In that hopeless way it ended again now.
The murmur of the two voices at the further end of the
conservatory ceased. The billiard-room door opened again slowly,
by an inch at a time.
Mercy still kept her place, unconscious of the events that were
passing round her. Sinking under the hard stress laid on it, her
mind had drifted little by little into a new train of thought.
For the first time she found the courage to question the future
in a new way. Supposing her confession to have been made, or
supposing the woman whom she had personated to have discovered
the means of exposing the fraud, what advantage, she now asked
herself, would Miss Roseberry derive from Mercy Merrick's
disgrace?
Could Lady Janet transfer to the woman who was really her
relative by marriage the affection which she had given to the
woman who had pretended to be her relative? No! All the right in
the world would not put the true Grace into the false Grace's
vacant place. The qualities by which Mercy had won Lady Janet's
love were the qualities which were Mercy's won. Lady Janet could
do rigid justice--but hers was not the heart to give itself to a
stranger (and to give itself unreservedly) a second time.
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