So he went for a stroll in the villa park, taking care to walk where no servant sent by his sister should be likely to find him. That poor lady was in the last despair when Hera left the room to go to her own apartments to write the message. She assigned a footman to hunt for Don Riccardo, and although the man did his best he brought back only the customary _G’he minga_. A little while and Hera, the message in hand, was in the reception hall, where Tarsis waited alone. “This is what I have written,” she said. He cast his eye quickly over the lines at first, reread them slowly, and folding the sheet nodded his head in approval. “You have put the case fairly,” he said, returning the paper to her hands. “It is most gracious of you.” And then, as if in sudden memory of an appointment, he added: “I must set off for Milan. Will you make my compliments to your aunt, and say that I am unable to stay for dinner? A meeting of directors to-night calls me to the city. By midnight I shall be back--for his answer, and yours. _Au revoir._” He held out his hand, and when she had taken it he started for the door. At the threshold he paused, turned about, and said, approaching her again: “We pass the post-office in Castel-Minore, where there is a telegraph bureau. If you wish it I will carry the message there. Thus we shall save time. In five minutes, with my car, we shall be in Castel-Minore. You will appreciate that it is of importance the telegram be sent at once.” Without the slightest hesitation she handed him the message. “I will arrange with them to bring you the answer as soon as it is received,” he said, and left the house. Once beyond the park gates and moving along the Adda bank, he crushed the paper in his fist and thrust it into a coat pocket. It had no place in the plan he began to lay. Every detail of the scheme stood definitely in his mind by the time he told Sandro, the driver, to stop before the post-office. He entered the telegraph bureau, but the message he wrote and gave to the operator was not the one written by Donna Hera; yet it was addressed precisely as hers had been--“To the Station Master at Rome, for Hon. Mario Forza, to arrive by Roman express.” He had scribbled the words, “All is well,” and signed them “H.” “Milan,” he said to Sandro, as he entered the automobile, “and at the top speed.” The false telegram was intended only to keep his trail clear--to put his undertaking beyond risk of failure through mischance. If Hera by hazard inquired she would learn that a telegram had been sent to Mario Forza. Tarsis had no fear that she might carry the inquiry further, at least until after it would be too late to alter an accomplished fact--the fact of their wedding. Tarsis’s next need was a telephone. He could have found one in Castel-Minore, but provincial “centrals” have wide ears and long tongues, so he put off the most important part of the undertaking until he should reach the big town.