me; my youth and my 
constitution did the rest. I struggled back to life--and then I took up my 
needle again. 
"It may surprise you that I should have failed (having an actress for my dearest 
friend) to use the means of introduction thus offered to me to try the 
stage--especially as my childish training had given me, in some small degree, a 
familiarity with the Art. 
"I had only one motive for shrinking from an appearance at the theatre--but it 
was strong enough to induce me to submit to any alternative that remained, no 
matter how hopeless it might be. If I showed myself on the public stage, my 
discovery by the man from whom I had escaped would be only a question of time. I 
knew him to be habitually a play-goer and a subscriber to a theatrical 
newspaper. I had even heard him speak of the theatre to which my friend was 
attached, and compare it advantageously with places of amusement of far higher 
pretensions. Sooner or later, if I joined the company he would be certain to go 
and see 'the new actress.' The bare thought of it reconciled me to returning to 
my needle. Before I was strong enough to endure the atmosphere of the crowded 
workroom I obtained permission, as a favor, to resume my occupation at home. 
"Surely my choice was the choice of a virtuous girl? And yet the day when I 
returned to my needle was the fatal day of my life. 
"I had now not only to provide for the wants of the passing hour--I had my debts 
to pay. It was only to be done by toiling harder than ever, and by living more 
poorly than ever. I soon paid the penalty, in my weakened state, of leading such 
a life as this. One evening my head turned suddenly giddy; my heart throbbed 
frightfully. I managed to open the window, and to let the fresh air into the 
room, and I felt better. But I was not sufficiently recovered to be able to 
thread my needle. I thought to myself, 'If I go out for half an hour, a little 
exercise may put me right again.' I had not, as I suppose, been out more than 
ten minutes when the attack from which I had suffered in my room was renewed. 
There was no shop near in which I could take refuge. I tried to ring the bell of 
the nearest house door. Before I could reach it I fainted in the street. 
"How long hunger and weakness left me at the mercy of the first stranger who 
might pass by, it is impossible for me to say. 
"When I partially recovered my senses I was conscious of being under shelter 
somewhere, and of having a wine-glass containing some cordial drink held to my 
lips by a man. I managed to swallow--I don't know how little, or how much. The 
stimulant had a very strange effect on me. Reviving me at first, it ended in 
stupefying me. I lost my senses once more. 
"When I next recovered myself, the day was breaking. I was in a bed in a strange 
room. A nameless terror seized me. I called out. Three or four women came in, 
whose faces betrayed, even to my inexperienced eyes, the shameless infamy of 
their lives. I started up in the bed. I implored them to tell me where I was, 
and what had happened-- 
"Spare me! I can say no more. Not long since you heard Miss Roseberry call me an 
outcast from the streets. Now you know--as God is my judge I am speaking the 
truth!--now you know what made me an outcast, and in what measure I deserved my 
disgrace." 
Her voice faltered, her resolution failed her, for the first time. 
"Give me a few minutes," she said, in low, pleading tones. "If I try to go on 
now, I am afraid I shall cry." 
She took the chair which Julian had placed for her, turning her face aside so 
that neither of the men could see it. One of her hands was pressed over her 
bosom, the other hung listlessly at her side. 
Julian rose from the place that he had occupied. Horace neither moved nor spoke. 
His head was on his breast: the traces of tears on his cheeks owned mutely that 
she had touched his heart. Would he forgive her? Julian passed on, and 
approached Mercy's chair. 
In silence he took the hand which hung at her side. In silence he lifted it to 
his lips and kissed it, as her brother might have kissed it. She started, but 
she never looked up. Some strange fear of discovery seemed to possess her. 
"Horace?" she whispered, timidly. Julian made no reply. He went back to his 
place, and allowed her to think it was Horace. 
The sacrifice was immense enough--feeling toward her as he felt--to be worthy of 
the man who made it. 
A few minutes had been all she asked for. In a few minutes she turned toward 
them again. Her sweet voice was steady once more; her eyes rested softly on 
Horace as she went on. 
"What was it possible for a friendless girl in my position to do, when the full 
knowledge of the outrage had been revealed to me? 
"If I had possessed near and dear relatives to protect and advise me, the 
wretches into whose hands I had fallen might have felt the penalty of the law. I 
knew no more of the formalities which set the law in motion than a child. But I 
had another alternative (you will say). Charitable societies would have received 
me and helped me, if I had stated my case to them. I knew no more of the 
charitable societies than I knew of the law. At least, then, I might have gone 
back to the honest people among whom I had lived? When I received my freedom, 
after the interval of some days, I was ashamed to go back to the honest people. 
Helplessly and hopelessly, without sin or choice of mine, I drifted, as 
thousands of other women have drifted, into the life which set a mark on me for 
the rest of my days. 
"Are you surprised at the ignorance which this confession reveals? 
"You, who have your solicitors to inform you of legal remedies and your 
newspapers, circulars, and active friends to sound the praises of charitable 
institutions continually in your ears--you, who possess these advantages, have 
no idea of the outer world of ignorance in which your lost fellow-creatures 
live. They know nothing (unless they are rogues accustomed to prey on society) 
of your benevolent schemes to help them. The purpose of public charities, and 
the way to discover and apply to them, ought to be posted at the corner of every 
street. What do we know of public dinners and eloquent sermons and neatly 
printed circulars? Every now and then the ease of some forlorn creature 
(generally of a woman) who has committed suicide, within five minutes' walk, 
perhaps, of an institution which would have opened its doors to her, appears in 
the newspapers, shocks you dreadfully, and is then forgotten again. Take as much 
pains to make charities and asylums known among the people without money as are 
taken to make a new play, a new journal, or a new medicine known among the 
people with money and you will save many a lost creature who is perishing now. 
"You will forgive and understand me if I say no more of this period of my life. 
Let me pass to the new incident in my career which brought me for the second 
time before the public notice in a court of law. 
"Sad as my experience has been, it has not taught me to think ill of human 
nature. I had found kind hearts to feel for me in my former troubles; and I had 
friends--faithful, self-denying, generous friends--among my sisters in adversity 
now. One of these poor women (she has gone, I am glad to think, from the world 
that used her so hardly) especially attracted my sympathies. She was the 
gentlest, the most unselfish creature I have ever met with. We lived together 
like sisters. More than once in the dark hours when the thought of 
self-destruction comes to a desperate woman, the image of my poor devoted 
friend, left to suffer alone, rose in my mind and restrained me. You will hardly 
understand it, but even we had our happy days. When she or I had a few shillings 
to spare, we used to offer one another little presents, and enjoy our simple 
pleasure in giving and receiving as keenly as if we had been the most reputable 
women living. 
"One day I took my friend into a shop to buy her a ribbon--only a bow for her 
dress. She was to choose it, and I was to pay for it, and it was to be the 
prettiest ribbon that money could buy. 
"The shop was full; we had to wait a little before we could be served. 
"Next to me, as I stood at the counter with my companion, was a gaudily-dressed 
woman, looking at some handkerchiefs. The handkerchiefs were finely embroidered, 
but the smart lady was hard to please. She tumbled them up disdainfully in a 
heap, and asked for other specimens from the stock in the shop. The man, in 
clearing the handkerchiefs out of the way, suddenly missed one. He was quite 
sure of it, from a peculiarity in the embroidery which made the handkerchief 
especially noticeable. I was poorly dressed, and I was close to the 
handkerchiefs. After one look at me he shouted to the superintendent: 'Shut the 
door! There is a thief in the shop!' 
"The door was closed; the lost handkerchief was vainly sought for on the counter 
and on the floor. A robbery had been committed; and I was accused of being the 
thief. 
"I will say nothing of what I felt--I will only tell you what happened. 
"I was searched, and the handkerchief was discovered on me. The woman who had 
stood next to me, on finding herself threatened with discovery, had no doubt 
contrived to slip the stolen handkerchief into my pocket. Only an accomplished 
thief could have escaped detection in that way without my knowledge. It was 
useless, in the face of the facts, to declare my innocence. I had no character 
to appeal to. My friend tried to speak for me; but what was she? Only a lost 
woman like myself. My landlady's evidence in favor of my honesty produced no 
effect; it was against her that she let lodgings to people in my position. I was 
prosecuted, and found guilty. The tale of my disgrace is now complete, Mr. 
Holmcroft. No matter whether I was innocent or not, the shame of it remains--I 
have been imprisoned for theft. 
"The matron of the prison was the next person who took an interest in me. She 
reported favorably of my behavior to the authorities and when I had served my 
time (as the phrase was among us) she gave me a letter to the kind friend and 
guardian of my later years--to the lady who is coming here to take me back with 
her to the Refuge. 
"From this time the story of my life is little more than the story of a woman's 
vain efforts to recover her lost place in the world. 
"The matron, on receiving me into the Refuge, frankly acknowledged that there 
were terrible obstacles in my way. But she saw that I was sincere, and she felt 
a good woman's sympathy and compassion for me. On my side, I did not shrink from 
beginning the slow and weary journey back again to a reputable life from the 
humblest starting-point--from domestic service. After first earning my new 
character in the Refuge, I obtained a trial in a respectable house. I worked 
hard, and worked uncomplainingly; but my mother's fatal legacy was against me 
from the first. My personal appearance excited remark; my manners and habits 
were not the manners and habits of the women among whom my lot was cast. I tried 
one place after another--always with the same results. Suspicion and jealousy I 
could endure; but I was defenseless when curiosity assailed me in its turn. 
