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Title: Neva's three lovers

Author: Harriet Lewis

Release Date: June 9, 2022 [eBook #68274]

Language: English

Produced by: Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEVA'S THREE LOVERS ***


Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

       *       *       *       *       *

SELECT LIBRARY No. 231

NEVA’S THREE LOVERS

_BY_

MRS. HARRIET LEWIS

[Illustration]




Neva’s Three Lovers


  _A NOVEL_

  BY

  MRS. HARRIET LEWIS

  AUTHOR OF

  “Adrift in the World,” “The Bailiff’s Scheme,” “The Belle of the
  Season,” “Cecil Rosse,” “The Haunted Husband,” “Sundered
  Hearts,” and numerous other books published in the
  EAGLE, NEW EAGLE, and SELECT Libraries.

  [Illustration]

  STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
  PUBLISHERS
  79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

       *       *       *       *       *

  Copyright, 1871 and 1892
  By Robert Bonner’s Sons

  Neva’s Three Lovers

       *       *       *       *       *

NEVA’S THREE LOVERS.




CHAPTER I. THE GAME WELL BEGUN.


Sir Harold Wynde, Baronet, was standing upon the pier head at Brighton,
looking idly seaward, and watching the play of the sunset rays on the
waters, the tossing white-capped waves, and the white sails in the
distance against the blue sky.

He was not yet fifty years of age, tall and handsome and stately, with
fair complexion, fair hair, and keen blue eyes, which at times beamed
with a warm and genial radiance that seemed to emanate from his soul.
The rare nobility of that soul expressed itself in his features. His
commanding intellect betrayed itself in his square, massive brows. His
grand nature was patent in every look and smile. He was a widower with
two children, the elder a son, who was a captain in a fine regiment in
India, the younger a daughter still at boarding-school. He possessed a
magnificent estate in Kent, a house in town, and a marine villa, and
rejoiced in a clear income of seventy thousand pounds a year.

As might be expected from his rare personal and material advantages,
he was a lion at Brighton, even though the season was at its height,
and peers and peeresses abounded at that fashionable resort. Titled
ladies--to use a well-worn phrase--“set their caps” for him; manœuvring
mammas smiled upon him; portly papas with their “quivers full of
daughters,” and with groaning purses, urged him to dine at their houses
or hotels; and widows of every age looked sweetly at him, and thought
how divine it would be to be chosen to reign as mistress over the
baronet’s estate of Hawkhurst.

But Sir Harold went his ways quietly, seeming oblivious of the hopes
and schemes of these manœuverers. He had had a good wife, and he had
no intention of marrying again. And so, as he stood carelessly leaning
against the railing on the pier head, under the gay awning, his
thoughts were far away from the gaily dressed promenaders sauntering
down the chain pier or pacing with slow steps to and fro behind him.

The sunset glow slowly faded. The long gray English twilight began to
fall slowly upon promenaders, beach, chain pier, and waters. The music
of the band swallowed up all other sounds, the murmur of waters, the
hum of gay voices, the sweetness of laughter.

But suddenly, in one of the interludes of the music, and in the midst
of Sir Harold’s reverie, an incident occurred which was the beginning
of a chain of events destined to change the whole future course of the
baronet’s life, and to exercise no slight degree of influence upon the
lives of others.

Yet the incident was simple. A little pleasure-boat, occupied by two
ladies and a boatman, had been sailing leisurely about the pier head
for some time. The boatman, one of the ordinary pleasure boatmen who
make a living at Brighton, as at other maritime resorts, by letting
their crafts and services to chance customers, had been busy with
his sail. One of the ladies, a hired companion apparently, sat at
one side of the boat, with a parasol on her knee. The other lady, as
evidently the employer, half reclined upon the plush cushions, and
an Indian shawl of vivid scarlet lavishly embroidered with gold was
thrown carelessly about her figure. One cheek of this lady rested upon
her jewelled hand, and her eyes were fixed with a singular intentness,
a peculiar speculativeness, upon the tall and stalwart figure of Sir
Harold Wynde.

There was a world of meaning in that long furtive gaze, and had the
baronet been able to read and comprehend it, the tragical history we
are about to narrate would never have happened. But he, wrapped in his
own thoughts, saw neither the boat nor its occupants.

The little craft crept in quite near to the pier head--so near as to
be but a few rods distant--when the boatman shifted his helm to go
about and stand upon the other tack. The small vessel gave a lurch,
the wind blowing freshly; the lady with the Indian shawl started up,
with a shriek; there was an instant of terrible confusion; and then the
sail-boat had capsized, and her late occupants were struggling in the
waters.

In a moment the promenaders of the chain pier had thronged upon
the pier head. Cries and ejaculations filled the air. No one could
comprehend how the accident had occurred, but one man who had been
watching the boat averred that the lady with the shawl had deliberately
and purposely capsized it. _And this was the actual fact!_

Sir Harold Wynde was startled from the trance-like musings by the
lady’s shriek. He looked down upon the waters and beheld the result of
the catastrophe. The boat’s sail lay half under water. The boatman had
seized the lady’s companion and was clinging to the upturned boat. The
companion had fainted in his arms, and he could not loosen his hold
upon her unless he would have her drown before his eyes. The lady, at
a little distance from her companions in peril, tangled in her mass of
scarlet and gold drapery, her hat lost, her long hair trailing on the
waves, seemed drowning.

Her peril was imminent. No other boats were near, although one or two
were coming up swiftly from a distance.

The lady threw up her white arms with an anguished cry. Her glance
sought the thronged pier head in wild appealing. Who, looking at her,
would have dreamed that the disaster was part of a well-contrived
plan--a trap to catch the unwary baronet?

As she had expected from his well-known chivalrous character, he fell
into the trap. His keen eyes flashed a rapid glance over beach and
waters. The lady was likely to drown before help could come from the
speeding boats. Sir Harold pulled off his coat and made a dive into the
sea. He was an expert swimmer, and reached the lady as she was sinking.
He caught her in his arms and struck out for the boat. The lady became
a dead weight, and when he reached the capsized craft her head lay back
on his breast, her long wet tresses of hair coiled around him like
Medusean locks, and her pale face was like the face of a dead woman.

Sir Harold clung to the side of the boat opposite that on which the
boatman supported his burden. And thus he awaited the coming of the
boats.

Among the eager thronging watchers on the pier head above was a tall,
fair-faced man, with a long, waxed mustache, sinister eyes and a
cynical smile. He alone of the throng seemed unmoved by the tragic
incident.

“It was pretty well done,” he muttered, under his breath--“a little
transparent, perhaps, and a trifle awkward as well, but pretty well
done! The baronet fell into the trap too, exactly as was hoped. Your
campaign opens finely, my beautiful Octavia. Let us see if the result
is to be what we desire. In short, will the baronet be as unsuspicious
all the way through?”

Sir Harold certainly was unsuspicious at that moment. The helpless
woman in his arms aroused into activity all the chivalry of his
chivalric nature. He held her head above the creeping waves until the
foremost boat had reached him. His burden was the first to be lifted
into the rescuing craft; the lady’s companion followed; the baronet and
the boatman climbing into the boat last, in the order in which they are
named.

The capsized boat was righted and its owner took possession of her. The
rescuing craft transported the baronet and the two ladies to the beach.
The lady companion had recovered her senses and self-possession, but
the lady employer lay on the cushions pale and motionless.

On reaching the landing, a cab was found to be in waiting, having
been summoned by some sympathizing spectator. The companion, uttering
protestations of gratitude, entered the vehicle, and her mistress was
assisted in after her. The former gathered her employer in her arms,
crying out:

“She is dead! She is dead! I have lost my best friend--”

“Not so, madam,” said Sir Harold, in kindly sympathy. “The lady has
only fainted, I think. To what place shall I tell the cabman to drive?”

“To the Albion Hotel. Oh, my poor, poor lady! To die so young! It is
terrible!”

Sir Harold made some soothing response, but being chilled and wet, did
not find it necessary to accompany to their hotel the heroines of the
adventure. He gave their address to the cabman, watched the cab as it
rolled away, and then breaking loose from the crowd of friends who
gathered around him with anxious interrogatories, he secured his coat
and procured a cab for himself and proceeded to his own hotel.

It was not until he had had a comfortable bath, and was seated in dry
attire in his private parlor, that Sir Harold remembered that he did
not know the name of the lady he had served, or that he had not even
seen her face distinctly.

“She is as ignorant of my name and identity,” he thought, “as I am of
hers. If the incident could be kept out of the papers, I need never be
troubled with the thanks of her husband, father, or brother.”

But the incident was not kept out of the papers. Sir Harold Wynde,
being a lion, had to bear the penalty of popularity. The next morning’s
paper, brought in to him as he sat at his solitary breakfast, contained
a glowing account of the previous evening’s adventure, under the
flaming head line of “Heroic Action by a Baronet,” with the sub-lines:
“Sir Harold Wynde saves a lady’s life at the risk of his own. Chivalry
not yet dead in our commonplace England.” And there followed a highly
imaginative description of the lady’s adventure, her name being as yet
unknown, and a warm eulogy upon Sir Harold’s bravery and presence of
mind.

The baronet’s lip curled as he read impatiently the fulsome article.
He had scarcely finished it when a waiter entered, bringing in upon a
silver tray a large squarely enveloped letter. It was addressed to Sir
Harold Wynde, was stamped with an unintelligible monogram, and sealed
with a dainty device in pale green wax. As the baronet’s only lady
correspondent was his daughter at school, and this missive was clearly
not from her, he experienced a slight surprise at its reception.

The waiter having departed, Sir Harold cut open the letter with his
pocket knife, and glanced over its contents.

They were written upon the daintiest, thickest vellum paper unlined,
and duly tinted and monogrammed, and were as follows:

  ALBION HOTEL, Tuesday Morning.

  “SIR HAROLD WYNDE: The lady who writes this letter is the lady whom
  you so gallantly rescued from a death by drowning last evening.
  I have read the accounts of your daring bravery in the morning’s
  papers, and hasten to offer my grateful thanks for your noble and
  gallant kindness to an utter stranger. Life has not been so sweet
  to me that I cling to it, but yet it is very horrible to go in one
  moment from the glow and heartiness of health and life down to the
  very gates of death. It was your hand that drew me back at the
  moment when those gates opened to admit me, and again I bless you--a
  thousand thousand times, I bless you. Alas, that I have to write to
  you myself. I have neither father, lover, nor husband, to rejoice in
  the life you have saved. I am a widow, and alone in the wide world.
  Will you not call upon me at my hotel and permit me to thank you far
  more effectively in person? I shall be waiting for your coming in my
  private parlor at eleven this morning.

  “Gratefully yours,
  “OCTAVIA HATHAWAY.”

The baronet read the letter again and again. His generous soul was
touched by its sorrowful tone.

“A widow and alone in the world!” he thought. “Poor woman! What
sentence could be sadder than that? She is elderly, I am sure, and
has lost all her children. I do not want to hear her expressions of
gratitude, but if I can make the poor soul happier by calling on her I
will go.”

Accordingly, at eleven o’clock that morning, attired in a gentleman’s
unexceptionable morning dress, Sir Harold Wynde, having sent up his
card, presented himself at the door of Mrs. Hathaway’s private parlor
at the Albion Hotel, and knocked for admittance.

The door was opened to him by the lady’s companion, who greeted him
with effusiveness, and begged him to be seated.

She was a tall, angular woman, with sharp features, whose
characteristic expression was one of peculiar hardness and severity.
Her lips were thin, and were usually compressed. Her eyes were a light
gray, furtive and sly, like a cat’s eyes. Her pointed chin gave a
treacherous cast to her countenance. Her complexion was of a pale,
opaque gray; her hair, of a fawn color, was worn in three puffs on each
side of her face, and her dress was of a tint to match her hair. Sir
Harold conceived an instinctive aversion to her.

“Mrs. Hathaway?” he said politely, with interrogative accent.

“No, I am not Mrs. Hathaway,” was the reply, in a subdued voice, and
the furtive eyes scanned the visitor’s face. “I am only Mrs. Hathaway’s
companion--Mrs. Artress. Mrs. Hathaway has just received your card. She
will be out directly.”

The words were scarcely spoken when the door of an inner room opened,
and Mrs. Hathaway made her appearance.

Sir Harold stood up, bowing.

The lady was by no means the elderly, melancholy personage he had
expected to see. She was about thirty years of age, and looked
younger. She had a tall, statuesque figure, well-rounded and inclined
to _embonpoint_. She carried her head with a certain stateliness.
Her hair was dressed with the inevitable chignon, crimped waves, and
long, floating curl, and despite the monstrosity of the fashion, it
was decidedly and undeniably picturesque. Her face, with its clear
brunette complexion, liquid black eyes, Grecian nose, low brows, and
faultless mouth, was very handsome. There was a fascination in her
manners that was felt by the baronet even before she had spoken.

She was not dressed in mourning, and it was probable, therefore, that
her widowhood was not of recent beginning. She was clothed in an
exquisitely embroidered morning dress of white, which trailed on the
floor, and was relieved with ornaments of pale pink coral, and a broad
coral-colored sash at her waist.

“_This_ is Mrs. Hathaway, Sir Harold,” said the gray looking lady’s
companion.

The lady sprang forward after an impulsive fashion, and clasped the
baronet’s hands in both her own. Her black eyes flooded with tears.
And then, in a broken voice, she thanked her preserver for his gallant
conduct on the previous evening assuring him that her gratitude would
outlast her life. Her protestations and gratitude were not overdone,
and unsuspecting Sir Harold accepted them as genuine, even while they
embarrassed him.

He remained an hour, finding Mrs. Hathaway charming company and
thoroughly fascinating. The companion sat apart, silent, busy with
embroidery, a mere gray shadow; but her presence gave an easy
unconstraint to both the baronet and the lady. When Sir Harold took his
departure, sauntering down to the German Spa, he carried with him the
abiding memory of Mrs. Hathaway’s handsome brunette face and liquid
black eyes, and thought himself that she was the most charming woman he
had met for years.

From that day, throughout the season, the baronet was a frequent
visitor at Mrs. Hathaway’s private parlor. The gray companion was
always at hand to play propriety, and the tongues of gossips, though
busy, had no malevolence in them. Sir Harold had his own horses
at Brighton, and placed one at Mrs. Hathaway’s disposal. The widow
accepted it, procured a bewitching costume from town, and had daily
rides with the baronet. She also drove with him in his open, low
carriage, and bowed right and left to her acquaintances upon such
occasions with the gracious condescension of a princess. She sailed
with him in his graceful yacht, upon day’s excursions, her companion
always accompanying, and rumor at length declared that the pair were
engaged to be married.

Sir Harold heard the reports, and they set him thinking. The society of
Mrs. Hathaway had become necessary to him. She understood his tastes,
studying them with a flattery so delicate that he was pleased without
understanding it. She read his favorite books, played his favorite
music, and displayed talents of no mean order. She was fitted to adorn
any position, however high, and Sir Harold thought with a pleasant
thrill at his heart, how royally she would reign over his beautiful
home.

In short, questioning his own heart, he found that he had worshiped
his dead wife, who would be to him always young, as when he had buried
her--but with the passion of later manhood, an exacting, jealous
yearning affection, which gives all and demands all. With his children
far from him, his life had been lonely, and he had known many desolate
hours, when he would have given half his wealth for sympathy and love.

“I shall find both in Octavia,” he thought, his noble face brightening.
“I shall not wrong my children in marrying her. My son will be my heir.
My daughter’s fortune will not be imperilled by my second marriage.
Neva is sixteen, and in two years more will come home. How can I do
better for her than to give her a beautiful mother, young enough to
win her confidence, old enough to be her guide? Octavia would love my
girl, and would be her best chaperon in society, to which Neva must be
by and by introduced. I should find in Octavia then a mother for my
daughter, and a gentle loving wife and companion for myself. But will
she accept me?”

He put the question to the test that very evening. He found the
handsome widow alone in her parlor, the gray companion being for once
absent, and he told her his love with a tremulous ardor and passion
that it would have been the glory of a good woman to have evoked from a
nature so grand as Sir Harold’s.

The fascinating widow blushed and smiled assent, and her black-tressed
head drooped to his shoulder, and Sir Harold clasped her in his arms as
his betrothed wife.

With a lover’s impetuosity he begged her to marry him at an early day.
She hesitated coyly, as if for months she had not been striving and
praying for this hour, and then was won to consent to marry him a month
thence.

“I am alone in the world, and have no one to consult,” she sighed. “I
have an old aunt, a perfect miser, who lives in Bloomsbury Square,
in London. She will permit me to be married from her house, as I was
before. The marriage will have to be very quiet, for she is averse
to display and expense. However, what she saves will come to me some
day, so I need not complain. I shall want to keep Artress with me,
Sir Harold. I can see that you don’t like her, but she has been a
faithful friend to me in all my troubles, and I cannot abandon her when
prosperity smiles so splendidly upon me. I may keep her, may I not?”

Thus appealed to, Sir Harold smothered his dislike of the gray
companion, and consented that she should become an inmate of his house.

Mrs. Hathaway proceeded to explain the causes of her friendlessness.
She was an orphan, and had early married the Honorable Charles
Hathaway, the younger son of a Viscount, who had died five years
before. The Honorable Charles had been a dissipated spendthrift, and
had left his wife the meagre income of some three hundred pounds a
year. Her elegant clothing was, for the most part, relics of better
days. As to the expensive style in which she lived, keeping a companion
and maid, no one knew, save herself and one other, how she managed to
support it. Her name and reputation were unblemished, and the most
censorious tongue had nothing to say against her.

And yet she was none the less an unscrupulous, unprincipled adventuress.

This was the woman, the noble, gallant baronet proposed to take to
his bosom as his wife, to endow with his name and wealth, to make the
mother and guide of his pure young daughter. Would the sacrifice of the
generous, unsuspected lover be permitted?

It _was_ permitted. A month later their modest bridal train swept
beneath the portals of St. George’s Church, Hanover Square. The bride,
radiant in pearl-colored moire, with point lace overdress, wore a
magnificent parure of diamonds, presented to her by Sir Harold. The
baronet looked the picture of happiness. The miserly aunt of Mrs.
Hathaway, a skinny old lady in a low-necked and short-sleeved dress
of pink silk, that, by its unsuitability, made her seem absolutely
hideous, attended by a male friend, who gave away the bride, was
prominent among the group that surrounded the altar.

Sir Harold’s son and heir was in India, and his daughter had not been
summoned from her boarding-school in Paris. The baronet’s tender father
soul yearned for his daughter’s presence at his second marriage; but
Lady Wynde had urged that Neva’s studies should not be interrupted,
and had begged, as a personal favor, that her meeting with her young
step-daughter might be delayed until her ladyship had become used to
her new position. She professed to be timid and shrinking in regard
to the meeting with Neva, and Sir Harold, in his passionate love for
Octavia, put aside his own wishes, yielding to her request. But he had
written to his daughter, announcing his intended second marriage, and
had received in reply a tender, loving letter full of earnest prayers
for his happiness, and expressing the kindest feelings toward the
expected step-mother.

The words were spoken that made the strangely assorted pair one flesh.
As the bride arose from her knees the wife of a wealthy baronet, the
wearer of a title, the handsome face was lighted by a triumphant glow,
her black eyes emitted a singular, exultant gleam, and a conscious
triumph pervaded her manner.

She had played the first part of a daring game--and she had won!

As she passed into the vestry to sign the marriage register, leaning
proudly upon the arm of her newly made husband, and followed by her few
attending personal friends, a man who had witnessed the ceremony from
behind a clustered pillar in the church, stole out into the square, his
face lighted by a lurid smile, his eyes emitting the same peculiar,
exultant gleam as the bride’s had done.

This man was the tall, fair-haired gentleman, with waxed mustaches,
sinister eyes and cynical smile, who, nearly three months before, had
witnessed from the pier head at Brighton the rescue of Mrs. Hathaway
from the sea by Sir Harold Wynde. And now this man muttered:

“The game prospers. Octavia is Lady Wynde. The first act is played.
The next act requires more time, deliberation, caution. Every move must
be considered carefully. We are bound to win the entire game.”




CHAPTER II. A DECISIVE MOVE COMMANDED.


Sir Harold and Lady Wynde ate their wedding breakfast in Bloomsbury
Square, at the house of Lady Wynde’s miserly aunt, Mrs. Hyde. A few of
the baronet’s choice friends were present. The absence of Sir Harold’s
daughter was not especially remarked save by the father, who longed
with an anxious longing to see her face smiling upon him, and to hear
her young voice whispering congratulations upon his second marriage.
Neva had been especially near and dear to him. Her mother had died in
her babyhood, and he had been both father and mother to his girl. He
had early sent his son to school, but Neva he had kept with him until,
a year before, his first wife’s relatives had urged him to send her to
a “finishing school” at Paris, and he had reluctantly yielded. Not even
his passionate love for his bride could overcome or lessen the fatherly
love and tenderness of years.

Immediately after the breakfast the newly married pair proceeded to
Canterbury by special train. The gray companion and Lady Wynde’s maid
traveled in another compartment of the same coach. The Hawkhurst
carriage was in waiting for the bridal pair at the station. Sir Harold
assisted his wife into it, addressed a few kindly words to the old
coachman on the box, and entered the vehicle. The gray companion and
the maid entered a dog-cart, also in waiting. Hawkhurst was several
miles distant, but the country between it and Canterbury was a
charming one, and Lady Wynde found sufficient enjoyment in looking at
the handsome seats, the trim hedges, and thrifty hop-gardens, and in
wondering if Hawkhurst would realize her expectations. She found indeed
more enjoyment in her own speculations than in the society of her
husband.

About five o’clock of the afternoon, the bridal pair came in sight of
the ancestral home of the Wynde’s. The top of the low barouche was
lowered and Sir Harold pointed out her future home to his bride with
pardonable pride, and she surveyed it with eager eyes.

It was, as we have said, a magnificent estate, divided into numerous
farms of goodly size. The home grounds of Hawkhurst proper, including
the fields, pastures, meadows, parks, woods, plantations and gardens,
comprised about four hundred acres. The mansion stood upon a ridge of
ground some half a mile wide, and was seen from several points at a
distance of three or four miles. It was a grand old building of gray
stone, with a long facade, and was three stories in height. Its turrets
and chimneys were noted for their picturesqueness. Its carved stone
porches, its quaint wide windows, its steep roof, from which pert
dormer-windows, saucily projected, were remarkable for their beauty or
oddity. Despite its age, and its air of grandeur and stateliness, there
was a home-like look about the great mansion that Lady Wynde did not
fail to perceive at the first glance.

The house was flanked on either side by glass pineries, grape houses,
hothouses, greenhouses and similar buildings. Further to the left of
the dwelling, beyond the sunny gardens, was the great park, intersected
with walks and drives, having a lake somewhere in the umbrageous
depths, and herds of fallow-deer browsing on its herbage. In the rear
of the house, built in the form of a quadrangle, of gray stone, were
the handsome stables and offices of various descriptions. The mansion
with its dependencies covered a great deal of ground, and presented an
imposing appearance.

The house was approached by a shaded drive a half mile or more in
length, which traversed a smooth green lawn dotted here and there with
trees. A pair of bronze gates, protected and attended by a picturesque
gray stone lodge, gave ingress to the grounds.

These gates swung open at the approach of Sir Harold Wynde and his
bride, and the gate-keeper and his family came out bowing and smiling,
to welcome home the future lady of Hawkhurst. Lady Wynde returned
their greetings with graceful condescension, and then, as the carriage
entered the drive, she fixed her eager eyes upon the long gray facade
of the mansion, and said:

“It is beautiful--magnificent! You never did justice to its grandeurs,
Harold, in describing Hawkhurst. It is strange that a house so large,
and of such architectural pretension, should have such a bright and
sunny appearance. The sunlight must flood every room in that glorious
front. I should like to live all my days at Hawkhurst!”

“Your dower house will be as pleasant a home as this although not
so pretentious,” said Sir Harold, smiling gravely. “It is probable
that you being twenty years my junior, will survive me, Octavia, and
therefore I have settled upon you for your life use in your possible
widowhood one of my prettiest places, and one which has served for many
generations as the residence of the dowager widows of our family.”

The glow on Lady Wynde’s face faded a little, and her lips slightly
compressed themselves, as they were wont to do when she was ill pleased.

“I have never asked you about your property, Harold,” she remarked,
“but your wife need be restrained from doing so by no sense of
delicacy. I suppose your property is entailed?”

“Hawkhurst is entailed, but it will fall to the female line in case
of the dying out of heirs male,” replied the baronet, not marking his
bride’s scarcely suppressed eagerness. “It has belonged to our family
from time immemorial, and was a royal grant to one of our ancestors
who saved his monarch’s life at risk of his own. Thus, at my death,
Hawkhurst will go, with the title, to my son. If George should die,
without issue, Hawkhurst--without the title, which is a separate
affair--will go to my daughter.”

“A weighty inheritance for a girl,” remarked Lady Wynde. “And--and if
she should die without issue?”

“The estate would go to distant cousins of mine.”

Lady Wynde started. This was evidently an unexpected reply, and she
could not repress her looks of disappointment.

“I--I should think your wife would come before your cousins,” she
murmured.

“How little you know about law, Octavia,” said the baronet, with a
grave, gentle smile. “The property must go to those of our blood. If
our union is blessed with children, the eldest of them would inherit
Hawkhurst before my cousins. But although the law has proclaimed us
one flesh, yet it does not allow you to become the heir of my entailed
property. It is singular even that a daughter is permitted to inherit
before male cousins, but there was a clause in the royal deed of gift
of Hawkhurst to my ancestors that gave the property to females in
the direct line, in default of male heirs, but there has never been a
female proprietor of the estate. I hope there never may be. I should
hate to have the old name die out of the old place. But here we are at
the house. Welcome home, my beautiful wife!”

The carriage stopped in the porch, and Sir Harold alighted and assisted
out his bride. He drew her arm through his and led her up the lofty
flight of stone steps, and in at the arched and open door-way. The
servants were assembled to welcome home their lady, and the baronet
uttered the necessary words of introduction and conducted his bride to
the drawing-room.

This was an immensely long apartment, with nine wide windows on its
eastern side looking out upon gardens and park. Sculptured arches,
supported by slender columns of alabaster, relieved the long vista,
and curtains depending from them were capable of dividing the grand
room into three handsome ones. The drawing-room was furnished in modern
style, and was all gayety, brightness and beauty. The furniture, of
daintiest satin-wood, was upholstered in pale blue silk. The carpet, of
softest gray hue, was bordered with blue.

“It is very lovely,” commented the bride. “And that is a conservatory
at the end? I shall be very happy here, Harold.”

“I hope so,” was the earnest response. “But let me take you up to your
own rooms, Octavia. They have been newly furnished for your occupancy.”

He gave her his arm and conducted her out into the wide hall, with its
tesselated floor, up the wide marble staircase, to a suit of rooms
directly over the drawing-room.

This suit comprised sitting-room, bedroom, dressing-room and bath-room.
Their upholstery was of a vivid crimson hue. A faultless taste had
guided the selection of the various adornments, and Lady Wynde’s eyes
kindled with appreciation as she marked the costliness and beauty of
everything around her.

“Your trunks have arrived in the wagon, Octavia,” said her husband,
well pleased with her commendations. “Mrs. Artress and your maid, who
came on in the dog-cart, have also arrived. Dinner has been ordered at
seven. I will leave you to dress. And, by the way, should you have need
of me, my dressing-room adjoins your own.”

He went out. Lady Wynde rang for her maid and her gray companion, and
dressed for dinner. When her toilet was made, the baronet’s bride
dismissed her maid and came out into her warm-hued sitting room, where
Mrs. Artress sat by a window looking out into the leafy shadows of the
park.

“Well?” said the beauty interrogatively. “What do you think? Have I not
been successful?”

“So far, yes,” said the grim, ashen-faced companion, raising her light,
hay-colored eyes in a meaning expression. “But the end is not yet. The
game, you know, is only fairly begun.”

“Yes, I know,” said the bride thoughtfully. “But it is well begun. But
hush, Artress. Here comes my happy bridegroom!”

There was a mocking smile on her lips as she bade Sir Harold enter. The
wedded pair had a few minutes’ conversation in the sitting-room, her
ladyship’s companion sitting in the deep window seat mute as a shadow,
and they then descended to the drawing-room. Mrs. Artress meekly
followed. She remained near Lady Wynde, in attendance upon her until
after dinner, and then went up to her own room, which was in convenient
proximity to the apartments of Lady Wynde.

The bride and bridegroom were left to themselves.

The former played a little upon the grand piano, and then approached
her husband, sitting down beside him upon the same sofa. His noble face
beamed love upon her. But her countenance grew hard with speculative
thoughts.

“Let me see,” said she, speaking with well-assumed lightness. “What
were we talking about when we arrived, Harold? Oh, about your property!
So, this dear old Hawkhurst will belong to George? And what will Neva
have?”

“Her mother’s fortune, and several estates which are not entailed. Neva
will be a very rich woman without Hawkhurst. You also, Octavia, will be
handsomely provided for, without detriment to my children.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Lady Wynde. “But if the estates are not
entailed which you intend to give to Neva, you must leave them to her
by will. Have--have you made your will?”

“Yes; but since I have contracted a new marriage, I shall have to make
a new will. I shall attend to that at my leisure.”

Lady Wynde became thoughtful, but did not press the subject. She
excused her questionings on the plea of interest in her husband’s
children, and Sir Harold gave no thought to them.

The days went by; the weeks and months followed. Neva Wynde had not
been summoned home, her step-mother finding plenty of excuses for
deferring the return of her step-daughter. Perhaps she feared that a
pair of keen young eyes, unvailed by glamor, would see how morally
hideous she was--how base and scheming, and unworthy of her husband.

Sir Harold’s infatuation with his wife deepened as the time wore on.
His love for her became a species of worship. All that she did was good
in his eyes.

Lady Wynde went into society, visited the first county families,
and received them at Hawkhurst. She gave a ball, dancing and dinner
parties, “tea-fights,” and fetes champetres, without number. She
promoted festivities of every sort, and became one of the most popular
ladies in the county. She was a leader of fashion too, and withal was
so gracious, so circumspect, so full of delicate flattery to every one,
that even venomous tongued gossip had naught but good to say of her.
Her position at Hawkhurst was thus firmly established, and she might be
called a happy woman.

As the months went on, an air of expectancy began to be apparent in
her manner. The gray companion shared it, moving with a suppressed
eagerness and nervousness, as if waiting for something. And that which
she waited for came at last.

It was one February evening, more than a year after the bride’s coming
home to Hawkhurst. Outside the night was wild. Within Lady Wynde’s
dressing-room the fire glowed behind its silvered bars, and its rays
danced in bright gleams upon the crimson furniture. The lamps burned
with mellow radiance. In the centre of the room stood the lady of
Hawkhurst. She had dismissed her maid, and was surveying her reflection
in a full-length mirror with a complacent smile.

She was attired in a long robe of crimson silk, and wore her ruby
ornaments. Her neck and arms were bare. Her liquid black eyes were full
of light; her face was aglow.

In the midst of her self-admiration, her gray companion entered
abruptly, bearing in her hand a letter. Lady Wynde turned toward her
with a startled look.

“What have you there, Artress?” she demanded.

“A letter addressed to me,” was the reply. “I have read it. I have a
question to ask you, Octavia, before I show the letter to you. Sir
Harold Wynde adores you. He loads you with gifts. He lays his heart
under your feet. You are his world, his life, his very soul. And now I
want to ask you--do you love him?”

The ashen eyes shot a piercing glance into the handsome brunette face,
but the black eyes met hers boldly and the full lips curled in a
contemptuous smile.

“Love him?” repeated Lady Wynde. “You know I do not. Love him? You know
that I love another even as Sir Harold loves me! Love him? Bah!”

The gray woman smiled a strange mirthless smile.

“It is well,” she said. “Now read the letter. The message has come at
last!”

Lady Wynde seized the letter eagerly. It contained only these words,
without date or signature:

“_The time has come to get rid of him!_ Now!”




CHAPTER III. A FATEFUL MOVE DECIDED UPON.


Notwithstanding that the sinister message, contained in the single line
of the mysterious missive brought to Lady Wynde by her gray companion,
had been long expected, it brought with it none the less a shock when
it came.

The paper fluttered slowly from the unloosed fingers of the baronet’s
wife to the floor, and into the liquid black eyes stole a look half
of horror and half of eagerness. Unconsciously her voice repeated the
words of the message, in a hoarse whisper:

“_It is time to get rid of him._ Now!”

Lady Wynde shuddered at the sound of her own voice, and she stared at
her gray companion, her eyes full of shrinking and terror. Those ashen
orbs returned her stare with one that was bold, evil, and encouraging.

“I--I haven’t the courage I thought, Artress,” faltered her ladyship.
“It is a terrible thing to do!”

“You love Sir Harold, after all?” taunted the companion, as she picked
up the sinister slip of paper and burned it.

“No, no, but he trusts me; he loves me. There was a time, Artress, when
I could not have harmed a dog that licked my hand or fawned upon me.
And now--but I am not so bad as you think. I am base, unscrupulous,
manœuvring, I know. My marriage was but part of a wicked plan, the
fruit of a conspiracy against Sir Harold Wynde, but I shrink from the
crowning evil we have planned. To play the viper and sting the hand
that has warmed me--to wound to the core the heart that beats so fondly
and proudly for me--to--to cut short the noble, beneficent, happy life
of Sir Harold--oh, I cannot! I cannot!”

Her ladyship swept forward impetuously toward the hearth and knelt down
before a quaint crimson-cushioned chair, crossing her arms upon it, and
laying her head on her bare white arms. The firelight played upon the
ruddy waves of her long robe, upon the gems at her throat and wrists,
upon her picturesquely dishevelled hair, and upon her stormy, handsome
face. She stared into the fire with her great black terrified eyes, as
if seeking in those dancing flames some mystic meaning.

Her gray companion flitted across the floor to her side like an evil
shadow.

“How very tragic you are, my lady,” she said, with a sneer. “It almost
seems as if you were doing a scene out of a melodrama. No one can force
you to any step against your will. You can do whatever you please. Sir
Harold dotes upon you, and you can continue his seemingly affectionate
wife, can receive his caresses, can preside over his household, and
can soothe his declining years. He is not yet fifty-eight years old,
vigorous and healthy, and, as he comes of a long-lived race, he will
live to be ninety, I doubt not. You will, should you survive him,
then be seventy. You can play the tender step-mother to his children.
His daughter is sure to dislike you, and she may cause her father to
distrust you. All this will no doubt be pleasant to you--”

“Hush, hush!” breathed Lady Wynde, with a tempestuous look in her eyes.
“Let me alone, Artress. You always stir up the demon within me. Forty
years of a dull, staid, respectable existence, when I might be a queen
of society in London, might be married to one I have loved for years!
Forty years! Why, one year seems to me an eternity. It seems a lifetime
since I was married to Sir Harold. I--I will act upon the letter.”

The gray companion smiled.

“I was sure you would,” she said.

“But Sir Harold has not made a new will since our marriage,” urged
Lady Wynde. “By our marriage settlements, I am to have the use of the
dower house, Wynde Heights, during my lifetime, and a life income of
four thousand pounds a year. At my death, both house and income revert
to the family of Wynde. I have nothing absolutely my own, nothing left
to me by will to do with as I please. Craven expected that I would
have the dowry of a princess, I suppose, out of Sir Harold’s splendid
property.”

“It is not too late to acquire it,” said the companion, significantly.
“Sir Harold is clay in your hands. You can mould him to any shape you
will. He has no child here to counteract your influence. He has money
and estates which he intends to leave by will to his daughter Neva.
If you are clever, you can divert into your own coffers all of Miss
Wynde’s property that is not settled upon her already from her mother’s
estate. It will do no harm to delay acting upon the message for a day
or two, since something of so much importance remains to be transacted.”

“I am thankful for even a day’s respite,” murmured Lady Wynde. “I have
been eager to receive the message, intending to act upon it promptly.
But I am not all bad, Artress, and I shrink from the consummation of
our plans. If Sir Harold would only die naturally! If something would
only occur to remove him from my path!”

She breathed heavily as she arose, shook out the folds of her dress,
and moved toward the door.

“The phial I had when we came here I found was broken yesterday,” said
Artress. “I shall have to go up to London to-morrow for more of that
fluid, so that there must be a day’s delay in any case. We must be very
cautious, for people will wonder at the sudden death of one so hale and
strong, and should suspicion arise, it must find no foundation to build
upon.”

Lady Wynde nodded assent, and opened the door and went out with a weary
step. She descended the broad staircase, crossed the great hall, and
entered the drawing-room.

Sir Harold was seated near the fire, in a thoughtful reverie, but arose
at her entrance with a beaming face and a tender smile.

“It’s a wild night, Octavia,” he said. “Come forward to the fire my
darling. How pale you are! And you are shivering with the cold.”

He gently forced her into the easy-chair he had vacated, bent over her
with lover-like devotion, patting her head softly with his hand.

“You look unhappy, dear,” resumed the baronet, after a pause. “Is there
anything you want--a ball, jewels, a trip to the Continent? You know my
purse is yours, and I am ready to go where you may wish to lead.”

“You are very good!” said Lady Wynde, her black eyes fixed in a gaze
upon the fire, and again she shivered. “I--I am not worthy of all your
kindness, Harold. Hark! There is the dinner-bell. Thank fortune for the
interruption, for I believe I was growing really sentimental!”

She forced a laugh as she arose and took her husband’s arm, and was
conducted to the dining-room, but there was something in her laughter
that jarred upon Sir Harold, although the unpleasant impression it
produced upon him was evanescent.

At the dinner Lady Wynde was herself again, bright and fascinating,
only now and then, in some pause of the conversation, there came again
into her eyes that horrified stare which they had worn up stairs,
and which testified how her soul shrank from the awful crime she
contemplated.

After dinner the pair returned to the drawing-room. Sir Harold drew a
sofa toward the corner of the hearth and sat down upon it, calling his
wife to him. She obeyed, taking a seat beside him. Her face was all
brightness at this moment, and Sir Harold forgot his late anxieties
about her.

“I believe I am the happiest man in the world, Octavia,” he said
thoughtfully, caressing one of her jewelled hands he had lifted from
her knee, “but my cup of joy lacks a drop or two of sweetness still.
You are all the world to me, my wife, and yet I want something more.”

“What is it you want, Harold?”

“I have been thinking about my children,” said the baronet. “It is
over a month since I heard from George, and he does not intend to leave
India this year, although I have urged him to sell his commission and
come home. The boy has a passion for a military life, and he went out
to India against my better judgment. I cannot have George home again
this year, but there is Neva near me. I long to see her, Octavia.”

“You are the most devoted of fathers,” laughed Lady Wynde. “We have
been married but little over a year, and yet you have made two trips
alone to Paris to see Neva. She must be a very paragon of daughters to
cause her father to forget his bride.”

Sir Harold’s fair cheeks flushed a little.

“You forget,” he said, “that Neva was my especial charge from the hour
of her mother’s death till I sent her to that Paris school. My love for
you, Octavia, cannot lessen my love for her. I begin to think that I
have done wrong in not bringing you two together before. I had a most
pathetic letter from Neva before the holidays, begging to be allowed to
come home, but at your request, Octavia, I denied her natural entreaty
and compelled her to remain at her school. Even Madame Da-Caret, the
head of the establishment, thought it singular that Miss Wynde should,
alone of all the English pupils, spend her holidays at the deserted
institution. And now to-day I received a letter from Neva asking if
she was to come home for the Easter holidays. I am afraid I have not
rightly treated my motherless child, Octavia. She has never seen you;
never been at home since you became mistress here. I fear that the poor
child will think her exile due to your influence, to speak frankly,
dear, and that she will regard you with dislike and bitterness, instead
of the trust and confidence I want her to feel in you. You are both so
dear to me that I shall be unhappy if you do not love each other.”

