The intense suffering displayed in every line of Wilmot's face as she made this statement touched Henrietta as much as it puzzled her. Had she mistaken this man? Had he really deep feelings, strong susceptibilities? Had the shock of his wife's death been far otherwise felt than she had believed, and was he now groping after every detail, in order to feed the vain flame of love and memory? Such a supposition accorded very ill with all she knew and all she imagined of Chudleigh Wilmot; but she could find no other within her not infertile brain. "What became of my letter to her?" Wilmot asked her abruptly. "It is in her coffin, together with every other you ever wrote her. I placed them there at her own request. She had them tied up in a packet,--the others I mean; but she gave me that one separately." "Why?" asked Wilmot in a hoarse whisper. "Why!" repeated Henrietta. "I don't know. It was only a few hours before she died. She hardly spoke at all after, but she told me quite distinctly then that I was to give you her wedding-ring, and to place those letters in her coffin. 'I could not destroy those,' she said, touching the packet in my hand; 'and this,' she drew it from under her pillow as she spoke, 'I want to be placed with me too. It is my justification.'" "My justification!" repeated Wilmot. "What did she mean? What did you understand that she meant by that?" "I did not think much about it. The poor thing was near her end then, and I thought little of it; though of course I did what she desired." "Yes, yes, I understand," said Wilmot. "But her justification--justification in what--for what?" "In her gloomy and miserable ideas of course, and, above all, in her desire to die. She believed that your letter contained the proof of all she feared and suffered from, and so justified her longing to escape from further neglect and sorrow." "You did not suspect that it had any further meaning?" Henrietta stared at him in silence. "I beg your pardon," he said; "my mind is confused by anxiety. I am afraid, Mrs. Prendergast, there may have been features in this case not rightly understood. Could it be that Whittaker was deceived?" "I think not--I cannot believe that there was any error. Dr. Whittaker never expressed any anxiety on _that_ point, any uncertainty, any wish to divide the responsibility, except with yourself. I understood him to say that he had gone into the case very fully with you, and that you were satisfied everything had been done within the resources of medicine." "Yes, he did. I don't blame him; I don't blame anyone but myself. But, Mrs. Prendergast, that is not the point. What I want to get at is this: did she--my wife I mean--did she hide anything from Whittaker's knowledge?" "Anything? In her physical state do you mean? Of her mental sufferings no one but myself ever had the smallest indication. Will you wrong her dead as well as living?" said Henrietta angrily.