Everything now depended on Julian's skillful management of an exasperated woman; and nobody, at that moment, knew where the woman was.
In this position of affairs, as Julian understood it, there seemed to be no other alternative than to make his inquiries instantly at the lodge and then to direct the search in person.
He looked toward Mercy's chair as he arrived at this resolution.

It was at a cruel sacrifice of his own anxieties and his own wishes that he deferred continuing the conversation with her from the critical point at which Lady Janet's appearance had interrupted it.
Mercy had risen while he had been questioning the servant.

The attention which she had failed to accord to what had passed between his aunt and himself she had given to the imperfect statement which he had extracted from the man.

Her face plainly showed that she had listened as eagerly as Lady Janet had listened; with this remarkable difference between there, that Lady Janet looked frightened, and that Lady Janet's companion showed no signs of alarm.

She appeared to be interested; perhaps anxious--nothing more.
Julian spoke a parting word to his aunt.
"Pray compose yourself," he said "I have little doubt, when I can learn the particulars, that we shall easily find this person in the grounds.
There is no reason to be uneasy.