The Golden Rose by Fred M. White — Read

John Lethbridge had forgotten the flower in his buttonhole. He looked at it as if it were some unaccountable object which he had never seen or heard of before. The glance seemed almost to paralyse him. To a casual observer guilt and confusion were written all over his face. Yet, when he came to think of it, Mary's surprise was natural enough. Only a little time before the Golden Rose had been disclosed to the girl's astonished eyes. She had been informed that this beautiful flower was to be the nucleus of her fortune when the time should come that Jasper Payn would want it no longer. She had been told that the blossom was unique, and that there was nothing like it in all the world. And here, casually and openly, Lethbridge was wearing one of the yellow blooms, as if it had been the kind of thing that one plucks by the wayside.

Still, the question uttered by her gaze would have to be answered. He would have to tell his story. But whether the girl would believe it or not was another matter. She might take the same view as Inspector Wilkinson. She might regard the romance as a tissue of lies from beginning to end.