"He is very rambling, but I ran gather this much," went on Janson in low tones. "He wants to leave some instructions before he dies. I thought of you at once." "Right; I will be with you in a couple of minutes." By this time the landlord and his wife were awake, and he heard the man's heavy footsteps along the passage. He opened his door, and briefly explained the situation. In a very short time he and the doctor were in the bedroom of the dying man. Strange was at the bedside, looking intently at the prostrate figure, without a trace of emotion in his sharp, inscrutable features. He withdrew a little distance as Janson approached, and murmured something in a low voice to the other. It was an apology for disturbing him. The man lay motionless for some few minutes, the pallor of death settling deeper over the once swarthy features. Janson turned to Varney. "I'm afraid it is too late, Mr Franks. He is sinking rapidly. If you could have been here when I first came." Was it fancy, or did he see an expression of relief steal across Strange's impenetrable mask? If so, he was doomed to disappointment. The dying man stirred, and his lips moved. Varney leaned over, and his quick ear caught some muttered words, growing fainter and fainter with the waning of the flickering strength. The words were in the bastard tongue of Piedmont, difficult to understand by anyone who has not lived in Northern Italy. "_Dio_!" gasped the dying man. "Forgive me. The doctors have long ago told me I should die suddenly, but--I--I never expected this. Oh, that somebody here could understand me?" he whispered to himself. "I do. Signore," said Varney, as he leaned over him. In the dying man's eyes came a gleam of satisfaction and hope. "Ah! Thank Heaven! Then listen," he said. "I want you to do something for me--something--" and he halted as though in reflection. "Well," he went on, "twenty years ago I did a great wrong in conjunction with another man. Go to him and tell him that Giovanni Roselli, his old comrade, implores him, from his deathbed, to make reparation. You will find him in Manchester. He was the head of the Compagnia Corezzo, and his name is James--" The surname was never told. As he strove to utter it, the end came. Giovanni Roselli had delivered his message, but he had gone into the shadows, before he could utter the full name of the man to whom it was conveyed. Varney translated the dying man's message to Strange, but he made no comment. Smeaton sat in silence for a long time when the recital was finished. "A house of sinister inmates with sinister secrets," he said at length. "What you have told me may have a bearing upon something that has gone before." Briefly he narrated to Varney the discovery of the threatening letter, and his visit to the engraver and stationer. Varney saw at once what had occurred to him.