Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was getting a firm footing.  It was simply that the fact of the will being sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David’s having repented of having made it.  If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had?  It was absurd and romantic to suppose that her mother had carried on an intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will.  That might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in delirium, but it was not possible in real life.  The only puzzle was—­and the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case—­why had he not destroyed the will himself?  The probability was that he had not been able to do so at the last moment.  When dying he must have repented of the last will just too late to destroy it.  She could quite imagine his asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the papers.  It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy them.  And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course not reading them.  And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the hand that had written its contents.  Finally, all that the theory did for the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things evidently stood or fell together.  So the theories grew and prospered without interfering with each other as Molly’s health and strength returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be “Even supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still evident that——­”

Molly’s recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell.  She seemed hardly able to understand business.  She was ready to leave all responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he hardly liked to see her quite so passive.

After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill.

“He must think me a fool,” she said, in a weak voice.  “I have left everything on his shoulders, poor man.  I’m afraid if he is asked about me, as he’s a Scotchman he will say I am ‘just an innocent’!  I really ought not to have seen him to-day.”

But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite business-like.  The said house agent had come down with one secret object in his heart.  It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market.  It had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had hardly had a bite for it.  Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness of the first floor.  Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm.