JULIAN happened to be standing nearest to Mercy. He was the first at her side when she fell.
In the cry of alarm which burst from him, as he raised her for a moment in his arms, in the expression of his eyes when he looked at her death-like face, there escaped the plain—too plain—confession of the interest which he felt in her, of the admiration which she had aroused in him. Horace detected it. There was the quick suspicion of jealousy in the movement by which he joined Julian; there was the ready resentment of jealousy in the tone in which he pronounced the words, “Leave her to me.” Julian resigned her in silence. A faint flush appeared on his pale face as he drew back while Horace carried her to the sofa. His eyes sunk to the ground; he seemed to be meditating self-reproachfully on the tone in which his friend had spoken to him. After having been the first to take an active part in meeting the calamity that had happened, he was now, to all appearance, insensible to everything that was passing in the room.
A touch on his shoulder roused him.
He turned and looked round. The woman who had done the mischief—the stranger in the poor black garments—was standing behind him. She pointed to the prostrate figure on the sofa, with a merciless smile.
“You wanted a proof just now,” she said. “There it is!”
Horace heard her. He suddenly left the sofa and joined Julian. His face, naturally ruddy, was pale with suppressed fury.
“Take that wretch away!” he said. “Instantly! or I won’t answer for what I may do.”
Those words recalled Julian to himself. He looked round the room. Lady Janet and the housekeeper were together, in attendance on the swooning woman. The startled servants were congregated in the library doorway. One of them offered to run to the nearest doctor; another asked if he should fetch the police. Julian silenced them by a gesture, and turned to Horace. “Compose yourself,” he said. “Leave me to remove her quietly from the house.” He took Grace by the hand as he spoke. She hesitated, and tried to release herself. Julian pointed to the group at the sofa, and to the servants looking on. “You have made an enemy of every one in this room,” he said, “and you have not a friend in London. Do you wish to make an enemy ofme?Her head drooped; she made no reply; she waited, dumbly obedient to the firmer will than her own. Julian ordered the servants crowding together in the doorway to withdraw. He followed them into the library, leading Grace after him by the hand. Before closing the door he paused, and looked back into the dining-room.
“Is she recovering?” he asked, after a moment’s hesitation.
Lady Janet’s voice answered him. “Not yet.”
“Shall I send for the nearest doctor?”
Horace interposed. He declined to let Julian associate himself, even in that indirect manner, with Mercy’s recovery.
“If the doctor is wanted,” he said, “I will go for him myself.”
Julian closed the library door. He absently released Grace; he mechanically pointed to a chair. She sat down in silent surprise, following him with her eyes as he walked slowly to and fro in the room.
For the moment his mind was far away from her, and from all that had happened since her appearance in the house. It was impossible that a man of his fineness of perception could mistake the meaning of Horace’s conduct toward him. He was questioning his own heart, on the subject of Mercy, sternly and unreservedly as it was his habit to do. “After only once seeing her,” he thought, “has she produced such an impression on me that Horace can discover it, before I have even suspected it myself? Can the time have come already when I owe it to my friend to see her no more?” He stopped irritably in his walk. As a man devoted to a serious calling in life, there was something that wounded his self-respect in the bare suspicion that he could be guilty of the purely sentimental extravagance called “love at first sight.”
He had paused exactly opposite to the chair in which Grace was seated. Weary of the silence, she seized the opportunity of speaking to him.
“I have come here with you as you wished,” she said. “Are you going to help me? Am I to count on you as my friend?”
He looked at her vacantly. It cost him an effort before he could give her the attention that she had claimed.
“You have been hard on me,” Grace went on. “But you showed me some kindness at first; you tried to make them give me a fair hearing. I ask you, as a just man, do you doubt now that the woman on the sofa in the next room is an impostor who has taken my place? Can there be any plainer confession that she is Mercy Merrick than the confession she has made?Yousaw it;theysaw it. She fainted at the sight of me.”
Julian crossed the room—still without answering her—and rang the bell. When the servant appeared, he told the man to fetch a cab.
Grace rose from her chair. “What is the cab for?” she asked, sharply.
“For you and for me,” Julian replied. “I am going to take you back to your lodgings.”
“I refuse to go. My place is in this house. Neither Lady Janet nor you can get over the plain facts. All I asked was to be confronted with her. And what did she do when she came into the room? She fainted at the sight of me.”
Reiterating her one triumphant assertion, she fixed her eyes on Julian with a look which said plainly: Answer that if you can. In mercy to her, Julian answered it on the spot.
“As far as I understand,” he said, “you appear to take it for granted that no innocent woman would have fainted on first seeing you. I have something to tell you which will alter your opinion. On her arrival in England this lady informed my aunt that she had met with you accidentally on the French frontier, and that she had seen you (so far as she knew) struck dead at her side by a shell. Remember that, and recall what happened just now. Without a word to warn her of your restoration to life, she finds herself suddenly face to face with you, a living woman—and this at a time when it is easy for any one who looks at her to see that she is in delicate health. What is there wonderful, what is there unaccountable, in her fainting under such circumstances as these?”
