“Thank you.  It may be my death sentence, but I’ll stay.”

In the wide east gallery they saw Lady Deppingham and Bobby Browne, deeply engrossed in conversation.  They were seated in the shade of the wisteria, and the two were close upon them before they heard their voices.  Deppingham started and involuntarily allowed his hand to go to his temple, as if to check the thought that flitted through his brain.

“Good Lord,” he said to himself, “is it possible that they are considering that demmed Saunders’s proposition?  Surely they can’t be thinking of that!”

As he led the way across the green, Browne’s voice came to them distinctly.  He was saying earnestly: 

“The mere fact that we have come out to this blessed isle is a point in favour of the islanders.  Chase won’t overlook it and you may be sure Sir John Brodney is making the most of it.  Our coming is a guarantee that we consider the will valid.  It is an admission that we regard it as sound.  If not, why should we recognise its provisions, even in the slightest detail?  Britt is looking for hallucinations and all—­”

“Sh!” came in a loud hiss from somewhere near at hand, and the two in the gallery looked down with startled eyes upon the distressed face of Lord Deppingham.  They started to their feet at once, astonishment and wonder in their faces.  They could scarcely believe their eyes.  The Enemy!

He was smiling broadly as he lifted his helmet, smiling in spite of the discomfort that showed so plainly in Deppingham’s manner.

Chase was warmly welcomed by the two heirs.  Lady Agnes was especially cordial.  Her eyes gleamed joyously as she lifted them to meet his admiring gaze.  She was amazingly pretty.  The conviction that Chase had mistaken her for Lady Agnes, the evening before, took a fresh grasp upon the mind of the Princess Genevra.  A shameless wave of relief surged through her heart.

Chase was presented to Drusilla Browne, who appeared suddenly upon the scene, coming from no one knew where.  There was a certain strained look in the Boston woman’s face and a suspicious redness near the bridge of her little nose.  As she had not yet acquired the Boston habit of wearing glasses, whether she needed them or not, the irritation could hardly be attributed to tight pince nez.  Genevra made up her mind on the instant that Drusilla was making herself unhappy over her good-looking husband’s attentions to his co-legatee.

“It’s very good of you,” said the Enemy, after all of them had joined in the invitation.  There was a peculiar twinkle in his eye as he asked this rather confounding question:  “Why is it that I am more fortunate than your own attorneys?  I am but a humble lawyer, after all, no better than they.  Would you mind telling me why I am honoured by an invitation to sit at the table with you?” The touch of easy sarcasm was softened by the frank smile that went with it.  Deppingham, having been the first to offend, after a look of dismay at his wife, felt it his duty to explain.