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Updated: June 7, 2025
"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."
She bent her head to her protectress, looked for a moment with a steady, compassionate attention at Horace Holmcroft, and, slowly crossing the room, entered the winter-garden. The eyes of Horace followed her, as long as she was in view, with a curious contradictory expression of admiration and disapproval. When she had passed out of sight the admiration vanished, but the disapproval remained.
SECOND SCENE. Mablethorpe House. THE place is England. The time is winter, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy. The persons are, Julian Gray, Horace Holmcroft, Lady Janet Roy, Grace Roseberry, and Mercy Merrick. IT is a glorious winter's day. The sky is clear, the frost is hard, the ice bears for skating.
"Oh, I can't think that!" "Let us return to Horace. Miss Roseberry once out of the house, but one serious obstacle is left in Lady Janet's way. That obstacle is Horace Holmcroft." "How is Horace an obstacle?" "He is an obstacle in this sense. She will do that without scruple. But the inbred sense of honor in her is not utterly silenced yet.
At the same moment the footsteps stopped outside her door. The man knocked. She still felt shaken. She was hardly mistress of herself yet. A faint cry of alarm escaped her at the sound of the knock. Before it could be repeated she had rallied her courage, and had opened the door. The man in the corridor was Horace Holmcroft. His ruddy complexion had turned pale.
They were both too deeply interested in the subject of their conversation to look toward the conservatory, and to notice the appearance at that moment of a distant gentleman among the plants and flowers, who had made his way in from the garden outside. Advancing noiselessly on the soft Indian matting, the gentleman ere long revealed himself under the form and features of Horace Holmcroft.
'I owe it to my aunt to call on my aunt. That is what I said to myself on the way here; and I was secretly hoping every step of the way that she would come into the room when I got here. I am hoping it now. And she is engaged to Horace Holmcroft to my oldest friend, to my best friend! Am I an infernal rascal? or am I a weak fool? God knows I don't. Keep my secret, aunt.
So the struggle had ended with her hundreds of times already. So it ended now. The door leading into the billiard-room opened softly. Horace Holmcroft had waited to hear the result of Lady Janet's interference in his favor until he could wait no longer. He looked in cautiously, ready to withdraw again unnoticed if the two were still talking together.
Holmcroft, in the life I am now trying to describe which reminds you of a day when we were out walking together not long since? "I surprised and offended you, I remember; and it was not possible for me to explain my conduct at the time. Do you recollect the little wandering girl, with the miserable faded nosegay in her hand, who ran after us, and begged for a half-penny?
Julian turned away to leave the library. Mercy stopped him by a motion of her hand. "You know that I shall not get you into any trouble," she said to the maid. "And you may speak quite safely before Mr. Julian Gray." Thus re-assured, the maid spoke. "To own the truth, miss, I heard Mr. Holmcroft in my lady's room. His voice sounded as if he was angry. I may say they were both angry Mr.
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