Sooner or later inquiry led to discovery. Sometimes the servants threatened to 
give warning in a body--and I was obliged to go. Sometimes, where there was a 
young man in the family, scandal pointed at me and at him--and again I was 
obliged to go. If you care to know it, Miss Roseberry can tell you the story of 
those sad days. I confided it to her on the memorable night when we met in the 
French cottage; I have no heart repeat it now. After a while I wearied of the 
hopeless struggle. Despair laid its hold on me--I lost all hope in the mercy of 
God. More than once I walked to one or other of the bridges, and looked over the 
parapet at the river, and said to myself 'Other women have done it: why 
shouldn't I?' 
"You saved me at that time, Mr. Gray--as you have saved me since. I was one of 
your congregation when you preached in the chapel of the Refuge You reconciled 
others besides me to our hard pilgrimage. In their name and in mine, sir, I 
thank you. 
"I forget how long it was after the bright day when you comforted and sustained 
us that the war broke out between France and Germany. But I can never forget the 
evening when the matron sent for me into her own room and said, 'My dear, your 
life here is a wasted life. If you have courage enough left to try it, I can 
give you another chance.' 
"I passed through a month of probation in a London hospital. A week after that I 
wore the red cross of the Geneva Convention--I was appointed nurse in a French 
ambulance. When you first saw me, Mr. Holmcroft, I still had my nurse's dress 
on, hidden from you and from everybody under a gray cloak. 
"You know what the next event was; you know how I entered this house. 
"I have not tried to make the worst of my trials and troubles in telling you 
what my life has been. I have honestly described it for what it was when I met 
with Miss Roseberry--a life without hope. May you never know the temptation that 
tried me when the shell struck its victim in the French cottage! There she 
lay--dead! Her name was untainted. Her future promised me the reward which had 
been denied to the honest efforts of a penitent woman. My lost place in the 
world was offered back to me on the one condition that I stooped to win it by a 
fraud. I had no prospect to look forward to; I had no friend near to advise me 
and to save me; the fairest years of my womanhood had been wasted in the vain 
struggle to recover my good name. Such was my position when the possibility of 
personating Miss Roseberry first forced itself on my mind. Impulsively, 
recklessly-- wickedly, if you like--I seized the opportunity, and let you pass 
me through the German lines under Miss Roseberry's name. Arrived in England, 
having had time to reflect, I made my first and last effort to draw back before 
it was too late. I went to the Refuge, and stopped on the opposite side of the 
street, looking at it. The old hopeless life of irretrievable disgrace 
confronted me as I fixed my eyes on the familiar door; the horror of returning 
to that life was more than I could force myself to endure. An empty cab passed 
me at the moment. The driver held up his hand. In sheer despair I stopped him, 
and when he said 'Where to?' in sheer despair again I answered, 'Mablethorpe 
House.' 
"Of what I have suffered in secret since my own successful deception established 
me under Lady Janet's care I shall say nothing. Many things which must have 
surprised you in my conduct are made plain to you by this time. You must have 
noticed long since that I was not a happy woman. Now you know why. 
"My confession is made; my conscience has spoken at last. You are released from 
your promise to me--you are free. Thank Mr. Julian Gray if I stand here 
self-accused of the offense, that I have committed, before the man whom I have 
wronged." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
SENTENCE IS PRONOUNCED ON HER.
IT was done. The last tones of her voice died away in silence. 
Her eyes still rested on Horace. After hearing what he had heard could he resist 
that gentle, pleading look? Would he forgive her? A while since Julian had seen 
tears on his cheeks, and had believed that he felt for her. Why was he now 
silent? Was it possible that he only felt for himself? 
For the last time--at the crisis of her life--Julian spoke for her. He had never 
loved her as he loved her at that moment; it tried even his generous nature to 
plead her cause with Horace against himself. But he had promised her, without 
reserve, all the help that her truest friend could offer. Faithfully and 
manfully he redeemed his promise. 
"Horace!" he said. 
Horace slowly looked up. Julian rose and approached him. 
"She has told you to thank me, if her conscience has spoken. Thank the noble 
nature which answered when I called upon it! Own the priceless value of a woman 
who can speak the truth. Her heartfelt repentance is a joy in heaven. Shall it 
not plead for her on earth? Honor her, if you are a Christian! Feel for her, if 
you are a man!" 
He waited. Horace never answered him. 
Mercy's eyes turned tearfully on Julian. His heart was the heart that felt for 
her! His words were the words which comforted and pardoned her! When she looked 
back again at Horace, it was with an effort. His last hold on her was lost. In 
her inmost mind a thought rose unbidden--a thought which was not to be 
repressed. "Can I ever have loved this man?" 
She advanced a step toward him; it was not possible, even yet, to completely 
forgot the past. She held out her hand. 
He rose on his side--without looking at her. 
"Before we part forever," she said to him, "will you take my hand as a token 
that you forgive me?" 
He hesitated. He half lifted his hand. The next moment the generous impulse died 
away in him. In its place came the mean fear of what might happen if he trusted 
himself to the dangerous fascination of her touch. His hand dropped again at his 
side; he turned away quickly. 
"I can't forgive her!" he said. 
With that horrible confession--without even a last look at her--he left the 
room. 
At the moment when he opened the door Julian's contempt for him burst its way 
through all restraints. 
"Horace," he said, "I pity you!" 
As the words escaped him he looked back at Mercy. She had turned aside from both 
of them--she had retired to a distant part of the library The first bitter 
foretaste of what was in store for her when she faced the world again had come 
to her from Horace! The energy which had sustained her thus far quailed before 
the dreadful prospect--doubly dreadful to a woman--of obloquy and contempt. She 
sank on her knees before a little couch in the darkest corner of the room. "O 
Christ, have mercy on me!" That was her prayer--no more. 
Julian followed her. He waited a little. Then his kind hand touched her; his 
friendly voice fell consolingly on her ear. 
"Rise, poor wounded heart! Beautiful, purified soul, God's angels rejoice over 
you! Take your place among the noblest of God's creatures!" 
He raised her as he spoke. All her heart went out to him. She caught his 
hand--she pressed it to her bosom; she pressed it to her lips-- then dropped it 
suddenly, and stood before him trembling like a frightened child. 
"Forgive me!" was all she could say. "I was so lost and lonely--and you are so 
good to me!" 
She tried to leave him. It was useless--her strength was gone; she caught at the 
head of the couch to support herself. He looked at her. The confession of his 
love was just rising to his lips--he looked again, and checked it. No, not at 
that moment; not when she was helpless and ashamed; not when her weakness might 
make her yield, only to regret it at a later time. The great heart which had 
spared her and felt for her from the first spared her and felt for her now. 
He, too, left her--but not without a word at parting. 
"Don't think of your future life just yet," he said, gently. "I have something 
to propose when rest and quiet have restored you." He opened the nearest 
door--the door of the dining-room--and went out. 
The servants engaged in completing the decoration of the dinner-table noticed, 
when "Mr. Julian" entered the room, that his eyes were "brighter than ever." He 
looked (they remarked) like a man who "expected good news." They were inclined 
to suspect--though he was certainly rather young for it--that her ladyship's 
nephew was in a fair way of preferment in the Church. 
Mercy seated herself on the couch. 
There are limits, in the physical organization of man, to the action of pain. 
When suffering has reached a given point of intensity the nervous sensibility 
becomes incapable of feeling more. The rule of Nature, in this respect, applies 
not only to sufferers in the body, but to sufferers in the mind as well. Grief, 
rage, terror, have also their appointed limits. The moral sensibility, like the 
nervous sensibility, reaches its period of absolute exhaustion, and feels no 
more. 
The capacity for suffering in Mercy had attained its term. Alone in the library, 
she could feel the physical relief of repose; she could vaguely recall Julian's 
parting words to her, and sadly wonder what they meant--she could do no more. 
An interval passed; a brief interval of perfect rest. 
She recovered herself sufficiently to be able to look at her watch and to 
estimate the lapse of time that might yet pass before Julian returned to her as 
he had promised. While her mind was still languidly following this train of 
thought she was disturbed by the ringing of a bell in the hall, used to summon 
the servant whose duties were connected with that part of the house. In leaving 
the library, Horace had gone out by the door which led into the hall, and had 
failed to close it. She plainly heard the bell--and a moment later (more plainly 
still) she heard Lady Janet's voice! 
She started to her feet. Lady Janet's letter was still in the pocket of her 
apron--the letter which imperatively commanded her to abstain from making the 
very confession that had just passed her lips! It was near the dinner hour, and 
the library was the favorite place in which the mistress of the house and her 
guests assembled at that time. It was no matter of doubt; it was an absolute 
certainty that Lady Janet had only stopped in the hall on her way into the room. 

The alternative for Mercy lay between instantly leaving the library by the 
dining-room door--or remaining where she was, at the risk of being sooner or 
later compelled to own that she had deliberately disobeyed her benefactress. 
Exhausted by what she had already suffered, she stood trembling and irresolute, 
incapable of deciding which alternative she should choose. 
Lady Janet's voice, clear and resolute, penetrated into the room. She was 
reprimanding the servant who had answered the bell. 
"Is it your duty in my house to look after the lamps?" 
"Yes, my lady." 
"And is it my duty to pay you your wages?"" 
"If you please, my lady." 
"Why do I find the light in the hall dim, and the wick of that lamp smoking? I 
have not failed in my duty to You. Don't let me find you failing again in your 
duty to Me." 
(Never had Lady Janet's voice sounded so sternly in Mercy's ear as it sounded 
now. If she spoke with that tone of severity to a servant who had neglected a 
lamp, what had her adopted daughter to expect when she discovered that her 
entreaties and her commands had been alike set at defiance?) 
