Again the confused sense of guilt seized her, the horrible possibility
of having been a wife only in name. She did not weigh the matter calmly
enough to feel quite as distinctly as she ought to have done that she
could not be touched or denied in the faintest degree by a sin that was
not her sin. Still she raised her head as she could not have done some
weeks before; for the most acute phase of her trial had been faced and
had been passed. Now in her moments of most bitter pain in the very
depths of her soul was peace. As she became calmer she tried again to
connect together those three parts of the message from the battle-field,
the ring, the photograph, and the letter; but she could not do so. At
last she put them away in the drawer of her bureau, and then wrote to
tell her mother and the lawyer that Sir David had sent her a photograph,
a ring, and a few private lines--that was all. There was no will.

Still everything had not been brought back. There had been portmanteaux
sent down to Capetown, and there might yet be discovered a small
despatch box, or a writing case, something or other that might hold a
will. But the limit of time was reached at last; the portmanteaux and a
despatch box were recovered, but they held no will.

The solicitor delayed to the last possible moment, and then the will was
proved. It was published in the papers at a moment when a lull in the
war gave leisure for private gossip, and the gossip accordingly raged
hotly. All the sweetness, gentleness, and kindness that made Rose
deservedly popular did not prevent there being two currents of opinion.
There are wits so active that they cannot share the views of all
right-minded people. While the majority sympathised deeply with Rose,
there were a few who insinuated that she must be to some degree to blame
for what had happened.

"Well, don't you know, I never could understand why she married a man so
much older than herself. Of course she had not a penny and he was
awfully rich, and people don't look too close into a man's character in
such cases. It is rather convenient for some women to be very innocent."

Sir Edmund Grosse, to whom the remark was addressed at a small country
house party, turned his back for a moment on the speaker in order to
pick up a paper, and then said in a low, indifferent voice: "David
Bright came into his cousin's fortune unexpectedly a year after he
married Lady Rose."

The subject was dropped that time, but he met