JULIAN looked round the room, and stopped at the door which hehad just opened.

His eyes rested first on Mercy, next on Grace.

The disturbed faces of both the women told him but too plainlythat 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 wasimpossible for him to guess. In his aunt's presence he could onlywait his opportunity of speaking to Mercy, and be ready tointerpose if anything was ignorantly done which might give justcause of offense to Grace.

Lady Janet's course of action on entering the dining-room was inperfect 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 inthe least frightened! Wonderful!" She turned to the servant."Wait in the library; I may want you again." She looked atJulian. "Leave it all to me; I can manage it." She made a sign toHorace. "Stay where you are, and hold your tongue." Having nowsaid all that was necessary to every one else, she advanced tothe part of the room in which Grace was standing, with loweringbrows 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 yourvisits to my house cannot possibly lead to any satisfactoryresult. I hope you will not oblige me to say any harder wordsthan these--I hope you will understand that I wish you towithdraw."

The order of dismissal could hardly have been issued with morehumane consideration for the supposed mental infirmity of theperson to whom it was addressed. Grace instantly resisted it inthe plainest possible terms.

"In justice to my father's memory and in justice to myself," sheanswered, "I insist on a hearing. I refuse to withdraw." Shedeliberately took a chair and seated herself in the presence ofthe mistress of the house.

Lady Janet waited a moment--steadily controlling her temper. Inthe interval of silence Julian seized the opportunity ofremonstrating with Grace.

"Is this what you promised me?" he asked, gently. "You gave meyour word that you would not return to Mablethorpe House."

Before he could say more Lady Janet had got her temper undercommand. She began her answer to Grace by pointing with aperemptory forefinger to the library door.

"If you have not made up your mind to take my advice by the timeI have walked back to that door," she said, "I will put it out ofyour power to set me at defiance. I am used to be obeyed, and Iwill be obeyed. You force me to use hard words. I warn you beforeit is too late. Go!"

She returned slowly toward the library. Julian attempted tointerfere with another word of remonstrance. His aunt stopped himby a gesture which said, plainly, "I insist on acting formyself." He looked next at Mercy. Would she remain passive? Yes.She never lifted her head; she never moved from the place inwhich she was standing apart from the rest. Horace himself triedto attract her attention, and tried in vain.

Arrived at the library door, Lady Janet looked over her shoulderat 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 viperisheyes on Mercy.

"I won't be turned out of your ladyship's house in the presenceof that impostor," she said. "I may yield to force, but I willyield to nothing else. I insist on my right to the place that shehas stolen from me. It's no use scolding me," she added, turningdoggedly to Julian. "As long as that woman is here under my nameI can't and won't keep away from the house. I warn her, in yourpresence, that I have written to my friends in Canada! I dare herbefore you all to deny that she is the outcast and adventuress,Mercy Merrick!"

The challenge forced Mercy to take part in the proceedings in herown defense. She had pledged herself to meet and defy GraceRoseberry on her own ground. She attempted to speak--Horacestopped 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 toface an honest woman. It's her place to leave the room--notmine!"

Mercy drew her hand out of Horace's arm. "I decline to leave theroom," she said, quietly.

Horace still tried to persuade her to withdraw. "I can't bear tohear you insulted," he rejoined. "The woman offends me, though Iknow 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 whichhe had given to her, opened the library door.

"Go to the police station," she said to the servant in anundertone, "and give that card to the inspector on duty. Tell himthere 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 hisorders. What do you mean?"

"Before you send the card I wish to say a word in private to thislady," replied Julian, indicating Grace. "When that is done," hecontinued, approaching Mercy, and pointedly addressing himself toher, "I shall have a request to make--I shall ask you to give mean 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 hershifting color and her uneasy silence. Roused by Julian'ssignificantly distant reference to what had passed between them,her better impulses were struggling already to recover theirinfluence over her. She might, at that critical moment, haveyielded to the promptings of her own nobler nature--she mighthave risen superior to the galling remembrance of the insultsthat had been heaped upon her--if Grace's malice had not seen inher hesitation a means of referring offensively once again to herinterview with Julian Gray.

