"Would it not be more damaging to my character and to yours, Mr. Davenport, as retainer of the Brand estates, to allow an impostor a foothold at Seven-Oak Waaste?"
"Fair and softly, madam. He can't have a foothold unless you are pleased to accept him as your husband. Why attempt any exposure at all? Why not suffer his attentions until he proposes, and then dismiss him as if you were dismissing the veritable St. Udo. Be he who he may, he can't gain a foothold after that."
Margaret's face waxed paler.
Gazing in turn at each of the executors she might expect little sympathy from the half cajoling regards of the one, or from the impassive scowl of the other.
"If he is an adventurer, come here with the carefully-prepared plot by which he hopes to win the Brand estates," she said, slowly, "he will not be likely to stop at his efforts because a woman stands in the way. He will have worked too hard and risked too much to be lightly turned from his purpose. He will have weighed well the chances of a refusal. The woman who stands in his way will be removed if she refuses to be his stepping-stone."
"A parcel of moonshine!" cried Davenport, hotly.
"I implore you to believe otherwise. Do you think I would have come to you on mere suspicion? I am perfectly convinced in my own mind, sir."
"But you must convince others as well as yourself. You must bring proofs. Why, we can think nothing but that that ancient pique of yours against the captain has touched your brain, and made you really take up this unworthy suspicion against a man who is the same as ever he was. I see no difference in him, except that he looks the worse for wear."
"Which his hard usage makes very natural," said Dr. Gay.
"You refuse to help me, then?"