“There is time enough to form the acquaintance after Neva leaves
school,” said Lady Wynde. “She is but a child yet.”

“She is seventeen years old, Octavia. I have decided to have her home
at Easter, and I hope you will take some pains to win her trust and
affection. She will meet you half-way, dear.”

“I am not fond of bread-and-butter school-girls,” said Lady Wynde, half
frowning. “The neighborhood will be agape to see how I play the role
of step-mother. And, to own the truth, Harold, I have no fancy to be
called mother by a tall, overgrown girl, with her hair hanging down her
back in two braids, and her dresses reaching to her ankles. I shall
feel as old as Methuselah.”

Sir Harold sighed, and a grave shadow settled down upon his square
massive brows.

“I hope that Neva will win her way to your heart, Octavia,” he remarked
gently. “I thought it would look better if my daughter were to call her
father’s wife by the endearing name of mother, but teach her to call
you what you will. I have faith in your goodness of heart, my wife.”

“Perhaps I am a little jealous of her,” returned Lady Wynde, with a
forced smile. “You fairly idolize her--”

“Have I not made her second to you?” interposed the baronet. “Has she
not been banished from her home to please you since you entered it?
When I think of her dull, dreary holidays in her school--holidays!
the name was a mockery--my soul yearns for my child. Jealous of her,
Octavia? What further proofs do you need that I prefer my wife in all
things above my child?”

“Why,” said Lady Wynde tremulously, a hectic flush burning on either
cheek, “look at the magnificent fortune she will have! While, if you
should die I have only the pitiful income of four thousand pounds a
year.”

“Pitiful, Octavia!”

“Yes, it _is_ pitiful, compared to Neva’s. You have estates which
you can convey away absolutely by will. Why should you not make me
independently rich, with property that I can sell if I choose? What you
leave to me is to be mine _for life_. What you leave to Neva is hers
absolutely. This is monstrous, hateful, unjust!”

The baronet regarded his wife in amazement.

“You were satisfied with your marriage settlements when they were drawn
up, Octavia,” he said.

“I was not satisfied even then, but I had no male relatives to speak to
you about the matter, and it would have been indelicate for me to have
said what I thought. But I hoped you would make things right in a will,
as you can easily do. It is _not_ right that such a distinction should
be made between a daughter and a wife!”

“I am surprised at you, Octavia,” declared the baronet. “Neva inherits
her mother’s fortune with something from me, but I cannot undertake to
alter my intentions in regard to her. The provisions that were made for
my mother are the same as those that have been made for you, and she
found them ample. I can promise you nothing more; but, Octavia,” and he
smiled faintly, “I have no intention of dying soon, and while I live
your income need not to be limited to any certain sum. Let no jealousy
of my Neva warp your noble nature, Octavia. I shall love you all the
better if you love her.”

“Then you decline to make a new will, with further provision for me?”
demanded the wife, her eyes downcast, the hectic spot burning fiercely
on both cheeks.

“You surprise me, Octavia. Why are you so persistent about a subject of
which I never dreamed you even thought? I _do_ decline to make further
provision for you, but not because I do not love and appreciate you,
for I do both. So long as there is no issue to our marriage, the
sum settled on you is ample for your own wants. If Providence sends
us children, they will be provided for separately. We will let the
discussion end here, Octavia, with the understanding that Neva will
spend her Easter at Hawkhurst.”

Lady Wynde compressed her lips and looked sullen, but, as Sir Harold
suggested, the discussion was dropped. The baronet was troubled, and
disappointed in the wife he had believed faultless. The first shadow of
their married life, the first suspicion of distrust of Lady Wynde in
her husband’s mind had come at last, and they were hard to bear. Lady
Wynde went to the piano and executed a dashing fantasia, all storm and
violence, expressive of her mental condition. Sir Harold moved back
from the fire and took up a book, but his grave, saddened face, his
steady, intent gaze, and anxious mouth, showed that he was not reading,
and that his thoughts were sorrowful.

When Lady Wynde had become tired of music, she went up to her rooms
without a word to her husband. She entered her sitting-room, made
beautiful by her husband’s taste, and going to the fire, knelt down
before it on the hearth-rug. Artress and her maid were neither of them
to be seen, and the baronet’s wife communed in solitude with her own
deformed soul.

The winds tore through the trees in the park and on the lawn with a
melancholy soughing, and the sound came to the ears of the kneeling
woman. Her room was warm and bright with firelight, lamplight, and the
glowing hue of crimson furniture. Every luxury was gathered within
those walls dedicated to her use. Silken couches and fauteuils,
portfolios of choice engravings, rare bronzes on the low marble
mantel-piece, exquisite statuettes on carved brackets, albums of scenes
in every hand done in water-colors, a beautiful cottage piano, and
a hundred other articles made the room a very temple of comfort and
beauty, yet in the spot where only loving thoughts of her husband
should have had place she dared to harbor thoughts of crime! And that
crime the most hideous that can be named--the crime of _murder_!

While she was kneeling there, the gray companion stole in softly and
silently.

Lady Wynde slowly turned her head, recognized the intruder, and stared
again with wide eyes into the flames.

“You look like a tragedy queen,” said Artress, with a soft laugh
like the gurgling of waters. “You look as if you cast away all your
scruples, and were ready to carry out the game.”

“I am,” said Lady Wynde, in a hard, suppressed voice.

“I thought you would come to it. Will Sir Harold make a new will?”

“No; he absolutely refuses.”

“Well, four thousand pounds a year need not be despised. And perhaps,”
added Artress significantly, “we can make the sum larger. Am I to go to
town to-morrow?”

“Yes, by the morning train. Go to Craven, and tell him the phial he
gave you is broken and the contents spilled, and ask him for more of
the--the preparation. I will find occasion to administer it. I have
worked myself up to the necessary point, and would not scruple at any
crime so long as I need not fear discovery. You will be back before
dinner,” added Lady Wynde, her brunette complexion turning as gray as
that of her companion, “and to-morrow night at this time I shall be a
widow!”




CHAPTER IV. A DOOR OPENED TO WICKEDNESS.


Soon after daybreak, upon the morning following the occurrence of the
incidents related in the preceding chapter, Lady Wynde’s gray companion
departed from Hawkhurst for Canterbury in a dog-cart which, with
its driver, the baronet’s wife had ordered to be always at Artress’
disposal. She took the early train up to London, her business a secret
between her mistress and herself.

At the usual breakfast hour, eight o’clock, Lady Wynde descended to
the breakfast room. Sir Harold was already there, and greeted her with
his usual tender smile, although he looked somewhat careworn. Their
greetings were scarcely over, and the couple had taken their places at
the table, when the butler appeared, bringing in the morning mail bag.

Sir Harold produced his key and unlocked it. There were a few
newspapers for himself, some packets of silk samples, and a letter from
Madame Elise, her dressmaker, for Lady Wynde. There were two letters
for the baronet, one quite unimportant, which he tossed aside. The
other bore the Indian post-mark.

“A letter from George,” said Sir Harold, his eyes brightening. “No,
it’s not from George. The address is not in his hand. Who can have
written to me in his stead?”

He tore open the letter hastily, his countenance falling.

His first glance was at the date; his second at the signature. An
exclamation broke from his lips as he read aloud the name appended to
the letter: “Cooper Graham, Regimental Surgeon.”

“What can this mean?” he exclaimed, in sudden agitation. “Can George be
ill? Octavia, read the letter to me. The words seem all blurred.”

Lady Wynde took the letter, reading it aloud.

It was long, too long to transcribe here, and its import was terrible
to the baronet. It opened with the announcement that the writer was
the surgeon of Captain Wynde’s regiment, and that Captain Wynde was a
patient under his care. It went on to say that Captain Wynde was the
victim of a terrible and incurable disease under which he had been
suffering for months, and the surgeon had learned that the poor young
man had not written home to his friends the fact of his peril. His
disease was a cancer, which was preying upon his vitals. Captain Wynde
had been relieved of his regimental duties, and sent up into the hill
country, where he now was. The young man’s thoughts by day and night
were of his home--his one longing was to see his father before he died.
Surgeon Graham went on to say that Captain Wynde could not possibly
survive a sea journey; that he could not bear the bracing sea air, nor
the fatigues of the overland route, and he would assuredly die on his
way home. But, he added, that in the cool and quiet seclusion of his
upcountry bungalow, his life could probably be prolonged for some three
months.

Surgeon Graham concluded his startling letter with a further reference
to Captain Wynde’s anxiety to look once more on his father’s face
before he died. He said that the poor young man had desired that the
letter should not be written to Sir Harold, and that the baronet should
be informed of his son’s illness only in the letter which should
announce that son’s death.

This terrible news was a fearful shock to Sir Harold. His son George,
the heir of his name and estates, was dying in a far, foreign land,
with a frightful disease, with no relative nor friend about him to
smooth his pillow in his last agony, or to wipe the death-damp from his
brows. The father sobbed aloud in his agony.

“My boy! my poor boy!” he cried, in a broken voice. “My poor dying boy!”

“It is very sad,” said Lady Wynde, wondering in her own heart if George
Wynde’s death could be made to benefit her pecuniarily. “The surgeon
seems a very kind-hearted person, and he says that George has an
excellent native nurse, George’s man-servant--”

Sir Harold interrupted his wife by a gesture of impatience.

“The man is a Hindoo,” he said. “What consolation can he offer George
in the hour of his death, when his eyes should rest on a tender, loving
face--when his dying hands should grasp the hands of a friend? My poor
brave boy! How could I ever consent to his going out to India? All his
bright, military genius, all his longings to distinguish himself in the
army, must end in an early Indian grave! But he shall not die with not
one of his kindred beside him. We must go to him, Octavia. We shall
reach him in time.”

Sir Harold seized upon his unopened _Times_, and glanced over the
advertisements.

“A steamer sails from Marseilles two days hence,” he announced. “We
must be off to-day, immediately, to catch it. I will have a bag packed
at once. Order your maid to pack your trunks, Octavia--”

He paused, not comprehending the surprised stare in her ladyship’s bold
black eyes.

“You seem to be laboring under a mistake Sir Harold,” said Lady Wynde,
coolly. “If you choose to go out to India, you can do so. George is
your son and heir, and I suppose it would really look better if you
were to go. But as to my hurrying by sea and land, by day and night,
to witness the death of a young man I never saw, the idea is simply
preposterous. My health could never endure the strain of such a
fatigue. You would have two graves to make instead of one.”

The lines in Sir Harold’s face contracted as in a sudden spasm.

“I--I was selfish to think of your going, Octavia,” he said
sorrowfully. “It is true that we should have to travel day and night to
reach Marseilles in time to catch the steamer. The passage of the Red
Sea would also be hard for you. But I was thinking of my poor brave boy
dying there among strangers, with no woman beside him. If--if you could
have gone to him, my wife, and let him feel that he was going from one
mother here to another mother _there_--”

“I should like to go, if only my health would permit,” sighed Lady
Wynde. “But why do you not take your daughter with you?”

The father shook his head.

“She is so young,” he said. “She is so fond of poor George. I cannot
cast so heavy a shadow over her future life as that visit to her
brother’s death-bed would be. No, Octavia, I will go alone.”

He arose and went out, leaving his breakfast untouched. Lady Wynde
sipped her coffee leisurely, and ate her breakfast with untroubled
appetite. Then she proceeded to her own private sitting-room and took
her place at one of the windows, watching the whirling snow-flakes of
the February storm.

Sir Harold found her here when he came in, dressed for his journey.
He had ordered a carriage, which was ready. His travelling bag was
packed, and had been taken below. He had come in to say good-bye to his
wife.

“What a great change a single hour has wrought in our lives!” he said,
as he came up to Lady Wynde and put his arms around her. “Octavia, my
darling, it wrings my heart to leave you. Write to me by every post. I
shall remain with my boy until all is over. Tell me all the home news.
You will have Neva home at Easter, and love her for my sake! She will
be our only child soon!”

He embraced his wife with passionate affection, and murmured words of
anguished farewell. He tore himself from her, but at the door he turned
back, and spoke to her with a solemnity she had never seen in him
before.

“Octavia,” he said, “at this moment a strange presentiment comes over
me--a sudden horror--a chill as of death! Perhaps I am to die out there
in India! If--if anything happens to me, Octavia, promise me to be good
to my Neva.”

“It is not necessary to promise,” said Lady Wynde, “but to please you,
I promise!”

Sir Harold’s keen blue eyes, full of anguish, rested in a long
steady gaze upon that false handsome face, and the solemnity of his
countenance increased.

“You will be Neva’s guardian, if I die,” he said, in a broken voice.
“I trust you absolutely. God do unto you, Octavia, as you do unto my
orphan child!”

How those words rang in the ears of Lady Wynde long afterward!

Sir Harold gave her a last embrace, and dashed down the stairs and
sprang into the carriage. Lady Wynde watched him with tearless eyes as
he drove down the avenue.

When he had disappeared from her sight, she said to herself:

“Of course I could have done nothing to put an end to Sir Harold’s life
this morning. I only hope he will die in India--to save me the trouble
of--of doing anything when he gets back!”

Sir Harold proceeded to Canterbury with all speed. On arriving, he
proceeded directly to his solicitor’s, had a new will drawn up,
constituting Lady Wynde his daughter’s personal guardian, and making
Neva his sole heiress in the event of her brother’s death, Lady Wynde
having been sufficiently provided for by her marriage settlements. The
will duly signed and witnessed, Sir Harold hastened to the station,
catching the train for Dover.

He crossed to Calais by the first boat, and went on to Marseilles, by
way of Paris, without stopping even to see his daughter. He was not
only in time to get passage by the _Messageries Imperiales_ steamer,
but had an hour to spare. In this hour he wrote a long and very
tender letter to his daughter, telling her of her brother’s illness,
and hinting of the gloom that had settled down upon his own soul. He
begged her if anything happened to him on this journey, to love her
step-mother, and to obey her in all things, regarding Lady Wynde’s
utterances as if they came from Sir Harold.

He also wrote a note to his wife, and sent the two ashore to be posted
by one of the agents of the company, just as the vessel weighed anchor
for Suez.

In thirty-five days after leaving home he was in the Indian hill
country, and beside his dying son.

Lady Wynde went out very little after her husband’s departure. She gave
no more dinner parties, and behaved with such admirable discretion that
her neighbors were full of praises of her. Although young, handsome
and admired, presiding over one of the finest places in the county,
with no one to direct or thwart her movements, the most censorious
tongue could find nothing to condemn in her.

The only recreation she allowed herself were her weekly visits to
London, ostensibly to see Madame Elise, but as the ashen-eyed Artress
always accompanied her, they excited no comment even in her own
household.

Easter drew near, and Lady Wynde wrote to her step-daughter that it
would not be convenient to have her at Hawkhurst during the holidays,
and ordered her to remain at her school.

The spring months passed slowly. Lady Wynde wrote by every post to her
husband, and received letters as frequently. George’s minutest symptoms
were described to her by the anxious father, and George himself,
looking at his step-mother through his father’s eyes, sent her loving
and pathetic messages, to which she duly responded.

Thus the time wore on until the midsummer.

About the middle of July, Lady Wynde received a black-bordered letter
from her husband stating that his son and heir was dead. He had died
at his up-country bungalow, after an illness which had been protracted
considerably beyond the anticipations of his surgeon. Sir Harold wrote
that he was exhausted by long nursing, and that he should remain a
fortnight longer at his son’s bungalow to recruit his own health, and
that he should then start for home.

“I wish he would come,” said Lady Wynde discontentedly, to her gray
companion. “I am tired of this dull existence. I am anxious to rid
myself of the trammels of my present marriage, and to be free to marry
again.”

“You can be free within a week after Sir Harold’s return,” said
Artress. “And he will be here in September.”

“I shall be free in September,” mused Lady Wynde, with sparkling eyes.
“A widow with four thousand a year! Ah, if only some good demon would
bring about that happy fact, leaving _my_ hands unstained with crime?”

It seemed as if her familiar demon had anticipated her prayer.

Some two weeks later, a second black-bordered letter was brought to
Lady Wynde. It was in an unfamiliar handwriting, and proved to be from
Surgeon Graham.

It announced the death of Sir Harold Wynde!

The surgeon stated that the baronet had made all arrangements for
returning to England, and that he had gone for a last ride among the
hills. He had taken a jungle path, but being well armed and attended by
a Hindoo servant, had anticipated no trouble. Some hours after he had
set out on his ride, about the time the surgeon looked for his return,
the Hindoo servant, covered with dust, rode up alone in a very panic
of terror. With difficulty he told his story. Sir Harold Wynde had
been attacked by a tiger that had leaped upon him from the jungle, and
before his terrified servant could come to his aid, he had been dragged
from his saddle, with the life-blood welling from his torn throat and
breast. The servant, appalled, had not dared to fire, knowing that no
human power could help Sir Harold in his extremity, and the baronet had
been killed before his eyes. The Hindoo had then fled homeward to tell
the awful story.

The surgeon added, that a party had been made up to visit the scene
of the tragedy. A pool of blood, fragments of Sir Harold’s garments,
the bones of his horse, and the foot-prints of a tiger, all tended to
the confirmation of the Hindoo’s story. A hunt was organized for the
tiger, and he was found near the same spot on the following day and
killed.

We have given a brief epitome of the letter that declared to Lady Wynde
that her prayer was answered, and that she was a widow.

She was sitting in the drawing-room at Hawkhurst when the letter was
brought in to her. She was still sitting there, the letter lying on her
lap, twice read, when her gray companion stole into the room.

“A letter from Sir Harold, Octavia?” said Artress, glancing at the
black-bordered missive.

“No, it is from that Surgeon Graham,” answered her ladyship, with an
exultant thrill in her low, soft voice. “You cannot guess the news,
Artress. Sir Harold is dead!”

“Dead?”

“Yes,” cried Lady Wynde, “and I am a widow. Is it not glorious? A
widow, well-jointured and free to marry again! Ha, ha! Tell the
household the sad news, Artress, and tell them all that I am too
overcome with grief to speak to them. Let the bell at the village be
set tolling. Send a notice of the death to the _Times_. I am a widow,
and the guardian of the heiress of Hawkhurst! You must write to my
step-daughter of her bereavement, and also drop a note to Craven. A
widow, and without crime. The heiress of Hawkhurst in my hands to do
with as I please! Your future is to be linked with mine, my young Neva,
and a fate your father never destined for you shall be yours. I stand
upon the pinnacle of success at last.”




CHAPTER V. SETTLING INTO HER PLACE.


The announcement of Sir Harold Wynde’s death in India, so soon too
after the death of his son and heir, produced a shock throughout his
native county of Kent, and even throughout England; for, although the
baronet had been no politician, he had been one of the best known men
in the kingdom, and there were many who had known and esteemed him, who
mourned deeply at his tragic fate.

The London papers, the _Times_, the _Morning Post_, and others, came
out with glowing eulogies of the grand-souled baronet whose life had
been so noble and beneficent. The local papers of Kent copied these
long obituaries, and added thereto accounts of the pedigree of the
Wynde family, and a description of the young heiress upon whom, by the
untimely deaths of both father and brother, the great family estates
and possessions, all excepting the bare title, now devolved.

The retainers of the family, the farmers and servants--those who had
known Sir Harold best--mourned for him, refusing to be comforted.
They would never know again a landlord so genial, nor a master so
kindly: and although they hoped for much from his daughter, yet, as
they mournfully said to each other, Miss Neva would marry some day,
and the chances were even that she would give to Hawkhurst a harsh and
tyrannical master.

The little village of Wyndham, near Hawkhurst, the very ideal of a
Kentish village, had been mostly owned by Sir Harold Wynde. To him
had belonged the row of shops, the old inn with its creaking sign,
and most of the neat houses that stood in gardens along the single
street. It was Sir Harold who had caused to be built the little new
stone church, with its slender spire, and in this church the mourning
villagers gathered to listen to the sermon that was preached in
commemoration of the baronet’s death.

Lady Wynde was not present to listen to this sermon. Her gray
companion, attired in deep mourning, with the entire household of
Hawkhurst, was there, and the young clergyman made a feeling allusion
to “the bereaved young widow, sitting alone in her darkened chamber and
weeping for her dead, refusing like Rachel of old, to be comforted.”
Many of the kindly women present shed tears at this picture, but
Artress smiled behind her double mourning vail. She knew that Lady
Wynde was lying upon a sofa in her luxurious sitting-room at Hawkhurst,
busy with a French novel, and she knew also that not one tear had
dimmed her ladyship’s black eyes since the news had come of Sir
Harold’s horrible fate.

Neighbors and friends thronged to Hawkhurst to offer their condolences
to the young widow. For the first week she was reported inconsolable,
and refused to see any one; but a box of the most elegant and
fashionable mourning having come down from London, Lady Wynde began
to receive her visitors. She affected to be quite broken down by her
bereavement, and for weeks did not go out of doors. And when, finally,
being urged to take care of her health and to become resigned to her
loss, she took morning drives, her equipage looked like a funeral one,
her carriage and horses being alike black, and her own face being
shrouded in double folds of sombre crape.

Artress had written to Sir Harold’s daughter immediately upon the
arrival of the news of Sir Harold’s death, but the letter had been
cold and practical, and contained merely the terrible announcement,
without one line to soften its horror. About a week later, no letter
having been received from Neva, Lady Wynde wrote a very pathetic
letter, full of protestations of sympathy, and setting forth her own
mock sorrow as something genuinely heart-rending, and declaring herself
utterly prostrated in both body and mind. Her ladyship offered her
condolences to the bereaved daughter, assuring her that henceforth they
“must be all the world to each other,” and concluded her letter by
the false statement that it had been the late Sir Harold’s wish that
his daughter should remain at her Paris school a year longer, and, as
the wishes of the dead are sacred, Lady Wynde had sacrificed her own
personal feelings in the matter, and had consented that Neva should
remain another year “under the care of her excellent French teachers.”

“That disposes of the girl for a year,” commented Lady Wynde, as she
sealed the missive. “I won’t have her here to spy upon me until the
year of mourning is over, and I am free to do just as I please.”

So the letter was dispatched, and the baronet’s daughter was condemned
to continue her school tasks, even though her heart might be breaking.
There was no leisure for her in which to weep for the fate of her noble
father; no one who had known him with whom she might talk of him; and
only in the long and lonely night times was she free to weep for him,
and then indeed her pillow was wetted with her tears.

About three weeks after the receipt of the letter from India announcing
Sir Harold’s death, the baronet’s solicitor at Canterbury received
a note from the widow, requesting him to call at Hawkhurst on the
following day. He obeyed the summons, bringing with him a copy of
Sir Harold’s will, made, as will be remembered, upon the day of the
baronet’s departure from England. Lady Wynde, clad in the deepest
weeds of woe, and attended by Artress, also in mourning, received the
solicitor in the library, a grand apartment with vaulted ceiling, and
lofty walls lined with books in uniform Russia leather bindings.

“I have sent for you, Mr. Atkins,” said Lady Wynde, when the customary
greetings had been exchanged, “to learn if poor Sir Harold left a will.
I had his desk searched, and no document of the sort can be found. If
he made no will, I am anxious to know how I am to be affected by the
omission.”

Mr. Atkins, a thin, small man, with a large, bald head, looked
surprised at the simple directness of this speech. He had expected to
find her ladyship overcome with grief, as report portrayed her; but
her eyes were as bright and tearless, her cheeks as red, her features
as composed, as if the business in hand were of the most trivial and
unimportant description. Atkins, who had appreciated Sir Harold’s grand
nature, felt an aversion to Lady Wynde from this moment.

“She didn’t care for him,” he mentally decided on the instant. “She’s
an arrant humbug, and poor Sir Harold’s love was wasted on her. Upon
my soul, I believe all she cared about him was for the title and his
money.”

Lady Wynde’s sharp eyes did not fail to perceive the unfavorable
impression she had made. She bit her lip fiercely, and her cheeks
flushed hotly. Her brows arched themselves superciliously, and Mr.
Atkins, marking her impatience, hastened to answer:

“Sir Harold left a will, my lady. It was drawn up at my office at
Canterbury upon the day on which he left England for India. You will
remember that he left Hawkhurst in the morning and drove to Canterbury.
He came direct to my office, and dictated and signed his will. He
then proceeded directly to the station and went by train to Dover, and
crossed to Calais. The will was left in my keeping and is, there can be
no question, the last will and testament of Sir Harold Wynde.”

“I presume no one will care to question the will,” said Lady Wynde
coldly, “although Sir Harold was in a very excited frame of mind that
morning, on account of the news of his son’s illness, and the pain
of leaving his home and me. Nevertheless, I dare say he was quite
competent to dictate a will. I sent you the particulars of Sir Harold’s
death, with some of the letters detailing the sad event which I have
received from India. There being no possible doubt of his awful fate,
it is time to prove his will. I wish you to give me some idea of its
contents.”

The solicitor drew out a long leathern pocket-book and took from it a
neatly folded paper.

“I have here a copy of the will,” he said briefly. “Is it your
ladyship’s wish to have the will formally read, in the presence of
witnesses?”

“No, that is unnecessary. Leave out the usual useless preamble and
tell me what disposition my husband made of his property--the freehold
farms, the money in bank, the consols, the bonds and mortgages? All
these he was free to leave to whom he pleased. I desire to know to whom
he did leave them.”

There was a greediness in the looks and tones of Lady Wynde that
chilled Atkins. In her anxiety to learn the contents of the will, her
ladyship half dropped her mask and displayed something of her true
character, and he was quick to read it.

“Sir Harold Wynde, in expectation of the death of his son and heir,”
replied Atkins, in his most formal tones, “bequeathed all the property
you have mentioned, all his real and personal property, to his
daughter, Miss Neva Wynde.”

“All to her?” muttered Lady Wynde. “_All_, you say?”

“All, my lady. Miss Wynde also inherits Hawkhurst and the entailed
property. She is one of the richest heiresses in England.”

“And--and my name is not mentioned?”

“Sir Harold declares that you are provided for by the terms of the
marriage settlement. You have Wynde Heights for your dower house and
four thousand pounds a year during your life, with no restrictions in
regard to a second marriage--a very liberal provision I consider it.”

“And a very shabby one I consider it,” cried Lady Wynde, with a black
frown. “Sir Harold’s daughter seventy thousand pounds a year, and I
have a paltry four. It is a shame, a miserable, burning shame!”

“It is unjust, scandalous!” muttered Artress.

“Sir Harold thought the sum sufficient, and I must say I agree with
him,” declared Atkins. “Your ladyship was contented with the provision
at your marriage. If the allowance was unsatisfactory, why did you not
expostulate with Sir Harold at that time? Why wait until he is dead to
accuse him of injustice?”

“We will not argue the matter,” said Lady Wynde superciliously. “I
shall not contest the will. And now about my rich young step-daughter.
Who are her appointed guardians?”

There was a perceptible anxiety in her manner, which Atkins noticed
with some wonder. He referred to his copy of the will, which was open
in his hands.

“Sir Harold appointed yourself, my lady, the personal guardian of his
daughter,” he said slowly. “Miss Wynde is to reside at Hawkhurst under
your care until she becomes of age or marries. Upon the occurrence of
either of those events your ladyship is to retire to Wynde Heights,
or to whatsoever place you may prefer, leaving Miss Wynde absolute
mistress of Hawkhurst. Of course if Miss Wynde desires you to remain
after her marriage, or the attainment of her majority, you are at
liberty to do as you please. I think you comprehend Sir Harold’s
meaning. If it is not precisely clear, I will read the will--”

“Do not!” interrupted Lady Wynde impatiently. “I abhor all that
tedious phraseology. I understand that I am Miss Wynde’s sole personal
guardian, that I am to direct her actions, introduce her into society,
and that she is to give me the simple, unhesitating obedience of a
daughter. Is this not so?”

“It is,” assented Atkins, rather hesitatingly. “Sir Harold expresses
the hope that his widow and his daughter will love each other; and that
your ladyship will give to his orphan child a mother’s tenderness and
affection.”

“Sir Harold knew that he could depend upon my kindness to his child,”
said Lady Wynde hypocritically. “I promised him before he went away to
be a mother to her, although I shall be but a young mother, to be sure.
I shall be very good to the poor girl, whom I love already. I don’t
know anything about law, Mr. Atkins, but is not some other guardian
also necessary--some one to see to the property, you know?”

“There are three trustees appointed to look after the estate during
Miss Wynde’s minority,” answered Atkins. “Sir John Freise is one.
You know him well, my lady, and a more incorruptible, honest-souled
gentleman than he does not exist. He is a man of fine business
capacity, and Sir Harold could not have chosen better. I am also a
trustee, and I can answer for my own probity, and for my great devotion
to the interests of Miss Wynde.”

“And the third trustee--who is he?”

“The young Earl Towyn. He is the son of one of Sir Harold’s dearest
friends, as you probably know, and his youth admirably balances Sir
John’s age.”

Lady Wynde looked thoughtful. Her gray companion bent over her work,
embroidering a black monogram upon a black-bordered handkerchief, and
did not look up. Her ashen-hued lashes lay on her ashen cheeks, and she
looked dull, spiritless, a mere gray shadow, as we have called her, but
Atkins, studying her face, had an uncomfortable impression that under
all that coldness a fire was burning.

“She’s more than she looks to be,” he thought keenly. “I wonder Sir
Harold tolerated her in his house. How singularly she resembles a cat!”

Lady Wynde presently broke the silence.

“I understand the situation of affairs,” she said, “and I am obliged
to you for your prompt attendance upon my summons, Mr. Atkins. I shall
leave my money affairs in your hands. I desire my jointure to be paid
into the bank and placed to my credit, so that I may draw upon it when
I please. There is nothing more, I think.”

“I would like to make a few inquiries about Miss Wynde, if you please,
my lady,” said Atkins, with quiet firmness. “I understand that she
is not at home. Has she not been summoned from her school since her
father’s death?”

“She has not,” answered Lady Wynde haughtily.

“Pardon me, madam, but are you not about to summon her?”

“I am not. Miss Wynde will remain this year at school. Her studies must
be interrupted upon no account at this time.”

“Not even by her father’s death?” asked Atkins bitterly. “Sir Harold
mentioned to me his desire to have her at home--”

“Sir Harold Wynde is no longer master of Hawkhurst,” interposed Lady
Wynde, with increased superciliousness. “I believe, by the terms of
the will, that I am mistress here during Neva’s minority. Let me tell
you, Mr. Atkins, that I am my step-daughter’s sole personal guardian,
and that I will submit to no dictation whatever in my treatment of the
girl. If my husband had sufficient confidence in me to make me his
daughter’s guardian, the trustees whom he himself appointed have no
need nor right to comment upon my actions or interfere in my plans.
Permit me to assure you that I will brook no interference, and if you
try to sow dissension between Neva and me you are proving unfaithful to
Sir Harold--as well as oblivious of your own interests.”

Mr. Atkins sighed, and murmured an apology. He soon after took his
leave, and drove away in the chaise in which he had come. His heart
was very heavy and his face overcast as he emerged from the Hawkhurst
grounds into the highway, and journeyed toward Canterbury.

“It was a sorry day for Neva Wynde when her father died,” he murmured,
looking back at the grand old seat--“a sorry day! This handsome
black-eyed Lady Wynde, that everybody is praising for an angel of love
and devotion to her husband, is at heart a demon! She means mischief,
though I can’t see how. Poor Neva is booked for trouble!”

Enough of honest Mr. Atkins’ sentiments had been apparent in his
countenance to prejudice Lady Wynde against him, and to warn her that
he comprehended something of her real character. As may be supposed,
therefore, she did not again summon him to Hawkhurst.

The days and weeks and months of Lady Wynde’s widowhood passed on
without event. She carried herself circumspectly in the eyes of the
world. No visitors were invited to Hawkhurst, and her ladyship’s visits
to London were few and far between. She seldom went to Canterbury, and
her drives about the neighborhood of Hawkhurst were always of the most
funereal description, with black coach, black horses and black attire,
and a slow gait. Her ladyship was found every Sunday in the baronet’s
great square pew in the little Wyndham church, and as she always sat
with the silken curtains drawn, no one could know that she was not
absorbed in the church services. In short, during the year she had
determined to devote to mourning for her dead husband, the conduct of
Lady Wynde was such as to deepen her popularity throughout the county.
Sir John Freise enthusiastically declared her an angel, her neighbors
praised her, and only honest Mr. Atkins shook his head doubtfully when
her virtues were lauded, and dared to suggest that she might not be all
she seemed.

The year slowly wore away, and midsummer had come again. The languor
of Lady Wynde’s dull existence had begun to give place to a strange
restlessness. Her deep mourning had grown odious in her sight, and
was replaced by the lovely combinations of white and black, the
delicate lavenders and soft gray hues which are supposed to indicate a
mitigated grief. The hideous widow’s cap, not at all becoming to her
ladyship, was exchanged for lavender ribbons in her hair, and jewels
took the place of the orthodox mourning ornaments of jet. In her “half
mourning,” Lady Wynde appeared more than ever a strikingly handsome
woman.

“Artress,” she said one morning to her gray companion, as she looked
out of her sitting-room window upon the fair domain of Hawkhurst, “this
dreaded year is over at last. I have satisfied the demands of society;
I have hoodwinked the jealous and envious eyes of neighbors, and am
free at last. If I were to marry to-morrow, no one could say that I
had not treated the memory of Sir Harold Wynde with respect. With the
sacrifice of but little over two years of my life, I have won a fine
income, a splendid home during Neva’s minority, and the guardianship of
one of the greatest heiresses in England. That office is worth three
thousand a year to me while I hold it. Surely I have played my part
well.”

“You have indeed,” echoed Artress.

“Neva must come home soon, but my own business must be settled before
her advent on the scene. I shall write to Craven immediately. I will
have no further delay.”

She went to a small, beautifully inlaid writing desk, which stood in a
recessed window, and sitting down by it, wrote upon heavy velvet paper
the following words:

  “CRAVEN: You may come to me at last. There is no further obstacle
  between us.

  “OCTAVIA.”

This brief missive she inclosed in a square envelope, and stamped with
pale green wax and her favorite device.

The letter she addressed to The Hon. Craven Black, The Albany, London,
W.

She then touched her bell. To the servant who came at her summons she
gave the letter, ordering it to be posted at Wyndham village without
delay. When her messenger had gone, her ladyship gave a sigh of
consent, and murmured:

“I am about to reap the reward of all my schemes. Craven will be here
to-morrow!”




CHAPTER VI. HER LADYSHIP’S ACCOMPLICE.


The morrow to which Lady Wynde looked forward with feverish expectation
dawned at last, bright and clear, and deepened into a sultry afternoon.
The baronet’s widow spent hours at her toilet, and the effect of her
labors was satisfactory to her. She surveyed her reflection in a
full-length mirror in her dressing-room with a smile of complacency.
Her black hair was arranged in braids, curls, and finely crimpled
waves, after the fashion of the day, and in the midst of its prodigal
luxuriance, above her forehead, a jeweled spray flashed and glittered.
Her dress, made low in the neck and short in the sleeves, to display
her finely rounded shoulders and arms, was of lustrous silk of lavender
hue, and was draped with a black lace overskirt. A necklace and
bracelets incrusted with diamonds added brilliancy to her appearance.
Her liquid black eyes shone and glittered; her cheeks were red as
damask roses; she had never looked half so handsome in the days when
she had fascinated Sir Harold Wynde and made him adore her.

She had dismissed her maid, and was giving a last touch to the short
curls that dropped over her forehead, while she talked with Artress,
when wheels were heard coming up the drive. The gray companion flitted
to a shuttered window and peeped out. A cab was approaching the house,
and a man’s head was protruded from the window. His face was half
averted, as he apparently studied the exterior of the dwelling, but
Artress knew him. She glided back to Lady Wynde with the words:

“He has come!”

A sudden agitation seemed to convulse the soul of the baronet’s widow.
A sudden paleness swept over her face. She leaned heavily upon the
back of a chair, and stood there motionless until a servant brought up
a silver tray on which lay a large square card with the inscription,
“The Honorable Craven Black,” and announced that the gentleman had been
shown into the drawing-room. Then her ladyship started abruptly, the
color returning to her face in ruddy waves.

“Come, Artress,” she said, “we will go below. Yet stay. You may delay
your coming for half an hour. Surely no one can find fault with me for
seeing him alone a little while. Since I became a widow for the second
time, I have felt as if I lived in a glass lantern with the eyes of all
Kent upon me. Yet there is no need of carrying my caution too far.”

She gave a last glance at her reflection in the mirror, a last deft
touch to her attire, and then swept from the room down the stairs, and
slowly entered the drawing-room.

A gentleman within arose from his seat, and came forward with
outstretched hands and eager face. He was tall, handsome, fair-haired,
with light eyes full of sinister gleams, and his full, sensual lips
wore even now a cynical smile that appeared habitual to them.

He was the same man who had watched, from the pier head at Brighton,
the rescue of Octavia Hathaway from the sea by Sir Harold Wynde--the
same man who had witnessed the marriage of the baronet and the widow
from behind a clustered pillar in the church, and whose sinister
comments, as he emerged into Hanover Square, we have chronicled.

His quick glance swept the form and face of Lady Wynde; a look of
admiration burned in his eyes. He held out his arms. With a joyous
cry, the handsome widow sprang forward, and was clasped in his embrace.

“At last! At last!” she murmured.

“Yes, at last!” echoed Mr. Black, in tones of exultation. “Nothing
stands between us now, Octavia! We have lost nothing by waiting.
We have been guilty of no crime, and fate itself has played into
our hands. And you, Octavia, in the prime of your beauty, are more
magnificent than ever.”

He drew her to a sofa and clasped an arm around her waist. Her head
drooped to his shoulder. The flush of intense joy mantled her face.
With all her soul Lady Wynde loved this man, and her voice trembled as
she murmured:

“Oh, Craven, I am glad that my life of hypocrisy is over at last, that
there is no longer fear of discovery, and that we are free to enjoy
our reward. How long ago it seems since you and I formed and entered
upon our conspiracy which has placed me where I am! I was a widow with
a meager income and expensive tastes. You were a widower with a son to
educate, and a beggarly home and a beggarly income, so that you could
not afford to marry. How well I remember that night in London, when you
told me that if I had courage and boldness proportionate to my beauty,
I could make our fortunes and our happiness. I eagerly asked how I
could do this, and you showed me a copy of a Court Journal in which
was a paragraph to the effect that ‘Sir Harold Wynde had gone down
to Brighton, and that his presence there had created quite a flutter
among marriageable ladies.’ And then you told me of his wealth and
generosity, and urged me to try my fascinations upon him, to win him,
to marry him--and to succeed in good time to a handsome fortune upon
which you and I could marry. How long ago all that seems!”

“Was it not a clever idea, and cleverly executed?” said Mr. Black
triumphantly. “It was a successful conspiracy, Octavia, and to you
belongs the credit of its success. You went down to Brighton; you
introduced yourself in a novel manner to Sir Harold Wynde; and you
followed up the acquaintance with such effect that he offered you
marriage. And as that was what you wanted, you married him. You would
have made yourself a widow, but that fate saved you the trouble.
Two years and six months ago you were a poor widow, unable to marry
me because of our mutual poverty. Now you are again a widow, rich,
respected, honored throughout Kent, and can marry whom you please. I
am as poor as I was three years ago, and yet, Octavia, I know that you
prefer me to all other men. Is it not so?”

Lady Wynde blushed as she murmured assent. She was essentially bad,
being unprincipled and unscrupulous, but she loved Craven Black with
her whole heart, and with a fervor that astonished herself.

