Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/164

152 he gazed at the hangings of my four-poster with an anxious and troubled eye.

"Will—er—will this be overtaxing the strength of our patient?" he solemnly asked, with his head on one side, and a smile of pained sorrow on his wizened old face.

"Don't worry about me," I whispered back to him, "or you'll see your last chance slip away from you!"

He winced at that, and looked apprehensively toward the group at the end of the room.

"Oh, yes; our last chance—our last chance!" he solemnly repeated, as he placed the document on the table, smoothed It out and began laboriously penning the new lines along the top of the second page. These pages, I noticed, were tied together with red tape, held in place by the seals. You could have heard a pin drop In that room, during the next minute or two. Then the fountain-pen began to scratch.

"Will you read what you've written?" I whispered, when the pen-scratching came to an end.

"I give and bequeath to Wendy Gruger Washburn, of the City of New York, State of New York, Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars, to be paid in cash out of my estate prior to all other claims."