er was of the same date; indeed, the forgery was a repeat of the
letter it effaced, wherever this was possible. Besides, the delay of a
letter from England could never occasion surprise.

She took the sealed paper from her husband, breaking the seals with
feverish haste, and destroying the only proof that it had been opened on
the way. For the wax, of course, broke, as her husband had foreseen, on
its old fractures, where he had parted them carefully and reattached
them with some similar wax dissolved in spirit. He watched her reading
the letter, not without an artist's pride at her absolute unsuspicion,
and then had to undergo a pang of fear lest the news should kill her.
For she fell insensible, only to remain for a long time prostrate with
grief, after a slow and painful revival.

There was little need for Thornton to reply to Phoebe's letter that he
had effaced. Nevertheless, he did so; partly, perhaps, from the pleasure
he naturally took in playing out the false _role_ he had assigned
himself. Yes--he was a widower. But the poignancy of his grief had
prevented him writing all the particulars of his wife's death. He now
gave the story of the death of a woman on a farm near, with changed
names and some clever addenda, the composition of which amused his
leisure and gratified a spirit of falsehood which might, more
fortunately employed, have found an outlet in literary fiction. The
effect of this letter on Phoebe was to satisfy her so completely of her
sister's death that, had it ever been called in question, she would have
been the hardest to convert to a belief in the contrary. On the other
hand, Maisie's belief in _her_ death was equally assured, and her
quasi-husband rested secure in his confidence that nothing would now
induce her to leave him. Should he ever wish to be rid of her, he had
only to confess his deception, and pack her off to seek her sister. That
no news ever came of her father's death was not a matter of great
surprise to Maisie. She had no surviving correspondent in England who
would have written about it. Her husband may have practised some
_finesse_ later to convince her of it, but its details are not known to
the writer of the story.

They, however, were never parted until, twenty years later, his death
left Maisie a widow, as she believed. It would have been well for her
had it been so, for he died after making that very common testamentary
mistake--a too ingenious will. It left to "my third