She held up her hand for silence. “Lady Janet’s nephew is Julian Gray,” she repeated; “and I only know it now!”
Horace’s perplexity increased. “My darling, now you do know it, what is there to alarm you?” he asked.
(There was enough to alarm the boldest woman living—in such a position, and with such a temperament as hers. To her mind the personation of Grace Roseberry had suddenly assumed a new aspect: the aspect of a fatality. It had led her blindfold to the house in which she and the preacher at the Refuge were to meet. He was coming—the man who had reached her inmost heart, who had influenced her whole life! Was the day of reckoning coming with him?)
“Don’t notice me,” she said, faintly. “I have been ill all the morning. You saw it yourself when you came in here; even the sound of your voice alarmed me. I shall be better directly. I am afraid I startled you?”
“My dear Grace, it almost looked as if you were terrified at the sound of Julian’s name! He is a public celebrity, I know; and I have seen ladies start and stare at him when he entered a room. But you looked perfectly panic-stricken.”
She rallied her courage by a desperate effort; she laughed—a harsh, uneasy laugh—and stopped him by putting her hand over his mouth. “Absurd!” she said, lightly. “As if Mr. Julian Gray had anything to do with my looks! I am better already. See for yourself!” She looked round at him again with a ghastly gayety; and returned, with a desperate assumption of indifference, to the subject of Lady Janet’s nephew. “Of course I have heard of him,” she said. “Do you know that he is expected here to-day? Don’t stand there behind me—it’s so hard to talk to you. Come and sit down.”
He obeyed—but she had not quite satisfied him yet. His face had not lost its expression of anxiety and surprise. She persisted in playing her part, determined to set at rest in him any possible suspicion that she had reasons of her own for being afraid of Julian Gray. “Tell me about this famous man of yours,” she said, putting her arm familiarly through his arm. “What is he like?”
The caressing action and the easy tone had their effect on Horace. His face began to clear; he answered her lightly on his side.
“Prepare yourself to meet the most unclerical of clergymen,” he said. “Julian is a lost sheep among the parsons, and a thorn in the side of his bishop. Preaches, if they ask him, in Dissenters’ chapels. Declines to set up any pretensions to priestly authority and priestly power. Goes about doing good on a plan of his own. Is quite resigned never to rise to the high places in his profession. Says it’s rising high enough for him to be the Archdeacon of the afflicted, the Dean of the hungry, and the Bishop of the poor. With all his oddities, as good a fellow as ever lived. Immensely popular with the women. They all go to him for advice. I wish you would go, too.”
Mercy changed color. “What do you mean?” she asked, sharply.