Good-evening."
She sauntered to the door, looking from side to side, with an air of supreme disparagement, at the priceless treasures of art which adorned the walls.
Her eyes dropped superciliously on the carpet (the design of a famous French painter), as if her feet condescended in walking over it.
The audacity with which she had entered the room had been marked enough; it shrank to nothing before the infinitely superior proportions of the insolence with which she left it.
The instant the door was closed Lady Janet rose from her chair.
Reckless of the wintry chill in the outer air, she threw open one of the windows.
"Pah!" she exclaimed, with a shudder of disgust, "the very air of the room is tainted by her!"
She returned to her chair.
Her mood changed as she sat down again—her heart was with Mercy once more.
"Oh, my love!" she murmured "how low I have stooped, how miserably I have degraded myself—and all for You!"
The bitterness of the retrospect was unendurable.
The inbred force of the woman's nature took refuge from it in an outburst of defiance and despair.
"Whatever she has done, that wretch deserves it!
Not a living creature in this house shall say she has deceived me.
She has not deceived me—she loves me!
What do I care whether she has given me her true name or not!
She has given me her true heart.
What right had Julian to play upon her feelings and pry into her secrets?
My poor, tempted, tortured child!
I won't hear her confession.
Not another word shall she say to any living creature.
I am mistress—I will forbid it at once!"
She snatched a sheet of notepaper from the case; hesitated, and threw it from her on the table.
"Why not send for my darling?" she thought.
"Why write?"
She hesitated once more, and resigned the idea.
"No!
I can't trust myself!
I daren't see her yet!"
She took up the sheet of paper again, and wrote her second message to Mercy.
This time the note began fondly with a familiar form of address.
"MY DEAR CHILD—I have had time to think and compose myself a little, since I last wrote, requesting you to defer the explanation which you had promised me.
I already understand (and appreciate) the motives which led you to interfere as you did downstairs, and I now ask you to entirely abandon the explanation.
It will, I am sure, be painful to you (for reasons of your own into which I have no wish to inquire) to produce the person of whom you spoke, and as you know already, I myself am weary of hearing of her.
Besides, there is really no need now for you to explain anything.
The stranger whose visits here have caused us so much pain and anxiety will trouble us no more.
She leaves England of her own free will, after a conversation with me which has perfectly succeeded in composing and satisfying her.
Not a word more, my dear, to me, or to my nephew, or to any other human creature, of what has happened in the dining-room to-day.
When we next meet, let it be understood between us that the past is henceforth and forever buried to oblivion.
This is not only the earnest request—it is, if necessary, the positive command, of your mother and friend,
"JANET ROY.
"P.S.—I shall find opportunities (before you leave your room) of speaking separately to my nephew and to Horace Holmcroft.
You need dread no embarrassment, when you next meet them.
I will not ask you to answer my note in writing.
Say yes to the maid who will bring it to you, and I shall know we understand each other."
After sealing the envelope which inclosed these lines, Lady Janet addressed it, as usual, to
"Miss Grace Roseberry."
She was just rising to ring the bell, when the maid appeared with a message from the boudoir.
The woman's tones and looks showed plainly that she had been made the object of Grace's insolent self-assertion as well as her mistress.
"If you please, my lady, the person downstairs wishes—"