The New Magdalen

'Is it possible you don't know?'

'Indeed, I don't.'

'You have heard of him, no doubt,' said Horace. 'Lady Janet's nephew is a celebrated man.' He paused, and stooping nearer to her, lifted a love-lock that lay over her shoulder and pressed it to his lips. 'Lady Janet's nephew,' he resumed, 'is Julian Gray.'

She started off her seat, and looked round at him in blank, bewildered terror, as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses.

Horace was completely taken by surprise. 'My dear Grace!' he exclaimed; 'what have I said or done to startle you this time?'

She held up her hand for silence. 'Lady Janet's nephew is Julian Gray,' she repeated; 'and I only know it now!'

Horace's perplexity increased. 'My darling, now you do know it, what is there to alarm you?' he asked.

(There was enough to alarm the boldest woman living—in such a position, and with such a temperament as hers. To her mind the personation of Grace Roseberry had suddenly assumed a new aspect: the aspect of a fatality. It had led her blindfold to the house in which she and the preacher at the Refuge were to meet. He was coming— the man who had reached her inmost heart, who had influenced her whole life! Was the day of reckoning coming with him?)

'Don't notice me,' she said, faintly. 'I have been ill all the morning. You saw it yourself when you came in here; even the sound of your voice alarmed me. I shall be better directly. I am afraid I startled you?'

'My dear Grace, it almost looked as if you were terrified at the sound of Julian's name! He is a public celebrity, I know; and I have seen ladies start and stare at him when he entered a room. But you looked perfectly panic-stricken.'

She rallied her courage by a desperate effort; she laughed—a harsh, uneasy laugh—and stopped him by putting her hand over his mouth. 'Absurd!' she said, lightly. 'As if Mr. Julian Gray had anything to do with my looks! I am better already. See for yourself!' She looked round at him again with a ghastly gayety; and returned, with a desperate assumption of indifference, to the subject of Lady Janet's nephew. 'Of course I have heard of him,' she said. 'Do you know that he is expected here to-day? Don't stand there behind me—it's so hard to talk to you. Come and sit down.'

He obeyed—but she had not quite satisfied him yet. His face had not lost its expression of anxiety and surprise. She persisted in playing her part, determined to set at rest in him any possible suspicion that she had reasons of her own for being afraid of Julian Gray. 'Tell me about this famous man of yours,' she said, putting her arm familiarly through his arm. 'What is he like?'

The caressing action and the easy tone had their effect on Horace. His face began to clear; he answered her lightly on his side.

'Prepare yourself to meet the most unclerical of clergymen,' he said. 'Julian is a lost sheep among the parsons, and a thorn in the side of his bishop. Preaches, if they ask him, in Dissenters' chapels. Declines to set up any pretensions to priestly authority and priestly power. Goes about doing good on a plan of his own. Is quite resigned never to rise to the high places in his profession. Says it's rising high enough for him to be the Archdeacon of the afflicted, the Dean of the hungry, and the Bishop of the poor. With all his oddities, as good a fellow as ever lived. Immensely popular with the women. They all go to him for advice. I wish you would go, too.'

Mercy changed color. 'What do you mean?' she asked, sharply.

'Julian is famous for his powers of persuasion,' said Horace, smiling. 'If he spoke to you, Grace, he would prevail on you to fix the day. Suppose I ask Julian to plead for me?'

He made the proposal in jest. Mercy's unquiet mind accepted it as addressed to her in earnest. 'He will do it,' she thought, with a sense of indescribable terror, 'if I don't stop him!' There is but one chance for her. The only certain way to prevent Horace from appealing to his friend was to grant what Horace wished for before his friend entered the house. She laid her hand on his shoulder; she hid the terrible anxieties that were devouring her under an assumption of coquetry painful and pitiable to see.

'Don't talk nonsense!' she said, gayly. 'What were we saying just now—before we began to speak of Mr. Julian Gray?'

'We were wondering what had become of Lady Janet,' Horace replied.

She tapped him impatiently on the shoulder. 'No! no! It was something you said before that.'

Her eyes completed what her words had left unsaid. Horace's arm stole round her waist.

'I was saying that I loved you,' he answered, in a whisper.

'Only that?'

'Are you tired of hearing it?'

She smiled charmingly. 'Are you so very much in earnest about—about—' She stopped, and looked away from him.

'About our marriage?'

'Yes.'

'It is the one dearest wish of my life.'

'Really?'

'Really.'

There was a pause. Mercy's fingers toyed nervously with the trinkets at her watch-chain. 'When would you like it to be?' she said, very softly, with her whole attention fixed on the watch-chain.

She had never spoken, she had never looked, as she spoke and looked now. Horace was afraid to believe in his own good fortune. 'Oh, Grace!' he exclaimed, 'you are not trifling with me?'