The New Magdalen

"Surely you know!" exclaimed Lady Janet.

"Indeed I don't. Tell me why."

"Ask Horace to tell you."

The last allusion was too plain to be misunderstood. Mercy's head

drooped. She began to tremble again. Lady Janet looked at her in blank

amazement.

"Is there anything wrong between Horace and you?" she asked.

"No."

"You know your own heart, my dear child? You have surely not encouraged

Horace without loving him?"

"Oh no!"

"And yet--"

For the first time in their experience of each other Mercy ventured to

interrupt her benefactress. "Dear Lady Janet," she interposed, gently,

"I am in no hurry to be married. There will be plenty of time in the

future to talk of that. You had something you wished to say to me. What

is it?"

It was no easy matter to disconcert Lady Janet Roy. But that last

question fairly reduced her to silence. After all that had passed,

there sat her young companion, innocent of the faintest suspicion of the

subject that was to be discussed between them! "What are the young women

of the present time made of?" thought the old lady, utterly at a loss to

know what to say next. Mercy waited, on her side, with an impenetrable

patience which only aggravated the difficulties of the position. The

silence was fast threatening to bring the interview to a sudden and

untimely end, when the door from the library opened, and a man-servant,

bearing a little silver salver, entered the room.

Lady Janet's rising sense of annoyance instantly seized on the servant

as a victim. "What do you want?" she asked, sharply. "I never rang for

you."

"A letter, my lady. The messenger waits for an answer."

The man presented his salver with the letter on it, and withdrew.

Lady Janet recognized the handwriting on the address with a look

of surprise. "Excuse me, my dear," she said, pausing, with her

old-fashioned courtesy, before she opened the envelope. Mercy made the

necessary acknowledgment, and moved away to the other end of the room,

little thinking that the arrival of the letter marked a crisis in her

life. Lady Janet put on her spectacles. "Odd that he should have come

back already!" she said to herself, as she threw the empty envelope on

the table.

The letter contained these lines, the writer of them being no other than

the man who had preached in the chapel of the Refuge: "DEAR AUNT--I am back again in London before my time. My friend the

rector has shortened his holiday, and has resumed his duties in the

country. I am afraid you will blame me when you hear of the reasons

which have hastened his return. The sooner I make my confession, the

easier I shall feel. Besides, I have a special object in wishing to see

you as soon as possible. May I follow my letter to Mablethorpe House?

And may I present a lady to you--a perfect stranger--in whom I am

interested? Pray say Yes, by the bearer, and oblige your affectionate

nephew, "JULIAN GRAY."