"Really?"
"Really."
There was a pause. Mercy's fingers toyed nervously with the trinkets at
her watch-chain. "When would you like it to be?" she said, very softly,
with her whole attention fixed on the watch-chain.
She had never spoken, she had never looked, as she spoke and looked now.
Horace was afraid to believe in his own good fortune. "Oh, Grace!" he
exclaimed, "you are not trifling with me?"
"What makes you think I am trifling with you?"
Horace was innocent enough to answer her seriously. "You would not even
let me speak of our marriage just now," he said.
"Never mind what I did just now," she retorted, petulantly. "They say
women are changeable. It is one of the defects of the sex."
"Heaven be praised for the defects of the sex!" cried Horace, with
devout sincerity. "Do you really leave me to decide?"
"If you insist on it."
Horace considered for a moment--the subject being the law of marriage.
"We may be married by license in a fortnight," he said. "I fix this day
fortnight."
She held up her hands in protest.
"Why not? My lawyer is ready. There are no preparations to make. You
said when you accepted me that it was to be a private marriage."
Mercy was obliged to own that she had certainly said that.
"We might be married at once--if the law would only let us. This day
fortnight! Say--Yes!" He drew her closer to him. There was a pause. The
mask of coquetry--badly worn from the first--dropped from her. Her
sad gray eyes rested compassionately on his eager face. "Don't look so
serious!" he said. "Only one little word, Grace! Only Yes."
She sighed, and said it. He kissed her passionately. It was only by a
resolute effort that she released herself.
"Leave me!" she said, faintly. "Pray leave me by myself!"
She was in earnest--strangely in earnest. She was trembling from head
to foot. Horace rose to leave her. "I will find Lady Janet," he said; "I
long to show the dear old lady that I have recovered my spirits, and to
tell her why." He turned round at the library door. "You won't go away?
You will let me see you again when you are more composed?"
"I will wait here," said Mercy.
Satisfied with that reply, he left the room.
Her hands dropped on her lap; her head sank back wearily on the cushions
at the head of the sofa. There was a dazed sensation in her: her mind
felt stunned. She wondered vacantly whether she was awake or dreaming.
Had she really said the word which pledged her to marry Horace Holmcroft
in a fortnight? A fortnight! Something might happen in that time to
prevent it: she might find her way in a fortnight out of the terrible
position in which she stood. Anyway, come what might of it, she had
chosen the preferable alternative to a private interview with Julian
Gray. She raised herself from her recumbent position with a start, as
the idea of the interview--dismissed for the last few minutes--possessed
itself again of her mind. Her excited imagination figured Julian Gray
as present in the room at that moment, speaking to her as Horace had
proposed. She saw him seated close at her side--this man who had shaken
her to the soul when he was in the pulpit, and when she was listening to
him (unseen) at the other end of the chapel--she saw him close by her,
looking her searchingly in the face; seeing her shameful secret in
her eyes; hearing it in her voice; feeling it in her trembling hands;
forcing it out of her word by word, till she fell prostrate at his
feet with the confession of the fraud. Her head dropped again on the
cushions; she hid her face in horror of the scene which her excited
fancy had conjured up. Even now, when she had made that dreaded
interview needless, could she feel sure (meeting him only on the most
distant terms) of not betraying herself? She could _not_ feel sure.
Something in her shuddered and shrank at the bare idea of finding
herself in the same room with him. She felt it, she knew it: her guilty
conscience owned and feared its master in Julian Gray!