The miser made no reply. He was gazing listlessly into the fire, and watching the wreaths of smoke ascend the chimney with childish delight. Hilda, therefore, opened the letter, and found a small memorandum enclosed in it, which she placed upon the table. Trembling with emotion, she then began to read aloud the following lines:—
‘“Old and valued Friend—If this should ever meet your eye, I shall have been a year in my grave, for, in accordance with our agreement, it will not be delivered to you until the expiration of that time after my death. The agreement, I need not remind you, was so formed that in case we should both die within the year, the contract entered into by us respecting the marriage of our children should be null and void.”’
Here Hilda was startled by a sharp cry from her father, and looking up, she saw that he was staring wildly and inquiringly at her.
‘What are you reading?’ he asked.
‘The letter delivered to you by Randulph Crew,’ she replied; ‘the letter from his father.’
‘And what business have you to read it?’ he cried. ‘Who gave you leave to do so?’
‘Having gone so far, I shall go on,’ rejoined Hilda; and she resumed her reading, ‘“now call upon you to fulfil your share of the contract, and to give your daughter to my son. When we entered into the engagement, I was supposed to be the richer of the two; but I am now sadly reduced, and if my son fulfils his word, and gives up the estates to pay my creditors, he will have little or nothing.”’
‘He has nothing—he has nothing!’ cried the miser, ‘I will never give my consent—never!’
‘“But under whatever circumstances he may be placed,”’ said Hilda, continuing the letter, ‘“whether he gives up the property or not, I call upon you to fulfil your part of the contract, as I would have fulfilled mine, whatever might have happened to you; and to make, as you have agreed to do, a settlement upon your daughter proportioned to your means.”’