you see--don't you see it? That isn't the letter of a man who has
committed a murder. It's the letter of a man who has unwittingly and
unwillingly done you some personal wrong, and is eager to repair
it. My darling, my darling, you've misread it altogether. It
isn't about Montague Nevitt's death at all; it's about nothing an
earth but some private money matter. More than that, when it was
written, Guy didn't yet know Mr. Nevitt was dead. He didn't know
he was suspected. He didn't know anything. I wonder you don't see!
I wish to Heaven you'd shown me that letter months ago! Sir Gilbert
fastened suspicion on the wrong man; and this letter has made you
accept it too easily. Guy went to Africa--that's as plain as words
can put it--to make money of his own to repay what he owed you. And
it's this, the purely personal and unimportant charge, he's coming
home to give himself up upon."

A light seemed to burst on Cyril's mind as she spoke. For the very
first time, he felt a gleam of hope. Elma was right, after all,
he believed. Guy was wholly innocent of the greater crime; and his
heart-broken letter had only meant to deal with the question of
the forgery.

But Cyril had heard of the murder first, and had had that most in
his mind when the letter reached him; so he interpreted it at once
as referring to the capital charge, and never dreamt for a moment
of its real narrower meaning.

That evening, when the messenger came back from "kind inquiries" at
Woodlands, Elma asked, with hushed awe, how Sir Gilbert was going
on.