In that case," retorted Lady Janet, "remain here because I wish it."

"Certainly--if you wish it. Only remember," he added, more obstinately
than ever, "that I differ entirely from Julian's view. In my opinion the
woman has no claim on us."

A passing movement of irritation escaped Julian for the first time.
"Don't be hard, Horace," he said, sharply. "All women have a claim on
us."

They had unconsciously gathered together, in the heat of the little
debate, turning their backs on the library door. At the last words
of the reproof administered by Julian to Horace, their attention was
recalled to passing events by the slight noise produced by the opening
and closing of the door. With one accord the three turned and looked in
the direction from which the sounds had come.

CHAPTER XI. THE DEAD ALIVE.

JUST inside the door there appeared the figure of a small woman dressed
in plain and poor black garments. She silently lifted her black net veil
and disclosed a dull, pale, worn, weary face. The forehead was low
and broad; the eyes were unusually far apart; the lower features were
remarkably small and delicate. In health (as the consul at Mannheim had
remarked) this woman must have possessed, if not absolute beauty,
at least rare attractions peculiarly her own. As it was now,
suffering--sullen, silent, self-contained suffering--had marred its
beauty. Attention and even curiosity it might still rouse. Admiration or
interest it could excite no longer.

The small, thin, black figure stood immovably inside the door. The dull,
worn, white face looked silently at the three persons in the room.

The three persons in the room, on their side, stood for a moment without
moving, and looked silently at the stranger on the threshold. There was
something either in the woman herself, or in the sudden and stealthy
manner of her appearance in the room, which froze, as if with the touch
of an invisible cold hand, the sympathies of all three. Accustomed to
the world, habitually at their ease in every social emergency, they
were now silenced for the first time in their lives by the first serious
sense of embarrassment which they had felt since they were children in
the presence of a stranger.

Had the appearance of the true Grace Roseberry aroused in their minds a
suspicion of the woman who had stolen her name, and taken her place in
the house?

Not so much as the shadow of a suspicion of Mercy was at the bottom of
the strange sens