We confess our sins to God because He knows them already, and we ask for forgiveness where we know we shall be forgiven.

Indeed, Molly knew almost at once that she had gained another motive for silence.  She could not risk the loss of Edmund’s good thought of her; she cared for him too much—­he had defended himself too well.

Edmund saw that she could not speak.  He left her, let himself out of the house, and, forgetful of the fact that he could not possibly afford a hansom, jumped into one and drove to Mr. Murray’s house.

He had recovered his usual calmness by the time he had to speak.

“I have your note,” he said, “and I came in consequence.”

“Yes,” said the lawyer; “I wanted to tell you——­”

“Wait a moment.  Do you think you need tell me?  You see, my share in the thing really came to an end when I could not finance it.  I have several reasons now why I should like to let it alone.”

Murray was astonished.  It was Sir Edmund who had started the whole thing, whose wild guess at the outset was becoming more and more likely to be proved true.  It was he who had spent a quantity of money over the investigation for years past.  The man of business knew how to provoke speech by silence, and so he remained silent.

“Does further action depend in any way on me?” asked Edmund at last, without, however, offering the explanation the other wanted.

“No,” said Murray quite civilly, but his manner was dry.  “I don’t see that it does.  I think we can get on for the present.”

As he spoke the door opened, and the parlourmaid showed in a tall, handsome woman in a nurse’s dress.

Murray looked from her to Sir Edmund.

“I had wanted you to hear what Nurse Edith had to tell us, but after what you have said——­”

“Yes,” said Edmund; “I will leave you and I will write to you to-night.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS

Edmund Grosse was in great moral and great physical discomfort that evening.  He dined, actually for the first time, in just such an Italian cafe as he had described to Molly.  After climbing up a very narrow, dirty staircase, the hot air heavy with smells, he had emerged into a small back and front room holding some half-dozen tables, at each of which four people could be seated.  Through the open windows the noises of the street below came into collision with the clatter of plates and knives and forks.  The heat was intense, the cloths were not clean, neither were the hands of the two waiters who rushed about with a certain litheness and facility of motion unlike any Englishman.

Edmund sat down wearily at a table as near the window as possible, and at which several people had been dining, perhaps well, but certainly not tidily.

“Hunger alone,” he thought, “could make this possible,” when, looking up, he caught the face of a young man at a further table, full of enjoyment, ordering “spargetty” and half a bottle of “grayves,” with a cockney twang, and an unutterable air of latter-day culture.