.

THEY MEET AGAIN.
ABSORBED in herself, Mercy failed to notice the opening door or to hear the murmur of voices in the conservatory.
The one terrible necessity which had been present to her mind at intervals for a week past was confronting her at that moment.

She owed to Grace Roseberry the tardy justice of owning the truth.

The longer her confession was delayed, the more cruelly she was injuring the woman whom she had robbed of her identity--the friendless woman who had neither witnesses nor papers to produce, who was powerless to right her own wrong.

Keenly as she felt this, Mercy failed, nevertheless, to conquer the horror that shook her when she thought of the impending avowal.
Day followed day, and still she shrank from the unendurable ordeal of confession--as she was shrinking from it now! Was it fear for herself that closed her lips?
She trembled--as any human being in her place must have trembled--at the bare idea of finding herself thrown back again on the world, which had no place in it and no hope in it for _her_.