.

EXIT JULIAN.
JULIAN happened to be standing nearest to Mercy.

He was the first at her side when she fell.
In the cry of alarm which burst from him, as he raised her for a moment in his arms, in the expression of his eyes when he looked at her death-like face, there escaped the plain--too plain--confession of the interest which he felt in her, of the admiration which she had aroused in him.

Horace detected it.

There was the quick suspicion of jealousy in the movement by which he joined Julian; there was the ready resentment of jealousy in the tone in which he pronounced the words, "Leave her to me." Julian resigned her in silence.