e industrious islanders, would be slaving
themselves into a hale old age and a subsequently unhallowed grave, none
the wiser and none the richer than when the contest began, except for
the proportionately insignificant share that was theirs by right of
original possession. Sir John took it upon himself to settle the matter
while his clients were still in a condition to appreciate the results.
He proposed a compromise.

It was not so much a question of jurisprudence, he argued, as it was a
matter of self-protection for all sides to the controversy--more
particularly that side which assembled the inhabitants of Japat.

And so it came to pass that the Jews, after modifying some twenty or
thirty propositions of their own, ultimately assumed the credit of
evolving the plan that had originated in the resourceful head of Sir
John Brodney, and affairs were soon brought to a close.

The grandchildren of the testators were ready to accept the best
settlement that could be obtained. Theirs was a rather forlorn hope, to
begin with. When it was proposed that Agnes Deppingham and Robert Browne
should accept L250,000 apiece in lieu of all claims, moral or legal,
against the estate, they leaped at the chance.

They had seen but little of each other since landing in England, except
as they were thrown together at the conferences. There was no pretence
of intimacy on either side; the shadow of the past was still there to
remind them that a skeleton lurked behind and grinned spitefully in its
obscurity. Lady Agnes went in for every diversion imaginable; for a
wonder, she dragged Deppingham with her on all occasions. It was a most
unexpected transformation; their friends were puzzled. The rumour went
about town that she was in love with her husband.

As for Bobby Browne, he was devotion itself to Drusilla. They sailed for
New York within three days after the settlement was effected, ignoring
the enticements of a London season--which could not have mattered much
to them, however, as Drusilla emphatically refused to wear the sort of
gowns that Englishwomen wear when they sit in the stalls. Besides, she
preferred the Boston dressmakers. The Brownes were rich. He could now
become a fashionable specialist. They were worth nearly a million and a
quarter in American dollars. Moreover, they, as well as the Deppinghams,
were the possessors of rubies and sapphires that had been thrust upon
them by supplicating adversaries in the hour of departur