After the death of her first husband, Lady Wynde had first met Craven
Black. They had fallen in love with each other, as the phrase goes, at
their first meeting. He was a gambler, dissolute--an adventurer, in
fact, although his respectable birth and connections prevented the name
from attaching to him. He was a widower, and possessed but a scanty
settled income; yet, from his nefarious gains at the gambling table,
and in other ways, he managed to keep up the appearance of a man of
fashion, to keep a private cab and a tiger, chambers at the Albany,
and to educate his only son, now a man grown. His gains were, however,
precarious, and he declined entering upon marriage with a person even
poorer than himself.

Lady Wynde, in the days of her first widowhood, had been but little
better than an adventuress. It is true that she had a respectable
name, high connections, and a home in her aunt’s house in Bloomsbury
Square; but she was ambitious of social position, she chafed at her
poverty, and had too much worldly wisdom to marry Craven Black in the
then state of their fortunes, even had he desired it.

When his fertile brain, therefore, formed a scheme by which she could
enrich them both by imposing upon a high-minded gentleman, marrying,
and then putting him out of her way as if his life were valueless, she
hesitated, and finally consented. How she had carried out her share in
the foul conspiracy against Sir Harold, the reader knows.

“Four thousand pounds a year and a good house are worth serving for,”
said Mr. Black meditatively. “I think, however, that we have waited
long enough, Octavia. When are you going to marry me?”

“Not before September,” declared Lady Wynde decisively. “I must have
a magnificent wardrobe. I am so tired of dowdy black. And as I shall
have to give up the Wynde family diamonds to the heiress, I must order
some jewels for myself. Let us appoint our marriage to take place in
October. People will talk if it occurs sooner.”

Craven Black smiled cynically.

“Shall you care what people say?” he inquired. “I thought you were a
law unto yourself.”

“Indeed I am not. No woman in the world has a greater regard for ‘they
say’ than I have,” returned Lady Wynde emphatically. “You see I cannot
afford to turn my back upon Mrs. Grundy. I am ambitious to be a social
leader, and to become so, I must give people faith in my knowledge of
the proprieties of life. I occupy a high position here as the widow of
Sir Harold Wynde, and he was a sort of idol here, so that, I dare say,
people will be jealous of my marrying at all. And then, again, I desire
to gain the love and confidence of my step-daughter before I remarry.
Her guardianship is worth three thousand a year to me. I shall have
that sum annually as a recompense for chaperoning her.”

“I would be willing to chaperon several young ladies on such terms,”
said Mr. Black. “How old is she?”

“About eighteen.”

“And how large an income has she?”

“Seventy thousand a year.”

An eager light came into Craven Black’s eyes, and an eager glow mounted
to his fair face.

“A handsome sum,” he ejaculated. “She has a glorious inheritance. What
sort of girl is she?”

“A bread-and-butter school-girl, I suppose. I have never met her. She
was Sir Harold’s idol, and he was always wanting her to come home, but
I did not want her jealous eyes spying on me, so I contrived to keep
her away. She has not been at Hawkhurst since my coming.”

“You correspond with her?”

“I write to her now and then, and she sends me a duty letter, as I call
it, once a month. I generally read a line or two and throw them aside.”

“Has she any love affair?” inquired Mr. Black thoughtfully.

“Of course not. A girl in a French boarding-school might as well be in
a convent, as far as love affairs are concerned. What are you thinking
of, Craven?” and Lady Wynde looked at him jealously.

The glow on Craven Black’s face deepened, as he hastened to answer:

“I was thinking what if this girl were to take a liking to my son
Rufus? If we could bring about a marriage between her and Rufus, we
should retain her fortune in the family, and Rufus should agree to
allow us ten thousand a year for using our influence with her. What do
you think?”

Lady Wynde looked startled--pleased.

“The very thing!” she exclaimed. “I have been thinking that I should
not long be allowed to remain mistress of Hawkhurst after Neva’s
return. An heiress like her will not want for suitors, and she will
marry, and I cannot prevent it. The proper way is to direct her
marriage for our own benefit. Is Rufus likely to please a romantic
school-girl?”

“I think he cannot fail to please her. He is not yet one and twenty,
well-looking, accomplished, well educated, rather weak-willed and
easily governed, and like clay in my hands. He has romantic notions
about love and marriage, and if he is on the ground first I am sure he
will win the girl’s heart. I had a quarrel with him some weeks ago, and
he went away from me at my command, and has taken cheap rooms somewhere
and is trying to live by painting cheap pictures, or some such thing.
I’ll send for him, and have him up at Wyndham directly.”

“Why did you quarrel with him, Craven? I thought you were so fond of
him.”

“I was--I am. But he dared oppose his will to mine, and I turned him
adrift, to let him try how he could get along without me. He is not
long out of his university, and is perfectly helpless about earning
money, but he has some high-flown notions which hardship will cure. To
be frank, our quarrel was about a little music teacher that the boy
thought himself in love with. He has given her up, and will be glad
enough to be summoned to me. When will Miss Wynde be here?”

“I had a letter to-day from Madame Dalaut, Neva’s preceptress,
inquiring my wishes in regard to the girl. Neva has completed her
studies, and Madame Dalaut insinuates that she ought to be removed
from school and be allowed to enter society. Moreover, the midsummer
holidays have commenced, and the other pupils are gone to their homes.
I have concluded to send Artress over to Paris to-night to bring Neva
home.”

“Do so. My son shall also be at Wyndham to-morrow, and shall be
introduced to the heiress the day after her return. I will engage rooms
for Rufus and myself at the Wyndham inn, so that I can be near you
until our marriage. Is this plan agreeable to you?”

“Perfectly. We must be prompt in our actions. Neva must become engaged
to Rufus before she actually enters society here. Her marriage can
take place at the same time with our own in October. Elise can do the
two trousseaux at the same time. It is an admirable plan, and a worthy
continuation of our little game.”

They talked further, disclosing to each other their nefarious plans of
self-aggrandizement. Craven Black talked in lover-like fashion, and
even the exacting Lady Wynde was persuaded that his passion for her had
received a new impulse, and that he loved her as she loved him--with an
utter devotion.

As the dinner hour drew near Mr. Black took his departure, not caring
to excite the gossip of the household upon his first visit to Lady
Wynde. Directly after dinner, Artress, attired in gray travelling suit,
set out in a carriage for Canterbury, on her way to Paris, whence she
was to bring to her own home the heiress of Hawkhurst.




CHAPTER VII. NEVA’S FIRST LOVER.


The dingy little packet-boat from Calais to Dover, carrying the mails,
bore her usual complement of passengers upon the bright midsummer day
upon which young Neva Wynde returned after years of absence to her own
country.

A few tall, mustached Frenchmen, with cigars in their mouths; a
German or two with the inevitable pipe; a few students returning from
foreign universities; a few pedestrian tourists with hobnailed shoes,
preposterous alpenstocks, and a proudly displayed Bradshaw or Murray;
several stout and puffy Englishmen, with singularly pale faces, and the
usual number of rotund ill-dressed English women, with flimsy muslin
dresses and fur tippets in odd contrast--a conjunction much affected
by the average British lady--made up the majority of the passengers.
Some of these people walked about, affecting to enjoy the fresh breeze;
others studied the now useless guide-book, recalling their adventures;
and others scanned the blue shores of France alternately with the
chalk cliffs of England through the tourist glasses slung from their
shoulders, and wondered aloud if the passage would be accomplished in
the usual ninety minutes.

An odd feature of a Channel packet is the total disregard of
appearances manifested by the passengers upon it.

Very few, if any, persons go below into the stuffy little cabins, and
doubting souls provide themselves with ominous white bowls at the
outset of the voyage, and should illness come upon them they proceed
to make themselves comfortable upon the deck, or moan, or swear,
according to the sex of the sufferer, totally unmindful and oblivious
of lookers on.

In a corner by herself, at one side of the boat, her thick green vail
over her face shrouding a bowl that filled her lap, sat Artress, Lady
Wynde’s gray companion, in a condition of abject misery. She had no
thought of any one but herself in that crisis of her physical career,
and gave no heed to her young charge, the one great desire of her soul
being to find herself once more upon solid land.

At the opposite side of the boat, leaning lightly upon the rail, and
looking back with wistful, longing eyes upon the fading blue of the
French shores, stood a young girl who was strangely lovely. She was
slender and graceful as a swaying reed, and her lithe, light figure
carried itself with a slight hauteur that was inexpressibly charming.
Her high-bred manner, her evident gentleness and sweetness, betrayed
thorough culture of heart and mind. Her face was a rare poem. The
features were slightly irregular, and even in repose, with a grave
shadow upon her fair brows, her countenance had a bright, piquant
witchery. Her complexion was very pure and fair, her lips a vivid
scarlet, and under her broad forehead a pair of wondrous red-brown eyes
sparkled and glowed with strange brilliancy. Her hair, very abundant,
and of a reddish-brown tint as rare as beautiful, was gathered into
braids at the back of her small, noble head.

She was dressed in a traveling suit of black cashmere, and wore a black
hat surmounted with a scarlet wing.

She was Neva Wynde, the owner of Hawkhurst, one of the greatest
heiresses in England, and now the object of the sinister machinations
of her handsome step-mother and Craven Black.

Her school-days were over, and she was on her way to a home she had not
visited for years, and to a guardian whom she did not know, and who
was secretly her enemy. She had emerged from the pleasant security of
the school-room into a region of perils. A premonition of the dangers
before her seemed almost to come upon her now, and into her glowing
eyes crept a look of sorrowful yearning, and of passionate protest
against the friendlessness of her lot.

A few feet distant from her, also leaning upon the railing, stood a
young man, whose gaze, ostensibly fixed upon the French coast, now and
then rested upon the girl’s speaking face with an expression of keen
admiration and interest. He thought in his own soul that he had never
seen a being so fresh, so dainty, so pure, so rarely beautiful. She
seemed utterly alone. No one inquired how she felt, nor offered her a
seat, nor looked after her, and her young admirer wondered if she were
all alone in the world, as she seemed.

He was speculating upon the subject when a sudden lurch of the boat
upon the short, chopping Channel waves, caused Neva to involuntarily
loosen her hold upon the railing, and pitched her abruptly along the
deck toward him. He sprang forward and caught her in his arms. She
recovered her equilibrium upon the instant, and again grasped the
railing, blushing, confused, and murmuring her thanks for his civility.

“The Channel is rough to-day,” remarked the young gentleman. “Shall I
not find you a seat?”

“Thank you, no,” returned Neva, in her sweet, low, cultured voice. “I
prefer standing.”

The words were simple enough, and her manner was quiet and reserved,
but her voice went to the young man’s heart, thrilling it with a
strange sensation. He did not attempt a retreat, and Neva looked up at
him with something of surprise in her glorious red-brown eyes.

As he encountered her full gaze, his face flushed, his eyes glowed, and
a warm smile curved his mouth.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but are you not Miss Wynde of Hawkhurst?”

Neva bowed assent, with an increasing surprise.

“I was sure, when I met your full glance, that you were Neva Wynde,”
cried the young gentleman. “You do not remember me, I see; and yet,
when you went away to that odious Paris school you and I parted with
tears, and you promised to be true to me, little Neva. And you have
forgotten me--”

“No, no,” cried the young girl, an answering glow in her face, and
her eyes shining like suns. “Is it really you, Arthur? How you have
changed!”

She held out her hand to him, and he clasped it with a warm, lingering
pressure. Her eyes scanned his face in an earnest scrutiny, and she
blushed again when she saw how handsome he was, and how like he was to
an ideal she had long cherished in the very depths of her young soul.

He was fair, with warm blue eyes, golden hair, and a mustache of
tawny gold. He had a frank, noble face, and his sunny eyes betrayed
a generous soul. One who ran might read in his countenance a brave,
dauntless soul, a grand, unselfish nature, an enlightened spirit, quick
sympathies, and an honest, truthful, resolute character. Neva thought,
as she shyly regarded him, that he was very like a hero of romance.

“I can hardly believe that it is Arthur,” she said, smiling, her face
softly flushing. “You are not at all like the Arthur Towyn I knew, and
yet I can see the old boyish gayety and brightness of spirit. Your
mustache has changed your looks greatly, Lord Towyn.”

“It makes me look older perhaps,” said Lord Towyn gravely, “and as I
am but three and twenty, and have a ward who is eighteen years old, it
becomes me to produce as venerable an appearance as possible. Of course
you are aware Neva, that I am one of the three trustees or guardians of
your entire property, appointed by your father in his will?”

“Yes, I knew it a year ago,” replied Neva, the brightness fading a
little from her face. “Mr. Atkins wrote me about papa’s will. Mr.
Atkins and Sir John Freise are the two other executors. You are very
young for such an appointment, are you not, Lord Towyn?”

“That is a fault that time will mend,” said his lordship, smiling. “I
am young for the post, but Sir Harold Wynde knew that he could trust
me, especially with two older heads to direct me. I am only the least
of three, you know, and my youth was meant to balance Sir John Freise’s
age. Your school life is over, is it not, Miss Wynde?”

“Yes, it is over,” and Neva sighed. “I am on my way to a new sort of
life, and to new acquaintances and friends. I feel a sort of terror of
my future, Lord Towyn. I am foolish, I know, but a dread comes over
me when I look forward to going home. Home! Ah, all that made the old
house home has vanished. My poor brother George lies in an Indian
grave. Papa--poor papa--”

Her voice broke down, and she averted her head.

Young Lord Towyn came nearer to her. He longed to press her hand and
to offer her his sympathy. He comprehended her desolation, and the
unhealed wound caused by Sir Harold’s fate. His heart bled for her.

He had known Neva Wynde from her earliest childhood. They had played
together in the woods and gardens of Hawkhurst and before Neva had been
sent to her foreign school the child pair had betrothed themselves
and vowed an eternal fidelity to each other. The late Earl Towyn, the
father of Arthur, and Sir Harold Wynde had been college-mates, and it
had been their dearest wish to unite their families in the persons of
their children, but they had been too wise to broach the idea to the
young couple. They had, however, encouraged the affection of Arthur
and Neva for each other, and had looked forward hopefully to the time
when that childish affection should possibly ripen into the love of
manhood and womanhood. Soon after Neva’s departure for school Lord
Towyn had died, and his son, then at college, had become earl in his
stead. A mysterious fate had also removed Sir Harold Wynde, and Neva’s
step-mother, as is known to the reader, had schemes of her own in
regard to Neva’s marriage.

The young earl’s mute sympathy seemed to penetrate to Neva’s heart,
for presently she turned her face again to him, and although her mouth
quivered her eyes were brave, as she said brokenly:

“You will think me unchristian, Lord Towyn, but I cannot become
reconciled to the manner of papa’s death. If he had but died as George
died, peacefully in his bed; but his fate was so horrible--so awful! I
sometimes fancy in the night that I can hear his cries and moans. In my
own imagination I have witnessed his awful death a thousand times. The
horror of it is as fresh to me now as when the news first came. Shall
I ever get used to my sorrow? Will the time ever come, do you think,
when I can think of papa with the calmness and resignation with which I
think of my poor brother?”

“It was horrible, even to me, beyond all words to describe,” said the
young earl softly. “I loved Sir Harold only less than my own father,
and I have mourned for him as if I had been his son. All ordinary words
of consolation seem a mockery to one who mourns a friend who perished
as he did. He was vigorous and young for his years, noble and true and
good. Let us hope that his pangs and terrors were but brief, Neva.
Perhaps his death was not so terrible to him as it seems to us. It were
better so to die than to languish for years a prey to some excruciating
disease. And let us remember ‘whatever is, is right.’ Instead of
dwelling on the manner of his death, let us remember that his death was
but the opening to him of the gates of life eternal.”

Neva did not answer, but her face was very grave and tender, and her
sun-like eyes glowed with a softer radiance. There was a brief silence
between them, and finally Neva said, with an abrupt change of the
subject:

“Do you know Lady Wynde, Lord Towyn?”

“I have met her several times, but not since Sir Harold’s death,” was
the reply. “Is she traveling with you?” and the young earl glanced
around the deck.

“No, she sent her companion for me. That is Artress, on the other side
of the boat. I have never seen Lady Wynde.”

Lord Towyn looked his astonishment.

“Have you not been home since your father’s marriage, nor since his
death, Miss Wynde?” he asked.

“No. Papa came once to see me at my school after his marriage, but he
did not bring his wife. I have a picture of her which papa sent me. He
must have adored her. His letters were full of loving praises of her,
and in the last letter he wrote he told me that he desired me to love
and obey her as if she were my own mother. His wishes are sacred to me
now, and I shall try to love her. Is she very handsome?”

“She is considered handsome,” replied Lord Towyn. “She is dark almost
to swarthiness, and has a gypsy’s black eyes. Sir Harold almost
worshiped her.”

“Then she must be good?”

Lord Towyn hesitated. He knew little of the handsome Lady Wynde, but he
had an instinctive distrust of her.

“She must be good,” he answered thoughtfully. “Had she not been good,
Sir Harold would not have loved her.”

“Ah, yes, I have thought that a hundred times,” said Neva. “I shall try
to win her love. She is to stay at Hawkhurst as my personal guardian
during my minority, and there can be no indifference between us. It
must be peace or war. I intend it shall be peace. You see, Lord Towyn,
that I shall be almost completely dependent upon her for society and
friendship. I am coming back a stranger to my childhood’s home. Years
of absence have estranged me from the friends I knew, and I have no one
outside of Hawkhurst to look to, save Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise.”

“And me,” said Lord Towyn earnestly. “I am associated with them, you
know. But you will not be so utterly friendless as you think. The
old county families will hasten to call upon you, and you can select
your own friends among them. The Lady of Hawkhurst will be feted and
welcomed, and made much of. Your trouble will soon be that you will
have no time to yourself. I desire to add myself to your list of
visitors. I am staying this summer at a place of mine on the Kentish
coast. But here is the Dover pier straight ahead, Miss Wynde. We have
made the voyage in good time, despite the roughness of the Channel.”

There was no time for further conversation. The suggestive bowls were
being hidden under benches by the late sufferers, and bundles, boxes
and bags were being sought after with reviving energies. Artress
arose, found her traveling bag and umbrellas, and then sought for her
charge. As her gaze encountered Neva’s piquant face upturned to the
admiring glances of a handsome young gentleman, she looked shocked and
horrified, and her sharp, ashen-hued features became vinegary in their
expression. She approached the young lady with unseemly haste, and
exclaimed:

“Miss Wynde, I am surprised--”

“Pardon me,” said Neva, quietly interposing, although her face flushed
haughtily, “but I desire to introduce to you, Mrs. Artress, my old
friend Lord Towyn.”

The young earl bowed, and Mrs. Artress did the same, divided between
her desire to be polite to a nobleman and her anger that Neva should
have renewed his acquaintance while under her charge. Artress was deep
in the confidence of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, and her interests
were identical with theirs. She had a keen scent for danger, and in the
attitude of Lord Towyn toward Neva she recognized an admiration which
might easily deepen into love.

“Come, my dear,” said Mrs. Artress anxiously. “The boat is at the pier,
and we must hasten ashore. Give me your dressing bag--”

She paused, seeing that Lord Towyn had already possessed himself of it.
The young earl offered his arm to Neva, and she placed her hand lightly
upon it, and was conducted along the boat to the place of landing. Mrs.
Artress followed, biting her lips with chagrin.

The landing and examination of baggage were duly accomplished, and
Lord Towyn conducted his charges to a first-class coach of the waiting
train, seated them, and took his place beside Neva.

“Are you going to Hawkhurst also, my lord?” inquired Mrs. Artress
sourly, as he fed the guard handsomely, in order that no other
travelers might be ushered into their compartment.

“No, madam, not to-day,” answered the young earl pleasantly. “I am on
my way to Canterbury to consult with Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins
concerning some business relative to the Hawkhurst property, and I
shall probably do myself the honor to call with them upon Miss Wynde in
a day or two.”

“Lady Wynde will be happy to see you and to consult with you,” said
Mrs. Artress, with ill-concealed annoyance. “Miss Wynde is too young,
I should judge, to understand anything about business. Besides, her
friends should spare her all trouble of that description.”

“I shall be always ready to consult with you about business, Lord
Towyn,” said Neva in her clear, low voice. “I desire to fit myself
for my position as owner and dispenser of a large income. I regard
the money intrusted to me as a talent for which I shall be called to
account, and I want to learn to manage my affairs properly, and with
prudence and discretion. I think,” she added lightly, “that I shall
take Miss Burdett Coutts as my exemplar in this matter. She is a
business woman, I understand, and I should like to be like her.”

Mrs. Artress was silenced, but she thought within herself:

“Our young lady has opinions of her own, and has the courage to express
them. I am afraid that she is not the bread and butter school-girl we
expected. I am afraid that we shall have trouble with her.”

The journey to Canterbury was accomplished only too quickly for Lord
Towyn and Neva. They talked of their childhood, but no allusion was
made to their childish betrothal, although both doubtless thought of
it. The young earl explained that he had been over to Brussels for a
week, and had no thought of meeting her on his way home, and his face
as well as his tones told how glad he was of that meeting.

The Hawkhurst carriage with its liveried servants was in waiting at the
Canterbury station when they alighted. Lord Towyn assisted the ladies
into the vehicle, bade them adieu, and as they drove away followed them
with a lingering gaze.

“How beautiful Neva is!” he murmured to himself. “And so pure and
sweet and tender, yet spirited! I wonder if she remembers our childish
betrothal? I don’t like that Artress, and I do not quite like Lady
Wynde. I hardly think Neva will be happy with her, their natures
being so dissimilar. I must go out to Hawkhurst to-morrow, and judge
whether they are likely to get on together. If Neva does not like her
step-mother, she has but one avenue of escape from her dominion before
she becomes of age, and that avenue is marriage. If she would only
marry me. I love her already. Love her! I could adore her.”

A passionate flush arose to his fair cheek, and a tender glowing light
to his warm blue eyes, and he descended the steps and strode out of
the station, his heart thrilling with the strange and new sensation
which he now knew was love. And as he walked along the street, he vowed
within himself that he would woo and, if he could, would win young Neva
Wynde to be his wife.

Ah, he little knew the gulfs that would arise between him and her--the
dangers, the perils, the sorrows, they two must taste. And even as he
strode along, acknowledging to his own soul that he was Neva’s lover,
Neva was speeding across the pleasant country toward the home where
her enemy awaited her with schemes perfected, and an evil heart hidden
under a smiling face.




CHAPTER VIII. THE SON OF THE HONORABLE CRAVEN BLACK.


Upon the morning of the day on which Neva Wynde and Lord Towyn so
strangely encountered each other upon the dingy packet-boat--an
encounter that was destined to be fateful--a scene transpired in one of
the London suburbs to which we would call the attention of the reader.

In an upper room, in one of the dingiest houses of one of the dingiest
crescents at New Brompton, a young man, a mere youth, was engaged in
painting a picture. The room was bare and comfortless, with threadbare
carpet, decrepit and worn-out furniture, and springless sofa-bed--one
of the poorest rooms, in fact, a lodging-house of the fourth rate can
furnish. There were two windows without curtains, and provided only
with torn and faded blue paper shades, rolled up and confined with
cotton cord. A few ashes were in the grate, showing that although the
season was summer, a fire had lately burned there.

The picture which the youth was painting stood upon an easel before
one of the windows, and was but little better than a daub. It had been
sketched by a bold and vigorous hand, but was faulty in conception and
ill-colored. The light upon it was bad, and the hand that wielded the
brush was trembling and impatient, weakened by fasting and emotions.

The painter looked a mere boy, although he was full twenty years of
age. His complexion was florid, his eyes hazel in hue, and he wore his
brown hair long, artist fashion, and tossed back from his high white
forehead. He was handsome, with an honest look in his eyes, and a
pleasant mouth, but his chin was short, and weak in its expression, and
his countenance betrayed a character full of good and noble impulses,
yet with a weakness, indecision, and irresolution that might yet prove
fatal to him.

He was dressed in a shabby velveteen jacket, daubed with paints and out
at the elbows. His garments, like his lodging, betrayed poverty of the
most unmitigated description.

This young man was Rufus Black, the only son of Craven Black who was
Lady Wynde’s lover. And it was Rufus Black whom his father and Lady
Wynde had planned should marry Neva Wynde, and thus play into their
hands, enabling them to possess themselves of a portion of Neva’s noble
fortune.

As Mr. Black had said, he had quarrelled with his son some weeks
before, and cast him off, penniless and destitute of friends, to shift
for himself. He had drifted to his present lodgings, and was trying to
keep soul and body together by painting wretched pictures, which he
sold to a general dealer for wretched pay.

“The picture don’t suit me,” he said, pushing back his chair, that he
might get a better view of the painting. “It’s only a daub, but it’s as
good as the pay. I’ve been three days at it, and it won’t bring me in
even the fifteen shillings I got for the last. It will do to stop up a
chimney-place, I suppose--and I had such grand ideas of my art, and of
my talents! I meant to achieve fame and fortune, and here I am without
food or fuel, with the rent due, and with my soul so fettered by these
cares, so borne down by despair and remorse, that I am incapable of
work. I am gone to the dogs, as my father told me to go--but, oh, why
did I not travel the downward road alone? Why must I drag _her_ down
with me?”

A despairing look gathered on his face; the tears filled his eyes; a
sob escaped him. He looked haggard, worn and despairing. He was in no
condition for work, yet he resumed his task with blinded eyes, and
painted on at random with feverish haste.

He had grown somewhat calmer, with the calmness of an utter despair,
when the door opened, and a girl came in bearing a large basket heavily
loaded. She was a slender young creature, not more than seventeen
years old, and her pale face and narrow chest betrayed a tendency to
consumption. Her complexion was of a clear olive tint; her hair was
of a blue-black color, and was worn in braids; her eyes were dark
and loving, with an appealing expression in them; and, despite the
circumstances of her lot, she maintained a hopeful, sunshiny spirit and
a sunshiny countenance.

She was the young music-teacher for whose sake Rufus Black had
quarrelled with his father. She was the last member of a large family
who had all died of consumption. She had lost her situation in a
ladies’ school about the time that Rufus had separated himself from
his father; and after the young man had abandoned his parent, he had
hastened to her and begged her to marry him. He was full of hope,
ambitious, determined to achieve fame and fortune by his painter’s
brush, and she was weak and worn, sorrowful and nearly ill, and quite
penniless. Believing in his talents and ability to support them both,
she had accepted the refuge he offered her, and one week after Craven
Black had turned his son adrift, the young pair were married, and moved
into their present dingy quarters.

They had joined their poverty together, and soon discovered that the
achievement of fame and wealth was uphill work. Rufus was fresh from
his university, unused to work for his bread, and he had overrated
his talent for painting, as he presently discovered. He found it hard
work to sell his poor efforts, and he could not paint enough at first
to bring him in twenty shillings a week. It was now three months
since his marriage, and one by one his books, his better articles of
clothing, his watch, and other trinkets, had been sold or pledged to
buy necessaries or pay the rent. Upon this morning they had had no
breakfast.

“How big your eyes are, Rufus!” laughed the young wife, throwing
off her battered little hat. “You look as if I had brought you some
priceless treasure; but you well may, for I have the nicest little
breakfast we have had for a week.”

“Where did you get it?” inquired the young artist, his thin cheeks
flushing with an eagerness he would have concealed. “Have you prevailed
on the grocer to give us credit?”

“No, I could not do that,” and the young wife shook her head. “I’m
afraid his heart is as hard as the nether mill-stone we read about.
He thinks I’m a humbug--a cheat! But our landlady, Mrs. McKellar,
you know, has faith in your picture, and I borrowed two shillings of
her. See what a sumptuous repast we shall have,” and she proceeded to
display the contents of her basket, unpacking them swiftly. “Here’s
two-pence worth of coffee, a pennyworth of milk, a threepenny loaf,
and a superb rasher of ham of the kind described by the Irishman as ‘a
strake of fat and a strake of lane.’ And here’s a bundle of wood to
boil the coffee; and I’ve gone to the extravagance of a sixpenny pot of
jam, your appetite is so delicate. And now for breakfast.”

She piled her wood skillfully in the grate, put on her coffee-pot and
frying pan, and lighted her fire.

Then while her breakfast was cooking, she laid her table with her
scanty ware, and bustled about like an incarnate sunbeam, and no one
would have suspected that she too was weak and hungry, and that she was
sick at heart and full of dread for the future.

“So breakfast is provided for,” murmured Rufus Black, in a tone in
which it would have been hard to tell which predominated, relief
or bitterness. “I began to fear we should fast to-day, as we did
yesterday.”

The young wife turned her rasher of ham in the pan, and put her small
allowance of coffee in the pot, before she answered gravely:

“Rufus, I think I might get another situation to teach music. I have
good references, you know. I don’t like being so utterly dependent upon
you. You have not been used to work. I’m afraid we did very wrong in
getting married.”

“What else could we do?” demanded Rufus Black. “I could not see you
working yourself to death, Lally, when a little care would save you.
You had to go out of doors in all weathers, and you were going into
a galloping consumption. I expected to be able to support you, but
I’m only a useless fellow, after all. I thought I had talent, but it
has turned out like the fairy money--it has turned to dead leaves at
the moment of using it. I have a university education, and would be
thankful for a situation as usher in a dame’s school. I am willing to
dig ditches, only I’m not strong enough. Oh, Lally, little wife, what
is to become of us?”

Lally Black--she had been christened Lalla by her romantic mother,
after the heroine of Moore’s poem, but her name had lost its romantic
sound through years of every-day use--approached her young husband, and
softly laid her cheek against his. She stroked his hand gently as she
said:

“It is I who am useless, Rufus. You ought to have married a rich wife
instead of a poor little music-teacher. I’m afraid you’ll reproach me
in your heart some day for marrying you--there, there, dear boy! I did
not mean it. I know you will never regret our marriage, let what will
be the result!”

She caressed him tenderly, and then hurried to the fire intent upon
her breakfast. The coffee was steaming, and the ham was cooked. The
busy little housewife made a round of toast, and then announced that
breakfast was ready. Rufus drew up his chair to the table, and Lally
waited upon him, and was so gay and bright and hopeful that he became
infected with her spirit.

But when the delicious breakfast was over he became grave and haggard
again, and bowed his face on his hand and sat in silence, while she
washed the dishes and carefully put away the remnants of the meal. Then
she came to him and sat on his knee, and drew his hand from his face,
and whispered:

“Rufus, is your father rich?”

“He has some three or four hundred pounds a year--that’s all,” answered
Rufus. “Why do you ask?”

“Could he not assist us a little, if he wished?” ventured Lally. “I
have no relative to apply to. I had a great-aunt who married a rich
man, and I think she lives in London, but I don’t know her name, and
she probably never heard of me, so I can’t write or go to her. Let us
humble ourselves to your father, dear--”

“To what purpose?” interposed Rufus half fiercely. “My father is a
mercenary, villainous--Don’t stop me, Lally. I am telling the truth, if
he _is_ my father. Thank God, I took after my poor mother. My father
does not know we are married, and I dare not tell him. If I fear
anybody in this world, I fear my father.”

“But he must know some time of our marriage,” urged the young wife.
“You make me afraid, dear, that we did wrong in marrying. We are too
young, and I had to work for my living. Your father could never forgive
me, and accept me as his daughter. My family is of no account, and
yours is good. People think of all these things, and you will be looked
down upon for your unfortunate, ill-starred marriage. Oh, Rufus, if we
could undo what we have done, it might be well for us.”

The young husband endeavored to console his wife, and he had brought
back her bright hopefulness, when the postman’s knock was heard on
the street door. A sudden hope thrilled them both. They listened
breathlessly, and not in vain. Presently the housemaid’s heavy tread
was heard on the stairs, and she entered the room, bringing a letter.

When she had departed, Rufus opened the letter, and the young couple
perused it together. It was dated Wyndham village, and had been written
by Craven Black, and contained simply an announcement that the father
desired to be reconciled to his son; that he saw a way in which he
could make Rufus a rich man; and he begged his son, if he also desired
a reconciliation and wealth, and was willing to submit himself to his
father’s will, to come to him at once by the earliest train. Between
the leaves of the letter was a ten-pound note.

“You will go, of course?” cried the young wife excitedly.

“I wish I knew what he meant,” muttered Rufus irresolutely.

“He is your father, dear, and you will go,” urged Lally. “For my sake,
you will go. And Rufus, I beg you to yield to his wishes. They will not
be unreasonable, I am sure. Say you will go!”

Rufus hesitated. He knew that when with his father, he was a coward
without a will of his own. What if he should be driven into some act
he should hereafter repent? Yet at last he consented to go to his
father, and an hour later he divided his money with his wife, giving
her the larger share, and took his departure. At that last moment a
horrible misgiving came over him, and he ran back and kissed the little
sunshiny face he loved, and then he went out again and made his way to
the station, with a death-like pall upon his soul.




CHAPTER IX. A KNOT SUMMARILY SEVERED.


Rufus Black’s heart grew heavier still, and his sense of dread
deepened, as he steamed down to Canterbury in the express train. He
had a seat by a window in a second-class compartment in which were
four other passengers, but he was as much alone as if he had had the
compartment to himself. His travelling companions chatted and laughed
and jested among themselves, while he looked from his window upon
hop-gardens, green fields, and clustering hamlets, with sad, unseeing
eyes, and thought of his poverty, his friendlessness, and the slow
starvation that lay before him and his young wife.

“I could bear it for myself,” he thought bitterly. “But it is hard to
see Lally suffer, and I know she does suffer, although she seems so
light-hearted and brave. My poor little wife! Ah, what place have I in
the world of gay idlers and strong workers? I am neither the one nor
the other. What is to be the end of it all?”

He looked enviously at the workers in a brick-yard the train was
passing at that moment. There were men there, coarse and ignorant, but
brawny of limb and broad of chest; and there were children too, boys
and girls of tender years, working steadily for scanty pay; but they
were all workers, and they looked stolidly contented with their lot.

“With all my university education,” thought the boy artist bitterly,
“I am less capable of self-support than those ignorant brick-makers.
Why did my father bring me up with expensive tastes and like the heir
of fine estates, only to cast me off to starve at the first moment
I displeased him? What is the empty name of gentleman worth, if one
cannot keep it and be a worker? If he had put me to some trade, I
should not have been half so miserable to-day. I am only twenty years
old, and my life is a failure at the outset.”

The train swept on through new scenes, and the course of the young
man’s musings was changed, but their bitterness remained in full
strength.

“I wonder what my father can want of me,” he said to himself presently.
“How can he put me in the way of a fortune? He promised that I should
study law, but he has forgotten the promise. With a profession to
depend upon, I know I could win a competence. Perhaps it is to speak of
this he has sent for me this morning. He surely cannot mean for me,”
and the young man’s brow darkened, “to become a gambler, as he has
been? I shall refuse, if he proposes it. For my innocent Lally’s sake,
I will keep myself pure of his vices.”

This resolution was strong within him when he alighted from the train
at Canterbury and took a hansom cab to Wyndham village. The drive of
several miles was occupied with speculations as to what his father
wanted of him, and with thoughts of his young wife in her dingy
lodgings at New Brompton, and he did not even notice the houses, farms
and villas they passed, nor any feature of the scenery, until the horse
slackened his speed to a walk, and the driver opened his small trap in
the roof, and said:

“The house yonder on the ridge, sir, is Hawkhurst, the seat of the
Wynde family. Sir Harold Wynde died in India a year ago, you know, sir,
and the property belongs to his only child, a daughter. A mile or so
beyond is Wyndham village.”

Rufus Black turned his gaze upon the fair domain of the Wyndes. It lay
on both sides of the highway, stretching as far as his eye could reach.
The grand old mansion of gray stone, with outlying houses of glass
glittering in the summer sunshine like immense jewels, the great lawns,
the gardens, the park, the cool woods, all these made up one of the
fairest pictures the eyes of Rufus Black had ever rested upon.

“How glorious!” he said involuntarily. “And it all belongs to a lady!”

“Yes, sir, a mere girl,” replied the cabman. “She is at school in
France. It’s a great place, is Hawkhurst.”

He dropped the trap and urged on his horse, but Rufus continued to look
upon the house and estate with great, envious eyes. Why should all this
belong to one, and that one a mere girl, while he wanted for bread? His
soul was convulsed with bitterness and repining, and the shadow of his
trouble rested upon his face.

A few minutes of brisk driving brought them to Wyndham village, which
consisted merely of one long straggling street, lined with houses and
gardens. In the very centre of the street, upon four corners formed
by the intersection of a country road, was gathered the business
portion of the hamlet. Upon the corner was the village smithy, from
whose open door came the ringing sound of hammer upon anvil. A group
of countrymen were gathered about the door of the smithy, and a few
carts stood before it on the paved street. Upon a second corner was a
general shop and postoffice in one. Upon a third corner was a rival
establishment, of the same description, but without the advantage and
prestige of the postoffice, and on the fourth corner stood the Wyndham
Inn, with its swinging sign, ample court-yard and hospitable look.

It was an old stone building, with a wide portico in front, on which
were tables and chairs. Rufus Black was driven into the court, and
sprang out of the cab, at the same moment that the portly, rubicund
landlord came out to receive him. The young man inquired for his
father, and was informed that he was in his rooms at the inn. Rufus
paid and dismissed the cabman, and followed the landlord into the inn.

He was conducted up a flight of uncarpeted stairs, and the landlord
pointed out to him the door of a front chamber as the one at which he
was to knock. Rufus quietly lifted the latch and ushered himself into
the room, closing the door behind him.

The room was a pleasant little country parlor, with three casement
windows, a faded carpet on the floor, cane-seated furniture, and a
jug of flowers on the mantel-shelf. The sunlight streamed in, but its
heat was tempered by the delicious breeze. The Honorable Craven Black
was not in the room, but there were vestiges of his occupancy on every
side. Upon a small table stood his massive dressing case with mirror
and brushes mounted in exquisitely carved ivory, and with boxes and
bottle-stoppers of finely chased and solid gold. All the appointments
of the large case were luxurious in the extreme, and Rufus thought
bitterly that the sum which that Sybaritic affair had cost would be a
fortune to him in his own present destitution.

A beautiful inlaid writing case, a tobacco jar of the finest Sevres
porcelain, a Turkish pipe mounted in gold and amber, a liqueur case,
and various other costly trifles, were scattered lavishly about. The
Honorable Craven Black had never denied himself a luxury in his life,
and these things he carried with him wherever he went, as necessary to
his comfort and happiness.

Rufus Black’s lips curled as he looked on these luxuries and mentally
calculated their cost. He was in the midst of his calculation when the
door of the adjoining bedroom was opened from within, and his father
came out, habited in slippers and dressing-gown, and with an Indian
embroidered cap of scarlet and gold poised lightly on his fair head.

His light eyes opened a little wider than usual as he beheld his son,
and his usual cynical smile showed itself disagreeably around his white
teeth.

“So you’ve come at last, have you?” he exclaimed. “I expected you
yesterday.”

“I received your letter this morning, soon after breakfast, sir,”
answered Rufus, “and I came on at once in the express train. I have
changed my lodgings from the one you knew, and the letter was sent on
from my old to my new address.”

Mr. Black eyed his son critically, his cynical smile deepening.

“You have a general out-at-the-elbows look,” he observed. “You’ve gone
down hill since I threw you over. You look hungry and desperate!”

“I am both,” was the reply, in a reckless tone. “And I have reason to
be. I am starving!”

Mr. Black flung himself into the only easy chair the room afforded, and
made a gesture to his son to be seated upon the couch. Rufus obeyed.

“You are in the mood I hoped to find you,” declared the father, with
a disagreeable laugh. “Desperate--starving! That is better than I
expected. What has become of all your fine anticipations of wealth and
fortune achieved with your brush? You do not find it easy to paint
famous pictures?”

