There were many consultations with the legal advisers in the days that ensued, which Randal Ducie found very irksome, accustomed as he was to an active outdoor life and a less labyrinthine species of thought than appertains to the purlieus of the law. Unexpected details continually developed concerning the interests involved. Mrs. Floyd-Rosney’s bill for divorce was filed in the meantime, and because it had a personal interest paramount to its importance in the Duciehurst case it brought up again the matter of taking her deposition in these proceedings which had been pretermitted by reason of affairs of greater magnitude. The decision was reached on a day when to Randal’s relief he was able to dub facetiously the counsel “the peripatetic philosophers” by reason of a journey which they thought it necessary to take in the company of their clients and which he found much more tolerable than the duress of their offices and their long indoor prelections. The four men boarded a packet leaving the city at five o’clock; it being deemed advisable that the lawyers should make a personal examination of the locality and the hiding place of the Ducie papers and other valuables, before conferring with the Mississippi counsel retained in the case. The question of summoning Mrs. Floyd-Rosney was discussed as they sat on the hurricane deck in the approaching dusk between the glitter of the evening sky, all of a clear pink and gold, and the lustrous sheen of the expanse of the river, reflecting a delicate amber and rose. The search-light apparatus was not illumined and looked in the uncertain half twilight as if it might be some defensive piece of artillery of the mortar type, mounted on the hurricane deck. The great smoke-stacks, towering high into the air, had already swinging between them the green and red chimney lamps, required by law, but as yet day reigned and all the brilliancy of the evening bespoke a protest against the coming night. Adrian Ducie doubted the availability of summoning Mrs. Floyd-Rosney in their interest. The proof could inferentially be made without her, by those who saw her deliver the box and witnessed its opening and contents. Besides, here were the papers to speak for themselves. But Randal Ducie urged the deposition. It would seem conscious not to call her. Why should she not give her testimony. It was disrespectful to imply that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney would be reluctant to do this. “Mr. Floyd-Rosney is a mighty touchy man,” suggested the junior counsel. This practitioner was about forty years of age, thin, wiry, eager, even fidgetty. He had a trick of passing his hand rapidly over his prematurely bald head, of playing with his fob chain, of twisting a pencil, or his gloves, or his eyeglasses--these last also, perhaps, a prematurely acquired treasure. Apparently he had burned a great deal of midnight oil to good purpose, for he was admittedly an exceedingly able lawyer, destined to rise very high in his profession.