Julian cast a look of alarm at Mercy. “Don’t speak of it!” he said, in a whisper. “She might hear you.”
“Do you mean to say she doesn’t know you are in love with her?”
“Thank God, she has not the faintest suspicion of it!”
There was no mistaking the earnestness with which he made that reply. It proved his innocence as nothing else could have proved it. Lady Janet drew back a step—utterly bewildered; completely at a loss what to say or what to do next.
The silence that followed was broken by a knock at the library door. The man-servant—with news, and bad news, legibly written in his disturbed face and manner—entered the room. In the nervous irritability of the moment, Lady Janet resented the servant’s appearance as a positive offense on the part of the harmless man. “Who sent for you?” she asked, sharply. “What do you mean by interrupting us?”
The servant made his excuses in an oddly bewildered manner.
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon. I wished to take the liberty—I wanted to speak to Mr. Julian Gray.”
“What is it?” asked Julian.
The man looked uneasily at Lady Janet, hesitated, and glanced at the door, as if he wished himself well out of the room again.
“I hardly know if I can tell you, sir, before her ladyship,” he answered.