“I mistook my desires for ability,” cried Rufus, his eyes darkening
with the pain of his confession. “I have a liking for painting, and
I fancied that liking was genius. I find myself crippled by not
knowing how to do anything well. My pictures bring me in fifteen
shillings apiece, and cost me three days’ work. I could earn more at
brick-making--if I only knew how to make bricks. When you sent me to
the university, father, you said I should study a profession. I demand
of you the fulfilment of that promise. I want some way to earn my
living!”

“Better get a living without work,” said Mr. Black coolly. “I don’t
like work, and I don’t believe you do. You want to study law, but your
talents are not transcendent, my son--you will never sit upon the
woolsack.”

“If I can earn two hundred pounds a year, I will ask nothing more,”
said Rufus bitterly. “I have discovered for myself that my abilities
are mediocre. I shall never be great as anything--unless as a failure!
But if I can only glide along in the great stream of mediocre people,
and be nothing above or below them, I shall be content!”

“And you say this at twenty years old?” cried his father mockingly.
“You talk like one of double your years. Where have your hopefulness,
your bright dreams, your glowing anticipations, gone? You must have had
a hard experience in the last three months, to be willing to settle
down into a hard-working drudge!”

“My experience _has_ been hard.”

“I believe you. You look beaten out, worn out, discouraged. Now,
Rufus, I have sent for you that I may make your fortune as well as
mine. There is a grand prospect opening before you, and you can be one
of the richest men in England, if you choose to be sensible. But you
must obey my orders.”

“I cannot promise that before knowing what you demand,” said the son,
his face clouding. “I have no sympathy with your manner of life,
father. If you had not the advantage of titled connections, and did not
bear the title of ‘Honorable,’ you would be called an adventurer. You
know you would. I want nothing to do with your ways of life. I will not
be a gambler--not for all the wealth in England!”

“Don’t refuse till you are asked,” said Mr. Black harshly. “Don’t
imagine that I want to corrupt your fine principles by making a gambler
of you. I am no gamester, even though I play at cards. I play only as
gentlemen play. The game I have in hand for you is easily played, if
you have but ordinary skill. I can make you master of one of the finest
estates in England, if you but say the word!”

“Honorably? Can you do it honorably?” cried Rufus eagerly.

“Certainly. I would not propose anything dishonorable to one of your
nice sense of honor,” said Mr. Black, with sarcastic emphasis.

“What is it you would have me do?”

“You are young, enthusiastic, well looking and well educated,” said
Mr. Black, without paying heed to his son’s questions. “In short, you
are fitted to the business I have in hand. I intended to give you a
professional education, but if you obey me you won’t want it, and if
you do not obey me you may go to the dogs. I suppose your poverty has
driven that little low-born music teacher out of your head?”

“What has she to do with this business?”

“Nothing whatever. I want to make sure that you are well rid of her,
but perhaps it would be as well to leave her name out of the question.
You say you are starving. Now, if you will solemnly promise to obey me,
I will advance you fifty pounds to-day, with which you can fit up your
wardrobe and gratify any luxurious desires you may have.”

Rufus Black’s eyes sparkled.

“Speak,” he said impatiently. “I am desperately poor. I would do almost
anything for fifty pounds. What do you want done?”

Again Craven Black laughed softly, well pleased with his son’s mood.

“Did you see Hawkhurst as you came?” he asked, with seeming
irrelevancy. “It’s one of the grandest places in Kent.”

“I saw it. The driver pointed it out to me.”

“How did it look to you?”

“Like heaven.”

“How would you like to be master of that heaven?”

Rufus stared at his father with wide, incredulous eyes.

“You are chaffing me,” said the young man, his countenance falling.

“I am in serious earnest. The owner of Hawkhurst is a young girl, who
is expected home from school to-day. She has lived the life of a nun in
her French school, and does not know one young man from another. She
will be beset with suitors immediately, and the one who comes first
stands the best chance of winning her. I want you to make love to her
and marry her.”

Rufus Black’s face paled. The suggestion nearly overcame him. The
project looked stupendous, chimerical.

“I wondered that you should be down here at Wyndham, father,” he said,
“and I suppose you are here because you had formed some design upon
this young heiress. Do you know her?”

“No, but I know her step-mother, who is her personal guardian,”
explained Craven Black. “Do you remember the handsome widow, Mrs.
Hathaway, whom you saw once at the theatre in my charge? She
married Sir Harold Wynde. He died in India last year, leaving her
well-jointured. I came down to see her the other day, and it seems she
remembers me with her old affection. In short, Rufus, I am engaged to
marry Lady Wynde, and the wedding is to take place in October. She
is her step-daughter’s guardian, as I said, and will have unbounded
influence to back up your suit. The field is clear before you. Go in
and win!”

Rufus grew yet paler, and his voice was hoarse as he asked:

“And this is your scheme for making me rich?”

“It is. The girl has a clear income of seventy thousand pounds a year.
As her husband, you will be a man of consequence. She owns a house in
town, a hunting box in the Scottish Highlands, and other houses in
England. You will have horses and hounds; a yacht, if you wish it,
at your marine villa, and a bottomless purse. You can paint wretched
pictures, and hear the fashionable world praise them as divine. You can
become a member of Parliament. All careers are open to the fortunate
suitor of Neva Wynde.”

The picture was dazzling enough to the half-starved and desperate
boy. He liked all these things his father enumerated--the houses, the
horses, the luxuries, the money, and the luxurious ease and the honors.
He had found it hard to work, and harder to dispose of his work. All
the bitterness and hardness of his lot arose before him in black
contrast with the brightness and beauty that would mark the destiny of
the favored lover of young Neva Wynde.

He arose and walked the floor with an impetuous tread, an expression
of keen anguish and keener longing in his eyes. His father watched him
with a furtive gaze, as a cat watches a mouse. It was necessary to his
plans that his son should marry Neva Wynde, and he was sanguine that he
would be able to bring about the match.

“Well?” he said, tiring of the quick, impetuous walk of his son. “What
do you say?”

“It is impossible!” returned Rufus abruptly. “Utterly impossible.”

“And why, if I may be allowed to ask?” inquired Mr. Black blandly,
although a scowl began to gather on his fair forehead.

“Because--because--the young lady may have other designs for herself--I
can’t marry her for her money--I can’t give up Lally!”

“The--the young person who taught music? I understood you to say that
she was a corn-chandler’s daughter. And you prefer a low-born, low-bred
creature to a wealthy young lady like Miss Wynde? For a young man
educated as you have been, your good taste is remarkable. You have a
predilection for high-class society, I must say. What is the charm of
this not-to-be-given-up ‘Lally?’ Is she beautiful?”

“She is beautiful to me.”

“Which means that she is beautiful to no one else. The beauty which
requires love’s spectacles to distinguish, is ugliness to every one but
the lover. Low-born and low-bred,” repeated Mr. Black, dwelling upon
the words as if they pleased him, “with a pack of poor and ignorant
relations tacked to her skirts, ugly by your own confession, what a
brilliant match she would be for the son of the Honorable Craven Black!”

“She has no poor relations,” said Rufus hotly. “She has no relations
except a great-aunt, whose name she does not know, and who very likely
does not dream of her existence. It is true that Lally’s father was a
corn-chandler, but he was an honest one, and more than that, he was
an intelligent, upright gentlemen. You arch your brows, as if a man
could not be a tradesman and a gentleman. If the word gentleman has any
meaning, he was a gentleman.”

“I do not care to discuss the subtle meaning of words; I am willing to
accept them at the valuation society puts upon them. The pedigree of
‘Lally’ is of no interest to me. I merely want to know if you mean to
marry Neva Wynde and be rich, or marry your ‘Lally’ and starve. And if
you are willing to starve yourself, are you willing to have ‘Lally’
starve also? With your fine ideas of honor, I wonder you can wish to
drag that girl into a marriage that will be to her but a slow death.”

A groan burst from the youth’s lips. He wrung his hands weakly, while
the secret of his marriage trembled on his tongue. But he dared not
tell it. He was afraid of his father with a deadly fear, and more than
that, he had yet some hope of receiving assistance from his parent.

“I cannot give her up, father,” he said hoarsely. “I beg you to help
me in some way, and let me go. You are not rich, I know, but you have
influence. You could get me a situation under government, in the Home
office, Somerset House, or as secretary to some nobleman. If you will
do this for me, I will bless you while I live. Oh, father, be merciful
to me. Give me a little help, and let me go my ways.”

“By Heaven, I will not. If you cling to that girl, you shall have not
one penny from me, not one word of recommendation. You can drift to the
hospital, or the alms-house, and I will not raise a finger to help you!
I will not even give one farthing to save you from a pauper’s burial. I
swear it!”

Craven Black uttered the oath in a tone of utter implacability, and
Rufus knew that the heavens would sooner fall than his father would
relent. A despair seized upon him, and again he wrung his hands, as he
cried out recklessly:

“I _must_ cling to her, father. Cast me off if you will, curse me as
you choose--but Lally is my wife!”

Craven Black was stupefied for the moment. An apoplectic redness
suffused his face, and his eyes gleamed dangerously.

“Your wife? Your wife?” he muttered, scarcely knowing that he spoke.

“Yes, she is my wife,” declared Rufus, his voice gathering firmness.
“I married her three months ago. We have been starving together in a
garret at New Brompton. Oh, father--”

“Not one word! Married to that girl? I will not believe it. Have you a
marriage certificate?”

“I have. Here it is,” and Rufus drew from his pocket-book a slender
folded paper. “Read it, and you will see that I tell the truth. Lally
Bird is my wife!”

Craven Black took the paper and perused it with strange deliberation,
the apoplectic redness still suffusing his face. When he had finished,
he deliberately tore the marriage certificate into shreds. Rufus
uttered a cry, and sprang forward to seize the precious document, but
his father waved him back with a gesture of stern command.

“Poor fool!” said the elder man. “The destruction of this paper would
not affect the validity of your marriage, if it were valid. But it is
not valid.”

“Not valid.”

“No; you and the girl are both minors. A marriage of minors without
consent of parents and guardians is not binding. The girl is not your
wife!”

“But she is my wife. We were married in church--”

“That won’t make the marriage binding. You are a minor, and so is she.
She had no one to consult, but you married without my consent, and
that fact will render the marriage null and void. More than this,”
and Mr. Black’s eyes sparkled wickedly, “you have committed perjury.
You obtained your marriage license by declaring yourself of age, and
you will not become of age under some months. Do you know what the
punishment is for perjury. It is imprisonment, disgrace, a striped
suit, and prison fare.”

The young man looked appalled.

“Who would prosecute me?” he asked.

“_I_ would. You have got yourself in a tight box, young man. Your
marriage is null and void, and you have committed perjury. Now I will
offer you your choice between two alternatives. You can make love to
Miss Wynde and marry her, and be somebody. Or, if you refuse, I will
prosecute you for perjury, will have you sent to prison, and will brand
that girl with a name that will fix her social station for life. Take
your choice.”

Craven Black meant every word he said, and Rufus knew that he meant it.
The young fellow shuddered and trembled, and then broke into a wild
appeal for mercy, but his father turned a deaf ear to his anguished cry.

“You have my decision,” he said coldly. “I shall not reconsider it. The
girl is not your wife, and when she knows her position she will fly
from you.”

Rufus groaned in his anguish. He knew well the pure soul of his young
wife, and he felt that she would not remain in any position that
was equivocal, even though to leave him might break her heart. The
disgrace, the terror, the poverty of his lot, nearly crushed him to the
earth.

“What is your answer to be?” demanded Mr. Black.

The poor young fellow sat down and covered his face with his hands. He
was terribly frightened, and the inherent weakness and cowardice of his
character, otherwise full of noble traits, proved fatal to him now. He
gasped out:

“I--I don’t know. I must have time to think. It is all so strange--so
terrible.”

“You can have all day in which to consider the matter. I have engaged
a bedroom for you on the opposite side of the hall. I will show you to
it, and you can think the matter over in solitude.”

Mr. Black arose and conducted his son across the hall to a bedroom
overlooking the street and the four corners, and here, with a last
repetition of the two alternatives offered him, he left him.

Poor Rufus, weak and despairing, locked the door and dropped upon his
knees, sobbing aloud in the extremity of his anguish.

“What shall I do? What can I do?” he moaned. “She is not my wife. My
poor Lally! And I am helpless in my father’s hands. I shall have to
yield--I feel it--I know it. I wish I were dead. Oh, my poor wronged
Lally!”




CHAPTER X. NEVA AT HOME AGAIN.


The home coming of the heiress of Hawkhurst was far different from
that which her father had once lovingly planned for her when looking
forward to her emancipation from school. There was no sign of festivity
about the estate, no gathering of tenants to a feast, no dancing on the
lawn, no floral arches, no music, no gladness of welcome. The carriage
containing Neva Wynde and Mrs. Artress, and attended by liveried
servants, turned quietly into the lodge gates, halted a moment while
Neva spoke to the lodge keepers, whom she well remembered, and then
slowly ascended the long shaded drive toward the house.

Neva looked around her with kindling eyes. The fair green lawn with its
patches of sunshine and shade, the close lying park with the shy deer
browsing near the invisible wire fence that separated the park from the
lawn, the odors of the flower gardens, all these were inexpressibly
sweet to her after her years of absence from her home.

“Home again!” she murmured softly. “Although those who made it the
dearest spot in all the world to me are gone, yet still it is home. No
place has charms for me like this.”

The carriage swept up under the high-pointed arch of the lime trees,
and drew up in the porch, where the ladies alighted. Artress led the
way into the house, and Neva followed with a springing step and a
wildly beating heart.

The great baronial hall was not brightened with flowers or green
boughs. The oaken floor, black as ebony, was polished like jet. The
black, wainscoted walls, hung with ancient pictures, glittering
shields, a few fowling pieces, a stag’s head with antlers, an ancient
boar’s head, and other treasures, was wide, cool and hospitable. No
servants were gathered here, although Neva looked for them and was
disappointed in not seeing them. Most of the servants had been at
Hawkhurst for many years, and Neva regarded them as old friends.

It had been the wish of the butler and housekeeper to marshal their
subordinates in the great hall to welcome their young mistress, but
Lady Wynde, hearing of their design, had peremptorily forbidden it,
with the remark that until she came of age, Miss Wynde would not be
mistress of Hawkhurst. And therefore no alternative had remained for
the butler and housekeeper but to smother their indignation and submit
to Lady Wynde’s decree.

Mrs. Artress flung open the door of the drawing-room with an excessive
politeness and said:

“Be kind enough to enter, Miss Wynde, and make yourself comfortable
while I inform Lady Wynde of your arrival.”

“I am not a guest in my own home, and I decline to be treated as one,”
said Neva quietly. “I presume my rooms are ready, and I will go up to
them immediately.”

“I am not positive,” said Artress hesitatingly, “as to the rooms Lady
Wynde has ordered to be made ready for your use. I will ring and see.”

“Thank you, but I won’t put you to the trouble. I shall resume
possession of my old rooms, whatever rooms may have been made ready,”
said Neva half haughtily.

Her cheeks burned with a sense of indignation and annoyance at the
strangeness of her reception. She had not wished for the rejoicings
her father had once planned for her, but she had entered her own house
precisely as some hireling might have done, with no one to receive or
greet her, no one to care if she had come. She turned away to ascend
the stairs, but paused with her foot on the lowest step as a door at
the further end of the hall opened, and the housekeeper, rosy and
rotund, with cap ribbons flying, came rushing forward with outstretched
arms.

“Oh, my dear Miss Neva,” cried the good woman, who had known and loved
the baronet’s daughter from her birth. “Welcome home, my sweet lamb!
How you have grown--so tall, so beautiful, so bright and sweet!”

“You dear old Hopper!” exclaimed Neva, springing forward and embracing
the good woman with girlish fervor. “I began to think I must have
entered a strange house. I am so glad to see you!”

Mrs. Artress looked upon this little scene with an air of disgust, and
with a little sniff hastened up the stairs to the apartments of Lady
Wynde.

“Your rooms are ready, Miss Neva,” said Mrs. Hopper--“your old rooms. I
made sure you wanted them again, because poor Sir Harold furnished them
new for you only four years ago. I will go with you up stairs.”

Neva led the way, tripping lightly up the broad steps, and flitting
along the wide upper hall.

Her rooms comprised a suit opposite those of Lady Wynde. Neva opened
the door of her sitting-room and went in. The portly old butler was
arranging wreaths of flowers about the pictures and statuettes, but
turned as the young girl came in, and welcomed her with an admixture
of warmth and respectfulness that were pleasant to witness. Then he
took his basket of cuttings and withdrew, the tears of joy flooding his
honest eyes.

The girl’s sitting-room had been transformed by the loving forethought
of the butler into a very bower of beauty. The carpet was of a pale
azure hue starred with arbutus blossoms, and the furniture was
upholstered in blue silk of the same delicate tint. The pictures
on the walls were all choice and framed in gilt, and with their
wreaths of odorous blossoms, gave a fairy brightness to the room.
The silvermounted grate was crowded thickly with choice flowers from
the conservatory, whose colors of white and blue were here and there
relieved with scarlet blossoms like living coals. The wide French
windows, opening upon a balcony, were open.

“Ah, this is home!” said Neva, sinking down upon a silken couch, and
looking out of one of the windows upon the lawn. “I am glad to be back
again, Hopper, but it’s a sad home coming. Poor Papa!”

“Poor Sir Harold!” echoed the housekeeper, wiping her eyes. “If he
could only have lived to see you grown up, Miss Neva. It was dreadful
that he should have been taken as he was. I can’t somehow get over the
shock of his death.”

“I shall never get over it!” murmured Neva softly.

“I am making you cry the first thing after your return,” exclaimed
Mrs. Hopper, in self-reproach. “I hope those tears are not a bad omen
for you, Miss Neva. I have arranged your rooms,” she added, “as they
used to be, and if they are not right you have only to say so. You are
mistress of Hawkhurst now. Did you bring a maid from Paris, Miss Neva?”

“No, Mrs. Artress said it was not necessary, and my maid at school did
not wish to leave France. Mrs. Artress said that Lady Wynde had engaged
a maid for me.”

“Her ladyship intended to give you her own maid, but I made bold to
engage your old attendant, Meggy West, and she is in your bedroom
now. She is wild with joy at the prospect of serving you again.”

Neva remembered the girl Meggy with pleasure, and said so.

“I had dreaded having a strange attendant,” she said. “You were
very thoughtful, Hopper. I suppose I ought to dress at once. Since
Lady Wynde did not meet me at the door, she evidently means to be
ceremonious, and I must conform to her wishes. I am impatient to see my
step-mother, Hopper. Is she as good as she is handsome?”

“I am not fond of Lady Wynde, Miss Neva,” replied the housekeeper,
coloring. “Her ways are different from any I have been accustomed to,
but you must judge of her for yourself. Sir Harold just worshiped the
ground she walked on.”

Neva did not pursue her questioning, comprehending that Lady Wynde was
not adored by the housekeeper, whoever else might admire her. The young
girl was not one to gossip with servants, nor even with Mrs. Hopper,
who was lady by birth and education, and she dropped the subject. Soon
after Mrs. Hopper withdrew, and Neva went into her bedroom.

She found here the maid who had attended her before she had left home,
and who was now to resume service with her. The girl was about her own
age, bright-eyed and red-cheeked, hearty and wholesome, the daughter of
one of the Hawkhurst tenants. Neva greeted her so kindly as to revive
the girl’s old affection for her with added fervor, and, Neva’s trunks
having arrived, the process of the toilet was at once entered upon.

The dress of the heiress of Hawkhurst was exceedingly simple, but she
looked very lovely when fully attired. She wore a dress and overskirt
of white Swiss muslin, trimmed with puffs and ruffles. A broad black
sash was tied around her waist, with a big bow and ends at the back.
Ear-rings, bracelets, and brooch of jet, were her ornaments.

The housekeeper sent up a tempting lunch, and after partaking of it
Neva went down stairs to the great drawing-room, but it was untenanted.
She stood in the large circular window and looked out upon the cool
depths of the park, and became absorbed in thought. More than half an
hour thus passed, and Neva was beginning to wonder that no one came to
her, when the rustling of silk outside the door was heard, and Lady
Wynde came sweeping into the room.

Her ladyship presented a decidedly striking appearance. She had laid
aside the last vestige of her mourning garments, and wore a long
maize-colored robe of heavy silk, with ornaments of rubies. Her
brunette beauty was admirably enhanced by her attire, and Neva thought
she had never seen a woman more handsome or more imposing.

Behind Lady Wynde came Artress, clad in soft gray garb, as usual, and
making an excellent foil to her employer.

“Lady Wynde, this is Miss Wynde,” said the gray companion, in her soft,
cloying voice.

Neva came forward, frank and sweet, offering her hand to her
step-mother. Lady Wynde touched it with two fingers, and stooping,
kissed the girl’s forehead.

“You are welcome home, Neva,” she said graciously. “I am glad to see
you, my dear. I began to think we should never meet. Why, how tall you
are--not at all the little girl I expected to see.”

“I am eighteen, you may remember, Lady Wynde,” returned Neva quietly.
“One is not usually very small at that age.”

Her ladyship surveyed her step-daughter with keen scrutiny. She had
already heard Artress’ account of the voyage home from Calais, and of
Neva’s meeting with Lord Towyn, and she was anxious to form some idea
of the girl’s character.

She saw in the first moment that here was not the insipid,
“bread-and-butter school girl” she had expected. The frank, lovely
face, so bright and piquant, was full of character, and the red-brown
eyes bravely uplifted betrayed a soul awake and resolute. Neva’s
glances were as keen as her own, and Lady Wynde had an uncomfortable
impression that her step-daughter was reading her true character.

“Sit down, my dear,” she said, somewhat disconcerted. “Artress has been
telling me about your voyage. Artress is my friend and companion, as I
wrote you, and has lived with me so many years that I have learned to
regard her as a sister. I hope you will be friends with her. She is an
excellent mentor to thoughtless youth.”

Neva bowed, but the smile that played for an instant on her saucy lips
was not encouraging to the would-be “mentor.”

“I shall try not to trouble her,” she said, smiling, “although I shall
always be glad to receive advice from my father’s wife. I trust that
you and I will be friends, Lady Wynde, for poor papa’s sake.”

Lady Wynde sat down beside her step-daughter. Artress retreated to a
recessed window, and took up her usual embroidery. Neva exerted herself
to converse with her step-mother, and was soon conscious of a feeling
of disappointment in her. She felt that Lady Wynde was insincere,
a hypocrite, and a double-dealer, and she experienced a sense of
uneasiness in her presence. Could this be the wife her father had
adored? she asked herself. And then she accused herself of injustice
and harsh judgment, believing that her father could not have been
so mistaken in the character of his wife, and in atonement for her
unfavorable opinion she was very gentle, and full of deference. Lady
Wynde congratulated herself upon having won her step-daughter’s good
opinion after all.

“I must acquire a thorough control and unbounded influence over her,”
she thought. “But how can I do it? If her father had only left her
stronger injunctions to sacrifice everything to my wishes, I think she
would obey the injunctions as if a voice spoke to her from the grave.
She will obey in all things reasonable--I can see that. But if she has
formed a liking for Lord Towyn, how am I to compel her to marry Rufus
Black?”

The question occupied her attention even while she talked with Neva. It
made her thoughtful through the dinner hour, and silent afterward. Neva
was tired, and went to her own rooms for the night soon after dinner,
and Lady Wynde and Artress talked together for a long time in low tones.

“I have it!” said her ladyship exultantly, at last. “I have a brilliant
idea, Artress, that will make this girl my bond-slave. But I shall need
the cooperation of Craven. I must see him this very evening. It is
strange he does not come--”

“He is here,” said the gray companion, as the house door clanged and
heavily shut. “I will go to my room.”

She slipped like a shadow down the long triple drawing-room and out
at one door, as the Honorable Craven Black was ushered in at the
other. Lady Wynde rose to receive him, welcoming him with smiles,
and presently she unfolded to him the scheme she had just conceived,
and the two conspirators proceeded to discuss it and amplify it, and
prepare it for the ensnarement of the baronet’s daughter.




CHAPTER XI. LADY WYNDE’S IDEA ACTED UPON.


It was still early upon the evening of Neva’s return to Hawkhurst when
Craven Black took his leave of the handsome widow and set out upon his
walk to Wyndham. The summer night was filled with a light, pleasant
gloom; and the songs of the nightingales, the chirping and drumming of
insects in the Hawkhurst park and plantations, made the air musical.
But Craven Black gave no heed to these things as he strode along
over the hilly road. His mind was busy with the scheme that had been
suggested to him that evening by Lady Wynde, and as he hurried along,
he muttered:

“It’s a good idea, if well worked out. But there’s no finesse in it.
It’s too simple, if it has any fault. And the girl may see through it,
although that’s not likely. People who are guileless themselves are not
apt to suspect guile in others. We shall have no difficulty with her.
The only one who can balk our plans is that obstinate boy of mine, whom
I have not seen since he shut himself up in his chamber. I must know
his decision before I move a step further in this business. Of course
he will yield to me; he has never dared pit his will against mine, and
say to my face that he would not obey me. Poor weak coward! If he dares
cling to that girl he married, I’ll risk the exposure and disgrace, and
have the marriage legally set aside on the ground of his minority. By
Heaven, if he dares to beard me, he shall find me a very tiger!”

He set his teeth together and his breath came hissingly between them as
he strode heavily along the village street and approached the Wyndham
inn. He saw that his own rooms were lighted, and that the room that
he had assigned his son was dark. The fear came to him that Rufus had
stolen away and returned to his young wife with the mad idea of flying
with her, and, with a muttered curse upon the boy, he hurried into the
inn and sped swiftly up the stairs, halting at his son’s door, with his
hand on the knob.

It did not yield to his touch. The door was locked from within. Rufus
must be within that darkened chamber, and as this conviction came to
him Craven Black recovered all his coolness and self-possession. He
crossed the hall into his own room and procured a lighted lamp, and
then returned and knocked loudly on his son’s door. No voice answered
him. No sound came from within the room.

“Can he have committed suicide?” Craven Black asked himself, with a
sudden fluttering at his heart. “He was desperate enough, but I hardly
think he could have been such a fool as that.”

He shook the door loudly, but eliciting no reply, he stooped to the
key-hole, and cried, in a clear, hissing whisper:

“Rufus, open this door, or I’ll break it in! I’ll arouse the whole
house. Quick, I say! Be lively!”

There was a faint stir within the room, as if a tortured wild beast
were sluggishly turning in his cage, and then an unsteady step crossed
the floor, and an unsteady hand groped feebly about the door, seeking
the key. The bolt suddenly shot back, and then the unsteady steps
retreated a few paces.

Craven Black opened the door and entered the room, closing the portal
behind him. He set down his lamp, and his light eyes then sought out
the form of his son.

Rufus stood in the centre of the room, his eyes covered with one hand
to shade them from the sudden light, his figure drooping and abject,
his head bowed to his breast, his mouth white and drawn with lines of
pain. It seemed as if years had passed over his head since the morning.
It would have been scarcely possible to trace in this spiritless,
slouching figure, in this white, haggard face, the boy artist who had
left his young wife that morning. All the brightness, elasticity and
youth seemed gone from him, leaving only a poor broken wreck.

The cynical smile that was so characteristic of Craven Black’s
countenance came back to his lips as he looked upon his son. He read in
the changed aspect of the boy that he had achieved a victory over Rufus.

“I have come for your decision, Rufus,” he said. “What is it to be?
Disgrace, imprisonment, a blasted name? Or will you turn from your
low-born adventuress and accept the career I have marked out for you?
Speak!”

The hand that shaded the artist’s eyes dropped, and he looked at his
father with a countenance so wan, so woeful, so despairing, that a very
demon might have pitied him. Yet his father only smiled at what he
deemed the evidence of the lad’s weakness.

“Oh, father,” said the young man hollowly, “will you not have mercy
upon me--upon _her_?”

“None!” replied Craven Black curtly. “Again I demand your choice!”

Rufus wrung his hands in wild despair.

“If I abandon her, what will become of her?” he moaned. “She will die
of starvation! My poor little wife!”

“Do not call her again by that title!” cried Craven Black frowning.
“Can you not comprehend that the marriage is illegal--is null and
void--that she is not your wife? When she hears the truth, she will
turn from you in loathing. As to her support, I will provide for her.
She shall not starve, as she will do if you are sent to prison for
perjury. For the last time I demand your decision. Will you give up the
girl peaceably, or will you be forced to?”

There was a moment of dead silence. Then the answer came brokenly from
the young man’s lips.

“I--I give her up!” he muttered. “God help us both!”

“It is well,” declared Craven Black, more kindly. “You could not do
otherwise. You like the girl now, but a year hence you will smile at
your present folly. Why should you fling away all your possibilities of
wealth and honor for a silly boyish fancy? Cheer up, Rufus. Throw aside
all that despair, and accept the goods the gods provide you. The girl
will marry some one else, as you must do. Your future bride has arrived
at Hawkhurst, and to-morrow evening I shall take you to call upon her.
I suppose you have eaten nothing since the morning, and your first need
is supper.”

He rang the bell vigorously, and to the servant who came up gave an
order for supper--to be served in his own parlor. Taking up his lamp,
and drawing his son’s arm through his, he conducted Rufus to his own
rooms, and seated him in an easy-chair. The young man’s head fell
forward on his breast and he sat in silence, but Craven Black, rendered
good-natured by the success of his schemes, talked at considerable
length of the revenues of Hawkhurst, and the perfections of Lady Wynde,
and of Neva, whom he had not yet seen.

The supper of cold game was brought up, and Mr. Black ordered two
bottles of wine. Rufus refused to eat, having, as he declared, no
appetite, but he drank an entire bottle of wine with a recklessness he
had never before displayed, and was finally prevailed upon to take
food. When he had finished, he arose abruptly and retired to his own
chamber.

The waiter removed the remains of the supper, and Craven Black was left
alone. He sat a little while in his chair, with a complacent smile
on his fair visage, and then arose and locked his door, and brought
forward his small inlaid writing-desk and deposited it upon the table.

He produced from his pocket a small packet which Lady Wynde had given
him that evening, and opened it. It contained a dozen sheets of note
paper, of the style Sir Harold had liked and had habitually used. It
was a heavy cream-colored vellum paper, unlined, and very thick and
smooth. Upon the upper half of the first page was engraven in black and
gold the baronet’s monogram and crest, and below these to the right,
in quaint black and gold letters, were stamped the words, “Hawkhurst,
Kent.” It was upon paper like this that nearly all of Sir Harold’s
letters to his daughter had been written.

A dozen square envelopes similarly adorned with crest and monogram
accompanied the paper; and a tiny vial of a peculiar black ink, a half
stick of bronze wax, Sir Harold’s seal, and a half dozen letters,
comprised the remaining contents of the packet.

The curtains were drawn across the windows, and Mr. Black had carefully
vailed the keyhole of his door, so he leaned back in his chair, with a
pleasant feeling of security, and engaged in the study of the letters.
Five of them had been written by Sir Harold to his wife during the
early part of his visit to India, and bore the Indian postmark. The
sixth letter had been an enclosure in one of those to Lady Wynde,
and was addressed to Neva. It had evidently been thus inclosed by
Sir Harold under the impression that Neva would spend her midsummer
holidays at Hawkhurst in the absence of her father. The letter had been
opened by Lady Wynde and read, and she had thrown it aside, without
thought of delivering it to its rightful owner.

“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!

The forger began the letter with a declaration of the most tender,
paternal love for Neva on the part of the father in whose name he
wrote, and declared that he believed himself standing upon the brink
of eternity, and therefore wrote a few last lines to Neva, which he
desired her to receive as an addenda to his last will and testament.

The letter went on to state that Sir Harold adored his beautiful wife,
but that as she was still young, it was not his wish that she should
spend the remainder of her life in mourning for him. He desired her to
marry again, to form new ties, to take a fresh lease of life, and to
make another as happy as she had made him happy!

This message he wished to be delivered to Lady Wynde from his
daughter’s lips, as his last message to the wife he had worshiped.

And now came in the subtle point of the forged missive. As from the
pen and heart of Sir Harold Wynde, the letter went on to say that
the father was full of anxieties in regard to his daughter’s future.
She was young, an heiress, and would perhaps become a prey to a
fortune-hunter. From this fate he desired with all his soul to save her.

“I think I should rise in my grave, if my loving, tender little Neva
were to marry a man who sought her for her wealth,” the forged letter
said. “If I die here, I have a last request to make of you, my child,
and I know that your father’s last wish will be held sacred by you.
If I do not die, this letter will never be delivered to you. I shall
send it to the care of Octavia, to be given to you in the case of my
death. I know not why this strange gloom has come upon me, but I have a
premonition that my death is near. I shall not see you again in life,
my child, my poor little Neva, but if you obey my last request I shall
know it in heaven.

“My request is this. I have long taken a keen interest in the character
and career of a young man now at Oxford. His talents are good, his
character noble and elevated, his principles excellent. His name is
Rufus Black. He comes of a fine old family, but he is not rich. There
is not a man in the world to whom I would give you so readily as to
Rufus Black. He will come to see you at Hawkhurst some day when the
edge of your grief for me has worn away, and for my sake treat him
kindly. If he asks you to marry him, consent. I shall rest easier in my
grave if you are his wife.

“My child, your father’s voice speaks to you from the grave; your
father’s arm is stretched out to protect you in your desolation and
helplessness. I lay upon you no commands, but I pray you, by your love
for me, to marry Rufus Black if he comes to woo you. And as you heed
this, my last request, so may you be happy.”

There was a further page or two of similar purport, and then the letter
closed with a few last tender words, and the name of Sir Harold Wynde.

“It will do, I think,” said Craven Black exultantly. “I might have
made it stronger, ordered her to marry Rufus under penalty of a
father’s curse, but that would not have been like Sir Harold Wynde,
and she might have suspected the letter to be a forgery. As it is, Sir
Harold himself would hardly dare to deny the letter as his own, should
his spirit walk in here. I’ve managed the letter with the requisite
delicacy and caution, and there can be no doubt of the result. The
handwriting is perfect.”

He inclosed the letter, and addressed it to Miss Neva Wynde, sealing it
with the bronze wax, and Sir Harold’s private seal. Then he inclosed
the sealed letter in a larger envelope, that which had inclosed the
baronet’s last letter to his wife from India. The letter which had come
in this envelope was written upon three pages, and contained nothing
at variance with his forged missive. Upon the fourth and blank page of
Sir Harold’s last letter he forged a postscript, enjoining Lady Wynde
to give the inclosure--the forgery--to Neva, in case of his death in
India, but to keep it one year, until her school-days were ended, and
the first bitterness of grief at her father’s death was past.

Craven Black made up the double letter into a thick packet resembling
a book, and addressed it to Lady Wynde. He gathered together all his
scraps of paper and the envelopes remaining and burned them, and
cleared away the evidences of his night’s work. He extinguished his
lights, drew back his curtains, opened his windows to the summer
morning breeze, and flung himself on a sofa and went to sleep.

He was awakened about eight o’clock by the waiter at the door with his
breakfast. He arose yawning, gave the waiter admittance, and summoned a
messenger, whom he dispatched to Hawkhurst, early as was the hour, with
orders to give the packet he had made into the hands of Lady Wynde or
Mrs. Artress, Lady Wynde’s companion.

“Artress will be on the look-out for him,” thought Craven Black. “She
will meet the messenger at the lodge gates, and carry the packet
herself to Octavia. So that is arranged!”

He summoned his son to breakfast, and presently Rufus came in, worn and
haggard, having evidently passed a sleepless night. The two men ate
their breakfast without speaking. After the meal, when the tray had
been removed, Rufus would have withdrawn, but his father commanded him
to remain.

“I want you to write a letter to that girl in Brompton,” said Craven
Black, in the tone that always compelled the abject obedience of
his son. “Tell her it is all up between you--that she is not your
wife--that you shall never see her again!”

“I cannot--I cannot! I must see her again. I must break the news to her
tenderly--”

“Do as I say. There are writing materials on my desk. Write the letter
I have ordered, or, by Heaven, I’ll summon a constable on the spot!”

Rufus sobbed pitifully, and turned away to hide his weakness. He was
but a boy, a poor, weak, cowardly boy, afraid of his father, unable to
earn a living for himself and Lally, unable even to support himself,
and he had actually gained his marriage license by committing
perjury--swearing that he was of age, and his own master. He had laid
a snare for himself in that wrong act, and was now entangled in that
snare.

He felt himself helpless in his father’s hands, and sat down at the
desk, and with tear-blinded eyes and unsteady hand, dashed off a wild,
incoherent letter to his poor young wife, telling her that their
marriage was null and void--that she was not his wife--and that they
two must never meet again. When he had appended his name, he bowed his
head on his arms and wept aloud.

Craven Black coolly perused the letter and approved it. He folded it,
and put it in his pocket-book.

“I will take it to her,” he said quietly. “My cab is at the door, and
I am ready to start to London. I shall take the half-past ten express,
if I can reach Canterbury in time. You will await my return here. I
shall be back before evening. Reconcile yourself to your fate, Rufus,
and don’t look so woe-begone. I shall expect to find you in a better
frame of mind when I return. As to the girl, I will provide for her
liberally. Fortunately I am in funds just now. I shall send her away
somewhere where she will never cross your path again!”

Without another glance at his son, he took up his hat and went out. The
rumbling of the carriage wheels, as it bore Craven Black on his way to
Canterbury, aroused Rufus from his stupor. That sound was to him the
knell of his happiness!




CHAPTER XII. BLACK CONTINUES HIS CONSPIRACY.


As the hours wore on after Rufus Black’s departure from the dingy
little lodging he had called home, poor Lally became anxious and
troubled. Her young husband had inspired her with a great awe for his
father, as well as terror of him, but she was a brave little soul and
prayed with all her heart that Rufus would have courage to confess his
marriage, let the consequences of that confession be what they would.
She had a horror of concealment or deception, and she believed that
Craven Black would relent toward his son when he should discover that
he was really married.

As the afternoon of that first day of solitude wore on, and the hour
for Rufus’ return drew near, she swept and dusted and garnished the
dreary little room as well as she could, put the shining tin kettle on
the grate, and made her simple toilet, putting on her best dress, a
cheap pink lawn that contrasted well with her berry-brown complexion,
and winding a pink ribbon in her hair. She looked very pretty and fresh
and bright when she had finished, and she stood by the window, her
face pressed to the glass, all hopefulness and expectancy, and looked
out upon the opposite side of the crescent until long after the hour
appointed for her husband’s return. But when evening came on and the
gas lamps were lighted in the streets, her expectancy was changed to a
terrible anxiety and she put on her shabby little hat and hurried out
to a little newsstand, investing a penny in an evening paper, with a
vague idea that there must have been an accident on the line and that
her husband had perhaps been killed.

But no accident being reported, she returned to her poor little home,
and waited for him with what patience she could summon. But he came
not, and no message, letter, or telegram came to allay her fears. She
waited for him until midnight, hearkening to every step in the street,
and then lay down without undressing, consoling herself with the
thought that Rufus would be home in the morning.

But morning came, and Rufus did not come. Poor Lally was too anxious
to prepare her breakfast, and sustained her strength by eating a piece
of bread while she watched from the window. She assured herself that
it was all right, that Rufus’ prolonged absence was a sign that he had
reconciled himself with his father, and that probably he would return
in company with his parent. This idea prompted her to brush her tangled
waves of hair, and to press out her tumbled dress and otherwise make
herself presentable.

As the day deepened a conviction that something had happened that was
adverse to her happiness dawned upon her. It was not like Rufus to
leave her in such suspense, and she was sure that some harm had come to
him.

“Perhaps he has been murdered and thrown out of the railway coach,” she
thought, her round eyes growing big with horror. “I will go to Wyndham
by the next train.”

She was about to put on her hat when her landlady, a coarse, ill-bred
woman, opened the door unceremoniously, and entered her presence.

