“Don’t lose a moment in reading my letter. And mind this, when H. returns to you—meet him firmly: say nothing.”
Enlightened by the warning words which Julian had spoken to her, Mercy was at no loss to place the right interpretation on those strange lines. Instead of immediately opening the letter, she stopped the maid at the library door. Julian’s suspicion of the most trifling events that were taking place in the house had found its way from his mind to hers. “Wait!” she said. “I don’t understand what is going on upstairs; I want to ask you something.”
The woman came back—not very willingly.
“How did you know I was here?” Mercy inquired.
“If you please, miss, her ladyship ordered me to take the letter to you some little time since. You were not in your room, and I left it on your table.”
“I understand that. But how came you to bring the letter here?”
“My lady rang for me, miss. Before I could knock at her door she came out into the corridor with that morsel of paper in her hand—”
“So as to keep you from entering her room?”
“Yes, miss. Her ladyship wrote on the paper in a great hurry, and told me to pin it round the letter that I had left in your room. I was to take them both together to you, and to let nobody see me. ‘You will find Miss Roseberry in the library’ (her ladyship says), ‘and run, run, run! there isn’t a moment to lose!’ Those were her own words, miss.”
“Did you hear anything in the room before Lady Janet came out and met you?”