“Craft!” The word struck unpleasantly upon the Virginia lordling’s ear, and he echoed it with a suspicion of a frown upon his brow.  “I am not an adept in chicanery!”

“But you are a born diplomatist!” seductively.  “And because I am of the same credulous sex as our mistaken little darling, you will not proceed to open warfare with her, even should she be both to resign her lover?  It is the glory of the strong to show charity to the weak and erring.”

For her sake, then, our flattered diplomatist would try the effect of guile, instead of brutality, upon the helpless girl, the balance of whose fate was grasped by his shapely hand.  For one base second, the idea of attempting an imitation of his sister’s handwriting flashed through his mind.  But he was a gentleman, and forgery is not a gentlemanly vice, any more than is counterfeiting bank-notes.  Finally, the author of craft—­the subtle, refined virtue bepraised by his bride-elect—­the devil—­came to his help.

Mabel, like most other girls, had a dainty and fantastic taste in the matter of letter-paper and envelopes.  She used none but French stationery, stamped with her monogram—­a curious device, wrought in two colors—­and at the top of each sheet stood out in bas-relief the Aylett crest.  With these harmless whimsies Frederic was, without doubt, familiar.  If his letter were returned to him, wrapped in a blank page, taken from her papetiere and within one of her envelopes, it would not signify so much whose handwriting was upon the exterior.  Papetiere and writing-desk were in Mabel’s bed-room, but she was in the parlor, practising an instrumental duet with Rosa—­a favorite with Miss Dorrance.  Winston had brought it south with him, and asked his sister to learn it forthwith, in just the accent he used to employ when prescribing what studies she should pursue at school.  There was nothing in his errand that he should be ashamed of, he reminded himself with impatient severity, as he traversed the upper hall on tip-toe to the western chamber.  He had, on sundry previous occasions, sought, in the receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles.  Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too honorable to pry into them.

Shutting the door cautiously, that the snap and blaze might not betray him, he struck a wax match, warranted to burn a minute-and-a-half, and raised the lid of the desk.  His unseen but wily coadjutor had guided him cunningly.  In fingering a heap of envelopes in order to find one large enough for his purpose, he brought to light one addressed to “Mr. Frederic Chilton, Box 910, Philadelphia, Penn.”

Upon the reverse was a small blot that had condemned it in Mabel’s sight, as unfit to be sent to her most valued correspondent, and which she had not observed before writing the direction.  Selecting another, she had thrown this back carelessly into the desk, meaning to burn it when it should be convenient, and forgotten all about it.