"I fear that that is the decision of the court," the lawyer admitted. "The deed of gift was exceptionally binding."
The Marquis shook his head. The thing was incomprehensible.
"I can stand upon the roof of Mandeleys," he said, "and I can look north, south, east and west, and in no direction can I look off my own land. Yet you mean to tell me that almost in my garden there is to remain a demesne which can be occupied by any Tom, Dick or Harry which its nominal owner chooses to place in possession?"
The lawyer signed to the waiter for their glasses to be replenished.
"It is certainly not justice, your lordship," he admitted,—"it is not even reasonable—but it is the law."
The Marquis produced a gold cigarette case, absently lit a cigarette, and returned the case to his pocket without offering it to his companion. He smoked meditatively and sipped his second glass of sherry.
"A state of things," he declared, "has been revealed to me which I cannot at present grasp. I must discuss the matter with Robert—with my son-in-law, Sir Robert Lees. He is an intensely modern person, and he may be able to suggest something."
"Sir Robert is a very clever man," the lawyer acknowledged, "but failing an arrangement with the tenant himself, I cannot see that there is anything further to be done. We have, in short, exhausted the law."
"A process," the Marquis observed sympathetically, "which I fear that you must have found expensive, Mr. Wadham."
"The various suits into which we have entered on behalf of your lordship, and the costs which we have had to pay," the latter hastened to announce, "amount, I regret to say, to something over eighteen thousand pounds."