HE stopped just inside the door. His first look was for Mercy;his is second look was for Julian.

"I knew it!" he said, with an assumption of sardonic composure."If I could only have persuaded Lady Janet to bet, I should havewon a hundred pounds." He advanced to Julian, with a suddenchange from irony to anger. "Would you like to hear what the betwas?" he asked.

"I should prefer seeing you able to control yourself in thepresence of this lady," Julian answered, quietly.

"I offered to lay Lady Janet two hundred pounds to one," Horaceproceeded, "that I should find you here, making love to MissRoseberry behind my back."

Mercy interfered before Julian could reply.

"If you cannot speak without insulting one of us," she said,"permit me to request that you will _not_ address yourself to Mr.Julian Gray."

Horace bowed to her with a mockery of respect.

"Pray don't alarm yourself--I am pledged to be scrupulously civilto both of you," he said. "Lady Janet only allowed me to leaveher on condition of my promising to behave with perfectpoliteness. What else can I do? I have two privileged people todeal with--a parson and a woman. The parson's profession protectshim, and the woman's sex protects her. You have got me at adisadvantage, and you both of you know it. I beg to apologize ifI have forgotten the clergyman's profession and the lady's sex."

"You have forgotten more than that," said Julian. "You haveforgotten that you were born a gentleman and bred a man of honor.So far as I am concerned, I don't ask you to remember that I am aclergyman--I obtrude my profession on nobody--I only ask you toremember your birth and your breeding. It is quite bad enough tocruelly and unjustly suspect an old f riend who has neverforgotten what he owes to you and to himself. But it is stillmore unworthy of you to acknowledge those suspicions in thehearing of a woman whom your own choice has doubly bound you torespect."

He stopped. The two eyed each other for a moment in silence.

It was impossible for Mercy to look at them, as she was lookingnow, without drawing the inevitable comparison between the manlyforce and dignity of Julian and the womanish malice andirritability of Horace. A last faithful impulse of loyalty towardthe man to whom she had been betrothed impelled her to part them,before Horace had hopelessly degraded himself in her estimationby contrast with Julian.

"You had better wait to speak to me," she said to him, "until weare alone."

"Certainly," Horace answered with a sneer, "if Mr. Julian Graywill permit it."

Mercy turned to Julian, with a look which said plainly, "Pity usboth, and leave us!"

"Do you wish me to go?" he asked.

"Add to all your other kindnesses to me," she answered. "Wait forme in that room."

She pointed to the door that led into the dining-room. Julianhesitated.

"You promise to let me know it if I can be of the smallestservice to you?" he said.

"Yes, yes!" She followed him as he withdrew, and added, rapidly,in a whisper, "Leave the door ajar!"

He made no answer. As she returned to Horace he entered thedining-room. The one concession he could make to her he did make.He closed the door so noiselessly that not even her quick hearingcould detect that he had shut it.

Mercy spoke to Horace, without waiting to let him speak first.

"I have promised you an explanation of my conduct," she said, inaccents that trembled a little in spite of herself. "I am readyto perform my promise."

"I have a question to ask you before you do that," he rejoined."Can you speak the truth?"

"I am waiting to speak the truth."

"I will give you an opportunity. Are you or are you not in lovewith Julian Gray?"

"You ought to be ashamed to ask the question!"

"Is that your only answer?"

"I have never been unfaithful to you, Horace, even in thought. IfI had _not_ been true to you, should I feel my position as yousee I feel it now?"

He smiled bitterly. "I have my own opinion of your fidelity andof his honor," he said. "You couldn't even send him into the nextroom without whispering to him first. Never mind that now. Atleast you know that Julian Gray is in love with you."

"Mr. Julian Gray has never breathed a word of it to me."

"A man can show a woman that he loves her, without saying it inwords."

Mercy's power of endurance began to fail her. Not even GraceRoseberry had spoken more insultingly to her of Julian thanHorace was speaking now. "Whoever says that of Mr. Julian Gray,lies!" she answered, warmly.

"Then Lady Janet lies," Horace retorted.

