"All had gone well with you," I said. "But what about her?"
"She didn't tell me what you've told me to-day. I supposed till almost the last that she was just travelling about, as we planned for her to do. The only address I had was Mother's old bank, which was to forward everything to Mary-Rose, on her own instructions. Then, a few weeks ago, she wrote and asked if I could manage without her coming back to America. She said it would make a lot of difference in her life, but she didn't explain what she meant. If she'd made a clean breast of everything I might have thought of some other way out; but——"
"But as she didn't, you didn't," I finished the sentence. "Oh, how different Mary-Rose Hillier is in heart from her sister Rosemary Brandreth, though their faces are almost identical! She was always thinking of you, and her promise to you. That promise was killing her—that and her love for Ralston Murray. She didn't want his money, and when she found he was determined to make a will in her favour she thought of a way in which everything would come to you. It was you he really loved—no doubt she argued with herself—and he wanted you to inherit his fortune. Oh, poor tortured girl!—and I used to suspect that she was mercenary. But, thank Heaven, Ralston didn't die, as he expected so soon to do when he made that hurried will. The woman he truly loves was never married before, and is his legal wife. Now, when she goes back to him and he hears the whole truth he will be so happy that he'll live for years, strong and well."
"I don't believe even you can induce Mary-Rose to go back to Ralston Murray," Mrs. Brandreth said. "She wouldn't think he could forgive her for deceiving him."
"He could forgive her anything after what he went through in losing her," I said. "When you've told me where to find your sister, I will tell her that—and a lot more things besides."
"Well, if you can make her see your point of view!" Mrs. Brandreth grudged. "If my secret is kept, I hope Mary-Rose may be happy. I don't grudge her Ralston Murray or his fortune; but when she feels herself quite safe as his wife she can pay me my thousand pounds."
"She has paid you, and more, with her heart's blood!" I exclaimed. "Where is she?"
"In New York. She told me she could never go to England again after what had happened there. She seems awfully down, and I left her deciding whether she should enter a charitable sisterhood. They take girls without money, if they'll work in the slums, and Mary-Rose was anxious to do that."
"She won't be when she understands what work lies before her across the sea," I retorted.
Even as I spoke—and as Mrs. Guy Brandreth was writing down her sister's address—I mentally marshalled the arguments I would use: the need to save Ralston from himself, and above all from Paul and Gaby Jennings. But, oh, the sudden stab I felt as those names came to my mind!