第40章

"I am ordered to say that your room is ready, sir, and that her ladyship expects you to dinner."Absorbed in the events which had followed his aunt's invitation, Julian had forgotten his engagement to stay at Mablethorpe House.Could he return, knowing his own heart as he now knew it? Could he honorably remain, perhaps for weeks together, in Mercy's society, conscious as he now was of the impression which she had produced on him? No.The one honorable course that he could take was to find an excuse for withdrawing from his engagement."Beg her ladyship not to wait dinner for me," he said."I will write and make my apologies." The cab drove off.The wondering servant waited on the doorstep, looking after it."I wouldn't stand in Mr.Julian's shoes for something," he thought, with his mind running on the difficulties of the young clergyman's position."There she is along with him in the cab.What is he going to do with her after that?"Julian himself, if it had been put to him at the moment, could not have answered the question.

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Lady Janet's anxiety was far from being relieved when Mercy had been restored to her senses and conducted to her own room.

Mercy's mind remained in a condition of unreasoning alarm, which it was impossible to remove.Over and over again she was told that the woman who had terrified her had left the house, and would never be permitted to enter it more; over and over again she was assured that the stranger's frantic assertions were regarded by everybody about her as unworthy of a moment's serious attention.She persisted in doubting whether they were telling her the truth.A shocking distrust of her friends seemed to possess her.She shrunk when Lady Janet approached the bedside.She shuddered when Lady Janet kissed her.She flatly refused to let Horace see her.She asked the strangest questions about Julian Gray, and shook her head suspiciously when they told her that he was absent from the house.At intervals she hid her face in the bedclothes and murmured to herself piteously, "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" At other times her one petition was to be left alone."I want nobody in my room"--that was her sullen cry--"nobody in my room."The evening advanced, and brought with it no change for the better.Lady Janet, by the advice of Horace, sent for her own medical adviser.

The doctor shook his head.The symptoms, he said, indicated a serious shock to the nervous system.He wrote a sedative prescription; and he gave (with a happy choice of language) some sound and safe advice.It amounted briefly to this: "Take her away, and try the sea-side." Lady Janet's customary energy acted on the advice, without a moment's needless delay.She gave the necessary directions for packing the trunks overnight, and decided on leaving Mablethorpe House with Mercy the next morning.

Shortly after the doctor had taken his departure a letter from Julian, addressed to Lady Janet, was delivered by private messenger.

Beginning with the necessary apologies for the writer's absence, the letter proceeded in these terms:

"Before I permitted my companion to see the lawyer, I felt the necessity of consulting him as to my present position toward her first.

"I told him--what I think it only right to repeat to you--that I do not feel justified in acting on my own opinion that her mind is deranged.In the case of this friendless woman I want medical authority, and, more even than that, I want some positive proof, to satisfy my conscience as well as to confirm my view.

"Finding me obstinate on this point, the lawyer undertook to consult a physician accustomed to the treatment of the insane, on my behalf.