"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?"