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.'
''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.
Horace Holmcroft entered the room again at the moment when Surgeon Wetzel's staring eyes were still fastened on her, waiting for her reply.
'I have not overrated my interest,' he said, pointing to a little slip of paper in his hand. 'Here is the pass. Have you got pen and ink? I must fill up the form.'
Mercy pointed to the writing materials on the table. Horace seated himself, and dipped the pen in the ink.
'Pray don't think that I wish to intrude myself into your affairs,' he said. 'I am obliged to ask you one or two plain questions. What is your name?'
A sudden trembling seized her. She supported herself against the foot of the bed. Her whole future existence depended on her answer. She was incapable of uttering a word.
Ignatius Wetzel stood her friend for once. His croaking voice filled the empty gap of silence exactly at the right time. He doggedly held the handkerchief under her eyes. He obstinately repeated: 'Mercy Merrick is an English name. Is it not so?'
Horace Holmcroft looked up from the table. 'Mercy Merrick?' he said. 'Who is Mercy Merrick?'
Surgeon Wetzel pointed to the corpse on the bed.
'I have found the name on the handkerchief,' he said. 'This lady, it seems, had not curiosity enough to look for the name of her own countrywoman.' He made that mocking allusion to Mercy with a tone which was almost a tone of suspicion, and a look which was almost a look of contempt. Her quick temper instantly resented the discourtesy of which she had been made the object. The irritation of the moment—so often do the most trifling motives determine the most serious human actions—decided her on the course that she should pursue. She turned her back scornfully on the rude old man, and left him in the delusion that he had discovered the dead woman's name.
Horace returned to the business of filling up the form. 'Pardon me for pressing the question,' he said. 'You know what German discipline is by this time. What is your name?'
She answered him recklessly, defiantly, without fairly realizing what she was doing until it was done.
'Grace Roseberry,' she said.
The words were hardly out of her mouth before she would have given everything she possessed in the world to recall them.
'Miss?' asked Horace, smiling.
She could only answer him by bowing her head.
He wrote: 'Miss Grace Roseberry'—reflected for a moment—and then added, interrogatively, 'Returning to her friends in England?' Her friends in England? Mercy's heart swelled: she silently replied by another sign. He wrote the words after the name, and shook the sandbox over the wet ink. 'That will be enough,' he said, rising and presenting the pass to Mercy; 'I will see you through the lines myself, and arrange for your being sent on by the railway. Where is your luggage?'
Mercy pointed toward the front door of the building. 'In a shed outside the cottage,' she answered. 'It is not much; I can do everything for myself if the sentinel will let me pass through the kitchen.'
Horace pointed to the paper in her hand. 'You can go where you like now,' he said. 'Shall I wait for you here or outside?'
Mercy glanced distrustfully at Ignatius Wetzel. He was again absorbed in his endless examination of the body on the bed. If she left him alone with Mr. Holmcroft, there was no knowing what the hateful old man might not say of her. She answered:
'Wait for me outside, if you please.'
The sentinel drew back with a military salute at the sight of the pass. All the French prisoners had been removed; there were not more than half-a-dozen Germans in the kitchen, and the greater part of them were asleep. Mercy took Grace Roseberry's clothes from the corner in which they had been left to dry, and made for the shed—a rough structure of wood, built out from the cottage wall. At the front door she encountered a second sentinel, and showed her pass for the second time. She spoke to this man, asking him if he understood French. He answered that