"Lady Janet never said it! Lady Janet is incapable of saying it!"

"She may not have said it in so many words; but she never deniedit when _I_ said it. I reminded her of the time when Julian Grayfirst heard from me that I was going to marry you: he was sooverwhelmed that he was barely capable of being civil to me. LadyJanet was present, and could not deny it. I asked her if she hadobserved, since then, signs of a confidential understandingbetween you two. She could not deny the signs. I asked if she hadever found you two together. She could not deny that she hadfound you together, this very day, under circumstances whichjustified suspicion. Yes! yes! Look as angry as you like! youdon't know what has been going on upstairs. Lady Janet is bent onbreaking off our engagement--and Julian Gray is at the bottom ofit."

As to Julian, Horace was utterly wrong. But as to Lady Janet, heechoed the warning words which Julian himself had spoken toMercy. She was staggered, but she still held to her own opinion."I don't believe it," she said, firmly.

He advanced a step, and fixed his angry eyes on her searchingly.

"Do you know why Lady Janet sent for me?" he asked.

"No."

"Then I will tell you. Lady Janet is a stanch friend of yours,there is no denying that. She wished to inform me that she hadaltered her mind about your promised explanation of your conduct.She said, 'Reflection has convinced me that no explanation isrequired; I have laid my positive commands on my adopted daughterthat no explanation shall take place.' Has she done that?"

"Yes."

"Now observe! I waited till she had finished, and then I said,'What have I to do with this?' Lady Janet has one merit--shespeaks out. 'You are to do as I do,' she answered. 'You are toconsider that no explanation is required, and you are to consignthe whole matter to oblivion from this time forth.' 'Are youserious?' I asked. 'Quite serious.' 'In that case I have toinform your ladyship that you insist on more than you maysuppose: you insist on my breaking my engagement to MissRoseberry. Either I am to have the explanation that she haspromised me, or I refuse to marry her.' How do you think LadyJanet took that? She shut up her lips, and she spread out herhands, and she looked at me as much as to say, 'Just as youplease! Refuse if you like; it's nothing to me!'"

He paused for a moment. Mercy remained silent, on her side: sheforesaw what was coming. Mistaken in supposing that Horace hadleft the house, Julian had, beyond all doubt, been equally inerror in concluding that he had been entrapped into breaking offthe engagement upstairs.

"Do you understand me so far?" Horace asked.

"I understand you perfectly."

"I will not trouble you much longer," he resumed. "I said to LadyJanet, 'Be so good as to answer me in plain words. Do you stillinsist on closing Miss Roseberry's lips?' 'I still insist,' sheanswered. 'No explanation is required. If you are base enough tosuspect your betrothed wife, I am just enough to believe in myadopted daughter.' I replied--and I beg you will give your bestattention to what I am now going to say--I replied to that, 'Itis not fair to charge me with suspecting her. I don't understandher confidential relations with Julian Gray, and I don'tunderstand her language and conduct in the presence of the policeofficer. I claim it as my right to be satisfied on both thosepoints--in the character of the man who is to marry her.' Therewas my answer. I spare you all that followed. I only repeat whatI said to Lady Janet. She has commanded you to be silent. If youobey her commands, I owe it to myself and I owe it to my familyto release you from your engagement. Choose between your duty toLady Janet and your duty to Me."

He had mastered his temper at last: he spoke with dignity, and hespoke to the point. His position was unassailable; he claimednothing but his right.

"My choice was made," Mercy answered, "when I gave you my promiseupstairs."

She waited a little, struggling to control herself on the brinkof the terrible revelation that was coming. Her eyes droppedbefore his; her heart beat faster and faster; but she struggledbravely. With a desperate courage she faced the position. "If youare ready to listen," she went on, "I am ready to tell you why Iinsisted on having the police officer sent out of the house."

Horace held up his hand warningly.

"Stop!" he said; "that is not all."

His infatuated jealousy of Julian (fatally misinterpreting heragitation) distrusted her at the very outset. She had limitedherself to clearing up the one question of her interference withthe officer of justice. The other question of her relations withJulian she had deliberately passed over. Horace instantly drewhis own ungenerous conclusion.