“Going out, Mrs. Black?” she demanded, with a sniff of suspicion. “I
hope you are not going off, like the last lodger I had in this ’ere
blessed room, without paying of the rent? I hope you don’t intend to
give me the slip, Mrs. Black, which you’ve got no clothes nor furniture
to pay the rent, and you owing ten and sixpence!”

“I have the money for the rent, Mrs. McKellar,” answered Lally,
producing her pocket-book, while her childish face flushed. “I have no
intention of giving you the slip, as you call it. I--I am going down
into the country to look for my husband. Here is your pay.”

The landlady took her money with an air of relief. Her greed satisfied,
her curiosity became ascendant.

“Where is Mr. Black, if I may be so bold?” she inquired. “It’s not like
him to be away over night. But young men will be young men, Mrs. Black,
whether they are young gentlemen or otherwise, and they will have their
sprees, you know, Mrs. Black, although I _would_ say that Mr. Black
seemed as steady a young gentlemen as one could wish to see.”

“He _is_ steady,” asserted the young wife, half indignantly. “He never
goes on a spree. He--he went to see his father, and said he would be
back last night. And, oh, I am so anxious!” she cried, her terrors
getting the better of her reserve. “I am sure he would never have
stayed away like this if something had not happened to him.”

“Perhaps he’s deserted you?” suggested her Job’s comforter. “Men desert
their wives every day. Lawks! What is that?” the landlady ejaculated,
as a loud double knock was heard on the street door. “It’s not the
postman. Perhaps Mr. Black has been killed, and they’re bringing home
his body.”

The poor young wife uttered a wild shriek and flew to the head of
the stairs, the ponderous landlady hurrying after her, and reaching
her side just as the slipshod maid-servant opened the door, giving
admittance to Craven Black.

The landlady descended the stairs noisily, and Lally retreated to her
room. She had hardly gained it when Mr. Black came up the stairs alone
and knocked at the door. She gave him admittance, her big round eyes
full of questioning terror, her pale lips framing the words:

“My husband?”

Mr. Black, holding his hat in his hand, closed the door behind him. He
bowed politely to the scared young creature, and demanded:

“You are Miss Lally Bird?”

The slight, childish figure drew itself up proudly, and the quivering
voice tried to answer calmly:

“No, sir; I am Mrs. Rufus Black. My name used to be Lally Bird. Do--do
you come from my husband?”

“I come from Mr. Rufus Black,” replied Craven Black politely. “I am
the bearer of a note from him, but must precede its delivery with an
explanation. Mr. Black is now in Kent, and will remain there for the
summer.”

“I--I don’t understand you, sir,” said poor Lally, bewildered.

There was a rustling outside the door, as the landlady settled herself
at the keyhole, in an attitude to listen to the conversation between
Lally and her visitor. Mrs. McKellar was convinced that there was some
mystery connected with her fourth floor lodgers, and she deemed this a
favorable opportunity of solving it.

“Permit me to introduce myself to you, Miss Bird,” said her visitor,
still courteously. “I am Craven Black, the father of Rufus.”

The young wife gasped with surprise, and her face whitened suddenly.
She sat down abruptly, with her hand upon her heart.

“His father?” she murmured.

Craven Black bowed, while he regarded her and her surroundings
curiously. The dingy, poverty-stricken little room, with its meagre
plenishing and no luxuries, struck him as being but one remove from an
alms-house. The young wife, in her wretchedly poor attire, with her
big black eyes and brown face, from which all color had been stricken
by his announcement, seemed to him a very commonplace young person,
quite of the lower orders, and he wondered that his university bred son
could have loved her, and that he still desired to cling to her and his
poverty, rather than to leave her and wed an heiress.

For a moment or more Lally remained motionless and stupefied, and then
the color flashed back to her cheeks and lips, and the brightness to
her eyes. She could interpret the visit of Craven Black in but one
manner--as a token of his reconciliation with his son.

“Ah, sir, I beg your pardon,” she said, arising to her feet, “but I was
sorely frightened. I have been so anxious about Rufus. I expected him
home last night. And I could not dream that you would come to our poor
home.”

She placed a chair for him, but he continued standing, hat in hand, and
leaned carelessly upon the chair back. He was the picture of elegance
and cool serenity, while Lally, flushed and excited, glanced down at
her own attire in dismay.

“I understand that Rufus has remained in Kent,” she said, all
breathless and joyous, “and I suppose you have been kind enough to
come to take me to him. I fear I am hardly fit to accompany you, Mr.
Black. We have been so poor, so terribly poor. But I will be ready in
a moment. Oh, I am so grateful to you, sir, for your goodness to us.
Poor Rufus feared your anger more than all things else. I know I am no
fit match for your son, but--but I love him so,” and the bright face
drooped shyly. “I will be a good wife to him, sir, and a good daughter
to you.”

“Stay,” said Mr. Black, in a cold, metallic voice. “You are laboring
under a misapprehension, Miss Bird. I am not come to take you down into
Kent. You will never look upon the face of Rufus Black again.”

“_Sir!_”

“I mean it, madam. I pity you from my soul; I do, indeed. It were
better for you if you had never seen Rufus Black. You fancy yourself
his wife. You are not so.”

“Not his wife? Oh, sir, then you do not know? Why, we were married
at St. Mary’s Church, in the parish of Newington. Our marriage is
registered there, and Rufus has a certificate of the marriage.”

“But still you are not married,” said the pitiless visitor, his keen
eyes lancing the soul of the tortured girl. “Permit me to explain. My
son procured a marriage license, and he made oath that you and he were
both of age, and legally your own masters. He swore to a lie. Now that
is perjury. A marriage of minors without consent of parents is null and
void, and my consent was not given. Your marriage is illegal, is no
marriage at all. You are as free and Rufus is as free as if this little
episode had not been.”

“Oh, Heaven!” moaned the young girl, in a wild strained voice, sinking
back into a chair. “Not married--not his wife!”

“You are not his wife,” declared Craven Black mercilessly. “I cannot
comprehend by what fascination you lured my son into this connection
with you, but no doubt he was equally to blame. He is well born and
well connected. You are neither. A marriage between you and him is
something preposterous. I have no fancy for an alliance with the family
of a tallow-chandler. I speak plainly, because delicacy is out of
place in handling this affair. You are of one grade in life, we of
another. I recognize your ambition and desire to rise in the world, but
it must not be done at my expense.”

“Ambition?” repeated poor Lally, putting her hand to her forehead. “I
never thought of rising in the world when I married Rufus. I loved
him, and he loved me. And we meant to work together, and we have been
so happy. Oh, I am married to him! Do not say that I am not. I am his
wife, Mr. Black--I am his own wife!”

“And I repeat that you are not,” said Mr. Black harshly. “The law will
not recognize such a marriage. And if you persist in clinging to the
prize you fancy you have hooked, I will have Rufus arrested on the
charge of perjury and sent to prison.”

Lally uttered a cry of horror. Her eyes dilated, her thin chest heaved,
her black eyes burned with the fires that raged in her young soul.

“Rufus has recognized the stern necessity of the case, and full of
fears for his own safety he has given you up,” continued Lally’s
persecutor. “He will never see you again, and desires you, if you have
any regard for him and his safety, to quietly give him up, and glide
back into your own proper sphere.”

“I will not give him up!” cried Lally--“never! never! Not until his own
lips tell me so! You are cruel, but you cannot deceive me. I am his own
wife, and I will never give him up!”

“Read that!” said Mr. Black, producing the note his son had written. “I
presume you know his handwriting?”

He tossed to Lally the folded paper. She seized it and read it eagerly,
her face growing white and rigid like stone. She knew the handwriting
only too well. And in this letter Rufus confirmed his father’s words,
and utterly renounced her. A conviction of the truth settled down like
a funeral pall upon her young soul.

“You begin to believe me, I see,” said Mr. Black, growing uncomfortable
under the awful stare of her horrified eyes. “You comprehend at last
that you are no wife?”

“What am I then?” the pale lips whispered.

“Don’t look at me in that way, Miss Bird. Really you frighten me. Don’t
take this thing too much to heart. Of course it’s a disappointment and
all that, but the affair won’t hurt you as if you belonged to a higher
class in life. It’s a mere episode, and people will forget it. You can
resume your maiden name and occupations and marry some one in your own
class, and some day you will smile at this adventure!”

“Smile? Ah, God!”

Poor Lally cowered in her chair, her small wan face so full of woe and
despair that even Craven Black, villain as he was, grew uneasy. There
was an appalled look in her eyes, too, that scared him.

“You take the thing too hardly, Miss Bird,” he said. “I will provide
for you. Rufus must not see you again, and I must have your promise to
leave him unmolested. Give me that promise and I will deal liberally
with you. You must not follow him into Kent. Should you meet him in the
street or elsewhere, you must not speak to him. Do you understand? If
you do, he will suffer in prison for your contumacy!”

“Oh, Heaven be merciful to me!” wailed the poor disowned young wife.
“See him, and not speak to him? Meet him and pass him by, when I love
him better than my life? Oh, Mr. Black, in the name of Heaven, I beg
you to have pity upon us. I know I am poor and humble. But I love your
son. We are of equal station in the sight of God, and my love for
Rufus makes me his equal. He loves me still--he loves me--”

“Do not deceive yourself with false hopes,” interposed Craven Black.
“My son recognizes the invalidity of his marriage, and has succumbed to
my will. If you know him well, you know his weak, cowardly nature. He
has agreed never to speak to you again, and, moreover, he has promised
to marry a young lady for whom I have long intended him--”

A sharp, shrill cry of doubt and horror broke from poor, wronged Lally.

“It is true,” affirmed Craven Black.

The girl uttered no further moan, nor sob. Her wild eyes were tearless;
her white lips were set in a rigid and awful smile.

“I--I feel as if I were going mad!” she murmured.

“You will not go mad,” said Craven Black, with an attempt at airiness.
“You are not the first woman who has tried to rise above her proper
sphere and fallen back to her own detriment. But, Miss Bird, I must
have your promise to leave Rufus alone. You must resume your maiden
name, and let this episode be as if it had not been.”

“I shall not trouble Rufus,” the poor girl said, her voice quivering.
“If I am not his wife, and he cannot marry me, why should I?”

“That is right and sensible. Here are fifty pounds which may prove
serviceable if you should ever marry,” and Mr. Black handed her a crisp
new Bank of England note.

The girl crumpled it in her hand and flung it back to him, her eyes
flashing.

“You have taken away my husband--my love--my good name!” she panted.
“How dare you offer me money? I will not take it if I starve!”

Mr. Black coolly picked up the note and restored it to his pocket.

He was about to speak further when the door was burst violently open,
and the landlady, flushed with excitement, came rushing in like an
incarnate tornado. The rejection of the money by Lally had incensed her
beyond all that had gone before.

“I keep a respectable house, I hope, Miss,” snapped the woman. “I’ve
heard all that’s been said here, as is right I should, being a lone
widow and a dependent upon the reputation of my lodging-’us for a
living. And being as you an’t married, though a pretending of it, I
can’t shelter you no longer. Out you go, without a minute’s warning.
There’s your hat, and there’s your sack. Take ’em, and start!”

Lally obeyed the words literally. She caught up her out-door apparel,
and with one wild, wailing cry, dashed out of the room, down the stairs
and into the street.

Mr. Black and the landlady regarded each other in a mutual alarm.

“You have driven her to her death, Madam,” said Craven Black excitedly.
“She has gone out to destroy herself, and you have murdered her.”

He put on his hat and left the house. The girl’s flying figure had
already disappeared, and the villain’s conscience cried out to him that
she would perish, and that it was _he_, and none other, who had killed
her.




CHAPTER XIII. HOW NEVA RECEIVED THE FORGERIES.


While Craven Black was successfully pursuing his machinations to
destroy the happiness of two young lives, Lady Wynde had been active
in carrying out her part in the infamous plot against Neva. The little
packet of forged letters which had cost Lady Wynde’s fellow-conspirator
a night of toil, and which had been sent to Hawkhurst by a special
messenger, had been safely delivered into the hands of Mrs. Artress,
who had been waiting at the gate lodge to receive it. It had so
happened that not even the lodge keeper had witnessed the reception
of the packet, and she had dismissed the messenger, and carefully
concealed the packet upon her person, and returned to the house and to
the presence of her mistress.

Lady Wynde had not yet risen. She lay in the midst of her white bed,
with her black hair tossing upon her ruffled pillow, one white and
rounded arm lying upon the scarlet satin coverlet, and with a profusion
of dainty frills and laces upon her person. A small inlaid table stood
at her bedside, supporting a round silver tray, upon which gleamed
a silver _tete-a-tete_ set of the daintiest proportions, and at the
moment of her companion’s entrance her ladyship was sipping her usual
morning cup of black coffee, which was expected to tone and strengthen
her nerves for the day.

She dropped her tiny gold spoon, and looked up eagerly and expectantly,
and Artress, closing the door, drew forth the packet with an air of
triumph.

“I have received it,” said the gray companion, “and no one is the
wiser for it. The messenger thinks it a book, and the people at
the lodge did not even see it. We are in the usual luck, Octavia.
Everything goes well with us.”

“I am glad that Craven did not fail me,” murmured Lady Wynde. “I feared
he might find the task too heavy for him. But he is always prompt. Open
the packet, Artress.”

The companion obeyed, bringing to light the double letter, the one
Craven Black had forged being securely lodged within the last letter
Sir Harold Wynde had written to his wife from India.

Lady Wynde saw that the inner letter, addressed to Neva, was securely
sealed, read the forged postscript to the letter addressed to her, and
placed both under her pillow, with a complacent smile.

“Craven is a clever fellow,” she muttered. “And how much he loves
me, Artress. Not many men could have seen the woman they loved marry
another, but Craven and I have been worldly wise, and we shall reap
the reward of our self-denial. If we had married three years ago,
we should have been poor now, mere hangers on upon the outskirts of
society, tolerated for the sake of our connections, but nothing more.
But we determined to play a daring game, and behold our success. I am
again a widow, with four thousand a year and a good house while I live,
and I can lay up money if I choose while I continue the chaperon of
my husband’s daughter. And if our game continues to prosper, and Neva
marries Rufus Black, Craven and I will make ten thousand a year more
for the remainder of our lives. Rufus will have to sign an agreement
giving us that amount out of Neva’s income. Think of it Artress;
fourteen thousand a year!”

“Of which if you win it, I am to have five hundred,” said Artress, her
gray face flushing. “And if you do not win the ten thousand, I am to
have two hundred pounds a year settled upon me for life. Is not that
our bargain?”

Lady Wynde nodded assent.

“And,” continued Artress, “I am to enter society with you, to remain
with you as your guest instead of companion. I have been necessary to
you in playing this game. I have lived with you some three years now,
and though people know that I am a lady born, no one suspects that I
am own cousin to Craven Black, and soon to be your cousin by marriage.
We have joined our forces and wits together in this game, and we shall
enjoy our success together.”

This, then, was the secret of the connection between the two women so
unlike each other, yet so in unison in their schemes. Mrs. Artress was
the cousin of Craven Black, and being poor as well as unscrupulous,
she was his most faithful ally in his stupendously wicked schemes. The
interests of the three conspirators were indeed identical.

“I believe I will rise,” said Lady Wynde. “I am impatient to give this
letter to Neva, and to see how she receives it. Do you suppose she is
up?”

“She has been up these two hours,” answered Artress. “She has been
all over the house, has talked with the butler and the servants, has
visited the stable and gardens, and has even been into the park. She
means to assert her dignity as mistress of Hawkhurst, and to win the
hearts of her dependents, so that in case she disagrees with you they
will support her.”

Lady Wynde frowned darkly.

“Miss Neva is not yet of age, and so, although she owns Hawkhurst,
there may be a question whether she is its mistress, or whether I, who
am her guardian and her father’s widow, am mistress here.”

Her ladyship pulled the bell cord at her bed head, summoning her maid.
Artress retired into Lady Wynde’s sitting-room, and upon the appearance
of her attendant, the widow arose and attired herself in a white
morning wrapper with crimson trimmings, and put upon her head a small
square of white lace adorned with crimson bows. She had some time since
discarded her widow’s cap, as “too horribly unbecoming.”

She ascertained that Neva was now in her own rooms, and took her way
thither, the forged letters in her hand. Neva was alone when her
step-mother, after a preliminary knock upon the door, entered her
sitting-room, and she greeted Lady Wynde with a smile and look of
welcome.

Neva was looking very lovely this morning, flushed with her early
exercise, her red-brown eyes strangely brilliant, her red-brown hair
arranged in crimps and braids. She wore a simple dress of white lawn,
made short to escape the ground, and her ribbons and ornaments were
of black. Lady Wynde fancied that Neva’s half-mourning attire was a
reproach to her, and this fancied reproach, coupled with Neva’s bright,
spirited beauty, gave an impulse to her incipient dislike to the girl.

A vague jealousy of Neva’s youth and loveliness had found place in her
heart on the previous evening. Now that faint spark became fanned into
a burning flame. She aspired to be a social queen, and here under her
very roof, and under her chaperonage, was a girl whom she felt sure
would eclipse her. She would not be known in society as the handsome
Mrs. Black, but as the chaperon of the beautiful Miss Wynde.

But, despite her anger and jealousy, nothing could have been more
bland and affectionate than the greeting of Lady Wynde to her
step-daughter. She kissed her with seeming tenderness, and caressed her
bright hair as she said:

“How animated you look, my dear--fairly sparkling! I should fancy that
you have an electric sort of temperament--all fire and glow. Is it not
so? You remind me of your father, Neva. It will be very sweet to have
you with me, but my grief at my husband’s awful death has been so great
that until now I could never bear to look upon his daughter’s face. I
fancied you would look even more like him, and I could not have borne
the resemblance in my first grief.”

Lady Wynde sighed deeply, and sat down upon the blue silken couch,
drawing Neva to a seat beside her.

“I have come in to have a long confidential talk with you, my child,”
resumed her ladyship. “There should be between you and me strangely
tender relations. Your poor dear father desired us to be all the world
to each other, and for his sake, as well as your own, I intend to be a
true and good mother to you.”

“Thank you, madam,” said Neva, gravely, yet gratefully. “I will try to
deserve your kindness, and to be a daughter to you.”

“You do not call me mother,” suggested Lady Wynde, reproachfully.

The young girl colored, and her brilliant eyes were suddenly shadowed.
Her scarlet lips quivered an instant, as she said gently:

“Pardon me, dear Lady Wynde, but one has but one mother. I love my dead
mother as if she were living, even though I know her only through my
dear father’s description of her. I cannot give you her name, and I
think it would hardly be appropriate. You are too young to be called
mother by a grown-up girl. Does it not seem so to you?”

“Possibly you are right. Suit yourself, my dear. I seek only your
happiness. I can be a mother to you, even if you decline to give me the
name.”

“And I can equally be a daughter to you, dear Lady Wynde,” said Neva.
“We shall be like sisters, I trust. And I desire to say that I hope you
will consider yourself as fully mistress of Hawkhurst as when poor papa
was here. I shall not interfere with your rule here, even if I may,
until I attain my majority. While I live, my home shall be a home to my
father’s widow.”

“You are very kind, my dear. All these things will settle themselves
hereafter. I have now to deliver to you a last message from your dear
father--a message, as I might say, from the grave. Your father’s voice
speaks to you from the other world, my dear Neva, and I know that you
will heed its call.”

Her ladyship drew forth the packet of letters, and laid them on Neva’s
knee.

“You have there,” continued Lady Wynde, putting her handkerchief to her
eyes, “the last letter I ever received from my dear husband. You may
read it. You will see that he had a presentiment of his approaching
death; that a gloom hung upon him that he could not shake off. That
letter was written the night before his tragic death.”

Neva opened the letter with trembling hands and read it, even to the
postscript upon the last page which had been forged by the cunning hand
of Craven Black. Her tears fell as she read it.

“The inclosure--ah, you have not seen it,” said Lady Wynde--“is the
letter alluded to in that last page of the letter to me. You see that
it has never been opened. It is a sealed document to me in every sense,
although, as poor Sir Harold often told me of his secret wishes in
regard to your future, I have some suspicion of its contents. Your
father requested me should he die in India, to give you this letter one
year after his death. The appointed time has now arrived, and I deliver
into your hands the last letter your father ever wrote, and which
contains his last sacred wishes in regard to you. You are to receive it
as an addendum to his will, as a sacred charge, as if his voice were
speaking to you from his home in Heaven!”

She lifted the sealed letter, laying it in Neva’s hands.

The young girl received it with an uncontrollable agitation.

“I--I must read it alone,” she said brokenly.

“Very well, dear. Go into your dressing-room with it, and when you have
finished reading it come back to me. I have more to say to you.”

Neva departed without a word, and went into the adjoining room. As the
door closed behind her, Lady Wynde softly arose, crossed the floor, and
peeped in upon the young girl’s privacy through the key-hole of the
door.

Neva was alone in her dressing-room, and was kneeling down before a
low chair upon which she had laid the forged letter, as yet unopened.
The baronet’s widow watched the girl as she examined the address and
the seal, and then cut open the top of the letter with a pocket-knife.
Neva unfolded the closely written sheet, all stamped with her father’s
monogram, and with low sobs and tear-blinded eyes began to read the
letter, accepting it without doubt or question as her father’s last
letter to her.

Lady Wynde’s eyes gleamed, and a mocking smile played about her full,
sensual lips, as Neva read slowly page after page, still upon her
knees, now and then pausing to kiss the handwriting she believed to be
her father’s. The forger’s work had been well done. The tender pet
names by which Sir Harold had loved to call his daughter were often
repeated, with such protestations of affection as would most stir a
loving daughter’s heart when receiving them long after the death of her
father, and believing them to have been written by that father’s hand.

“Oh, papa! poor, poor, papa!” the girl sobbed. “He foresaw my
loneliness and desolation, and left these last words to cheer me. I
will remember your wishes so often expressed in this and other letters.
I will be kind and gentle and obedient to Lady Wynde. I will try to
love her for your sake.”

When she had grown calmer, Neva read on. As she read that her father
had a last request to make of her, she smiled through her tears, and
murmured:

“I am glad that he has left me something to do--whatever it may be.
I should like to feel that I am obeying him still, although he is in
Heaven. Dear papa!--your ‘request’ is to me a sacred command, and I
shall so consider it.”

Lady Wynde’s eyes glittered like balls of jet. She had estimated
rightly the childlike trust of Neva in her father’s love and devotion
to her.

“She accepts the whole thing as gospel!” thought the delighted schemer.
“Our success is certain. But let me see how she takes it, when she
finds what the ‘request’ is.”

Neva perused the letter slowly, and again and again, with careful
deliberation. Her surprise became apparent on her features, but there
was no disbelief, no distrust, betrayed on her truthful face. But a wan
whiteness overspread her cheeks and lips, and a weary look came into
her eyes, as she folded the letter at last and hid it in her bosom. She
bent her head as if in prayer, and murmured words which Lady Wynde
tried in vain to hear. They were simple--only these:

“It is very strange--very strange; but papa meant it for the best. He
feared to leave me unprotected, and a prey to fortune-hunters. Who is
this Rufus Black? Oh, if papa had only mentioned Lord--Lord Towyn!”

The very thought brought a vivid scarlet to Neva’s face in place of her
strange pallor, and as if frightened at her own thought, she arose and
went to the open window, and leaned upon the casement.

Lady Wynde stole back to her couch, and she was sitting upon it the
picture of languor when Neva returned, very pale now and subdued, and
with a shadow of trouble in her eyes.

“Have you finished your letter so soon, dear?” asked the step-mother,
sweetly. “I believe I can guess what were the last injunctions to you
of your dear father. He often told me of his plans for you. Shall you
do as he desired?”

Again the glowing scarlet flush covered Neva’s cheeks, lips, even her
slender throat.

“My father’s last wishes are a command to me,” she said, slowly, yet
as if her mind were quite made up to obey the supposed wishes of her
father.

“It was Sir Harold’s request that you should marry a young man in whom
he took considerable interest--one Rufus Black, was it not?” asked Lady
Wynde.

Neva uttered a low assent.

“And you will marry this young fellow?”

“My father liked him well enough to make him my--my husband,” said
Neva. “I can trust my father’s judgment in all things. I never
disobeyed papa in his life, and I cannot disobey him now that he seems
to speak to me from Heaven. If--if Rufus Black ever proposes marriage
to me, and if he is still worthy of the good opinion papa formed of
him, I--I--”

Her voice broke down, as she remembered the fair, boyish face, the warm
blue eyes, the tawny hair and noble air of Lord Towyn, and again with
inward shame the question framed itself in her mind--why could not her
father have recommended to her affection young Arthur Towyn, whom her
father had loved next to his own son? Why must he desire her to marry a
man she had never seen?

“You will marry Rufus!” demanded Lady Wynde, as the girl’s pause became
protracted.

Neva bowed her head--she could not speak.

Lady Wynde’s face glowed, and an evil light gleamed in her eyes. Her
heart throbbed wildly with her evil triumph.

“You are indeed a good and faithful daughter, Neva,” she said
caressingly. “In accordance with your father’s wishes, I must give Mr.
Black every chance to woo you. I believe he knows something of what Sir
Harold designed for you and him, and he is at this moment at Wyndham
village. He is staying at the inn with his father, and both will call
upon you this evening.”

“So soon?”

“The sooner the better. I have not seen Rufus Black, but his father
called here last evening. The father knew poor Sir Harold intimately.
And, Neva, dear, in honor of your guests, and in deference to my
wishes, you ought to lay aside all vestige of your mourning to-day. You
have worn black a year, and that is all that modern society demands.”

“The outward garb does not always indicate the feelings of the heart,”
said Neva. “I will change my manner of dress, since you desire it, but
I shall mourn for papa all my days.”

As Neva became thoughtful and abstracted, Lady Wynde soon took her
leave. She found Artress in her sitting-room and the gray companion had
no need to ask of her success.

“Our silly little fish has swallowed the bait,” said Lady Wynde. “She
is ready to immolate herself ‘for dear papa’s sake,’ although I could
see that she is already interested in Lord Towyn. I am impatient for
evening. I want to see how young Rufus Black will proceed in his task
of winning the heiress of Hawkhurst.”




CHAPTER XIV. THE MEETING OF NEVA AND RUFUS.


The hours of his father’s absence in London were full of an
insupportable suspense to Rufus Black. He was tempted to hurry up to
town by the next train, and only his weakness and cowardice prevented
him from flying to the succor of his wronged young wife. His terror
of his father was a lion in his way. And the act of perjury he had
committed in declaring himself of age when obtaining his marriage
license--an act more of thoughtlessness and boyish ardor than of
deliberate lying--arose now between him and poor Lally like a wall of
iron. He had erred, and must accept the consequences, but he thought to
himself that he would give all his hopes of heaven if Lally might have
been spared his punishment.

Anguished and despairing, he put on his hat and hurried out into the
street, eager for fresh air and for action. He passed out of the little
hamlet, seeing no one, and wandered into the open country, where a
noble park bordered one side of the road, and fair green fields
stretched far away upon the other. Both park and fields belonged to the
domain of Hawkhurst, but Rufus Black was unconscious of the fact until
he came out in full view of the great gray stone house throned upon the
broad ridge of ground, and set in its parks and gardens like some rare
jewel in its setting.

Then he recognized the place, and muttered moodily:

“So, this is what I am to sell my soul for? A goodly price, no doubt,
and more than it is worth. The owner of all this wealth cannot go
begging for a husband, be she ugly as Medusa. Perhaps, after all, I
have been troubling myself for nothing. She may not choose to accept
a shabby young man, without a penny in his pocket, and with a gloomy
face. If she refuses me, I dare say that father will let me go back to
Lally.”

This thought afforded him some comfort, and he plodded on, seeking
relief from his troubles in exertion. He cared not whither he went, and
his surprise was great when at last, arousing from his abstraction, he
found himself in the streets of Canterbury.

He was near an inn of the humbler sort, and, with a sudden recklessness
as to what became of him, he turned into the low barroom and demanded a
private parlor. A bare little apartment on the upper floor, overlooking
the inn stables, was assigned him. The floor was uncovered, and a deal
table, rush-bottomed chair and rickety lounge made up the sum of the
furniture.

Rufus called for brandy and water, tossing a shilling to the frowsy
waiter. A decanter of brandy and a bottle of water were brought to him,
and he entered upon a solitary orgie. He had not been used to drink,
and the fiery liquid mounted to his brain, inducing stupidity and
drunkenness. For an hour or two he drank with brief intermission, but
sleep overpowered him, and his head fell upon the table and he snored
heavily. With his red face, dishevelled hair and stertorous breathing,
his unmistakable aspect of drunkenness, he presented a terrible
contrast to the hopeful boy artist with his honest eyes and loving
soul, who had made the dingy lodging in New Brompton a very paradise to
poor Lally.

The day wore on. A waiter looked in upon the poor wreck, once or twice,
and went away each time chuckling. In the latter part of the afternoon
Rufus awakened, and came to himself. Ashamed and conscience-stricken,
his first thought being of what Lally would think of him, he summoned a
waiter and demanded strong coffee and food. These were furnished him,
and having partaken of them he settled his bill, and set out to walk
back to Wyndham.

“It makes no difference what becomes of me now,” he said to himself, as
he strode along the return route. “I have started down hill, and I may
as well keep on descending.”

He had accomplished half the distance between Canterbury and his
destination, when a four-wheeled cab, traveling briskly, came up behind
him, compelling him to take to the side path. The next moment the cab
stopped, and Craven Black’s head was protruded from the open window,
and Craven Black’s smooth voice called:

“Is that you, Rufus? What are you doing away out here? Jump in! jump
in!”

Rufus obeyed, entering the vehicle, and the cabman drove on.

“Where have you been?” demanded the elder Black, as the son settled
himself upon the front seat and opposite his father.

“I have spent the day in Canterbury,” returned Rufus sullenly.

“What have you been doing there?”

“Getting drunk,” was the dogged answer.

The young man’s face testified to his truthfulness. His eyes, wild in
their glances, were bloodshot and watery, and he had a reckless air, as
if he had thrown off all restraints of virtue and decency.

Craven Black experienced a sense of alarm. He began to fear lest his
son would defeat all his plans by his obstinacy and recklessness.

“You do not ask me about the girl,” said the father, with more
gentleness than was usual to him. “I have seen her.”

“I supposed you had,” was the reply. “I gave you her address.”

“I told her the truth,” said Craven Black, puzzled by his son’s strange
mood. “I explained to her kindly enough that her marriage with you was
no marriage at all. She readily accepted the situation. She cried a
little, to be sure, but she said herself that she was of lower rank
than you, and that the match was too unequal. She--she said that of
course all was over between you, and it was best you and she should
never meet again. And in fact, to render any such meeting impossible,
she left her lodging while I was there.”

Rufus fixed a burning gaze upon his father.

“I don’t believe a word you say,” he cried. “The news you carried to
her broke my darling’s heart. Do you suppose I do not know how much she
loved me? I was all she had in the wide world--her only friend. Think
of that, sir! Her only friend--and you have torn me from her. If she
dies of grief, you are her murderer.”

Craven Black shuddered involuntarily, remembering poor Lally’s flight,
and his conviction that she had gone to destroy herself. His emotion
did not pass unnoticed by his son.

“Poor Lally!” said Rufus, his voice trembling. “It’s all over between
us forever. I have blighted her life, ruined her good name, and made
her an outcast. Yet it was not I who did this. It was you. Her blood be
upon your head. If I could find her and were free to woo her, she would
never take me back, now that I have proved myself a liar, perjurer and
pitiful wretched coward. It is indeed all over between us. You can do
what you like with the wreck you have made me. You might have given me
a chance to redeem myself; you might have let me be true to her, but
you would make me perjure myself doubly. I hope you are pleased with
your work.”

“Let there be an end of these silly boyish reproaches,” exclaimed Mr.
Black harshly. “You have done with the girl, and are about to enter
upon a new life. I have generously forgiven your errors and crimes.
If you repeat the drunkenness of to-day, I’ll send you to prison.
Try me, and see if I do not. I have brought you a trunk from London,
filled with new clothing from your tailor, shirt-maker, boot-maker
and jeweller. I have spared no expense to make you look as my son
should look. And now, by Heaven, if you disgrace me to-night by any
recklessness and folly, any mock despair, I’ll prosecute you on that
charge of perjury.”

“You need not fear that I shall disgrace myself, or insult my hostess,”
said Rufus doggedly. “You think no one has the instincts of a gentleman
save yourself.”

With such recriminations as these, the pair beguiled their drive to
Wyndham; nor did they cease from them after their arrival in Mr.
Black’s private parlor. A sullen silence succeeded in good time, and
reigned throughout the dinner, of which they partook together. After
dinner, they retired to their several rooms to dress.

The trunk Mr. Black had brought from London had been deposited in his
son’s chamber. Rufus had the key, and unlocked the receptacle, bringing
to light an ample supply of fine garments, perfume cases, a dressing
case, and a set of jewelled shirt studs in a little velvet case.

He arrayed his boyish figure in his new black garments, noticing
even in his despair that they fitted him as if he had been measured
for them. He waited in his room until his father came for him, and
submitted sullenly to his father’s careful inspection.

“You’ll do,” commented Craven Black. “If you act as well as you look, I
shall be satisfied. Mind, if you mention to Miss Wynde one word about
the girl Lally, it’s all up with you. The cab is waiting. Come on!”

They descended together to the cab, and were conveyed to Hawkhurst.
On arriving at the mansion, they alighted, and entered the great
baronial hall, sending in their cards to Lady Wynde by the footman. The
baronet’s widow having signified to her domestic that she was “always
at home” to Mr. Black and his son, the visitors was ushered into the
drawing-room.

Lady Wynde and Artress arose to receive them. Craven Black presented
his son, and the baronet’s widow welcomed the young man graciously. She
was looking unusually well this evening in a robe of pale amber silk,
with a row of short locks trimmed squarely, nursery fashion, across her
low polished forehead, a long black curl trailing over each shoulder,
and her cheeks glowing with suppressed excitement. Rufus remembered
having seen her before her marriage to Sir Harold Wynde, and his face
brightened as at the sight of a friend.

He was acquainted, although slightly, with his father’s cousin, Mrs.
Artress, and as he held out his hand to her, he looked his surprise at
seeing her at the house of Lady Wynde.

“I am her ladyship’s hired companion,” said Artress, explainingly. “My
husband left me very poor, you know, Rufus, and I have been in dear
Lady Wynde’s employ for some three years. I beg you not to recognize
me as a relative, nor to mention the fact to any one. I have my family
pride, you know, Rufus, and it is hard to be obliged to earn one’s own
living when one has not been brought up to it.”

Her reasons for concealment of the relationship existing between them
seemed to Rufus no reasons at all, but he could not gainsay her wishes,
and muttered that he would obey her.

“Miss Wynde has gone out for a solitary stroll in the park,” observed
Lady Wynde, as Mr. Black’s eyes wandered about the room. “I sent her
out for the fresh air. She is not looking well, I regret to say. Mr.
Rufus, if you will be kind enough to go down the wide park avenue, you
cannot fail to find her. I beg you will introduce yourself to her, and
bring her back to the house.”

Rufus bowed, and stepping lightly out of the open window, moved
leisurely toward the park.

“There is nothing like an informal meeting,” said Lady Wynde, looking
after the young man. “I planned to have the meeting occur in this way,
so that neither should be embarrassed by the presence of a third party.”

“I should have preferred to keep my eye upon Rufus,” remarked Mr. Black
uneasily. “Did you give the letter to the young lady?”

“Yes, and she received it exactly as I had expected she would. She is
not at all the style of girl I looked for, Craven, and it is fortunate
for our plans that she cared so much for her father.”

While the conspirators were thus conversing, Rufus crossed the lawn
and entered the park by a small gate. The wide avenue, a fine carriage
drive, was readily found, and Rufus walked for some distance upon
it, keeping a vigilant look-out for Miss Wynde. He was beginning to
meditate upon a return to the house without the young lady, when a
flutter of white garments among the dusky shadows of a side path caught
his gaze. He plunged into the path without hesitation, and presently
overtook the wearer of the garments, who was of course Miss Wynde.

Hearing his swift approach, she halted and turned her face toward him.
Rufus also halted, strangely embarrassed under her brave full glance.
She had laid aside her mourning garments, and wore rose-colored ribbons
and a profusion of frills and puffs and lace, in which she looked very
fair and dainty and sweet. Her wine-brown eyes were all aglow, but her
cheeks were pale, and her face was very grave, even to sadness.

“I beg your pardon,” said Rufus awkwardly, raising his hat. “I am
looking for Miss Wynde.”

“I am Miss Wynde,” said Neva, with gentle courtesy.

The young man’s embarrassment was not lessened by this announcement.

“Lady Wynde sent me to look for you,” he declared. “I--I am Rufus
Black!”

Neva started and looked at him with her grave, serious eyes. He
appeared to advantage in his new garments, and his face was pale and
worn by the day’s dissipation. His sorrows and his sickness had given
him a refined look to which he was not fully and fairly entitled, and
his eyes met hers frankly and honestly, with a real admiration in their
gaze.

Neva’s cheeks flushed slightly, and her heart fluttered. Clearly Rufus
Black had not made an unfavorable impression upon her in that first
glance.

They turned and walked slowly up the path together, entering the
avenue. Rufus tried to conquer his unwonted awkwardness, and singularly
impressed with Neva’s beauty, exerted himself to please her. They
sauntered on, stopping now and then to gather ferns or flowers, and
when they emerged from the park upon the lawn, they were chatting
gayly, and on the best of terms with each other.

And yet the heart of each was strangely sore. Neva thought of what
“might have been,” and sighed in her inmost soul that the husband her
father was supposed by her to have chosen for her was not the one
her heart most longed for. And Rufus mourned as bitterly as ever in
his soul for his lost young wife, and felt that he should never be
comforted.

Craven Black and Lady Wynde watched them as they approached the house,
and the lip of the former curled, as he muttered:

“So fade the griefs of the young! Unstable as water, Rufus is already
this girl’s lover!”

“They are mutually pleased,” murmured Lady Wynde. “Her father’s
supposed wishes and this young man’s interesting melancholy will
soon efface Lord Towyn’s image from Neva’s mind, if it has made any
impression there.”

It seemed indeed as if the opinion of the worldly-wise conspirators
would be justified.

The young couple halted upon the lawn, and Neva’s gravity and the
melancholy of Rufus began to disappear, when the lodge gates swung
open, and three gentleman came riding up the avenue.

The long twilight had begun, and even Neva’s keen eyes could not
recognize the new-comers at that distance, and she chatted merrily to
Rufus, who answered as lightly. But as the horsemen came nearer, and
Neva regarded them more closely, a sudden silence fell upon her, and a
strange shyness seized her.

It was a critical movement in the progress of the game which Craven
Black and Lady Wynde were playing, and these new-comers had arrived in
time to give a new turn to it.

For Neva recognized them as the three guardians of her property--Sir
John Freies, Mr. Atkins, and the young Lord Towyn!




CHAPTER XV. MR. BLACK GETS A NEW IDEA.


As Neva recognized the youngest of her three guardians, as they rode up
the avenue of Hawkhurst at a leisurely pace, a strange embarrassment
seized upon her. The horsemen had not yet seen her in the twilight and
the shadow of shrubbery, and she proposed a return to the drawing-room.
Rufus Black assented, and they passed in at the open French window
which gave directly upon the marble terrace.

The drawing-room was full of shadows. Artress sat in a recessed window,
silent and immovable, and Lady Wynde and Craven Black were in the
second portion of the triple arched apartment, completely hidden from
view, and their low whispers barely penetrated to the outer room. Lady
Wynde, hearing her step-daughter’s return, came forth, rang for lights,
and ordered the lace curtains to be dropped.

