“How the baronet adored his wife!” thought Craven Black, as he carefully perused the letters. “What a depth of passion these letters show. It is strange that Octavia should not have been touched and pleased by his devotion, and learned to return it. But she had an equal passion for me, and thought of him only as an obstacle to be removed from her path. I never loved a woman as Sir Harold loved her. I do not think I am capable of such intense devotion. I am fond of Octavia--more fond of her than I ever was of woman before. She is handsome, stately and keen-witted. Her tastes and mine are similar. She will make me a rich man, and consequently a happy one. Four thousand a year from her, and ten thousand a year from Rufus when he marries Miss Wynde. That won’t be bad. I could have married an African with prospects such as these!” He studied the style of the composition, the peculiar expression, and the penmanship, at great length, and then took up Sir Harold’s intercepted letter to his daughter. It was very tender and loving, and was written in a deep gloom after the death of the baronet’s son in India. It declared that the father felt a strange conviction that he should never see again his home, his wife, or his daughter, and he conjured Neva by her love for him to be gentle, loving and obedient to her step-mother, to soothe Lady Wynde in the anguish his death would cause her, if his forebodings proved true, and he should die in India. “Women are mostly fools!” muttered Craven Black impatiently. “Why didn’t Octavia send the girl this letter? Probably because Sir Harold mentions in it her probable anguish at his loss, and she was waiting impatiently for the hour of her third marriage. And Sir Harold writes as if he had expected his daughter to spend her summer’s holidays at Hawkhurst, and Octavia did not want her here at that time. The girl must have the letter. It will strengthen Octavia’s influence over her immensely.” After an hour’s keen study, Craven Black seized pen and ink and carefully imitated upon scraps of paper the peculiar and characteristic handwriting of Sir Harold. He had a singular aptitude for this sort of forgery, and devoted himself to his task with genuine zeal. He wrote out a letter with careful deliberation, studying the effect of every line, incorporating some of the favorite expressions of the baronet, and this he proceeded to copy upon a sheet of the paper Lady Wynde had given him, and in a curiously exact imitation of Sir Harold’s penmanship. He worked for hours upon the letter, finishing it to his satisfaction only at daybreak of the following morning. His nefarious composition purported to be a last letter from Sir Harold Wynde to his daughter, written the night before his tragic death in India, and under a terrible gloom and foreboding of approaching death!