waiting for the arrival of Akers, and Stock, the other private who had witnessed the signature.  They got here in Easter week, and I saw them with Sir Edmund, and we both cross-questioned them closely.  Akers’s evidence is beyond suspicion, and is perfectly supported by that of Stock.  He described all that happened at the witnessing of the General’s signature most circumstantially, but, of course, he knew nothing of the contents of the paper.  But now I have more important evidence than any we have had so far, and the extraordinary thing is that Sir Edmund does not wish to hear it.  I cannot understand why!”

Rose remained silent.  She was looking fixedly at a paper-knife which she held in her hand.

It suddenly struck the lawyer as a flash of most embarrassing light that possibly there was some complication of a dangerous and tender kind between Sir Edmund and his cousin.  He could not dwell on such a notion now—­it might be absolute nonsense, but it made him go on hastily: 

“I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she knows much more than she would allow to him.  I think she was waiting to see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would not fall into the risk of buying evidence.  He waited; she was watched until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours before she came to me.  She declares now that, as she was gathering up the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one called Rose.  She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief.  She slipped it into her pocket when she put the rest away.  I believe it was naughty curiosity, but she wishes us to think that she knew the whole scandal about the General’s will, and did what she did from a sense of justice.  When off duty she took the paper to her room, and when she opened it she found the will inside it.  In her excitement she called the housemaid, an Englishwoman with whom she had made friends, and she copied the will while they were together, and the names of Akers and Stock—­of whom she could not possibly have heard—­are in her copy.  I have seen that copy, Lady Rose, and——­” He paused and glanced at her for a moment, and then his eyes sought the trees in the garden even as they had done when he had made that other and awful announcement on the day of the memorial service to Sir David.  Rose flushed a little, and her breathing came quickly, but she made no sign of impatience.

“Sir David left the whole of his fortune to you subject to an annual payment of a thousand a-year to Madame Danterre during her lifetime.”

Complete silence followed.  Lady Rose either could not or would not speak.  Out of the pale, distinguished slightly worn face the eyes looked at Mr. Murray with no surprise.  Had she not always said that she did not believe the iniquitous will Mr. Murray had brought her to be the true one, but had she not also maintained that the true will would never be found?  She did not say so to Mr. Murray, but in fact she shrank from making too sure of Nurse Edith’s evidence.  She had so long forbidden herself to believe in the return of worldly fortune or to wish for it.