A score of wax candles were presently glowing in their polished silver
sconces, and a couple of moon-like lamps dispensed a mellow radiance
that penetrated to every corner of the triple room. The curtains,
fluttering in the soft night breeze, shut out all insects, but admitted
the perfumed air. Craven Black, satisfied that his _tete-a-tete_ with
Lady Wynde was over for the present, sauntered into the outer room to
make the acquaintance of the young heiress.

He had thought of Neva as an insipid, affected, weak-headed young lady,
who would be a mere puppet in his hands and those of Lady Wynde. His
surprise may be imagined when he beheld a slender, spirited girl, with
eyes of red gloom, brown hair tinted with the sunshine, scarlet lips,
and a piquant face, full of an irresistible witchery and sauciness--a
girl so bright and keen of intellect, so resolute and strong in
herself, that he wondered that she could ever have been imposed upon by
even his skilfully forged letter.

“Neva, my dear,” said Lady Wynde, “allow me to present to you
the Honorable Craven Black--one of your dear papa’s friends, and
consequently yours and mine.”

Neva acknowledged the introduction by a bow of her haughty little head,
and a smile so warm and sweet that Craven Black was captivated by
it. Any friend of her late father’s had a peculiar claim upon Neva’s
friendship, and Craven Black resolved to elaborate the small fiction,
and coin agreeable little anecdotes of his relations to her father, so
that the heiress would be inspired with a liking for him.

Before time had been granted for more than the usual commonplaces
incident to an introduction, the three guardians of Miss Wynde were
announced by the footman, and were ushered into the drawing-room.

Sir John Freise came first--a tall, stately old gentleman, with white
hair and closely cropped whiskers, distinguished for his old-fashioned
courtliness of bearing, and noted throughout Kent for his unswerving
integrity.

Mr. Atkins, the attorney, came next, looking more than ordinarily
insignificant of person, his bald head shining, his honest face flushed
to redness. He was not fine looking, nor well shaped, but, like Sir
John, he was a man of invincible integrity and honesty of character,
and many years of service to Sir Harold Wynde had inspired him with a
genuine affection for the family, and given him, as one might say, a
personal interest in its prosperity.

Lastly, and because he preferred to come last, was young Lord Towyn, as
handsome as any knight of chivalry, his golden hair tossed back from
his noble forehead, his blue eyes glowing, and a warm smile playing
about his tawny mustached lips.

Neva recognized her guardians, and welcomed them all in turn with
handshakings and quiet greetings. Lady Wynde introduced the Blacks,
father and son, to the new-comers.

“This is scarcely a business visit, Miss Neva,” said Sir John Freise,
leading his young hostess to a sofa with old-fashioned gallantry. “Lord
Towyn and Mr. Atkins have been closeted with me to-day, discussing your
affairs in the way of rents and leases, but it is our business to spare
you these details, and it is your province to enjoy the fruits of our
labors,” and he smiled paternally upon her. “We are come to welcome you
back to the home of your fathers, and to express the hope that you will
fill worthily the place your father has resigned to you.”

“I will try to walk in papa’s steps,” returned Neva, lowly and gravely.

“Lady Freise and my girls will call upon you to-morrow,” said Sir John.
“They sent their love to you, and would have come to-day, but that I
begged them to allow you a day to rest in after your journey. You will
be inundated with visitors, Miss Neva. The Lady of Hawkhurst will not
be permitted to hide her light under a bushel! Lady Freise has already
projected no end of fetes, balls and dinners in your honor, and she has
persuaded our young friend Lord Towyn to spend a month with us, so that
you will not lack an escort, should you desire one.”

“You are very thoughtful, Sir John,” said Lady Wynde, with a curl of
the lip. “Miss Wynde, however, can never lack for an escort. I fancied,
when I saw you three gentlemen enter in such formidable array, that
some horrid red-tape business was about to be transacted. I did not
know indeed but that you had come with some official suggestions as to
the management of the household, or to discuss the matter of pin-money.”

“All that is settled by Sir Harold’s will,” said Mr. Atkins quietly.
“The baronet was very explicit in his directions, and assigned to Miss
Wynde an extraordinarily liberal allowance until she comes of age,
when, of course she comes into full possession of her magnificent
revenues. Your residence at Hawkhurst was also provided for, Lady Wynde
with a very handsome allowance in recognition of your services to Miss
Wynde as friend and chaperon.”

“And are we compelled to remain at Hawkhurst, whether we will or not?”
demanded the baronet’s widow.

“Certainly not,” replied Atkins. “You and Miss Wynde are free to reside
where you please, but it is natural to suppose you will prefer for a
stated residence the seat of the family grandeur.”

Lady Wynde made no reply, but her glittering eyes became speculative.

The visitors, while courteous to her ladyship, bestowed the larger
share of their attention upon the young heiress to whom their visit
was directed. They had intended to make but a brief call, but the time
flew by as if on wings. Neva talked with them with cheerful gayety or
gravity, as the subject rendered befitting, and at Sir John’s request
played and sang for him. Lord Towyn leaned over the piano, turning the
music leaves, a rapt expression on his face, and there was not one
present, save Neva, who failed to see that he was already the lover of
the beautiful young heiress.

Rufus Black recognized the fact with an actual jealousy. He said to
himself with a furious bitterness that his happiness and Lally’s had
been ruined for the sake of Neva Wynde, and he would not be cheated of
fortune and bride by the young earl.

Craven Black sat apart, his forehead shaded by his hand, his light
eyes fairly devouring the glowing loveliness of Neva’s face. He was a
world-worn, base, dissolute man, incapable of honor and fidelity, even
to the woman who had sinned and perilled so much for him. As he sat
there, he contrasted Neva’s spirited and dainty beauty with the maturer
and lesser charms of Lady Wynde, and strange thoughts and hopes awoke
to life within his breast.

“My fate is not so settled as to be irrevocable,” he thought within
himself. “I wish I had seen the girl before I forged that letter. Why
should I throw myself away upon four thousand a year and a woman of the
world when, by skillful manœuvring, I might gain seventy thousand per
annum and a bride like an houri? I will study my chances. If there is a
chance for me with Neva, I will run the race with these others and win
the prize.”

And so, all unknown and unsuspected by Neva, she had three aspirants
to her hand among those who listened to her music.

And of these three lovers, one only was pure and true and altogether
worthy of her love. Only one loved her without a shadow of greed, and
that one was the young Lord Towyn.

But which, should she choose among these three, would she prefer? To
whose fate, of these three, would she link her own? Would a regard for
the supposed wishes of her dead father outweigh the desires of her own
heart? These were problems which time alone could solve.

After the music, Lady Wynde rang for coffee, which was brought in and
dispensed to the guests. Sir John Freise, waxing eloquent upon the
degeneracy of modern society, held Lady Wynde captive. Rufus Black
wandered down the length of the drawing-rooms, looking with an artist’s
eye at the glorious pictures upon the walls. Mr. Atkins and Craven
Black engaged in conversation, and Artress sat apart, silent and
observing, as usual.

Lord Towyn and Neva also looked at the pictures and talked of their
childhood days, growing animated over their pleasant reminiscences.
The young earl gradually drew his hostess into the great conservatory,
a huge glass dome at the bottom of the drawing-room. Here the air was
heavy with fragrance. Stalks of white lilies sprang from the side
walls, bearing pistils of red and dancing light. Aisles of tropical
shrubbery, thick with golden fruitage or snowy blossoms, or both at
once, stretched on either side. A feathery palm reared its plumed head
in the very centre of the dome. Vines trailed and festooned themselves
from floor to roof, dropping perfume from fiery chalices. And through
the light foliage of a well-trimmed jungle of flowers and leaves,
gleamed a great mellow moon of light, reminding one of a Brazilian
forest on a moonlit summer night.

“Do you remember when we were here last, Neva?” asked Lord Towyn, as
they paused beside the marble basin of a great fountain, and Neva idly
dropped rose petals upon the crystal waters. “We were standing upon
this very spot, with only that marble Naiad to hear us, and you and I
were but children when we entered upon our childish betrothal. How long
ago that seems! Do you remember it, Neva?”

The rose petals in the girl’s white fingers were not brighter than her
cheeks.

“Yes, I remember,” she said, dropping her head over the bright waters.
“What precocious children we were, Lord Towyn.”

The young earl sighed.

“The utterance of my title shows the great gulf between the now and the
then,” he said. “I was no lord in those days, and you called me Arthur.
Now when your name comes instinctively to my lips, I must remember that
you are no longer Neva, but Miss Wynde. Why will you not call me by
the old name, and let us take up our old friendship where we left off,
instead of beginning anew as strangers?”

“I am willing,” said Neva frankly, yet shyly. “I--I look upon you as a
brother, Arthur, and you may call me Neva.”

Strange to say, the permission thus granted did not seem to delight
Lord Towyn. His warm blue eyes clouded over with a singular discontent,
and a pained expression gathered about his mouth.

“I don’t want to be considered as your brother, Neva,” he declared,
after a minute’s struggle with himself. “I would prefer to begin again
as your merest acquaintance. A fraternal relation toward you would be
insupportable. For years I have dreamed and hoped that I might some
time win your love. I am no longer a boy, Neva, and I love you with a
man’s love. I have carried your picture for years next my heart. I have
worshiped you in secret ever since our childhood. I do not know how I
have been betrayed into this confession, Neva,” he added. “I did not
intend to be so premature. I do not yet ask you to love or to marry me,
but I do ask you to allow me to become your suitor.”

Neva’s heart thrilled under this ardent and impassioned declaration as
under an angel’s touch. Then a leaden pall seemed to descend upon her
soul, and her face grew white, as she faltered:

“It cannot be, Arthur.”

Lord Towyn shivered with sudden pain.

“You--you are not promised to another, Neva?”

“N-no!”

“You love another then?”

“Oh, no, no!”

“It is that I have startled you by my premature confession, Neva?” he
cried tremulously. “Dolt that I am! I have thought and dreamed of you
so much, that I had forgotten how perfect a stranger I must seem to you
after all these years of separation. You cannot take up the old life
where we dropped it. I was foolish to have expected it. Do not let my
undue haste prejudice you against me. It will not, Neva?”

“No, Arthur,” answered the girl lowly and hesitatingly.

“And you will give me a chance to reprieve my error?” he demanded
eagerly. “Perhaps in time you may grow to love me, Neva--”

“Arthur,” said the young girl, nerving herself to tell him of her
father’s supposed last wishes, “I have something to say to you. Papa--”

Her voice died out in a half sob.

“Well, darling?” said the young earl, bending nearer to her, his eyes
burning with the love that filled his being. “What of Sir Harold? Did
you fancy that he would not have approved of our love?”

Neva nodded a dumb assent.

“And if Sir Harold had approved, do you think you could learn to love
me?” whispered the young earl softly, his eager breath fanning the
girl’s cheek.

Neva’s silence was interpreted as a favorable answer.

“Before my father died,” said Lord Towyn gently, “he told me that
it had long been his wish and that of Sir Harold to unite the two
families in our marriage. Sir Harold was in India at the time of my
father’s death, and was not likely, at that distance from home, to have
contracted an aversion to me, or to have formed other plans for your
future. You see, I am right, Neva, and now I claim to be considered as
your suitor. May it not be?”

“Oh, Arthur,” the girl murmured, sorely perplexed, “I--”

The story trembled on her lips, but she did not give utterance to it,
for at that critical moment Rufus Black entered the conservatory, and
came up the flower-bordered aisle, with an unmistakable displeasure
upon his melancholy face.

Neva started guiltily at his approach, as if she had been wronging
him or her dead father in listening to Lord Towyn’s avowals of love.
But although she moved away from the young earl, she paused under a
tropical rose-tree, and began to gather roses, and her two suitors
hovered about her, each recognizing in the other a rival.

They were presently joined by Neva’s third lover, Craven Black. The
last-named looked moodily and jealously at his son and the young earl,
and devoted himself so closely to the heiress that, with a feeling of
annoyance, Neva presently proposed a return to the drawing-room.

A glance of jealous anger from the eyes of Lady Wynde greeted Craven
Black as he reentered the presence of his betrothed. The baronet’s
widow began to entertain a suspicion of the disaffection of her lover.

Sir John Freise was the first to propose a departure, and the horses
were ordered, and he, with Mr. Atkins and Lord Towyn, took their leave.

Craven Black exchanged a few whispered words with Lady Wynde,
appointing an interview for the next morning, and then also departed
with his son.

They were to walk to Wyndham, and not a word was spoken by either as
they strode down the wide avenue, and passed out at the lodge gates.
Once out upon the highway, Craven Black broke the silence, saying:

“Well, Rufus, how do you like Miss Wynde?”

“She is beautiful--lovely beyond comparison,” answered Rufus
enthusiastically. “I never saw a being so witching, so bright, so
sweet!”

“You talk like a lover,” sneered Craven Black. “One would not believe
that you had been lying drunk all day at a low inn through love for
another woman.”

“You will drive me mad!” ejaculated Rufus, his voice choking suddenly.
“How dare you taunt me with my misery and degradation? I did love
Lally--I do love her, God knows. But you have separated us. She
despises me, and I am thrown upon myself. Why grudge me the little
comfort Miss Wynde’s presence and smiles give me? If I had never met
Lally, I should have idolized Miss Wynde. And as Lally can never be
mine again--my poor wronged girl--and I shall go to perdition unless
some hand pulls me back, I turn to Miss Wynde as a drowning man might
turn to any frail support and cling to it. I--I like her. I could
almost say I love her.”

“Enviable elasticity of youthful affections!” sighed Craven Black,
still sneeringly, and speaking in a stilted voice. “You remind me of a
child, Rufus, whose doll is smashed to-day, but who is equally content
with a new one to-morrow. You remind me also of the old maid’s prayer.
She wanted one man and another, but as the years went on and she grew
old, she ceased to pray for the affections of any man in particular,
but cried out, ‘Any, O Lord, _any_!’ And so, I judge, one woman is to
you the same as another. It is ‘Lalla Rookh’ one day, and Miss Wynde
the next. ‘Extremes meet.’”

Rufus grew terribly angry.

“You talk as if you were dissatisfied with me for obeying your own
orders to make myself agreeable to Miss Wynde,” he ejaculated. “Do you
want her now for yourself?”

Mr. Black hastened to disclaim any such desire.

“As to me,” said Rufus, with unwonted decision, “I will not be much
longer dependent upon you. I will win Miss Wynde and her fortune, or
I’ll blow my brains out. Lally is lost to me, but all is not lost, as
I thought this morning. I like Miss Wynde. I even love her already,
strange as it may seem, but I do not and cannot love her as I love poor
Lally. But I shall marry her and make her happy. I am desperate, but by
no means helpless and hopeless.”

Mr. Black maintained a dogged silence during the remainder of the walk.
He bade his son good-night coldly upon the inn stairs, and locked
himself in his own rooms, muttering:

“The girl has three lovers, for my fickle son really loves her. I must
watch my chances, and not loosen my hold upon Octavia until I have
made sure of Neva. In default of the greater prize, I must not lose
the lesser. It requires some skill to sit upon two stools and not fall
between them. I wish I could have foreseen the turn affairs would take,
and had inserted my name in that forged letter in place of my son’s
name. I shall have to be pretty keen to do away with the effect of that
letter. I would give all I own in the world at present to know which of
her three lovers will win the heiress of Hawkhurst.”




CHAPTER XVI. RUFUS ASKS THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION.


Craven Black and his son met at their late breakfast in the private
parlor of the former. The father was himself again, cold, polite, and
cynical. The son was sullen and irritable, at war with himself and all
mankind. His grief for the loss of his young wife had lost none of its
poignancy, although he had avowed himself the suitor of another. His
thoughts during the night just passed had been all of Lally, and not of
Neva. In his dreams at least, he was still true to the loving heart he
had broken.

The pair were sipping their coffee when a waiter brought in Mr. Black’s
morning paper, just arrived from London. Craven Black unfolded the
sheet and scanned its contents lazily.

“Any news?” inquired Rufus.

“Nothing particular. It’s all about a war in prospect between Prussia
and France. I never read politics, so I’ll skip the French letter and
alarming head lines. I prefer to read the smaller items. Ah, what is
this?”

Craven Black started and changed color as his eye rested upon a
familiar name in an obscure paragraph, under a startling title. His
agitation increased as he glanced over the paragraph, taking in its
meaning.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Rufus. “Any of your acquaintance dead?
Any one left you a fortune?”

“It is terrible,” said Craven Black, shuddering, and regarding the
paper with horrified eyes. “How could she have been so utterly foolish
and insane? It was not I who killed her.”

“Killed whom? Then some one is dead?”

“Poor girl!” muttered Craven Black, still staring at the paper with
wide eyes, as if he read there an accusation of wilful murder. “Poor
Lally--”

“_Who?_”

Rufus leaped to his feet with a shriek on his lips, bounded to his
father’s side, and snatched the paper in his trembling hands.

“I--I see nothing,” he cried. “You shocked me cruelly. I--I thought
that Lally-- Oh, my God!”

He stood as if suddenly frozen, staring as his father had done at an
item in a lower corner of the paper--an item which bore the title:
“Distressing Case of Suicide. Another unfortunate gone to her death!”

From the midst of this paragraph the name of Lalla Bird stood out with
startling distinctness.

Unconsciously to himself, Rufus Black read the brief paragraph aloud in
a hoarse, strained, breathless sort of voice, and his father listened
with head bent forward, and with a horrified look graven on his face,
as upon stone.

“Last evening,” the notice read, “as officer Rice was pursuing his
usual beat, a young woman dashed past him, bonnetless, her hair
flying, and ran out upon Waterloo Bridge. She was muttering wildly to
herself, and her aspect was that of one beside herself. The officer,
comprehending her purpose, rushed after her, but he was too late to
arrest her in her dread purpose. She looked back at him, sprang up to
the parapet like a flash, and with a last cry upon her lips--a name the
officer could not make out--she precipitated herself into the river. In
falling, her head struck a passing boat, mutilating her features beyond
all semblance of humanity. She was dead when taken from the water, and
will have a pauper’s burial unless some one comes forward to claim her
remains. No token of her identity was found upon her person, but her
handkerchief, floating on the water and picked up immediately by a
boatman, bore the name of Lalla Bird. The girl, for she was very young,
was pretty, and without doubt belonged to that frail class which more
than any other furnishes us suicides.”

Rufus Black read this paragraph to the very end, and then the paper
fell from his nerveless hands.

“Dead!” he said hollowly. “Dead!”

“Dead!” echoed his father hoarsely.

“_Dead!_” said Rufus Black, turning his burning, terrible eyes upon his
father’s face. “And it was you who killed her! I loved her--I would
have been true to her all her days, but you tore us asunder, and drove
her to despair, madness and death. You are her murderer!”

Craven Black started, nervously, and looked around him.

“Don’t, Rufus--don’t,” he ejaculated uneasily. “Some one might hear
you. The girl is to blame for killing herself, and no one else can be
held accountable for it. I offered her money but she would not take it.
It was the landlady who drove her to the--the rash act. The old woman
listened at the door, and suddenly burst in upon us and called the girl
some foul name and ordered her out of her house. The girl fled as if
pursued by demons. I thought then she meant to kill herself--just as
she has done!”

A groan burst from Rufus Black’s lips.

“My poor, poor wife!” he moaned. “She _was_ my wife, and she shall not
lie in a pauper’s grave. I am going up to London--”

“To make a fool of yourself,” interrupted Craven Black, recovering from
his shock. “And to-morrow morning the papers will all come out with the
romantic story that this girl was your wife, and the story will stick
to you all your days. People will say that you drove her to her death.
Your chance of becoming master of Hawkhurst will end on the spot. You
will be cast out and abhorred. Others as pretty and as good as this
girl have been buried at the public expense. Leave her alone.”

“I cannot--”

“Suppose you go then? What will you say to the coroner, or police
justice? What excuse will you have for abandoning your wife, as you
persist in calling the girl? Shall you confess your perjury? Can you
stand the cross-questioning, the badgering, the prying into your life
and motives?”

Rufus shrank within himself in a sort of terror. The besetting weakness
and cowardice of his nature now paralyzed him.

“I cannot go,” he muttered. “Oh, Lally, my lost wronged wife!”

He dashed from the room, and entered his own, locking his door, and was
not visible again that day.

Craven Black attired himself in morning costume and walked over to
Hawkhurst. Neva was in the park, and he had a long private interview
with Lady Wynde. In returning to his inn, he crossed the park,
ostensibly to cut short his walk, but really to exchange a few words
with the heiress.

He found her in one of the wide shaded paths, but she was not alone.
Lord Towyn, on his way to the house, had just encountered her, and they
were talking to each other, in utter forgetfulness of any supposed
obstacles to their mutual love. Craven Black accosted them, and
lingered a few moments, and then pursued his way homeward, while the
young couple slowly proceeded toward the house.

Craven Black called at Hawkhurst the next day, and the next, but alone,
Rufus remaining obstinately sequestered in his darkened chamber. Neva
was busy with visitors, Lady Freise and her daughters, and other
friends and neighbors, hastening to call upon the returned heiress.
Lord Towyn found excuses to call nearly every day. He was devoting all
his energies to the task of wooing and winning Neva, and he pushed his
suit with an ardor that brought a cynical smile to Craven Black’s lips
continually.

There were fetes given at Freise Hall in Neva’s honor; breakfast and
lawn parties at other houses; and the young girl found herself in a
whirl of gayety in strong contrast with her late life of seclusion.

During the week that followed the publication of the announcement of
Lally Bird’s suicide, Rufus Black did not cross his threshold. He
meditated suicide, and wept and bemoaned his lost darling with genuine
anguish. During this week, Craven Black made various overtures to
Miss Wynde, uttered graceful compliments to her when Lady Wynde was
not within hearing, and threw a lover-like ardor into his tones and
countenance when addressing her. But he could not see that he was
regarded by her with any favor, and grew anxious that his son should
again enter the lists, and win her from Lord Towyn, who seemed to be
having the field nearly to himself.

After an energetic talk with his son, Craven Black persuaded Rufus to
emerge from his retirement and to again visit Hawkhurst. There is a
refining influence about grief, and Rufus had never looked so well as
when, habited in black, his face pale, thin, and sharp-featured, his
eyes full of melancholy and vain regret, he again called upon Neva. The
impression he had made upon her upon the occasion of his first visit
had been favorable, and it became still more favorable upon this second
visit. Neva received the impression, from his steady melancholy and
the occasional wildness of his eyes, that he was a genius, and became
deeply interested in him.

Add to this interest the influence of the forged letter, which she
devoutly believed to have been written by her father now dead, and one
will see that even Lord Towyn had in the boy artist a dangerous rival.

Lady Wynde steadily pursued her preparations for her marriage,
keeping a keen watch upon her lover, whom she more than suspected of
faithlessness to her. She loved him with all her wicked soul, and was
anxious to secure him in matrimonial chains, but her engagement to him
had not yet been announced, and even Neva did not know of it.

By the exercise of Lady Wynde’s influence, the Blacks, father and son,
were invited to all the parties given in Neva’s honor, and Rufus Black
and Lord Towyn were ever at the side of the young heiress. Lady Wynde
hinted judiciously to a few of her chosen friends that Neva and young
Black were informally betrothed, but that the betrothal was still a
secret.

As the summer passed and September came, bringing near at hand the
time appointed for the marriage of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, both
the Blacks, father and son, became uneasy and restless. The former
was anxious to try his fate with Neva before committing himself beyond
retrieval with her step-mother. Rufus had learned to love the heiress
with a genuine love, not as he had loved Lally, but still with so much
of fervor that he believed he could not live without her. His grief for
his young wife had not lessened, but time had robbed the blow of its
sharpest sting, and he thought of Lally in heaven, while he coveted
Neva on earth. He grew anxious to put his faith to the test.

A favorable opportunity was afforded him.

Neva was fond of walking, and frequently took long walks, despite the
fact that she had carriages and horses at command. One mild September
evening, after her seven o’clock dinner, she walked over to Wyndham
village to purchase at the general dealer’s some Berlin wool urgently
required for the completion of a sofa pillow, or some such trifle, and
sauntered slowly homeward in the gloaming.

Rufus Black, who was idly wandering in the streets at the time, hurried
after her and offered his escort, and took charge of her parcel. They
walked on together.

As they emerged from the village into the open country, Rufus felt
that the hour had come in which to learn his fate from Neva’s lips. He
revolved in his mind a dozen ways of putting the momentous question,
but the manner still remained undecided when Neva sat down to rest upon
a way-side bank in the very shadow of Hawkhurst park.

This bank was her favorite halting-place when going on foot to or from
Wyndham. It was shaded by a giant oak, and clothed in the softest and
greenest turf. Here the earliest primroses blossomed and hearts-ease
starred the ground. Near the bank a small private gate opened into the
park. Rufus decided in his own mind that this was the spot, and this
soft, deepening twilight the hour for the avowal of his love.

There was no one within the park within view to interrupt him; no one
coming along the road. With a slight sense of nervousness he even
surveyed a way-side thicket that flanked the bank upon one side, as if
fearing some way-side tramp might be lurking there within hearing, but
he saw nothing to discountenance his projects.

“It’s a lovely evening,” said Neva softly, looking up at the shadowing
sky and around her at the shadowed earth. “The air is full of balm!”

“Yes, it is lovely,” said Rufus, fixing his gaze upon the young girl,
as if he meant his remark to apply to her face. “How the time has
sped since I first saw you, Miss Neva. Life was very dark to me in
those July days, but you have given it a glow and brightness I did not
dream that it could ever possess. It seems to me that I never existed
until--until I knew you. You cannot fail to know that I love you. I
have often thought that you have purposely encouraged my suit. But be
that as it may, I love you more than all the world, Miss Neva. Will you
be my wife?”

He waited in a breathless suspense for her reply.

Neva’s face did not flush with joy, as it might have done had the
speaker been Lord Towyn. She looked very grave, and into her eyes of
red gloom came a sadness that was terrible to see.

“I like you, Rufus,” she said gently, looking beyond him with
a strange, far-seeing gaze. “I believe you to be good and
honorable--would to God I did not--for then--then--Rufus, I do not know
what to say to you. What shall I answer you?”

“Say Yes,” pleaded Rufus, with the energy of a gathering terror. “Do
not refuse me, Neva, I implore you. I am not handsome and titled like
Lord Towyn; I am plain and awkward, but I love you with all my soul.
I place my fate in your hands. I have it in me to become great and
good, and if you will be my wife I will be noble for your sake. But if
you cast me off, I shall perish. In you are centred all my hopes. Oh,
Neva, I beseech you to be merciful to me, and to save me from the utter
misery of a life without you. I cannot--cannot live if you cast me off!”

He spoke with an earnestness that went to Neva’s soul. She trembled,
as if the burden of responsibility laid upon her were too heavy to be
borne. In her uplifted eyes was a wild, beseeching look, as if she
called upon her father from his home in heaven to aid her now.

“Remember,” said Rufus desperately, “you are deciding upon my life or
death--mortal and physical!”

Neva read in the declaration an awful sincerity that made her shudder.

“I must think,” she faltered. “I cannot decide so suddenly. Give me a
week, Rufus--only a week in which to decide. Oh,” she added, under her
breath, with a passionate emphasis, “if papa only knew! He would have
spared me this.”

Rufus assented to the delay with a beaming face. If she had intended
to refuse him, he thought, she would have done so on the spot. But she
had not refused him, and there was hope. She should be his wife, and he
would be master of Hawkhurst yet.

In the midst of his self-gratulations, Neva arose and walked slowly
onward, grave and sorrowful. Rufus walked beside her with a joyous
tread.

When they had passed on into the thickening shadows, and the primrose
bank had been left far behind, a ragged, childish figure stirred itself
from the further shadow of the thicket, and a childish face, wan and
thin and haggard, with a woman’s woe in the great dark eyes, looked
after the young pair with an awful horror and despair.

That face belonged to the disowned young wife whom Rufus mourned as
dead! The wild and woful eyes were the eyes of Lally Bird!




CHAPTER XVII. THE YOUNG WIFE’S DESOLATION.


It was indeed poor Lally Bird, the wronged young wife, whom her husband
mourned as dead, who, crouching in the shelter of the way-side thicket,
stared after Neva Wynde and Rufus Black with eyes full of a burning woe
and despair.

“He loves her! He loves her!” the poor young creature moaned, in the
utter abandonment of her terrible anguish. “He said her answer meant
life and death to him! And I am so soon forgotten? Oh, he never loved
me--never--never! And he does love her with all his soul--O Heaven!”

She sank back into the deeper shadow of the thicket, moaning and
wringing her hands.

Her hat had fallen off, and her face was upturned to the gray evening
sky. That face, still childlike in its outlines and in its innocence,
yet sharp of feature, wan, thin and haggard, was full of wild
beseeching. The great hungry black eyes were upraised to Heaven in
agonized appeal.

How terribly alone in all the wide world she was! Alone and friendless,
with no roof to shelter her, no food to break a long fast, no
money. She was ragged and forlorn, her feet peeping from their frail
coverings, her sharpened elbows protruding through her sleeves. And now
her last hope had been dashed from her, and it seemed as if nothing
remained to her but to die.

The story of her life from the moment in which she had fled from
her dingy lodgings at New Brompton, had been one of bitterness and
privation.

When she had escaped from her only shelter, half maddened and wholly
despairing, with the voices of Craven Black and Mrs. McKellar yet
ringing in her ears, her first impulse had been self-destruction. She
had sped along the streets until, by a circuitous route, she had gained
the river and a jutting pier, but it was daylight, and people were
in waiting for the boats, so her dread purpose was checked, and she
wandered on, wild of face and half distraught, keeping the river ever
in sight, as if the view of its waters soothed her mad despair.

Wandering aimlessly onward, she passed through foul river streets,
where the vile of every sort congregated, but no one spoke to her or
molested her. The shield of a watchful Providence interposed between
her and all harm. Once or twice some ruffian would have accosted
and stayed her, but a glance into her white and rigid face and wild
unseeing eyes made him shrink back abashed, and she sped on as if
pursued, not knowing the dangers she had escaped.

She grew weary of foot, and to the wildness of her anguish succeeded
a merciful apathy, which steeped her senses. The night came on; the
gas lamps were lighted in the streets; the warehouses and shops were
closed, there were fewer women in the streets; and in happy homes in
the suburbs, at the north and south and east and west of the great
teeming city, wives and daughters were gathered into pleasant homes.
But she had no home, no refuge, no shelter. She had--oh, saddest of
words, and saddest of meaning--she had nowhere to go!

And so she plodded on, slowly and wearily now. She had traversed miles
since leaving her lodgings, and it seemed as if her march, like that of
the fabled Wandering Jew, must be eternal.

At last, still wandering without aim, she staggered through the
turn-gate and out upon the Waterloo Bridge, in the wake of a party of
returning play-goers. No one noticed her, and she passed half-way over
the bridge and sank down upon one of the stone benches, while the party
she had followed went on and were soon lost to view in the Waterloo
Road.

She was alone on the bridge, in the night and darkness. Below her lay
the dark river, with the small steamers puffing and glancing through
the gloom with their tiny eyes of fire, and lowering their stack-pipes
as they passed under the bridge. A few people stood at the landing
below. Somerset House, dark and silent, like some gigantic mausoleum,
lay to her left. Along the river banks were the great warehouses, long
since closed for the night, and in the distance the dome of St. Paul’s
reared its head, faint and shadowy, among the deeper shadows.

The glancing lights of the river boats, the lamps at the landing and
along the shores looked strangely unreal to Lally’s dazed eyes. She
crouched in a corner of the seat and peered over the parapet and tried
to think, but her brain seemed paralyzed. The only thought that came
to her was that she was no wife, that Rufus had abandoned and disowned
her, and that he was to marry another.

People crossed the bridge in laughing groups as the Strand theatres
and concert-halls closed, but no one paid heed to, even if they saw,
the slender, crouching figure with its wild, fearing eyes. Sometimes,
for many minutes together, Lally was alone upon that portion of the
bridge--alone with her desperate soul and her terrible temptation to
end her sorrows in one fatal plunge.

She arose in one of these intervals to her feet upon the bench and
leaned over the parapet, a prayer upon her lips that Heaven would
forgive the deed she meditated. And, as she stood poised for the leap
into eternity, there came back to her, though years had passed since
she heard it, the voice of her mother, as she had once listened to it,
denouncing the self-murderer as one who destroys his soul as well as
his body. The remembrance of the words, and the thought of her mother,
caused her to drop again into the corner of her bench sobbing, and
weeping a storm of tears that saved her reason.

The wild outburst of her anguish had been succeeded by a strange
dullness and apathy, when a woman--a mere girl--“bonnetless, and her
hair flying,”--as the Blacks had read in the paper--came running upon
the bridge with moans upon her lips. Lally was as pure and innocent
as a little child, yet she knew at a glance that this poor creature
belonged to that class which is often termed “unfortunate”--as Heaven
knows they are indeed, in every sense of the sad word. This girl came
up to the very niche where Lally was hidden, and sprang upon the bench.
She gave one wild look over her shoulder, at the officer who pursued
her, and then, with the name of some man upon her lips, tossed up her
arms, and sprang over the parapet--into eternity!

Lally uttered a cry of horror.

“It might have been me!” was her first thought, and trembling and
terrified, she looked over at the whirling figure as it struck heavily
upon the passing boat.

And in the same instant Lally’s handkerchief, upon which her name
was marked, and which she had held in her hand, dropped over the
parapet upon the body of the woman. That accident it was that changed
poor Lally’s destiny. For the poor suicide was she of whose death
Rufus Black read in the paper of the following morning, and Lally’s
handkerchief found upon the water beside the dead girl gave the
impression that the suicide was Lally Bird.

The presence of Lally upon the bridge escaped the notice of the
officer, who turned and ran along the bridge to the end, and hurried
down to the pier, whither the rescued body of the suicide was being
carried.

People began to gather upon the bridge, seeming almost to spring
up miraculously, and Lally, fearing questioning, or detention as
witness of the suicide, arose and went back by the way she had come,
up Wellington street, into the Strand. She was sufficiently herself
by this time to know that she must seek shelter for the night; but
where could she go? What respectable inn would give shelter to one so
forlorn of aspect, so utterly alone as she? She would be driven forth
as something disreputable and unclean, should she demand lodgings at
such an inn. She had money in her pocket--the share Rufus had given her
of the ten pounds his father had sent him--but she might almost as well
have been penniless, since her money could not procure her respectable
shelter for the night.

There might be some home for friendly wanderers, some asylum for
respectable women, where she could pass the dangerous hours of
darkness, but she knew of none. Such asylums are generally for
reclaimed women, not for those who have never gone astray. The
omnibuses were still running, it not being yet midnight, and Lally
being too tired to walk further, signalled an empty one and took her
seat in it.

A long ride followed over rough pavements, past dingy rows of shops
and houses, past small villas in small gardens, looking like toy
establishments, and through a more sparsely settled region. Lally,
overcome with fatigue, dozed most of the time, and was rudely awakened
from her slumbers by the stopping of the omnibus and the rough voice of
the driver bidding her alight.

She got out, feeling quite dazed, and saw that the omnibus had stopped
at the end of its route, and that the horses were already unhitched and
being led into the stable. She crept away, not knowing where to go, not
even knowing where she was.

Plodding on wearily, now and then clinging to some way-side fence or
wall for a moment’s rest, she came out upon a wide, deserted heath,
open to whoever might choose to camp upon it. This was Hampstead Heath.
She walked out upon the turf for some distance, and lay down in the
shelter of a furze patch, thinking she was going to die. The skies were
dark above her, and all around her the black gloom brooded, covering
her from the sight of any tramps who might be taking their sleep that
summer night on that same broad common.

And here Lally slept the sleep of utter weariness. She awakened at the
dawn of the new day, and started up, with a wild look around her.

There were donkeys of diminutive breed grazing around her, a few tramps
rising lazily from the ground, and a score of industrious people, men,
women, boys and girls, digging up groundsel, chickweed and other green
weeds, to sell in the great city for the sustenance of birds.

Lally wonderingly surveyed this species of industry of which she
had not previously suspected the existence, and then hastily took
her departure, not even tempted to prolong her stay by the offer of
some bread and cheese from an old, blackened chimney-sweep, who had
evidently also slept upon the heath.

All thoughts of self-destruction had gone from her mind, and the
question as to her future course now presented itself. The school with
which she had formerly been connected as music teacher was broken up,
and among the few people she had known there was one only to whom she
was tempted to go in her distress. That one was an old, consumptive
woman who had been “wardrobe mistress” at the seminary during Lally’s
stay there--that is, the old woman had mended and darned the garments
of the pupils, and had supported herself on her meagre pay. She lived
at Notting Hill, the school having been located in that neighborhood,
and Lally knew her address. The old woman had been kind to her, and
Lally resolved to seek her.

She walked a portion of the distance, and availed herself of the aid
of omnibuses when she could. Yet the morning was well on when the girl
climbed the rickety stairs to the garret of her old friend, and timidly
knocked for admittance.

The old woman was at home, busy with her needle, and gave Lally
admittance. More--when she heard her pitiful story--she gave the girl
sympathy and the tenderest kindness. She was very near her grave, and
very poor, but she offered Lally a share of her home, and the girl
gratefully accepted it. Here she ate breakfast. During the day her
old friend borrowed a copy of the morning’s paper, as was her daily
custom, and Lally read in it the account of the suicide on Waterloo
Bridge, her name being given--to her utter amazement--as that of the
self-murderess.

Having a conviction that Rufus would see the same notice, as indeed he
had done, she visited the coroner’s office with a yearning to see her
young husband as he should bend over the poor mutilated body believing
it to be her own, and to relieve his anguish and remorse. But Rufus
came not, and the suicide was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Lally went back to the garret at Notting Hill, with a strange gloom
on her face, and shared the labors of the old seamstress, gradually
assuming the entire support of her friend, as the old woman’s strength
failed. She did all the sewing her friend--who was now wardrobe
mistress at a boys’ school--had engaged to do, and nursed her with a
daughter’s tenderness, actually starving herself to nourish her only
friend, watching by day and night at her side, denying herself food,
clothes, and needed rest, to take care of the one who had befriended
her; but with all her care and kindness the old woman faded day by day,
and early in September died, invoking with her last breath blessings on
Lally’s name.

The few sticks of furniture were sold to give the old woman a decent
burial. Lally was out of money--out of everything. The superintendent
of the boys’ school refused to allow her to continue the duties she had
performed in the old woman’s name, alleging that she was too young.
And as a last blow, she was turned out of her lodgings because of her
inability to pay the rent.

At this crisis of her history, when as it seemed only death presented
an open door to her, she resolved to go down to Wyndham and look once
more on her husband’s face.

To think, with our desperate Lally, was to act. She set out to walk
to Wyndham, working in the hop-fields for sustenance as she went.
Thus she did three full days of work before she arrived near her
destination, and she had crept into the way-side thicket to rest before
continuing her journey to Wyndham, when she chanced to overhear the
conversation between Neva Wynde and Rufus Black.

Her despair, as she listened to the words of her young husband in
declaring his love for Neva, may be imagined. She did not dream how
bitterly he had mourned for his lost young wife; she did not dream that
she was dearer to him still than Neva could ever be. How could she
tell, when listening to his passionate vows of love to Miss Wynde, that
the young wife who had slept in his bosom was in his thoughts by day
and by night, and was regarded by him as a holy, precious memory?

“It’s all over!” she sobbed, pressing her face down upon the dewy turf.
“I am forgotten--but why should I not be? I never was his wife. He said
so himself in his letter to me that I carry still next my heart. Not
his wife--but _she_ will be! How beautiful she is! How lovely her face
was, how clear her voice. She would pity me if she knew, but she is an
heiress, I dare say, while I am only the poor outcast Rufus has made
me! Oh, Rufus, Rufus!”

