ss for the complexion, but that it dyes all colours,
and won't wash clothes.

After a while, however, I woke up to the full terror of the situation.
'Where are you taking me?' I inquired.

'To my house, dear,' Lady Georgina answered, looking anxiously at me;
for my face was bloodless.

'No, that won't do,' I answered. 'My cue must be now to keep myself as
aloof as possible from Harold and Harold's backers. I must put up at an
hotel. It will sound so much better in cross-examination.'

'She's quite right,' the Maharajah broke in, with sudden conviction.
'One must block every ball with these nasty swift bowlers.'

'Where's Harold?' I asked, after another pause. 'Why didn't he come to
meet me?'

'My dear, how could he? He's under examination. A cross-eyed Q.C. with
an odious leer. Southminster's chosen the biggest bully at the Bar to
support his contention.'

'Drive to some hotel in the Jermyn Street district,' I cried to the
Maharajah's coachman. 'That will be handy for the law courts.'

He touched his hat and turned. In a sort of dickey behind sat two
gorgeous-turbaned Rajput servants.

That evening Harold came round to visit me at my rooms. I could see he
was much agitated. Things had gone very badly. Lady Georgina was there;
she had stopped to dine with me, dear old thing, lest I should feel
lonely and give way; so had Elsie Petheridge. Mr. Elworthy sent a
telegram of welcome from Devonshire. I knew at least that my friends
were rallying round me in this hour of trial. The kind Maharajah himself
would have come too, if I had allowed him, but I thought it inexpedient.
They explained everything to me. Harold had propounded Mr. Ashurst's
will--the one I drew up at Florence--and had asked for probate. Lord
Southminster intervened and opposed the grant of probate on the ground
that the signatures were forgeries. He propounded instead another will,
drawn some twenty years earlier, when they were both children, duly
executed at the time, and undoubtedly genuine; in it, testator left
everything without reserve to the eldest son of his eldest brother, Lord
Kynaston.

'Marmy didn't know in those days that Kynaston's sons would all grow up
fools,' Lady Georgina said tartly. 'Besides which, that was before the
poor dear soul took to plunging on the Stock Exchange and made his
money. He had nothing to leave then but his best silk hat and a few
paltry hundreds. Afterwards, when he'd feathered his nest in soap and
cocoa,