fore Sir David Bright died.

At first Molly was simply bewildered. She read, as if stupefied, the
perfectly simple language in which Sir David had bequeathed all and
everything he possessed to his wife, Lady Rose Bright, subject to an
annual allowance of L1000 to Madame Danterre during her life-time. It
was so brief and simple that, if Molly had not known how simple a will
could be, she might have half doubted its legality. As it was she was
not aware of the special facilities in the matter of will-making that
are allowed to soldiers and sailors when on active service. The
absolutely amazing thing was that the paper should have been in Madame
Danterre's possession.

Molly turned to the letter, and read it with absorbed attention.

The General wrote on the eve of the battle, without the least anxiety as
to the next day. But he already surmised the vast proportions that the
war might assume, and he intended to send the enclosed will with this
letter to the care of a lawyer in Capetown for fear of eventualities.
Then, next day, as Molly knew, he had been killed.

But Molly did not know that to the brother officer who had been with him
in his last moments Sir David had confided two plain envelopes, and had
told him to send the first--a blue one--to his wife, and the second--a
white one--to Madame Danterre, faintly murmuring the names and addresses
in his dying voice. The same officer was himself killed a week later. If
he had lived and had learned the disposal of Sir David's fortune, it
might possibly have occurred to him that he had put the addresses on the
wrong letters. But he was sure at the time that Sir David's last words
had been: "Remember, the white one for my wife." And perhaps he was
right, for it is not uncommon for a man even in the full possession of
all his faculties (which Sir David was not) to make a mistake just
because of his intense anxiety to avoid making it. As it was, knowing
nothing whatever of the circumstances, the will and the letter seemed to
Molly to come out of a mysterious void.

To any one with an unbiassed mind who was able to study it as a human
document, the letter would have been pathetic enough. It was the
revelation, the outpouring of what a man had suffered in silence for
many long years. It seemed at moments hardly rational. The sort of
unreasonable nervous terror in it was extraordinary. Molly read most of
the real story in the letter, but not quite all. There had been a
terribl