This message he wished to be delivered to Lady Wynde from his daughter’s lips, as his last message to the wife he had worshiped.
And now came in the subtle point of the forged missive. As from the pen and heart of Sir Harold Wynde, the letter went on to say that the father was full of anxieties in regard to his daughter’s future. She was young, an heiress, and would perhaps become a prey to a fortune-hunter. From this fate he desired with all his soul to save her.
“I think I should rise in my grave, if my loving, tender little Neva were to marry a man who sought her for her wealth,” the forged letter said. “If I die here, I have a last request to make of you, my child, and I know that your father’s last wish will be held sacred by you. If I do not die, this letter will never be delivered to you. I shall send it to the care of Octavia, to be given to you in the case of my death. I know not why this strange gloom has come upon me, but I have a premonition that my death is near. I shall not see you again in life, my child, my poor little Neva, but if you obey my last request I shall know it in heaven.
“My request is this. I have long taken a keen interest in the character and career of a young man now at Oxford. His talents are good, his character noble and elevated, his principles excellent. His name is Rufus Black. He comes of a fine old family, but he is not rich. There is not a man in the world to whom I would give you so readily as to Rufus Black. He will come to see you at Hawkhurst some day when the edge of your grief for me has worn away, and for my sake treat him kindly. If he asks you to marry him, consent. I shall rest easier in my grave if you are his wife.
“My child, your father’s voice speaks to you from the grave; your father’s arm is stretched out to protect you in your desolation and helplessness. I lay upon you no commands, but I pray you, by your love for me, to marry Rufus Black if he comes to woo you. And as you heed this, my last request, so may you be happy.”
There was a further page or two of similar purport, and then the letter closed with a few last tender words, and the name of Sir Harold Wynde.
“It will do, I think,” said Craven Black exultantly. “I might have made it stronger, ordered her to marry Rufus under penalty of a father’s curse, but that would not have been like Sir Harold Wynde, and she might have suspected the letter to be a forgery. As it is, Sir Harold himself would hardly dare to deny the letter as his own, should his spirit walk in here. I’ve managed the letter with the requisite delicacy and caution, and there can be no doubt of the result. The handwriting is perfect.”
He inclosed the letter, and addressed it to Miss Neva Wynde, sealing it with the bronze wax, and Sir Harold’s private seal. Then he inclosed the sealed letter in a larger envelope, that which had inclosed the baronet’s last letter to his wife from India. The letter which had come in this envelope was written upon three pages, and contained nothing at variance with his forged missive. Upon the fourth and blank page of Sir Harold’s last letter he forged a postscript, enjoining Lady Wynde to give the inclosure—the forgery—to Neva, in case of his death in India, but to keep it one year, until her school-days were ended, and the first bitterness of grief at her father’s death was past.
Craven Black made up the double letter into a thick packet resembling a book, and addressed it to Lady Wynde. He gathered together all his scraps of paper and the envelopes remaining and burned them, and cleared away the evidences of his night’s work. He extinguished his lights, drew back his curtains, opened his windows to the summer morning breeze, and flung himself on a sofa and went to sleep.
He was awakened about eight o’clock by the waiter at the door with his breakfast. He arose yawning, gave the waiter admittance, and summoned a messenger, whom he dispatched to Hawkhurst, early as was the hour, with orders to give the packet he had made into the hands of Lady Wynde or Mrs. Artress, Lady Wynde’s companion.