Though the dead know nothing--though it can
never reach or avail him--give me back the power to be just!"

Late that afternoon Honoria passed an hour piously in turning over
the dead man's wardrobe, shaking out and brushing the treasured
garments and folding them, against moth and dust, in fresh tissue
paper. It was a morbid task, perhaps, but it kept George's image
constantly before her, and this was what her remorseful mood
demanded. Her nerves were unstrung and her limbs languid after the
recent tempest. By-and-by she locked the doors of the wardrobe, and
passing into her own bedroom, flung herself on a couch with a bundle
of papers--old bills, soiled and folded memoranda, sporting
paragraphs cut from the newspapers--scraps found in his pockets
months ago and religiously tied by her with a silken ribbon.
They were mementoes of a sort, and George had written few letters
while wooing--not half a dozen first and last.

Two or three receipted bills lay together in the middle of the
packet--one a saddler's, a second a nurseryman's for pot-plants (kept
for the sake of its queer spelling), a third the reckoning for an
hotel luncheon. She was running over them carelessly when the date
at the head of this last one caught her eye. "August 3rd "--it fixed
her attention because it happened to be the day before her birthday.

August 3rd--such and such a year--the August before his death; and
the hotel a well-known one in Plymouth--the hotel, in fact, at which
he had usually put up. . . . Without a prompting of suspicion she
turned back and ran her eye over the bill. A steak, a pint of
claret, vegetables, cheese, and attendance--never was a more innocent
bill.

Suddenly her attention stiffened on the date. George was in Plymouth
the day before her birthday. But no; as it happened, George had been
in Truro on that day. She remembered, because he had brought her a
diamond pendant, having written beforehand to the Truro jeweller to
get a dozen down from London to choose from. Yes, she remembered it
clearly, and how he had described his day in Truro. And the next
morning--her birthday morning--he had produced the pendant, wrapped
in silver paper. He had thrown away the case; it was ugly, and he
would get her another. . . .

But the bill? She had stayed once or twice at this hotel with
George, and recognised the handwriting. The bookkeeper, in
compliment perhaps to a customer of standing, had written "George
Vyel