aded your name and your character? I have done honor
to both. I have won everybody's liking and everybody's respect. Do you
think Lady Janet would have loved you as she loves me? Not she! I tell
you to your face I have filled the false position more creditably than
you could have filled the true one, and I mean to keep it. I won't give
up your name; I won't restore your character! Do your worst; I defy
you!"

She poured out those reckless words in one headlong flow which defied
interruption. There was no answering her until she was too breathless
to say more. Grace seized her opportunity the moment it was within her
reach.

"You defy me?" she returned, resolutely. "You won't defy me long. I have
written to Canada. My friends will speak for me."

"What of it, if they do? Your friends are strangers here. I am Lady
Janet's adopted daughter. Do you think she will believe your friends?
She will believe me. She will burn their letters if they write. She will
forbid the house to them if they come. I shall be Mrs. Horace Holmcroft
in a week's time. Who can shake _my_ position? Who can injure Me?"

"Wait a little. You forget the matron at the Refuge."

"Find her, if you can. I never told you her name. I never told you where
the Refuge was."

"I will advertise your name, and find the matron in that way."

"Advertise in every newspaper in London. Do you think I gave a stranger
like you the name I really bore in the Refuge? I gave you the name I
assumed when I left England. No such person as Mercy Merrick is known to
the matron. No such person is known to Mr. Holmcroft. He saw me at the
French cottage while you were senseless on the bed. I had my gray cloak
on; neither he nor any of them saw me in my nurse's dress. Inquiries
have been made about me on the Continent--and (I happen to know from
the person who made them) with no result. I am safe in your place; I
am known by your name. I am Grace Roseberry; and you are Mercy Merrick.
Disprove it, if you can!"

Summing up the unassailable security of her false position in those
closing words, Mercy pointed significantly to the billiard-room door.

"You were hiding there, by your own confession," she said. "You know
your way out by that door. Will you leave the room?"

"I won't stir a step!"

Mercy walked to a side-table, and struck the bell placed on it.

At the same moment the billiard-room door opened. Julian Gray
appeared--returning from his unsuccessful search in the