The New Magdalen

"Do you mean prison?"

"I mean an asylum."

Again Mercy turned to Julian. There was horror now, as well as surprise,

in her face. "Oh!" she said to him, "Horace is surely wrong? It can't

be?"

Julian left it to Horace to answer. Every facility in him seemed to be

still absorbed in watching Mercy's face. She was compelled to address

herself to Horace once more.

"What sort of asylum?" she asked. "You don't surely mean a madhouse?"

"I do," he rejoined. "The workhouse first, perhaps--and then the

madhouse. What is there to surprise you in that? You yourself told her

to her face she was mad. Good Heavens! how pale you are! What is the

matter?"

She turned to Julian for the third time. The terrible alternative

that was offered to her had showed itself at last, without reserve or

disguise. Restore the identity that you have stolen, or shut her up in a

madhouse--it rests with you to choose! In that form the situation shaped

itself in her mind. She chose on the instant. Before she opened her lips

the higher nature in her spoke to Julian, in her eyes. The steady

inner light that he had seen in them once already shone in them again,

brighter and purer than before. The conscience that he had fortified,

the soul that he had saved, looked at him and said, Doubt us no more!

"Send that man out of the house."

Those were her first words. She spoke (pointing to the police officer)

in clear, ringing, resolute tones, audible in the remotest corner of the

room.

Julian's hand stole unobserved to hers, and told her, in its momentary

pressure, to count on his brotherly 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."