The Footstep in the Corridor

MERCY was alone.

She had secured one half hour of retirement in her own room, designing
to devote that interval to the writing of her confession, in the form of
a letter addressed to Julian Gray.

No recent change in her position had, as yet, mitigated her horror of
acknowledging to Horace and to Lady Janet that she had won her way to
their hearts in disguise. Through Julian only could she say the words
which were to establish Grace Roseberry in her right position in the
house.

How was her confession to be addressed to him? In writing? or by word of
mouth?

After all that had happened, from the time when Lady Janet's
appearance had interrupted them, she would have felt relief rather than
embarrassment in personally opening her heart to the man who had so
delicately understood her, who had so faithfully befriended her in her
sorest need. But the repeated betrayals of Horace's jealous suspicion
of Julian warned her that she would only be surrounding herself with
new difficulties, and be placing Julian in a position of painful
embarrassment, if she admitted him to a private interview while Horace
was in the house.

The one course left to take was the course that she had adopted.
Determining to address the narrative of the Fraud to Julian in the form
of a letter, she arranged to add, at the close, certain instructions,
pointing out to him the line of conduct which she wished him to pursue.

These instructions contemplated the communication of her letter to Lady
Janet and to Horace in the library, while Mercy--self-confessed as the
missing woman whom she had pledged herself to produce--awaited in the
adjoining room whatever sentence it pleased them to pronounce on her.
Her resolution not to screen herself behind Julian from any consequences
which might follow the confession had taken root in her mind from the
moment when Horace had harshly asked her (and when Lady Janet had joined
him in asking) why she delayed her explanation, and what she was keeping
them waiting for. Out of the very pain which those questions inflicted,
the idea of waiting her sentence in her own person in one room, while
her letter to Julian was speaking for her in another, had sprung
to life. "Let them break my heart if they like," she had thought to
herself, in the self-abasement of that bitter moment; "it will be no
more than I have deserved."