Mr. Murray coughed.  No words of congratulation seemed available.  At last he went on: 

“Nurse Edith says she did not read the letter which was with the will.  Directly she went on duty in the morning, and while Madame Danterre was asleep she put the papers back in the black box and the key of the box in its usual place in a little bag on a table standing close by the head of the bed.  It was, as I have said, this same box which was put into Dr. Larrone’s care before he started on his mysterious journey to see Miss Dexter.  Now our position is very strong.  We have evidence of the witnessing of a paper by two men.  We have the copy of the will made by the nurse and witnessed by the housemaid, and it bears the signatures of those two men.  Then you must remember that, in a case of this kind, the court is much more likely to set aside a will leaving property away from the family than if the will in dispute had been an ordinary one in favour of his relations.”

“Oh! it is horrible—­too horrible!” cried Rose.  “There must be some mistake.  That young girl I met at Groombridge!  Even if the poor mother were really wicked, that girl cannot have carried it on!”

Rose had leant her elbows on the table, and clasped her white hands tightly and then covered her face with them for a moment.

“I can’t believe it.  I feel there is some terrible mistake, and we might ruin this girl’s life.  It would be ill-gotten, unblest wealth.”

The lawyer noted with surprise that these two—­Sir Edmund and Lady Rose—­were not more anxious for wealth, rather less so, since both had known comparative poverty.

“I don’t believe anyone is the better for living on fraud, Lady Rose, and I don’t believe you have any right to drop the case.  You have to think of Sir David’s good name and of his wishes.  The will you are suffering from was a portentous wrong.”

Rose trembled.  Had she not felt it the most awful, the most portentous wrong?  Had it not burnt deep miserable wounds in her soul?  The whole horror of the desecration of her married life had been revealed to her in this room by this man.  Did she need that he should tell her what that misery had been?  The words he had used then were as well known to her as the words he had used to-day.

Rose said after a longer pause, and with slight hesitation: 

“And Sir Edmund does not know what Nurse Edith told you?  He has not seen the copy of the will?”

“No; I wanted him to, but he refused to hear any more on the subject.  I cannot understand it at all.”  He spoke with considerable irritation, his big forehead contracted with a deep frown.  “Sir Edmund, after making the guess on which the whole thing has turned, after discovering Akers and Stock, after spending large sums in the necessary work——­”

“Has he spent much money?” Rose flushed deeply.

But Mr. Murray, who usually had more tact, was now too full of his grievance to pause.