Having administered her reprimand, Lady Janet had not done with the servant yet. 
She had a question to put to him next. 
"Where is Miss Roseberry?" 
"In the library, my lady." 
Mercy returned to the couch. She could stand no longer; she had not even 
resolution enough left to lift her eyes to the door. 
Lady Janet came in more rapidly than usual. She advanced to the couch, and 
tapped Mercy playfully on the cheek with two of her fingers. 
"You lazy child! Not dressed for dinner? Oh, fie, fie!" 
Her tone was as playfully affectionate as the action which had accompanied her 
words. In speechless astonishment Mercy looked up at her. 
Always remarkable for the taste and splendor of her dress, Lady Janet had on 
this occasion surpassed herself. There she stood revealed in her grandest 
velvet, her richest jewelry, her finest lace--with no one to entertain at the 
dinner-table but the ordinary members of the circle at Mablethorpe House. 
Noticing this as strange to begin with, Mercy further observed, for the first 
time in her experience, that Lady Janet's eyes avoided meeting hers. The old 
lady took her place companionably on the couch; she ridiculed her "lazy child's" 
plain dress, without an ornament of any sort on it, with her best grace; she 
affectionately put her arm round Mercy's waist, and rearranged with her own hand 
the disordered locks of Mercy's hair--but the instant Mercy herself looked at 
her, Lady Janet's eyes discovered something supremely interesting in the 
familiar objects that surrounded her on the library walls. 
How were these changes to be interpreted? To what possible conclusion did they 
point? 
Julian's profounder knowledge of human nature, if Julian had been present, might 
have found a clew to the mystery. He might have surmised (incredible as it was) 
that Mercy's timidity before Lady Janet was fully reciprocated by Lady Janet's 
timidity before Mercy. It was even so. The woman whose immovable composure had 
conquered Grace Roseberry's utmost insolence in the hour of her triumph--the 
woman who, without once flinching, had faced every other consequence of her 
resolution to ignore Mercy's true position in the house--quailed for the first 
time when she found herself face to face with the very person for whom she had 
suffered and sacrificed so much. She had shrunk from the meeting with Mercy, as 
Mercy had shrunk from the meeting with her. The splendor of her dress meant 
simply that, when other excuses for delaying the meeting downstairs had all been 
exhausted, the excuse of a long, and elaborate toilet had been tried next. Even 
the moments occupied in reprimanding the servant had been moments seized on as 
the pretext for another delay. The hasty entrance into the room, the nervous 
assumption of playfulness in language and manner, the evasive and wandering 
eyes, were all referable to the same cause. In the presence of others, Lady 
Janet had successfully silenced the protest of her own inbred delicacy and 
inbred sense of honor. In the presence of Mercy, whom she loved with a mother's 
love--in the presence of Mercy, for whom she had stooped to deliberate 
concealment of the truth--all that was high and noble in the woman's nature rose 
in her and rebuked her. What will the daughter of my adoption, the child of my 
first and last experience of maternal love, think of me, now that I have made 
myself an accomplice in the fraud of which she is ashamed? How can I look her in 
the face, when I have not hesitated, out of selfish consideration for my own 
tranquillity, to forbid that frank avowal of the truth which her finer sense of 
duty had spontaneously bound her to make? Those were the torturing questions in 
Lady Janet's mind, while her arm was wound affectionately round Mercy's waist, 
while her fingers were busying themselves familiarly with the arrangement of 
Mercy's hair. Thence, and thence only, sprang the impulse which set her talking, 
with an uneasy affectation of frivolity, of any topic within the range of 
conversation, so long as it related to the future, and completely ignored the 
present and the past. 
"The winter here is unendurable," Lady Janet began. "I have been thinking, 
Grace, about what we had better do next." 
Mercy started. Lady Janet had called her "Grace." Lady Janet was still 
deliberately assuming to be innocent of the faintest suspicion of the truth. 
" No," resumed her ladyship, affecting to misunderstand Mercy's movement, "you 
are not to go up now and dress. There is no time, and I am quite ready to excuse 
you. You are a foil to me, my dear. You have reached the perfection of 
shabbiness. Ah! I remember when I had my whims and fancies too, and when I 
looked well in anything I wore, just as you do. No more of that. As I was 
saying, I have been thinking and planning what we are to do. We really can't 
stay here. Cold one day, and hot the next--what a climate! As for society, what 
do we lose if we go away? There is no such thing as society now. Assemblies of 
well-dressed mobs meet at each other's houses, tear each other's clothes, tread 
on each other's toes. If you are particularly lucky, you sit on the staircase, 
you get a tepid ice, and you hear vapid talk in slang phrases all round you. 
There is modern society. If we had a good opera, it would be something to stay 
in London for. Look at the programme for the season on that table--promising as 
much as possible on paper, and performing as little as possible on the stage. 
The same works, sung by the same singers year after year, to the same stupid 
people--in short the dullest musical evenings in Europe. No! the more I think of 
it, the more plainly I perceive that there is but one sensible choice before us: 
we must go abroad. Set that pretty head to work; choose north or south, east or 
west; it's all the same to me. Where shall we go?" 
Mercy looked at her quickly as she put the question. 
Lady Janet, more quickly yet, looked away at the programme of the opera-house. 
Still the same melancholy false pretenses! still the same useless and cruel 
delay! Incapable of enduring the position now forced upon her, Mercy put her 
hand into the pocket of her apron, and drew from it Lady Janet's letter. 
"Will your ladyship forgive me," she began, in faint, faltering tones, "if I 
venture on a painful subject? I hardly dare acknowledge--" In spite of her 
resolution to speak out plainly, the memory of past love and past kindness 
prevailed with her; the next words died away on her lips. She could only hold up 
the letter. 
Lady Janet declined to see the letter. Lady Janet suddenly became absorbed in 
the arrangement of her bracelets. 
"I know what you daren't acknowledge, you foolish child!" she exclaimed. "You 
daren't acknowledge that you are tired of this dull house. My dear! I am 
entirely of your opinion--I am weary of my own magnificence; I long to be living 
in one snug little room, with one servant to wait on me. I'll tell you what we 
will do. We will go to Paris, in the first place. My excellent Migliore, prince 
of couriers, shall be the only person in attendance. He shall take a lodging for 
us in one of the unfashionable quarters of Paris. We will rough it, Grace (to 
use the slang phrase), merely for a change. We will lead what they call a 
'Bohemian life.' I know plenty of writers and painters and actors in Paris--the 
liveliest society in the world, my dear, until one gets tired of them. We will 
dine at the restaurant, and go to the play, and drive about in shabby little 
hired carriages. And when it begins to get monotonous (which it is only too sure 
to do!) we will spread our wings and fly to Italy, and cheat the winter in that 
way. There is a plan for you! Migliore is in town. I will send to him this 
evening, and we will start to-morrow." 
Mercy made another effort. 
"I entreat your ladyship to pardon me," she resumed. "I have something serious 
to say. I am afraid--" 
"I understand. You are afraid of crossing the Channel, and you don't like to 
acknowledge it. Pooh! The passage barely lasts two hours; we will shut ourselves 
up in a private cabin. I will send at once--the courier may be engaged. Ring the 
bell." 
"Lady Janet, I must submit to my hard lot. I cannot hope to associate myself 
again with any future plans of yours--" 
"What! you are afraid of our 'Bohemian life' in Paris? Observe this, Grace! If 
there is one thing I hate more than another, it is 'an old head on young 
shoulders.' I say no more. Ring the bell." 
"This cannot go on, Lady Janet! No words can say how unworthy I feel of your 
kindness, how ashamed I am--" 
"Upon my honor, my dear, I agree with you. You ought to be ashamed, at your age, 
of making me get up to ring the bell." 
Her obstinacy was immovable; she attempted to rise from the couch. But one 
choice was left to Mercy. She anticipated Lady Janet, and rang the bell. 
The man-servant came in. He had his little letter-tray in his hand, with a card 
on it, and a sheet of paper beside the card, which looked like an open letter. 
"You know where my courier lives when he is in London?' asked Lady Janet. 
"Yes, my lady." 
"Send one of the grooms to him on horseback; I am in a hurry. The courier is to 
come here without fail to-morrow morning--in time for the tidal train to Paris. 
You understand?" 
"Yes, my lady." 
"What have you got there? Anything for me?" 
"For Miss Roseberry, my lady." 
As he answered, the man handed the card and the open letter to Mercy. 
"The lady is waiting in the morning-room, miss. She wished me to say she has 
time to spare, and she will wait for you if you are not ready yet." 
Having delivered his message in those terms, he withdrew. 
Mercy read the name on the card. The matron had arrived! She looked at the 
letter next. It appeared to be a printed circular, with some lines in pencil 
added on the empty page. Printed lines and written lines swam before her eyes. 
She felt, rather than saw, Lady Janet's attention steadily and suspiciously 
fixed on her. With the matron's arrival the foredoomed end of the flimsy false 
pretenses and the cruel delays had come. 
"A friend of yours, my dear?" 
"Yes, Lady Janet." 
"Am I acquainted with her?" 
"I think not, Lady Janet." 
"You appear to be agitated. Does your visitor bring bad news? Is there anything 
that I can do for you?" 
"You can add--immeasurably add, madam-- to all your past kindness, if you will 
only bear with me and forgive me." 
"Bear with you and forgive you? I don't understand." 
"I will try to explain. Whatever else you may think of me, Lady Janet, for God's 
sake don't think me ungrateful!" 
