"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 as if you wanted to know what it is. I have no intention of saying
anything about it--except that it will do. Once more, and for the last
time--do you stay here? or do you go with me?"
"I stay here."
She respectfully opened the library door for Lady Janet's departure as
she made that reply. Throughout the interview she had been carefully
and coldly deferential; she had not once lifted her eyes to Lady
Janet's face. The conviction in her that a few hours more would, in all
probability, see her dismissed from the house, had of necessity fettered
every word that she spoke--had morally separated her already from the
injured mistress whose love she had won in disguise. Utterly incapable
of attributing the change in her young companion to the true motive,
Lady Janet left the room to summon her domestic garrison, thoroughly
puzzled and (as a necessary consequence of that condition) thoroughly
displeased.
Still holding the library door in her hand, Mercy stood watching with a
heavy heart the progress of her benefactress down the length of the
room on the way to the front hall beyond. She had honestly loved and
respected the warm-hearted, quick-tempered old lady. A sharp pang of
pain wrung her as she thought of the time when even the chance utterance
of her name would become an unpardonable offense in Lady Janet's house.
But there was no shrinking in her now from 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!"