been working hard and in vain all night at a problem, and he suddenly said to himself, "The ring, the photograph, and the paper were of course meant for the other woman, and she has got whatever was meant for Rose. Now if the thing that was meant for Rose was the will, Madame Danterre has got it now unless she has had the nerve to destroy it." He felt as if he had been an ass till this moment. Then he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, who listened with profound attention until he had finished what he had to tell him.

"Lady Rose has allowed you to see the paper, then?" he said at last. "She has not even shown it to Lady Charlton. He asked her pardon," he mused, half to himself, "and said justice must be done. I am afraid, Sir Edmund, that that points in the same direction as our worst fears—that Madame Danterre was his wife."

"But he would not have written such a letter as that to Rose; it is impossible. 'Forgive as you too hope to be forgiven.' That sentence in connection with Lady Rose is positively grotesque, whereas it would be most fitting when addressed elsewhere."

Mr. Murray could not see the case in the same light as Edmund. He allowed the possibility of the scrap of paper and the ring having been sent to Rose by mistake, but he was not inclined to indulge in what seemed to him to be guesswork as to what conceivably had been intended to be sent to her in place of them.

"There is, too," he argued, "a quite possible interpretation of the words of that scrap of paper. It is possible that he was full of remorse for his treatment of Madame Danterre. Sometimes a man is haunted by wrong-doing in the past until it prevents his understanding the point of view of anybody but the victim of the old haunting sin. Remorse is very exclusive, Sir Edmund. In such a state of mind he would hardly think of Lady Rose enough to realise the bearing of his words. 'Forgive as you too hope to be forgiven' would be an appeal wrung out from him by sheer suffering. It is a possible cry from any human being to another. Then as to the ring and the photograph, we have no proof that he put them in the envelope. They may have been found on him and put into the envelope by the same hand that addressed it. I quite grant you that those few words are extraordinary, but they can be explained. But even if it were obvious that they were intended for somebody else, you cannot deduce from that, that another letter, intended for Lady Rose and containing a will, was sent elsewhere."

But Sir Edmund was obstinate. The piece of paper had been intended for Madame Danterre, together with the ring and the photograph—things belonging to Sir David's early life, to the days when he most probably loved this other woman; he even went so far as to maintain that the lady in Florence had given Sir David the ring.

"After all," said Mr. Murray, "what can you do? You could only raise hopes that won't be fulfilled."

"I think myself that my explanation would calm my cousin's mind; the possibility that she was not Sir David's wife is, I am convinced, the most painful part of the trial to her. I shall write it to her, but I shall also tell her that there is no hope whatever of proving what I believe to be the truth."

"None at all; do impress that upon her, Sir Edmund. We have nothing to begin upon. The officer who sent the paper to headquarters is dead; Sir David's own servant is dead; Sir David's will in favour of Madame Danterre has been published without even a protest."

"Lady Rose will not be inclined to raise the question."

"No, I believe that is true," said the lawyer; "Lady Rose Bright is a wise woman."

But Mr. Murray was annoyed to find that Edmund Grosse was far less wise, and that whatever he might promise to say to Rose he would not really be content to leave things alone. He intended to go to Florence and to get into touch with Madame Danterre. Such interference could do no good, and it might do harm.

"I won't alarm her," said Edmund, "believe me, she will have no reason to suppose that I am in Florence on her account. I am, in any case, going to the Italian lakes this autumn, and I have often been offered the loan of a flat overlooking the Arno. If the offer is still open I shall accept it. I have long wished to know that fascinating town a little better."

When Rose received the letter from Edmund it had the effect he had expected. It was simply calming, not exciting. Rose was even more anxious than the lawyer that nothing should be attempted in order to follow up her cousin's suggestion. But she could now let her imagination be comforted by Edmund's solution of the mystery, and let her fancy rest in the thought of a very different letter intended for herself. The words on that scrap of paper no longer burnt with such agony into her soul, and she no longer felt it a dreadful duty to wear the ring with its glorious stone so full of light, an object that was to her intensely repugnant. She would put it away, and with it all dark and morbid thoughts. She had a life to lead, thoughts to think, actions to do, and all that was in her own control must escape from the shadow of the past into a working daylight.

CHAPTER IV

THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE

Edmund Grosse's friend was delighted to put the flat in the Palazzo at his disposal. The weather was unusually warm for the autumn when Edmund arrived in Florence. He was glad to get there, and glad to get away from the gay group he had left in a beautiful villa on Lake Como; and probably they were glad to see him go.

Edmund had indeed only stayed with them long enough to leave a very marked impression of low spirits and irritation. "What's come to Grosse?" was asked by more than one guest of the hostess.

"I don't know, but he really is impossible. It's partly because of Billy—but I won't condescend to explain that Billy proposed himself and I could not well refuse."

Billy is the only one of this gay, quarrelsome little group that need be named here. It was really partly on his account that Edmund so quickly left them to their gossip alternating with happy phrases of joy in the beauty of mountains and lakes, and to their quarrels alternating with moments of love-making, so avowedly brief that only an artist could believe in its exquisite enjoyment. Neither Edmund nor Billy were really habitués of this Bohemian circle. They both belonged to a more conventional social atmosphere; they were at once above and below the rest of the party. The cause of antipathy to Billy on Sir Edmund's part was a certain likeness in their lives—contrasting with a most marked dissimilarity of character.

Sir Edmund could not say that Billy was a fool or a snob, because Billy did nothing but lead a perfectly useless life as expensively as possible; and he did the same himself. He could not even say that Billy lived among fools and snobs, because many of Billy's friends were his own friends too. He could not say that Billy had been a coward because he had not volunteered to fight in the Boer war, because Sir Edmund had not volunteered himself. He could not say that Billy employed the wrong tailor; it would show only gross ignorance or temper to say so. But just the things in which he felt himself superior, utterly different in fact from Billy, were the stupid, priggish things that no one boasts of. He read a good deal; he thought a good deal; he knew he might have had a future, and the bitterness of his heart lay in the fact that at fifteen years later in life than Billy he was still so completely a slave to all that Billy loved. Every detail of their lives seemed to add to the irritation. It was only the day he left London that he had