Lady Janet held up her hand for silence. 
"I dislike explanations," she said, sharply. "Nobody ought to know that better 
than you. Perhaps the lady's letter will explain for you. Why have you not 
looked at it yet?" 
"I am in great trouble, madam, as you noticed just now--" 
"Have you any objection to my knowing who your visitor is?" 
"No, Lady Janet." 
"Let me look at her card, then." 
Mercy gave the matron's card to Lady Janet, as she had given the matron's 
telegram to Horace. 
Lady Janet read the name on the card--considered--decided that it was a name 
quite unknown to her--and looked next at the address: "Western District Refuge, 
Milburn Road." 
"A lady connected with a Refuge?" she said, speaking to herself; "and calling 
here by appointment--if I remember the servant's message? A strange time to 
choose, if she has come for a subscription!" 
She paused. Her brow contracted; her face hardened. A word from her would now 
have brought the interview to its inevitable end, and she refused to speak the 
word. To the last moment she persisted in ignoring the truth! Placing the card 
on the couch at her side, she pointed with her long yellow-white forefinger to 
the printed letter lying side by side with her own letter on Mercy's lap. 
"Do you mean to read it, or not?" she asked. 
Mercy lifted her eyes, fast filling with tears, to Lady Janet's face. 
"May I beg that your ladyship will read it for me?" she said--and placed the 
matron's letter in Lady Janet's hand. 
It was a printed circular announcing a new development in the charitable work of 
the Refuge. Subscribers were informed that it had been decided to extend the 
shelter and the training of the institution (thus far devoted to fallen women 
alone) so as to include destitute and helpless children found wandering in the 
streets. The question of the number of children to be thus rescued and protected 
was left dependent, as a matter of course, on the bounty of the friends of the 
Refuge, the cost of the maintenance of each child being stated at the lowest 
possible rate. A list of influential persons who had increased their 
subscriptions so as to cover the cost, and a brief statement of the progress 
already made with the new work, completed the appeal, and brought the circular 
to its end. 
The lines traced in pencil (in the matron's handwriting) followed on the blank 
page. 
"Your letter tells me, my dear, that you would like--remembering your own 
childhood--to be employed when you return among us in saving other poor children 
left helpless on the world. Our circular will inform you that I am able to meet 
your wishes. My first errand this evening in your neighborhood was to take 
charge of a poor child--a little girl--who stands sadly in need of our care. I 
have ventured to bring her with me, thinking she might help to reconcile you to 
the coming change in your life. You will find us both waiting to go back with 
you to the old home. I write this instead of saying it, hearing from the servant 
that you are not alone, and being unwilling to intrude myself, as a stranger, on 
the lady of the house." 
Lady Janet read the penciled lines, as she had read the printed sentences, 
aloud. Without a word of comment she laid the letter where she had laid the 
card; and, rising from her seat, stood for a moment in stern silence, looking at 
Mercy. The sudden change in her which the letter had produced--quietly as it had 
taken place--was terrible to see. On the frowning brow, in the flashing eyes, on 
the hardened lips, outraged love and outraged pride looked down on the lost 
woman, and said, as if in words, You have roused us at last. 
"If that letter means anything," she said, "it means you are about to leave my 
house. There can be but one reason for your taking such a step as that." 
"It is the only atonement I can make, madam" 
"I see another letter on your lap. Is it my letter?" 
"Yes." 
"Have you read it?" 
"I have read it." 
"Have you seen Horace Holmcroft?" 
"Yes." 
"Have you told Horace Holmcroft--" 
"Oh, Lady Janet--" 
"Don't interrupt me. Have you told Horace Holmcroft what my letter positively 
forbade you to communicate, either to him or to any living creature? I want no 
protestations and excuses. Answer me instantly, and answer in one word--Yes, or 
No." 
Not even that haughty language, not even those pitiless tones, could extinguish 
in Mercy's heart the sacred memories of past kindness and past love. She fell on 
her knees--her outstretched hands touched Lady Janet's dress. Lady Janet sharply 
drew her dress away, and sternly repeated her last words. 
"Yes? or No?" 
"Yes." 
She had owned it at last! To this end Lady Janet had submitted to Grace 
Roseberry; had offended Horace Holmcroft; had stooped, for the first time in her 
life, to concealments and compromises that degraded her. After all that she had 
sacrificed and suffered, there Mercy knelt at her feet, self-convicted of 
violating her commands, trampling on her feelings, deserting her house! And who 
was the woman who had done this? The same woman who had perpetrated the fraud, 
and who had persisted in the fraud until her benefactress had descended to 
become her accomplice. Then, and then only, she had suddenly discovered that it 
was her sacred duty to tell the truth! 
In proud silence the great lady met the blow that had fallen on her. In proud 
silence she turned her back on her adopted daughter and walked to the door. 
Mercy made her last appeal to the kind friend whom she had offended--to the 
second mother whom she had loved. 
"Lady Janet! Lady Janet! Don't leave me without a word. Oh, madam, try to feel 
for me a little! I am returning to a life of humiliation--the shadow of my old 
disgrace is falling on me once more. We shall never meet again. Even though I 
have not deserved it, let my repentance plead with you! Say you forgive me!" 
Lady Janet turned round on the threshold of the door. 
"I never forgive ingratitude," she said. "Go back to the Refuge." 
The door opened and closed on her. Mercy was alone again in the room. 
Unforgiven by Horace, unforgiven by Lady Janet! She put her hands to her burning 
head and tried to think. Oh, for the cool air of the night! Oh, for the friendly 
shelter of the Refuge! She could feel those sad longings in her: it was 
impossible to think. 
She rang the bell--and shrank back the instant she had done it. Had she any 
right to take that liberty? She ought to have thought of it before she rang. 
Habit--all habit. How many hundreds of times she had rung the bell at 
Mablethorpe House! 
The servant came in. She amazed the man-- she spoke to him so timidly: she even 
apologized for troubling him! 
"I am sorry to disturb you. Will you be so kind as to say to the lady that I am 
ready for her?" 
"Wait to give that message," said a voice behind them, "until you hear the bell 
rung again." 
Mercy looked round in amazement. Julian had returned to the library by the 
dining-room door. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE LAST TRIAL.
THE servant left them together. Mercy spoke first. 
"Mr. Gray!" she exclaimed, "why have you delayed my message? If you knew all, 
you would know that it is far from being a kindness to me to keep me in this 
house." 
He advanced closer to her--surprised by her words, alarmed by her looks. 
"Has any one been here in my absence?" he asked. 
"Lady Janet has been here in your absence. I can't speak of it--my heart feels 
crushed--I can bear no more. Let me go!" 
Briefly as she had replied, she had said enough. Julian's knowledge of Lady 
Janet's character told him what had happened. His face showed plainly that he 
was disappointed as well as distressed. 
"I had hoped to have been with you when you and my aunt met, and to have 
prevented this," he said. "Believe me, she will atone for all that she may have 
harshly and hastily done when she has had time to think. Try not to regret it, 
if she has made your hard sacrifice harder still. She has only raised you the 
higher--she has additionally ennobled you and endeared you in my estimation. 
Forgive me if I own this in plain words. I cannot control myself--I feel too 
strongly." 
At other times Mercy might have heard the coming avowal in his tones, might have 
discovered it in his eyes. As it was, her delicate insight was dulled, her fine 
perception was blunted. She held out her hand to him, feeling a vague conviction 
that he was kinder to her than ever--and feeling no more. 
"I must thank you for the last time," she said. "As long as life is left, my 
gratitude will be a part of my life. Let me go. While I can still control 
myself, let me go!" 
She tried to leave him, and ring the bell. He held her hand firmly, and drew her 
closer to him. 
"To the Refuge?" he asked. 
"Yes," she said. "Home again!" 
"Don't say that!" he exclaimed. "I can't bear to hear it. Don't call the Refuge 
your home!" 
"What else is it? Where else can I go?" 
"I have come here to tell you. I said, if you remember, I had something to 
propose." 
She felt the fervent pressure of his hand; she saw the mounting enthusiasm 
flashing in his eyes. Her weary mind roused itself a little. She began to 
tremble under the electric influence of his touch. 
"Something to propose?" she repeated, "What is there to propose?" 
"Let me ask you a question on my side. What have you done to-day?" 
"You know what I have done: it is your work," she answered, humbly. "Why return 
to it now?" 
"I return to it for the last time; I return to it with a purpose which you will 
soon understand. You have abandoned your marriage engagement; you have forfeited 
Lady Janet's love; you have ruined all your worldly prospects; you are now 
returning, self-devoted, to a life which you have yourself described as a life 
without hope. And all this you have done of your own free-will--at a time when 
you are absolutely secure of your position in the house--for the sake of 
speaking the truth. Now tell me, is a woman who can make that sacrifice a woman 
who will prove unworthy of the trust if a man places in her keeping his honor 
and his name?" 
She understood him at last. She broke away from him with a cry. She stood with 
her hands clasped, trembling and looking at him. 
He gave her no time to think. The words poured from his lips without conscious 
will or conscious effort of his own. 
"Mercy, from the first moment when I saw you I loved you! You are free; I may 
own it; I may ask you to be my wife!" 
She drew back from him further and further, with a wild imploring gesture of her 
hand. 
"No! no!" she cried. "Think of what you are saying! think of what you would 
sacrifice! It cannot, must not be." 
His face darkened with a sudden dread. His head fell on his breast. His voice 
sank so low that she could barely hear it. 
"I had forgotten something," he said. "You've reminded me of it." 
