"Do you mean prison?"
"I mean an asylum."
Again Mercy turned to Julian. There was horror now, as well as surprise,
in her face. "Oh!" she said to him, "Horace is surely wrong? It can't
be?"
Julian left it to Horace to answer. Every facility in him seemed to be
still absorbed in watching Mercy's face. She was compelled to address
herself to Horace once more.
"What sort of asylum?" she asked. "You don't surely mean a madhouse?"
"I do," he rejoined. "The workhouse first, perhaps--and then the
madhouse. What is there to surprise you in that? You yourself told her
to her face she was mad. Good Heavens! how pale you are! What is the
matter?"
She turned to Julian for the third time. The terrible alternative
that was offered to her had showed itself at last, without reserve or
disguise. Restore the identity that you have stolen, or shut her up in a
madhouse--it rests with you to choose! In that form the situation shaped
itself in her mind. She chose on the instant. Before she opened her lips
the higher nature in her spoke to Julian, in her eyes. The steady
inner light that he had seen in them once already shone in them again,
brighter and purer than before. The conscience that he had fortified,
the soul that he had saved, looked at him and said, Doubt us no more!
"Send that man out of the house."
Those were her first words. She spoke (pointing to the police officer)
in clear, ringing, resolute tones, audible in the remotest corner of the
room.
Julian's hand stole unobserved to hers, and told her, in its momentary
pressure, to count on his brotherly sympathy and help. All the other
persons in the room looked at her in speechless surprise. Grace rose
from her chair. Even the man in plain clothes started to his feet. Lady
Janet (hurriedly joining Horace, and fully sharing his perplexity and
alarm) took Mercy impulsively by the arm, and shook it, as if to rouse
her to a sense of what she was doing. Mercy held firm; Mercy resolutely
repeated what she had said: "Send that man out of the house."
Lady Janet lost all her patience with her. "What has come to you?" she
asked, sternly. "Do you know what you are saying? The man is here in
your interest, as well as in mine; the man is here to spare you, as
well as me, further annoyance and insult. And you insist--insist, in my
presence--on his being sent away! What does it mean?"
"You shall know what it means, Lady Janet, in half an hour. I don't
insist--I only reiterate my entreaty. Let the man be sent away."
Julian stepped aside (with his aunt's eyes angrily following him) and
spoke to the police officer. "Go back to the station," he said, "and
wait there till you hear from me."