"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."Lady Janet referred again suspiciously to the sentence in the letter which alluded to the "lady."Julian Gray was her only surviving nephew, the son of a favorite sister whom she had lost.He would have held no very exalted position in the estimation of his aunt--who regarded his views in politics and religion with the strongest aversion--but for his marked resemblance to his mother.This pleaded for him with the old lady, aided as it was by the pride that she secretly felt in the early celebrity which the young clergyman had achieved as a writer and a preacher.Thanks to these mitigating circumstances, and to Julian's inexhaustible good-humor, the aunt and the nephew generally met on friendly terms.Apart from what she called "his detestable opinions," Lady Janet was sufficiently interested in Julian to feel some curiosity about the mysterious "lady" mentioned in the letter.Had he determined to settle in life? Was his choice already made? And if so, would it prove to be a choice acceptable to the family? Lady Janet's bright face showed signs of doubt as she asked herself that last question.Julian's liberal views were capable of leading him to dangerous extremes.His aunt shook her head ominously as she rose from the sofa and advanced to the library door.
"Grace," she said, pausing and turning round, "I have a note to write to my nephew.I shall be back directly."Mercy approached her, from the opposite extremity of the room, with an exclamation of surprise.
"Your nephew?" she repeated."Your ladyship never told me you had a nephew."Lady Janet laughed."I must have had it on the tip of my tongue to tell you, over and over again," she said."But we have had so many things to talk about--and, to own the truth, my nephew is not one of my favorite subjects of conversation.I don't mean that I dislike him; I detest his principles, my dear, that's all.However, you shall form your own opinion of him; he is coming to see me to-day.Wait here till I return; I have something more to say about Horace."Mercy opened the library door for her, closed it again, and walked slowly to and fro alone in the room, thinking.
Was her mind running on Lady Janet's nephew? No.Lady Janet's brief allusion to her relative had not led her into alluding to him by his name.Mercy was still as ignorant as ever that the preacher at the Refuge and the nephew of her benefactress were one and the same man.Her memory was busy now with the tribute which Lady Janet had paid to her at the outset of the interview between them: "It is hardly too much to say, Grace, that I bless the day when you first came to me." For the moment there was balm for her wounded spirit in the remembrance of those words.Grace Roseberry herself could surely have earned no sweeter praise than the praise that she had won.The next instant she was seized with a sudden horror of her own successful fraud.The sense of her degradation had never been so bitterly present to her as at that moment.If she could only confess the truth--if she could innocently enjoy her harmless life at Mablethorpe House --what a grateful, happy woman she might be! Was it possible (if she made the confession) to trust to her own good conduct to plead her excuse? No! Her calmer sense warned her that it was hopeless.The place she had won--honestly won--in Lady Janet's estimation had been obtained by a trick.Nothing could alter, nothing could excuse, that.She took out her handkerchief and dashed away the useless tears that had gathered in her eyes, and tried to turn her thoughts some other way.What was it Lady Janet had said on going into the library? She had said she was coming back to speak about Horace.Mercy guessed what the object was; she knew but too well what Horace wanted of her.How was she to meet the emergency? In the name of Heaven, what was to be done? Could she let the man who loved her--the man whom she loved--drift blindfold into marriage with such a woman as she had been? No! it was her duty to warn him.How? Could she break his heart, could she lay his life waste by speaking the cruel words which might part them forever? "I can't tell him! I won't tell him!" she burst out, passionately."The disgrace of it would kill me!" Her varying mood changed as the words escaped her.A reckless defiance of her own better nature--that saddest of all the forms in which a woman's misery can express itself--filled her heart with its poisoning bitterness.She sat down again on the sofa with eyes that glittered and cheeks suffused with an angry red."I am no worse than another woman!" she thought."Another woman might have married him for his money." The next moment the miserable insufficiency of her own excuse for deceiving him showed its hollowness, self-exposed.She covered her face with her hands, and found refuge--where she had often found refuge before--in the helpless resignation of despair."Oh, that I had died before I entered this house! Oh, that I could die and have done with it at this moment!" So the struggle had ended with her hundreds of times already.So it ended now.
The door leading into the billiard-room opened softly.Horace Holmcroft had waited to hear the result of Lady Janet's interference in his favor until he could wait no longer.