Eustace and a mutual friend were appointed
executors.

This generosity had inspired in Eanswyth considerable compunction, and
was the only defective spoke in the wheel of her present great
happiness. Sometimes she almost suspected that her husband had guessed
at how matters really stood, and the idea cost her more than one
remorseful pang. Yet, though she had failed in her allegiance, it was
in her heart alone. She would have died sooner than have done so
otherwise, she told herself.

Twice had the executors applied for the necessary authority to
administer the estate. But the Master of the Supreme Court professed
himself not quite satisfied. The evidence as to the testator's actual
death struck him as inadequate--resting, as it did, upon the sole
testimony of one of the executors, who could not even be positive that
the man was dead when last seen by him. He might be alive still, though
held a prisoner. Against this view was urged the length of time which
had elapsed, and the utter improbability that the Gcaleka bands, broken
up and harried, as they were, from point to point, would hamper
themselves with a prisoner, let alone a member of that race toward which
they had every reason to entertain the most uncompromising and
implacable rancour. The Supreme Court, however, was immovable. When
hostilities were entirely at an end, they argued, evidence might be
forthcoming on the part of natives who had actually witnessed the
testator's death. That fact incontestably established, letters of
administration could at once be granted. Meanwhile the matter must be
postponed a little longer.

This delay affected those most concerned not one whit. There was not
the slightest fear of Eanswyth's interests suffering in the able hands
which held their management. Only, the excessive caution manifested by
the law's representatives would at times communicate to Eustace Milne a
vague uneasiness. What if his cousin should be alive after all? What
if he had escaped under circumstances which would involve perforce his
absence during a considerable period? He might have gained the sea
shore, for instance, and been picked up by a passing ship bound to some
distant country, whose captain would certainly decline to diverge many
days out of his course to oblige one unknown castaway. Such things had
happened. Still, the idea was absurd, he told himself, for, even if it
was so, sufficient time had elapsed for the missing man,