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.