Horace arrayed her in the pearls.
"Your husband puts these pearls on your neck, love," he said, proudly,
and paused to look at her. "Now," he added, with a contemptuous backward
glance at Grace, "we may go into the library. She has seen, and she has
heard."
He believed that he had silenced her. He had simply furnished her sharp
tongue with a new sting.
"_You_ will hear, and _you_ will see, when my proofs come from Canada,"
she retorted. "You will hear that your wife has stolen my name and my
character! You will see your wife dismissed from this house!"
Mercy turned on her with an uncontrollable outburst of passion.
"You are mad!" she cried.
Lady Janet caught the electric infection of anger in the air of the
room. She, too, turned on Grace. She, too, said it: "You are mad!"
Horace followed Lady Janet. _He_ was beside himself. _He_ fixed his
pitiless eyes on Grace, and echoed the contagious words: "You are mad!"
She was silenced, she was daunted at last. The treble accusation
revealed to her, for the first time, the frightful suspicion to which
she had exposed herself. She shrank back with a low cry of horror, and
struck against a chair. She would have fallen if Julian had not sprung
forward and caught her.
Lady Janet led the way into the library. She opened the
door--started--and suddenly stepped aside, so as to leave the entrance
free.
A man appeared in the open doorway.
He was not a gentleman; he was not a workman; he was not a servant. He
was vilely dressed, in glossy black broadcloth. His frockcoat hung on
him instead of fitting him. His waistcoat was too short and too tight
over the chest. His trousers were a pair of shapeless black bags.
His gloves were too large for him. His highly-polished boots creaked
detestably whenever he moved. He had odiously watchful eyes--eyes that
looked skilled in peeping through key-holes. His large ears, set forward
like the ears of a monkey, pleaded guilty to meanly listening behind
other people's doors. His manner was quietly confidential when he spoke,
impenetrably self-possessed when he was silent. A lurking air of secret
service enveloped the fellow, like an atmosphere of his own, from head
to foot. He looked all round the magnificent room without betraying
either surprise or admiration. He closely investigated every person in
it with one glance of his cunningly watchful eyes. Making his bow to
Lady Janet, he silently showed her, as his introduction, the card that
had summoned him. And then he stood at ease, self-revealed in his own
sinister identity--a police officer in plain clothes.
Nobody spoke to him. Everybody shrank inwardly as if a reptile had
crawled into the room.
He looked backward and forward, perfectly unembarrassed, between Julian
and Horace.