"Pray don't think twice about trusting him alone with me," shesaid, with a sardonic affectation of politeness. "_I_ am notinterested in making a conquest of Mr. Julian Gray."

The jealous distrust in Horace (already awakened by Julian'srequest) now attempted to assert itself openl y. Before he couldspeak, 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 tosay. There is no need for me to trouble you again."

In those rash words she recalled the confession to which shestood pledged. In those rash words she committed herself tokeeping the position that she had usurped, in the face of thewoman whom she had deprived of it!

Horace was silenced, but not satisfied. He saw Julian's eyesfixed in sad and searching attention on Mercy's face while shewas speaking. He heard Julian sigh to himself when she had done.He observed Julian--after a moment's serious consideration, and amoment's glance backward at the stranger in the poor blackclothes--lift his head with the air of a man who had taken asudden resolution.

"Bring me that card directly," he said to the servant. His toneannounced that he was not to be trifled with. The man obeyed.

Without answering Lady Janet--who still peremptorily insisted onher right to act for herself--Julian took the pencil from hispocketbook and added his signature to the writing alreadyinscribed on the card. When he had handed it back to the servanthe made his apologies to his aunt.

"Pardon me for venturing to interfere," he said "There is aserious reason for what I have done, which I will explain to youat a fitter time. In the meanwhile I offer no further obstructionto the course which you propose taking. On the contrary, I havejust assisted you in gaining the end that you have in view."

As he said that he held up the pencil with which he had signedhis name.

Lady Janet, naturally perplexed, and (with some reason, perhaps)offended as well, made no answer. She waved her hand to theservant, and sent him away with the card.

There was silence in the room. The eyes of all the personspresent turned more or less anxiously on Julian. Mercy wasvaguely surprised and alarmed. Horace, like Lady Janet, feltoffended, without clearly knowing why. Even Grace Roseberryherself was subdued by her own presentiment of some cominginterference for which she was completely unprepared. Julian'swords and actions, from the moment when he had written on thecard, were involved in a mystery to which not one of the personsround him held the clew.

The motive which had animated his conduct may, nevertheless, bedescribed in two words: Julian still held to his faith in theinbred nobility of Mercy's nature.

He had inferred, with little difficulty, from the language whichGrace had used toward Mercy in his presence, that the injuredwoman must have taken pitiless advantage of her position at theinterview which he had interrupted. Instead of appealing toMercy's sympathies and Mercy's sense of right--instead ofaccepting the expression of her sincere contrition, andencouraging her to make the completest and the speediestatonement--Grace had evidently outraged and insulted her. As anecessary result, her endurance had given way-- under her ownsense of intolerable severity and intolerable wrong.

The remedy for the mischief thus done was, as Julian had firstseen it, to speak privately with Grace, to soothe her by owningthat his opinion of the justice of her claims had undergone achange in her favor, and then to persuade her, in her owninterests, to let him carry to Mercy such expressions of apologyand regret as might lead to a friendly understanding betweenthem.

With those motives, he had made his request to be permitted tospeak separately to the one and the other. The scene that hadfollowed, the new insult offered by Grace, and the answer whichit had wrung from Mercy, had convinced him that no suchinterference as he had contemplated would have the slightestprospect of success.

The only remedy now left to try was the desperate remedy ofletting things take their course, and trusting implicitly toMercy'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 interferencewould be. Let her confront the alternative of consigning GraceRoseberry to a mad-house or of confessing the truth--and whatwould happen? If Julian's confidence in her was a confidencesoundly placed, she would nobly pardon the outrages that had beenheaped upon her, and she would do justice to the woman whom shehad wronged.

If, on the other hand, his belief in her was nothing better thanthe blind belief of an infatuated man--if she faced thealternative and persisted in asserting her assumed identity--whatthen?

