ed the room
and whispered to her, "Give me time to confess it in writing. I can't
own it before them--with this round my neck." She pointed to the
necklace. Grace cast a threatening glance at her, and suddenly looked
away again in silence.

Mercy answered Lady Janet's question. "I beg your ladyship to permit her
to remain until the half hour is over," she said. "My request will have
explained itself by that time."

Lady Janet raised no further obstacles. For something in Mercy's face,
or in Mercy's tone, seemed to have silenced her, as it had silenced
Grace. Horace was the next who spoke. In tones of suppressed rage
and suspicion he addressed himself to Mercy, standing fronting him by
Julian's side.

"Am I included," he asked, "in the arrangement which engages you to
explain your extraordinary conduct in half an hour?"

_His_ hand had placed his mother's wedding present round Mercy's neck. A
sharp pang wrung her as she looked at Horace, and saw how deeply she
had already distressed and offended him. The tears rose in her eyes; she
humbly and faintly answered him.

"If you please," was all she could say, before the cruel swelling at her
heart rose and silenced her.

Horace's sense of injury refused to be soothed by such simple submission
as this.

"I dislike mysteries and innuendoes," he went on, harshly. "In my family
circle we are accustomed to meet each other frankly. Why am I to wait
half an hour for an explanation which might be given now? What am I to
wait for?"

Lady Janet recovered herself as Horace spoke.

"I entirely agree with you," she said. "I ask, too, what are we to wait
for?"

Even Julian's self-possession failed him when his aunt repeated that
cruelly plain question. How would Mercy answer it? Would her courage
still hold out?

"You have asked me what you are to wait for," she said to Horace,
quietly and firmly. "Wait to hear something more of Mercy Merrick."

Lady Janet listened with a look of weary disgust.

"Don't return to _that!_" she said. "We know enough about Mercy Merrick
already."

"Pardon me--your ladyship does _not_ know. I am the only person who can
inform you."

"You?"

She bent her head respectfully.

"I have begged you, Lady Janet, to give me half an hour," she went on.
"In half an hour I solemnly engage myself to produce Mercy Merrick in
this room. Lady Janet Roy, Mr. Horace Holmcroft, you are to wait for
that."

Steadily pledging herself in those terms to make