"Let us not misunderstand one another," he said. "The explanationof your conduct in the other room is only one of the explanationswhich you owe me. You have something else to account for. Let usbegin with _that_, if you please."

She looked at him in unaffected surprise.

"What else have I to account for?" she asked.

He again repeated his reply to Lady Janet.

"I have told you already," he said. "I don't understand yourconfidential relations with Julian Gray."

Mercy's color rose; Mercy's eyes began to brighten.

"Don't return to tha t!" she cried, with an irrepressibleoutbreak of disgust. "Don't, for God's sake, make me despise youat such a moment as this!"

His obstinacy only gathered fresh encouragement from that appealto his better sense.

"I insist on returning to it."

She had resolved to bear anything from him-- as her fitpunishment for the deception of which she had been guilty. But itwas not in womanhood (at the moment when the first words of herconfession were trembling on her lips) to endure Horace'sunworthy suspicion of her. She rose from her seat and met his eyefirmly.

"I refuse to degrade myself, and to degrade Mr. Julian Gray, byanswering you," she said

Consider what you are doing," he rejoined. Change your mind,before it is too late!"

"You have had my reply."

Those resolute words, that steady resistance, seemed to infuriatehim. He caught her roughly by the arm.

"You are as false as hell!" he cried. "It's all over between youand me!"

The loud threatening tone in which he had spoken penetratedthrough the closed door of the dining-room. The door instantlyopened. Julian returned to the library.

He had just set foot in the room, when there was a knock at theother door--the door that opened on the hall. One of themen-servants appeared, with a telegraphic message in his hand.Mercy was the first to see it. It was the Matron's answer to theletter which she had sent to the Refuge.

"For Mr. Julian Gray?" she asked.

"Yes, miss."

"Give it to me."

She signed to the man to withdraw, and herself gave the telegramto Julian. "It is addressed to you, at my request," she said."You will recognize the name of the person who sends it, and youwill find a message in it for me."

Horace interfered before Julian could open the telegram.

"Another private understanding between you!" he said. "Give methat 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 deeplyinterested in her as you are. Say that I have received herletter, and that I welcome her back to the Refuge with all myheart. I have business this evening in the neighborhood. I willcall for her myself at Mablethorpe House."

The message explained itself. Of her own free-will she had madethe expiation complete! Of her own free-will she was going backto the martyrdom of her old life! Bound as he knew himself to beto let no compromising word or action escape him in the presenceof Horace, the irrepressible expression of Julian's admirationglowed in his eyes as they rested on Mercy. Horace detected thelook. He sprang forward and tried to snatch the telegram out ofJulian'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 tome!" he repeated between his set teeth, "or it will be the worsefor you!"

"Give it to _me!_" said Mercy, suddenly placing herself betweenthem.

Julian gave it. She turned, and offered it to Horace, looking athim 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 horribletorpor of her resignation to her fate. She knew that the time hadcome.

Julian appealed to Horace.

"Don't read it!" he cried. "Hear what she has to say to youfirst!"

Horace's hand answered him with a contemptuous gesture. Horace'seyes devoured, word by word, the Matron's message.

He looked up when he had read it through. There was a ghastlychange in his face as he turned it on Mercy.

She stood between the two men like a statue. The life in herseemed to have died out, except in her eyes. Her eyes rested onHorace with a steady, glittering calmness.

The silence was only broken by the low murmuring of Julian'svoice. His face was hidden in his hands--he was praying for them.

Horace spoke, laying his finger on the telegram. His voice hadchanged with the change in his face. The tone was low andtrembling: no one would have recognized it as the tone ofHorace's voice.

"What does this mean?" he said to Mercy. "It can't be for you?"

"It _is_ for me."

"What have You to do with a Refuge?"

Without a change in her face, without a movement in her limbs,she spoke the fatal words:

"I have come from a Refuge, and I am going back to a Refuge. Mr.Horace Holmcroft, I am Mercy Merrick."