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
for his treatment of Madame Danterre. Sometimes a man is haunted by
wrong-doing in the past until it prevents his understanding the point of
view of anybody but the victim of the old haunting sin. Remorse is very
exclusive, Sir Edmund. In such a state of mind he would hardly think of
Lady Rose enough to realise the bearing of his words. 'Forgive as you
too hope to be forgiven' would be an appeal wrung out from him by sheer
suffering. It is a possible cry from any human being to another. Then as
to the ring and the photograph, we have no proof that he put them in the
envelope. They may have been found on him and put into the envelope by
the same hand that addressed it. I quite grant you that those few words
are extraordinary, but they can be explained. But even if it were
obvious that they were intended for somebody else, you cannot deduce
from that, that another letter, intended for Lady Rose and containing a
will, was sent elsewhere."

But Sir Edmund was obstinate. The piece of paper had been intended for
Madame Danterre, together with the ring and the photograph--things
belonging to Sir David's early life, to the days when he most probably
loved this other woman; he even went so far as to maintain that the lady
in Florence had given Sir David the ring.

"After all," said Mr. Murray, "what can you do? You could only raise
hopes t