第61章

" You won't confess," she went on."You have had a week to confess in, and you have not done it yet.No, no! you are of the sort that cheat and lie to the last.I am glad of it; I shall have the joy of exposing you myself before the whole house.I shall be the blessed means of casting you back on the streets.Oh! it will be almost worth all I have gone through to see you with a policeman's hand on your arm, and the mob pointing at you and mocking you on your way to jail!"This time the sting struck deep; the outrage was beyond endurance.Mercy gave the woman who had again and again deliberately insulted her a first warning.

"Miss Roseberry," she said, "I have borne without a murmur the bitterest words you could say to me.Spare me any more insults.Indeed, indeed, I am eager to restore you to your just rights.With my whole heart I say it to you--I am resolved to confess everything!"She spoke with trembling earnestness of tone.can, and will, before I rest to-night, tell the whole truth to Mr.Julian Gray."Grace burst out laughing."Aha!" she exclaimed, with a cynical outburst of gayety."Now we have come to it at last!""Take care!" said Mercy."Take care!"

"Mr.Julian Gray! I was behind the billiard-room door--I saw you coax Mr.Julian Gray to come in! confession loses all its horrors, and becomes quite a luxury, with Mr.Julian Gray!""No more, Miss Roseberry! no more! For God's sake, don't put me beside myself! You have tortured me enough already.""You haven't been on the streets for nothing.You are a woman with resources; you know the value of having two strings to your bow.If Mr.Holmcroft fails you, you have got Mr.Julian Gray.Ah! you sicken me.I'll see that Mr.Holmcroft's eyes are opened; he shall know what a woman he might have married but for Me--"She checked herself; the next refinement of insult remained suspended on her lips.

The woman whom she had outraged suddenly advanced on her.Her eyes, staring helplessly upward, saw Mercy Merrick's face, white with the terrible anger which drives the blood back on the heart, bending threateningly over her.

"'You will see that Mr.Holmcroft's eyes are opened,'" Mercy slowly repeated; "'he shall know what a woman he might have married but for you!'"She paused, and followed those words by a question which struck a creeping terror through Grace Roseberry, from the hair of her head to the soles of her feet:

" Who are you? "

The suppressed fury of look and tone which accompanied that question told, as no violence could have told it, that the limits of Mercy's endurance had been found at last.In the guardian angel's absence the evil genius had done its evil work.The better nature which Julian Gray had brought to life sank, poisoned by the vile venom of a womanly spiteful tongue.An easy and a terrible means of avenging the outrages heaped on her was within Mercy's reach, if she chose to take it.In the frenzy of her indignation she never hesitated--she took it.

"Who are you?" she asked for the second time.

Grace roused herself and attempted to speak.Mercy stopped her with a scornful gesture of her hand.

"I remember!" she went on, with the same fiercely suppressed rage."You are the madwoman from the German hospital who came here a week ago.I am not afraid of you this time.Sit down and rest yourself, Mercy Merrick "Deliberately giving her that name to her face, Mercy turned from her and took the chair which Grace had forbidden her to occupy when the interview began.Grace started to her feet.

"What does this mean?" she asked.