For a long time he pondered over the writing.  The remaining documents were merely transfers of the individual estates, in each of which it was briefly stated that the property in question was conveyed in accordance with the conditions of the main deed.  There was no difficulty there.  The Saracinesca inheritance depended solely on the existence of this one piece of parchment, and of the copy or registration of it in the government offices.  Montevarchi glanced at the candle that stood before him in a battered brass candlestick, and his old heart beat a little faster than usual.  To burn the sheet of parchment, and then deny on oath that he had ever seen it—­it was very simple.  Saracinesca would find it hard to prove the existence of the thing.  Montevarchi hesitated, and then laughed at himself for his folly.  It would be necessary first to ascertain what there was at the Chancery office, otherwise he would be ruining himself for nothing.  That was certainly the most important step at present.  He pondered over the matter for some time and then rose from his chair.

As he stood before the table he glanced once more at the sheet.  As though the greater distance made it more clear to his old sight, he noticed that there was a blank space, capable of containing three lines of writing like what was above, while still leaving a reasonable margin at the bottom of the page.  As the second clause was the shorter, the scribe had doubtless thought it better to begin afresh on the other side.

Montevarchi sat down again, and took a large sheet of paper and a pen.  He rapidly copied the first clause to the end, but after the words “in the male line direct for ever” his pen still ran on.  The deed then read as follows:—­

“...  In the male line direct for ever, provided that the aforesaid Don Leone Saracinesca shall have no son born to him in wedlock, in which case, and if such a son be born, this present deed is wholly null, void and ineffectual.”

Montevarchi did not stop here.  He carefully copied the remainder as it stood, to the last word.  Then he put away the original and read what he had written very slowly and carefully.  With the addition it was perfectly clear that San Giacinto must be considered to be the lawful and only Prince Saracinesca.

“How well those few words would look at the bottom of the page!” exclaimed the old man half aloud.  He sat still and gloated in imagination over the immense wealth which would thus be brought into his family.

“They shall be there—­they must be there!” he muttered at last.  “Millions! millions!  After all it is only common justice.  The old reprobate would never have disinherited his son if he had expected to have one.”

His long thin fingers crooked themselves and scratched the shabby green baize that covered the table, as though heaping together little piles of money, and then hiding them under the palm of his hand.

“Even if there is a copy,” he said again under his breath, “the little work will look as prettily upon it as on this—­if only the sheets are the same size and there is the same space,” he added, his face falling again at the disagreeable reflection that the duplicate might differ in some respect from the original.