He produced from his pocket a small packet which Lady Wynde had given him that evening, and opened it. It contained a dozen sheets of note paper, of the style Sir Harold had liked and had habitually used. It was a heavy cream-colored vellum paper, unlined, and very thick and smooth. Upon the upper half of the first page was engraven in black and gold the baronet’s monogram and crest, and below these to the right, in quaint black and gold letters, were stamped the words, “Hawkhurst, Kent.” It was upon paper like this that nearly all of Sir Harold’s letters to his daughter had been written.
A dozen square envelopes similarly adorned with crest and monogram accompanied the paper; and a tiny vial of a peculiar black ink, a half stick of bronze wax, Sir Harold’s seal, and a half dozen letters, comprised the remaining contents of the packet.
The curtains were drawn across the windows, and Mr. Black had carefully vailed the keyhole of his door, so he leaned back in his chair, with a pleasant feeling of security, and engaged in the study of the letters. Five of them had been written by Sir Harold to his wife during the early part of his visit to India, and bore the Indian postmark. The sixth letter had been an enclosure in one of those to Lady Wynde, and was addressed to Neva. It had evidently been thus inclosed by Sir Harold under the impression that Neva would spend her midsummer holidays at Hawkhurst in the absence of her father. The letter had been opened by Lady Wynde and read, and she had thrown it aside, without thought of delivering it to its rightful owner.
“How the baronet adored his wife!” thought Craven Black, as he carefully perused the letters. “What a depth of passion these letters show. It is strange that Octavia should not have been touched and pleased by his devotion, and learned to return it. But she had an equal passion for me, and thought of him only as an obstacle to be removed from her path. I never loved a woman as Sir Harold loved her. I do not think I am capable of such intense devotion. I am fond of Octavia—more fond of her than I ever was of woman before. She is handsome, stately and keen-witted. Her tastes and mine are similar. She will make me a rich man, and consequently a happy one. Four thousand a year from her, and ten thousand a year from Rufus when he marries Miss Wynde. That won’t be bad. I could have married an African with prospects such as these!”
He studied the style of the composition, the peculiar expression, and the penmanship, at great length, and then took up Sir Harold’s intercepted letter to his daughter. It was very tender and loving, and was written in a deep gloom after the death of the baronet’s son in India. It declared that the father felt a strange conviction that he should never see again his home, his wife, or his daughter, and he conjured Neva by her love for him to be gentle, loving and obedient to her step-mother, to soothe Lady Wynde in the anguish his death would cause her, if his forebodings proved true, and he should die in India.
“Women are mostly fools!” muttered Craven Black impatiently. “Why didn’t Octavia send the girl this letter? Probably because Sir Harold mentions in it her probable anguish at his loss, and she was waiting impatiently for the hour of her [third] marriage. And Sir Harold writes as if he had expected his daughter to spend her summer’s holidays at Hawkhurst, and Octavia did not want her here at that time. The girl must have the letter. It will strengthen Octavia’s influence over her immensely.”
After an hour’s keen study, Craven Black seized pen and ink and carefully imitated upon scraps of paper the peculiar and characteristic handwriting of Sir Harold. He had a singular aptitude for this sort of forgery, and devoted himself to his task with genuine zeal. He wrote out a letter with careful deliberation, studying the effect of every line, incorporating some of the favorite expressions of the baronet, and this he proceeded to copy upon a sheet of the paper Lady Wynde had given him, and in a curiously exact imitation of Sir Harold’s penmanship.
He worked for hours upon the letter, finishing it to his satisfaction only at daybreak of the following morning. His nefarious composition purported to be a last letter from Sir Harold Wynde to his daughter, written the night before his tragic death in India, and under a terrible gloom and foreboding of approaching death!
The forger began the letter with a declaration of the most tender, paternal love for Neva on the part of the father in whose name he wrote, and declared that he believed himself standing upon the brink of eternity, and therefore wrote a few last lines to Neva, which he desired her to receive as an addenda to his last will and testament.
The letter went on to state that Sir Harold adored his beautiful wife, but that as she was still young, it was not his wish that she should spend the remainder of her life in mourning for him. He desired her to marry again, to form new ties, to take a fresh lease of life, and to make another as happy as she had made him happy!