Archer entered the room, and found the lady seated at her work-table, but looking pale and anxious. By her work-box lay the envelope of Kate’s true note with the forged note in it.
“Ah!” said Major Clifton, after greeting her, “I see that you have received Kate’s note.”
“Yes—one that was never intended for my eyes, but of those of a fellow conspirator.”
“Conspirator, madam!”
“Yes, sir. Do you surmise all the consequences of these mis-sent letters? Look at this!” she said, throwing it to him, “written by Miss Kavanagh, but directed by mistake to me. Yes, look at it! Examine the envelope! and then read the contents of the note!”
Major Clifton glanced at the superscription, opened the note, and read it through with a cheek growing pale and paler—until he finished it—then tossed it from him, and burying his face in his hands groaned aloud. He had not the slightest suspicion that the infamous letter was a forgery—no!—he had not a single merciful doubt that it was the work of Catherine—nay, he would have sworn to the hand-writing, if called upon to do so in a court of justice—he would have sworn to it though Kate’s life hung upon his oath! Any one else who had ever seen her peculiar chirography would have felt constrained to do so, if requested—save two—she who lay dying at Hardbargain—and she was to know nothing about it—and he, the rejected lover, now far away, who would have cast that note aside in high disdain, and staked his honor on her truth. Clifton groaned aloud, in the bitterness of disappointed esteem. Resentment itself was swallowed up in sorrow, and he exclaimed—
“Oh! would to God she had died, or I had, before I knew this!”
“Rejoice, rather, that you are saved!”
“Saved, madam!”
“Yes—saved. You will never marry her, now. You are perfectly justifiable in breaking with the unmasked traitress!”