第37章
"Are you a clergyman? Are you an educated man?" she asked."Have you never read of cases of false personation, in newspapers and books? I blindly confided in Mercy Merrick before I found out what her character really was.She left the cottage--I know it, from the surgeon who brought me to life again--firmly persuaded that the shell had killed me.My papers and my clothes disappeared at the same time.Is there nothing suspicious in these circumstances? There were people at the Hospital who thought them highly suspicious--people who warned me that I might find an impostor in my place." She suddenly paused.The rustling sound of a silk dress had caught her ear.Lady Janet was leaving the room, with Horace, by way of the conservatory.With a last desperate effort of resolution, Grace sprung forward and placed herself in front of them.
"One word, Lady Janet, before you turn your back on me," she said, firmly."One word, and I will be content.Has Colonel Roseberry's letter found its way to this house or not? If it has, did a woman bring it to you?"Lady Janet looked--as only a great lady can look, when a person of inferior rank has presumed to fail in respect toward her.
"You are surely not aware," she said, with icy composure, "that these questions are an insult to Me?""And worse than an insult," Horace added, warmly, "to Grace!"The little resolute black figure (still barring the way to the conservatory) was suddenly shaken from head to foot.The woman's eyes traveled backward and forward between Lady Janet and Horace with the light of a new suspicion in them.
"Grace!" she exclaimed."What Grace? That's my name.Lady Janet, you have got the letter! The woman is here!"Lady Janet dropped Horace's arm, and retraced her steps to the place at which her nephew was standing.
"Julian, "she said."You force me, for the first time in my life, to remind you of the re spect that is due to me in my own house.Send that woman away."Without waiting to be answered, she turned back again, and once more took Horace's arm.
"Stand back, if you please," she said, quietly, to Grace.
Grace held her ground.
"The woman is here!" she repeated."Confront me with her--and then send me away, if you like."Julian advanced, and firmly took her by the arm."You forget what is due to Lady Janet," he said, drawing her aside."You forget what is due to yourself."With a desperate effort, Grace broke away from him, and stopped Lady Janet on the threshold of the conservatory door.
"Justice!" she cried, shaking her clinched hand with hysterical frenzy in the air."I claim my right to meet that woman face to face! Where is she? Confront me with her! Confront me with her!"While those wild words were pouring from her lips, the rumbling of carriage wheels became audible on the drive in front of the house.In the all-absorbing agitation of the moment, the sound of the wheels (followed by the opening of the house door) passed unnoticed by the persons in the dining-room.Horace's voice was still raised in angry protest against the insult offered to Lady Janet; Lady Janet herself (leaving him for the second time) was vehemently ringing the bell to summon the servants; Julian had once more taken the infuriated woman by the arms and was trying vainly to compose her--when the library door was opened quietly by a young lady wearing a mantle and a bonnet.Mercy Merrick (true to the appointment which she had made with Horace) entered the room.
The first eyes that discovered her presence on the scene were the eyes of Grace Roseberry.Starting violently in Julian's grasp, she pointed toward the library door."Ah!" she cried, with a shriek of vindictive delight."There she is!"Mercy turned as the sound of the scream rang through the room, and met--resting on her in savage triumph--the living gaze of the woman whose identity she had stolen, whose body she had left laid out for dead.On the instant of that terrible discovery--with her eyes fixed helplessly on the fierce eyes that had found her--she dropped senseless on the floor.
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