"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.