The question was plainly put. Where was the answer to it?
There was no answer to it. Mercy’s wisely candid statement of the manner in which she had first met with Grace, and of the accident which had followed had served Mercy’s purpose but too well. It was simply impossible for persons acquainted with that statement to attach a guilty meaning to the swoon. The false Grace Roseberry was still as far beyond the reach of suspicion as ever, and the true Grace was quick enough to see it. She sank into the chair from which she had risen; her hands fell in hopeless despair on her lap.
“Everything is against me,” she said. “The truth itself turns liar, and takesherside.” She paused, and rallied her sinking courage. “No!” she cried, resolutely, “I won’t submit to have my name and my place taken from me by a vile adventuress! Say what you like, I insist on exposing her; I won’t leave the house!”
The servant entered the room, and announced that the cab was at the door.
Grace turned to Julian with a defiant wave of her hand. “Don’t let me detain you,” she said. “I see I have neither advice nor help to expect from Mr. Julian Gray.”
Julian beckoned to the servant to follow him into a corner of the room.
“Do you know if the doctor has been sent for?” he asked.
“I believe not, sir. It is said in the servants’ hall that the doctor is not wanted.”
Julian was too anxious to be satisfied with a report from the servants’ hall. He hastily wrote on a slip of paper: “Has she recovered?” and gave the note to the man, with directions to take it to Lady Janet.
“Did you hear what I said?” Grace inquired, while the messenger was absent in the dining room.
“I will answer you directly,” said Julian.
The servant appeared again as he spoke, with some lines in pencil written by Lady Janet on the back of Julian’s note. “Thank God, we have revived her. In a few minutes we hope to be able to take her to her room.”
The nearest way to Mercy’s room was through the library. Grace’s immediate removal had now become a necessity which was not to be trifled with. Julian addressed himself to meeting the difficulty the instant he was left alone with Grace.
“Listen to me,” he said. “The cab is waiting, and I have my last words to say to you. You are now (thanks to the consul’s recommendation) in my care. Decide at once whether you will remain under my charge, or whether you will transfer yourself to the charge of the police.”
Grace started. “What do you mean?” she asked, angrily.
“If you wish to remain under my charge,” Julian proceeded, “you will accompany me at once to the cab. In that case I will undertake to give you an opportunity of telling your story to my own lawyer. He will be a fitter person to advise you than I am. Nothing will induce we to believe that the lady whom you have accused has committed, or is capable of committing, such a fraud as you charge her with. You will hear what the lawyer thinks, if you come with me. If you refuse, I shall have no choice but to send into the next room, and tell them that you are still here. The result will be that you will find yourself in charge of the police. Take which course you like: I will give you a minute to decide in. And remember this—if I appear to express myself harshly, it is your conduct which forces me to speak out. I mean kindly toward you; I am advising you honestly for your good.”
He took out his watch to count the minute.
Grace stole one furtive glance at his steady, resolute face. She was perfectly unmoved by the manly consideration for her which Julian’s last words had expressed. All she understood was that he was not a man to be trifled with. Future opportunities would offer themselves of returning secretly to the house. She determined to yield—and deceive him.
“I am ready to go,” she said, rising with dogged submission. “Your turn now,” she muttered to herself, as she turned to the looking-glass to arrange her shawl. “My turn will come.”
Julian advanced toward her, as if to offer her his arm, and checked himself. Firmly persuaded as he was that her mind was deranged—readily as he admitted that she claimed, in virtue of her affliction, every indulgence that he could extend to her—there was something repellent to him at that moment in the bare idea of touching her. The image of the beautiful creature who was the object of her monstrous accusation—the image of Mercy as she lay helpless for a moment in his arms—was vivid in his mind while he opened the door that led into the hall, and drew back to let Grace pass out before him. He left the servant to help her into the cab. The man respectfully addressed him as he took his seat opposite to Grace.
“I am ordered to say that your room is ready, sir, and that her ladyship expects you to dinner.”
Absorbed in the events which had followed his aunt’s invitation, Julian had forgotten his engagement to stay at Mablethorpe House. Could he return, knowing his own heart as he now knew it? Could he honorably remain, perhaps for weeks together, in Mercy’s society, conscious as he now was of the impression which she had produced on him? No. The one honorable course that he could take was to find an excuse for withdrawing from his engagement. “Beg her ladyship not to wait dinner for me,” he said. “I will write and make my apologies.” The cab drove off. The wondering servant waited on the doorstep, looking after it. “I wouldn’t stand in Mr. Julian’s shoes for something,” he thought, with his mind running on the difficulties of the young clergyman’s position. “There she is along with him in the cab. What is he going to do with her after that?”
