“I had no personal acquaintance with Sir Harold Wynde, Neva,” the young man said, inwardly quaking, yet daring to tell the truth.
“But—but—papa said—I don’t really comprehend, Rufus. I thought that papa loved you.”
“If Sir Harold ever saw me, I do not know it,” said Rufus, cruelly embarrassed, and wondering if his honesty would not prove his ruin. “I was at the University—Sir Harold may have seen me, and taken a liking to me—”
Neva looked strangely perplexed and troubled. Certainly the awkward statement of Rufus did not agree with the supposed last declaration of her father.
“There seems some mystery here which I cannot fathom,” she said. “I have a letter written by papa in India, under the terrible foreboding that he would die there, and in this letter papa speaks of you with affection, and says—and says—”
She paused, her blushes amply completing the sentence.
A cold shiver passed over the form of Rufus. He comprehended the cause of Neva’s blushes, and a portion of his father’s villainy. He understood that the letter of which Neva spoke had been forged by Craven Black, and that it commanded Neva’s marriage with Craven Black’s son. What could he say? What should he do? His innate cowardice prevented him from confessing the truth, and his awe of his father prevented him from betraying him, and he could only tremble and blush and pale alternately.
“Papa might have taken an interest in you, without making himself known to you,” suggested Neva, after a brief pause. “Some act of yours might have made your name known to him, and he might secretly have watched your course without betraying to you his interest in you, might he not?”
“He might,” said Rufus huskily.
“I can explain the matter in no other way. It is singular. Perhaps poor papa might not have well known what he was writing, but the letter is so clearly written that that idea is not tenable. After all, so long as he wrote the letter, what does it matter?” said Neva wearily. “He must have known you, Rufus—or else the letter was forged!”