She stopped again at the bedside; she looked again at the face of the
corpse.
To what end had the shell struck the woman who had some hope in her
life, and spared the woman who had none? The words she had herself
spoken to Grace Roseberry came back to her as she thought of it. "If I
only had your chance! If I only had your reputation and your prospects!"
And there was the chance wasted! there were the enviable prospects
thrown away! It was almost maddening to contemplate that result, feeling
her own position as she felt it. In the bitter mockery of despair she
bent over the lifeless figure, and spoke to it as if it had ears to hear
her. "Oh!" she said, longingly, "if you could be Mercy Merrick, and if I
could be Grace Roseberry, _now!_"
The instant the words passed her lips she started into an erect
position. She stood by the bed with her eyes staring wildly into empty
space; with her brain in a flame; with her heart beating as if it would
stifle her. "If you could be Mercy Merrick, and if I could be Grace
Roseberry, now!" In one breathless moment the thought assumed a new
development in her mind. In one breathless moment the conviction struck
her like an electric shock. _She might be Grace Roseberry if she dared!_
There was absolutely nothing to stop her from presenting herself to Lady
Janet Roy under Grace's name and in Grace's place!
What were the risks? Where was the weak point in the scheme?
Grace had said it herself in so many words--she and Lady Janet had never
seen each other. Her friends were in Canada; her relations in England
were dead. Mercy knew the place in which she had lived--the place called
Port Logan--as well as she had known it herself. Mercy had only to read
the manuscript journal to be able to answer any questions relating to
the visit to Rome and to Colonel Roseberry's death. She had no
accomplished lady to personate: Grace had spoken herself--her father's
letter spoke also in the plainest terms--of her neglected education.
Everything, literally everything, was in the lost woman's favor. The
people with whom she had been connected in the ambulance had gone,
to return no more. Her own clothes were on Miss Roseberry at that
moment--marked with her own name. Miss Roseberry's clothes, marked with
_her_ name, were drying, at Mercy's disposal, in the next room. The way
of escape from the unendurable humiliation of her present life lay open
before her at last. What a prospect it was! A new identity, which she
might own anywhere! a new name, which was beyond reproach! a new past
life, into which all the world might search, and be welcome! Her color
rose, her eyes sparkled; she had never been so irresistibly beautiful as
she looked at the moment when the new future disclosed itself, radiant
with new hope.