CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

Exit JULIAN,

JULIAN happened to be standing nearest to Mercy. He was the first at her side when she fell.

In the cry of alarm which burst from him, as he raised her for a moment in his arms, in the expression of his eyes when he looked at her death-like face, there escaped the plain-too plain-confession of the interest which he felt in her, of the admiration which she had aroused in him. Horace detected it. There was the

quick suspicion of jealousy in the movement by which he joined Julian; there was the ready resentment of jealousy in the tone in which he pronounced the words, 'Leave her to me.' Julian resigned her in silence. A faint flush appeared on his pale face as he drew back while Horace carried her to the sofa. His eyes sank to the ground; he seemed to be meditating self-reproachfully on the tone in which his friend had spoken to him. After having been the first to take an active part in meeting the calamity that had happened, he was now to all appearance insensible to everything that was passing in the room.

A touch on his shoulder roused him.

He turned and looked round. The woman who had done the mischief-the stranger in the poor black garments-was standing behind him. She pointed to the prostrate figure on the sofa, with a merciless smile.

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'You wanted a proof just now,' she said. There it is!'

Horace heard her. He suddenly left the sofa and joined Julian. His face, naturally ruddy, was pale with suppressed fury.

Take that wretch away!' he said. Instantly! or I won't answer for what I may do.'

Those words recalled Julian to himself. He looked round the room. Lady Janet and the housekeeper were together, in attendance on the swooning woman. The startled servants were congregated in the library doorway. Mercy had endeared herself to them by many little acts of kindness and consideration. One of them offered to run to the nearest doctor. Another asked if he should fetch the police. A third-the servant who had been in attendance on Mercy when the carriage took her to the committee-meeting-superstitiously assured Julian that it was Fate, and nothing less, which had brought his young lady home exactly at the wrong time. They all disagreed at the meeting, sir,' the man said; and the chairman adjourned the debate. If it hadn't been for that, we might not have got back for another good hour to come.'

With some difficulty Julian quieted the anxiety and confusion among the servants. This done he took Grace by the hand to lead her from the room. She hesitated and tried to release herself. Julian pointed to the group at the sofa, and to the servants going out in a body by the library door. You have made an enemy of everyone in this house,' he said, and you have not a friend in London. Do you wish to make

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an enemy of me?' Her head drooped; she made no reply; she waited, dumbly obedient to the firmer will than her own. Julian withdrew to the library, leading Grace after him by the hand. Before closing the door he paused, and looked back into the dining-room.

'Is she recovering?' he asked, after a moment's hesitation.

Lady Janet's voice answered him. Not yet."

'Shall I send for the nearest doctor?'

Horace interposed. He declined to let Julian associate himself, even in that indirect manner, with Mercy's recovery.

'If the doctor is wanted,' he said, I will go for him myself.'

Julian closed the library door. He absently released Grace; he mechanically pointed to a chair. She sat down in silent surprise, following him with her eyes as he walked slowly to and fro in the room.

For the moment his mind was far away from her, and from all that had happened since her appearance in the house. It was impossible that a man of his fineness of perception could mistake the meaning of Horace's conduct towards him. He was questioning his own heart, on the subject of Mercy, sternly and unreservedly, as it was his habit to do. After only once seeing her,' he thought, has she produced such an impression on me that Horace can discover it, before I have even suspected it myself? Can the time have come already, when I owe it to my friend to see her no more?' He stopped irritably in his walk. As a man devoted to a serious calling in life, there was something that wounded

his self-respect in the bare suspicion that he could be guilty of the purely sentimental extravagance called 'love at first sight.'

He had paused exactly opposite to the chair in which Grace was seated. Weary of the silence, she seized the opportunity of speaking to him.

'I have come here with you as you wished,' she said. 'Are you going to help me? Am I to count on you as my friend?'

He looked at her vacantly. It cost him an effort before he could give her the attention that she had claimed.

But

'You have been hard on me,' Grace went on. you showed me some kindness at first; you tried to make them give me a fair hearing. I ask you, as a just man, do you doubt now that the woman on the sofa in the next room is an impostor who has taken my place? Can there be any plainer confession that she is Mercy Merrick than the confession she has made?

You saw it; they saw it. She fainted at the sight of me.'

Julian crossed the room-still without answering her-and rang the bell. When the servant appeared, he told the man to fetch a cab.

Grace rose from her chair. What is the cab for?' she asked sharply.

For you and for me,' Julian replied. "I am going to take you back to your lodgings.'

'I refuse to go. My place is in this house. Neither Lady Janet nor you can get over the plain facts. All I asked was to be confronted with her. And what did she

do when she came into the room? She fainted at the sight of me.'

Reiterating her one triumphant assertion, she fixed her eyes on Julian with a look which said plainly, Answer that if you can. In mercy to her, Julian answered it on the spot.

'So 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 anyone 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