The New Magdalen

Horace spoke, laying his finger on the telegram. His voice had changed

with the change in his face. The tone was low and trembling: no one

would have recognized it as the tone of Horace's voice.

"What does this mean?" he said to Mercy. "It can't be for you?"

"It _is_ for me."

"What have You to do with a Refuge?"

Without a change in her face, without a movement in her limbs, she spoke

the fatal words: "I have come from a Refuge, and I am going back to a Refuge. Mr. Horace

Holmcroft, I am Mercy Merrick."