Her passion frightened the egotist, but did not turn him. He had gone too far. He told her that, after raising all their hopes, Dr. Staines had suddenly changed for the worse, and sunk rapidly; that his last words had been about her, and he had said, “My poor Rosa, who will protect her?” That, to comfort him, he had said he would protect her. Then the dying man had managed to write a line or two, and to address it. Almost his last words had been, “Be a father to my child.” “That is strange.” “You have no child? Then it must have been you he meant. He spoke of you as a child more than once.” “Mr. Falcon, I have a child; but born since I lost my poor child's father.” “Then I think he knew it. They say that dying men can see all over the world: and I remember, when he said it, his eyes seemed fixed very strangely, as if on something distant. Oh, how wonderful all this is. May I see his child, to whom I promised”-- The artist in lies left his sentence half completed. Rosa rang, and sent for her little boy. Mr. Falcon admired his beauty, and said quietly, “I shall keep my vow.” He then left her, with a promise to come back early next morning with the letter. She let him go only on those conditions. As soon as her father came in, she ran to him with this strange story. “I don't believe it,” said he. “It is impossible.” She showed him the proof, the ruby ring. Then he became very uneasy, and begged her not to tell a soul. He did not tell her the reason, but he feared the insurance office would hear of it, and require proofs of Christopher's decease, whereas they had accepted it without a murmur, on the evidence of Captain Hamilton and the Amphitrite's log-book. As for Falcon, he went carefully through Staines's two letters, and wherever he found a word that suited his purpose, he traced it by the usual process, and so, in the course of a few hours, he concocted a short letter, all the words in which, except three, were facsimiles, only here and there a little shaky; the three odd words he had to imitate by observation of the letters. The signature he got to perfection by tracing. He inserted this letter in the original envelope, and sealed it very carefully, so as to hide that the seal had been tampered with. Thus armed, he went down to Gravesend. There he hired a horse and rode to Kent Villa. Why he hired a horse, he knew how hard it is to forge handwriting, and he chose to have the means of escape at hand. He came into the drawing-room, ghastly pale, and almost immediately gave her the letter; then turned his back, feigning delicacy. In reality he was quaking with fear lest she should suspect the handwriting. But the envelope was addressed by Staines, and paved the way for the letter; she was unsuspicious and good, and her heart cried out for her husband's last written words: at such a moment, what chance had judgment and suspicion in an innocent and loving soul?