"Bless the girl!" said the girl's father. "Why—I can see that! Of course, an Australian convict, who could do such a fine piece of forgery, would never ask another person to spell the name of an Australian town. Do you suppose he sent it to England to get an accomplice to spell 'Hobart' right for him? No—no, Hawtrey, your theory won't hold water."
"That is the case," said Thothmes, more immovably than ever. "I see I was mistaken. That point must wait. Or ... stop one minute!... may we examine the other letters?"
"I had thought," said the Earl, "of leaving them unopened. We have got what we want."
"Very proper. But I only wish to read the directions." No harm in this, anyhow. A second packet was opened. It was the one in the woman's hand, all postmarked "Darenth Mill" and "Macquarie." Then it was that Thothmes, with impassive shrewdness, made up for his blunder, with interest. He saw why the ink of one word of the forged direction was black. It was the same ink as the English directions, and, on close examination, the same hand. This had not been clear at first, as the word was mixed with the English postmark, "Darenth Mill"—so much so as not to clash with the pale hand of the forgery. "That word," said Thothmes, "was never written in Van Diemen's Land. The English stamp is on the top of it."
Gwen took it from him, and saw that this was true. "But then the rest of the direction was written in Australia," said she, "if this man wrote it at all! Oh dear, I am so puzzled." And indeed she was at her wit's end.
"I won't say another word," said Mr. Hawtrey. "I have made one blunder, and won't run any further risks. I must think about this. If you will trust me with the letter, you shall have it back to-morrow morning. I dare say your lordship will now excuse me. I have an appointment at the High Court at eleven, and it's now a quarter past.... Oh no—it's not a hanging matter.... I shall make my man drive fast.... So I will wish your ladyship a very good morning. I wish those two old ladies could have known this earlier. But better late than never!"
The Earl accompanied his legal adviser to the head of the stairs to give him a civil send off, while his daughter, white with tension of excitement and impatience, awaited his return. Coming back, he was not the least surprised that she should fall into his arms with a tempest of tears, crying out:—"Oh, papa dearest—fifty years!—think of it! All their lives! Oh, my darling old Mrs. Prichard! and Granny Marrable too—it's the same for both! Oh, think, that they were girls—yes, nearly girls, only a few years older than me, when they parted! And the horrible wickedness of the trick—the horrible, horrible wickedness! And then the dear old darling's own daughter, who has almost never seen her, thinks her mad!... No, papa dear, don't shish me down, because cry I must! Let me have a good cry over it, and I shall be better. Sit down by me, and don't let go—there!—here on the sofa, like that.... Oh dear, I wish I was made of wood, like some people, and could say better late than never!" This was the wind-up of a good deal more, and similar, expression of feeling. For tears and speech come easily to a generous impulsive nature like Gwen's, when strong sympathy and sorrow for others bid them come, though its own affliction might have made it stupefied and dumb.
Her father soothed and calmed her as he would a child; for was she not a child to him—in the nursery only the other day? "I'm not made of wood, darling, am I?" said he. And Gwen replied, refitting spars in calmer water:—"No, dear, that you are not, but Lincoln's Inn Fields is. Sitting there like an Egyptian God, with his hands on his knees!" She repacked a stray flood of gold that had escaped from its restraints—the most conspicuous record of the recent gale—and reassured her father with a liberal kiss. Then she thawed towards the legal mind. "I'm sure he's very good and kind and all that—Lincoln's Inn Fields, I mean, is—because people are. Only it's at heart they are, and I want it to come out like a rash." No doubt an interview with Dr. Dalrymple yesterday was answerable for this, having reference to the Typhus Fever patient. The eruption, he said, was subsiding favourably, and he was hourly expecting a fall in the temperature. But he had made a stand against her seeing the patient.
"If Hawtrey came out in a rash over all his clients' botherations," said the Earl, "he would very soon be in a state of confluent smallpox. What he's wanted for now is his brains. You'll see we shall have a letter from him, clearing it all up...."
"And you know what he'll say, I suppose? That is, if he's as clever as you think him!"