"Your mining claim; not in the least," interrupted Arthur quietly, "I am not here to press or urge any rights that we may have. We may not even submit the grant for patent. But my client would like to know something of the present tenants, or, if you will, owners. You represent them, I think? A man and wife. The woman appears first as a spinster, assuming to be a Miss Grace Conroy, to whom an alleged transfer of an alleged grant was given. She next appears as the wife of one Gabriel Conroy, who is, I believe, an alleged brother of the alleged Miss Grace Conroy. You'll admit, I think, it's a pretty mixed business, and would make a pretty bad showing in court. But this adjudicature we are not yet prepared to demand. What we want to know is this—and I came to you, Dumphy, as the man most able to tell us. Is the sister or the brother real—or are they both impostors? Is there a legal marriage? Of course your legal interest is not jeopardised in any event."
Mr. Dumphy partly regained his audacity.
"You ought to know—you ran away with the real Grace Conroy," he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Did I? Then this is not she, if I understand you. Thanks! And the brother"——
"Is Gabriel Conroy, if I know the man," said Dumphy shortly, feeling that he had been entrapped into a tacit admission. "But why don't you satisfy yourself?"
"You have been good enough to render it unnecessary," said Arthur, with a smile. "I do not doubt your word. I am, I trust, too much of a lawyer to doubt the witness I myself have summoned. But who is this woman?"
"The widow of Dr. Devarges."
"The real thing?"
"Yes, unless Grace Conroy should lay claim to that title and privilege. The old man seems to have been pretty much divided in his property and affections."
The shaft did not apparently reach Arthur, for whom it was probably intended. He only said, "Have you legal evidence that she is the widow? If it were a fact, and a case of ill-treatment or hardship, why it might abate the claim of my client, who is a rich woman, and whose sympathies are of course in favour of the real brother and real sister. By the way, there is another sister, isn't there?"