er
mind.

"I want you to be near me while I am speaking to Horace," she said. "It
will give me courage if I can feel that I am speaking to you as well as
to him. I can count on _your_ sympathy--and sympathy is so precious to
me now! Am I asking too much, if I ask you to leave the door unclosed
when you go back to the dining-room? Think of the dreadful trial--to him
as well as to me! I am only a woman; I am afraid I may sink under it, if
I have no friend near me. And I have no friend but you."

In those simple words she tried her powers of persuasion on him for the
first time.

Between perplexity and distress Julian was, for the moment, at a loss
how to answer her. The love for Mercy which he dared not acknowledge was
as vital a feeling in him as the faith in her which he had been free to
avow. To refuse anything that she asked of him in her sore need--and,
more even than that, to refuse to hear the confession which it had been
her first impulse to make to _him_--these were cruel sacrifices to his
sense of what was due to Horace and of what was due to himself. But
shrink as he might, even from the appearance of deserting her, it was
impossible for him (except under a reserve which was almost equivalent
to a denial) to grant her request.

"All that I can do I will do," he said. "The doors shall be left
unclosed, and I will remain in the next room, on this condition,
that Horace knows of it as well as you. I should be unworthy of your
confidence in me if I consented to be a listener on any other terms. You
understand that, I am sure, as well as I do."

She had never thought of her proposal to him in this light. Woman-like,
she had thought of nothing but the comfort of having him near her. She
understood him now. A faint flush of shame rose on her pale cheeks as
she thanked him. He delicately relieved her from her embarrassment by
putting a question which naturally occurred under the circumstances.

"Where is Horace all this time?" he asked. "Why is he not here?"

"He has been called away," she answered, "by a message from Lady Janet."

The reply more than astonished Julian; it seemed almost to alarm him. He
returned to Mercy's chair; he said to her, eagerly, "Are you sure?"

"Horace himself told me that Lady Janet had insisted on seeing him."

"When?"

"Not long ago. He asked me to wait for him here while he went upstairs."

Julian's face darkened ominously.

"This confirms my worst fears," he said. "Have _y