The New Magdalen

"P.S.--I shall find opportunities (before you leave your room) of

speaking separately to my nephew and to Horace Holmcroft. You need dread

no embarrassment, when you next meet them. I will not ask you to answer

my note in writing. Say yes to the maid who will bring it to you, and I

shall know we understand each other."

"If you please, my lady, the person downstairs wishes--"

Lady Janet, frowning contemptuously, interrupted the message at the

outset. "I know what the person downstairs wishes. She has sent you for

a letter from me?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Anything more?"

"She has sent one of the men-servants, my lady, for a cab. If your

ladyship had only heard how she spoke to him!"

Lady Janet intimated by a sign that she would rather not hear. She at

once inclosed the check in an undirected envelope.

"Take that to her," she said, "and then come back to me."

Dismissing Grace Roseberry from all further consideration, Lady Janet

sat, with her letter to Mercy in her hand, reflecting on her position,

and on the efforts which it might still demand from her. Pursuing this

train of thought, it now occurred to her that accident might bring

Horace and Mercy together at any moment, and that, in Horace's present

frame of mind, he would certainly insist on the very explanation which

it was the foremost interest of her life to suppress. The dread of this

disaster was in full possession of her when the maid returned.

"Where is Mr. Holmcroft?" she asked, the moment the woman entered the

room.

"I saw him open the library door, my lady, just now, on my way

upstairs."

"Was he alone?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Go to him, and say I want to see him here immediately."

The maid withdrew on her second errand. Lady Janet rose restlessly, and

closed the open window. Her impatient desire to make sure of Horace so

completely mastered her that she left her room, and met the woman in

the corridor on her return. Receiving Horace's message of excuse, she

instantly sent back the peremptory rejoinder, "Say that he will oblige

me to go to him, if he persists in refusing to come to me. And, stay!"

she added, remembering the undelivered letter. "Send Miss Roseberry's

maid here; I want her."

Left alone again, Lady Janet paced once or twice up and down the

corridor--then grew suddenly weary of the sight of it, and went back to

her room. The two maids returned together. One of them, having announced

Horace's submission, was dismissed. The other was sent to Mercy's room

with Lady Janet's letter. In a minute or two the messenger appeared

again, with the news that she had found the room empty.