She longed to speak to Miss Carew about this, but Miss Carew never could follow a chain of reasoning.  The nurse was more sensible, but she thought that reasoning was too tiring for Molly—­so silly!  If only she could be allowed to explain it all quietly and reasonably!  And oh! why did they leave her alone?  She hated to be left alone, and she was sure she told them so; and yet they went away.  And then she began to work her brain again as soon as the was alone, and she would be happy for a few minutes with a new plan for shutting the face into the large empty attic in her right brain and locking the door, when quite suddenly the face opened the door of the wardrobe with its loose hands and looked out again and jeered at her.

Even now, lying resting, and looking at the sun, Molly was glad that there was no hanging wardrobe in the room; only one full of shelves.  She would certainly not use the same room when she went back to London.  She would only be in that flat for a short time, as she must now take a big house.

As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house.  It should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else’s house; it should be Molly’s own special triumph.  It must have the glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past.  It should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy.

“And”—­she smiled to herself—­“as long as it is a house in the air it shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset.”  The fancy that had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now.

Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took possession.  They took turns to make themselves gradually, very gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her.  The first was founded on the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as to her mother’s papers.  She had been delirious that evening, and, what was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she had seen and read of the contents of that box.

“I can’t remember if that’s true,” she could honestly say to herself when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention.  Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness.  For instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her.  But how did Molly know that?  And suddenly she said to herself that she could not remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too.

At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the black box altogether.  Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it?  Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; sometimes it was a little tiny cash box.