e over-suspicious among them here,
and it ends in my feeling doubts and fears that I can't get over: doubts
about you and fears about myself. I have got a fear about myself now. I
want you to help me. Shall I make an apology first?"

"Don't say a word. Tell me what I can do."

He turned his face toward Julian for the first time.

"Just look at me," he said. "Does it strike you that I am at all wrong
in my mind? Tell me the truth, old fellow."

"Your nerves are a little shaken, Horace. Nothing more."

He considered again after that reply, his eyes remaining anxiously fixed
on Julian's face.

"My nerves are a little shaken," he repeated. "That is true; I feel they
are shaken. I should like, if you don't mind, to make sure that it's no
worse. Will you help me to try if my memory is all right?"

"I will do anything you like."

"Ah! you are a good fellow, Julian--and a clear-headed fellow too, which
is very important just now. Look here! I say it's about a week since the
troubles began in this house. Do you say so too?"

"Yes."

"The troubles came in with the coming of a woman from Germany, a
stranger to us, who behaved very violently in the dining-room there. Am
I right, so far?"

"Quite right."

"The woman carried matters with a high hand. She claimed Colonel
Roseberry--I wish to be strictly accurate--she claimed _the late_
Colonel Roseberry as her father. She told a tiresome story about her
having been robbed of her papers and her name by an impostor who had
personated her. She said the name of the impostor was Mercy Merrick. And
she afterward put the climax to it all: she pointed to the lady who is
engaged to be my wife, and declared that _she_ was Mercy Merrick. Tell
me again, is that right or wrong?"

Julian answered him as before. He went on, speaking more confidently and
more excitedly than he had spoken yet.

"Now attend to this, Julian. I am going to pass from my memory of what
happened a week ago to my memory of what happened five minutes since.
You were present; I want to know if you heard it too." He paused, and,
without taking his eyes off Julian, pointed backward to Mercy. "There is
the lady who is engaged to marry me," he resumed. "Did I, or did I not,
hear her say that she had come out of a Refuge, and that she was going
back to a Refuge? Did I, or did I not, hear her own to my face that her
name was Mercy Merrick? Answer me, Julian. My good friend, answer me,
for the sake of old times."