e place in town, as soon as possible, so that they two might travel
to Devonshire as husband and wife. Jim and I both pined for Courtenaye
Abbey, but we wouldn't desert our new friends. Besides, their affairs
had now become as exciting to us as a mystery play. There were many
questions we asked ourselves and each other concerning obscure and
unexplained details. But--if Murray didn't choose to ask them, they were
no business of ours!

Jim consulted a firm considered to be among the smartest solicitors in
London; and thanks to their "smartness," by hook or by crook the
difficulty of the codicil was got over.

The wedding was to take place at Major Murray's hotel, in the salon of
his suite, as he was not able to go through a ceremony in church. Jim
and I were the only invited guests; but at the last moment a third guest
invited himself: the cousin to whom the Ralston property would have gone
if its owner hadn't preferred Ralston Murray for his heir.

It seemed that the distant relatives had always kept up a
correspondence--letters three or four times a year; and I imagine that
Murray made the disappointed man a consolation allowance, though he
hinted at nothing of the kind to me. In any case, Doctor Paul Jennings
(who lived and practised at Merriton, not far from Ralston Old Manor)
reported unofficially on the condition of the place at stated intervals.
Murray had wired the news of his arrival in England to Jennings, and
that he would be bringing a wife to Devonshire; whereupon the doctor
asked by telegram if he might attend the wedding. Neither Murray nor the
bride-elect could think of any reason why he should not come, so he was
politely bidden to be present.

I was rather curious about the cousin to whom Murray had referred on
shipboard; and as the acquaintanceship between the two men seemed to be
entirely impersonal, I thought it "cheeky" of Jennings to wangle himself
to the wedding. Jim agreed with me as to the cheekiness. He said,
however, that the request was natural enough. This poor country doctor
had heard, no doubt, that Murray was doomed to death, and had
accordingly hoped great things for himself. There had seemed to be no
reason why these great things shouldn't happen: yet now the dying man
was about to take a wife! Jennings had been too impatient to wait till
the couple turned up in Devonshire to see what the lady was like.

"Besides," Jim went on (with the shrewdness I always accused him of
picking up