end of the chapel--she saw him close by her,
looking her searchingly in the face; seeing her shameful secret in
her eyes; hearing it in her voice; feeling it in her trembling hands;
forcing it out of her word by word, till she fell prostrate at his
feet with the confession of the fraud. Her head dropped again on the
cushions; she hid her face in horror of the scene which her excited
fancy had conjured up. Even now, when she had made that dreaded
interview needless, could she feel sure (meeting him only on the most
distant terms) of not betraying herself? She could _not_ feel sure.
Something in her shuddered and shrank at the bare idea of finding
herself in the same room with him. She felt it, she knew it: her guilty
conscience owned and feared its master in Julian Gray!

The minutes passed. The violence of her agitation began to tell
physically on her weakened frame.

She found herself crying silently without knowing why. A weight was
on her head, a weariness was in all her limbs. She sank lower on the
cushions--her eyes closed--the monotonous ticking of the clock on the
mantelpiece grew drowsily fainter and fainter on her ear. Little by
little she dropped into slumber--slumber so light that she started when
a morsel of coal fell into the grate, or when the birds chirped and
twittered in their aviary in the winter-garden.

Lady Janet and Horace came in. She was faintly conscious of persons in
the room. After an interval she opened her eyes, and half rose to speak
to them. The room was empty again. They had stolen out softly and left
her to repose. Her eyes closed once more. She dropped back into slumber,
and from slumber, in the favoring warmth and quiet of the place, into
deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN APPEARS.

After an interval of rest Mercy was aroused by the shutting of a glass
door at the far end of the conservatory. This door, leading into the
garden, was used only by the inmates of the house, or by old friends
privileged to enter the reception-rooms by that way. Assuming that
either Horace or Lady Janet was returning to the dining-room, Mercy
raised herself a little on the' sofa and listened.

The voice of one of the men-servants caught her ear. It was answered by
another voice, which instantly set her trembling in every limb.

She started up, and listened again in speechless terror. Yes! there
was no mistaking it. The voice that was answering the servant was the
unforgotten voice w