She ventured back a little nearer to him. "Have I offended you?" 
He smiled sadly. "You have enlightened me. I had forgotten that it doesn't 
follow, because I love you, that you should love me in return. Say that it is 
so, Mercy, and I leave you." 
A faint tinge of color rose on her face--then left it again paler than ever. Her 
eyes looked downward timidly under the eager gaze that he fastened on her. 
"How can I say so?" she answered, simply. Where is the woman in my place whose 
heart could resist you?" 
He eagerly advanced; he held out his arms to her in breathless, speechless joy. 
She drew back from him once more with a look that horrified him--a look of blank 
despair. 
"Am I fit to be your wife?" she asked. "Must I remind you of what you owe to 
your high position, your spotless integrity, your famous name? Think of all that 
you have done for me, and then think of the black ingratitude of it if I ruin 
you for life by consenting to our marriage--if I selfishly, cruelly, wickedly, 
drag you down to the level of a woman like me!" 
"I raise you to my level when I make you my wife," he answered. "For Heaven's 
sake do me justice! Don't refer me to the world and its opinions. It rests with 
you, and you alone, to make the misery or the happiness of my life. The world! 
Good God! what can the world give me in exchange for You?' 
She clasped her hands imploringly; the tears flowed fast over her cheeks. 
"Oh, have pity on my weakness!" she cried. "Kindest, best of men, help me to do 
my hard duty toward you! It is so hard, after all that I have suffered--when my 
heart is yearning for peace and happiness and love!" She checked herself, 
shuddering at the words that had escaped her. "Remember how Mr. Holmcroft has 
used me! Remember how Lady Janet has left me! Remember what I have told you of 
my life! The scorn of every creature you know would strike at you through me. 
No! no! no! Not a word more. Spare me! pity me! leave me!" 
Her voice failed her; sobs choked her utterance. He sprang to her and took her 
in his arms. She was incapable of resisting him; but there was no yielding in 
her. Her head lay on his bosom, passive--horribly passive, like the head of a 
corpse. 
"Mercy! My darling! We will go away--we will leave England--we will take refuge 
among new people in a new world--I will change my name--I will break with 
relatives, friends, everybody. Anything, anything, rather than lose you!" 
She lifted her head slowly and looked at him. 
He suddenly released her; he reeled back like a man staggered by a blow, and 
dropped into a chair. Before she had uttered a word he saw the terrible 
resolution in her face--Death, rather than yield to her own weakness and 
disgrace him. 
She stood with her hands lightly clasped in front of her. Her grand head was 
raised; her soft gray eyes shone again undimmed by tears. The storm of emotion 
had swept over her and had passed away A sad tranquillity was in her face; a 
gentle resignation was in her voice. The calm of a martyr was the calm that 
confronted him as she spoke her last words. 
"A woman who has lived my life, a woman who has suffered what I have suffered, 
may love you--as I love you--but she must not be your wife. That place is too 
high above her. Any other place is too far below her and below you." She paused, 
and advancing to the bell, gave the signal for her departure. That done, she 
slowly retraced her steps until she stood at Julian's side. 
Tenderly she lifted his head and laid it for a moment on her bosom. Silently she 
stooped and touched his forehead with her lips. All the gratitude that filled 
her heart and all the sacrifice that rent it were in those two actions--so 
modestly, so tenderly performed! As the last lingering pressure of her fingers 
left him, Julian burst into tears. 
The servant answered the bell. At the moment he opened the door a woman's voice 
was audible in the hall speaking to him. 
"Let the child go in," the voice said. "I will wait here." 
The child appeared--the same forlorn little creature who had reminded Mercy of 
her own early years on the day when she and Horace Holmcroft had been out for 
their walk. 
There was no beauty in this child; no halo of romance brightened the commonplace 
horror of her story. She came cringing into the room, staring stupidly at the 
magnificence all round her--the daughter of the London streets! the pet creation 
of the laws of political economy! the savage and terrible product of a worn-out 
system of government and of a civilization rotten to its core! Cleaned for the 
first time in her life, fed sufficiently for the first time in her life, dressed 
in clothes instead of rags for the first time in her life, Mercy's sister in 
adversity crept fearfully over the beautiful carpet, and stopped wonder-struck 
before the marbles of an inlaid table--a blot of mud on the splendor of the 
room. 
Mercy turned from Julian to meet the child. The woman's heart, hungering in its 
horrible isolation for something that it might harmlessly love, welcomed the 
rescued waif of the streets as a consolation sent from God. She caught the 
stupefied little creature up in her arms. "Kiss me!" she whispered, in the 
reckless agony of the moment. "Call me sister!" The child stared, vacantly. 
Sister meant nothing to her mind but an older girl who was strong enough to beat 
her. 
She put the child down again, and turned for a last look at the man whose 
happiness she had wrecked-- in pity to him. 
He had never moved. His head was down; his face was hidden. She went back to him 
a few steps. 
"The others have gone from me without one kind word. Can you forgive me?" 
He held out his hand to her without looking up. Sorely as she had wounded him, 
his generous nature understood her. True to her from the first, he was true to 
her still. 
"God bless and comfort you," he said, in broken tones. "The earth holds no 
nobler woman than you." 
She knelt and kissed the kind hand that pressed hers for the last time. "It 
doesn't end with this world," she whispered: "there is a better world to come!" 
Then she rose, and went back to the child. Hand in hand the two citizens of the 
Government of God--outcasts of the government of Man--passed slowly down the 
length of the room. Then out into the hall. Then out into the night. The heavy 
clang of the closing door tolled the knell of their departure. They were gone. 
But the orderly routine of the house--inexorable as death--pursued its appointed 
course. As the clock struck the hour the dinner-bell rang. An interval of a 
minute passed, and marked the limit of delay. The butler appeared at the 
dining-room door. 
"Dinner is served, sir." 
Julian looked up. The empty room met his eyes. Something white lay on the carpet 
close by him. It was her handkerchief--wet with her tears. He took it up and 
pressed it to his lips. Was that to be the last of her? Had she left him 
forever? 
The native energy of the man, arming itself with all the might of his love, 
kindled in him again. No! While life was in him, while time was before him, 
there was the hope of winning her yet! 
He turned to the servant, reckless of what his face might betray. 
"Where is Lady Janet?" 
"In the dining-room, sir." 
He reflected for a moment. His own influence had failed. Through what other 
influence could he now hope to reach her? As the question crossed his mind the 
light broke on him. He saw the way back to her--through the influence of Lady 
Janet. 
"Her ladyship is waiting, sir." 
Julian entered the dining-room. 



EPILOGUE:
CONTAINING SELECTIONS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY AND MR. 
HORACE HOLMCROFT; TO WHICH ARE ADDED EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF THE REVEREND 
JULIAN GRAY. 
I.
From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY. 
"I HASTEN to thank you, dear Miss Roseberry, for your last kind letter, received 
by yesterday's mail from Canada. Believe me, I appreciate your generous 
readiness to pardon and forget what I so rudely said to you at a time when the 
arts of an adventuress had blinded me to the truth. In the grace which has 
forgiven me I recognize the inbred sense of justice of a true lady. Birth and 
breeding can never fail to assert themselves: I believe in them, thank God, more 
firmly than ever. 
"You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of Julian Gray's infatuation, 
and of the course of conduct pursued toward him by Mercy Merrick. 
"If you had not favored me by explaining your object, I might have felt some 
surprise at receiving from a lady in your position such a request as this. But 
the motives by which you describe yourself as being actuated are beyond dispute. 
The existence of Society, as you truly say, is threatened by the present 
lamentable prevalence of Liberal ideas throughout the length and breadth of the 
land. We can only hope to protect ourselves against impostors interested in 
gaining a position among persons of our rank by becoming in some sort 
(unpleasant as it may be) familiar with the arts by which imposture too 
frequently succeeds. If we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can go, 
to what pitiable self-delusion credulity can consent, we must watch the 
proceedings--even while we shrink from them--of a Mercy Merrick and a Julian 
Gray. 
"In taking up my narrative again where my last letter left off, I must venture 
to set you right on one point. 
"Certain expressions which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you blame 
Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet's regrettable visit to the Refuge the day 
after Mercy Merrick had left her house. This is not quite correct. Julian, as 
you will presently see, has enough to answer for without being held responsible 
for errors of judgment in which he has had no share. Lady Janet (as she herself 
told me) went to the Refuge of her own free-will to ask Mercy Merrick's pardon 
for the language which she had used on the previous day. 'I passed a night of 
such misery as no words can describe'--this, I assure you, is what her ladyship 
really said to me--'thinking over what my vile pride and selfishness and 
obstinacy had made me say and do. I would have gone down on my knees to beg her 
pardon if she would have let me. My first happy moment was when I won her 
consent to come and visit me sometimes at Mablethorpe House.' 
"You will, I am sure, agree with me that such extravagance as this is to be 
pitied rather than blamed. How sad to see the decay of the faculties with 
advancing age! It is a matter of grave anxiety to consider how much longer poor 
Lady Janet can be trusted to manage her own affairs. I shall take an opportunity 
of touching on the matter delicately when I next see her lawyer. 
"I am straying from my subject. And--is it not strange?--I am writing to you as 
confidentially as if we were old friends 
"To return to Julian Gray. Innocent of instigating his aunt's first visit to the 
Refuge, he is guilty of having induced her to go there for the second time the 
day after I had dispatched my last letter to you. Lady Janet's object on this 
occasion was neither more nor less than to plead her nephew's cause as humble 
suitor for the hand of Mercy Merrick. Imagine the descent of one of the oldest 
families in England inviting an adventuress in a Refuge to honor a clergyman of 
the Church of England by becoming his wife! In what times do we live! My dear 
mother shed tears of shame when she heard of it. How you would love and admire 
my mother! 