Julian's faith in Mercy refused to let that darker side of thequestion find a place in his thoughts. It rested entirely withhim to bring the officer into the house. He had prevented LadyJanet from making any mischievous use of his card by sending tothe police station and warning them to attend to no message whichthey might receive unless the card produced bore his signature.Knowing the responsibility that he was taking on himself--knowingthat Mercy had made no confession to him to which it was possibleto appeal--he had signed his name without an instant'shesitation: and there he stood now, looking at the woman whosebetter nature he was determined to vindicate, the only calmperson in the room.

Horace's jealousy saw something suspiciously suggestive of aprivate understanding in Julian's earnest attention and inMercy's downcast face. Having no excuse for open interference, hemade an effort to part them.

"You spoke just now," he said to Julian, "of wishing to say aword in private to that person." (He pointed to Grace.) "Shall weretire, 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 lastperson to do me justice. He has been effectually hoodwinked. If Ispeak to anybody privately, it ought to be to you. You have thegreatest 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 hisface which plainly betrayed that he was capable of turning herout of the house with his own hands. Lady Janet stopped him.

"You were right in suggesting just now that Grace had betterleave the room," she said. "Let us all three go. Julian willremain here and give the man his directions when he arrives.Come."

No. By a strange contradiction it was Horace himself who nowinterfered to prevent Mercy from leaving the room. In the heat ofhis indignation he lost all sense of his own dignity; hedescended to the level of a woman whose intellect he believed tobe deranged. To the surprise of every one present, he steppedback and took from the table a jewel-case which he had placedthere when he came into the room. It was the wedding present fromhis mother which he had brought to his betrothed wife. Hisoutraged self-esteem seized the opportunity of vindicating Mercyby a public bestowal of the gift.

"Wait!" he called out, sternly. "That wretch shall have heranswer. She has sense enough to see and sense enough to hear. Lether see and hear!"

He opened the jewel-case, and took from it a magnificent pearlnecklace in an antique setting.

"Grace," he said, with his highest distinction of manner, "mymother sends you her love and her congratulations on ourapproaching marriage. She begs you to accept, as part of yourbridal dress, these pearls. She was married in them herself. Theyhave 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 theordeal through which Horace had innocently condemned her to pass?

Yes! In the insolent presence of Grace Roseberry, what was therenow that she could _not_ sustain? Her pride was in arms. Herlovely eyes lighted up as only a woman's eyes _can_ light up whenthey see jewelry. Her grand head bent gracefully to receive thenecklace. Her face w armed into color; her beauty rallied itscharms. Her triumph over Grace Roseberry was complete! Julian'shead sank. For one sad moment he secretly asked himself thequestion: "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 acontemptuous backward glance at Grace, "we may go into thelibrary. She has seen, and she has heard."

He believed that he had silenced her. He had simply furnished hersharp tongue with a new sting.

"_You_ will hear, and _you_ will see, when my proofs come fromCanada," she retorted. "You will hear that your wife has stolenmy name and my character! You will see your wife dismissed fromthis 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 ofthe room. She, too, turned on Grace. She, too, said it:

"You are mad!"

Horace followed Lady Janet. _He_ was beside himself. _He_ fixedhis pitiless eyes on Grace, and echoed the contagious words:

"You are mad!"

She was silenced, she was daunted at last. The treble accusationrevealed to her, for the first time, the frightful suspicion towhich she had exposed herself. She shrank back with a low cry ofhorror, and struck against a chair. She would have fallen ifJulian 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 entrancefree.

A man appeared in the open doorway.

He was not a gentleman; he was not a workman; he was not aservant. He was vilely dressed, in glossy black broadcloth. Hisfrockcoat hung on him instead of fitting him. His waistcoat wastoo short and too tight over the chest. His trousers were a pairof shapeless black bags. His gloves were too large for him. Hishighly-polished boots creaked detestably whenever he moved. Hehad odiously watchful eyes--eyes that looked skilled in peepingthrough key-holes. His large ears, set forward like the ears of amonkey, pleaded guilty to meanly listening behind other people'sdoors. His manner was quietly confidential when he spoke,impenetrably self-possessed when he was silent. A lurking air ofsecret service enveloped the fellow, like an atmosphere of hisown, from head to foot. He looked all round the magnificent roomwithout betraying either surprise or admiration. He closelyinvestigated every person in it with one glance of his cunninglywatchful eyes. Making his bow to Lady Janet, he silently showedher, as his introduction, the card that had summoned him. Andthen he stood at ease, self-revealed in his own sinisteridentity--a police officer in plain clothes.

