willingly showing him the
letter and the ring and the photograph she supposed to have been
intended for herself, had a very powerful effect on Edmund Grosse. The
whole story was so clear, so well connected, it seemed impossible to
doubt it. Yet he believed in Molly's innocence without an effort. What
was there to prove that Madame Danterre had not destroyed the will after
Nurse Edith copied it? She had the key and the box within reach, and the
dying, again and again, have shown incalculable strength--far greater
than was needed in order to get at the will and burn it while a nurse
was absent or asleep.

Again, it was to Larrone's interest to destroy that will. They had only
Pietrino's persuasion of Larrone's integrity to set against the
possibility of his having opened the box on his long journey to England,
against the possibility of his having read the will, and destroyed it,
before he gave the box to Molly. He would have seen at once not only
that his own legacy would be lost, but, what might have more influence
with him, he must have seen what a doubtful position he must hold in
public opinion if this came to light. He had been the chief friend and
adviser of Madame Danterre, who had paid him lavishly for his medical
services from her first coming to Florence, and who had made no secret
of the legacy he was to receive at her death. He had been with her at
the last, and was now actually carrying on her gigantic fraud by taking
the box to her daughter. Would it not have been a great temptation to
him to destroy the will while he had no fear of discovery rather than
put the matter in Molly's hands? Lastly came Rose's subtle feminine
suggestion that the will might be in the box but that Molly had never
opened it. Some instinct, some secret fear of painful revelations, might
easily have made her shrink from any disclosures as to her mother's
past. Rose was so often right, and the obvious suggestion, that such a
shrinking from knowledge would have been natural to Rose and unnatural
to Molly, did not occur to the male mind, always inclined to think of
women as mostly alike.

At the same time he was really unwilling to relinquish the _role_ of
intermediary. His thoughts had hardly left the subject since the hour of
his talk with Rose, and it was especially absorbing on the day on which
Molly was to give a party, to which he was invited--and invited to meet
royalty. He decided that he must that evening ask his hostess to gi