"If you have any sense of decency," she said --"I say nothing of
a sense of honor--you will leave this house, and your
acquaintance with that lady will end here. Spare me your protests
and excuses; I can place but one interpretation on what I saw
when I opened that door."
"You entirely misunderstand what you saw when you opened that
door," Julian answered, quietly.
"Perhaps I misunderstand the confession which you made to me not
an hour ago?" retorted Lady Janet.
Julian cast a look of alarm at Mercy. "Don't speak of it!" he
said, in a whisper. "She might hear you."
"Do you mean to say she doesn't know you are in love with her?"
"Thank God, she has not the faintest suspicion of it!"
There was no mistaking the earnestness with which he made that
reply. It proved his innocence as nothing else could have proved
it. Lady Janet drew back a step--utterly bewildered; completely
at a loss what to say or what to do next.
The silence that followed was broken by a knock at the library
door. The man-servant--with news, and bad news, legibly written
in his disturbed face and manner--entered the room. In the
nervous irritability of the moment, Lady Janet resented the
servant's appearance as a positive offense on the part of the
harmless man.
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