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Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889

"The New Magdalen"


"Has the servant not given you my card?" she said. "Don't you
know my name?"
"Which of your names?" rejoined Lady Janet.
"I don't understand your ladyship."
"I will make myself understood. You asked me if I knew your name.
I ask you, in return, which name it is? The name on your card is
'Miss Roseberry.' The name marked on your clothes, when you were
in the hospital, was 'Mercy Merrick.'"
The self-possession which Grace had maintained from the moment
when she had entered the dining-room, seemed now, for the first
time, to be on the point of failing her. She turned, and looked
appealingly at Julian, who had thus far kept his place apart,
listening attentively.
"Surely," she said, "your friend, the consul, has told you in his
letter about the mark on the clothes?"
Something of the girlish hesitation and timidity which had marked
her demeanor at her interview with Mercy in the French cottage
re-appeared in her tone and manner as she spoke those words. The
changes--mostly changes for the worse--wrought in her by the
suffering through which she had passed since that time were now
(for the moment) effaced. All that was left of the better and
simpler side of her character asserted itself in her brief appeal
to Julian.


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