"I have placed confidence in you," she went on.

"It is ungenerous to lay me under an obligation, and then to shut me out of your confidence in return." "You _will_ have it ?" said Mercy Merrick.

"You _shall_ have it! Sit down again." Grace's heart began to quicken its beat in expectation of the disclosure that was to come.

She drew her chair closer to the chest on which the nurse was sitting.

With a firm hand Mercy put the chair back to a distance from her.