"I dined at Mablethorpe House, by previous appointment, on the day when Lady 
Janet returned from her degrading errand. 
"'Well?' I said, waiting, of course, until the servant was out of the room. 
"'Well,' Lady Janet answered, 'Julian was quite right.' 
"'Quite right in what?' 
"'In saying that the earth holds no nobler woman than Mercy Merrick.' 
"'Has she refused him again?' 
"'She has refused him again.' 
"'Thank God!' I felt it fervently, and I said it fervently. Lady Janet laid down 
her knife and fork, and fixed one of her fierce looks on me. 
"'It may not be your fault, Horace,' she said, 'if your nature is incapable of 
comprehending what is great and generous in other natures higher than yours. But 
the least you can do is to distrust your own capacity of appreciation. For the 
future keep your opinions (on questions which you don't understand) modestly to 
yourself. I have a tenderness for you for your father's sake; and I take the 
most favorable view of your conduct toward Mercy Merrick. I humanely consider it 
the conduct of a fool.' (Her own words, Miss Roseberry. I assure you once more, 
her own words.) 'But don't trespass too far on my indulgence--don't insinuate 
again that a woman who is good enough (if she died this night) to go to heaven, 
is not good enough to be my nephew's wife.' 
"I expressed to you my conviction a little way back that it was doubtful whether 
poor Lady Janet would be much longer competent to manage her own affairs. 
Perhaps you thought me hasty then? What do you think now? 
"It was, of course, useless to reply seriously to the extraordinary reprimand 
that I had received. Besides, I was really shocked by a decay of principle which 
proceeded but too plainly from decay of the mental powers. I made a soothing and 
respectful reply, and I was favored in return with some account of what had 
really happened at the Refuge. My mother and my sisters were disgusted when I 
repeated the particulars to them. You will be disgusted too. 
"The interesting penitent (expecting Lady Janet's visit) was, of course, 
discovered in a touching domestic position! She had a foundling baby asleep on 
her lap; and she was teaching the alphabet to an ugly little vagabond girl whose 
acquaintance she had first made in the street. Just the sort of artful tableau 
vivant to impose on an old lady--was it not? 
"You will understand what followed, when Lady Janet opened her matrimonial 
negotiation. Having perfected herself in her part, Mercy Merrick, to do her 
justice, was not the woman to play it badly. The most magnanimous sentiments 
flowed from her lips. She declared that her future life was devoted to acts of 
charity, typified, of course, by the foundling infant and the ugly little girl. 
However she might personally suffer, whatever might be the sacrifice of her own 
feelings--observe how artfully this was put, to insinuate that she was herself 
in love with him!--she could not accept from Mr. Julian Gray an honor of which 
she was unworthy. Her gratitude to him and her interest in him alike forbade her 
to compromise his brilliant future by consenting to a marriage which would 
degrade him in the estimation of all his friends. She thanked him (with tears); 
she thanked Lady Janet (with more tears); but she dare not, in the interests of 
his honor and his happiness, accept the hand that he offered to her. God bless 
and comfort him; and God help her to bear with her hard lot! 
"The object of this contemptible comedy is plain enough to my mind. She is 
simply holding off (Julian, as you know, is a poor man) until the influence of 
Lady Janet's persuasion is backed by the opening of Lady Janet's purse. In one 
word--Settlements! But for the profanity of the woman's language, and the really 
lamentable credulity of the poor old lady, the whole thing would make a fit 
subject for a burlesque. 
"But the saddest part of the story is still to come. 
"In due course of time the lady's decision was communicated to Julian Gray. He 
took leave of his senses on the spot. Can you believe it?-- he has resigned his 
curacy! At a time when the church is thronged every Sunday to hear him preach, 
this madman shuts the door and walks out of the pulpit. Even Lady Janet was not 
far enough gone in folly to abet him in this. She remonstrated, like the rest of 
his friends. Perfectly useless! He had but one answer to everything they could 
say: 'My career is closed.' What stuff! 
"You will ask, naturally enough, what this perverse man is going to do next. I 
don't scruple to say that he is bent on committing suicide. Pray do not be 
alarmed! There is no fear of the pistol, the rope, or the river. Julian is 
simply courting death--within the limits of the law. 
"This is strong language, I know. You shall hear what the facts are, and judge 
for yourself. 
"Having resigned his curacy, his next proceeding was to offer his services, as 
volunteer, to a new missionary enterprise on the West Coast of Africa. The 
persons at the head of the mission proved, most fortunately, to have a proper 
sense of their duty. Expressing their conviction of the value of Julian's 
assistance in the most handsome terms, they made it nevertheless a condition of 
entertaining his proposal that he should submit to examination by a competent 
medical man. After some hesitation he consented to this. The doctor's report was 
conclusive. In Julian's present state of health the climate of West Africa would 
in all probability kill him in three months' time. 
"Foiled in his first attempt, he addressed himself next to a London Mission. 
Here it was impossible to raise the question of climate, and here, I grieve to 
say, he has succeeded. 
"He is now working--in other words, he is now deliberately risking his life--in 
the Mission to Green Anchor Fields. The district known by this name is situated 
in a remote part of London, near the Thames. It is notoriously infested by the 
most desperate and degraded set of wretches in the whole metropolitan 
population, and it is so thickly inhabited that it is hardly ever completely 
free from epidemic disease. In this horrible place, and among these dangerous 
people, Julian is now employing himself from morning to night. None of his old 
friends ever see him. Since he joined the Mission he has not even called on Lady 
Janet Roy. 
"My pledge is redeemed--the facts are before you. Am I wrong in taking my gloomy 
view of the prospect? I cannot forget that this unhappy man was once my friend, 
and I really see no hope for him in the future. Deliberately self-exposed to the 
violence of ruffians and the outbreak of disease, who is to extricate him from 
his shocking position? The one person who can do it is the person whose 
association with him would be his ruin--Mercy Merrick. Heaven only knows what 
disasters it may be my painful duty to communicate to you in my next letter! 
"You are so kind as to ask me to tell you something about myself and my plans. 
"I have very little to say on either head. After what I have suffered--my 
feelings trampled on, my confidence betrayed--I am as yet hardly capable of 
deciding what I shall do. Returning to my old profession--to the army--is out of 
the question, in these leveling days, when any obscure person who can pass an 
examination may call himself my brother officer, and may one day, perhaps, 
command me as my superior in rank. If I think of any career, it is the career of 
diplomacy. Birth and breeding have not quite disappeared as essential 
qualifications in that branch of the public service. But I have decided nothing 
as yet. 
"My mother and sisters, in the event of your returning to England, desire me to 
say that it will afford them the greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance. 
Sympathizing with me, they do not forget what you too have suffered. A warm 
welcome awaits you when you pay your first visit at our house. Most truly yours, 

"HORACE HOLMCROFT." 
II.
From MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY to MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT. 
"DEAR MR. HOLMCROFT--I snatch a few moments from my other avocations to thank 
you for your most interesting and delightful letter. How well you describe, how 
accurately you judge! If Literature stood a little higher as a profession, I 
should almost advise you--but no! if you entered Literature, how could you 
associate with the people whom you would be likely to meet? 
"Between ourselves, I always thought Mr. Julian Gray an overrated man. I will 
not say he has justified my opinion. I will only say I pity him. But, dear Mr. 
Holmcroft, how can you, with your sound judgment, place the sad alternatives now 
before him on the same level? To die in Green Anchor Fields, or to fall into the 
clutches of that vile wretch--is there any comparison between the two? Better a 
thousand times die at the post of duty than marry Mercy Merrick. 
"As I have written the creature's name, I may add--so as to have all the sooner 
done with the subject--that I shall look with anxiety for your next letter. Do 
not suppose that I feel the smallest curiosity about this degraded and designing 
woman. My interest in her is purely religious. To persons of my devout turn of 
mind she is an awful warning. When I feel Satan near me--it will be such a means 
of grace to think of Mercy Merrick! 
"Poor Lady Janet! I noticed those signs of mental decay to which you so 
feelingly allude at the last interview I had with her in Mablethorpe House. If 
you can find an opportunity, will you say that I wish her well, here and 
hereafter? and will you please add that I do not omit to remember her in my 
prayers? 
"There is just a chance of my visiting England toward the close of the autumn. 
My fortunes have changed since I wrote last. I have been received as reader and 
companion by a lady who is the wife of one of our high judicial functionaries in 
this part of the world. I do not take much interest in him; he is what they call 
a 'self-made man.' His wife is charming. Besides being a person of highly 
intellectual tastes, she is greatly her husband's superior--as you will 
understand when I tell you that she is related to the Gommerys of Pommery; not 
the Pommerys of Gommery, who (as your knowledge of our old families will inform 
you) only claim kindred with the younger branch of that ancient race. 
"In the elegant and improving companionship which I now enjoy I should feel 
quite happy but for one drawback. The climate of Canada is not favorable to my 
kind patroness, and her medical advisers recommend her to winter in London. In 
this event, I am to have the privilege of accompanying her. Is it necessary to 
add that my first visit will be paid at your house? I feel already united by 
sympathy to your mother and your sisters. There is a sort of freemasonry among 
gentlewomen, is there not? With best thanks and remembrances, and many 
delightful anticipations of your next letter, believe me, dear Mr. Holmcroft, 
"Truly yours, GRACE ROSEBERRY." 