Julian himself, if it had been put to him at the moment, could not have answered the question.
Lady Janet’s anxiety was far from being relieved when Mercy had been restored to her senses and conducted to her own room.
Mercy’s mind remained in a condition of unreasoning alarm, which it was impossible to remove. Over and over again she was told that the woman who had terrified her had left the house, and would never be permitted to enter it more; over and over again she was assured that the stranger’s frantic assertions were regarded by everybody about her as unworthy of a moment’s serious attention. She persisted in doubting whether they were telling her the truth. A shocking distrust of her friends seemed to possess her. She shrunk when Lady Janet approached the bedside. She shuddered when Lady Janet kissed her. She flatly refused to let Horace see her. She asked the strangest questions about Julian Gray, and shook her head suspiciously when they told her that he was absent from the house. At intervals she hid her face in the bedclothes and murmured to herself piteously, “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” At other times her one petition was to be left alone. “I want nobody in my room”—that was her sullen cry—“nobody in my room.”
The evening advanced, and brought with it no change for the better. Lady Janet, by the advice of Horace, sent for her own medical adviser.
The doctor shook his head. The symptoms, he said, indicated a serious shock to the nervous system. He wrote a sedative prescription; and he gave (with a happy choice of language) some sound and safe advice. It amounted briefly to this: “Take her away, and try the sea-side.” Lady Janet’s customary energy acted on the advice, without a moment’s needless delay. She gave the necessary directions for packing the trunks overnight, and decided on leaving Mablethorpe House with Mercy the next morning.
Shortly after the doctor had taken his departure a letter from Julian, addressed to Lady Janet, was delivered by private messenger.
Beginning with the necessary apologies for the writer’s absence, the letter proceeded in these terms:
“Before I permitted my companion to see the lawyer, I felt the necessity of consulting him as to my present position toward her first.
“I told him—what I think it only right to repeat to you—that I do not feel justified in acting on my own opinion that her mind is deranged. In the case of this friendless woman I want medical authority, and, more even than that, I want some positive proof, to satisfy my conscience as well as to confirm my view.
“Finding me obstinate on this point, the lawyer undertook to consult a physician accustomed to the treatment of the insane, on my behalf.
“After sending a message and receiving the answer, he said, ‘Bring the lady here—in half an hour; she shall tell her story to the doctor instead of telling it to me.’ The proposal rather staggered me; I asked how it was possible to induce her to do that. He laughed, and answered, ‘I shall present the doctor as my senior partner; my senior partner will be the very man to advise her.’ You know that I hate all deception, even where the end in view appears to justify it. On this occasion, however, there was no other alternative than to let the lawyer take his own course, or to run the risk of a delay which might be followed by serious results.
“I waited in a room by myself (feeling very uneasy, I own) until the doctor joined me, after the interview was over.
“His opinion is, briefly, this:
“After careful examination of the unfortunate creature, he thinks that there are unmistakably symptoms of mental aberration. But how far the mischief has gone, and whether her case is, or is not, sufficiently grave to render actual restraint necessary, he cannot positively say, in our present state of ignorance as to facts.
“‘Thus far,’ he observed, ‘we know nothing of that part of her delusion which relates to Mercy Merrick. The solution of the difficulty, in this case, is to be found there. I entirely agree with the lady that the inquiries of the consul at Mannheim are far from being conclusive. Furnish me with satisfactory evidence either that there is, or is not, such a person really in existence as Mercy Merrick, and I will give you a positive opinion on the case whenever you choose to ask for it.’
“Those words have decided me on starting for the Continent and renewing the search for Mercy Merrick.
“My friend the lawyer wonders jocosely whetherIam in my right senses. His advice is that I should apply to the nearest magistrate, and relieve you and myself of all further trouble in that way.
“Perhaps you agree with him? My dear aunt (as you have often said), I do nothing like other people. I am interested in this case. I cannot abandon a forlorn woman who has been confided to me to the tender mercies of strangers, so long as there is any hope of my making discoveries which may be instrumental in restoring her to herself—perhaps, also, in restoring her to her friends.
“I start by the mail-train of to-night. My plan is to go first to Mannheim and consult with the consul and the hospital doctors; then to find my way to the German surgeon and to questionhim; and, that done, to make the last and hardest effort of all—the effort to trace the French ambulance and to penetrate the mystery of Mercy Merrick.
“Immediately on my return I will wait on you, and tell you what I have accomplished, or how I have failed.
“In the meanwhile, pray be under no alarm about the reappearance of this unhappy woman at your house. She is fully occupied in writing (at my suggestion) to her friends in Canada; and she is under the care of the landlady at her lodgings—an experienced and trustworthy person, who has satisfied the doctor as well as myself of her fitness for the charge that she has undertaken.
