"Hear what she has to say to you first!" Horace's hand answered him with a contemptuous gesture.

Horace's eyes devoured, word by word, the Matron's message.
He looked up when he had read it through.

There was a ghastly change in his face as he turned it on Mercy.
She stood between the two men like a statue.

The life in her seemed to have died out, except in her eyes.

Her eyes rested on Horace with a steady, glittering calmness.
The silence was only broken by the low murmuring of Julian's voice.