III.
From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY. 
"MY DEAR MISS ROSEBERRY--Pray excuse my long silence. I have waited for mail 
after mail, in the hope of being able to send you some good news at last. It is 
useless to wait longer. My worst forebodings have been realized: my painful duty 
compels me to write a letter which will surprise and shock you. 
"Let me describe events in their order as they happened. In this way I may hope 
to gradually prepare your mind for what is to come. 
"About three weeks after I wrote to you last, Julian Gray paid the penalty of 
his headlong rashness. I do not mean that he suffered any actual violence at the 
hands of the people among whom he had cast his lot. On the contrary, he 
succeeded, incredible as it may appear, in producing a favorable impression on 
the ruffians about him. As I understand it, they began by respecting his courage 
in venturing among them alone; and they ended in discovering that he was really 
interested in promoting their welfare. It is to the other peril, indicated in my 
last letter, that he has fallen a victim--the peril of disease. Not long after 
he began his labors in the district fever broke out. We only heard that Julian 
had been struck down by the epidemic when it was too late to remove him from the 
lodging that he occupied in the neighborhood. I made inquiries personally the 
moment the news reached us. The doctor in attendance refused to answer for his 
life. 
"In this alarming state of things poor Lady Janet, impulsive and unreasonable as 
usual, insisted on leaving Mablethorpe House and taking up her residence near 
her nephew. 
"Finding it impossible to persuade her of the folly of removing from home and 
its comforts at her age, I felt it my duty to accompany her. We found 
accommodation (such as it was) in a river-side inn, used by ship-captains and 
commercial travelers. I took it on myself to provide the best medical 
assistance, Lady Janet's insane prejudices against doctors impelling her to 
leave this important part of the arrangements entirely in my hands. 
"It is needless to weary you by entering into details on the subject of Julian's 
illness. 
"The fever pursued the ordinary course, and was characterized by the usual 
intervals of delirium and exhaustion succeeding each other. Subsequent events, 
which it is, unfortunately, necessary to relate to you, leave me no choice but 
to dwell (as briefly as possible) on the painful subject of the delirium. In 
other cases the wanderings of fever-stricken people present, I am told, a 
certain variety of range. In Julian's case they were limited to one topic. He 
talked incessantly of Mercy Merrick. His invariable petition to his medical 
attendants entreated them to send for her to nurse him. Day and night that one 
idea was in his mind, and that one name on his lips. 
"The doctors naturally made inquiries as to this absent person. I was obliged 
(in confidence) to state the circumstances to them plainly. 
"The eminent physician whom I had called in to superintend the treatment behaved 
admirably. Though he has risen from the lower order of the people, he has, 
strange to say, the instincts of a gentleman. He thoroughly understood our 
trying position, and felt all the importance of preventing such a person as 
Mercy Merrick from seizing the opportunity of intruding herself at the bedside. 
A soothing prescription (I have his own authority for saying it) was all that 
was required to meet the patient's case. The local doctor, on the other hand, a 
young man (and evidently a red-hot radical), proved to be obstinate, and, 
considering his position, insolent as well. 'I have nothing to do with the 
lady's character, and with your opinion of it,' he said to me. 'I have only, to 
the best of my judgment, to point out to you the likeliest means of saving the 
patient's life. Our art is at the end of its resources. Send for Mercy Merrick, 
no matter who she is or what she is. There is just a chance--especially if she 
proves to be a sensible person and a good nurse--that he may astonish you all by 
recognizing her. In that case only, his recovery is probable. If you persist in 
disregarding his entreaties, if you let the delirium go on for four-and-twenty 
hours more, he is a dead man.' 
"Lady Janet was, most unluckily, present when this impudent opinion was 
delivered at the bedside. 
"Need I tell you the sequel? Called upon to choose between the course indicated 
by a physician who is making his five thousand a year, and who is certain of the 
next medical baronetcy, and the advice volunteered by an obscure general 
practitioner at the East End of London, who is not making his five hundred a 
year--need I stop to inform you of her ladyship's decision? You know her; and 
you will only too well understand that her next proceeding was to pay a third 
visit to the Refuge. 
"Two hours later--I give you my word of honor I am not exaggerating--Mercy 
Merrick was established at Julian's bedside. 
"The excuse, of course, was that it was her duty not to let any private scruples 
of her own stand in the way, when a medical authority had declared that she 
might save the patient's life. You will not be surprised to hear that I withdrew 
from the scene. The physician followed my example--after having written his 
soothing prescription, and having been grossly insulted by the local 
practitioner's refusing to make use of it. I went back in the doctor's carriage. 
He spoke most feelingly and properly. Without giving any positive opinion, I 
could see that he had abandoned all hope of Julian's recovery. 'We are in the 
hands of Providence, Mr. Holmcroft;' those were his last words as he set me down 
at my mother's door. 
"I have hardly the heart to go on. If I studied my own wishes, I should feel 
inclined to stop here. 
"Let me, at least, hasten to the end. In two or three days' time I received my 
first intelligence of the patient and his nurse. Lady Janet informed me that he 
had recognized her. When I heard this I felt prepared for what was to come. The 
next report announced that he was gaining strength, and the next that he was out 
of danger. Upon this Lady Janet returned to Mablethorpe House. I called there a 
week ago--and heard that he had been removed to the sea-side. I called 
yesterday--and received the latest information from her ladyship's own lips. My 
pen almost refuses to write it. Mercy Merrick has consented to marry him! 
"An outrage on Society--that is how my mother and my sisters view it; that is 
how you will view it too. My mother has herself the better few among the sex. I 
feel that my mother and my sisters are doubly precious to me now. May I add, on 
the side of consolation, that I prize with hardly inferior gratitude the 
privilege of corresponding with you? 
"Farewell for the present. I am too rudely shaken in my most cherished 
convictions, I am too depressed and disheartened, to write more. All good wishes 
go with you, dear Miss Roseberry, until we meet. 
"Most truly yours, HORACE HOLMCROFT." 
IV.
Extracts from the DIARY of THE REVEREND JULIAN GRAY. 
FIRST EXTRACT.
. . . ."A month to-day since we were married! I have only one thing to say: I 
would cheerfully go through all that I have suffered to live this one month over 
again. I never knew what happiness was until now. And better still, I have 
persuaded Mercy that it is all her doing. I have scattered her misgivings to the 
winds; she is obliged to submit to evidence, and to own that she can make the 
happiness of my life. 
"We go back to London to-morrow. She regrets leaving the tranquil retirement of 
this remote sea-side place--she dreads change. I care nothing for it. It is all 
one to me where I go, so long as my wife is with me." 
SECOND EXTRACT.
"The first cloud has risen. I entered the room unexpectedly just now, and found 
her in tears. 
"With considerable difficulty I persuaded her to tell me what had happened. Are 
there any limits to the mischief that can be done by the tongue of a foolish 
woman? The landlady at my lodgings is the woman, in this case. Having no decided 
plans for the future as yet, we returned (most unfortunately, as the event has 
proved) to the rooms in London which I inhabited in my bachelor days. They are 
still mine for six weeks to come, and Mercy was unwilling to let me incur the 
expense of taking her to a hotel. At breakfast this morning I rashly 
congratulated myself (in my wife's hearing) on finding that a much smaller 
collection than usual of letters and cards had accumulated in my absence. 
Breakfast over, I was obliged to go out. Painfully sensitive, poor thing, to any 
change in my experience of the little world around me which it is possible to 
connect with the event of my marriage, Mercy questioned the landlady, in my 
absence, about the diminished number of my visitors and my correspondents. The 
woman seized the opportunity of gossiping about me and my affairs, and my wife's 
quick perception drew the right conclusion unerringly. My marriage has decided 
certain wise heads of families on discontinuing their social relations with me. 
The facts, unfortunately, speak for themselves. People who in former years 
habitually called upon me and invited me--or who, in the event of my absence, 
habitually wrote to me at this season--have abstained with a remarkable 
unanimity from calling, inviting, or writing now. 
"It would have been sheer waste of time--to say nothing of its also implying a 
want of confidence in my wife--if I had attempted to set things right by 
disputing Mercy's conclusion. I could only satisfy her that not so much as the 
shadow of disappointment or mortification rested on my mind. In this way I have, 
to some extent, succeeded in composing my poor darling. But the wound has been 
inflicted, and the wound is felt. There is no disguising that result. I must 
face it boldly. 
"Trifling as this incident is in my estimation, it has decided me on one point 
already. In shaping my future course I am now resolved to act on my own 
convictions--in preference to taking the well-meant advice of such friends as 
are still left to me. 
"All my little success in life has been gained in the pulpit. I am what is 
termed a popular preacher--but I have never, in my secret self, felt any 
exultation in my own notoriety, or any extraordinary respect for the means by 
which it has been won. In the first place, I have a very low idea of the 
importance of oratory as an intellectual accomplishment. There is no other art 
in which the conditions of success are so easy of attainment; there is no other 
art in the practice of which so much that is purely superficial passes itself 
off habitually for something that claims to be profound. Then, again, how poor 
it is in the results which it achieves! Take my own case. How often (for 
example) have I thundered with all my heart and soul against the wicked 
extravagance of dress among women--against their filthy false hair and their 
nauseous powders and paints! How often (to take another example) have I 
denounced the mercenary and material spirit of the age--the habitual corruptions 
and dishonesties of commerce, in high places and in low! What good have I done? 
