w York. You
planned your trip to Europe. You left Washington. Your cabin was taken
on the _Aquitania_, and Mary-Rose Hillier sailed as Rosemary Brandreth,
wearing clothes of yours, and even using the same perfume."

"You've guessed it," she confessed. "We'd arranged what to do, in case
Guy went to the ship with me. But he and I were rather on official terms
because of things I'd said about Mrs. Dupont, and he let me travel to
New York alone. I learned from a famous theatrical wig-maker how to
disguise myself, and I lived in lodgings not half a mile from our house
for three months, watching what he did every day. At first I didn't find
out much, but later I began to see that I'd done him an injustice. He
didn't care seriously for the Dupont woman. It was only a flirtation. So
I was in a hurry to get Mary-Rose over here again, and reappear myself."

"Why did you have to insist on her coming back to America?" I asked,
trying not to show how disgusted I was with the selfishness of the
creature--selfishness which had begun long ago, in throwing Ralston
over, and now without a thought had wrecked her sister's life.

"Oh, to have her book her passage in my name and sail for home was the
only safe way! All had gone so well, I wouldn't spoil it at the end."

"All had gone well with _you_," I said. "But what about _her_?"

"She didn't tell me what you've told me to-day. I supposed till almost
the last that she was just travelling about, as we planned for her to
do. The only address I had was Mother's old bank, which was to forward
everything to Mary-Rose, on her own instructions. Then, a few weeks ago,
she wrote and asked if I could manage without her coming back to
America. She said it would make a lot of difference in her life, but she
didn't explain what she meant. If she'd made a clean breast of
everything I might have thought of some other way out; but----"

"But as _she_ didn't, _you_ didn't," I finished the sentence. "Oh, how
different Mary-Rose Hillier is in heart from her sister Rosemary
Brandreth, though their faces are almost identical! She was always
thinking of you, and her promise to you. That promise was killing
her--that and her love for Ralston Murray. She didn't want his money,
and when she found he was determined to make a will in her favour she
thought of a way in which everything would come to _you_. It was you he
really loved--no doubt she argued with herself--and he wanted you to
inherit his fortune. O