Nobody spoke to him. Everybody shrank inwardly as if a reptilehad crawled into the room.

He looked backward and forward, perfectly unembarrassed, betweenJulian and Horace.

"Is Mr. Julian Gray here?" he asked.

Julian led Grace to a seat. Her eyes were fixed on the man. Shetrembled--she whispered, "Who is he?" Julian spoke to the policeofficer without answering her.

"Wait there," he said, pointing to a chair in the most distantcorner of the room. "I will speak to you directly."

The man advanced to the chair, marching to the discord of hiscreaking boots. He privately valued the carpet at so much a yardas he walked over it. He privately valued the chair at so muchthe dozen as he sat down on it. He was quite at his ease: it wasno matter to him whether he waited and did nothing, or whether hepried into the private character of every one in the room, aslong as he was paid for it.

Even Lady Janet's resolution to act for herself was not proofagainst the appearance of the policeman in plain clothes. Sheleft it to her nephew to take the lead. Julian glanced at Mercybefore he stirred further in the matter. He alone knew that theend rested now not with him but with her.

She felt his eye on her while her own eyes were looking at theman. She turned her head --hesitated--and suddenly approachedJulian. Like Grace Roseberry, she was trembling. Like GraceRoseberry, 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 ofthe private colloquy between them.

"Am I in the way?" he inquired.

Julian drew back a little, understanding Horace perfectly. Helooked round at Grace. Nearly the whole length of the spaciousroom divided them from the place in which she was sitting. Shehad never moved since he had placed her in a chair. The direst ofall terrors was in possession of her--terror of the unknown.There was no fear of her interfering, and no fear of her hearingwhat they said so long as they were careful to speak in guardedtones. 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 hereto 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 theslightest 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 beplaced under restraint, of course."

"Do you mean prison?"

"I mean an asylum."

Again Mercy turned to Julian. There was horror now, as well assurprise, in her face. "Oh!" she said to him, "Horace is surelywrong? It can't be?"

Julian left it to Horace to answer. Every facility in him seemedto be still absorbed in watching Mercy's face. She was compelledto address herself to Horace once more.

"What sort of asylum?" she asked. "You don't surely mean amadhouse?"

"I do," he rejoined. "The workhouse first, perhaps--and then themadhouse. What is there to surprise you in that? You yourselftold 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 alternativethat was offered to her had showed itself at last, withoutreserve or disguise. Restore the identity that you have stolen,or shut her up in a madhouse--it rests with you to choose! Inthat form the situation shaped itself in her mind. She chose onthe instant. Before she opened her lips the higher nature in herspoke to Julian, in her eyes. The steady inner light that he hadseen in them once already shone in them again, brighter and purerthan before. The conscience that he had fortified, the soul thathe 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 policeofficer) in clear, ringing, resolute tones, audible in theremotest corner of the room.

Julian's hand stole unobserved to hers, and told her, in itsmomentary pressure, to count on his brotherly sympathy and help.All the other persons in the room looked at her in speechlesssurprise. Grace rose from her chair. Even the man in plainclothes started to his feet. Lady Janet (hurriedly joiningHorace, and fully sharing his perplexity and alarm) took Mercyimpulsively by the arm, and shook it, as if to rouse her to asense of what she was doing. Mercy held firm; Mercy resolutelyrepeated what she had said: "Send that man out of the house."

Lady Janet lost all her patience with her. "What has come toyou?" she asked, sternly. "Do you know what you are saying? Theman is here in your interest, as well as in mine; the man is hereto spare you, as well as me, further annoyance and insult. Andyou insist-- insist, in my presence--on his being sent away! Whatdoes it mean?"

"You shall know what it means, Lady Janet, in half an hour. Idon't insist--I only reiterate my entreaty. Let the man be sentaway."

