The New Magdalen

He gave her no direct reply. "What I have to tell you of Lady Janet,"

he said, gravely, "is soon told. So far as she is concerned you have

nothing more to dread. Lady Janet knows all."

Even the heavy weight of oppression caused by the impending interview

with Horace failed to hold its place in Mercy's mind when Julian

answered her in those words.

"Come into the lighted room," she said, faintly. "It is too terrible to

hear you say that in the dark."

Julian followed her into the library. Her limbs trembled under her.

She dropped into a chair, and shrank under his great bright eyes, as he

stood by her side looking sadly down on her.

"Lady Janet knows all!" she repeated, with her head on her breast, and

the tears falling slowly over her cheeks. "Have you told her?"

"I have said nothing to Lady Janet or to any one. Your confidence is a

sacred confidence to me, until you have spoken first."

"Has Lady Janet said anything to you?"

"Not a word. She has looked at you with the vigilant eyes of love; she

has listened to you with the quick hearing of love--and she has found

her own way to the truth. She will not speak of it to me--she will not

speak of it to any living creature. I only know now how dearly she loved

you. In spite of herself she clings to you still. Her life, poor soul,

has been a barren one; unworthy, miserably unworthy, of such a nature as

hers. Her marriage was loveless and childless. She has had admirers, but

never, in the higher sense of the word, a friend. All the best years of

her life have been wasted in the unsatisfied longing for something to

love. At the end of her life You have filled the void. Her heart has

found its youth again, through You. At her age--at any age--is such a

tie as this to be rudely broken at the mere bidding of circumstances?

No! She will suffer anything, risk anything, forgive anything, rather

than own, even to herself, that she has been deceived in you. There is

more than her happiness at stake; there is pride, a noble pride, in such

love as hers, which will ignore the plainest discovery and deny the most

unanswerable truth. I am firmly convinced--from my own knowledge of her

character, and from what I have observed in her to-day--that she will

find some excuse for refusing to hear your confession. And more than

that, I believe (if the exertion of her influence can do it) that she

will leave no means untried of preventing you from acknowledging

your true position here to any living creature. I take a serious

responsibility on myself in telling you this--and I don't shrink

from it. You ought to know, and you shall know, what trials and what

temptations may yet lie before you."