“If you do!” I cried in horror,—“oh—you don’t know what you are talking about, girl!”
“You don’t love me a bit,” she said. “What would it matter to you? Besides, if it comes to giving a receipt, I can imitate your signature to a nicety. Agnes Anne says so.”
“But, Charlotte, it would be forgery,” I gasped. “They hang people for forgery.”
“No, they don’t—at least, not for that sort,” she argued, her eyes very bright with the working of her inward idea. “For how can it be forgery when it is your name I write, and I’ve told you of it beforehand? It’s my father’s money, isn’t it, and he gives it to you for marrying me? Very well, then, it’s yours—no, I mean it’s Tom’s because he means to marry me. At least I mean to marry him. Anyway, the money is not my father’s, because he gives it freely to you (or Tom) for a certain purpose. Well, Tom is going to be the one who will carry out that purpose. So the money is his. Therefore it’s honest and no forgery!”
These arguments were so strong and convincing to Charlotte that I did not attempt to discuss them further, salving my conscience by the thought that there remained his Majesty’s post, and that a letter addressed to her father at the Farmers’ Ordinary Room, in care of the King’s Arms, would clear me of all financial responsibility. But this I took care not to mention to Lottie, because it might have savoured of treachery and disturbed her.
On the other hand, I began urging her to find another confidant than Agnes Anne. She would do well enough for ordinary letters which I was to send on to Cousin Tom. But she must not know they were not for me. She must think that all was going on well between us. This, I showed her, was a necessity. Charlotte felt the need also, and suggested this girl and that at Miss Seraphina Huntingdon’s. But I objected to all. I had to think quick, for some were very nice girls, and at most times would have served their country quite well. But I stuck to it that they were too near head-quarters. They would be sure to get found out by Miss Huntingdon.
“It is true,” she meditated, “she is a prying old cat.”
“I don’t see anybody for it but Miss Irma, over at my grandmother’s!” I said, boldly striking the blow to which I had been so long leading up.
Charlotte gazed at me so long and so intently that I was sure she smelt a rat. But the pure innocence of my gaze, and the frank readiness with which I gave my reasons, disarmed her.
“You see,” I said, “she is the only girl quite out of the common run to whom you have access. You can go to Heathknowes as often as you like with Agnes Anne. Nobody will say a word. They will think it quite natural—to hear the latest about me, you know. Then when you are alone with Miss Irma, you can burst into tears and tell her our secret——”