would have said, plainly, 'Horace is jealous of me.'
Julian did not wait for her to answer him. He considerately went on.
'For the reason that I have just mentioned,' he said, 'Horace will be easily irritated into taking a course which, in his calmer moments, nothing would induce him to adopt. Until I heard what your maid said to you I had thought (for your sake) of retiring before he joined you here. Now I know that my name has been introduced, and has made mischief upstairs, I feel the necessity (for your sake again) of meeting Horace and his temper face to face before you see him. Let me, if I can, prepare him to hear you without any angry feeling in his mind toward you. Do you object to retire to the next room for a few minutes in the event of his coming back to the library?'
Mercy's courage instantly rose with the emergency. She refused to leave the two men together.
'Don't think me insensible to your kindness,' she said. 'If I leave you with Horace I may expose you to insult. I refuse to do that. What makes you doubt his coming back?'
'His prolonged absence makes me doubt it,' Julian replied. 'In my belief, the marriage is broken off. He may go as Grace Roseberry has gone. You may never see him again.'
The instant the opinion was uttered, it was practically contradicted by the man himself. Horace opened the library door.
CHAPTER XXV. THE CONFESSION
HE stopped just inside the door. His first look was for Mercy; his is second look was for Julian.
'I knew it!' he said, with an assumption of sardonic composure. 'If I could only have persuaded Lady Janet to bet, I should have won a hundred pounds.' He advanced to Julian, with a sudden change from irony to anger. 'Would you like to hear what the bet was?' he asked.
'I should prefer seeing you able to control yourself in the presence of this lady,' Julian answered, quietly.
'I offered to lay Lady Janet two hundred pounds to one,' Horace proceeded, 'that I should find you here, making love to Miss Roseberry behind my back.'
Mercy interfered before Julian could reply.
'If you cannot speak without insulting one of us,' she said, 'permit me to request that you will
Horace bowed to her with a mockery of respect.
'Pray don't alarm yourself—I am pledged to be scrupulously civil to both of you,' he said. 'Lady Janet only allowed me to leave her on condition of my promising to behave with perfect politeness. What else can I do? I have two privileged people to deal with—a parson and a woman. The parson's profession protects him, and the woman's sex protects her. You have got me at a disadvantage, and you both of you know it. I beg to apologize if I have forgotten the clergyman's profession and the lady's sex.'
'You have forgotten more than that,' said Julian. 'You have forgotten that you were born a gentleman and bred a man of honor. So far as I am concerned, I don't ask you to remember that I am a clergyman—I obtrude my profession on nobody—I only ask you to remember your birth and your breeding. It is quite bad enough to cruelly and unjustly suspect an old friend who has never forgotten what he owes to you and to himself. But it is still more unworthy of you to acknowledge those suspicions in the hearing of a woman whom your own choice has doubly bound you to respect.'
He stopped. The two eyed each other for a moment in silence.
It was impossible for Mercy to look at them, as she was looking now, without drawing the inevitable comparison between the manly force and dignity of Julian and the womanish malice and irritability of Horace. A last faithful impulse of loyalty toward the man to whom she had been betrothed impelled her to part them, before Horace had hopelessly degraded himself in her estimation by contrast with Julian.
'You had better wait to speak to me,' she said to him, 'until we are alone.'
'Certainly,' Horace answered with a sneer, 'if Mr. Julian Gray will permit it.'
Mercy turned to Julian, with a look which said plainly, 'Pity us both, and leave us!'
'Do you wish me to go?' he asked.
'Add to all your other kindnesses to me,' she answered. 'Wait for me in that room.'
She pointed to the door that led into the dining-room. Julian hesitated.
'You promise to let me know it if I can be of the smallest service to you?' he said.
'Yes, yes!' She followed him as he withdrew, and added, rapidly, in a whisper, 'Leave the door ajar!'
He made no answer. As she returned to Horace he entered the dining-room. The one concession he could make to her he did make. He closed the door so noiselessly that not even her quick hearing could detect that he had shut it.
Mercy spoke to Horace, without waiting to let him speak first.
'I have promised you an explanation of my conduct,' she said, in accents that trembled a little in spite of herself. 'I am ready to perform my promise.'
'I have a question to ask you before you do that,' he rejoined. 'Can you speak the truth?'
'I am waiting to speak the truth.'
'I will give you an opportunity. Are you or are you not in love with Julian Gray?'
'You ought to be ashamed to ask the question!'
'Is that your only answer?'
