If I can ever serve you in any way, you will be doing me a great
favor by telling me how.

Please give my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, and believe me,

Yours ever sincerely,

PETER STIRLING.

After these letters were written, Peter studied the wall again for a
time. Studied it till long after the hour when he should have lunched.
The wall had three cracks in it which approximated to an outline of
Italy, but though Peter gazed at this particular wall a good many hours
in the next few weeks, he did not discover this interesting fact till
long after this time of wall-gazing.

In the early morning and after dinner, in spite of the summer heat, he
took long walks. During the day he sat in his office doing nothing, with
the exception of an occasional letter to his mother, and one or two to
Watts in respect to the coming wedding. Two visits to the tailor's, and
another to Tiffany's, which resulted in a pearl pin rather out of
proportion to his purse, were almost the sole variations of this
routine. It was really a relief to this terrible inactivity, when he
found himself actually at the Shrubberies, the afternoon before the
wedding.

Peter was rather surprised at the ease with which he went through the
next twenty-four hours. It is true that the house was too full, and each
person too busy, to trouble the silent groomsman with attention, so he
might have done pretty much what he wished, without being noticed. He