your resolution to own the truth.
Prepare yourself, before the evening is over, to be tried and tempted
again."

Mercy lifted her head. Fear took the place of grief in her eyes, as they
rested in startled inquiry on Julian's face.

"How is it possible that temptation can come to me now?" she asked.

"I will leave it to events to answer that question," he said. "You will
not have long to wait. In the meantime I have put you on your guard."
He stooped, and spoke his next words earnestly, close at her ear. "Hold
fast by the admirable courage which you have shown thus far," he went
on. "Suffer anything rather than suffer the degradation of yourself. Be
the woman whom I once spoke of--the woman I still have in my mind--who
can nobly reveal the noble nature that is in her. And never forget
this--my faith in you is as firm as ever!"

She looked at him proudly and gratefully.

"I am pledged to justify your faith in me," she said. "I have put it
out of my own power to yield. Horace has my promise that I will explain
everything to him, in this room."

Julian started.

"Has Horace himself asked it of you?" he inquired. "_He_, at least, has
no suspicion of the truth."

"Horace has appealed to my duty to him as his betrothed wife," she
answered. "He has the first claim to my confidence--he resents my
silence, and he has a right to resent it. Terrible as it will be to open
_his_ eyes to the truth, I must do it if he asks me."

She was looking at Julian while she spoke. The old longing to associate
with the hard trial of the confession the one man who had felt for her,
and believed in her, revived under another form. If she could only
know, while she was saying the fatal words to Horace, that Julian was
listening too, she would be encouraged to meet the worst that could
happen! As the idea crossed her mind, she observed that Julian was
looking toward the door through which they had lately passed. In an
instant she saw the means to her end. Hardly waiting to hear the few
kind expressions of sympathy and approval which he addressed to her, she
hinted timidly at the proposal which she had now to make to him.

"Are you going back into the next room?" she asked.

"Not if you object to it," he replied.

"I don't object. I want you to be there."

"After Horace has joined you?"

"Yes. After Horace has joined me."

"Do you wish to see me when it is over?"

She summoned her resolution, and told him frankly what she had in h