She wailed aloud, but she had learned to bear her griefs in silence,
and presently she struggled to her feet and walked in the direction in
which the heiress and her lover had gone--the same way by which Lally
had recently come.

There was no need for her to go to Wyndham now. Her presence there, or
her appearance to Rufus, might embarrass his relations to his newer
love, and possibly interfere with his marriage. He thought her dead,
and had not even come forward to claim the body he supposed to be hers.
Ah, yes, she had never been his wife, and she was forgotten. She would
never cross his path again.

She staggered wearily along the road, in and out of the beaten
foot-path, with the twilight deepening around her, and with a deeper
twilight settling down upon her heart and brain. She passed the
Hawkhurst park, the picturesque stone lodge guarding the great bronze
gates, and here she paused.

The lodge was closed, and a faint light streamed out through the dotted
white curtains. Lally crept close to the great gates formed of bronze
spears tipped with gilt, like the gates of the Tuileries gardens at
Paris, and pressing her face against the cool rods, looked up the
avenue.

At the distance of half a mile or more, the great gray stone mansion
sat throned upon a broad ridge of land, and lights flared from the wide
uncurtained windows far upon the terrace, and the glass dome of flowers
was all alight, and the stately old house looked to the homeless
wanderer down by the gates like Paradise.

Her eager eyes searched the terrace, and then, inch by inch, the great
tree-arched avenue.

Midway up the avenue, walking slowly, as lovers walk, she saw her young
husband and Neva Wynde. With great jealous eyes she watched their
progress through the shadows, and, when they paused in the stream of
light upon the terrace, and Rufus Black bent low toward the heiress, a
great flame leaped into poor Lally’s sombre eyes, and she caught her
breath sharply.

The heiress and her suitor stood for some moments upon the terrace,
unconscious of the eyes upon them. Rufus declined to go into the house
that evening, alleging his agitation as an excuse. Neva took her
small parcel which he had carried, and he seized her hand, uttering
passionate words of love, and begging her to look favorably upon his
suit. Then not waiting for an answer, he pressed her hand to his lips,
and dashed down the avenue toward the gates, while Neva entered the
house.

And all this the jealous, disowned wife saw, with her face growing
death-like, and the flame burning yet more brightly in her sombre eyes.

“She has accepted him,” she muttered. “She will not take the week to
consider his suit. They are betrothed. I was sure she lived here.
Perhaps she owns the place, and he will be its master. They will both
be rich and happy and beloved, while I--Ah, how swiftly he comes! He
walked like that the night _I_ accepted him. But I am not his wife; I
never was, even when I thought myself so. He must not see me. No shadow
from the past must darken his happy life--his and hers. It is all
over--all over--and I shall never see his face again!”

With one last, long lingering look, and a sob that came from her very
soul, she turned and sped down the road like a mad creature--away from
Wyndham, and Rufus, and all her hopes--going, ah, where?

And Rufus, with his new love-dream glowing in his soul, came out of the
Hawkhurst grounds, and hurried toward his inn, never dreaming how near
he had been to his lost wife, nor how surely he had lost her.




CHAPTER XVIII. ONE OF NEVA’S LOVERS DISPOSED OF.


Upon his return to the Wyndham inn, Rufus Black found his father
awaiting him in their private parlor. The elder Black arched his brows
inquiringly as his son came in, and Rufus bowed to him gayly, as he
said:

“Well, father, you ought to be pleased with me now. I have offered
myself to Miss Wynde.”

Craven Black started.

“She has accepted you?” he demanded.

“Not yet. She wants to think the matter over, and I have consented to
let the thing rest where it is for a week. I take it as a good sign
that she did not refuse me at once. Her hesitation implies a regard for
me--”

“Or a sense of duty toward some one else,” muttered Craven Black.
“Curse that letter. If I had seen the girl, I would never have written
it.”

“What is it you say, father? I did not catch your words.”

“They were not meant for your ears. So, Miss Wynde demands a week in
which to consider your offer? It would be proper for you to refrain
from going to Hawkhurst to-morrow. I’ll explain to her that you
remained away from motives of delicacy.”

“Which I shall not do,” said Rufus doggedly. “I shall go to Hawkhurst
to-morrow evening. I will not leave the field clear to Lord Towyn. He’s
an earl, rich, handsome, and intellectual, the very man to capture a
girl’s heart, and if I know myself, I am not going to give him a clear
field. Why, he loves her better than I do even, and I can only come out
ahead of him by dint of sheer persistency. It’s a mystery to me how
she refrained from saying No to me, when she can have Lord Towyn if she
chooses. There is something behind her hesitation--some hidden cause--”

“Which you will do well to let alone,” interposed his father. “‘Take
the goods the gods provide’ without questioning.”

Rufus was not satisfied, but concluded to act upon this advice.

The next morning Craven Black attired himself with unusual care, and
mounted his piebald horse, a new purchase, and set out alone, at a
slow canter, for Hawkhurst. He knew that the heiress usually took a
morning ride, attended only by her groom, and he knew in what direction
these rides usually lay. It was impossible for him to demand a private
interview with her at her home without exciting the suspicions and
jealousy of Lady Wynde, and he was determined to see the heiress alone,
and discover in what estimation she held him. He was also determined
not to accept quietly the four thousand a year of the baronet’s widow
until he knew, beyond all peradventure, that he could not obtain the
seventy thousand per annum of the baronet’s daughter.

He rode up to Hawkhurst lodge, slackening his speed, but not pausing.
As it happened, a little boy, a son of the lodge keeper, was playing in
the road, and Craven Black tossed him a sixpence, and demanded if Miss
Wynde were out riding, and which way she had gone.

“Dingle Farm way,” said the urchin, scrambling in the dust for the
shining coin. “She’s been gone a long time.”

“Who is with her?” asked Craven Black.

“Jim, the groom--that be all.”

Black put spurs to his horse and dashed on. He knew where the Dingle
Farm was, it having been pointed out to him by Lady Wynde, as a portion
of the Hawkhurst property. The ride was a favorite one with Neva, being
unusually diversified. The road led through the Dingle wood, across a
common, and skirted a chalk-pit of unusual size and depth.

Craven Black turned off from the main road into a narrower one that
led across the country, and pursued this course until he entered into
the cool shadows of the Dingle wood. Still riding briskly, he came
out a little later upon the Dingle common, a square mile of unfenced
heath, covered with furze bushes. At the further edge of the common
was the chalk-pit, now disused. The road ran dangerously near to the
precipitous side of the pit, and there was no railing or fence to serve
as a safeguard. Beyond the chalk-pit lay the Dingle Farm, a cozy, red
brick farm-house, embowered with trees.

The morning was clear and bright, and the sun was shining. As Craven
Black emerged from the shadow of the wood he swept a keen glance over
the level common, and beheld a mile or more away, beyond the chalk-pit,
but approaching it, the figure of Miss Wynde.

She was superbly mounted upon a thoroughbred horse, and was followed at
a little distance by her groom.

Even at that distance, Craven Black noticed how well Neva sat her
horse; how erectly she carried her lithe, light figure; how proudly the
little head was poised upon her shoulders. She was coming on toward him
at a sweeping gait, her long green robe fluttering in the swift breeze
she made.

“She will be a wife to be proud of,” thought Craven Black, with a
strange stirring at his heart. “How fearless she is. One would think
she would pass the chalk-pit at a walk, but it is evident she does not
intend to.”

He dashed on to meet her. Neva saw him coming, recognized him, and
the close grasp upon her bridle rein relaxed, and the fierce gallop
subsided into a quiet canter.

She was past the chalk-pit when he came up to her, and she bowed to him
coldly, but courteously.

“Good-morning, Miss Wynde,” said Mr. Black. “You were having a mad ride
here. I fairly shuddered when I saw you coming. A single sheer on the
part of your horse would have sent you over the precipice.”

“Oh, Badjour and I understand each other,” said Neva lightly, patting
the horse’s proudly arched neck. “I never ride a horse, Mr. Black, if I
have not confidence in my ability to control him.”

“But the road is so narrow and dangerous at this point,” said Craven
Black, wheeling and riding slowly at her side.

“You are right, Mr. Black. The road must be fenced in. I will speak to
Lord Towyn about it.”

“And why not to Sir John Freise or Mr. Atkins, who are equally your
guardians?” asked Craven Black, with an attempt at playfulness.

“Because I presume I shall see Lord Towyn first,” replied Neva,
gravely. “What do you say to a race, Mr. Black? I see that you are
returning with me.”

Craven Black looked over his shoulder. The discreet groom had fallen
behind out of earshot. Now was the time to make his declaration of
love. Such an opportunity might not again occur.

“The truth is, Miss Wynde,” he exclaimed, “I came out to meet you. I
want to have a quiet talk with you, if you will hear me.”

Neva bowed her head gravely, and her reins fell loosely in her
gauntleted hand. They were out upon the wide common now, the Dingle
farm behind them. The Dingle wood ahead.

“You may guess the nature of the communication I have to make to you,
Miss Wynde,” said her elderly lover, with an appearance of agitation, a
portion of which was genuine. “That which I have to say would be more
fittingly said in some other position perhaps. I should prefer to say
it on my knees to you, as the knights made love in olden times.”

“Oh!” said Neva. “Hadn’t we better move on faster, Mr. Black?”

“Coquettish like all of your sex!” said Craven Black, drawing nearer to
her. “You understand my meaning, Neva? You know that I love you--I who
never loved before--”

“Surely,” cried Neva, with an arch sparkle in her red-brown eyes, “you
did not perjure yourself when you married the mother of your son?”

Craven Black bit his lips fiercely, but said smilingly:

“That marriage was one of convenience. No love entered into it, on
my side, at least. I never loved till I met you, fair Neva. You have
younger suitors, but not one among them all who will be to you what I
would be--your slave, your minister, your subject.”

“And I should want my husband to be my king,” murmured Neva softly.
“And I would be his queen.”

“That arrangement would suit me perfectly,” declared Craven Black,
feeling a little awkward at his love-making, not altogether sure
Neva was not secretly laughing at him, yet eagerly catching at the
assistance her words afforded him. “I would be your king, Miss Neva--”

He paused in anger, as the girl’s light laugh made music in his ears
that he by no means appreciated. His anger deepened, as Neva looked at
him with a bright sauciness, a piquant witchery of eyes and mouth.

“You are very kind,” the girl laughed, “but I do not think--pardon me,
Mr. Black--that you are of the stuff of which kings of the kind I meant
are made!”

Craven Black’s fair face flushed. He tugged at his light beard with
nervous fingers. An angry light glowered in his light eyes.

“I may not know the full meaning of your words, Miss Neva,” he said,
forcing himself to speak calmly. “A romantic young girl like you
is sure to have many fancies which time will prune. A young girl’s
fancy is like the overflowing of some graceful rose-tree. When time
shall have picked off a bud here, a leaf there, or a half-blown rose
elsewhere, the remainder of the blossoming will be more perfect. I
am no knight of romance, but I am not aware that there is anything
ridiculous in my face or figure. Ladies of the world have smiled
graciously upon me, and more than one peeress would have taken my name
had I but asked her. My heart is fresh and young, full of romantic
visions like yours. My love is honest, and a king could offer no
better. Miss Wynde, I ask you to be my wife!”

Neva’s face was grave now, but the sparkle was still in her eyes, as
she said:

“I am sure I beg your pardon, Mr. Black, but I thought you were a
suitor of Mrs. Artress. I never had an idea that your visits were
directed to me. I am deeply grateful for the honor you have done me--I
suppose that is the proper remark to make under the circumstances; the
ladies in novels always say it--but I must decline it.”

“And why, if I may be allowed to ask?” demanded Craven Black, his face
deepening in hue nearly to purple. “Why this insulting refusal of an
honest offer of marriage, Miss Wynde?”

Neva regarded her angry suitor with cool gravity.

“I beg your pardon if the manner of my refusal seemed insulting,” she
said gently, “but the idea seems so singular--so preposterous! At the
risk of offending you again, Mr. Black, I must suggest that a union
with Mrs. Artress would be more suitable. I am only a girl, and young
still, as you know, and it is proper that youth should mate with youth.”

“You prefer my son then?”

“To you? I do.”

“And you will marry him?”

The lovely face shadowed, but Neva answered quietly:

“Mr. Rufus has asked me that question, sir, and I prefer to have him
receive his answer from my lips. Whatever my feelings toward him, I
have no indecision in regard to you.”

“And you actually and decidedly refuse me?”

“Actually and decidedly, Mr. Black!”

“Is there no hope that you may change your mind Miss Wynde? Will no
devotion upon my part affect your resolution?”

“None whatever. I cannot even give your proposal serious consideration,
Mr. Black. I am willing to regard you as a friend. As a lover, pardon
me, you would be intolerable to me.”

Neva spoke with an honest frankness that increased Craven Black’s
anger. He saw that he had no chance of winning her love or her fortune,
and it behooved him not to lose the lesser fortune and lesser charms of
her step-mother. He tried to take his failure philosophically, but in
refusing his love, Neva had made him her bitter and unscrupulous enemy.

“I accept my defeat, Miss Wynde,” he said bitterly, “and resign all my
pretensions to your hand. Pardon my folly, and forget it. I hope my son
will meet with better success in his suit. And may I ask as a favor
that you will keep my proposal secret, not even telling it to your
step-mother?”

“I am not in the habit of boasting of such things, even to Lady Wynde,”
said Neva, coldly. “Your proposal, Mr. Black, is already forgotten.”

They were in Dingle wood now, and the heiress struck her horse sharply
and dashed away at a canter. Craven Black kept pace with her, and at a
discreet distance behind followed the liveried groom.

Neither spoke again until they were out of the wood, and had traversed
the cross-road and gained the highway. When the gray towers of
Hawkhurst loomed up in full view, their speed slackened, and Craven
Black said hastily:

“One word, Miss Wynde. I have your solemn promise, have I not, that you
will never betray the fact that I have proposed marriage to you?”

Neva bowed haughtily.

“Since you have not confidence in my delicacy,” she said, “I will give
the promise.”

Craven Black’s face flushed with something of triumph. He was still
smarting with his anger and disappointment, still secretly foaming
with a bitter rage, but he desired to show Neva that he was not at all
crushed or humiliated.

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall rely upon that promise. The truth is,
Miss Neva, a betrayal of my secret would cause me serious trouble.
Ladies never pardon even a slight and temporary disaffection like mine.
I am engaged to be married, and my promised bride is the most exacting
of women. She would rage if she knew that I had looked with love upon
one so many years her junior.”

“Indeed! You will marry Artress then?”

“Artress?” ejaculated Black, in well-counterfeited amazement. “What,
marry the companion when I can have the mistress? No, indeed, Miss
Neva. I am engaged to Lady Wynde!”

“To Lady Wynde--to my father’s widow?”

Black bowed assent.

Neva was astounded. She had been too busy with her friends since her
return to Hawkhurst to detect the real object of Craven Black’s visits,
and both Lady Wynde and Black had conspired to hoodwink her. She had
never contemplated the possibility of Lady Wynde marrying for the third
time. The idea almost seemed sacrilegious. Her father had seemed to
her so grand and noble, so above other men, that she had not deemed it
possible for a woman who had once been honored with his love to marry
another.

“It is like Marie Louise, who married her chamberlain after having been
the wife of Napoleon,” she thought. “It is incredible. I refuse to
believe it!”

Her incredulity betrayed itself in her face.

“You don’t believe it?” said Black, with a mocking smile. “It is true,
I assure you. Lady Wynde and I became engaged before your return from
school. We are to be married next month. Her trousseau is secretly
preparing in London.”

His manner convinced Neva that he spoke the truth.

“And so,” she said, her lip curling, “when your wedding-day is so near,
and the woman you have won is making ready for your marriage, you amuse
yourself in talking love to me! And that is your idea of honor, Mr.
Black? You are well named. Craven by name, and Craven by nature!”

She inclined her head haughtily and dashed on. Black, choking with
rage, hurried in close pursuit. The lodge gates swung open at their
approach, and they galloped up the avenue. Lady Wynde came out upon
the terrace to meet them. Neva dismounted at the carriage porch, the
terrace being only upon one side of the mansion, and with a haughty
little bow to Lady Wynde passed into the house.

Black dismounted and gave his horse in charge of the stable lad who
had taken in hand the horse of Neva, and then walked toward the open
drawing-room window with his betrothed wife.

“What is the matter between you and Neva, Craven?” asked Lady Wynde
jealously. “You look as black as a thundercloud, and she looked like an
insulted queen. What have you been saying to her?”

“I thought it time to divulge our secret to her, my darling,” said
Black hypocritically. “Our wedding-day is so near that I deemed it best
to inform her. I met her out riding, and seized upon the occasion to
declare the truth.”

“And what did she say?”

“She fairly withered me with her scorn; recommended me to marry Matilda
Artress; and seemed to regard my marriage with her father’s widow as a
species of sacrilege. I hate her!” he hissed between his clenched teeth.

Lady Wynde smiled, well-pleased.

“And so do I,” she acknowledged frankly. “But it is for our interest to
counterfeit friendship for her. Be patient, Craven. Some day you and I
may bring down her haughty pride to the dust.”

“Suppose she refuses Rufus?”

“You and I will soon be married, Craven, and in our union is strength.
Tell Rufus to write to Neva, delaying her answer to his suit for
a month. By that time we shall be married. If she refuses then to
accept your son as her husband, we can contrive some way to compel her
obedience. I am her step-mother and guardian, and have authority which
I shall use if I am pushed to the wall. I promise you, Craven, that we
shall secure our ten thousand a year out of Neva’s fortune, and that we
shall compel the girl to marry your son. Leave it all to me. Only wait
and see!”




CHAPTER XIX. NEVA’S CHOICE FORESHADOWED.


In accordance with the advice of his scheming father, Rufus Black
wrote a letter to Neva Wynde entreating her to take a month or six
weeks, instead of the single week for which she had stipulated,
for the consideration of his suit. And Neva, struggling between
conflicting feelings, whose nature the reader already knows, and glad
to be relieved of the necessity for an immediate decision, gratefully
accepted the offered reprieve.

The engagement of Craven Black and Lady Wynde, now that it had been
declared to Neva, was no longer kept a secret from the world. Mr.
Black, in a moment of good-natured condescension, informed his host at
the Wyndham inn, and the amazed landlord bruited the story through the
village. The engagement was publicly announced in the court papers,
Craven Black himself writing the paragraph and procuring its insertion,
and this announcement was copied into the Kentish journals.

As may be imagined, the news of Lady Wynde’s intended marriage produced
quite a sensation in the neighborhood of Hawkhurst. Sir Harold Wynde’s
former friends were scandalized that he should have been so soon
forgotten by the wife he had idolized, and that a man so palpably
inferior to the baronet in character and attributes should have been
chosen to take his place. Others, the three guardians of Neva’s
property among the number, were ill-pleased that Craven Black should
take his place during Neva’s minority as nominal master of Hawkhurst,
and accordingly one morning, a fortnight after the publication of the
engagement, Sir John Freise, Mr. Atkins, and Lord Towyn, rode over to
Hawkhurst, and demanded an interview with Lady Wynde and Neva.

Miss Wynde appeared first in the drawing-room, simply dressed in
white, and fresh from a ramble in the park. She looked a little worn
and troubled, as if her nights were spent more in anxious thoughts
than in slumbers, but the radiance of her wonderful red-brown eyes was
undimmed, and her face had lost nothing of the piquant witchery which
was its chiefest charm.

Before time had been granted Neva to more than exchange greetings with
her guardians, Lady Wynde entered the room with an indolent languor of
motion, and welcomed her visitors with effusion.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, gentlemen,” said her ladyship, her
black eyes glancing from one to another. “You have come to congratulate
me upon the change in my prospects, I dare say. I have been overwhelmed
with calls during the past week, and begin to find my connection with
an old county family decidedly onerous,” and she laughed softly. “All
of Sir Harold’s friends have been to see me, and really I believe that
some of them have felt it their duty to condole with Neva upon the
misfortune of so soon possessing a step-papa.”

The three gentlemen had called for the purpose of discussing with Lady
Wynde and Neva the expected change in the prospects of her ladyship,
but the quiet audacity of the handsome widow’s speech and manner
half-confounded them.

Sir John Freise, being the eldest of the party, took upon himself the
office of spokesman.

“I was an old friend of Sir Harold, Lady Wynde,” he said, a little
stiffly. “I was a man when Sir Harold was a boy, but I knew him well,
and I loved him. I know how deeply he was attached to you, and it is
for his sake that I have now intruded upon you. You are still young,
and with your attractions and your fortune you are peculiarly liable
to be beset by fortune-hunters. As your late husband’s most intimate
friend, I desire to ask you if you have well considered this step you
are about to take?”

Lady Wynde bowed a cold assent.

“Your knowledge of the character of Mr. Black can be but slight,”
persisted Sir John Freise, leaning his chin upon the gold knob of his
walking-stick, and regarding the handsome widow with troubled eyes. “He
has been at Wyndham but a few months. I grant that he is of attractive
exterior, Lady Wynde, but what do you know of his character? I have not
come here to make any charges against Mr. Black but those I am prepared
to substantiate. These gentlemen who have accompanied me will bear me
out in the statement that I have no personal prejudices in the matter,
and that I am actuated only by a desire for your ladyship’s happiness
and that of Miss Wynde. I have written to London since hearing the
report of your engagement, and yesterday received a reply of so much
moment that I summoned Lord Towyn from his marine villa and Mr. Atkins
from Canterbury to accompany me into your presence, and assist me to
impart to you the unpleasant news. Lady Wynde, this Craven Black,
your accepted lover, is a scoundrel, a gamester, a man unworthy your
consideration for a moment.”

“Indeed!” said Lady Wynde, with a slight sneer. “Mr. Black, to my
knowledge, goes in the first society. He visited at the Duke of
Cheltenham’s last year, and the duke is a perfect Puritan, as every one
knows.”

“The Duke of Cheltenham is a distant connection of Mr. Black, and
invited him to his house with the hope of winning him into better
courses,” said Sir John gravely. “But it is not Mr. Black’s high
connections, but the man himself, with whom your destiny is to be
linked, Lady Wynde. I implore you to consider your decision. Better to
remain for ever the honored widow of Sir Harold Wynde than to become
the wife of Mr. Craven Black.”

“I do not think so,” said her ladyship, her sneer deepening. “I
believe I am competent to choose for myself, Sir John, and it is _my_
happiness, you will be pleased to remember, which is at stake. I resent
your interference, as uncalled for and intrusive. I shall marry Mr.
Craven Black in two weeks from to-day, and if you do not approve the
marriage I presume you will be able to testify your disapproval by
remaining away from the wedding.”

Sir John looked deeply pained; Mr. Atkins looked disgusted. Lord
Towyn’s warm blue eyes were directed toward Neva rather than toward
Lady Wynde, but he lost nothing of the conversation.

“I have performed only my duty in warning you, Lady Wynde,” said Sir
John, after a pause. “You are bent upon this marriage with a man who
was a stranger to you three months since, and so soon after the tragic
death of Sir Harold Wynde in India?”

“I have waited a year and three months before marrying again,” declared
Lady Wynde, impatiently. “Why should I wait longer? Surely a year of
mourning is all that custom requires. And as to not knowing Mr. Black,
permit me to say that I know him well. I knew him before I ever met Sir
Harold. Frequenting the same circles in town, and meeting more than
once at the same houses in the country, it is impossible that I should
not have known him. And here I beg you will drop the subject. I am in
no mood to hear your aspersions of an honorable man, and your jealousy
for the memory of Sir Harold Wynde need not blind you to the fact that
virtue and honor did not die with him.”

Sir John looked shocked and amazed. Neva’s face paled, and a sudden
indignation flamed in her eyes, but she remained silent.

“I think, with all deference to your opinion, Sir John,” said Mr.
Atkins, “that, as Lady Wynde suggests, we would better drop the subject
of Mr. Black. It is difficult to convey unpleasant information in a
case like this without giving offence. We have done our duty, and that
must content us. Let us now come to the actual business in hand. Allow
me to ask you, Lady Wynde, if you intend to continue your residence at
Hawkhurst after becoming Mrs. Craven Black?”

A flash of defiance shot from her ladyship’s black eyes.

“Certainly, I intend to reside here with my husband during the minority
of my step-daughter,” she declared boldly. “I am Neva’s guardian, and
my residence as such was assigned at Hawkhurst.”

“Sir Harold never contemplated a state of affairs such as you propose
Madam,” said Mr. Atkins doggedly. “To make this Mr. Craven Black
nominal master of the home of the Wyndes is something utterly unlooked
for.”

“Where I am mistress, my husband will be master!” asserted Lady Wynde,
with temper.

“It should be so,” declared Mr. Atkins, “but you see how inappropriate
it would be to make Mr. Black master of Hawkhurst. Good taste--pardon
my plainness--would dictate your ladyship’s retirement from Hawkhurst
upon the occasion of your third marriage, and we have come to propose
that Hawkhurst be closed, Miss Neva transferred to the guardianship of
Sir John Freise and Lady Freise, and that you and your new husband take
up your abode at Wynde Heights, your dower house, or at any other place
you may prefer.”

Lady Wynde frowned her anger and defiance.

“I shall remain at Hawkhurst,” she exclaimed haughtily. “If you desire
to remove me, you must do so by process of law. If you think her
father’s wife an unfit personal guardian for Miss Wynde, you can have
Sir Harold’s will set aside, or take legal proceedings to obtain for
her another guardian. I shall not relinquish my post, or the charge my
dead husband reposed in me, until I am compelled to do so.”

The young Lord Towyn’s face flushed, and he addressed Neva, in his
clear ringing voice:

“Miss Wynde, this matter concerns you above all others, and it is
for you to have a voice in it. The proposed marriage of Lady Wynde
completely vitiates your present relations to her. In becoming Mrs.
Craven Black, I consider that Lady Wynde throws off all allegiance to
Sir Harold Wynde, and ceases to be your step-mother. It is for you to
decide if you will choose a new personal guardian in her stead.”

All eyes turned upon the fair young girl. The young earl awaited her
reply with a breathless anxiety. Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins fixed
their eager gaze upon her, and Lady Wynde regarded her sharply and with
some uneasiness.

“Before Neva comes to a decision,” said her ladyship hastily, “I have
a word to say to her. Have I not treated you with all kindness and
tenderness, Neva, since you came under this roof? Have I been guilty of
one act of neglect, of step-motherly cruelty, or want of consideration?
Have not your wishes been considered in all things?”

Neva could not answer these questions in the negative.

“There is no stipulation in Sir Harold’s will that I should not
again marry,” continued Lady Wynde. “Sir Harold, without mention of
the contingency of another marriage on my part, constituted me his
daughter’s personal guardian, with the request that I make Hawkhurst
my home until Neva marries or attains her majority. Not one word is
said about or against my marriage, you will observe; and certainly
Sir Harold Wynde was too sensible to expect me to remain a widow
long--at my age too. My marriage, therefore, does not interfere with
my relations toward Neva as her step-mother and personal guardian. Any
court of law will confirm this decision. If you choose, Neva, to apply
for a change of guardians, and to make a scandal, and to make your name
common on every lip, I can only regret your ill-taste, and that you
have yielded to such ill-guidance.”

Mr. Atkins felt a sentiment of admiration mingle with his dislike for
Lady Wynde.

“She ought to have been a lawyer,” he thought. “She’s a mighty sharp
woman, and we are sure to get the worst of it in a battle with her.
Pity we made the attack, if it is only to put her on her guard.”

Neva was still considering the matter intently. She had a thorough
contempt for Craven Black, and disliked the prospect of being under
the same roof with him, but she dreaded still more the publicity
that would be given to her application for change of guardians. She
remembered her father’s many injunctions to cling to Lady Wynde until
her own marriage, or the attainment of her majority. Lady Wynde had not
been unkind to her, nor illy fulfilled her duties as chaperon. Neva
had actually nothing of which to complain, save Lady Wynde’s proposed
marriage. She was a conscientious girl, and she could not decide to
throw off the yoke her father had placed upon her shoulders, simply
because Lady Wynde had chosen to enter into new relations which were
not likely to affect the old. She felt that she was placed in a cruel
position, but her duty, she thought, was plain to her.

“Well, what is your decision, my child?” asked Sir John Freise
paternally.

“You are very kind to me, Sir John, and you also, Lord Towyn and Mr.
Atkins,” said the young girl tremulously, “and I cannot properly
express my gratitude to you for your concern for me. I appreciate all
you have said, all that you mean. I own that Lady Wynde’s intended
marriage is repugnant to me, and that I cannot understand how her
ladyship can take Mr. Craven Black into papa’s place, but I have tried
to reconcile myself to the change. And I think,” added Neva, her tones
gathering firmness, and a brave look shining in her eyes of red gloom,
“that I have not sufficient excuse for appealing to the law to give me
a change of guardians. I shall have little to do or say to Mr. Craven
Black, and Hawkhurst is large enough for us both. It was papa’s wish
that I should remain for a certain period under the care of Lady Wynde,
and I cannot forget that she was papa’s wife, and that he loved her.
And more,” concluded Neva very gently, “if Lady Wynde is about to
contract an imprudent marriage, and if she is likely to know sorrow
because of her false step, she will need my friendship when the truth
comes home to her. I thank you again, Sir John, Lord Towyn, Mr. Atkins,
but I do not think I should be justified in taking the decided step you
advise.”

“I don’t know but you are right, Neva,” said Sir John. “At any rate,
give your ideas of duty a fair trial, and if you change your mind
let us know. It is not as if you were going away from us. Mr. Black,
finding himself in a quiet, decorous neighborhood, may choose to settle
down, and become a better man. We shall see you frequently, and my
house will always be open to you, my dear, and my wife and girls will
always be glad to receive you as an inmate of our family.”

“I shall not forget your kindness, Sir John,” said Neva gratefully.

“Miss Neva has always a way of escape from an unpleasant situation,”
said the practical Mr. Atkins. “Her marriage will free her from Lady
Wynde’s guardianship without publicity of an unpleasant description.”

Neva reddened vividly.

The frankness with which the conversation had been distinguished had
considerably surprised the young earl. No one seemed to require the use
of diplomacy in making plain an unpleasant meaning, and even Lady Wynde
did not seem offended at the utterance of home truths from the lips of
Mr. Atkins. It was an hour for plain-dealing, which was freely indulged
in.

The visitors, finding their errand fruitless, offered Lady Wynde their
best wishes for her future, and bade her good-morning. At the door, Sir
John Freise looked back with a smile and said:

“You look pale, Neva. Come down the avenue for a walk. I have a message
for you from the girls which I forgot to deliver.”

Neva procured her hat, and followed Sir John out of the house. The
horses were in waiting, and Mr. Atkins mounted. Sir John and Lord Towyn
took their bridles on their arms, and walked slowly down the long
arched avenue with the young heiress.

Lady Wynde watched them jealously from the window.

“I am afraid, my dear,” said the kindly baronet, “that you have made
a romantic decision to-day, but you must decide in this matter for
yourself. If you remain unmarried, these Blacks will fairly riot
at Hawkhurst for the next three years. Craven Black will fill your
father’s house with dissolute company, and you will be brought in
contact with men whom your father would never have allowed to cross his
threshold.”

“Should such an event arise,” said Neva, her lovely face growing
resolute and stern, “I will then consider your proposition, Sir John,
to seek a change of guardians. But I dread the publicity such a
proceeding would cause.”

“Why don’t you take into consideration Atkins’ idea then?” demanded Sir
John, smiling, yet earnest. “You must marry some day, Neva; why not
marry soon? You have plenty of suitors. Only choose some one worthy to
stand in your father’s place, and you will be happy. Your marriage will
be the best way out of the difficulty--the best and the easiest. It
would be a great load off my mind to see you happily married, my dear
child. Wait a moment, Atkins?” added the baronet, raising his voice.
“Why go so fast? I have a word to say to you.”

The kindly old man hurried on to speak to his coadjutor, leading his
horse as he went, and Neva and Lord Towyn were left to themselves--an
opportunity specially planned by Sir John, who regarded his manœuvres
as decidedly Machiavellian, and who consequently plumed himself upon
their success.

The young earl’s visit at Freise Hall had long since terminated, and
he was now stopping at his marine villa on the coast, a dozen miles or
more away. The distance was not so great that he could not ride over to
Hawkhurst every pleasant day, and he did so with an utter disregard of
distance or exertion. His suit with Neva, however, had never progressed
beyond his early declaration of love, Neva’s reserve having chilled him
whenever he had attempted to renew the subject.

He recognized his present favorable opportunity, and hastened to
improve it.

“I am afraid we took you by storm to-day, Neva,” said the young
earl, as they slowly walked down the avenue, considerably behind Mr.
Atkins and Sir John, who had now mounted. “But Sir John Freise was
determined to make an effort to save Lady Wynde from a union which she
is likely to regret. Her ladyship is too pure and true to comprehend
the character of her suitor, and she will cling to him all the more
determinedly because of our well-meant warning.”

By this it will be seen that Lord Towyn, with his frank nature, and
honest soul, had not the slightest suspicion of the real character of
Lady Wynde. If Craven Black was bad, she was also bad. She could never
have loved or been wholly at ease in the society of a good man.

“I am sorry for her,” said Neva, sighing.

“She must ‘go her own gait,’” said Lord Towyn, “but you must not be
involved in her unhappiness. Neva, darling Neva, I would almost die
to spare you one pang of sorrow, one shadow of grief. I love you,
and each day only adds to that love,” and his voice grew unsteady and
impassioned. “You have held me off at arms’ length ever since that
evening in which I told you so prematurely how dear you were to me. Do
not repulse me now. Tell me honestly, my darling, whether you could be
happy with me--whether I am dearer to you than another?”

His blue eyes, radiant with the warmth of his glowing soul, flashed an
electric light into hers. His passionate face, so fair and handsome, so
noble in expression and feature, looked love upon hers. Neva’s eyelids
trembled and drooped. An answering thrill convulsed her heart, and she
knew in that moment that, come what would, she loved Arthur Towyn with
all her soul, even as he loved her, and that she would know perfect
happiness only as his wife.

Yet the conviction came upon her as a painful shock, and in that
instant the struggle between her love and her duty of obedience to the
supposed wishes of her dead father began in her heart.

“You love me?” whispered the young earl ardently, and with a passionate
tremor of his voice. “Neva, with all my soul I love you, and I never
loved before. Do I love in vain?”

The shy, red-brown eyes were upraised for a brief glance, but in their
swift flash Lord Towyn read his answer, and knew himself beloved.

There was a brief silence between them full of rapture. They exchanged
no betrothal kiss, no embrace, but Lord Towyn held Neva’s hand in his,
and in his fervent pressure his soul spoke to hers.

“I may tell Sir John and Mr. Atkins that we are betrothed, may I not,
my darling?” said the young earl softly, as they walked on yet more
slowly.

“Not yet, Arthur--not yet. I love you,” and the girl’s voice sank to
a whisper her lover’s ears could scarcely catch, “but I want a little
time to decide. Don’t look surprised, Arthur; I do love you better than
all the world, but it is all so new and strange, and--and--”

“I understand,” said the earl, his face beaming. “Our love is too
sacred to be proclaimed on the instant we acknowledge it ourselves.
We will keep it secret until after Lady Wynde’s marriage; but we are
promised, darling! Our happiness would be complete if we could know
beyond all doubt that Sir Harold smiles upon our union. And why should
he not smile upon our marriage from his home in Heaven? He loved me,
Neva, and he desired our marriage. My father told me this on his
death-bed.”

“If I could think so!” breathed Neva. “I know papa loved you, Arthur.
Do you think he would really approve our marriage?”

“What an anxious little face! I know he would approve it, Neva. My
blessed little darling, mine own, whom no one can take from me!” cried
Lord Towyn passionately. “I am going home to dine with Sir John, and
I will call upon you this evening. I am going to exact a lover’s
privilege of seeing you when I please, without the cold, prying eyes of
Mrs. Artress devouring me. I will be prudent and secret, Neva, since
you insist upon it, but oh, if my month of probation were over and I
might proclaim my happiness to the world!”

They parted near the lodge gates, and Neva returned slowly toward the
house, while her young lover vaulted into his saddle and rejoined his
friends with a countenance so rapturous that they could not avoid
knowing that he had confessed his love to Neva and had not been
rejected.

While they overwhelmed him with congratulations, which he tried to
disclaim as altogether premature, Neva’s mind was divided between joy
and grief, and she murmured:

“What shall I do? What is right for me to do? I love Arthur, and
life will not be complete without him. Shall I, for the sake of that
love, disregard papa’s last wishes which I vowed to accept as sacred
commands? Oh, if I only knew what to do!”




CHAPTER XX. WAS IT A DREAM?


As the time appointed for the marriage of Lady Wynde and Craven Black
drew near, great preparations were entered upon for its celebration.
One would have thought, from the scale of the arrangements on foot,
that the heiress of Hawkhurst was to be the bride, rather than the
baronet’s widow. Dress-makers came down from London, boxes were sent to
and fro, new jewels from Emanuel’s or Ryder’s, were selected to replace
the Wynde family jewels, which Mr. Atkins had compelled the handsome
widow to yield up to her step-daughter, and Artress made a special
trip to Brussels for laces, and to Paris for delicate and sumptuous
novelties in attire. One or two of Madame Elise’s best work women spent
several days at Hawkhurst in fitting robes, and Lady Wynde, with Neva,
Artress and two maids, spent a week in London at the long-closed town
house of Sir Harold.

The eventful day came at last, and was one of the mellowest of all that
mellow October. The sun flooded the little village of Wyndham in waves
of golden light. The pretty little stone church in which the marriage
ceremony was to be performed was beautifully decorated with flowers.
A floral arch vailed the door-way. A carpet of red roses, from the
glass-houses at Hawkhurst, strewed the path the bride must traverse in
going from her carriage to the church door.

Inside the church, myrtles and red roses festooned the walls, and were
suspended above the spot where the bride and groom would stand, in
the form of a marriage bell. The breath of roses filled the air with
perfume sweeter than “gales from Araby.”

Long before eleven o’clock, the villagers and the tenants of Hawkhurst
began to assemble at the church. They were all in gala attire, for
Lady Wynde, with an insatiable vanity, had decreed that her third
marriage-day was to be a gala-day for the retainers of the Wynde
family. The villagers and tenants were all invited to a grand out-door
feast at Hawkhurst, where a hogshead of ale, it was said, was to
be broached, and deers and pigs roasted whole. A brass band from
Canterbury had been engaged for the evening, and there would be colored
lanterns suspended from the trees, and dancing on the terrace and on
the lawn.

Soon after eleven, the carriages of various county families began
to arrive at the church. Sir John and Lady Freise, with their seven
blooming daughters whose ages ranged from eighteen to thirty-five, were
among the first comers. One of the white-gloved ushers, with a bridal
favor pinned to his coat, showed them into a reserved seat. Other
acquaintances and friends, some curious, some full of condemnation,
made their appearance, and were similarly accommodated. Lord Towyn and
Mr. Atkins came in together.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when two carriages rolled up to the
church door, bringing the bridal party from Hawkhurst. From the first
of these alighted Neva and Rufus Black. The heiress was attired in
white, with pink ribbon at her waist and pink roses securing the frill
of lace at her throat, and Rufus wore the prescribed dress suit of
black. They walked up the aisle side by side, and more than one noticed
how pale the young girl was. They took their places in the Wynde family
pew, for Neva had resolutely declined to enact the part of bride’s-maid
to her father’s widow, and would have declined to appear at the
wedding had not she realized that her absence would be more marked and
conspicuous than her presence.

