'If you want him to do anything you had better try him now.' After a moment's more spluttering with the pen, Foster came hurrying forward, with a sheet of paper, pen, ink, and blotting-pad. 'My lord, I have ventured to embody your wishes, as you have just expressed them, on this sheet of paper. I will read you what I have written: "I give and bequeath so much of my estate, real and personal, as I have the power of devising, to my brother, Reginald Sherrington, absolutely." It is informal, but will serve. Will your lordship be pleased to attach his signature?' 'What's that?' 'You understand what I have said?' 'Reggie to have all?' 'Precisely. You will secure the due and proper execution of your wishes by signing this paper.' 'I--hate wills.' 'I implore your lordship not to do your brother the crowning injustice of dying without doing something to protect his interests. He is already suffering much on your account. Sir Gregory, will you assist his lordship to sit up?' Again Hancock shrugged his shoulders. 'It's a risk,' he whispered. 'We must take it.' Hancock raised the sick man, using as much gentleness as was possible, and the lawyer placed before him the sheet of paper on the blotting-pad. He also insinuated a pen between the wasted fingers. 'What's this?' 'Your lordship understands what you are about to do? You are about to sign your will.' 'Everything to Reggie?' 'Exactly. You are leaving everything to Lord Reginald; as is set forth on this sheet of paper. Your lordship will please attach your signature here.' The sick man dug the point of his pen into the paper at the place to which Foster had guided his hand. Then he stopped. He looked up, with on his face a very singular expression; as of wistfulness. We watched; wondering what it was he desired to say. There was evidently something. When it came it was not at all what any of us had supposed. 'I want--to see--a good woman. Isn't there--a good woman--in the world?' I do not know what we had expected him to say. I, of course, cannot answer for all. But I am tolerably certain that neither of us had imagined him to be struggling to give expression to such a wish as that. We exchanged glances. Did it mean that his wits were wandering? What immediately ensued seemed to suggest that his wits were, if anything, keener than ours. CHAPTER IX DEAD I am inclined to think that I had not given Mr. Montagu Babbacombe credit for all the cleverness he possessed. I began, indeed, to suspect that to his cleverness--if it was only cleverness--there were no limits. While we stared and wondered, a waiter entered the room with a card on a salver, which he brought to me. It was Edith's card. On it she had pencilled a line: 'I am here with Violet. Can't I see him? I should like to.' 'Let her come! Let her come!'