Spoken entirely at random, spoken without so much as a fragment of evidence to support them, those last words still had their effect. They cast a reflection on Lady Janet’s adopted daughter which was too outrageous to be borne. Lady Janet rose instantly. “Give me your arm, Horace,” she said, turning to leave the room. “I have heard enough.”
Horace respectfully offered his arm. “Your ladyship is quite right,” he answered. “A more monstrous story never was invented.”
He spoke, in the warmth of his indignation, loud enough for Grace to hear him. “What is there monstrous in it?” she asked, advancing a step toward him, defiantly.
Julian checked her. He too—though he had only once seen Mercy—felt an angry sense of the insult offered to the beautiful creature who had interested him at his first sight of her. “Silence!” he said, speaking sternly to Grace for the first time. “You are offending—justly offending—Lady Janet. You are talking worse than absurdly—you are talking offensively—when you speak of another woman presenting herself here in your place.”
Grace’s blood was up. Stung by Julian’s reproof, she turned on him a look which was almost a look of fury.
“Are you a clergyman? Are you an educated man?” she asked. “Have you never read of cases of false personation, in newspapers and books? I blindly confided in Mercy Merrick before I found out what her character really was. She left the cottage—I know it, from the surgeon who brought me to life again—firmly persuaded that the shell had killed me. My papers and my clothes disappeared at the same time. Is there nothing suspicious in these circumstances? There were people at the Hospital who thought them highly suspicious—people who warned me that I might find an impostor in my place.” She suddenly paused. The rustling sound of a silk dress had caught her ear. Lady Janet was leaving the room, with Horace, by way of the conservatory. With a last desperate effort of resolution, Grace sprung forward and placed herself in front of them.
“One word, Lady Janet, before you turn your back on me,” she said, firmly. “One word, and I will be content. Has Colonel Roseberry’s letter found its way to this house or not? If it has, did a woman bring it to you?”
Lady Janet looked—as only a great lady can look, when a person of inferior rank has presumed to fail in respect toward her.
“You are surely not aware,” she said, with icy composure, “that these questions are an insult to Me?”
“And worse than an insult,” Horace added, warmly, “to Grace!”