next officer in
command under Sir David, who had met his own fate a few weeks later.
Rose received the parcel at tea-time, brought to her by a mounted
messenger from the War Office.

A great calm had settled in Rose's soul during these weeks. She had met
her trouble alone and standing. At first, all had been utter darkness
and bitter questioning. Then the questioning had ceased. Even the wish
to have things clear to her mind and to know why she should have this
particular trial was silenced, and in the completeness of submission she
had come back to life and to peace. Nothing was solved, nothing made
clear, but she was again in the daylight. But when she received the
little parcel in its thick envelope she trembled excessively. It was
addressed in a handwriting she had never seen before. She could not for
some moments force herself to open it. When she did she drew out a faded
photograph, a diamond ring, and a sheet of paper with writing in ink.
The photograph was of Sir David as quite a young man--she had never seen
it before; the ring had one very fine diamond, and that she had never
seen before. On the paper was written in his own hand.--

"This will be brought to you if I die in battle. Forgive me, as you too
hope to be forgiven. Justice had to be done. I have tried to make it as
little painful as I could."

That was all. There was nothing else in the envelope. She took up the
photograph, she took up the ring, and examined them in turn. It was so
strange, this very remarkable diamond, which she had never seen before,
sent to her as if it were a matter of course. He had never worn much
jewellery, and he had left in her care the few seals and rings he
possessed. Then the photograph of her husband as a young man, so much
younger than when she had known him. Why send it to her now? What had
she to do with this remote past? But the paper was the most astonishing
of all. She had been standing when she undid the things; she left the
ring and the photograph on the table, and she sank into a chair near the
fire holding the bit of paper. The tone of it astonished and confused
her. It was more the stern moralist asking to be forgiven for doing
right than the guilty husband asking for mercy in her thoughts of him.

"Yes," thought Rose at length, "that is because she was his wife, and
when he came to face death it was the great wrong of infidelity to her
that haunted him. I must have seemed almost a partner in the wrong."