"I can't say that I feel absolutely certain. What do you suppose?"
Then Gwen gave a very fair conjectural review of the facts as this story knows them; saying, whenever she felt the ground insecure beneath her feet, that of course it was this way and not the other. A blessed expression that, to reinforce one's convictions!
However, she was not far wrong on any point, if the letter her father received next day from "Lincoln's Inn Fields" was right. It came by messenger, just as the family were sitting down to lunch with two or three friends, and his lordship said, "Will you excuse me?" without waiting for an answer, though one of his guests was a Rajah. Then he read the letter through, intently, while his Countess looked thunderclouds at him. "'Fore God, they are both of a tale!" said he, quoting. Then he sent it to Gwen by Norbury, who was embarrassed by her ladyship the Countess saying stiffly:—"Surely afterwards would do." But Gwen cut in with:—"No—I can't wait. Give it to me, Norbury!" And took it and read it as intently as her father had done. Having finished, she telegraphed to him, all the length of the table:—"Isn't that just what I said?" And then things went on as before. Only the Earl and his daughter had come off their P's and Q's, most lawlessly.
Here is the letter each had read, when off them:
"My dear Lord Ancester,
"I have thoroughly considered the letter, and return it herewith. I am satisfied that it is a forgery by the hand of the convict Daverill, but it is difficult to see what his object can have been, malice apart. It is clear, however, that it was to influence his wife, to what end it is impossible to say.
"The only theory I can have about the black ink is far-fetched. It is that a letter from England of that date was erased to make way for the forgery, these few black letters having been allowed to remain, not to disturb the English postmark, which partly-obscures them. You may notice some compromise or accommodation in the handwriting of the direction, evidently to slur over the difference. I suggest that the letter should be referred to some specialist in palimpsests, who may be able to detect some of the underlying original, which is absolutely invisible to me.
"If you meet with any other letter written by this ingenious penman, I suspect it will be in the pale ink of the forgery, which no doubt was as black as the English ink, when new.
"Believe me, my lord, your very faithful and obedient servant,