She gave the necessary directions for packing the trunks overnight, and decided on leaving Mablethorpe House with Mercy the next morning.
Shortly after the doctor had taken his departure a letter from Julian, addressed to Lady Janet, was delivered by private messenger.
Beginning with the necessary apologies for the writer's absence, the letter proceeded in these terms: "Before I permitted my companion to see the lawyer, I felt the necessity of consulting him as to my present position toward her first.
"I told him--what I think it only right to repeat to you--that I do not feel justified in acting on my own opinion that her mind is deranged.
In the case of this friendless woman I want medical authority, and, more even than that, I want some positive proof, to satisfy my conscience as well as to confirm my view.
"Finding me obstinate on this point, the lawyer undertook to consult a physician accustomed to the treatment of the insane, on my behalf.
"After sending a message and receiving the answer, he said, 'Bring the lady here--in half an hour; she shall tell her story to the doctor instead of telling it to me.' The proposal rather staggered me; I asked how it was possible to induce her to do that.

He laughed, and answered, 'I shall present the doctor as my senior partner; my senior partner will be the very man to advise her.' You know that I hate all deception, even where the end in view appears to justify it.

On this occasion, however, there was no other alternative than to let the lawyer take his own course, or to run the risk of a delay which might be followed by serious results.
"I waited in a room by myself (feeling very uneasy, I own) until the doctor joined me, after the interview was over.
"His opinion is, briefly, this: "After careful examination of the unfortunate creature, he thinks that there are unmistakably symptoms of mental aberration.

But how far the mischief has gone, and whether her case is, or is not, sufficiently grave to render actual restraint necessary, he cannot positively say, in our present state of ignorance as to facts.
"'Thus far,' he observed, 'we know nothing of that part of her delusion which relates to Mercy Merrick.

The solution of the difficulty, in this case, is to be found there.