Perhaps the tone in which she spoke these words was intentionally triumphant; perhaps Mr. Hankes attributed this significance to them causelessly; at all events, he started and stared at her for above a minute steadfastly, he then addressed himself suddenly to the letter.
“Gracious heavens! what a terrible blunder!” exclaimed he, when he had finished the reading.
“A great mistake, certainly, sir,” said she, calmly.
“But still one of which you are incapable to take advantage, Miss Kellett,” said he, with eagerness.
“Is it to the girl who is to be got rid of, sir, you address this speech? Is it to her whose trustfulness has been made the instrument to deceive others and lure them to their ruin? Nay, Mr. Hankes, your estimate of my forbearance is, indeed, too high.”
“But what would you do, young lady?”
“Do, sir! I scarcely know what I would not do,” burst she in, passionately. “This letter was addressed to me. I know nothing of the mistake of its direction; here is the envelope with my name upon it. It is, consequently, mine,—mine, therefore, to publish, to declare to the world, through its words, that the whole of this grand enterprise is a cheat; that its great designer is a man of nothing, living the precarious life of a gambling speculator, trading on the rich man's horde and the poor man's pittance, making market of all, even to his patriotism. I would print this worthy document with no other comment than the words, 'Received by me, Sybella Kellett, this day of September, and sworn to as the handwriting of him whose initials it bears, Davenport Dunn.' I would publish it in such type that men might read it as they went, that all should take warning and put no faith in these unprincipled tricksters. Ay, sir, and I would cling, as my hope of safety from the world's scorn, to that insulting mention of myself, and claim as my vindication that I am the girl to be 'got rid of.' None shall dare to call me complice, since the little I once called my own is lost. But I would do more, sir. The world I have unwittingly aided to deceive has a full right to an expiation at my hands. I would make public the entire correspondence I have for months back been engaged in. You seem to say 'No' to this. Is it my right you dispute, or my courage to assert the right?”
“You must be aware, Miss Kellett,” said he, deprecatingly, “that you became possessed of this letter by a mistake; that you had no right to the intelligence it contains, and, consequently, have none to avail yourself of that knowledge. It may be perfectly true that you can employ it to our detriment. It would, I have little doubt, serve to shake our credit for a day or two; but do you know what misery, what utter ruin, your rashness will have caused meanwhile? By the fall of our securities you will beggar hundreds. All whose necessities may require them to sell out on the day of your disclosures will be irretrievably ruined. You meditate a vengeance upon Mr. Dunn, and your blow falls on some poor struggling creatures that you never so much as heard of. I do not speak,” continued he, more boldly, as he saw the deep effect his words produced,—“I do not speak of the destitution and misery you will spread here,—all works stopped, all enterprise suspended, thousands thrown out of employment. These are the certain, the inevitable evils of what you propose to do. And now, let me ask, What are to be the benefits? You would depose from his station of power and influence the only man in the kingdom who has a brain to conceive, or a courage to carry out these gigantic enterprises,—the only man of influence sufficient to treat with the Government, and make his own terms. You would dethrone him, to install in his place some inferior intelligence,—some mere creature of profit and loss, without genius or patriotism; and all for what?—for a mere phrase, and that, too, in a letter which was never intended for your eyes.”
Mr. Hankes saw that he was listened to, and he continued. Artfully contriving to take the case out of its real issue, he made it appear to Miss Kellett that she was solely impelled by personal motives, and had no other object in view than a vengeance on the man who had insulted her. “And now just throw your eyes over the letter intended for yourself. I only glanced at it, but it seemed to me written in a tone of sincerest well-wishing.”
It was so. It contained the offer of a most advantageous position. A new Governor-General of India desired a suitable companion for his daughters, who had lost their mother. He was a nobleman of highest rank and influence. The station was one which secured great advantages, and Dunn had obtained the promise of it in her behalf by considerable exertion on his part Nay, more. Knowing that her fortune was engaged in the “Allotment scheme,” he volunteered to take her shares at the highest rate they had ever borne, as she would, probably, require immediate means to procure an Indian outfit. The whole wound up with a deeply expressed regret at the loss Glengariff would sustain by her departure; “but all my selfishness,” added he, “could not blind me to the injustice of detaining in obscurity one whose destiny so certainly points her out for a station lofty and distinguished.”