perceptibly as he looked about for a chair in which to collapse. "C—can't it be smashed?"

"It might be an easy matter to prove either of these old gentlemen to have been insane, but the two of them together make it out of the question----"

"Darned unreasonable."

"What do you mean, sir?" indignantly.

"I mean—oh, you know what I mean. The conditions and all that. Why, the old chumps must have been trying to prove their grandchildren insane when they made that will. Nobody but imbeciles would marry people they'd never seen. I----"

"But the will provides for a six months' courtship, Dr. Browne, I'm sorry to say. You might learn to love a person in less time and still retain your mental balance, you know, especially if she were pretty and an heiress to half your own fortune. I daresay that is what they were thinking about."

"Thinking? They weren't thinking of anything at all. They weren't capable. Why didn't they consider the possibility that things might turn out just as they have?"

"Possibly they did consider it, my boy. It looks to me as if they did not care a rap whether it went to their blood relatives or to the islanders. I fancy of the two they loved the islanders more. At any rate, they left a beautiful opening for the very complications which now conspire to give the natives their own, after all. There may be some sort of method in their badness. More than likely they concluded to let luck decide the matter."

"Well, I guess it has, all right."

"Don't lose heart. It's worth fighting for even if you lose. I'd hate to see those islanders get all of it, even if you two can't marry each other. I've thought it over pretty thoroughly and I've reached a conclusion. It's necessary for both of you to be on the ground according to schedule. You must go to the island, wife or no wife, and there's not much time to be lost. Lady Deppingham won't let the grass grow under her feet if I know anything about the needs of English nobility, and I'll bet my hat she's packing her trunks now for a long stay in Japat. You have farther to go than she, but you must get over there inside of sixty days. I daresay your practice can take care of itself," ironically. Browne nodded cheerfully. "You can't tell what may happen in the next six months."

"What do you mean?"

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