terference, he made an effort to part
them.

"You spoke just now," he said to Julian, "of wishing to say a word in
private to that person." (He pointed to Grace.) "Shall we retire, or
will you take her into the library?"

"I refuse to have anything to say to him," Grace burst out, before
Julian could answer. "I happen to know that he is the last person to do
me justice. He has been effectually hoodwinked. If I speak to anybody
privately, it ought to be to you. You have the greatest interest of any
of them in finding out the truth."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want to marry an outcast from the streets?"

Horace took one step forward toward her. There was a look in his face
which plainly betrayed that he was capable of turning her out of the
house with his own hands. Lady Janet stopped him.

"You were right in suggesting just now that Grace had better leave the
room," she said. "Let us all three go. Julian will remain here and give
the man his directions when he arrives. Come."

No. By a strange contradiction it was Horace himself who now interfered
to prevent Mercy from leaving the room. In the heat of his indignation
he lost all sense of his own dignity; he descended to the level of a
woman whose intellect he believed to be deranged. To the surprise of
every one present, he stepped back and took from the table a jewel-case
which he had placed there when he came into the room. It was the wedding
present from his mother which he had brought to his betrothed wife. His
outraged self-esteem seized the opportunity of vindicating Mercy by a
public bestowal of the gift.

"Wait!" he called out, sternly. "That wretch shall have her answer. She
has sense enough to see and sense enough to hear. Let her see and hear!"

He opened the jewel-case, and took from it a magnificent pearl necklace
in an antique setting.

"Grace," he said, with his highest distinction of manner, "my mother
sends you her love and her congratulations on our approaching marriage.
She begs you to accept, as part of your bridal dress, these pearls. She
was married in them herself. They have been in our family for centuries.
As one of the family, honored and beloved, my mother offers them to my
wife."

He lifted the necklace to clasp it round Mercy's neck.

Julian watched her in breathless suspense. Would she sustain the ordeal
through which Horace had innocently condemned her to pass?

Yes! In the insolent presence of Grace Roseberry, what was t