Lady Janet raised no further obstacles. For something in Mercy’s face, or in Mercy’s tone, seemed to have silenced her, as it had silenced Grace. Horace was the next who spoke. In tones of suppressed rage and suspicion he addressed himself to Mercy, standing fronting him by Julian’s side. “Am I included,” he asked, “in the arrangement which engages you to explain your extraordinary conduct in half an hour?” _His_ hand had placed his mother’s wedding present round Mercy’s neck. A sharp pang wrung her as she looked at Horace, and saw how deeply she had already distressed and offended him. The tears rose in her eyes; she humbly and faintly answered him. “If you please,” was all she could say, before the cruel swelling at her heart rose and silenced her. Horace’s sense of injury refused to be soothed by such simple submission as this. “I dislike mysteries and innuendoes,” he went on, harshly. “In my family circle we are accustomed to meet each other frankly. Why am I to wait half an hour for an explanation which might be given now? What am I to wait for?” Lady Janet recovered herself as Horace spoke. “I entirely agree with you,” she said. “I ask, too, what are we to wait for?” Even Julian’s self-possession failed him when his aunt repeated that cruelly plain question. How would Mercy answer it? Would her courage still hold out? “You have asked me what you are to wait for,” she said to Horace, quietly and firmly. “Wait to hear something more of Mercy Merrick.” Lady Janet listened with a look of weary disgust. “Don’t return to _that!_” she said. “We know enough about Mercy Merrick already.” “Pardon me--your ladyship does _not_ know. I am the only person who can inform you.” “You?” She bent her head respectfully. “I have begged you, Lady Janet, to give me half an hour,” she went on. “In half an hour I solemnly engage myself to produce Mercy Merrick in this room. Lady Janet Roy, Mr. Horace Holmcroft, you are to wait for that.” Steadily pledging herself in those terms to make her confession, she unclasped the pearls from her neck, put them away in their cases and placed it in Horace’s hand. “Keep it,” she said, with a momentary faltering in her voice, “until we meet again.” Horace took the case in silence; he looked and acted like a man whose mind was paralyzed by surprise. His hand moved mechanically. His eyes followed Mercy with a vacant, questioning look. Lady Janet seemed, in her different way, to share the strange oppression that had fallen on him. A vague sense of dread and distress hung like a cloud over her mind. At that memorable moment she felt her age, she looked her age, as she had never felt it or looked it yet. “Have I your ladyship’s leave,” said Mercy, respectfully, “to go to my room?”