by
my desire, remain in the house until I am able to meet them, and to meet
you, again."

There the note ended. To what conclusion did it point?

Had Lady Janet really guessed the truth? or had she only surmised that
her adopted daughter was connected in some discreditable manner with
the mystery of "Mercy Merrick"? The line in which she referred to the
intruder in the dining-room as "the lady" showed very remarkably that
her opinions had undergone a change in that quarter. But was the
phrase enough of itself to justify the inference that she had actually
anticipated the nature of Mercy's confession? It was not easy to decide
that doubt at the moment--and it proved to be equally difficult to
throw any light on it at an aftertime. To the end of her life Lady Janet
resolutely refused to communicate to any one the conclusions which she
might have privately formed, the griefs which she might have secretly
stifled, on that memorable day.

Amid much, however, which was beset with uncertainty, one thing at
least was clear. The time at Mercy's disposal in her own room had been
indefinitely prolonged by Mercy's benefactress. Hours might pass before
the disclosure to which she stood committed would be expected from her.
In those hours she might surely compose her mind sufficiently to be able
to write her letter of confession to Julian Gray.

Once more she placed the sheet of paper before her. Resting her head on
her hand as she sat at the table, she tried to trace her way through
the labyrinth of the past, beginning with the day when she had met
Grace Roseberry in the French cottage, and ending with the day which had
brought them face to face, for the second time, in the dining-room at
Mablethorpe House.

The chain of events began to unroll itself in her mind clearly, link by
link.

She remarked, as she pursued the retrospect, how strangely Chance, or
Fate, had paved the way for the act of personation, in the first place.

If they had met under ordinary circumstances, neither Mercy nor Grace
would have trusted each other with the confidences which had been
exchanged between them. As the event had happened, they had come
together, under those extraordinary circumstances of common trial and
common peril, in a strange country, which would especially predispose
two women of the same nation to open their hearts to each other. In
no other way could Mercy have obtained at a first interview that fatal
knowledge of Grace's p