effort of will.
Then she told him quite quietly of Nurse Edith's evidence.

"You mean," he explained, "that there is a copy of the real will leaving
everything to you. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I find it harder to
believe than when I first guessed at the truth. I suppose it is an
effect on the nerves, but now that we are actually proved right I am
simply bewildered. It seems almost too good to be true."

Rose was also, it seemed, more dazed than triumphant. He felt it very
strange that she had not told him the great news as soon as he came
into the room.

"What made you say that you could not conceive what to do? There can be
no doubt now." He spoke quickly and incisively.

"I cannot see," she said at last, "what is right. Mr. Murray is very
positive, and absolutely insists that it is my duty to allow the thing
to go on."

"Of course," Edmund interjected.

"But then, if he is mistaken! He really believes that Miss Dexter
received the will from Dr. Larrone and has suppressed it."

Edmund got up suddenly, and looked down on her with what she felt to be
a stern attention.

"And that," she concluded, looking bravely into the grave eyes bent on
her, "I absolutely decline to believe!"

"Of course," said Grosse abruptly, "it's out of the question. It's just
like a solicitor--fits his puzzle neatly together and is quite satisfied
without seeing the gross absurdity of supposing that such a girl could
carry on a huge fraud. A perfectly innocent, fresh, candid girl, brought
up in a respectable English country house--the thing is ridiculous!"

He spoke with great feeling; he was more moved than she had seen him for
a long time past, perhaps that was why she felt her own enthusiasm for
Molly's innocence just a little damped. He sat down again as abruptly as
he had risen.

"But it would be madness to drop the whole affair. This evidence of
Nurse Edith's is really conclusive; and the only thing I can see to be
said on the other side would be that David might have sent the will to
Madame Danterre to give her the option of destroying it. But there is
just another possibility, which Murray won't even consider, that Larrone
destroyed the will on the journey."

"Do you know," said Rose, with a smile, "I believe it's conceivable that
it is in the box, but that she has never opened the box at all! I
believe a girl might shrink so much from reading that woman's papers
that she might not even open the box."

"No one bu