"Tell him all--truly, unreservedly, as you would tell it to me." She shuddered as he spoke.

"Have I not told him enough ?" she asked.
"Do you want me to break his heart?
Look at him! Look what I have done already!" Horace shrank from the ordeal as Mercy shrank from it.
"No, no! I can't listen to it! I daren't listen to it!" he cried, and rose to leave the room.
Julian had taken the good work in hand: he never faltered over it for an instant.

Horace had loved her--how dearly Julian now knew for the first time.

The bare possibility that she might earn her pardon if she was allowed to plead her own cause was a possibility still left.

To let her win on Horace to forgive her, was death to the love that still filled his heart in secret.