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.