For that reason she had been absent from the house when Grace had entered it.

If her return had been delayed by a few minutes only, Julian would have had time to take Grace out of the room, and the terrible meeting which had stretched Mercy senseless on the floor would never have taken place.

As the event had happened, the period of her absence had been fatally shortened by what appeared at the time to be, the commonest possible occurrence.

The persons assembled at the society's rooms had disagreed so seriously on the business which had brought them together as to render it necessary to take the ordinary course of adjourning the proceedings to a future day.

And Chance, or Fate, had so timed that adjournment as to bring Mercy back into the dining-room exactly at the moment when Grace Roseberry insisted on being confronted with the woman who had taken her place.
She had never yet seen the circumstances in this sinister light.