The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mastered in that way.Her mind only abandoned one useless train of reflection to occupy itself with another.She was now looking by anticipation at her own future.What were her prospects (if she lived through it) when the war was over? The experience of the past delineated with pitiless fidelity the dreary scene.Go where she might, do what she might, it would always end in the same way.Curiosity and admiration excited by her beauty; inquiries made about her; the story of the past discovered; Society charitably sorry for her; Society generously subscribing for her; and still, through all the years of her life, the same result in the end--the shadow of the old disgrace surrounding her as with a pestilence, isolating her among other women, branding her, even when she had earned her pardon in the sight of God, with the mark of an indelible disgrace in the sight of man: there was the prospect! And she was only five-and-twenty last birthday; she was in the prime of her health and her strength; she might live, in the course of nature, fifty years more!
She stopped again at the bedside; she looked again at the face of the corpse.
To what end had the shell struck the woman who had some hope in her life, and spared the woman who had none? The words she had herself spoken to Grace Roseberry came back to her as she thought of it."If I only had your chance! If I only had your reputation and your prospects!" And there was the chance wasted! there were the enviable prospects thrown away! It was almost maddening to contemplate that result, feeling her own position as she felt it.In the bitter mockery of despair she bent over the lifeless figure, and spoke to it as if it had ears to hear her."Oh!" she said, longingly, "if you could be Mercy Merrick, and if I could be Grace Roseberry, now! "The instant the words passed her lips she started into an erect position.She stood by the bed with her eyes staring wildly into empty space; with her brain in a flame; with her heart beating as if it would stifle her."If you could be Mercy Merrick, and if I could be Grace Roseberry, now!" In one breathless moment the thought assumed a new development in her mind.In one breathless moment the conviction struck her like an electric shock.She might be Grace Roseberry if she dared! There was absolutely nothing to stop her from presenting herself to Lady Janet Roy under Grace's name and in Grace's place!
What were the risks? Where was the weak point in the scheme?
