Sir Adam sat still in his place and smoked another thick cigarette before he moved. Then he roused himself, got up, sat down at his table, and took a large sheet of paper from a big leather writing-case.  
He had no hesitation about what he meant to put down. In a quarter of an hour he had written out a new will, in which he left his whole fortune to his only son Brook, on condition that Brook did not marry Mrs. Crosby. But if he married her before his father’s death he was to have nothing, and if he married her afterwards he was to forfeit the whole, to the uttermost farthing. In either of these cases the property was to go to a third person. Sir Adam hesitated a moment, and then wrote the name of one of his sisters as the conditional legatee. His wife had plenty of money of her own, and besides, the will was a mere formality, drawn up and to be executed solely with a view to checking Lady Fan’s enthusiasm. He did not sign it, but folded it smoothly and put it into his pocket. He also took his own pen, for he was particular   in matters appertaining to the mechanics of writing, and very neat in all he did.
 
He went out and wandered up and down the terrace in the heat, but no one was there. Then he knocked at his wife’s door, and found her absorbed in an interesting conversation with her maid in regard to matters of dress, as connected with climate. Lady Johnstone at once appealed to him, and the maid eyed him with suspicion, fearing his suggestions. He satisfied her, however, by immediately suggesting that she should go away, whereat she smiled and departed.
 
Lady Johnstone at once understood that something very serious was in the air. A wonderful good fellowship existed between husband and wife; but they very rarely talked of anything which could not have been discussed, figuratively, on the housetops.
 
“Brook has got himself into a scrape with that Mrs. Crosby, my dear,” said Sir Adam. “What you heard is all more or less true. She has really been to a solicitor, and means to take steps to get a divorce. Of course she could get it easily enough. If she did, people would say that Brook had let her go that far, telling her that he would marry her, and then had changed his mind and left her to her fate. We can’t let that happen, you know.”
 
  Lady Johnstone looked at her husband with anxiety while he was speaking, and then was silent for a few seconds.
 
“Oh, you Johnstones! You Johnstones!” she cried at last, shaking her head. “You’re perfectly incorrigible!”
 
“Oh no, my dear,” answered Sir Adam; “don’t forget me, you know.”
 
“You, Adam!”
 
Her tone expressed an extraordinary conflict of varying sentiment—amusement, affection, reproach, a retrospective distrust of what might have been, but could not be, considering Sir Adam’s age.
 
“Never mind me, then,” he answered. “I’ve made a will cutting Brook off with nothing if he marries Mrs. Crosby, and I’m going to send her a copy of it to-day. That will be enough, I fancy.”
 
“Adam!”
 
“Yes—what? Do you disapprove? You always say that you are a practical woman, and you generally show that you are. Why shouldn’t I take the practical method of stopping this woman as soon as possible? She wants my money—she doesn’t want my son. A fortune with any other name would smell as sweet.”
 
“Yes—but—”
 
“But what?   ”
 
“I don’t know—it seems—somehow—” Lady Johnstone was perplexed to express what she meant just then. “I mean,” she added suddenly, “it’s treating the woman like a mere adventuress, you know—”
 
“That’s precisely what Mrs. Crosby is, my dear,” answered Sir Adam calmly. “The fact that she comes of decent people doesn’t alter the case in the least. Nor the fact that she has one rich husband, and wishes to get another instead. I say that her husband is rich, but I’m very sure he has ruined himself in the last two years, and that she knows it. She is not the woman to leave him as long as he has money, for he lets her do anything she pleases, and pays her well to leave him alone. But he has got into trouble—and rats leave a sinking ship, you know. You may say that I’m cynical, my dear, but I think you’ll find that I’m telling you the facts as they are.”
 
“It seems an awful insult to the woman to send her a copy of your will,” said Lady Johnstone.
 
“It’s an awful insult to you when she tries to get rid of her husband to marry your only son, my dear.”
 
“Oh—but he’d never marry her!”
 
“I’m not sure. If he thought it would be dishonourable not to marry her, he’d be quite   capable of doing it, and of blowing out his brains afterwards.”
 
“That wouldn’t improve her position,” observed the practical Lady Johnstone.
 
“She’d be the widow of an honest man, instead of the wife of a blackguard,” said Sir Adam. “However, I’m doing this on my own responsibility. What I want is that you should witness the will.”
 
“And let Mrs. Crosby think I made you do this? No—”
 
“Nonsense. I sha’n’t copy the signatures—”
 
“Then why do you need them at all?”
 
“I’m not going to write to her that I’ve made a will, if I haven’t,” answered Sir Adam. “A will isn’t a will unless it’s witnessed. I’m not going to lie about it, just to frighten her. So I want you and Mrs. Bowring to witness it.”
 
“Mrs. Bowring?”
 
“Yes—there are no men here, and Brook can’t be a witness, because he’s interested. You and Mrs. Bowring will do very well. But there’s another thing—rather an extraordinary thing—and I won’t let you sign with her until you know it. It’s not a very easy thing to tell you, my dear.”
 
Lady Johnstone shifted her fat hands and folded them again, and her frank blue eyes gazed at her husband for a moment.
 
 
“I can guess,” she said, with a good-natured smile. “You told me you were old friends—I suppose you were in love with her somewhere!” She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she added. “It’s one more, that’s all—one that I didn’t know of. She’s a very nice woman, and I’ve taken the greatest fancy to her!”
 
“I’m glad you have,” said Sir Adam, gravely. “I say, my dear—don’t be surprised, you know—I warned you. We knew each other very well—it’s not what you think at all, and she was altogether in the right and I was quite in the wrong about it. I say, now—don’t be startled—she’s my divorced wife—that’s all.”
 
“She! Mrs. Bowring! Oh, Adam—how could you treat her so!”
 
Lady Johnstone leaned back in her chair and slowly turned her head till she could look out of the window. She was almost rosy with surprise—a change of colour in her sanguine complexion which was equivalent to extreme pallor in other persons. Sir Adam looked at her affectionately.
 
“What an awfully good woman you are!” he exclaimed, in genuine admiration.
 
“I! No, I’m not good at all. I was thinking that if you hadn’t been such a brute to her I could never have married you. I don’t suppose   that is good, is it? But you were a brute, all the same, Adam, dear, to hurt such a woman as that!”
 
“Of course I was! I told you so when I told you the story. But I didn’t expect that you’d ever meet.”
 
“No, it is an extraordinary thing. I suppose that if I had any nerves I should faint. It would be an awful thing if I did; you’d have to get those porters to pick me up!” She smiled meditatively. “But I haven’t fainted, you see. And, after all, I don’t see why it should be so very dreadful, do you? You see, you’ve rather broken me in to the idea of lots of other peo............