CHAPTER XV. — A NORMAL CASE  

  CHAPTER XVI. — DEAD MAJESTY  

  CHAPTER XVII. — THE CHIEF MOURNERS  

  CHAPTER XVIII. — THE GOLD AND THE TREASURE        

  THE END.  

  

  

       CHAPTER I. — DOCTOR MARY’S PAYING GUEST     

       “Just in time, wasn’t it?” asked Mary Arkroyd.     

       “Two days before the—the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?”     

       “Only once—in Collingham Gardens. He had an exeat, and dashed in one Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don’t you remember?”     

       “Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I’d gone into colors. Oh, of course I’ve gone back into mourning now! And everything was ready—settlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth. And then it all came out!”     

       “How?”     

       “Well, Eustace—Captain Cranster, I mean. Oh, I think he really must have had shell-shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt it! He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, and—and the bank wouldn’t pay the check. Other checks turned up, too, and in the end the police went through his papers, and found letters from—well, from her, you know. From Bogota. South America, isn’t it? He’d lived there ten years, you know, growing something—beans, or coffee, or coffee-beans, or something—I don’t know what. He tried to say the marriage wasn’t binding, but the Colonel—wasn’t it providential that the Colonel was home on leave? Mamma could never have grappled with it! The Colonel was sure it was, and so were the lawyers.” 

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