[Illustration:  “‘Don’t you intend to present me to Lady Deppingham?’”]

“My solicitor—­” began Lady Deppingham, and then stopped.  She was smiling in spite of herself.  This frank, breezy way of putting it had not offended her, after all, much to her surprise.

“Your solicitor and mine can get together and talk it over,” said Browne blandly.  “We’ll leave it to them.  I simply want you to know that I am not here for the purpose of living at swords’ points with you.  I am quite ready to be a friendly ally, not a foe.”

“Let me understand you,” began Deppingham, cooling off suddenly.  “Do you mean to say that you are not going to fight us in this matter?”

“Not at all, your lordship,” said Browne coolly.  “I am here to fight Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme, deceased.  I imagine, if you’ll have a talk with your solicitor, that that is precisely what you are here for, too.  As next nearest of kin, I think both of us will run no risk if we smash the will.  If we don’t smash it, the islanders will cheerfully take the legacy off our hands.”

“By Jove,” muttered Deppy, looking at his wife.

“Thank you, Mr. Browne, for being so frank with us,” she said coolly.  “If you don’t mind, I will consult my solicitor.”  She bowed ever so slightly, indicating that the interview was at an end, and, moreover, that it had not been of her choosing.

“Any time, your ladyship,” said Browne, also bowing.  “I think Mrs. Browne wants to speak to you about the rooms.”

“We are quite settled, Mr. Browne, and very well satisfied,” she said pointedly, turning red with a fresh touch of anger.

“I trust you have not taken the rooms at this end.”

“We have.  We are occupying them.”  She arose and started away, Deppingham hesitating between his duty to her and the personal longing to pull Browne’s nose.

“I’m sorry,” said Browne.  “We were warned not to take them.  They are said to be unbearable when the hot winds come in October.”

“What’s that?” demanded Deppingham.

“The book of instruction and description which we have secured sets all that out,” said the other.  “Mr. Britt, my attorney, had his stenographer take it all down in Bombay.  It’s our private Baedeker, you see.  We called on the Bombay agent for the Skaggs-Wyckholme Company.  He lived with them in this house for ten months.  No one ever slept in this end of the building.  It’s strange that the servants didn’t warn you.”

“The da—­the confounded servants left us yesterday before we came—­every mother’s son of ’em.  There isn’t a servant on the place.”

“What?  You don’t mean it?”

“Are you coming?” called Lady Deppingham from the doorway.

“At once, my dear,” replied Deppingham, shuffling uneasily.  “By Jove, we’re in a pretty mess, don’t you know.  No servants, no food, no——­”

“Wait a minute, please,” interrupted Browne.  “I say, Britt, come here a moment, will you?  Lord Deppingham says the servants have struck.”