Horace tried to wind his arm round her, and raise her. She started to
her feet, and waved him back from her with a wild action of her hands,
as if she was frightened of him. "The wedding present!" she cried,
seizing the first pretext that occurred to her. "You offered to bring me
your mother's present. I am dying to see what it is. Go and get it!"
Horace tried to compose her. He might as well have tried to compose the
winds and the sea.
"Go!" she repeated, pressing one clinched hand on her bosom. "I am not
well. Talking excites me--I am hysterical; I shall be better alone. Get
me the present. Go!"
"Shall I send Lady Janet? Shall I ring for your maid?"
"Send for nobody! ring for nobody! If you love me--leave me here by
myself! leave me instantly!"
"I shall see you when I come back?"
"Yes! yes!"
There was no alternative but to obey her. Unwillingly and forebodingly,
Horace left the room.
She drew a deep breath of relief, and dropped into the nearest chair.
If Horace had stayed a moment longer--she felt it, she knew it--her
head would have given way; she would have burst out before him with
the terrible truth. "Oh!" she thought, pressing her cold hands on her
burning eyes, "if I could only cry, now there is nobody to see me!"
The room was empty: she had every reason for concluding that she was
alone. And yet at that very moment there were ears that listened--there
were eyes waiting to see her.
Little by little the door behind her which faced the library and led
into the billiard-room was opened noiselessly from without, by an inch
at a time. As the opening was enlarged a hand in a black glove, an
arm in a black sleeve, appeared, guiding the movement of the door. An
interval of a moment passed, and the worn white face of Grace Roseberry
showed itself stealthily, looking into the dining-room.
Her eyes brightened with vindictive pleasure as they discovered Mercy
sitting alone at the further end of the room. Inch by inch she opened
the door more widely, took one step forward, and checked herself. A
sound, just audible at the far end of the conservatory, had caught her
ear.
She listened--satisfied herself that she was not mistaken--and drawing
back with a frown of displeasure, softly closed the door again, so as to
hide herself from view. The sound that had disturbed her was the distant
murmur of men's voices (apparently two in number) talking together in
lowered tones, at the garden entrance to the conservatory.
Who were the men? and what would they do next? They might do one of two
things: they might enter the drawing-room, or they might withdraw again
by way of the garden. Kneeling behind the door, with her ear at the
key-hole, Grace Roseberry waited the event.