Edmund knew nothing of the recent talk about Mark, although Mrs. Delaport Green had tried to sigh out some insinuations on the subject in talking to him.  Perhaps he was a less receptive listener than of yore, when he had more empty spaces in his mind than he had this year.  He received, indeed, a faint impression that Mrs. Delaport Green was sentimentalising over some disappointment she was suffering under acutely with regard to the popular preacher, and had felt her motive to be curiosity to gain information from himself on some point of which he knew nothing.  But if he had been more attentive he might have gained enough information to make him hesitate to involve poor Mark in Molly’s affairs.

Almost as soon as he had thought of consulting Mark, he proposed the notion to Rose, who was enthusiastic in its support.

It is not necessary to give his letter to Father Molyneux, which had to be long and careful, and was written after consultation with Mr. Murray.

Mr. Murray was quite in favour of an informal interview, and disposed to agree in the choice of Father Molyneux as ambassador.  “I am not afraid of your letting Miss Dexter know the strength of our case,” he said.  “Father Molyneux must judge for himself how far it is wise to frighten Miss Dexter for her own sake.  He is, as I understand, to try to persuade her to produce the will, and I suppose he will assume that she does not know of its existence among her mother’s papers.  This would save her pride, and you might come to terms if she would produce it.  If you fail, the next course would be for me to insist on an interview, and to carry things with a high hand.  I should say, in effect:  ’We are aware that Sir David Bright made a will on his way to Africa, and we can prove that it was sent by mistake to your mother, because we have a witness who saw it in her box.  It was in her box when it was handed to Dr. Larrone, and it has been traced, therefore, into your hands.  We have a copy of it which we can produce if you have destroyed the original, and, if you have not done so, we can get an order of the court compelling you to produce it.  You cannot deny the fact that the will was sent to Madame Danterre by mistake, for you have the letter which accompanied it, and we have the postscript to the letter taken from the box by a witness whom we are prepared to call.  Will you produce the box in which, no doubt, the will has escaped your notice, or shall we get the order of the court?  The will has, as I have said, been traced into your hands.’  I doubt if any woman (at all events one such as you describe Miss Dexter) would resist, and no solicitor whom she consulted, and to whom she told the truth, would advise her to do so—­no respectable solicitor, that is to say, and no prudent one.”

When Edmund showed Rose his letter to Father Mark she had only one criticism to make.  She felt that Edmund took too easily for granted that the priest would be ready to put his finger into so very hot a pie.  Father Mark must be appealed to more earnestly to come to the rescue, and less as if it were quite obvious that he would be ready to do so as part of his natural business in life.  Edmund agreed to add some sentences at her suggestion.