"It is useless to resist," he said."The German discipline never gives way.There is not the least need to be uneasy about the Frenchmen.The ambulance under Surgeon Wetzel is admirably administered.I answer for it, the men will be well treated." He saw the tears in her eyes as he spoke; his admiration for her rose higher and higher."Kind as well as beautiful, "he thought."What a charming creature!""Well!" said Ignatius Wetzel, eying Mercy sternly through his spectacles."Are you satisfied? And will you hold your tongue?"She yielded: it was plainly useless to resist.But for the surgeon's resistance, her devotion to the wounded men might have stopped her on the downward way that she was going.If she could only have been absorbed again, mind and body, in her good work as a nurse, the temptation might even yet have found her strong enough to resist it.The fatal severity of the German discipline had snapped asunder the last tie that bound her to her better self.Her face hardened as she walked away proudly from Surgeon Wetzel, and took a chair.
The Englishman followed her, and reverted to the question of her present situation in the cottage.
"Don't suppose that I want to alarm you," he said."There is, I repeat, no need to be anxious about the Frenchmen, but there is serious reason for anxiety on your own account.The action will be renewed round this village by daylight; you ought really to be in a place of safety.I am an officer in the English army--my name is Horace Holmcroft.I shall be delighted to be of use to you, and I can be of use, if you will let me.May I ask if you are traveling?"Mercy gathered the cloak which concealed her nurse's dress more closely round her, and committed herself silently to her first overt act of deception.She bowed her head in the affirmative.
"Are you on your way to England?"
"Yes."
"In that case I can pass you through the German lines, and forward you at once on your journey."Mercy looked at him in unconcealed surprise.His strongly-felt interest in her was restrained within the strictest limits of good-breeding: he was unmistakably a gentleman.Did he really mean what he had just said?
"You can pass me through the German lines?" she repeated."You must possess extraordinary influence, sir, to be able to do that."Mr.Horace Holmcroft smiled.
"I possess the influence that no one can re sist," he answered--"the influence of the Press.I am serving here as war correspondent of one of our great English newspapers.If I ask him, the commanding officer will grant you a pass.He is close to this cottage.What do you say?"She summoned her resolution--not without difficulty, even now--and took him at his word.
"I gratefully accept your offer, sir."
He advanced a step toward the kitchen, and stopped.
"It may be well to make the application as privately as possible," he said."I shall be questioned if I pass through that room.Is there no other way out of the cottage?"Mercy showed him the door leading into the yard.He bowed--and left her.
She looked furtively toward the German surgeon.Ignatius Wetzel was still at the bed, bending over the body, and apparently absorbed in examining the wound which had been inflicted by the shell.Mercy's instinctive aversion to the old man increased tenfold, now that she was left alone with him.She withdrew uneasily to the window, and looked out at the moonlight.
Had she committed herself to the fraud? Hardly, yet.She had committed herself to returning to England--nothing more.There was no necessity, thus far, which forced her to present herself at Mablethorpe House, in Grace's place.There was still time to reconsider her resolution--still time to write the account of the accident, as she had proposed, and to send it with the letter-case to Lady Janet Roy.Suppose she finally decided on taking this course, what was to become of her when she found herself in England again? There was no alternative open but to apply once more to her friend the matron.There was nothing for her to do but to return to the Refuge!
The Refuge! The matron! What past association with these two was now presenting itself uninvited, and taking the foremost place in her mind? Of whom was she now thinking, in that strange place, and at that crisis in her life? Of the man whose words had found their way to her heart, whose influence had strengthened and comforted her, in the chapel of the Refuge.One of the finest passages in his sermon had been especially devoted by Julian Gray to warning the congregation whom he addressed against the degrading influences of falsehood and deceit.The terms in which he had appealed to the miserable women round him--terms of sympathy and encouragement never addressed to them before--came back to Mercy Merrick as if she had heard them an hour since.She turned deadly pale as they now pleaded with her once more."Oh!" she whispered to herself, as she thought of what she had proposed and planned, "what have I done? what have I done?"She turned from the window with some vague idea in her mind of following Mr.Holmcroft and calling him back.As she faced the bed again she also confronted Ignatius Wetzel.He was just stepping forward to speak to her, with a white handkerchief--the handkerchief which she had lent to Grace--held up in his hand.
"I have found this in her pocket," he said."Here is her name written on it.She must be a countrywoman of yours." He read the letters marked on the handkerchief with some difficulty."Her name is--Mercy Merrick."His lips had said it--not hers! He had given her the name.
"'Mercy Merrick' is an English name?" pursued Ignatius Wetzel, with his eyes steadily fixed on her."Is it not so?"The hold on her mind of the past association with Julian Gray began to relax.One present and pressing question now possessed itself of the foremost place in her thoughts.Should she correct the error into which the German had fallen? The time had come--to speak, and assert her own identity; or to be silent, and commit herself to the fraud.