“As far as I understand,” he said, “you appear to take it for granted that no innocent woman would have fainted on first seeing you. I have something to tell you which will alter your opinion. On her arrival in England this lady informed my aunt that she had met with you accidentally on the French frontier, and that she had seen you (so far as she knew) struck dead at her side by a shell. Remember that, and recall what happened just now. Without a word to warn her of your restoration to life, she finds herself suddenly face to face with you, a living woman—and this at a time when it is easy for any one who looks at her to see that she is in delicate health. What is there wonderful, what is there unaccountable, in her fainting under such circumstances as these?”
The question was plainly put. Where was the answer to it?
There was no answer to it. Mercy’s wisely candid statement of the manner in which she had first met with Grace, and of the accident which had followed had served Mercy’s purpose but too well. It was simply impossible for persons acquainted with that statement to attach a guilty meaning to the swoon. The false Grace Roseberry was still as far beyond the reach of suspicion as ever, and the true Grace was quick enough to see it. She sank into the chair from which she had risen; her hands fell in hopeless despair on her lap.
“Everything is against me,” she said. “The truth itself turns liar, and takes her side.” She paused, and rallied her sinking courage. “No!” she cried, resolutely, “I won’t submit to have my name and my place taken from me by a vile adventuress! Say what you like, I insist on exposing her; I won’t leave the house!”
The servant entered the room, and announced that the cab was at the door.
Grace turned to Julian with a defiant wave of her hand. “Don’t let me detain you,” she said. “I see I have neither advice nor help to expect from Mr. Julian Gray.”
Julian beckoned to the servant to follow him into a corner of the room.
“Do you know if the doctor has been sent for?” he asked.
“I believe not, sir. It is said in the servants’ hall that the doctor is not wanted.”
Julian was too anxious to be satisfied with a report from the servants’ hall. He hastily wrote on a slip of paper: “Has she recovered?” and gave the note to the man, with directions to take it to Lady Janet.