id not want you to satisfy what you supposed
to be my wish for knowledge, and I am very sorry that now, at least, I
cannot tell you why I wished to see Madame Danterre."

Naturally, it never struck him for a moment that Molly might think it
was for her sake that he had tried to see her mother, as he had not
known of her existence when he was in Florence. But his reticence made
her incline much more to that idea. She almost blushed in the firelight.
Edmund was feeling baffled and sorry. If there were another will--and he
still maintained that there was another--certainly Miss Dexter knew
nothing about it. He had wronged her; and after all what reasonable
grounds had there been for his suspicions as to her guilt?

"I suppose," he thought, "Rose is right, and will-hunting is
demoralising, or 'not healthy,' as she calls it."

But he had been too long silent.

"It is very hard on you to get such a letter," he said, with a ring of
true sympathy in his voice and more expression than usual in his face.
"I wish I had not come in and disturbed you; I wish you had a woman
friend here instead."

"I don't," said Molly quickly. "Don't go yet. I can say as little as I
like with you, and then I'm going to church to hear the _bon petit
pretre_ preach."

"He will lure you to Rome."

"Perhaps."

"Well, I think there's a good deal to be said for Rome."

"Don't you mind people joining it?" she asked, a little eagerly.

"No, I like it better than Ritualism."

"But Lady Rose is a Ritualist."

"I believe you will find angels few and far between in any religion."

"It must be nice to be an angel," mused Molly.

He had risen to go; he thought he might still find Rose at home and he
wanted to speak to her, yet he was in no hurry to be gone.

"Don't give me an excuse for compliments; I warn you, you will repent it
if you do," he said warmly; and then, after a little hesitation which
might well have been mistaken for an effort at self-command in a moment
of emotion, he added in a low voice--

"May I come and see you again very soon?"

As Molly gave him her hand he looked at her with wistful apology for
having wronged her in his thoughts, for having intruded into her
secrets. There was more pity in his eyes than he knew at the moment. He
bent his head after that, and with the foreign fashion he sometimes fell
into, and which Molly had known before, gently kissed her hand. The
quick kindly action was the expression of his wish to