“Pray mention this to Miss Roseberry (whenever you think it desirable), with the respectful expression of my sympathy, and of my best wishes for her speedy restoration to health. And once more forgive me for failing, under stress of necessity, to enjoy the hospitality of Mablethorpe House.”
Lady Janet closed Julian’s letter, feeling far from satisfied with it. She sat for a while, pondering over what her nephew had written to her.
“One of two things,” thought the quick-witted old lady. “Either the lawyer is right, and Julian is a fit companion for the madwoman whom he has taken under his charge, or he has some second motive for this absurd journey of his which he has carefully abstained from mentioning in his letter. What can the motive be?”
At intervals during the night that question recurred to her ladyship again and again. The utmost exercise of her ingenuity failing to answer it, her one resource left was to wait patiently for Julian’s return, and, in her own favorite phrase, to “have it out of him” then.
The next morning Lady Janet and her adopted daughter left Mablethorpe House for Brighton; Horace (who had begged to be allowed to accompany them) being sentenced to remain in London by Mercy’s express desire. Why—nobody could guess; and Mercy refused to say.
A WEEK has passed. The scene opens again in the dining-room at Mablethorpe House.
The hospitable table bears once more its burden of good things for lunch. But on this occasion Lady Janet sits alone. Her attention is divided between reading her newspaper and feeding her cat. The cat is a sleek and splendid creature. He carries an erect tail. He rolls luxuriously on the soft carpet. He approaches his mistress in a series of coquettish curves. He smells with dainty hesitation at the choicest morsels that can be offered to him. The musical monotony of his purring falls soothingly on her ladyship’s ear. She stops in the middle of a leading article and looks with a careworn face at the happy cat. “Upon my honor,” cries Lady Janet, thinking, in her inveterately ironical manner, of the cares that trouble her, “all things considered, Tom, I wish I was You!”
The cat starts—not at his mistress’s complimentary apostrophe, but at a knock at the door, which follows close upon it. Lady Janet says, carelessly enough, “Come in;” looks round listlessly to see who it is; and starts, like the cat, when the door opens and discloses—Julian Gray!
“You—or your ghost?” she exclaims.
She has noticed already that Julian is paler than usual, and that there is something in his manner at once uneasy and subdued—highly uncharacteristic of him at other times. He takes a seat by her side, and kisses her hand. But—for the first time in his aunt’s experience of him—he refuses the good things on the luncheon table, and he has nothing to say to the cat! That neglected animal takes refuge on Lady Janet’s lap. Lady Janet, with her eyes fixed expectantly on her nephew (determining to “have it out of him” at the first opportunity), waits to hear what he has to say for himself. Julian has no alternative but to break the silence, and tell his story as he best may.
“I got back from the Continent last night,” he began. “And I come here, as I promised, to report myself on my return. How does your ladyship do? How is Miss Roseberry?”
Lady Janet laid an indicative finger on the lace pelerine which ornamented the upper part of her dress. “Here is the old lady, well,” she answered—and pointed next to the room above them. “And there,” she added, “is the young lady, ill. Is anything the matter withyou, Julian?”
“Perhaps I am a little tired after my journey. Never mind me. Is Miss Roseberry still suffering from the shock?”
“What else should she be suffering from? I will never forgive you, Julian, for bringing that crazy impostor into my house.”
“My dear aunt, when I was the innocent means of bringing her here I had no idea that such a person as Miss Roseberry was in existence. Nobody laments what has happened more sincerely than I do. Have you had medical advice?”
“I took her to the sea-side a week since by medical advice.”
“Has the change of air don e her no good?”
“None whatever. If anything, the change of air has made her worse. Sometimes she sits for hours together, as pale as death, without looking at anything, and without uttering a word. Sometimes she brightens up, and seems as if she was eager to say something; and then Heaven only knows why, checks herself suddenly as if she was afraid to speak. I could support that. But what cuts me to the heart, Julian, is, that she does not appear to trust me and to love me as she did. She seems to be doubtful of me; she seems to be frightened of me. If I did not know that it was simply impossible that such a thing could be, I should really think she suspected me of believing what that wretch said of her. In one word (and between ourselves), I begin to fear she will never get over the fright which caused that fainting-fit. There is serious mischief somewhere; and, try as I may to discover it, it is mischief beyond my finding.”
“Can the doctor do nothing?”
Lady Janet’s bright black eyes answered before she replied in words, with a look of supreme contempt.
