Once more she placed the sheet of paper before her. Resting her
head on her hand as she sat at the table, she tried to trace her
way through the labyrinth of the past, beginning with the day
when she had met Grace Roseberry in the French cottage, and
ending with the day which had brought them face to face, for the
second time, in the dining-room at Mablethorpe House.
The chain of events began to unroll itself in her mind clearly,
link by link.
She remarked, as she pursued the retrospect, how strangely
Chance, or Fate, had paved the way for the act of personation, in
the first place.
If they had met under ordinary circumstances, neither Mercy nor
Grace would have trusted each other with the confidences which
had been exchanged between them. As the event had happened, they
had come together, under those extraordinary circumstances of
common trial and common peril, in a strange country, which would
especially predispose two women of the same nation to open their
hearts to each other. In no other way could Mercy have obtained
at a first interview that fatal knowledge of Grace's position and
Grace's affairs which had placed temptation before her as the
necessary consequence that followed the bursting of the German
shell.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313