Mercy looked at her quickly as she put the question.
Lady Janet, more quickly yet, looked away at the programme of the opera-house. Still the same melancholy false pretenses! still the same useless and cruel delay! Incapable of enduring the position now forced upon her, Mercy put her hand into the pocket of her apron, and drew from it Lady Janet's letter.
"Will your ladyship forgive me," she began, in faint, faltering tones, "if I venture on a painful subject? I hardly dare acknowledge—" In spite of her resolution to speak out plainly, the memory of past love and past kindness prevailed with her; the next words died away on her lips. She could only hold up the letter.
Lady Janet declined to see the letter. Lady Janet suddenly became absorbed in the arrangement of her bracelets.
"I know what you daren't acknowledge, you foolish child!" she exclaimed. "You daren't acknowledge that you are tired of this dull house. My dear! I am entirely of your opinion—I am weary of my own magnificence; I long to be living in one snug little room, with one servant to wait on me. I'll tell you what we will do. We will go to Paris, in the first place. My excellent Migliore, prince of couriers, shall be the only person in attendance. He shall take a lodging for us in one of the unfashionable quarters of Paris. We will rough it, Grace (to use the slang phrase), merely for a change. We will lead what they call a 'Bohemian life.' I know plenty of writers and painters and actors in Paris—the liveliest society in the world, my dear, until one gets tired of them. We will dine at the restaurant, and go to the play, and drive about in shabby little hired carriages. And when it begins to get monotonous (which it is only too sure to do!) we will spread our wings and fly to Italy, and cheat the winter in that way. There is a plan for you! Migliore is in town. I will send to him this evening, and we will start to-morrow."
Mercy made another effort.
"I entreat your ladyship to pardon me," she resumed. "I have something serious to say. I am afraid—"
"I understand. You are afraid of crossing the Channel, and you don't like to acknowledge it. Pooh! The passage barely lasts two hours; we will shut ourselves up in a private cabin. I will send at once—the courier may be engaged. Ring the bell."
"Lady Janet, I must submit to my hard lot. I cannot hope to associate myself again with any future plans of yours—"
"What! you are afraid of our 'Bohemian life' in Paris? Observe this, Grace! If there is one thing I hate more than another, it is 'an old head on young shoulders.' I say no more. Ring the bell."
"This cannot go on, Lady Janet! No words can say how unworthy I feel of your kindness, how ashamed I am—"
"Upon my honor, my dear, I agree with you. You ought to be ashamed, at your age, of making me get up to ring the bell."
Her obstinacy was immovable; she attempted to rise from the couch. But one choice was left to Mercy. She anticipated Lady Janet, and rang the bell.
The man-servant came in. He had his little letter-tray in his hand, with a card on it, and a sheet of paper beside the card, which looked like an open letter.
"You know where my courier lives when he is in London?' asked Lady Janet.
"Yes, my lady."
"Send one of the grooms to him on horseback; I am in a hurry. The courier is to come here without fail to-morrow morning—in time for the tidal train to Paris. You understand?"
"Yes, my lady."
"What have you got there? Anything for me?"
"For Miss Roseberry, my lady."
As he answered, the man handed the card and the open letter to Mercy.
"The lady is waiting in the morning-room, miss. She wished me to say she has time to spare, and she will wait for you if you are not ready yet."
Having delivered his message in those terms, he withdrew.
Mercy read the name on the card. The matron had arrived! She looked at the letter next. It appeared to be a printed circular, with some lines in pencil added on the empty page. Printed lines and written lines swam before her eyes. She felt, rather than saw, Lady Janet's attention steadily and suspiciously fixed on her. With the matron's arrival the foredoomed end of the flimsy false pretenses and the cruel delays had come.
"A friend of yours, my dear?"
"Yes, Lady Janet."
"Am I acquainted with her?"
"I think not, Lady Janet."
"You appear to be agitated. Does your visitor bring bad news? Is there anything that I can do for you?"
"You can add—immeasurably add, madam—to all your past kindness, if you will only bear with me and forgive me."
"Bear with you and forgive you? I don't understand."
"I will try to explain. Whatever else you may think of me, Lady Janet, for God's sake don't think me ungrateful!"
Lady Janet held up her hand for silence.
"I dislike explanations," she said, sharply. "Nobody ought to know that better than you. Perhaps the lady's letter will explain for you. Why have you not looked at it yet?"
"I am in great trouble, madam, as you noticed just now—"
"Have you any objection to my knowing who your visitor is?"
"No, Lady Janet."
"Let me look at her card, then."
Mercy gave the matron's card to Lady Janet, as she had given the matron's telegram to Horace.
Lady Janet read the name on the card—considered—decided that it was a name quite unknown to her—and looked next at the address: "Western District Refuge, Milburn Road."
"A lady connected with a Refuge?" she said, speaking to herself; "and calling here by appointment—if I remember the servant's message? A strange time to choose, if she has come for a subscription!"
She paused. Her brow contracted; her face hardened. A word from her would now have brought the interview to its inevitable end, and she refused to speak the word. To the last moment she persisted in ignoring the truth! Placing the card on the couch at her side, she pointed with her long yellow-white forefinger to the printed letter lying side by side with her own letter on Mercy's lap.
"Do you mean to read it, or not?" she asked.
Mercy lifted her eyes, fast filling with tears, to Lady Janet's face.
"May I beg that your ladyship will read it for me?" she said—and placed the matron's letter in Lady Janet's hand.
It was a printed circular announcing a new development in the charitable work of the Refuge. Subscribers were informed that it had been decided to extend the shelter and the training of the institution (thus far devoted to fallen women alone) so as to include destitute and helpless children found wandering in the streets. The question of the number of children to be thus rescued and protected was left dependent, as a matter of course, on the bounty of the friends of the Refuge, the cost of the maintenance of each child being stated at the lowest possible rate. A list of influential persons who had increased their subscriptions so as to cover the cost, and a brief statement of the progress already made with the new work, completed the appeal, and brought the circular to its end.
The lines traced in pencil (in the matron's handwriting) followed on the blank page.
"Your letter tells me, my dear, that you would like—remembering your own childhood—to be employed when you return among us in saving other poor children left helpless on the world. Our circular will inform you that I am able to meet your wishes. My first errand this evening in your neighborhood was to take charge of a poor child—a little girl—who stands sadly in need of our care. I have ventured to bring her with me, thinking she might help to reconcile you to the coming change in your life. You will find us both waiting to go back with you to the old home. I write this instead of saying it, hearing from the servant that you are not alone, and being unwilling to intrude myself, as a stranger, on the lady of the house."