o footsteps
but the servant's footsteps crossed the hall. Along pause followed,
the carriage remaining at the door. Instead of bringing some one to the
house, it had apparently arrived to take some one away.

The next event was the return of the servant to the front door. They
listened again. Again no second footstep was audible. The door was
closed; the servant recrossed the hall; the carriage was driven away.
Judging by sounds alone, no one had arrived at the house, and no one had
left the house.

Julian looked at Mercy. "Do you understand this?" he asked.

She silently shook her head.

"If any person has gone away in the carriage," Julian went on, "that
person can hardly have been a man, or we must have heard him in the
hall."

The conclusion which her companion had just drawn from the noiseless
departure of the supposed visitor raised a sudden doubt in Mercy's mind.

"Go and inquire!" she said, eagerly.

Julian left the room, and returned again, after a brief absence, with
signs of grave anxiety in his face and manner.

"I told you I dreaded the most trifling events that were passing about
us," he said. "An event, which is far from being trifling, has just
happened. The carriage which we heard approaching along the drive turns
out to have been a cab sent for from the house. The person who has gone
away in it--"

"Is a woman, as you supposed?"

"Yes."

Mercy rose excitedly from her chair.

"It can't be Grace Roseberry?" she exclaimed.

"It _is_ Grace Roseberry."

"Has she gone away alone?"

"Alone--after an interview with Lady Janet."

"Did she go willingly?"

"She herself sent the servant for the cab."

"What does it mean?"

"It is useless to inquire. We shall soon know."

They resumed their seats, waiting, as they had waited already, with
their eyes on the library door.

CHAPTER XXIII. LADY JANET AT BAY.

THE narrative leaves Julian and Mercy for a while, and, ascending to the
upper regions of the house, follows the march of events in Lady Janet's
room.

The maid had delivered her mistress's note to Mercy, and had gone away
again on her second errand to Grace Roseberry in her boudoir. Lady Janet
was seated at her writing-table, waiting for the appearance of the woman
whom she had summoned to her presence. A single lamp diffused its mild
light over the books, pictures, and busts round her, leaving the further
end of the room, in which the bed was placed, almost lost in obscurity.