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."