All these thoughts rushed through her mind as she read and as she stood looking over the pages and thinking about what had been done. All the hate that she had ever felt for her father's betrayer, which had increased when he had become her own oppressor, now glowed hot within her heart and could not be repressed.
{Illustration: “STEADYING HIMSELF, HE STOOD THERE TREMBLING."}
Meanwhile Wiggins had stood before her on the same spot where he had stopped when he handed her the letter. He had stood there with his eyes fixed upon her, and on his face an expression of solemn suspense—a suspense so anxious that one might have supposed his whole life depended upon Edith's decision. So he stood, rigid, mute, with all his soul centring itself in that gaze which he fixed on her, in an attitude which seemed almost that of a suppliant, for his reverend head was bowed, and his aged form bent, and his thin hands folded over one another before him.
Such were the face and figure and look and attitude that Edith saw as she raised her head. Had her anger been less fervid and her indignation less intense, she would surely have been affected by that venerable suppliant form; but as it was, there was no place for any softer emotion.
She rose from her chair, and as her white face showed itself opposite to his, her eyes looked upon him, as once before, hard, stem, pitiless; but this time their glance was even more cruel and implacable. She held out the letter to him, and said, quietly,
“Take it.”
Wiggins looked at her, and spoke in a voice that was scarcely audible.
“What—do—you—mean?”
Carried beyond herself now by this attempt to prolong what seemed so stupid and transparent a deceit, Edith spoke her whole mind plainly:
“This is a close imitation of Miss Plympton's handwriting, but she could never write such words—never! You have not visited her; you have not seen her. This is a forgery. Once you were successful in forging, but now you can not be. By that crime you once destroyed the father, but if you destroy the daughter, you must—”