The New Magdalen

"There is your answer!" he said. "Look!--and pity her."

She had not once interrupted them while they had been speaking: she had

changed her position again, and that was all. There was a writing-table

at the side of her chair; her outstretched arms rested on it. Her head

had dropped on her arms, and her face was hidden. Julian's judgment

had not misled him; the utter self-abandonment of her attitude answered

Horace as no human language could have answered him. He looked at her.

A quick spasm of pain passed across his face. He turned once more to

the faithful friend who had forgiven him. His head fell on Julian's

shoulder, and he burst into tears.

Mercy started wildly to her feet, and looked at the two men.

"O God" she cried, "what have I done!"

Julian quieted her by a motion of his hand.

"You have helped me to save him," he said. "Let his tears have their

way. Wait."

He put one arm round Horace to support him. The manly tenderness of the

action, the complete and noble pardon of past injuries which it implied,

touched Mercy to the heart. She went back to her chair. Again shame and

sorrow overpowered her, and again she hid her face from view.

Julian led Horace to a seat, and silently waited by him until he had

recovered his self-control. He gratefully took the kind hand that had

sustained him: he said, simply, almost boyishly, "Thank you, Julian. I

am better now."

"Are you composed enough to listen to what is said to you?" Julian

asked.

"Yes. Do _you_ wish to speak to me?"

Julian left him without immediately replying, and returned to Mercy.

"The time has come," he said. "Tell him all--truly, unreservedly, as you

would tell it to me."

She shuddered as he spoke. "Have I not told him enough?" she asked.

"Do you want me to break his heart? Look at him! Look what I have done

already!"

Horace shrank from the ordeal as Mercy shrank from it.

"No, no! I can't listen to it! I daren't listen to it!" he cried, and

rose to leave the room.

Julian had taken the good work in hand: he never faltered over it for an

instant. Horace had loved her--how dearly Julian now knew for the first

time. The bare possibility that she might earn her pardon if she was

allowed to plead her own cause was a possibility still left. To let her

win on Horace to forgive her, was death to the love that still filled

his heart in secret. But he never hesitated. With a resolution which the

weaker man was powerless to resist, he took him by the arm and led him

back to his place.

"For her sake, and for your sake, you shall not condemn her unheard," he

said to Horace, firmly. "One temptation to deceive you after another

has tried her, and she has resisted them all. With no discovery to fear,

with a letter from the benefactress who loves her commanding her to be

silent, with everything that a woman values in this world to lose, if

she owns what she has done--_this_ woman, for the truth's sake, has

spoken the truth. Does she deserve nothing at your hands in return for

that? Respect her, Horace--and hear her."