“The doctor!” she repeated, disdainfully. “I brought Grace back last night in sheer despair, and I sent for the doctor this morning. He is at the head of his profession; he is said to be making ten thousand a year; and he knows no more about it than I do. I am quite serious. The great physician has just gone away with two guineas in his pocket. One guinea, for advising me to keep her quiet; another guinea for telling me to trust to time. Do you wonder how he gets on at this rate? My dear boy, they all get on in the same way. The medical profession thrives on two incurable diseases in these modern days—a He-disease and a She-disease. She-disease—nervous depression; He-disease—suppressed gout. Remedies, one guinea, ifyougo to the doctor; two guineas if the doctor goes toyou. I might have bought a new bonnet,” cried her ladyship, indignantly, “with the money I have given to that man! Let us change the subject. I lose my temper when I think of it. Besides, I want to know something. Why did you go abroad?”
At that plain question Julian looked unaffectedly surprised. “I wrote to explain,” he said. “Have you not received my letter?”
“Oh, I got your letter. It was long enough, in all conscience; and, long as it was, it didn’t tell me the one thing I wanted to know.”
“What is the ‘one thing’?”
Lady Janet’s reply pointed—not too palpably at first—at that second motive for Julian’s journey which she had suspected Julian of concealing from her.
“I want to know,” she said, “why you troubled yourself to make your inquiries on the Continentin person?You know where my old courier is to be found. You have yourself pronounced him to be the most intelligent and trustworthy of men. Answer me honestly—could you not have sent him in your place?”
“Imighthave sent him,” Julian admitted, a little reluctantly.
“You might have sent the courier—and you were under an engagement to stay here as my guest. Answer me honestly once more. Why did you go away?”
Julian hesitated. Lady Janet paused for his reply, with the air of a women who was prepared to wait (if necessary) for the rest of the afternoon.
“I had a reason of my own for going,” Julian said at last.
“Yes?” rejoined Lady Janet, prepared to wait (if necessary) till the next morning.
“A reason,” Julian resumed, “which I would rather not mention.”
“Oh!” said Lady Janet. “Another mystery—eh? And another woman at the bottom of it, no doubt. Thank you—that will do—I am sufficiently answered. No wonder, as a clergyman, that you look a little confused. There is, perhaps, a certain grace, under the circumstances, in looking confused. We will change the subject again. You stay here, of course, now you have come back?”
Once more the famous pulpit orator seemed to find himself in the inconceivable predicament of not knowing what to say. Once more Lady Janet looked resigned to wait (if necessary) until the middle of next week.
Julian took refuge in an answer worthy of the most commonplace man on the face of the civilized earth.
“I beg your ladyship to accept my thanks and my excuses,” he said.
Lady Janet’s many-ringed fingers, mechanically stroking the cat in her lap, began to stroke him the wrong way.
Lady Janet’s inexhaustible patience showed signs of failing her at last.
“Mighty civil, I am sure,” she said. “Make it complete. Say, Mr. Julian Gray presents his compliments to Lady Janet Roy, and regrets that a previous engagement—Julian!” exclaimed the old lady, suddenly pushing the cat off her lap, and flinging her last pretense of good temper to the winds—“Julian, I am not to be trifled with! There is but one explanation of your conduct—you are evidently avoiding my house. Is there somebody you dislike in it? Is it me?”
Julian intimated by a gesture that his aunt’s last question was absurd. (The much-injured cat elevated his back, waved his tail slowly, walked to the fireplace, and honored the rug by taking a seat on it.)
Lady Janet persisted. “Is it Grace Roseberry?” she asked next.
Even Julian’s patience began to show signs of yielding. His manner assumed a sudden decision, his voice rose a tone louder.
“You insist on knowing?” he said. “ItisMiss Roseberry.”
“You don’t like her?” cried Lady Janet, with a sudden burst of angry surprise.
Julian broke out, on his side: “If I see any more of her,” he answered, the rare color mounting passionately in his cheeks, “I shall be the unhappiest man living. If I see any more of her, I shall be false to my old friend, who is to marry her. Keep us apart. If you have any regard for my peace of mind, keep us apart.”
Unutterable amazement expressed itself in his aunt’s lifted hands. Ungovernable curiosity uttered itself in his aunt’s next words.
“You don’t mean to tell me you are in love with Grace?”
Julian sprung restlessly to his feet, and disturbed the cat at the fireplace. (The cat left the room.)
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said; “I can’t realize it to myself. No other woman has ever roused the feeling in me which this woman seems to have called to life in an instant. In the hope of forgetting her I broke my engagement here; I purposely seized the opportunity of making those inquiries abroad. Quite useless. I think of her, morning, noon, and night. I see her and hear her, at this moment, as plainly as I see and hear you. She has madeherself a part ofmyself. I don’t understand my life without her. My power of will seems to be gone. I said to myself this morning, ‘I will write to my aunt; I won’t go back to Mablethorpe House.’ Here I am in Mablethorpe House, with a mean subterfuge to justify me to my own conscience. ‘I owe it to my aunt to call on my aunt.’ That is what I said to myself on the way here; and I was secretly hoping every step of the way that she would come into the room when I got here. I am hoping it now. And she is engaged to Horace Holmcroft—to my oldest friend, to my best friend! Am I an infernal rascal? or am I a weak fool? God knows—I don’t. Keep my secret, aunt. I am heartily ashamed of myself; I used to think I was made of better stuff than this. Don’t say a word to Horace. I must, and will, conquer it. Let me go.”
