"Now, do you think, Mr. Billow, that, in the circle of your acquaintance, you could find any one who could imitate a handwriting so exactly that it should not be known?"
"Do you mean you want a forger?"
"Not exactly that," Sophy said, quite composedly—for she had thought all this over so frequently, that it seemed to come quite as a matter of course to her—"not exactly that, Mr. Billow. I want a man who can exactly imitate a handwriting, so that, if I send you a specimen of the hand I want copied, and the words of a letter to be written in that handwriting, the letter can be executed so that no one will know the difference. I may as well mention, that it is not for any purpose of getting money, or anything of that sort; it is a simple ordinary letter."
"It is such an extraordinary thing for you to ask."
"Quite so, Mr. Billow, I am quite aware of that; but that is my business, not yours. Of course it is an unusual thing, and I am ready to pay an unusual price for it. What could you get me such a thing done for?"
Mr. Billow thought for some little time.
"It is not at all in my line," he said, at last, "still, I could get at a man who would do it; but I daresay he would charge a twenty pound note."
"Very well, Mr. Billow, when the time comes, which may not be for a long time yet, I will send you a specimen of handwriting, a copy of the letter to be written, and thirty pounds, and I shall expect it back in two or three days at most after you receive it. That is all I wanted to say, Mr. Billow, I need not ask you not to mention it to your wife."
So saying, Sophy Gregory went up to her own room again, leaving Mr. Billow so extremely surprised that he was unable to settle comfortably off to sleep again for the rest of the evening.
Sophy did not carry out the intention she had expressed of going into the country with her child; for a day or two before she had intended to start, a letter came from her foster-mother, saying, that it wanted a month yet of her usual time of writing; but that Miss Harmer had broken so much during the last two months, that she thought she ought to write to Sophy as she had put so much stress upon it. The writer went on to say that as far as she heard the village people say, there was no immediate danger at all, but that she had given up going in to Canterbury to mass, and kept entirely in the house.