Julian stepped aside (with his aunt's eyes angrily following him)and spoke to the police officer. "Go back to the station, " hesaid, "and wait there till you hear from me."

The meanly vigilant eyes of the man in plain clothes traveledsidelong from Julian to Mercy, and valued her beauty as they hadvalued 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 marchedback across the room, to the discord of his own creaking boots,bowed, with a villainous smile which put the worst constructionon everything, and vanished through the library door.

Lady Janet's high breeding restrained her from saying anythinguntil the police officer was out of hearing. Then, and not tillthen, she appealed to Julian.

"I presume you are in the secret of this?" she said. "I supposeyou have some reason for setting my authority at defiance in myown house?"

"I have never yet failed to respect your ladyship," Juliananswered. "Before long you will know that I am not failing inrespect toward you now."

Lady Janet looked across the room. Grace was listening eagerly,conscious that events had taken some mysterious turn in her favorwithin the last minute.

"Is it part of your new arrangement of my affairs," her ladyshipcontinued, "that this person is to remain in the house?"

The terror that had daunted Grace had not lost all hold of heryet. She left it to Julian to reply. Before he could speak Mercycrossed the room and whispered to her, "Give me time to confessit in writing. I can't own it before them--with this round myneck." She pointed to the necklace. Grace cast a threateningglance at her, and suddenly looked away again in silence.

Mercy answered Lady Janet's question. "I beg your ladyship topermit her to remain until the half hour is over," she said. "Myrequest will have explained itself by that time."

Lady Janet raised no further obstacles. For something in Mercy'sface, or in Mercy's tone, seemed to have silenced her, as it hadsilenced Grace. Horace was the next who spoke. In tones ofsuppressed 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 youto explain your extraordinary conduct in half an hour?"

_His_ hand had placed his mother's wedding present round Mercy'sneck. A sharp pang wrung her as she looked at Horace, and saw howdeeply she had already distressed and offended him. The tearsrose in her eyes; she humbly and faintly answered him.

"If you please," was all she could say, before the cruel swellingat her heart rose and silenced her.

Horace's sense of injury refused to be soothed by such simplesubmission as this.

"I dislike mysteries and innuendoes," he went on, harshly. "In myfamily circle we are accustomed to meet each other frankly. Whyam I to wait half an hour for an explanation which might be givennow? 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 weto wait for?"

Even Julian's self-possession failed him when his aunt repeatedthat cruelly plain question. How would Mercy answer it? Would hercourage 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 MercyMerrick"

Lady Janet listened with a look of weary disgust.

"Don't return to _that!_" she said. "We know enough about MercyMerrick already."

"Pardon me--your ladyship does _not_ know. I am the only personwho can inform you."

"You?"

She bent her head respectfully.

"I have begged you, Lady Janet, to give me half an hour," shewent on. "In half an hour I solemnly engage myself to produceMercy 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 theircases and placed it in Horace's hand. "Keep it," she said, with amomentary faltering in her voice, "until we meet again."

Horace took the case in silence; he looked and acted like a manwhose mind was paralyzed by surprise. His hand movedmechanically. His eyes followed Mercy with a vacant, questioninglook. Lady Janet seemed, in her different way, to share thestrange oppression that had fallen on him. A vague sense of dreadand distress hung like a cloud over her mind. At that memorablemoment she felt her age, she looked her age, as she had neverfelt it or looked it yet.

"Have I your ladyship's leave," said Mercy, respectfully, "to goto my room?"

Lady Janet mutely granted the request. Mercy's last look, beforeshe went out, was a look at Grace. "Are you satisfied now?" thegrand gray eyes seemed to say, mournfully. Grace turned her headaside, with a quick, petulant action. Even her narrow natureopened for a moment unwillingly, and let pity in a little way, inspite 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 willwarn 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 withyou--all my help is yours."

Her eyes looked at him, and thanked him, through her gatheringtears. His own eyes were dimmed. She passed quietly down theroom, and was lost to him before he had shut the door again.