Was it a conspiracy into which they were luring her husband, already rather compromised as a man of science by his enthusiasm for the Suffrage cause?
People used to speak of Michael almost with awe, he was so clever, he made such wonderful discoveries.

Now, since he had become a politician he had many enemies, and several ladies of high title referred to him contemptuously even in her hearing and cut _her_ without compunction, though she had Ten thousand a year.

She felt all the same a profound conviction that Michael was the most honourable of men.

Yet why all this mystery?
The W.S.P.U.?
Those letters stood for some more than usually malignant Suffrage Society.
She had seen the letters often in "Votes for Women."...
Her musings here were stayed by the sound of her husband's steps in the passage.

Hastily she thrust the half sheet of charred paper into her corsage and brushed off the fragments of the burnt edges from her laces; then turned and affected to be tidying the writing table as Michael came in.
_Rossiter_: "Linda! Surely not putting my papers in order--or rather disorder?
I thought you were far too intimate with my likes and dislikes to do that!...