Yes!
In the insolent presence of Grace Roseberry, what was there now that she could not sustain?
Her pride was in arms.
Her lovely eyes lighted up as only a woman's eyes can light up when they see jewelry.
Her grand head bent gracefully to receive the necklace.
Her face w armed into color; her beauty rallied its charms.
Her triumph over Grace Roseberry was complete!
Julian's head sank.
For one sad moment he secretly asked himself the question:
"Have I been mistaken in her?"
Horace arrayed her in the pearls.
"Your husband puts these pearls on your neck, love," he said, proudly, and paused to look at her.
"Now," he added, with a contemptuous backward glance at Grace, "we may go into the library.
She has seen, and she has heard."
He believed that he had silenced her.
He had simply furnished her sharp tongue with a new sting.
"You will hear, and you will see, when my proofs come from Canada," she retorted.
"You will hear that your wife has stolen my name and my character!
You will see your wife dismissed from this house!"
Mercy turned on her with an uncontrollable outburst of passion.
"You are mad!" she cried.
Lady Janet caught the electric infection of anger in the air of the room.
She, too, turned on Grace.
She, too, said it:
"You are mad!"
Horace followed Lady Janet.
He was beside himself.
He fixed his pitiless eyes on Grace, and echoed the contagious words:
"You are mad!"
She was silenced, she was daunted at last.
The treble accusation revealed to her, for the first time, the frightful suspicion to which she had exposed herself.
She shrank back with a low cry of horror, and struck against a chair.
She would have fallen if Julian had not sprung forward and caught her.
Lady Janet led the way into the library.
She opened the door—started—and suddenly stepped aside, so as to leave the entrance free.
A man appeared in the open doorway.
He was not a gentleman; he was not a workman; he was not a servant.
He was vilely dressed, in glossy black broadcloth.
His frockcoat hung on him instead of fitting him.
His waistcoat was too short and too tight over the chest.
His trousers were a pair of shapeless black bags.
His gloves were too large for him.
His highly-polished boots creaked detestably whenever he moved.
He had odiously watchful eyes—eyes that looked skilled in peeping through key-holes.
His large ears, set forward like the ears of a monkey, pleaded guilty to meanly listening behind other people's doors.
His manner was quietly confidential when he spoke, impenetrably self-possessed when he was silent.
A lurking air of secret service enveloped the fellow, like an atmosphere of his own, from head to foot.
He looked all round the magnificent room without betraying either surprise or admiration.
He closely investigated every person in it with one glance of his cunningly watchful eyes.
Making his bow to Lady Janet, he silently showed her, as his introduction, the card that had summoned him.