“God knows that it was meant in your best interests. I knew that Lady Cheriton was your true and loyal friend—that she had more of the mother’s instinct than your real mother, and that no pain could possibly come to you from any meeting with her. And then I had a very serious reason for bringing you together. It was absolutely necessary for me to make sure of your identity.”
“Why necessary? What can it matter to you who I am?”
“Everything. I am the bearer of a very generous offer from Lord Cheriton—and it was essential that I should make that offer to the right person.”
Mercy’s face underwent a startling change at the sound of Lord Cheriton’s name. She had been standing by the window in a listless attitude, just where she had risen to receive her visitor. She drew herself suddenly to her fullest height, and looked at him with flushed cheeks and kindling eyes.
“I will accept no generosity from Lord Cheriton,” she said. “I want nothing from him except to be let alone. I want nothing from Lady Cheriton except her sympathy, and I would rather have even that at a distance. You have done the greatest harm you could do me in bringing me face to face with my old life.”
“Believe me I had but one feeling, anxiety for your happiness.”
“What is my happiness to you?” she retorted, almost fiercely. “You are playing at philanthropy. You can do me no good—you may do me much evil. You see me contented with my life—accustomed to its hardships—happy in the possession of one true friend. Why come to me with officious offers of favours which I have never sought?”
“You are ungenerous, and unjust. From the first hour of our acquaintance I saw that you were of a different clay to that of the women among whom I found you—different by education, instinct, associations, family history. How could I help being interested in one who stood thus apart? How could I help wanting to know more of so exceptional a life?”
“Yes, you were interested, as you might have been in any other wreck—in any derelict vessel stranded on a lonely shore, battered, broken, empty, rudderless, picturesque in ruin. It was a morbid interest, an interest in human misery.”
He stated his commission plainly and briefly. He told her that it was Lord Cheriton’s earnest wish to provide for her future life—that he was ready, and even anxious, to settle a sum of money which would ensure her a comfortable income for the rest of her days. He urged upon her the consideration of the new happiness, and larger opportunities of helping others, which this competence would afford her; but she cut him short with an impatient movement of her head.