Do you really not know that Mr. Julian Gray has himself conducted this suddenly-honored guest to her place of retirement? and that I am left alone in the midst of these changes, contradictions, and mysteries—the only person who is kept out in the dark?"
"It is surely needless to ask me these questions," said Mercy, gently.
"Who could possibly have told me what was going on below stairs before you knocked at my door?"
He looked at her with an ironical affectation of surprise.
"You are strangely forgetful to-day," he said. "Surely your friend Mr. Julian Gray might have told you?
I am astonished to hear that he has not had his private interview yet."
"I don't understand you, Horace."
"I don't want you to understand me," he retorted, irritably.
"The proper person to understand me is Julian Gray.
I look to him to account to me for the confidential relations which seem to have been established between you behind my back.
He has avoided me thus far, but I shall find my way to him yet."
His manner threatened more than his words expressed.
In Mercy's nervous condition at the moment, it suggested to her that he might attempt to fasten a quarrel on Julian Gray.
"You are entirely mistaken," she said, warmly.
"You are ungratefully doubting your best and truest friend.
I say nothing of myself.
You will soon discover why I patiently submit to suspicions which other women would resent as an insult."
"Let me discover it at once.
Now!
Without wasting a moment more!"
There had hitherto been some little distance between them.
Mercy had listened, waiting on the threshold of her door; Horace had spoken, standing against the opposite wall of the corridor.
When he said his last words he suddenly stepped forward, and (with something imperative in the gesture) laid his hand on her arm.
The strong grasp of it almost hurt her.
She struggled to release herself.
"Let me go!" she said.
"What do you mean?"
He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken it.
"You shall know what I mean," he replied.
"A woman who has grossly outraged and insulted you—whose only excuse is that she is mad—is detained in the house at your desire, I might almost say at your command, when the police officer is waiting to take her away.
I have a right to know what this means.
I am engaged to marry you.
If you won't trust other people, you are bound to explain yourself to Me.
I refuse to wait for Lady Janet's convenience.
I insist (if you force me to say so)—I insist on knowing the real nature of your connection with this affair.
You have obliged me to follow you here; it is my only opportunity of speaking to you.
You avoid me; you shut yourself up from me in your own room.
I am not your husband yet—I have no right to follow you in.
But there are other rooms open to us.
The library is at our disposal, and I will take care that we are not interrupted.
I am now going there, and I have a last question to ask.
You are to be my wife in a week's time: will you take me into your confidence or not?"
To hesitate was, in this case, literally to be lost.
Mercy's sense of justice told her that Horace had claimed no more than his due.
She answered instantly:
"I will follow you to the library, Horace, in five minutes."
Her prompt and frank compliance with his wishes surprised and touched him.
He took her hand.
She had endured all that his angry sense of injury could say.
His gratitude wounded her to the quick.