第24章

There was a pause.Mercy's fingers toyed nervously with the trinkets at her watch-chain."When would you like it to be?" she said, very softly, with her whole attention fixed on the watch-chain.

She had never spoken, she had never looked, as she spoke and looked now.Horace was afraid to believe in his own good fortune."Oh, Grace!" he exclaimed, "you are not trifling with me?""What makes you think I am trifling with you?"Horace was innocent enough to answer her seriously."You would not even let me speak of our marriage just now, "he said.

"Never mind what I did just now," she retorted, petulantly."They say women are changeable.It is one of the defects of the sex.""Heaven be praised for the defects of the sex!" cried Horace, with devout sincerity."Do you really leave me to decide?""If you insist on it."

Horace considered for a moment--the subject being the law of marriage."We may be married by license in a fortnight," he said."I fix this day fortnight."She held up her hands in protest.

"Why not? My lawyer is ready.There are no preparations to make.You said when you accepted me that it was to be a private marriage."Mercy was obliged to own that she had certainly said that.

"We might be married at once--if the law would only let us.This day fortnight! Say--Yes!" He drew her closer to him.There was a pause.The mask of coquetry--badly worn from the first--dropped from her.Her sad gray eyes rested compassionately on his eager face."Don't look so serious!" he said."Only one little word, Grace! Only Yes."She sighed, and said it.He kissed her passionately.It was only by a resolute effort that she released herself.

"Leave me!" she said, faintly."Pray leave me by myself!"She was in earnest--strangely in earnest.She was trembling from head to foot.Horace rose to leave her."I will find Lady Janet," he said; "I long to show the dear old lady that I have recovered my spirits, and to tell her why." He turned round at the library door."You won't go away? You will let me see you again when you are more composed?""I will wait here," said Mercy.

Satisfied with that reply, he left the room.

Her hands dropped on her lap; her head sank back wearily on the cushions at the head of the sofa.There was a dazed sensation in her: her mind felt stunned.She wondered vacantly whether she was awake or dreaming.Had she really said the word which pledged her to marry Horace Holmcroft in a fortnight? A fortnight! Something might happen in that time to prevent it: she might find her way in a fortnight out of the terrible position in which she stood.Anyway, come what might of it, she had chosen the preferable alternative to a private interview with Julian Gray.She raised herself from her recumbent position with a start, as the idea of the interview--dismissed for the last few minutes--possessed itself again of her mind.Her excited imagination figured Julian Gray as present in the room at that moment, speaking to her as Horace had proposed.She saw him seated close at her side--this man who had shaken her to the soul when he was in the pulpit, and when she was listening to him (unseen) at the other end of the chapel--she saw him close by her, looking her searchingly in the face; seeing her shameful secret in her eyes; hearing it in her voice; feeling it in her trembling hands; forcing it out of her word by word, till she fell prostrate at his feet with the confession of the fraud.Her head dropped again on the cushions; she hid her face in horror of the scene which her excited fancy had conjured up.Even now, when she had made that dreaded interview needless, could she feel sure (meeting him only on the most distant terms) of not betraying herself? She could not feel sure.Something in her shuddered and shrank at the bare idea of finding herself in the same room with him.She felt it, she knew it: her guilty conscience owned and feared its master in Julian Gray!

The minutes passed.The violence of her agitation began to tell physically on her weakened frame.

She found herself crying silently without knowing why.A weight was on her head, a weariness was in all her limbs.She sank lower on the cushions--her eyes closed--the monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece grew drowsily fainter and fainter on her ear.Little by little she dropped into slumber--slumber so light that she started when a morsel of coal fell into the grate, or when the birds chirped and twittered in their aviary in the winter-garden.

Lady Janet and Horace came in.She was faintly conscious of persons in the room.After an interval she opened her eyes, and half rose to speak to them.The room was empty again.They had stolen out softly and left her to repose.Her eyes closed once more.She dropped back into slumber, and from slumber, in the favoring warmth and quiet of the place, into deep and dreamless sleep.

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