第55章

"Explain yourself," she said."Tell her, through me, what she must do.""Let her own the truth," answered Julian, "without the base fear of discovery to drive her to it.Let her do justice to the woman whom she has wronged, while that woman is still powerless to expose her.Let her sacrifice everything that she has gained by the fraud to the sacred duty of atonement.If she can do that--for conscience' sake, and for pity's sake--to her own prejudice, to her own shame, to her own loss--then her repentance has nobly revealed the noble nature that is in her; then she is a woman to be trusted, respected, beloved! If I saw the Pharisees and fanatics of this lower earth passing her by in contempt, I would hold out my hand to her before them all.I would say to her in her solitude and her affliction, 'Rise, poor wounded heart! Beautiful, purified soul, God's angels rejoice over you! Take your place among the noblest of God's creatures!'"In those last sentences he unconsciously repeated the language in which he had spoken, years since, to his congregation in the chapel of the Refuge.With tenfold power and tenfold persuasion they now found their way again to Mercy's heart.Softly, suddenly, mysteriously, a change passed over her.Her troubled face grew beautifully still.The shifting light of terror and suspense vanished from her grand gray eyes, and left in them the steady inner glow of a high and pure resolve.

There was a moment of silence between them.They both had need of silence.Julian was the first to speak again.

"Have I satisfied you that her opportunity is still before her?" he asked."Do you feel, as I feel, that she has not done with hope?""You have satisfied me that the world holds no truer friend to her than you," Mercy answered, gently and gratefully."She shall prove herself worthy of your generous confidence in her.She shall show you yet that you have not spoken in vain."Still inevitably failing to understand her, he led the way to the door.

"Don't waste the precious time," he said."Don't leave her cruelly to herself.If you can't go to her, let me go as your messenger, in your place."She stopped him by a gesture.He took a step back into the room, and paused, observing with surprise that she made no attempt to move from the chair that she occupied.

"Stay here," she said to him, in suddenly altered tones.

"Pardon me, "he rejoined, "I don't understand you.""You will understand me directly.Give me a little time."He still lingered near the door, with his eyes fixed inquiringly on her.A man of a lower nature than his, or a man believing in Mercy less devotedly than he believed, would now have felt his first suspicion of her.Julian was as far as ever from suspecting her, even yet.

"Do you wish to be alone?" he asked, considerately."Shall I leave you for a while and return again?"She looked up with a start of terror."Leave me?" she repeated, and suddenly checked her self on the point of saying more.Nearly half the length of the room divided them from each other.The words which she was longing to say were words that would never pass her lips unless she could see some encouragement in his face."No!" she cried out to him, on a sudden, in her sore need, "don't leave me! Come back to me!"He obeyed her in silence.In silence, on her side, she pointed to the chair near her.He took it.She looked at him, and checked herself again; resolute to make her terrible confession, yet still hesitating how to begin.Her woman's instinct whispered to her, "Find courage in his touch!" She said to him, simply and artlessly said to him, "Give me encouragement.Give me strength.Let me take your hand." He neither answered nor moved.His mind seemed to have become suddenly preoccupied; his eyes rested on her vacantly.He was on the brink of discovering her secret; in another instant he would have found his way to the truth.In that instant, innocently as his sister might have taken it, she took his hand.The soft clasp of her fingers, clinging round his, roused his senses, fired his passion for her, swept out of his mind the pure aspirations which had filled it but the moment before, paralyzed his perception when it was just penetrating the mystery of her disturbed manner and her strange words.All the man in him trembled under the rapture of her touch.But the thought of Horace was still present to him: his hand lay passive in hers; his eyes looked uneasily away from her.

She innocently strengthened her clasp of his hand.She innocently said to him, "Don't look away from me.Your eyes give me courage."His hand returned the pressure of hers.He tasted to the full the delicious joy of looking at her.She had broken down his last reserves of self-control.The thought of Horace, the sense of honor, became obscured in him.In a moment more he might have said the words which he would have deplored for the rest of his life, if she had not stopped him by speaking first."I have more to say to you," she resumed abruptly, feeling the animating resolution to lay her heart bare before him at last; "more, far more, than I have said yet.Generous, merciful friend, let me say it here! "She attempted to throw herself on her knees at his feet.He sprung from his seat and checked her, holding her with both his hands, raising her as he rose himself.In the words which had just escaped her, in the startling action which had accompanied them, the truth burst on him.The guilty woman she had spoken of was herself!

While she was almost in his arms, while her bosom was just touching his, before a word more had passed his lips or hers, the library door opened.

Lady Janet Roy entered the room.

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