When she came out of the church it was raining, and the wind blowing.  It was only a short walk to her own house, and she and her mother had made a rule not to take out servants and the carriage for their devotions.  She would have walked on in total silence, but her mother could not bear the suspense.

“Rose, what is it?” she cried, in a tone of authority and intense anxiety.  After all it might be easier to answer now as they battled with the rain.

“I don’t know how to tell you, mother.  Mr. Murray has been with me and shown me the will.  There was some one all the time who had some claim on him.  She may have been his real wife—­I know nothing except that since we have had John Steele’s fortune David has always paid her an income and now has left her a very great deal and me very little.  That would not matter—­God knows it is not the poverty that hurts—­but the thing itself, the horror, the shame, the publicity.  I mind it all, everything, more than I ought.  I——­” She stopped, not a word more would come.

Lady Charlton could only make broken sounds of incredulous horror.  When they crossed the brilliantly lighted hall the mother suddenly seemed much older, and Rose, for the first time, bore all the traces of a great, an overpowering sorrow.

“It wasn’t natural to be so calm,” thought the maid, who had been with her since her girlhood, as she helped her to take off her cloak.  “She didn’t understand at first.  It’s coming over her now, poor dear, and indeed he was a real gentleman, and such a husband!  Never a harsh word—­not one—­that I ever heard, at least.”

It was some time before Lady Charlton could be brought to believe it all, and then at first she was overwhelmed with self-blame.  Her mind fastened chiefly on the fact that she had allowed the marriage without settlements.  Then the next thought was the horror of the publicity, the way in which this dreadful woman must be heard of and talked about.  Lady Charlton’s broken sentences had almost the feebleness of extreme old age that cannot accept as true what it cannot understand.  “It seems impossible, quite impossible,” she said.  She was very tired, and Rose wished it had been practicable to keep this knowledge from her till later.  She knew that her mother was one of those highly-strung women whose nerve power is at its best quite late at night.  As it was, Lady Charlton had to dress for dinner and sit as upright as usual through the meal, and to talk a little before the servants.  Rose appeared the more dazed of the two then, though her mind had been quite clear before.  There was nothing said as soon as they were alone, but, as if with one accord, both glanced at each of the many letters brought by the last post, and, if it were one of condolence, laid it aside unread.  The butler had placed on a small table two evening papers, which had notices of the memorial service for Sir David Bright, and one had some lines “In Memoriam” from a poet