r, satirically. "Own it before everybody,
and own it at once. Call in Lady Janet--call in Mr. Gray and Mr.
Holmcroft--call in the servants. Go down on your knees and acknowledge
yourself an impostor before them all. Then I will believe you--not
before."

"Don't, don't turn me against you!" cried Mercy, entreatingly.

"What do I care whether you are against me or not?"

"Don't--for your own sake, don't go on provoking me much longer!"

"For my own sake? You insolent creature! Do you mean to threaten me?"

With a last desperate effort, her heart beating faster and faster, the
blood burning hotter and hotter in her cheeks, Mercy still controlled
herself.

"Have some compassion on me!" she pleaded. "Badly as I have behaved
to you, I am still a woman like yourself. I can't face the shame of
acknowledging what I have done before the whole house. Lady Janet treats
me like a daughter; Mr. Holmcroft has engaged himself to marry me.
I can't tell Lady Janet and Mr. Holmcroft to their faces that I have
cheated them out of their love. But they shall know it, for all that.
I 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 quest