"I am ordered to say that your room is ready, sir, and that her ladyship
expects you to dinner."
Absorbed in the events which had followed his aunt's invitation, Julian
had forgotten his engagement to stay at Mablethorpe House. Could he
return, knowing his own heart as he now knew it? Could he honorably
remain, perhaps for weeks together, in Mercy's society, conscious as
he now was of the impression which she had produced on him? No. The
one honorable course that he could take was to find an excuse for
withdrawing from his engagement. "Beg her ladyship not to wait dinner
for me," he said. "I will write and make my apologies." The cab drove
off. The wondering servant waited on the doorstep, looking after it. "I
wouldn't stand in Mr. Julian's shoes for something," he thought, with
his mind running on the difficulties of the young clergyman's position.
"There she is along with him in the cab. What is he going to do with her
after that?"
Julian himself, if it had been put to him at the moment, could not have
answered the question.
***** Lady Janet's anxiety was far from being relieved when Mercy had been
restored to her senses and conducted to her own room.
Mercy's mind remained in a condition of unreasoning alarm, which it was
impossible to remove. Over and over again she was told that the woman
who had terrified her had left the house, and would never be permitted
to enter it more; over and over again she was assured that the
stranger's frantic assertions were regarded by everybody about her as
unworthy of a moment's serious attention. She persisted in doubting
whether they were telling her the truth. A shocking distrust of her
friends seemed to possess her. She shrunk when Lady Janet approached the
bedside. She shuddered when Lady Janet kissed her. She flatly refused to
let Horace see her. She asked the strangest questions about Julian Gray,
and shook her head suspiciously when they told her that he was absent
from the house. At intervals she hid her face in the bedclothes and
murmured to herself piteously, "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
At other times her one petition was to be left alone. "I want nobody in
my room"--that was her sullen cry--"nobody in my room."
The evening advanced, and brought with it no change for the better. Lady
Janet, by the advice of Horace, sent for her own medical adviser.
The doctor shook his head. The symptoms, he said, indicated a serious
shock to the nervous system. He wrote a sedative prescription; and he
gave (with a happy choice of language) some sound and safe advice. It
amounted briefly to this: "Take her away, and try the sea-side."
Lady Janet's customary energy acted on the advice, without a moment's
needless delay. She gave the necessary directions for packing the trunks
overnight, and decided on leaving Mablethorpe House with Mercy the next
morning.