The New Magdalen

While those wild words were pouring from her lips, the rumbling of

carriage wheels became audible on the drive in front of the house.

In the all-absorbing agitation of the moment, the sound of the wheels

(followed by the opening of the house door) passed unnoticed by the

persons in the dining-room. Horace's voice was still raised in angry

protest against the insult offered to Lady Janet; Lady Janet herself

(leaving him for the second time) was vehemently ringing the bell to

summon the servants; Julian had once more taken the infuriated woman by

the arms and was trying vainly to compose her--when the library door

was opened quietly by a young lady wearing a mantle and a bonnet. Mercy

Merrick (true to the appointment which she had made with Horace) entered

the room.

The first eyes that discovered her presence on the scene were the eyes

of Grace Roseberry. Starting violently in Julian's grasp, she pointed

toward the library door. "Ah!" she cried, with a shriek of vindictive

delight. "There she is!"

Mercy turned as the sound of the scream rang through the room, and

met--resting on her in savage triumph--the living gaze of the woman

whose identity she had stolen, whose body she had left laid out for

dead. On the instant of that terrible discovery--with her eyes fixed

helplessly on the fierce eyes that had found her--she dropped senseless

on the floor.