The solicitor delayed to the last possible moment, and then the will was
proved. It was published in the papers at a moment when a lull in the
war gave leisure for private gossip, and the gossip accordingly raged
hotly. All the sweetness, gentleness, and kindness that made Rose
deservedly popular did not prevent there being two currents of opinion.
There are wits so active that they cannot share the views of all
right-minded people. While the majority sympathised deeply with Rose,
there were a few who insinuated that she must be to some degree to blame
for what had happened.

"Well, don't you know, I never could understand why she married a man so
much older than herself. Of course she had not a penny and he was
awfully rich, and people don't look too close into a man's character in
such cases. It is rather convenient for some women to be very innocent."

Sir Edmund Grosse, to whom the remark was addressed at a small country
house party, turned his back for a moment on the speaker in order to
pick up a paper, and then said in a low, indifferent voice: "David
Bright came into his cousin's fortune unexpectedly a year after he
married Lady Rose."

The subject was dropped that time, but he met it again in somewhat the
same terms in London. There seemed a sort of vague impression that Lady
Rose had married for the sake of the wealth she had lost. Also at his
club there was talk he did not like, not against Rose indeed, but
dwelling on the other side of the story, and he hated to hear Rose's
name connected with it. People forgot his relationship, and after all he
was only a second cousin.

Edmund Grosse was at this time just over forty. He was a tall, loosely