‘Yes; by my aunt, Mrs Arabin.’

‘She put it into the envelope with the notes,’ said Toogood—­’slipped it in without saying a word to anyone.  I never heard of a woman doing such a thing in my life before.  If she had died, or if we hadn’t caught her, where should we all have been?  Not but what I think I should have run Dan Stringer to ground too, and worked it out of him.’

‘Then, after all, it was given to me by the dean?’ said Crawley.

‘It was in the envelope, but the dean did not know it,’ said the major.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr Crawley.  ’I was sure of it.  I knew it.  Weak as my mind may be—­and at times it is very weak—­I was certain that I could not have erred in such a matter.  The more I struggled with my memory the more fixed with me became the fact—­which I had forgotten but for a moment—­that the document had formed a part of that small packet handed to me by the dean.  But look you, sirs—­bear with me yet for a moment.  I said that it was so, and the dean denied it.’

‘The dean did not know it, man,’ said Toogood, almost in a passion.

’Bear with me yet awhile.  So far have I been misdoubting the dean—­whom I have long known to be in all things a true and honest gentleman—­that I postponed the elaborated result of my own memory to his word.  And I felt myself the more constrained to do this, because in a moment of forgetfulness, I had allowed myself to make a false statement—­unwittingly false, indeed, nonetheless very false, unpardonably false.  I had declared without thinking, that the money had come to me from the hands of Mr Soames, thereby seeming to cast a reflection upon that gentleman.  When I had been guilty of so great a blunder, of so gross a violation of that ordinary care which should govern all words between man and man, especially when any question of money may be in doubt—­how could I expect that anyone should accept my statement when contravened by that made by the dean?  Gentlemen, I did not believe my own memory.  Though all the little circumstances of that envelope, with its rich but perilous freightage, came back upon me from time to time with an exactness that has appeared to me to be almost marvellous, yet I have told myself that it was not so!  Gentlemen, if you please, we will go into the house; my wife is there, and should not longer be left in suspense.’  They passed on in silence for a few steps, till Crawley spoke again.  ’Perhaps you will allow me the privilege to be alone with her for one minute—­but for a minute.  Her thanks shall not be delayed, where thanks are so richly due.’

‘Of course,’ said Toogood, wiping his eyes with a large red bandana handkerchief.  ’By all means.  We’ll take a little walk.  Come, along, major.’  The major had turned his face away, and he also was weeping.  ’By George!  I never heard such a thing in all my life,’ said Toogood.  ’I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.  I wouldn’t indeed.  If I were to tell that up in London, nobody would believe me.’