She waited a little, struggling to control herself on the brink of the terrible revelation that was coming. Her eyes dropped before his; her heart beat faster and faster; but she struggled bravely. With a desperate courage she faced the position. “If you are ready to listen,” she went on, “I am ready to tell you why I insisted on having the police officer sent out of the house.”
Horace held up his hand warningly.
“Stop!” he said; “that is not all.”
His infatuated jealousy of Julian (fatally misinterpreting her agitation) distrusted her at the very outset. She had limited herself to clearing up the one question of her interference with the officer of justice. The other question of her relations with Julian she had deliberately passed over. Horace instantly drew his own ungenerous conclusion.
“Let us not misunderstand one another,” he said. “The explanation of your conduct in the other room is only one of the explanations which you owe me. You have something else to account for. Let us begin with that, if you please.”
She looked at him in unaffected surprise.
“What else have I to account for?” she asked.
He again repeated his reply to Lady Janet.
“I have told you already,” he said. “I don’t understand your confidential relations with Julian Gray.”
Mercy’s color rose; Mercy’s eyes began to brighten.