She laid it on the table, and the young men stood gazing as if it were a venomous reptile which each hesitated to touch.
“Is it legal, Bobus?” she presently asked.
“It looks—rather so—” he said in an odd, stunned voice.
“Elvira, by all that’s lucky!” exclaimed Jock. “Well done, Allen, you are still the Lady Clare!”
“Not till she is of age,” said Allen, rather gloomily.
“Pity you didn’t marry her at Algiers,” said Jock.
“Where did this come from?” said Bobus, who had been examining it intently.
“Out of the old bureau.”
“Mother!” cried out Barbara, in a tone of horror, which perhaps was a revelation to Bobus, for he exclaimed—
“You don’t mean that Janet had had it, and brought it out to threaten you?”