Then, as carefully and gently as possible, she spoke of the wrong he had done to Everard, and for which he was so very sorry.
“I do not suppose you can ever like him as I do,” she wrote, “but I hope you will try to be friends with him for my sake.”
Accompanying this letter was one from the doctor himself, couched in the most conciliatory terms, full of regret for the past and strong in good intentions for the future.
“I shall be so glad to be friends with you for Rossie’s sake, if for no other,” he wrote in conclusion. “She holds you in higher esteem than any living being; so let her plead for me; and when we meet, as we sometimes must, or Rossie be very unhappy, let it be at least with the semblance of friendship.”
Everard’s first impulse on receiving these letters was to go to Florida at once and wrest Rossie from the fangs of the wolf, as he stigmatized the doctor, in whom he had no faith.
“I cannot forgive him,” he said. “I will not, though he were ten times her brother; and I distrust him, too, notwithstanding his protestations of reform.”
But he could not write this to Rossie. He said to her in his letter that if her brother was all she represented him to be, he was glad for her sake that she had found him, and that he hoped always to be friendly with her friends and those that were kind to her.
“But if he were the archangel himself,” he added, “I should find it hard to forgive him for having removed from my grasp what I miss more and more every day of my life, and long for with an intensity which masters my reason and drives me almost to despair. But whatever I may feel toward him, Rossie, I shall treat him well for your sake, and if you can find any comfort in his society, take it, and be as happy as you can.”
To Dr. Matthewson he wrote in a different strain. He did not believe in the man, and though he made an effort to be civil he showed his distrust and aversion in every line. If the doctor had repented, he was glad of it, but wished the repentance had come in time to have saved him from a life-long trouble. A boy’s cowhiding was a small matter for a man to avenge so terribly, he said, and then added:
“It is no news to me that you are John Hastings, Rossie’s half-brother. I knew that long ago, but kept it to myself, as I did not wish Rossie to know how much of my unhappiness I owed to her half-brother. Wholly truthful and innocent, she thinks others are the same, and if you tell her you are a saint she will believe it implicitly until some act of your own proves the contrary. She is very happy in your society, and I shall do nothing to make her less so, but don’t ask me to indorse you cordially, as if nothing had ever happened. The thing is impossible. If we meet I shall treat you well for Rossie’s sake, and shall not seek to injure you so long as you are kind and true to her, but if you harm a hair of Rossie’s head, or bring her to any sorrow, as sure as there is a heaven above us, I’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth to be even with you.”