“Nobody’s endurance will be tried much longer,” said Lady Janet. She glanced at Julian, and taking from her pocket the card which he had given to her, opened the library door.
“Go to the police station,” she said to the servant in an undertone, “and give that card to the inspector on duty. Tell him there is not a moment to lose.”
“Stop!” said Julian, before his aunt could close the door again.
“Stop?” repeated Lady Janet, sharply. “I have given the man his orders. What do you mean?”
“Before you send the card I wish to say a word in private to this lady,” replied Julian, indicating Grace. “When that is done,” he continued, approaching Mercy, and pointedly addressing himself to her, “I shall have a request to make—I shall ask you to give me an opportunity of speaking to you without interruption.”
His tone pointed the allusion. Mercy shrank from looking at him. The signs of painful agitation began to show themselves in her shifting color and her uneasy silence. Roused by Julian’s significantly distant reference to what had passed between them, her better impulses were struggling already to recover their influence over her. She might, at that critical moment, have yielded to the promptings of her own nobler nature—she might have risen superior to the galling remembrance of the insults that had been heaped upon her—if Grace’s malice had not seen in her hesitation a means of referring offensively once again to her interview with Julian Gray.
“Pray don’t think twice about trusting him alone with me,” she said, with a sardonic affectation of politeness. “I am not interested in making a conquest of Mr. Julian Gray.”
The jealous distrust in Horace (already awakened by Julian’s request) now attempted to assert itself openly. Before he could speak, Mercy’s indignation had dictated Mercy’s answer.
“I am much obliged to you, Mr. Gray,” she said, addressing Julian (but still not raising her eyes to his). “I have nothing more to say. There is no need for me to trouble you again.”
In those rash words she recalled the confession to which she stood pledged. In those rash words she committed herself to keeping the position that she had usurped, in the face of the woman whom she had deprived of it!