"She is safe from discovery--for the present, at least."
"Safe as long as she closes her lips?"
"As long as she closes her lips."
"There is her opportunity!" cried Julian. "Her future is before her. She
has not done with hope!"
With clasped hands, in breathless suspense, Mercy looked at that
inspiriting face, and listened to those golden words.
"Explain yourself," she said. "Tell her, through me, what she must do."
"Let her own the truth," answered Julian, "without the base fear of
discovery to drive her to it. Let her do justice to the woman whom she
has wronged, while that woman is still powerless to expose her. Let her
sacrifice everything that she has gained by the fraud to the sacred duty
of atonement. If she can do that--for conscience' sake, and for pity's
sake--to her own prejudice, to her own shame, to her own loss--then her
repentance has nobly revealed the noble nature that is in her; then she
is a woman to be trusted, respected, beloved! If I saw the Pharisees and
fanatics of this lower earth passing her by in contempt, I would hold
out my hand to her before them all. I would say to her in her solitude
and her affliction, 'Rise, poor wounded heart! Beautiful, purified soul,
God's angels rejoice over you! Take your place among the noblest of
God's creatures!'"
In those last sentences he unconsciously repeated the language in which
he had spoken, years since, to his congregation in the chapel of the
Refuge. With tenfold power and tenfold persuasion they now found their
way again to Mercy's heart. Softly, suddenly, mysteriously, a change
passed over her. Her troubled face grew beautifully still. The shifting
light of terror and suspense vanished from her grand gray eyes, and left
in them the steady inner glow of a high and pure resolve.
There was a moment of silence between them. They both had need of
silence. Julian was the first to speak again.
"Have I satisfied you that her opportunity is still before her?" he
asked. "Do you feel, as I feel, that she has _not_ done with hope?"
"You have satisfied me that the world holds no truer friend to her than
you," Mercy answered, gently and gratefully. "She shall prove herself
worthy of your generous confidence in her. She shall show you yet that
you have not spoken in vain."
Still inevitably failing to understand her, he led the way to the door.
"Don't waste the precious time," he said. "Don't leave her cruelly to
herself. If you can't go to her, let me go as your messenger, in your
place."
She stopped him by a gesture. He took a step back into the room, and
paused, observing with surprise that she made no attempt to move from
the chair that she occupied.