"Surely you know!" exclaimed Lady Janet.
"Indeed I don't. Tell me why."
"Ask Horace to tell you."
The last allusion was too plain to be misunderstood. Mercy's head
drooped. She began to tremble again. Lady Janet looked at her in blank
amazement.
"Is there anything wrong between Horace and you?" she asked.
"No."
"You know your own heart, my dear child? You have surely not encouraged
Horace without loving him?"
"Oh no!"
"And yet--"
For the first time in their experience of each other Mercy ventured to
interrupt her benefactress. "Dear Lady Janet," she interposed, gently,
"I am in no hurry to be married. There will be plenty of time in the
future to talk of that. You had something you wished to say to me. What
is it?"
It was no easy matter to disconcert Lady Janet Roy. But that last
question fairly reduced her to silence. After all that had passed,
there sat her young companion, innocent of the faintest suspicion of the
subject that was to be discussed between them! "What are the young women
of the present time made of?" thought the old lady, utterly at a loss to
know what to say next. Mercy waited, on her side, with an impenetrable
patience which only aggravated the difficulties of the position. The
silence was fast threatening to bring the interview to a sudden and
untimely end, when the door from the library opened, and a man-servant,
bearing a little silver salver, entered the room.
Lady Janet's rising sense of annoyance instantly seized on the servant
as a victim. "What do you want?" she asked, sharply. "I never rang for
you."
"A letter, my lady. The messenger waits for an answer."
The man presented his salver with the letter on it, and withdrew.
Lady Janet recognized the handwriting on the address with a look
of surprise. "Excuse me, my dear," she said, pausing, with her
old-fashioned courtesy, before she opened the envelope. Mercy made the
necessary acknowledgment, and moved away to the other end of the room,
little thinking that the arrival of the letter marked a crisis in her
life. Lady Janet put on her spectacles. "Odd that he should have come
back already!" she said to herself, as she threw the empty envelope on
the table.
The letter contained these lines, the writer of them being no other than
the man who had preached in the chapel of the Refuge: "DEAR AUNT--I am back again in London before my time. My friend the
rector has shortened his holiday, and has resumed his duties in the
country. I am afraid you will blame me when you hear of the reasons
which have hastened his return. The sooner I make my confession, the
easier I shall feel. Besides, I have a special object in wishing to see
you as soon as possible. May I follow my letter to Mablethorpe House?
And may I present a lady to you--a perfect stranger--in whom I am
interested? Pray say Yes, by the bearer, and oblige your affectionate
nephew, "JULIAN GRAY."