“Well, that will be up to the Courts, surely,” she said. “It’s none of our business.”

“Precisely. With your permission,” Mr. Wainwright included them both, “I shall go ahead and ask that an administrator be appointed.”

“Well then,” Isabel said, shutting her bag, and pulling on a glove, “there is nothing more for us to do, is there?”

“Not at the moment, Mrs. Ferrier.”

“Surely I can go back tomorrow?” she asked in a panic. I have to go back, she thought. I can’t stay here. They’re all enemies. Even Cornell in the last few moments had become her enemy. I’m all alone here. It’s disgusting to be made to fight about five thousand dollars.

“I see no reason why you can’t,” Mr. Wainwright said soothingly, “but”—he took off his glasses and rubbed them with a handkerchief, rather ruefully—“you will probably have to come back—if the will is contested—and I fear—I fear we must expect that.”

“Oh.…” Isabel felt stunned. Was there no way out? “And what if the family gives up all claims?”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” said Mr. Wainwright, sitting up quite straight in his chair, “No, I wouldn’t advise that,” he said. The implication was that justice was not to be trifled with by any human impulses of irritation or generosity. “And after all, five thousand dollars, Mrs. Ferrier. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this—I say it as a friend of your brother’s and ex officio, so to speak—your brother was perhaps not always quite sound. I mean, these organizations, two of them at least are on the Attorney General’s list. We would not really wish your brother’s money to go into such hands, would we, Mrs. Ferrier?”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Rand emphatically.

“It’s his will after all, not ours,” she heard herself saying to her own astonishment. “Maybe that was what he wanted.”

“Ah yes, of course, no doubt,” Mr. Wainwright said hastily, “but the question may be whether—how shall I say it?—whether it was really his will, I mean—forgive me, but his mind was evidently somewhat unbalanced, Mrs. Ferrier——”

“If that can be proved, I presume it would invalidate the entire will,” she said with a smile, not looking at Mr. Rand though the smile, a smile of triumph was meant for him to swallow if he could. She had taken a dislike to Mr. Rand.

Mr. Wainwright looked rather smugly at his hands.

“You have a point, Mrs. Ferrier. You have an undoubted point.”