Neva departed without a word, and went into the adjoining room. As the door closed behind her, Lady Wynde softly arose, crossed the floor, and peeped in upon the young girl’s privacy through the key-hole of the door.
Neva was alone in her dressing-room, and was kneeling down before a low chair upon which she had laid the forged letter, as yet unopened. The baronet’s widow watched the girl as she examined the address and the seal, and then cut open the top of the letter with a pocket-knife. Neva unfolded the closely written sheet, all stamped with her father’s monogram, and with low sobs and tear-blinded eyes began to read the letter, accepting it without doubt or question as her father’s last letter to her.
Lady Wynde’s eyes gleamed, and a mocking smile played about her full, sensual lips, as Neva read slowly page after page, still upon her knees, now and then pausing to kiss the handwriting she believed to be her father’s. The forger’s work had been well done. The tender pet names by which Sir Harold had loved to call his daughter were often repeated, with such protestations of affection as would most stir a loving daughter’s heart when receiving them long after the death of her father, and believing them to have been written by that father’s hand.
“Oh, papa! poor, poor, papa!” the girl sobbed. “He foresaw my loneliness and desolation, and left these last words to cheer me. I will remember your wishes so often expressed in this and other letters. I will be kind and gentle and obedient to Lady Wynde. I will try to love her for your sake.”
When she had grown calmer, Neva read on. As she read that her father had a last request to make of her, she smiled through her tears, and murmured:
“I am glad that he has left me something to do—whatever it may be. I should like to feel that I am obeying him still, although he is in Heaven. Dear papa!—your ‘request’ is to me a sacred command, and I shall so consider it.”
Lady Wynde’s eyes glittered like balls of jet. She had estimated rightly the childlike trust of Neva in her father’s love and devotion to her.
“She accepts the whole thing as gospel!” thought the delighted schemer. “Our success is certain. But let me see how she takes it, when she finds what the ‘request’ is.”
Neva perused the letter slowly, and again and again, with careful deliberation. Her surprise became apparent on her features, but there was no disbelief, no distrust, betrayed on her truthful face. But a wan whiteness overspread her cheeks and lips, and a weary look came into her eyes, as she folded the letter at last and hid it in her bosom. She bent her head as if in prayer, and murmured words which Lady Wynde tried in vain to hear. They were simple—only these:
“It is very strange—very strange; but papa meant it for the best. He feared to leave me unprotected, and a prey to fortune-hunters. Who is this Rufus Black? Oh, if papa had only mentioned Lord—Lord Towyn!”