night he slept badly, which he did pretty often, but he experienced an
unusual sensation on waking. He felt as if he had 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