“Am I included,” he asked, “in the arrangement which engages you to explain your extraordinary conduct in half an hour?”
His hand had placed his mother’s wedding present round Mercy’s neck. A sharp pang wrung her as she looked at Horace, and saw how deeply she had already distressed and offended him. The tears rose in her eyes; she humbly and faintly answered him.
“If you please,” was all she could say, before the cruel swelling at her heart rose and silenced her.
Horace’s sense of injury refused to be soothed by such simple submission as this.
“I dislike mysteries and innuendoes,” he went on, harshly. “In my family circle we are accustomed to meet each other frankly. Why am I to wait half an hour for an explanation which might be given now? What am I to wait for?”
Lady Janet recovered herself as Horace spoke.
“I entirely agree with you,” she said. “I ask, too, what are we to wait for?”
Even Julian’s self-possession failed him when his aunt repeated that cruelly plain question. How would Mercy answer it? Would her courage still hold out?
“You have asked me what you are to wait for,” she said to Horace, quietly and firmly. “Wait to hear something more of Mercy Merrick.”
Lady Janet listened with a look of weary disgust.