He snatched up his hat. Lady Janet, rising with the activity of a young woman, pursued him across the room, and stopped him at the door.
“No,” answered the resolute old lady, “I won’t let you go. Come back with me.”
As she said those words she noticed with a certain fond pride the brilliant color mounting in his cheeks—the flashing brightness which lent an added luster to his eyes. He had never, to her mind, looked so handsome before. She took his arm, and led him to the chairs which they had just left. It was shocking, it was wrong (she mentally admitted) to look on Mercy, under the circumstances, with any other eye than the eye of a brother or a friend. In a clergyman (perhaps) doubly shocking, doubly wrong. But, with all her respect for the vested interests of Horace, Lady Janet could not blame Julian. Worse still, she was privately conscious that he had, somehow or other, risen, rather than fallen, in her estimation within the last minute or two. Who could deny that her adopted daughter was a charming creature? Who could wonder if a man of refined tastes admired her? Upon the whole, her ladyship humanely decided that her nephew was rather to be pitied than blamed. What daughter of Eve (no matter whether she was seventeen or seventy) could have honestly arrived at any other conclusion? Do what a man may—let him commit anything he likes, from an error to a crime—so long as there is a woman at the bottom of it, there is an inexhaustible fund of pardon for him in every other woman’s heart. “Sit down,” said Lady Janet, smiling in spite of herself; “and don’t talk in that horrible way again. A man, Julian—especially a famous man like you—ought to know how to control himself.”
Julian burst out laughing bitterly.
“Send upstairs for my self-control,” he said. “It’s inherpossession—not in mine. Good morning, aunt.”
He rose from his chair. Lady Janet instantly pushed him back into it.
“I insist on your staying here,” she said, “if it is only for a few minutes longer. I have something to say to you.”
“Does it refer to Miss Roseberry?”
“It refers to the hateful woman who frightened Miss Roseberry. Now are you satisfied?”
Julian bowed, and settled himself in his chair.
“I don’t much like to acknowledge it,” his aunt went on. “But I want you to understand that I have something really serious to speak about, for once in a way. Julian! that wretch not only frightens Grace—she actually frightens me.”
“Frightens you? She is quite harmless, poor thing.”
“‘Poor thing’!” repeated Lady Janet. “Did you say ‘poor thing’?”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible that you pity her?”
“From the bottom of my heart.”
The old lady’s temper gave way again at that reply. “I hate a man who can’t hate anybody!” she burst out. “If you had been an ancient Roman, Julian, I believe you would have pitied Nero himself.”
Julian cordially agreed with her. “I believe I should,” he said, quietly. “All sinners, my dear aunt, are more or less miserable sinners. Nero must have been one of the wretchedest of mankind.”
“Wretched!” exclaimed Lady Janet. “Nero wretched! A man who committed robbery, arson and murder to his own violin accompaniment—onlywretched! What next, I wonder? When modern philanthropy begins to apologize for Nero, modern philanthropy has arrived at a pretty pass indeed! We shall hear next that Bloody Queen Mary was as playful as a kitten; and if poor dear Henry the Eighth carried anything to an extreme, it was the practice of the domestic virtues. Ah, how I hate cant! What were we talking about just now? You wander from the subject, Julian; you are what I call bird-witted. I protest I forget what I wanted to say to you. No, I won’t be reminded of it. I may be an old woman, but I am not in my dotage yet! Why do you sit there staring? Have you nothing to say for yourself? Of all the people in the world, haveyoulost the use of your tongue?”
Julian’s excellent temper and accurate knowledge of his aunt’s character exactly fitted him to calm the rising storm. He contrived to lead Lady Janet insensibly back to the lost subject by dexterous reference to a narrative which he had thus far left untold—the narrative of his adventures on the Continent.
“I have a great deal to say, aunt,” he replied. “I have not yet told you of my discoveries abroad.”
Lady Janet instantly took the bait.
“I knew there was something forgotten,” she said. “You have been all this time in the house, and you have told me nothing. Begin directly.”
Patient Julian began.
“I WENT first to Mannheim, Lady Janet, as I told you I should in my letter, and I heard all that the consul and the hospital doctors could tell me. No new fact of the slightest importance turned up. I got my directions for finding the German surgeon, and I set forth to try what I could make next of the man who performed the operation. On the question of his patient’s identity he had (as a perfect stranger to her) nothing to tell me. On the question of her mental condition, however, he made a very important statement. He owned to me that he had operated on another person injured by a shell-wound on the head at the battle of Solferino, and that the patient (recovering also in this case) recovered—mad. That is a remarkable admission; don’t you think so?”
