"You were here when I fainted, were you not?" Mercy began. "Youmust think me a sad coward, even for a woman."

He shook his head. "I am far from thinking that, "he replied. "Nocourage could have sustained the shock which fell on you. I don'twonder that you fainted. I don't wonder that you have been ill."

She paused in rolling up the ball of wool. What did those wordsof unexpected sympathy mean? Was he laying a trap for her? Urgedby that serious doubt, she questioned him more boldly.

"Horace tells me you have been abroad," she said. "Did you enjoyyour holiday?"

"It was no holiday. I went abroad because I thought it right tomake certain inquiries--" He stopped there, unwilling to returnto a subject that was painful to her.

Her v oice sank, her fingers trembled round the ball of wool; butshe 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. Insheer 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 terriblyfrightened 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 theconservatory 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 hadstolen her way into the conservatory as the safer hiding-place ofthe two. Behind the shrub she could see as well as listen. Behindthe shrub she waited as patiently as ever.)

"I take a more merciful view," Julian answered. "I believe she isacting under a delusion. I don't blame her: I pity her."

"You pity her?" As Mercy repeated the words, she tore offJulian's hands the last few lengths of wool left, and threw theimperfectly 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 intoyour head?"

"I am little better than a stranger to you," she rejoined, withan effort to assume a jesting tone. "You met that person beforeyou met with me. It is not so very far from pitying her tobelieving her. How could I feel sure that you might not suspectme?"

"Suspect _you!_" he exclaimed. "You don't know how you distress,how you shock me. Suspect _you!_ The bare idea of it neverentered my mind. The man doesn't live who trusts you moreimplicitly, who believes in you more devotedly, than I do."

His eyes, his voice, his manner, all told her that those wordscame from the heart. She contrasted his generous confidence inher (the confidence of which she was unworthy) with herungracious distrust of him. Not only had she wronged GraceRoseberry--she had wronged Julian Gray. Could she deceive him asshe had deceived the others? Could she meanly accept thatimplicit trust, that devoted belief? Never had she felt the basesubmissions which her own imposture condemned her to undergo witha loathing of them so overwhelming as the loathing that she feltnow. In horror of herself, she turned her head aside in silenceand shrank from meeting his eye. He noticed the movement, placinghis own interpretation on it. Advancing closer, he askedanxiously 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 yourkindness."

She checked herself abruptly. Her fine tact warned her that shewas speaking too warmly--that the expression of her gratitudemight strike him as being strangely exaggerated. She handed himher 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 thebasket on a side-table. In that moment her mind advanced at abound from present to future. Accident might one day put the trueGrace in possession of the proofs that she needed, and mightreveal the false Grace to him in the identity that was her own.What would he think of her then? Could she make him tell herwithout betraying herself? She determined to try.

"Children are notoriously insatiable if you once answer theirquestions, and women are nearly as bad," she said, when Julianreturned to her. "Will your patience hold out if I go back forthe 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 deceivingothers for a purpose of her own--would you not shrink from such awoman in horror and disgust?"

"God forbid that I should shrink from any human creature!" heanswered, earnestly. "Who among us has a right to do that?"

She hardly dared trust herself to believe him. "You would stillpity 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 depthsof that great heart the faith in which the man lived--the steadyprinciple which guided his modest and noble life.

"No!" he cried. "Don't say that! Say that I try to love myneighbor as myself. Who but a Pharisee can believe that he isbetter than another? The best among us to-day may, but for themercy of God, be the worst among us tomorrow. The true Christianvirtue is the virtue which never despairs of a fellow-creature.The true Christian faith believes in Man as well as in God. Frailand fallen as we are, we can rise on the wings of repentance fromearth to heaven. Humanity is sacred. Humanity has its immortaldestiny. Who shall dare say to man or woman, 'There is no hope inyou?' Who shall dare say the work is all vile, when that workbears on it the stamp of the Creator's hand?"

He turned away for a moment, struggling with the emotion whichshe had roused in him.

Her eyes, as they followed him, lighted with a momentaryenthusiasm--then sank wearily in the vain regret which comes toolate. Ah! if he could have been her friend and her adviser on thefatal day when she first turned her steps toward MablethorpeHouse! She sighed bitterly as the hopeless aspiration wrung herheart. He heard the sigh; and, turning again, looked at her witha new interest in his face.

"Miss Roseberry," he said.

She was still absorbed in the bitter memories of the past: shefailed 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 betrayingany 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 acommon interest in the questions which you put to me a momentsince," he answered. "Were you by any chance speaking of someunhappy woman--not the person who frightened you, of course--butof some other woman whom you know?"

Her head sank slowly on her bosom. He had plainly no suspicionthat she had been speaking of herself: his tone and manner bothanswered for it that his belief in her was as strong as ever.Still those last words made her tremble; she could not trustherself 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," hesaid, "and let me go with you and help you!"

The answer came faintly and mournfully. "She has sunk too low forthat!"

He interrupted her with a gesture of impatience.

"What has she done?" he asked.

"She has deceived--basely deceived--innocent people who trustedher. She has wronged--cruelly wronged--another woman."

For the first time Julian seated himself at her side. Theinterest that was now roused in him was an interest abovereproach. He could speak to Mercy without restraint; he couldlook at Mercy with a pure heart.

"You judge her very harshly," he said. "Do _you_ know how she mayhave been tried and tempted?"

There was no answer.

"Tell me," he went on, "is the person whom she has injured stillliving?"

"Yes."

