He marched back across the room, to the discord of his own creaking boots, bowed, with a villainous smile which put the worst construction on everything, and vanished through the library door.
Lady Janet's high breeding restrained her from saying anything until the police officer was out of hearing.
Then, and not till then, she appealed to Julian.
"I presume you are in the secret of this?" she said.
"I suppose you have some reason for setting my authority at defiance in my own house?"
"I have never yet failed to respect your ladyship," Julian answered. "Before long you will know that I am not failing in respect toward you now."
Lady Janet looked across the room.
Grace was listening eagerly, conscious that events had taken some mysterious turn in her favor within the last minute.
"Is it part of your new arrangement of my affairs," her ladyship continued, "that this person is to remain in the house?"
The terror that had daunted Grace had not lost all hold of her yet.
She left it to Julian to reply.
Before he could speak Mercy crossed the room and whispered to her,
"Give me time to confess it in writing.
I can't own it before them—with this round my neck."
She pointed to the necklace.
Grace cast a threatening glance at her, and suddenly looked away again in silence.
Mercy answered Lady Janet's question.
"I beg your ladyship to permit her to remain until the half hour is over," she said.
"My request will have explained itself by that time."
Lady Janet raised no further obstacles.
For something in Mercy's face, or in Mercy's tone, seemed to have silenced her, as it had silenced Grace.
Horace was the next who spoke.
In tones of suppressed rage and suspicion he addressed himself to Mercy, standing fronting him by Julian's side.
"Am I included," he asked, "in the arrangement which engages you to explain your extraordinary conduct in half an hour?"
His hand had placed his mother's wedding present round Mercy's neck.
A sharp pang wrung her as she looked at Horace, and saw how deeply she had already distressed and offended him.
The tears rose in her eyes; she humbly and faintly answered him.
"If you please," was all she could say, before the cruel swelling at her heart rose and silenced her.
Horace's sense of injury refused to be soothed by such simple submission as this.
"I dislike mysteries and innuendoes," he went on, harshly. "In my family circle we are accustomed to meet each other frankly.
Why am I to wait half an hour for an explanation which might be given now?
What am I to wait for?"
Lady Janet recovered herself as Horace spoke.
"I entirely agree with you," she said. "I ask, too, what are we to wait for?"
Even Julian's self-possession failed him when his aunt repeated that cruelly plain question.
How would Mercy answer it?
Would her courage still hold out?
"You have asked me what you are to wait for," she said to Horace, quietly and firmly.
"Wait to hear something more of Mercy Merrick."
Lady Janet listened with a look of weary disgust.
"Don't return to that!" she said.
"We know enough about Mercy Merrick already."
"Pardon me—your ladyship does not know.
I am the only person who can inform you."
"You?"
She bent her head respectfully.
"I have begged you, Lady Janet, to give me half an hour," she went on.
"In half an hour I solemnly engage myself to produce Mercy Merrick in this room.
Lady Janet Roy, Mr. Horace Holmcroft, you are to wait for that."
Steadily pledging herself in those terms to make her confession, she unclasped the pearls from her neck, put them away in their cases and placed it in Horace's hand.