Lady Janet’s temper had hardly been allowed time enough to subside to its customary level.
“Very remarkable, I dare say,” she answered, “to people who feel any doubt of this pitiable lady of yours being mad. I feel no doubt—and, thus far, I find your account of yourself, Julian, tiresome in the extreme. Go on to the end. Did you lay your hand on Mercy Merrick?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything of her?”
“Nothing. Difficulties beset me on every side. The French ambulance had shared in the disasters of France—it was broken up. The wounded Frenchmen were prisoners somewhere in Germany, nobody knew where. The French surgeon had been killed in action. His assistants were scattered—most likely in hiding. I began to despair of making any discovery, when accident threw in my way two Prussian soldiers who had been in the French cottage. They confirmed what the German surgeon told the consul, and what Horace himself toldme—namely, that no nurse in a black dress was to be seen in the place. If there had been such a person, she would certainly (the Prussians inform me) have been found in attendance on the injured Frenchmen. The cross of the Geneva Convention would have been amply sufficient to protect her: no woman wearing that badge of honor would have disgraced herself by abandoning the wounded men before the Germans entered the place.”
“In short,” interposed Lady Janet, “there is no such person as Mercy Merrick.”
“I can draw no other conclusion,” said Julian, “unless the English doctor’s idea is the right one. After hearing what I have just told you, he thinks the woman herself is Mercy Merrick.”
Lady Janet held up her hand as a sign that she had an objection to make here.
“You and the doctor seem to have settled everything to your entire satisfaction on both sides,” she said. “But there is one difficulty that you have neither of you accounted for yet.”
“What is it, aunt?”
“You talk glibly enough, Julian, about this woman’s mad assertion that Grace is the missing nurse, and that she is Grace. But you have not explained yet how the idea first got into her head; and, more than that, how it is that she is acquainted with my name and address, and perfectly familiar with Grace’s papers and Grace’s affairs. These things are a puzzle to a person of my average intelligence. Can your clever friend, the doctor, account for them?”
“Shall I tell you what he said when I saw him this morning?”
“Will it take long?”
“It will take about a minute.”
“You agreeably surprise me. Go on.”
“You want to know how she gained her knowledge of your name and of Miss Roseberry’s affairs,” Julian resumed. “The doctor says in one of two ways. Either Miss Roseberry must have spoken of you and of her own affairs while she and the stranger were together in the French cottage, or the stranger must have obtained access privately to Miss Roseberry’s papers. Do you agree so far?”
Lady Janet began to feel interested for the first time.
“Perfectly,” she said. “I have no doubt Grace rashly talked of matters which an older and wiser person would have kept to herself.”
“Very good. Do you also agree that the last idea in the woman’s mind when she was struck by the shell might have been (quite probably) the idea of Miss Roseberry’s identity and Miss Roseberry’s affairs? You think it likely enough? Well, what happens after that? The wounded woman is brought to life by an operation, and she becomes delirious in the hospital at Mannheim. During her delirium the idea of Miss Roseberry’s identity ferments in her brain, and assumes its present perverted form. In that form it still remains. As a necessary consequence, she persists in reversing the two identities. She says she is Miss Roseberry, and declares Miss Roseberry to be Mercy Merrick. There is the doctor ‘s explanation. What do you think of it?”
“Very ingenious, I dare say. The doctor doesn’t quite satisfy me, however, for all that. I think—”
What Lady Janet thought was not destined to be expressed. She suddenly checked herself, and held up her hand for the second time.
“Another objection?” inquired Julian.
“Hold your tongue!” cried the old lady. “If you say a word more I shall lose it again.”
“Lose what, aunt?”
“What I wanted to say to you ages ago. I have got it back again—it begins with a question. (No more of the doctor—I have had enough of him!) Where is she—yourpitiable lady,mycrazy wretch—where is she now? Still in London?”
“Yes.”
“And still at large?”
“Still with the landlady, at her lodgings.”
“Very well. Now answer me this! What is to prevent her from making another attempt to force her way (or steal her way) into my house? How am I to protect Grace, how am I to protect myself, if she comes here again?”
“Is that really what you wished to speak to me about?”
“That, and nothing else.”
They were both too deeply interested in the subject of their conversation to look toward the conservatory, and to notice the appearance at that moment of a distant gentleman among the plants and flowers, who had made his way in from the garden outside. Advancing noiselessly on the soft Indian matting, the gentleman ere long revealed himself under the form and features of Horace Holmcroft. Before entering the dining-room he paused, fixing his eyes inquisitively on the back of Lady Janet’s visitor—the back being all that he could see in the position he then occupied. After a pause of an instant the visitor spoke, and further uncertainty was at once at an end. Horace, nevertheless, made no movement to enter the room. He had his own jealous distrust of what Julian might be tempted to say at a private interview with his aunt; and he waited a little longer on the chance that his doubts might be verified.