I have delighted the very people whom it was my object to rebuke. 'What a 
charming sermon!' 'More eloquent than ever!' 'I used to dread the sermon at the 
other church--do you know, I quite look forward to it now.' That is the effect I 
produce on Sunday. On Monday the women are off to the milliners to spend more 
money than ever; the city men are off to business to make more money than 
ever--while my grocer, loud in my praises in his Sunday coat, turns up his 
week-day sleeves and adulterates his favorite preacher's sugar as cheerfully as 
usual! 
"I have often, in past years, felt the objections to pursuing my career which 
are here indicated. They were bitterly present to my mind when I resigned my 
curacy, and they strongly influence me now. 
"I am weary of my cheaply won success in the pulpit. I am weary of society as I 
find it in my time. I felt some respect for myself, and some heart and hope in 
my works among the miserable wretches in Green Anchor Fields. But I can not, and 
must not, return among them: I have no right, now, to trifle with my health and 
my life. I must go back to my preaching, or I must leave England. Among a 
primitive people, away from the cities--in the far and fertile West of the great 
American continent--I might live happily with my wife, and do good among my 
neighbors, secure of providing for our wants out of the modest little income 
which is almost useless to me here. In the life which I thus picture to myself I 
see love, peace, health, and duties and occupations that are worthy of a 
Christian man. What prospect is before me if I take the advice of my friends and 
stay here? Work of which I am weary, because I have long since ceased to respect 
it; petty malice that strikes at me through my wife, and mortifies and 
humiliates her, turn where she may. If I had only myself to think of, I might 
defy the worst that malice can do. But I have Mercy to think of--Mercy, whom I 
love better than my own life! Women live, poor things, in the opinions of 
others. I have had one warning already of what my wife is likely to suffer at 
the hands of my 'friends'--Heaven forgive me for misusing the word! Shall I 
deliberately expose her to fresh mortifications?--and this for the sake of 
returning to a career the rewards of which I no longer prize? No! We will both 
be happy--we will both be free! God is merciful, Nature is kind, Love is true, 
in the New World as well as the Old. To the New World we will go!" 
THIRD EXTRACT.
"I hardly know whether I have done right or wrong. I mentioned yesterday to Lady 
Janet the cold reception of me on my return to London, and the painful sense of 
it felt by my wife. 
"My aunt looks at the matter from her own peculiar point of view, and makes 
light of it accordingly. 'You never did, and never will, understand Society, 
Julian,' said her ladyship. 'These poor stupid people simply don't know what to 
do. They are waiting to be told by a person of distinction whether they are, or 
are not, to recognize your marriage. In plain English, they are waiting to be 
led by Me. Consider it done. I will lead them.' 
"I thought my aunt was joking. The event of to-day has shown me that she is 
terribly in earnest. Lady Janet has issued invitations for one of her grand 
balls at Mablethorpe House; and she has caused the report to be circulated 
everywhere that the object of the festival is 'to celebrate the marriage of Mr. 
and Mrs. Julian Gray!' 
"I at first refused to be present. To my amazement, however, Mercy sides with my 
aunt. She reminds me of all that we both owe to Lady Janet; and she has 
persuaded me to alter my mind. We are to go to the ball--at my wife express 
request! 
"The meaning of this, as I interpret it, is that my poor love is still pursued 
in secret by the dread that my marriage has injured me in the general 
estimation. She will suffer anything, risk anything, believe anything, to be 
freed from that one haunting doubt. Lady Janet predicts a social triumph; and my 
wife's despair--not my wife's conviction--accepts the prophecy. As for me, I am 
prepared for the result. It will end in our going to the New World, and trying 
Society in its infancy, among the forests and the plains. I shall quietly 
prepare for our departure, and own what I have done at the right time--that is 
to say, when the ball is over." 
FOURTH EXTRACT.
"I have met with the man for my purpose--an old college friend of mine, now 
partner in a firm of ship-owners, largely concerned in emigration. 
"One of their vessels sails for America, from the port of London, in a 
fortnight, touching at Plymouth. By a fortunate coincidence, Lady Janet's ball 
takes place in a fortnight. I see my way. 
"Helped by the kindness of my friend, I have arranged to have a cabin kept in 
reserve, on payment of a small deposit. If the ball ends (as I believe it will) 
in new mortifications for Mercy--do what they may, I defy them to mortify me--I 
have only to say the word by telegraph, and we shall catch the ship at Plymouth. 

"I know the effect it will have when I break the news to her, but I am prepared 
with my remedy. The pages of my diary, written in past years, will show plainly 
enough that it is not she who is driving me away from England. She will see the 
longing in me for other work and other scenes expressing itself over and over 
again long before the time when we first met." 
FIFTH EXTRACT.
"Mercy's ball dress--a present from kind Lady Janet--is finished. I was allowed 
to see the first trial, or preliminary rehearsal, of this work of art. I don't 
in the least understand the merits of silk and lace; but one thing I know--my 
wife will be the most beautiful woman at the ball. 
"The same day I called on Lady Janet to thank her, and encountered a new 
revelation of the wayward and original character of my dear old aunt. 
"She was on the point of tearing up a letter when I went into her room. Seeing 
me, she suspended her purpose and handed me the letter. It was in Mercy's 
handwriting. Lady Janet pointed to a passage on the last page. 'Tell your wife, 
with my love,' she said, 'that I am the most obstinate woman of the two. I 
positively refuse to read her, as I positively refuse to listen to her, whenever 
she attempts to return to that one subject. Now give me the letter back.' I gave 
it back, and saw it torn up before my face. The 'one subject' prohibited to 
Mercy as sternly as ever is still the subject of the personation of Grace 
Roseberry! Nothing could have been more naturally introduced, or more delicately 
managed, than my wife's brief reference to the subject. No matter. The reading 
of the first line was enough. Lady Janet shut her eyes and destroyed the 
letter--Lady Janet is determined to live and die absolutely ignorant of the true 
story of 'Mercy Merrick.' What unanswerable riddles we are! Is it wonderful if 
we perpetually fail to understand one another?" 
SIXTH EXTRACT.
"The morning after the ball. 
"It is done and over. Society has beaten Lady Janet. I have neither patience nor 
time to write at length of it. We leave for Plymouth by the afternoon express. 
"We were rather late in arriving at the ball. The magnificent rooms were filling 
fast. Walking through them with my wife, she drew my attention to a circumstance 
which I had not noticed at the time. 'Julian,' she said, 'look round among the 
ladies, and tell me if you see anything strange.' As I looked round the band 
began playing a waltz. I observed that a few people only passed by us to the 
dancing-room. I noticed next that of those few fewer still were young. At last 
it burst upon me. With certain exceptions (so rare as to prove the rule), there 
were no young girls at Lady Janet's ball. I took Mercy at once back to the 
reception-room. Lady Janet's face showed that she, too, was aware of what had 
happened. The guests were still arriving. We received the men and their wives, 
the men and their mothers, the men and their grandmothers--but, in place of 
their unmarried daughters, elaborate excuses, offered with a shameless 
politeness wonderful to see. Yes! This was how the matrons in high life had got 
over the difficulty of meeting Mrs. Julian Gray at Lady Janet's house. 
"Let me do strict justice to every one. The ladies who were present showed the 
needful respect for their hostess. They did their duty--no, overdid it, is 
perhaps the better phrase. 
"I really had no adequate idea of the coarseness and rudeness which have 
filtered their way through society in these later times until I saw the 
reception accorded to my wife. The days of prudery and prejudice are days gone 
by. Excessive amiability and excessive liberality are the two favorite 
assumptions of the modern generation. To see the women expressing their liberal 
forgetfulness of my wifely misfortunes, and the men their amiable anxiety to 
encourage her husband; to hear the same set phrases repeated in every room--'So 
charmed to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Gray; so much obliged to dear Lady Janet 
for giving us this opportunity!--Julian, old man, what a beautiful creature! I 
envy you; upon my honor, I envy you!'--to receive this sort of welcome, 
emphasized by obtrusive hand-shakings, sometimes actually by downright kissings 
of my wife, and then to look round and see that not one in thirty of these very 
people had brought their unmarried daughters to the ball, was, I honestly 
believe, to see civilized human nature in its basest conceivable aspect. The New 
World may have its disappointments in store for us, but it cannot possibly show 
us any spectacle so abject as the spectacle which we witnessed last night at my 
aunt's ball. 
"Lady Janet marked her sense of the proceeding adopted by her guests by leaving 
them to themselves. Her guests remained and supped heartily notwithstanding. 
They all knew by experience that there were no stale dishes and no cheap wines 
at Mablethorpe House. They drank to the end of the bottle, and they ate to the 
last truffle in the dish. 
"Mercy and I had an interview with my aunt upstairs before we left. I felt it 
necessary to state plainly my resolution to leave England. The scene that 
followed was so painful that I cannot prevail on myself to return to it in these 
pages. My wife is reconciled to our departure; and Lady Janet accompanies us as 
far as Plymouth--these are the results. No words can express my sense of relief, 
now that it is all settled. The one sorrow I shall carry away with me from the 
shores of England will be the sorrow of parting with dear, warm-hearted Lady 
Janet. At her age it is a parting for life. 
"So closes my connection with my own country. While I have Mercy by my side I 
face the unknown future, certain of carrying my happiness with me, go where I 
may. We shall find five hundred adventurers like ourselves when we join the 
emigrant ship, for whom their native land has no occupation and no home. 
Gentlemen of the Statistical Department, add two more to the number of social 
failures produced by England in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and 
seventy-one--Julian Gray and Mercy Merrick.