It was Mercy who spoke first.
"Did you expect to find Lady Janet here?" she asked, constrainedly. He answered, on his part, more constrainedly still.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Another time will do."
He drew back as he made the reply. She advanced desperately, with the deliberate intention of detaining him by speaking again.
The attempt which he had made to withdraw, the constraint in his manner when he had answered, had instantly confirmed her in the false conviction that he, and he alone, had guessed the truth! If she was right--if he had secretly made discoveries abroad which placed her entirely at his mercy--the attempt to induce Grace to consent to a compromise with her would be manifestly useless. Her first and foremost interest now was to find out how she really stood in the estimation of Julian Gray. In a terror of suspense, that turned her cold from head to foot, she stopped him on his way out, and spoke to him with the piteous counterfeit of a smile.
"Lady Janet is receiving some visitors," she said. "If you will wait here, she will be back directly."
The effort of hiding her agitation from him had brought a passing color into her cheeks. Worn and wasted as she was, the spell of her beauty was strong enough to hold him against his own will. All he had to tell Lady Janet was that he had met one of the gardeners in the conservatory, and had cautioned him as well as the lodge-keeper. It would have been easy to write this, and to send the note to his aunt on quitting the house. For the sake of his own peace of mind, for the sake of his duty to Horace, he was doubly bound to make the first polite excuse that occurred to him, and to leave her as he had found her, alone in the room. He made the attempt, and hesitated. Despising himself for doing it, he allowed himself to look at her. Their eyes met. Julian stepped into the dining-room.
"If I am not in the way," he said, confusedly, "I will wait, as you kindly propose."
She noticed his embarrassment; she saw that he was strongly restraining himself from looking at her again. Her own eyes dropped to the ground as she made the discovery. Her speech failed her; her heart throbbed faster and faster.
"If I look at him again" (was the thought in her mind) "I shall fall at his feet and tell him all that I have done!"
"If I look at her again" (was the thought in his mind) "I shall fall at her feet and own that I am in love with her!"
With downcast eyes he placed a chair for her. With downcast eyes she bowed to him and took it. A dead silence followed. Never was any human misunderstanding more intricately complete than the misunderstanding which had now established itself between those two.
Mercy's work-basket was near her. She took it, and gained time for composing herself by pretending to arrange the colored wools. He stood behind her chair, looking at the graceful turn of her head, looking at the rich masses of her hair. He reviled himself as the weakest of men, as the falsest of friends, for still remaining near her--and yet he remained.
The silence continued. The billiard-room door opened again noiselessly. The face of the listening woman appeared stealthily behind it.
At the same moment Mercy roused herself and spoke: "Won't you sit down?" she said, softly, still not looking round at him, still busy with her basket of wools.
He turned to get a chair--turned so quickly that he saw the billiard-room door move, as Grace Roseberry closed it again.
"Is there any one in that room?" he asked, addressing Mercy.
"I don't know," she answered. "I thought I saw the door open and shut again a little while ago."
He advanced at once to look into the room. As he did so Mercy dropped one of her balls of wool. He stopped to pick it up for her--then threw open the door and looked into the billiard-room. It was empty.
Had some person been listening, and had that person retreated in time to escape discovery? The open door of the smoking-room showed that room also to be empty. A third door was open--the door of the side hall, leading into the grounds. Julian closed and locked it, and returned to the dining-room.
"I can only suppose," he said to Mercy, "that the billiard-room door was not properly shut, and that the draught of air from the hall must have moved it."
She accepted the explanation in silence. He was, to all appearance, not quite satisfied with it himself. For a moment or two he looked about him uneasily. Then the old fascination fastened its hold on him again. Once more he looked at the graceful turn of her head, at the rich masses of her hair. The courage to put the critical question to him, now that she had lured him into remaining in the room, was still a courage that failed her. She remained as busy as ever with her work--too busy to look at him; too busy to speak to him. The silence became unendurable. He broke it by making a commonplace inquiry after her health. "I am well enough to be ashamed of the anxiety I have caused and the trouble I have given," she answered. "To-day I have got downstairs for the first time. I am trying to do a little work." She looked into the basket. The various specimens of wool in it were partly in balls and partly in loose skeins. The skeins were mixed and tangled. "Here is sad confusion!" she exclaimed, timidly, with a faint smile. "How am I to set it right again?"
"Let me help you," said Julian.
"You!"
"Why not?" he asked, with a momentary return of the quaint humor which she remembered so well. "You forget that I am a curate. Curates are privileged to make themselves useful to young ladies. Let me try."
He took a stool at her feet, and set himself to unravel one of the tangled skeins. In a minute the wool was stretched on his hands, and the loose end was ready for Mercy to wind. There was something in the trivial action, and in the homely attention that it implied, which in some degree quieted her fear of him. She began to roll the wool off his hands into a ball. Thus occupied, she said the daring words which were to lead him little by little into betraying his suspicions, if he did indeed suspect the truth.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
"You were here when I fainted, were you not?" Mercy began. "You must think me a sad coward, even for a woman."
He shook his head. "I am far from thinking that, "he replied. "No courage could have sustained the shock which fell on you. I don't wonder that you fainted. I don't wonder that you have been ill."
She paused in rolling up the ball of wool. What did those words of unexpected sympathy mean? Was he laying a trap for her? Urged by that serious doubt, she questioned him more boldly.
"Horace tells me you have been abroad," she said. "Did you enjoy your holiday?"
"It was no holiday. I went abroad because I thought it right to make certain inquiries--" He stopped there, unwilling to return to a subject that was painful to her.
Her v oice sank, her fingers trembled round the ball of wool; but she managed to go on.
"Did you arrive at any results?" she asked.