She sat down in silent surprise, following him with her eyes as he walked slowly to and fro in the room.
For the moment his mind was far away from her, and from all that had happened since her appearance in the house.

It was impossible that a man of his fineness of perception could mistake the meaning of Horace's conduct toward him.

He was questioning his own heart, on the subject of Mercy, sternly and unreservedly as it was his habit to do.

"After only once seeing her," he thought, "has she produced such an impression on me that Horace can discover it, before I have even suspected it myself?
Can the time have come already when I owe it to my friend to see her no more ?" He stopped irritably in his walk.

As a man devoted to a serious calling in life, there was something that wounded his self-respect in the bare suspicion that he could be guilty of the purely sentimental extravagance called "love at first sight." He had paused exactly opposite to the chair in which Grace was seated.
Weary of the silence, she seized the opportunity of speaking to him.
"I have come here with you as you wished," she said.