"Her ladyship is waiting, sir."
Julian entered the dining-room.
I.
From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY.
"I HASTEN to thank you, dear Miss Roseberry, for your last kind letter,
received by yesterday's mail from Canada. Believe me, I appreciate your
generous readiness to pardon and forget what I so rudely said to you at
a time when the arts of an adventuress had blinded me to the truth. In
the grace which has forgiven me I recognize the inbred sense of justice
of a true lady. Birth and breeding can never fail to assert themselves:
I believe in them, thank God, more firmly than ever.
"You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of Julian Gray's
infatuation, and of the course of conduct pursued toward him by Mercy
Merrick.
"If you had not favored me by explaining your object, I might have felt
some surprise at receiving from a lady in your position such a request
as this. But the motives by which you describe yourself as being
actuated are beyond dispute. The existence of Society, as you truly
say, is threatened by the present lamentable prevalence of Liberal
ideas throughout the length and breadth of the land. We can only hope
to protect ourselves against impostors interested in gaining a position
among persons of our rank by becoming in some sort (unpleasant as it may
be) familiar with the arts by which imposture too frequently succeeds.
If we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can go, to what
pitiable self-delusion credulity can consent, we must watch the
proceedings--even while we shrink from them--of a Mercy Merrick and a
Julian Gray.
"In taking up my narrative again where my last letter left off, I must
venture to set you right on one point.
"Certain expressions which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you
blame Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet's regrettable visit to the
Refuge the day after Mercy Merrick had left her house. This is not quite
correct. Julian, as you will presently see, has enough to answer for
without being held responsible for errors of judgment in which he has
had no share. Lady Janet (as she herself told me) went to the Refuge of
her own free-will to ask Mercy Merrick's pardon for the language which
she had used on the previous day. 'I passed a night of such misery as
no words can describe'--this, I assure you, is what her ladyship really
said to me--'thinking over what my vile pride and selfishness and
obstinacy had made me say and do. I would have gone down on my knees to
beg her pardon if she would have let me. My first happy moment was when
I won her consent to come and visit me sometimes at Mablethorpe House.' "You will, I am sure, agree with me that such extravagance as this is to
be pitied rather than blamed. How sad to see the decay of the faculties
with advancing age! It is a matter of grave anxiety to consider how much
longer poor Lady Janet can be trusted to manage her own affairs. I shall
take an opportunity of touching on the matter delicately when I next see
her lawyer.