She stretched out her hand to open the door, when the voices (recognizable now as the voices of two men) caught her ear once more.
This time she was able to distinguish the words that were spoken.
"Any further orders, sir?" inquired one of the men.
"Nothing more," replied the other.
Mercy started, and faintly flushed, as the second voice answered the first.
She stood irresolute close to the billiard-room, hesitating what to do next.
After an interval the second voice made itself heard again, advancing nearer to the dining-room:
"Are you there, aunt?" it asked cautiously.
There was a moment's pause. Then the voice spoke for the third time, sounding louder and nearer.
"Are you there?" it reiterated;
"I have something to tell you."
Mercy summoned her resolution and answered:
"Lady Janet is not here."
She turned as she spoke toward the conservatory door, and confronted on the threshold Julian Gray.
They looked at one another without exchanging a word on either side.
The situation—for widely different reasons—was equally embarrassing to both of them.
There—as Julian saw her—was the woman forbidden to him, the woman whom he loved.
There—as Mercy saw him—was the man whom she dreaded, the man whose actions (as she interpreted them) proved that he suspected her.
On the surface of it, the incidents which had marked their first meeting were now exactly repeated, with the one difference that the impulse to withdraw this time appeared to be on the man's side and not on the woman's.
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.