“You are leaving for Rome, I think your man said?” The question was kind, interested. Sir Gaspard was surprised, but he nodded. “You forgive my asking, but it seems a long journey,” musingly. “Might it not be wiser to go home?” Parker waited breathlessly for the answer; it came loud, imperative. “No! I must go to Rome. I have to go.” He pointed to the signed will, spread on the table. “Put it in an envelope, address it to my solicitors, Bolton & Carey, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. It can be sent there, Parker, when I die.” With curious gentleness he put it in the breast pocket of his coat, and Marcus Wray knew, with the intuition of a man who lives by his wits, that there it would stay till Sir Gaspard’s eyes were shut to this world forever. He shrugged his shoulders as he left the room. “Rome--and he wants to die there! I wonder why. Bah! he can die now in the gutter, for all I care. He might have paid me my fee, though. It may be a good while to wait for the indirect harvest.” He mounted to his room in the fourth story and had barely time to light a cigar before there was a discreet knock on his door. It was Sir Gaspard’s man servant with a note. As he took it, Wray noticed the curious likeness of the man to his master, but only for the instant. “Discarded wardrobe does it, I suppose,” he thought, as he shut his door and opened the note. “DEAR SIR: Permit me to discharge my great obligation to you, with my best thanks. “Faithfully yours, “GASPARD LE MARCHANT.” Two five-pound notes fell from the open envelope, but Wray scarcely looked at them. Instead, he stared hard at the careless, gentlemanly signature before him. At sight of it a thought had flashed up in his brain, so daring that even he almost feared it. But it was so insistent, and it seemed so safe. “Nothing more will be heard of it--if he lives! If he dies, I can always say I acted by his orders--dying men do curious things,” he muttered. With his door locked, the lawyer worked hard for two hours. When at last he stopped, with a long-drawn breath, a second copy of Sir Gaspard le Marchant’s will lay before him, on the selfsame blue paper on which the first had been written. On the floor lay many spoiled sheets of paper covered with imperfect signatures; on the will itself the name of Gaspard le Marchant was exact. The man himself could hardly have sworn he had not written it. The ticklish part was yet to come--the witnesses. Wray shut his teeth hard as he realized that he dared not try any guesswork about their handwriting. Yet when he had cleared away all evidences of his morning’s work, and put the folded will in his coat pocket, his face was quite passive. So far the second will was only an experiment, concerning no one but himself. If it proved impracticable--Mr. Wray shrugged his shoulders as he went down-stairs to luncheon.