“Neither you nor Miss Roseberry need any protection from the poor deluded creature,” Julian went on. “I have gained great influence over her—and I have satisfied her that it is useless to present herself here again.”
“I beg your pardon,” interposed Horace, speaking from the conservatory door. “You have done nothing of the sort.”
(He had heard enough to satisfy him that the talk was not taking the direction which his Suspicions had anticipated. And, as an additional incentive to show himself, a happy chance had now offered him the opportunity of putting Julian in the wrong.)
“Good heavens, Horace!” exclaimed Lady Janet. “Where did you come from? And what do you mean?”
“I heard at the lodge that your ladyship and Grace had returned last night. And I came in at once without troubling the servants, by the shortest way.” He turned to Julian next. “The woman you were speaking of just now,” he proceeded, “has been here again already—in Lady Janet’s absence.”
Lady Janet immediately looked at her nephew. Julian reassured her by a gesture.
“Impossible,” he said. “There must be some mistake.”
“There is no mistake,” Horace rejoined. “I am repeating what I have just heard from the lodge-keeper himself. He hesitated to mention it to Lady Janet for fear of alarming her. Only three days since this person had the audacity to ask him for her ladyship’s address at the sea-side. Of course he refused to give it.”
“You hear that, Julian?” said Lady Janet.
No signs of anger or mortification escaped Julian. The expression in his face at that moment was an expression of sincere distress.
“Pray don’t alarm yourself,” he said to his aunt, in his quietest tones. “If she attempts to annoy you or Miss Roseberry again, I have it in my power to stop her instantly.”
“How?” asked Lady Janet.
“How, indeed!” echoed Horace. “If we give her in charge to the police, we shall become the subject of a public scandal.”
“I have managed to avoid all danger of scandal,” Julian answered; the expression of distress in his face becoming more and more marked while he spoke. “Before I called here to-day I had a private consultation with the magistrate of the district, and I have made certain arrangements at the police station close by. On receipt of my card, an experienced man, in plain clothes, will present himself at any address that I indicate, and will take her quietly away. The magistrate will hear the charge in his private room, and will examine the evidence which I can produce, showing that she is not accountable for her actions. The proper medical officer will report officially on the case, and the law will place her under the necessary restraint.”
Lady Janet and Horace looked at each other in amazement. Julian was, in their opinion, the last man on earth to take the course—at once sensible and severe—which Julian had actually adopted. Lady Janet insisted on an explanation.
“Why do I hear of this now for the first time?” she asked. “Why did you not tell me you had taken these precautions before?”
Julian answered frankly and sadly.
“Because I hoped, aunt, that there would be no necessity for proceeding to extremities. You now force me to acknowledge that the lawyer and the doctor (both of whom I have seen this morning) think, as you do, that she is not to be trusted. It was at their suggestion entirely that I went to the magistrate. They put it to me whether the result of my inquiries abroad—unsatisfactory as it may have been in other respects—did not strengthen the conclusion that the poor woman’s mind is deranged. I felt compelled in common honesty to admit that it was so. Having owned this, I was bound to take such precautions as the lawyer and the doctor thought necessary. I have done my duty—sorely against my own will. It is weak of me, I dare say; but I cannotbear the thought of treating this afflicted creature harshly. Her delusion is so hopeless! her situation is such a pitiable one!”
His voice faltered. He turned away abruptly and took up his hat. Lady Janet followed him, and spoke to him at the door. Horace smiled satirically, and went to warm himself at the fire.
“Are you going away, Julian?”
“I am only going to the lodge-keeper. I want to give him a word of warning in case of his seeing her again.”
“You will come back here?” (Lady Janet lowered her voice to a whisper.) “There is really a reason, Julian, for your not leaving the house now.”
“I promise not to go away, aunt, until I have provided for your security. If you, or your adopted daughter, are alarmed by another intrusion, I give you my word of honor my card shall go to the police station, however painfully I may feel it myself.” (He, too, lowered his voice at the next words ) “In the meantime, remember what I confessed to you while we were alone. For my sake, let me see as little of Miss Roseberry as possible. Shall I find you in this room when I come back?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
He laid a strong emphasis, of look as well as of tone, on that one word. Lady Janet understood what the emphasis meant.
“Are you really,” she whispered, “as much in love with Grace as that?”
Julian laid one hand on his aunt’s arm, and pointed with the other to Horace—standing with his back to them, warming his feet on the fender.
“Well?” said Lady Janet.
“Well,” said Julian, with a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye, “I never envied any man as I envyhim!”
With those words he left the room.