o the subtle
though unmistakable appeals of the two gentlewomen in the chateau was
irritating in the extreme. When he deliberately, though politely,
declined their invitation to tea one afternoon, their humiliation knew
no bounds. They had, after weeks of procrastination, surrendered to the
inevitable. It was when they could no longer stand out against the
common enemy--Tranquillity! Lord Deppingham and Bobby Browne suffered in
silence; they even looked longingly toward the bungalow for the relief
that it contained and refused to extend.

Lady Deppingham and Mrs. Browne should not be misunderstood by the
reader. They loved their husbands--I am quite sure of that; but they
were tired of seeing no one else, tired of talking to no one else.
Moreover, in support of this one-sided assertion, they experienced from
time to time the most melancholy attacks of jealousy. The drag of time
hung so heavily upon them that any struggle to cast it off was
immediately noticeable. If Mrs. Browne, in plain despair, went off for a
day's ride with Lord Deppingham, that gentleman's wife was sick with
jealousy. If Lady Agnes strolled in the moonlit gardens with Mr. Browne,
the former Miss Bate of Boston could scarcely control her emotions. They
shed many tears of anguish over the faithlessness of husbands; tears of
hatred over the viciousness of temptresses. Their quarrels were fierce,
their upbraidings characteristic, but in the end they cried and kissed
and "made up"; they actually found some joy in creating these little
feuds and certainly there was great exhilaration in ending them.

They did not know, of course, that the wily Britt, despite his own
depression, was all the while accumulating the most astounding lot of
evidence to show that a decided streak of insanity existed in the two
heirs. He won Saunders over to his way of thinking, and that faithful
agent unconsciously found himself constantly on the watch for "signs,"
jotting them down in his memorandum book. Britt was firm in his purpose
to make them out as "mad as March hares" if needs be; he slyly patted
his typewritten "manifestations" and said that it would be easy sailing,
so far as he was concerned. One choice bit of evidence he secured in a
most canny manner. He was present when Miss Pelham, at the bank, was
"taking" a dictation for the Enemy--some matter pertaining to the output
of the mines. Lady Deppingham had just been guilty of a most astounding
piece of foolhardiness