“He spent money as long as he could, and now takes no more interest in the matter on the ground that he can no longer be of any use.  Why, it was his judgment we wanted, his perceptions; no one could be of more use than Sir Edmund!”

“And who is paying the expenses now?”

“Ah! that is the reason why I wished to see you as soon as possible.  I felt that I could not, without your approval, continue as we are now.  The last cheque from Sir Edmund covered all expenses to the end of the year.  I have advanced what has been necessary since then, and if you really wish the thing dropped, that is entirely my own affair.  But I do most earnestly hope that you will not do anything so wrong.  I feel very strongly my responsibility towards Sir David’s memory in this matter.”

“I feel,” said Rose, but her manner was irresolute, “that the scandal has been forgotten by now; things come and go so fast.  He will be remembered only as a great soldier who died for his country.”

“It may be forgotten,” said Mr. Murray in a stern voice she had never heard before.  “It may be forgotten in a society which is always needing some new sensation and is always well supplied.  But there is a less fluctuating public opinion.  We men of business keep a clearer view of character, and we know better how through all classes there is a verdict passed on men that does not pass away in a season.  Do you think, madam, that when men treasure a good name it is the gossip of a London season they regard?  No; it is the thoughts of other good men in which they wish to live.  It is the sympathy of the good that a good man has a right to.  I believe in a future life, but I don’t imagine I know whether in another world they rejoice or suffer pain by anything that affects their good name here.  But I do know, Lady Rose, that deep in our nature is the sense of duty to their memory, and I cannot believe that such an instinct is without meaning or without some actual bearing on departed souls.  I don’t expect Sir David to visit me in dreams, but I do expect to feel a deep and reasonable self-reproach if I do not try to clear his name.”

The heavy features of the solicitor had worked with a good deal of emotion.  The thought, the words “departed souls,” were no mere words to him in these summer days while Mrs. Murray, Junior, was supposed to be doing well after an operation in a nursing home, and the doctors were inclined to speak of next month’s progress and on that of the month after that, and to be silent as to any dates far ahead.  In his professional hours he did not dwell on these things, but it was the actual spiritual conditions of the life he and his wife were leading that gave a strange force to his words.