y sympathy and help. All the other
persons in the room looked at her in speechless surprise. Grace rose
from her chair. Even the man in plain clothes started to his feet. Lady
Janet (hurriedly joining Horace, and fully sharing his perplexity and
alarm) took Mercy impulsively by the arm, and shook it, as if to rouse
her to a sense of what she was doing. Mercy held firm; Mercy resolutely
repeated what she had said: "Send that man out of the house."

Lady Janet lost all her patience with her. "What has come to you?" she
asked, sternly. "Do you know what you are saying? The man is here in
your interest, as well as in mine; the man is here to spare you, as
well as me, further annoyance and insult. And you insist--insist, in my
presence--on his being sent away! What does it mean?"

"You shall know what it means, Lady Janet, in half an hour. I don't
insist--I only reiterate my entreaty. Let the man be sent away."

Julian stepped aside (with his aunt's eyes angrily following him) and
spoke to the police officer. "Go back to the station," he said, "and
wait there till you hear from me."

The meanly vigilant eyes of the man in plain clothes traveled sidelong
from Julian to Mercy, and valued her beauty as they had valued the
carpet and the chairs. "The old story," he thought. "The nice-looking
woman is always at the bottom of it; and, sooner or later, the
nice-looking woman has her way." 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 cross