ter.' I
replied--and I beg you will give your best attention to what I am now
going to say--I replied to that, 'It is not fair to charge me with
suspecting her. I don't understand her confidential relations with
Julian Gray, and I don't understand her language and conduct in the
presence of the police officer. I claim it as my right to be satisfied
on both those points--in the character of the man who is to marry her.'
There was my answer. I spare you all that followed. I only repeat what I
said to Lady Janet. She has commanded you to be silent. If you obey her
commands, I owe it to myself and I owe it to my family to release you
from your engagement. Choose between your duty to Lady Janet and your
duty to Me."

He had mastered his temper at last: he spoke with dignity, and he spoke
to the point. His position was unassailable; he claimed nothing but his
right.

"My choice was made," Mercy answered, "when I gave you my promise
upstairs."

She waited a little, struggling to control herself on the brink of the
terrible revelation that was coming. Her eyes dropped before his;
her heart beat faster and faster; but she struggled bravely. With a
desperate courage she faced the position. "If you are ready to listen,"
she went on, "I am ready to tell you why I insisted on having the police
officer sent out of the house."

Horace held up his hand warningly.

"Stop!" he said; "that is not all."

His infatuated jealousy of Julian (fatally misinterpreting her
agitation) distrusted her at the very outset. She had limited herself
to clearing up the one question of her interference with the officer
of justice. The other question of her relations with Julian she had
deliberately passed over. Horace instantly drew his own ungenerous
conclusion.

"Let us not misunderstand one another," he said. "The explanation of
your conduct in the other room is only one of the explanations which
you owe me. You have something else to account for. Let us begin with
_that_, if you please."

She looked at him in unaffected surprise.

"What else have I to account for?" she asked.

He again repeated his reply to Lady Janet.

"I have told you already," he said. "I don't understand your
confidential relations with Julian Gray."

Mercy's color rose; Mercy's eyes began to brighten.

"Don't return to that!" she cried, with an irrepressible outbreak of
disgust. "Don't, for God's sake, make me despise you at such a moment as
this!"

His obstin