"I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she
knows much more than she would allow to him. I think she was waiting to
see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would
not fall into the risk of buying evidence. He waited; she was watched
until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours
before she came to me. She declares now that, as she was gathering up
the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been
reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one
called Rose. She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief.
She slipped it into her pocket when she put the rest away. I believe it
was naughty curiosity, but she wishes us to think that she knew the
whole scandal about the General's will, and did what she did from a
sense of justice. When off duty she took the paper to her room, and when
she opened it she found the will inside it. In her excitement she called
the housemaid, an Englishwoman with whom she had made friends, and she
copied the will while they were together, and the names of Akers and
Stock--of whom she could not possibly have heard--are in her copy. I
have seen that copy, Lady Rose, and----" He paused and glanced at her
for a moment, and then his eyes sought the trees in the garden even as
they had done when he had made that other and awful announcement on the
day of the memorial service to Sir David. Rose flushed a little, and
her breathing came quickly, but she made no sign of impatience.
"Sir David left the whole of his fortune to you subject to an annual
payment of a thousand a-year to Madame Danterre during her lifetime."
Complete silence followed. Lady Rose either could not or would not
speak. Out of the pale, distinguished slightly worn face the eyes looked
at Mr. Murray with no surprise. Had she not always said that she did not
believe the iniquitous will Mr. Murray had brought her to be the true
one, but had she not also maintained that the true will would never be
found? She did not say so to Mr. Murray, but in fact she shrank from
making too sure of Nurse Edith's evidence. She had so long forbidden
herself to believe in the return of worldly fortune or to wish for it.
Mr. Murray coughed. No words of congratulation seemed available. At last
he went on:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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