"If the person is still living, she may atone for the wrong. Thetime may come when this sinner, too, may win our pardon anddeserve our respect."

"Could _you_ respect her?" Mercy asked, sadly. "Can such a mindas yours understand what she has gone t hrough?"

A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his attentive face.

"You forget my melancholy experience," he answered. "Young as Iam, I have seen more than most men of women who have sinned andsuffered. Even after the little that you have told me, I think Ican put myself in her place. I can well understand, for instance,that she may have been tempted beyond human resistance. Am Iright?"

"You are right."

"She may have had nobody near at the time to advise her, to warnher, to save her. Is that true?"

"It is true."

"Tempted and friendless, self-abandoned to the evil impulse ofthe moment, this woman may have committed herself headlong to theact which she now vainly repents. She may long to make atonement,and may not know how to begin. All her energies may be crushedunder the despair and horror of herself, out of which the truestrepentance grows. Is such a woman as this all wicked, all vile? Ideny it! She may have a noble nature; and she may show it noblyyet. Give her the opportunity she needs, and our poor fallenfellow-creature may take her place again among the best ofus--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 womanwhom I am thinking of. She has lost her opportunity. She has donewith hope."

Julian gravely considered with himself for a moment.

"Let us understand each other," he said. "She has committed anact of deception to the injury of another woman. Was that whatyou 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 beforeher. She has not done with hope!"

With clasped hands, in breathless suspense, Mercy looked at thatinspiriting face, and listened to those golden words.

"Explain yourself," she said. "Tell her, through me, what shemust do."

"Let her own the truth," answered Julian, "without the base fearof discovery to drive her to it. Let her do justice to the womanwhom she has wronged, while that woman is still powerless toexpose her. Let her sacrifice everything that she has gained bythe fraud to the sacred duty of atonement. If she can dothat--for conscience' sake, and for pity's sake--to her ownprejudice, to her own shame, to her own loss--then her repentancehas nobly revealed the noble nature that is in her; then she is awoman to be trusted, respected, beloved! If I saw the Phariseesand fanatics of this lower earth passing her by in contempt, Iwould hold out my hand to her before them all. I would say to herin her solitude and her affliction, 'Rise, poor wounded heart!Beautiful, purified soul, God's angels rejoice over you! Takeyour place among the noblest of God's creatures!'"

In those last sentences he unconsciously repeated the language inwhich he had spoken, years since, to his congregation in thechapel of the Refuge. With tenfold power and tenfold persuasionthey now found their way again to Mercy's heart. Softly,suddenly, mysteriously, a change passed over her. Her troubledface grew beautifully still. The shifting light of terror andsuspense vanished from her grand gray eyes, and left in them thesteady inner glow of a high and pure resolve.

There was a moment of silence between them. They both had need ofsilence. 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 withhope?"

"You have satisfied me that the world holds no truer friend toher than you," Mercy answered, gently and gratefully. "She shallprove herself worthy of your generous confidence in her. Sheshall show you yet that you have not spoken in vain."

Still inevitably failing to understand her, he led the way to thedoor.

"Don't waste the precious time," he said. "Don't leave hercruelly to herself. If you can't go to her, let me go as yourmessenger, 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 tomove 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 inquiringlyon her. A man of a lower nature than his, or a man believing inMercy less devotedly than he believed, would now have felt hisfirst suspicion of her. Julian was as far as ever from suspectingher, 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. Nearlyhalf the length of the room divided them from each other. Thewords which she was longing to say were words that would neverpass her lips unless she could see some encouragement in hisface. "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 tothe chair near her. He took it. She looked at him, and checkedherself again; resolute to make her terrible confession, yetstill hesitating how to begin. Her woman's instinct whispered toher, "Find courage in his touch!" She said to him, simply andartlessly said to him, "Give me encouragement. Give me strength.Let me take your hand." He neither answered nor moved. His mindseemed to have become suddenly preoccupied; his eyes rested onher vacantly. He was on the brink of discovering her secret; inanother instant he would have found his way to the truth. In thatinstant, innocently as his sister might have taken it, she tookhis hand. The soft clasp of her fingers, clinging round his,roused his senses, fired his passion for her, swept out of hismind the pure aspirations which had filled it but the momentbefore, paralyzed his perception when it was just penetrating themystery of her disturbed manner and her strange words. All theman in him trembled under the rapture of her touch. But thethought of Horace was still present to him: his hand lay passivein hers; his eyes looked uneasily away from her.

She innocently strengthened her clasp of his hand. She innocentlysaid to him, "Don't look away from me. Your eyes give mecourage."

His hand returned the pressure of hers. He tasted to the full thedelicious joy of looking at her. She had broken down his lastreserves of self-control. The thought of Horace, the sense ofhonor, became obscured in him. In a moment more he might havesaid the words which he would have deplored for the rest of hislife, if she had not stopped him by speaking first. "I have moreto say to you," she resumed abruptly, feeling the animatingresolution to lay her heart bare before him at last; "more, farmore, than I have said yet. Generous, merciful friend, let me sayit _here!_"

She attempted to throw herself on her knees at his feet. Hesprung from his seat and checked her, holding her with both hishands, raising her as he rose himself. In the words which hadjust escaped her, in the startling action which had accompaniedthem, the truth burst on him. The guilty woman she had spoken ofwas herself!

While she was almost in his arms, while her bosom was justtouching his, before a word more had passed his lips or hers, thelibrary door opened.

Lady Janet Roy entered the room.