A groom came forward to take the horse, and Rosmead, linking his arm in his sister’s, walked her away. They were devotedly attached to each other, and the wreckage of his dear and beautiful sister’s life at the hands of an unprincipled man had cast a deep cloud over Rosmead which could never wholly be lifted. For every time he looked at her face, every time he thought of the possibilities of her kind nature and of the long years of loneliness in front of her his soul was filled with a holy rage. On such occasions he would have killed his brother-in-law, and thought this no sin. Vivien Rosmead, made for love, uniting in her sweet nature all that is best in womanhood, all that makes for the precious things of life, had been cheated on its very threshold. But why had she been so blind, you ask? Why had not her finer sense warned her of the risk she ran? The answer is the one which has come from the lips of a vast army of sad women who have believed that their love could win and keep a man from his evil ways. In this some few have succeeded but a multitude have failed. Vivien had failed, and the irony and the misery of it had embittered Peter Rosmead beyond all telling. "The old General dead!" echoed Vivien in astonishment. "But he was not even ill. His son has been here this morning and said he was very well." "He had a shock, and he died on the spot. Heart failure, I suppose. You are needed up there, Vivien. I want you to go to-day." Vivien looked at him questioningly, and seemed to shrink. "But I don’t know Miss Mackinnon, Peter. I’ve never even seen her. She has shown us very plainly that she does not wish to know us." "That is of no consequence. This sorrow lifts the things above all such considerations. She is a woman in need--a woman suffering acutely and terribly, and she is almost utterly alone. If mother were able she would go--you know that. You must take her place. May I go back now and order a trap." "There is plenty of time, Peter," she said, visibly shrinking yet. "It is never quite dark in these long, delightful days. Tell me what happened. Were you there with her when her father died?" Rosmead briefly explained how the death had occurred. "And she thinks that it was the letter that killed him? How strange and sad! Did she give you no inkling as to what it contained?" "No. But I have my own opinion--or rather suspicions. It has something to do with her brother. As I left the house and he entered it I heard her call him a murderer." "Oh, how dreadful and how unlikely!" cried Vivien in deepening bewilderment. "Malcolm Mackinnon does not strike one at all as that sort of person. He is so transparent--just like a big, jolly schoolboy. I like him so much."