The young heiress had scarcely sank into her seat, when a fluttering
at the door declared to the assembly that the hero and heroine of the
occasion were at hand. In defiance of the custom of meeting at the
altar, Craven Black and Lady Wynde came in together, she leaning upon
his arm.

Her ladyship was dressed in a pink moire, with sweeping court train of
pink velvet. She had worn white at her first marriage, pearl color at
her second; and for the third, and most satisfactorily to her, had put
on the color of love. A diadem set with flashing diamonds starred her
black, fashionably dishevelled hair, above her low forehead. Her arms
and neck were bare, and glittered with gems. Her face was flushed with
triumph; her black eyes shone with a perfect self-content.

The bridal pair took their places before the altar, and the clergyman
and his assistants began their office. The usual questions were asked
and answered; the usual appeal made to any one who knew “any just
cause or impediment why these two should not be united,” but which, of
course, received no response; and her third marriage ring was slipped
upon Lady Wynde’s finger, and for the third time she was a wife.

If any regret mingled with her present happiness, it was that by her
third marriage she lost the title her second alliance had conferred
upon her. But as there was a prospect that Craven Black would inherit
a title some day, and that she would then be a peeress, she easily
contented herself with her present untitled condition.

After the ceremony, the newly married pair proceeded to the vestry
and signed the marriage register. Friends and curious acquaintances
thronged in upon them with congratulations, and soon after, when the
church bell began peeling merrily, the bride and groom reentered their
carriage, and drove home to Hawkhurst.

Neva and Rufus Black followed in the second carriage.

The guests invited to the wedding breakfast entered their carriages,
and followed in the wake of the bridal pair.

The villagers and tenants, in a great, straggling crowd, proceeded
on foot along the dusty road, to take their part in the out-door
festivities.

A magnificent green arch had been erected over the great gates, with
the monogram of the bride and groom curiously intertwisted, and
lettered in red roses upon the green ground. Three similar arches
intersected at regular distances the long avenue. The marble terrace
was bordered with orange trees, oleanders, lemon-trees, and tropical
shrubs, all in wooden tubs, and the front porch was a very bower of
myrtles and red roses.

“It is all in singularly bad taste,” was Sir John Freise’s exclamation,
as he surveyed the scene. “It’s very fine, girls, and would do very
well if it was all for Neva’s marriage, but it is worse than tomfoolery
to invite Sir Harold Wynde’s tenantry and friends to rejoice at the
wedding of Sir Harold’s widow to a man not worthy to tie his shoes. I
must repeat that it is in singularly bad taste. The tenantry are not
Lady Wynde’s; the house is not Lady Wynde’s. What can be done to give
distinction to the marriage-day of the heiress, if all this display is
made for Lady Wynde?”

Sir John’s sentiment was the general one among the house guests. Some
were disgusted, and others privately sneered, but there were some to
whom the proceedings of the baronet’s widow seemed eminently proper,
and these fawned upon her now.

The wedding breakfast was eaten in the grand old dining-hall, among
flowers which, by a rare refinement of taste, had been chosen for this
room without perfume. The tables were resplendent with gold and silver
plate. Fruits of rare species and delicious flavor, fresh from the
hot-houses of Hawkhurst, were nestled among blossoms or green leaves. A
noted French cook from London had charge of the commissary department,
and the rare old wines from Sir Harold’s cellar were unequalled.

While toasts were offered and drank to the newly married pair in
the banquet hall, the tenantry were amusing themselves with their
barbecue and ale out of doors, and their hilarity corresponded to the
lower-toned merriment within the house.

After the breakfast, Sir John Freise and his family, and several
others, all of whom had come out of respect to Neva rather than to
compliment Lady Wynde, took their departure. Many guests remained for
the ball. Lord Towyn took his leave toward evening, and Neva retired to
her own room, whence she did not emerge again that night.

She had tried hard to dissuade Lady Wynde from giving the ball, but
her persuasions had not availed. Neva had declined to attend the
ball, and Lady Freise had supported her in her refusal. How could she
dance in honor of the third marriage of her father’s widow? All day
her thoughts had been of India and of her father, and remembering his
tragical fate, how could she rejoice at a union which could never have
taken place but for his death?

Her step-mother was angry at what she deemed Neva’s obstinacy, and came
to her and commanded her to descend to the ball-room. The young girl
was sternly resolute in her refusal, and the bride went away muttering
her anger and annoyance, but powerless to compel obedience.

There was dancing until a late hour that night in the old baronial hall
that traversed the centre of the great mansion, and there was dancing
outside upon the terrace and lawn to the music of a brass band. Mrs.
Craven Black--Lady Wynde no longer--was the belle of the occasion, full
of gayety and brightness. Mrs. Artress, to the amazement of everybody
who had known her as the gray companion of Lady Wynde, flashed forth
in the sudden splendor of jewels and a trained dress of crimson silk,
and Craven Black danced one set with her, and saw her supplied with
numerous partners. Mrs. Artress considered that her day of servitude
was over, and that it was quite possible that she might make a “good
match” with some wealthy country gentleman, for whom, during all the
evening, she kept a diligent look-out.

Among the guests were two or three reporters of society papers from
London, whom Craven Black, with an eye to the publicity of his glory,
had invited down to Hawkhurst. These gentlemen danced and supped
and wined, and in the pauses of these exercises wrote down glowing
descriptions of the festivities, elaborate details of the ladies’
dresses, and ecstatic little eulogies of the bride’s beauty and
connection with the Wynde family, and of the groom’s pedigree, stating
the precise value of Craven Black’s prospects of a succession to his
cousin, Viscount Torrimore.

The aunt of the bride, Mrs. Hyde of Bloomsbury Square, was not present.
She lay indeed at the point of death, a fact which Mrs. Craven Black
judiciously confined to her own breast, the news having reached her
that morning as she was dressing for her bridal.

At twelve o’clock, midnight, fire-works were displayed on the lawn.
They lasted over half an hour, and were very creditable. After they had
finished, carriages were ordered, and the house guests departed in a
steady stream until all were gone. The tenantry and villagers departed
to their homes on foot or in wagons, as they had come. The colored
lanterns were taken down from the trees; the musicians went away, and
the lights one by one died out of the great mansion.

The bridal pair were to remain a week at Hawkhurst, and were then to go
to Wynde Heights, the dower house of the baronet’s widow, and it had
been arranged that Neva should accompany her step-mother. Rufus Black
was to be a member of the party also, and much was hoped by Mr. and
Mrs. Craven Black from the enforced propinquity of the young couple.

Silence succeeded to the late noise, confusion and merriment--a
silence the more profound by contrast with what had preceded. The
household had retired. Neva had long since dismissed her maid and gone
to bed, thinking sadly of her father. Even before the last carriage
had rolled away, Neva had fallen asleep, not-withstanding her wrapt
musings concerning her father, and as the hours went on, and darkness
and silence fell, that sleep had deepened into a strange and almost
breathless slumber.

But suddenly she sprang up, broad awake, her eyes starting, a cold dew
on her forehead, a wild cry upon her lips.

She stared around her with a look of terror. The white curtains of her
bed were fluttering in the breeze from her open window, and around her
lay the thick gloom of her chamber.

Her voice called through the darkness in a wild, piercing wail:

“Oh, papa, papa! I dreamed--ah, was it a dream?--that he still lives! I
saw him, pale and ghastly, at the door of a hut among the Indian hills,
and I heard his voice calling the names: ‘Octavia! Neva!’ He is not
dead--he is not dead! So surely as I live, I believe that papa too is
alive! Oh, my father, my father!”




CHAPTER XXI. A SCENE IN INDIA.


Neva Wynde had retired to her bed, as will be remembered, upon the
marriage night of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, her thoughts all of her
father and of his tragic fate in India. All day long she had thought
of him with tender yearning, pity and regret, recalling to mind his
goodness, nobleness, and grandeur of soul; and when night came, and
she lay in her bed with the noise of revellers in the drawing-rooms
and on the lawn coming faintly to her ears, she had sobbed aloud at
the thought that her father had been so soon forgotten, and that his
friends and tenantry were now making merry over the marriage of his
widow to a man unworthy to cross the threshold of Hawkhurst.

And thus sobbing and thinking, she had slept, and in her sleep had
dreamed that her father still lived, and that she saw him standing at
the door of a hut among the far-off Indian hills, and that she heard
his voice calling “Octavia! Neva!” And thus dreaming, she had awakened
with a cry of terror, to ask of herself if it was only a dream.

It was not strange that she had thus dreamed, since all the day and all
the evening her mind had been fixed upon her father. It would have been
strange if she had not dreamed of him. Her dream had had the clearness
of a vision, but Neva was not romantic, and although she slept no
more that night, but walked her floor with noiseless steps and wildly
questioning eyes, yet she convinced herself long before the morning
that she had been the victim of her excited imagination, and that her
dream was “only a dream.”

But was it so? There is a philosophy in dreams which not the wisest of
us can fathom. And although the cause of Neva’s dream can be simply
and naturally explained as the result of her agitated thoughts of her
father, yet might one not also think, with less of this world’s wisdom,
perhaps, and more of tenderness, that the girl’s guardian angel had
placed that picture before her in her sleep, and so made recompense, in
the joy of her dream, for her day of anguish and unrest?

Be this as it may, our story has to deal with actual facts, and has now
to take a startling turn, perhaps not anticipated by the reader.

It was about one o’clock of the morning when Neva awakened from her
dream.

It was then about seven o’clock--there being six hours difference in
time--in India.

Among the cool shadows of the glorious Himalayas are many country
seats, or “bungalows,” occupied at certain seasons by exhausted English
merchants from Calcutta, with their families, by army officers, and by
others of foreign birth, enervated or rendered sickly by the scorching
heats of the sea-coast or more level regions. They find “among the
hills” the fresh air, and consequent health, for which otherwise they
would have to undertake, at all inconvenience and expense, a voyage
home to England or Holland.

These bungalows, for the most part, are cheaply built of bamboo, with
thatched roofs, and are encircled with broad and shaded verandas,
always roofed, and sometimes latticed at the sides and grown with
vines, to form a cool and leafy arcade, which serves all the purposes
of promenade, sitting-room, music-room, dining-room, and even sleeping
room, for there are usually bamboo couches scattered about, upon which
the indolent resident takes his siesta at midday.

To one of these bungalows, a fair type of the rest, we will now direct
the attention of the reader.

It stood upon an elevated plateau, with the tall mountains crested
with snow in the distance. It was surrounded at the distance of a few
miles by a range of hills, and between it and them lay miles of forest,
which was an impenetrable jungle. Around the bungalow was a clearing
of limited extent, and which was dotted with plumed palms, bamboo, and
banyan trees.

The dwelling, frail like all of its class, was sufficiently well built
for the climate. It was constructed of bamboo, was a single story in
height, and was thatched with the broad leaves of the palm. A veranda,
twelve feet wide, surrounded it. Its interior consisted of a broad
hall, extending from front to rear, with two rooms opening from each
side of it. The central hall, containing no staircase, was a long and
wide apartment, which served as dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor,
when required.

A little in the rear of this dwelling were two others, one of which
served as the kitchen of the establishment, and the other as the
quarters of the half-dozen native servants belonging to the place.

The bungalow which we have thus briefly described belonged to a Major
Archer, H. M. A., and it was under its roof that George Wynde had
breathed his last. It was from its broad veranda that Sir Harold Wynde
had rode away for a last morning ride in India, upon that fatal day on
which he had encountered the tiger of the jungle, in which encounter he
was said to have perished.

At about seven o’clock of the morning then, as we have said, and about
the moment when Neva awakened from her dream, Major Archer reclined
lazily upon a bamboo couch in the shadow of his veranda. He was dressed
in a suit of white linen, and wore a broad-brimmed straw-hat, which was
tipped carelessly upon the back part of his head. He was reading an
English paper, received that morning at the hands of his messenger, and
indolently smoking a cigar as he read.

The major was a short, stout, choleric man, with a warm heart and a
ready tongue. He had greatly loved young Captain Wynde, and still
mourned his death, and he mourned also the tragic fate of Sir Harold.

“Not much news by this mail,” the major muttered, as he withdrew his
cigar and emitted a cloud of smoke from his pursed lips.

“And no hope whatever of our regiment being ordered back to England!
We shall get gray out here in this heathenish climate, while the fancy
regiments play the heroes at balls in country towns at home. The good
things of life are pretty unevenly distributed any how.”

He replaced his cigar and clapped his hands sonorously. A light-footed
native, clad in loose white trousers and white turban, and having his
copper-colored waist naked, glided around an angle of the veranda and
approached him with a salaam.

“Sherbet,” said the major sententiously.

The servant muttering, “Yes, Sahib,” glided away as he had come.

The major let fall his paper and reclined his head upon a bamboo rest,
continuing to smoke. He had arisen hours before, had taken his usual
morning ride to the house of a friend, his nearest neighbor, three
miles distant, and had returned to breakfast with his wife and family,
who were now occupied in one of the four rooms of the dwelling. The
major’s duties for the day were now to be suspended until sunset,
the intervening hours being spent in smoking, reading, sleeping and
partaking frequently of light and cooling refreshments.

The sherbet was presently brought to the major in a crystal jug upon a
salver. He laid down his cigar and sipped the beverage with an air of
enjoyment, yet lazily, as he did everything.

“I don’t see how I should get along without you, Karrah,” said the
major. “And you know it too, you dog. I pay you big wages as it is,
and now I want to know how much extra you will take, and forego your
present practice of stealing. I think I’d better commute. Mrs. Archer
says you are robbing us right and left. What do you say?”

The native, a slim, lithe, sinewy fellow with oblong black eyes, full
of slyness and wickedness, a mouth indicative of a cruel disposition,
and with movements like a cat, grinned at the major’s speech, but did
not deny the charge. He had formerly been George Wynde’s servant and
nurse, then Sir Harold’s attendant, and was now Major Archer’s most
valued servant. He had made himself necessary to the officer by his
knowledge of all his master’s requirements, and his exact fulfillment
of them; by his skill in concocting sherbets and other cooling drinks;
by his apparent devotion, and in other ways. Being so highly valued, he
had every opportunity, in that loosely ordered household, of robbing
his employer, and he was maintaining a steady drain upon the major’s
purse which that officer now purposed to abolish.

“Come, you coppery rascal,” said the major good-humoredly, “what will
you take to let the sugar and tea and coffee and the rest of the things
alone, except when you find them on the table?”

“Karrah no make bargain, Sahib,” said the native, rolling up his eyes.
“Karrah do better as it is.”

“No doubt; but I’m afraid, my worthy copper, that we shall have to part
unless you and I can commute your stealings. Yesterday, for instance, I
left five gold sovereigns in my other coat pocket, and last night when
I happened to think of them and look for them they were gone. You took
them--”

“No prove, Sahib--no prove!” said the native stolidly.

“I can prove that no one but you went into that room yesterday except
me,” declared the major coolly. “You needn’t deny the theft, even if
you purpose taking that trouble. I know you took the money. You are a
thief, Karrah,” continued his master placidly and indolently, “and a
liar, Karrah, and a scoundrel, Karrah; but your race is all tarred with
the same stick, and I might as well have you as another. By the way my
fine Buddhist, if that is what you are, did you use to steal right and
left from Captain Wynde?”

“Karrah honest man; Karrah no steal, but Karrah always same.”

“Always the same! Poor George! Poor fellow! No wonder he died!”
muttered the major compassionately. “It was a consumption of the lungs
by disease, and a consumption of means by a scoundrel. And did you take
in Sir Harold in the same way?”

The Hindoo’s face darkened, and an odd gleam shone in his eyes.

“Sir Harold no ’count gen’leman,” he said briefly. “Karrah no like him.
Three days ’fore tiger eat him, Karrah look into Sir Harold’s purse and
take out gold, only few miserable pieces, and Karrah look into Captain
Wynde’s trunk and take a few letters and diamond pin. Sir Harold come
in sudden, see it all; he eyes fire up; he seize Karrah by waistband
and kick he out doors. Karrah hate Sir Harold--_hate--hate_!”

The indolent officer shrank before the sudden blaze of his servant’s
eyes, with a sudden realization of the possibilities of that ignorant,
untaught and vicious nature.

“Why, you’re a perfect demon, Karrah,” exclaimed the major. “You’re a
firebrand--a--a devil! If you hated Sir Harold to such an extent, how
did it happen that you continued in his service, and were even his
attendant upon that last ride?”

The Hindoo smiled slowly, a strange, cruel smile.

“Oh,” he said softly, “Karrah go back; Karrah say sorry; know no
better. Sir Harold smile sad, say been hasty, and forgive. Karrah say
he love Sir Harold. That night Karrah send messenger up country--”

He paused abruptly, as if he had said more than he intended.

“Well, what did you send a messenger up country for, you rascal?”

“To Karrah’s people, many miles away, to say that Karrah not come
home,” declared the Hindoo more guardedly. “Makes no difference why
Karrah sent. Karrah stay with Sahib Sir Harold three days, and see him
die. Then Karrah live with Sahib Major.”

“I hope you don’t hate me,” said the major, with a shudder. “I have
a fancy that your hatred would be as deadly as a cobra’s. If it were
not for the tiger, I might think--But, pshaw! And yet--I say, Karrah,
did you know that there was a tiger in that part of the jungle that
morning?”

“Karrah know nothing,” returned the Hindoo. “Karrah good fellow. He has
enemies--they happen die, that’s all. Karrah no set a tiger on Sahib.
Karrah no friend tigers. Sahib have more sherbet?”

“No, nothing more. You may go, Karrah.”

The Hindoo glided away around the angle of the veranda.

“I believe I’ll have to let the fellow go,” muttered the major,
uneasily. “His looks and words give me a strangely unpleasant
sensation. I shall take care not to offend him, or he may season my
sherbet with a snake’s venom. How he glared in that one unguarded
moment when he said he hated Sir Harold! There was murder in his look.
I declare I had a hundred little shivers down my spine. If Sir Harold
had not been killed so unmistakably by a tiger, and if Doctor Graham
and I had not seen the fresh tracks and the marks of the struggle, and
if the tiger had not been afterward killed, I should think--I should be
sure--”

An anxious look gathered on his face, and he ended his sentence by a
heavy sigh.

“Strange!” he said presently, giving utterance to his secret thoughts;
“my wife never liked this fellow, although I could see no difference
between him and the rest. She insists that he is treacherous and cruel.
I’ll dismiss him, and tell her that I do so out of deference to her
judgment. But the truth is, since I’ve seen the fellow’s soul glaring
out of his eyes, I sha’n’t dare to sleep nights for fear I may have
offended his High Mightiness. I think it better for me that he should
travel out of this.”

He had just announced to himself this decision, when raising his eyes
carelessly and looking out from the cool shadows of the pleasant
veranda, he beheld a horseman approaching his bungalow, riding at great
speed.

“It may be Doctor Graham coming up for a month, as I invited him,”
thought the major, too indolent to feel more than a trivial curiosity
at the sight of a coming stranger. “But the doctor’s too sensible to
ride like that. It is either a green Englishman, with orders from
headquarters for me, or it’s some reckless native. In either case the
fellow’s preparing for a first-class sunstroke or fever, or something
of that nature. But that’s his look-out. I’ve troubles enough of my own
without worrying about him. It might be as well to finish my sherbet
before losing my appetite under an order to return to my post. Oh,
bother the army!”

He sipped his sherbet leisurely, not even looking again at the
horseman, who came on swiftly, urging his horse to a last burst of
speed. That the horse was jaded, his jerking, convulsive mode of going
plainly showed. He was wet with sweat, and his head hung low, and he
frequently stumbled. The horseman urged him on with spur and whip, now
and then looking behind him as if he feared pursuit.

The major did not look up until the horseman drew rein before the
bungalow, and alighted at a huge stone which served as a horse-block.
The stranger came slowly and falteringly toward the veranda, and then
the Sybaritic major set down his empty cup and glanced at him.

The glance became a fixed gaze, full of wildness and affright.

The stranger slowly entered the shade of the veranda and there
halted, his features working, his form trembling. He looked weary and
travel-stained. His haggard eyes spoke to the owner of the bungalow in
a wild appeal.

With the peculiar movement of an automaton, the major slowly arose
to his feet and came forward, his face white, his eyes dilating, a
tremulous quiver on his lips.

“Don’t you know me, major?” asked the stranger wearily.

“Great heaven!” cried the major, even his lips growing white. “It is
not a ghost! I am not dreaming! Have the dead come to life? It is--_it
is--Sir Harold Wynde_!”




CHAPTER XXII. BACK AS FROM THE DEAD.


The stranger who stood upon the veranda of Major Archer’s bungalow was
tall and thin, with a haggard face, worn and sharp of feature, and full
of deeply cut lines, such as a long-continued anguish never fails to
graven on the features. His weary eyes were deeply sunken under his
brows, and were outlined with dark circles. His hair was streaked with
gray, and his long ragged beard was half gray also. His face was white
like death, and unutterably wan. His garments were torn, and hung about
his lank body in rags, save where they were ill-patched with bits of
rags and vegetable fibres.

Was Major Archer right? Could this haggard and pitiable being be Sir
Harold Wynde of Hawkhurst, one of the richest baronets in England, who
was supposed to have perished in the clutches of a tiger?

It seemed incredible--impossible.

And yet when the heavy eyelids lifted from the thin white cheeks, and
looked upon the major, it was Sir Harold’s soul that looked through
them. They were the keen blue eyes the major remembered so well, so
capable of sternness or of tenderness, so expressive of the grand and
noble soul, the pure and lofty character, which had distinguished the
baronet.

Yes, the stranger was Sir Harold Wynde--alive and well!

“You know me then, Major?” he said. “I am not changed, as I thought,
beyond all recognition!”

He held out his hand. The major grasped it in a mixture of bewilderment
and amazement, and not without a thrill of superstitious terror.

“I--I thought you were dead, Sir Harold,” he stammered. “We all thought
so, Graham and all. We thought you were killed by a tiger. I--I don’t
know what to make of this!”

Sir Harold let go the major’s hand and staggered to the bamboo couch
upon which he sank wearily.

“He’s not dead--but dying,” muttered the major. “Lord bless my soul!
What am I to do?”

He clapped his hands vigorously. A moment later his Hindoo servant
Karrah glided around upon the front veranda.

“Bring brandy--sherbet--anything!” gasped the major, pointing at his
guest. “He’s fainting, Karrah--”

Sir Harold lifted his weary head and gazed upon the Hindoo. The sight
seemed to endue him with new life. He leaped to his feet, and his blue
eyes blazed with an awful lightning, as he pointed one long and bony
finger at the native, and cried:

“Traitor! Viper! Arrest him, Major. I accuse him--”

The Hindoo stood for a second appalled, but as the last words struck
his hearing he flung at the baronet a glance of deadly hatred, and then
turned in silence and fled from the bungalow, making toward the jungle.

Something of the truth flashed upon the major’s mind. He routed up his
household in a moment, and dispatched them in pursuit of the fugitive.

Aroused by the tumult, Mrs. Archer came forth from her chamber. She was
a portly woman, and was dressed in a light print, and wore a cap. Her
husband met her in the hall and told her what had occurred. Restraining
her curiosity, she hastened to prepare food and drink for the returned
baronet.

Meanwhile Sir Harold had sank down again upon the couch. The major
approached him, and said:

“You look worn out, Sir Harold. Let me show you to a room, where I will
attend upon you. My men will capture that scoundrel--never fear. Come
with me.”

The baronet arose and took the major’s arm and was led into the central
hall of the house, and into one of the four rooms the house contained.
It was the room in which his son had died. The windows were closely
shuttered, but admitted the air at the top. The floor was of wood and
bare. A bedstead, couch, and chairs of bamboo comprised the furniture.

At one side of the room were two spacious closets. One of these
contained a portable bath-tub, a rack of fresh white towels, and plenty
of water. The other contained clothes depending from hooks.

“You’ll find your own suit of clothes there, Sir Harold,” said the
major. “I intended to send them to England, but I am as fond of
procrastination as ever. It’s just as well though, now. You can take
them home yourself.”

Sir Harold sat down in the nearest chair.

“Home!” he whispered. “How are they--Octavia? Neva?”

“All well--or they were when I heard last.”

“Tell me what you know of them?” And Sir Harold’s great hungry eyes
searched the major’s face. “They believe me dead?”

“Certainly, Sir Harold. Everybody believes you dead. And I am dying to
know how it is that you are alive. Where have you been these fifteen
months? How did you escape the tiger?”

The desired explanation was delayed by the appearance at the door of
Mrs. Archer, who brought a jug of warm spiced drink and a plate of
food. The major took the tray, and shut his wife out, returning to his
guest.

Sir Harold was nearly famished, and ate and drank like one starving.
When his hunger was appeased, and a faint color began to dawn in his
face, he pushed the tray from him, and spoke in a firmer voice than he
had before employed.

“I have imagined terrible things about my wife and Neva,” he said. “My
poor wife! I have thought of her a thousand times as dead of grief. Do
you know, major, how she took the report of my death?”

“I have heard,” said the major, “she nearly died of grief. For a long
time she shut herself up, and was inconsolable, and when she did
venture out at last, it was in a funereal coach, and dressed in the
deepest mourning. There are few wives who mourn as she did.”

Sir Harold’s lips quivered.

“My poor darling!” he muttered inaudibly. “My precious wife! I shall
come back to you from the dead.”

“Lady Wynde is heart-broken, they say,” said the major. “One of the men
in our mess, a lieutenant, is from Canterbury and hears all the Kentish
gossip, and he says people were afraid that Lady Wynde would go into a
decline.”

“My poor wife!” said Sir Harold, with a sobbing breath. “I knew how she
loved me. We were all the world to each other, Major. I must be careful
how she hears the news that I am living. The sudden shock may kill her.
Have you any news of my daughter also?”

“She was still at school when I last heard of her,” answered the
major. “There is no more news of your home, Sir Harold. Your family
are mourning for you and you will bring back their lost happiness. You
ought to have seen your obituaries in the London papers. Some of them
were a yard long, and I’d be willing to die to-day if I could only read
such notices about myself. That sounds a little Hibernian, but it’s
true. And your tenantry put on mourning, and they had funeral sermons
and so on. By all the rules, you ought to have been dead, and, by the
Lord Harry, I can’t understand why you are not.”

Sir Harold smiled wanly.

“Let me explain why I am not,” he said. “You remember that I was taking
my last ride in India, and was about to start for Calcutta, to embark
for England, when I disappeared? Some three days before that I had a
quarrel, if I might call it so, with the Hindoo Karrah--”

“I know it. He told me about it for the first time this morning.”

“You understand then that I had incurred his enmity by kicking him out
of this house? I found him stealing the effects of my dead son. He had
also stolen from me. The letters he was stealing he was acute enough
to know were precious to me, and there was George’s diary, for which I
would not have taken any amount of money. The scoundrel meant to get
away with these, and then sell them to me at his own terms. I took back
my property, and punished him as he deserved. I have now reason to
believe he went away that night to his friends among the hills--”

“He did. He told me he did. But what did he go for?” cried the major
excitedly.

“You can soon guess. The next morning Karrah came back, professing
repentance,” said Sir Harold. “I reproached myself for having been too
harsh upon the poor untaught heathen, and took him back. He accompanied
me upon that last ride, and was so humble, so deprecating, so gentle,
that I even felt kindly toward him. We rode out into the jungle. I
was in advance, riding slowly, and thinking of home, when suddenly a
monstrous tiger leaped out of a thicket and fastened his claws in the
neck of my horse. I fought the monster desperately, for he had pinned
my leg to the side of my horse, and I could not escape from him. We
had a frightful struggle, and I must have succumbed but for Karrah,
who shot at the tiger, wounding him, I think, in the shoulder, and
frightening him into retreat.”

“And so you escaped, when we all thought you killed?” cried the major.

“My horse was dying,” said the baronet, “and I was wounded and
bleeding. I thought I was dying. I fell from my saddle to the ground,
groaning with pain. Karrah came up, and bent over me, with a devilish
smile and moistened my lips with brandy from a flask he carried. Then,
muttering words in his own language which I could not understand, he
carried me to his own horse, mounted, with me in his arms, and rode
off in the direction in which we had been going, and away from your
bungalow.”

“The scoundrel! What was that for?”

“After a half-hour’s ride, we came to a hollow, where three natives
were camped. Karrah halted, and addressed them. They gathered around
us, and then Karrah said to me, in English, that he hated me, that he
would not kill me, but meant me to suffer, and that these men were his
brothers, who lived a score of miles away up among the mountains. I
was to be their slave. He transferred me to their care, disregarding
my pleas and offered bribes, and rode away on his return to you. I was
carried on horseback, securely bound, a score of miles to the north and
westward. How I suffered on that horrible journey, wounded as I was, I
can never tell you. A dozen times I thought myself dying.”

“It is a wonder you did not die!”

“It is,” said Sir Harold. “We went through savage jungles, and forded
mountain torrents. We went up hill and down, and more than once leaped
precipices. I was in a dead faint when we reached the home of the
three Hindoos, but afterward I found how wild and secluded the spot
was, and that there were no neighbors for miles around. Their cabin
was niched in a cleft in a mountain, and hidden from the eye of any
but the closest searcher. Had you searched for me, you would never
have found me. It was in a rear hut, small and dark, with a mud floor,
and windowless walls, that I have been a prisoner for fifteen months,
major. My enemies, for the most part, left me to myself, and I have
dragged out my weary captivity with futile plans of escape. Ah, I have
known more than the bitterness of death!”

“If we had only known it, we’d have scoured all India for you, Sir
Harold,” said the major hotly. “We’d have strung up every native until
we got the right ones. But that episode of the tiger--for it seems
that the tiger was only an episode, coming into the affair by accident,
but greatly assisting Karrah’s foul treachery--threw us off the scent,
and made us think you dead. Why did we not suspect the truth?”

“How could you? Don’t reproach yourself, major. My chiefest sufferings
during these horrible fifteen months have been on account of my wife
and my daughter. To feel myself helpless, a slave to those Hindoo
pariahs, bound continually and in chains, while Octavia and Neva were
weeping for me and crying out in their anguish, and perhaps needing
me--ah, that was almost too hard to bear! Now and then Karrah came to
taunt me in my prison, and to tell me how he hated me, and how sweet
was his revenge. He told me that you had heard through a friend that my
poor wife was dying of her grief. After that I tried, with increased
ingenuity, to find some way of escape. Last night the three Hindoos
went away--upon a marauding expedition, I think. After they had gone,
one of the women brought me my usual evening meal of boiled rice. I
pleaded to her to release me, but she laughed at me. She went out,
leaving the door open, intending to return soon for the dish. The sight
of the sky and of the green earth without nerved me to desperation.
I was confined by a belt around my waist, to which an iron chain was
attached, the other end of the chain being secured to a ring in the
wall. I had wrenched my belt and the chain a thousand times, but last
night when I pulled at it with the strength of a madman, it gave way. I
fell to the floor--unfettered!”

“You bounded up like an India rubber ball, I dare swear?” cried the
major, wiping his eyes sympathetically.

“I leaped up, and darted out of the door. There was a horse tethered
near the hut. I bounded on his back and sped away, as the woman came
hurrying out in wild pursuit. I knew the general direction in which
your bungalow lay. I rode all night, going out of my road, but being
set straight again by some kindly Hindoos; and here I am, weary, worn,
but Oh, how thankful and blest!”

The baronet bowed his head on his hands, and his tears of joy fell
thickly.

“You’re safe now, Sir Harold,” cried the major. “I hear a hubbub
outside. My fellows have got back, with Karrah, no doubt. I want to
superintend the skinning him, and while I am gone, you can refresh
yourself with a bath, and put on a suit of Christian garments. My
wife is dying to see you. I hear her pacing the hall like a caged
leopardess. Get ready, and I’ll come back to you as soon as you have
had a little sleep. You’re among friends, my dear Sir Harold; and, by
Jove, I’m glad to see you again!”

He pressed Sir Harold’s hand, catching his breath with a peculiar
sobbing, and hurried out.

His servants had returned, but Karrah had escaped. The major indulged
in some peculiar profanity, as he listened to this report, and then
withdrew to his wife’s cool room, and told her Sir Harold’s story.

The baronet, meanwhile, took a bath and went to bed. He slept for
hours, awakening after noon. He shaved and trimmed his beard, dressed
himself in the suit of clothes he had formerly worn, and which were now
much too large for him, and came forth into the central hall of the
dwelling. Major Archer was lounging here, and came forward hastily,
with both hands outstretched, and with a beaming face.

“You look more like yourself, Sir Harold!” he exclaimed. “Mrs. Archer
is out on the veranda, and is full of impatience to see you.”

He linked his arm in the baronet’s and conducted him out to the
veranda, presenting him to Mrs. Archer, who greeted him with a certain
awe and kindliness, as one would welcome a hero.

The little Archers were playing about under the charge of an ayah, and
they also came forward timidly to welcome their father’s guest.

Tiffin--the India luncheon--was served on the veranda, and after it was
over, and the young people had dispersed, Sir Harold said to his host:

“When does the next steamer leave for England?”

“Three days hence. You will have time to catch the mail if you write
to-day,” said Major Archer.

“Write! Why, I shall go in her, Major!”

“Impossible, Sir Harold. You are not fit for the voyage,” said Mrs.
Archer.

“I must go,” persisted the baronet, in a tone no one could dispute.
“Think of my wife--of my daughter. Every day that keeps me from them
seems an eternity. Major, I was robbed by Karrah of every penny I
possessed. Plunder was a part of his motive, as well as desire for
revenge. I shall have to draw upon you for a sufficient sum for my
expenses.”

“It’s fortunate, and quite an unprecedented thing with me, that I have
a couple of hundred pounds in bank in Calcutta,” said the major. “I
wish it were a thousand, but you’re quite welcome to it, Sir Harold--a
thousand times welcome. I appreciate your impatience to be on your way
home. If it were I, and your wife was my Molly, I’d travel day and
night--but there, I’ve said enough. I’ll go to Calcutta with you, and
see you off on the _Mongolian_. I wish I could do more for you.”

“You can, Major. You can keep silence concerning my reappearance,”
declared Sir Harold thoughtfully. “My wife is reported to be dying
of grief. If she hears too abruptly that I still live, the shock may
destroy her. Major, I am going home under a name not my own, that
the story of my adventures may not be bruited about before she sees
me. I will not reveal myself to any one in Calcutta, nor to any one
in England, before reaching home. I will go quietly and unknown to
Hawkhurst, and reveal myself with all care and caution to Neva, who
will break the news to my wife.”

“Sir Harold is right,” said Mrs. Archer. “Lady Wynde and Miss Wynde
should not first hear the news by telegraph, or letter, or through the
newspapers. Their impatience, anxiety, and suspense, after hearing that
Sir Harold still lives, and before they can see him, will be terrible.
The shock, as Sir Harold suggests, might almost be fatal to Lady Wynde.”

“My wife is always right,” said the burly major, with a glance of
admiration at his spouse. “Sir Harold, you cannot do better than to
follow your instincts and my Molly’s counsels. It is settled then, that
you return to England under an assumed name, and see your own family
before you proclaim your adventures to the world. What name shall you
adopt as a ‘name of voyage,’ to translate from the French?”

“I will call myself Harold Hunlow,” said the baronet. “Hunlow was my
mother’s name. I am rested, Major, and if you can give me a mount,
we’ll be off at sunset on our way to Calcutta.”

It was thus agreed. That very evening Sir Harold Wynde and Major Archer
set out for Calcutta on horseback, arriving in time to secure passage
in the _Mongolian_. And on the third day after leaving Major Archer’s
bungalow, Sir Harold Wynde was at sea, and on his way to England. Ah,
what a reception awaited him!




CHAPTER XXIII. NEVA’S DECISION ABOUT RUFUS.


Could her guardian angel have whispered to Neva that her father did
indeed still live, and that at the very moment of her vivid dream he
stood upon the veranda of Major Archer’s Indian bungalow, weak, wasted
and weary, but with the principle of life strong within him, what agony
she might have been spared in the near future! what terrors and perils
she might perhaps have escaped!

But she did not know it--she could not guess that life held for her a
joy so rare, so pure, so sweet, as that of welcoming back to his home
her father so long and bitterly mourned as dead.

As we have said, she remained awake during the remainder of the night,
walking her floor in her white gown and slippered feet, now and then
wringing her hands, or sobbing softly, or crying silently; and thus the
weary hours dragged by.

Before the clear sunlight of the soft September morning, which stole
at last into her pleasant rooms, Neva’s dream lost its vividness and
semblance of reality, and the conviction settled down upon her soul
that it was indeed “only a dream.”

She dressed herself for breakfast in a morning robe of white, with
cherry-colored ribbons, but her face was very pale, and there was a
look of unrest in her red-brown eyes when she descended slowly and
wearily to the breakfast-room at a later hour than usual.

This room faced the morning sun, and was octagon shaped, one half of
the octagon projecting from the house wall, and being set with sashes
of French plate-glass, like a gigantic bay-window. One of the glazed
sections opened like a door upon the eastern marble terrace, with its
broad surface, its carved balustrade, and its rows of rare trees and
shrubs in portable tubs.

There was no one in the room when Neva entered it. The large table
was laid with covers for five persons. The glazed door was ajar, and
the windows were all open, giving ingress to the fresh morning air.
The room was all brightness and cheerfulness, the soft gray carpet
having a border of scarlet and gold, the massive antique chairs being
upholstered in scarlet leather, and the sombreness of the dainty buffet
of ebony wood being relieved by delicate tracery of gold, drawn by a
sparing hand.

Neva crossed the floor and passed out upon the terrace, where a gaudy
peacock strutted, spreading his fan in the sunlight, and giving
utterance to his harsh notes of self-satisfaction. Neva paced slowly up
and down the terrace, shading her face with her hand. A little later
she heard some one emerge from the breakfast room upon the terrace, and
come behind her with an irregular and unsteady tread.

“Good-morning, Miss Neva,” said Rufus Black, as he gained her side. “A
lovely morning, is it not?”

Neva returned his salutation gravely. She knew that Rufus Black had
slept under the same roof with herself the preceding night, after the
ball, and that a room at Hawkhurst had been specially assigned him by
Lady Wynde, now Mrs. Craven Black.

“You ought to have sacrificed your scruples, and come down to the
drawing-rooms last night,” said Rufus Black. “I assure you we had
a delightful time, but you would have been the star of the ball. I
watched the door for your appearance until the people began to go
home, and I never danced, although there was no end of pretty girls,
but they were not pretty for me,” added Rufus, sighing. “There is for
me _now_ only one beautiful girl in the whole world, and you are she,
sweet Neva.”

“Did you ever love any one before you loved me?” asked Neva, with a
quiet frankness and straightforwardness, looking up at him with her
clear eyes full of dusky glow.

“Ye--no!” stammered Rufus, turning suddenly pale, and his honest eyes
blenching. “Almost every man has had his boyish fancies, Miss Neva.
Whatever mine may have been, my life has been pure, and my heart is all
your own. You believe me?”

“Yes, I believe you. Mr. and Mrs. Black have come down to breakfast,
Mr. Rufus. Let us go in.”

She led the way back to the breakfast room, Rufus following. They
found the bride and bridegroom and Mrs. Artress waiting for them. Neva
greeted Lady Wynde by her new name, and bowed quietly to Craven Black
and Mrs. Artress. The little party took seats at the table, and the
portly butler, with a mute protest in his heart against the new master
of Hawkhurst, waited upon them, assisted by skillful subordinates.

Mrs. Craven Black, dressed in white, looked the incarnation of
satisfaction. She had so far succeeded in the daring game she had been
playing, and her jet-black eyes glittered, and her dark cheeks were
flushed to crimson, and her manner was full of feverish gayety, as she
did the honors of the Hawkhurst breakfast table to her new husband.

Three years before she had been a poor adventuress, unable to
marry the man she loved. Now, through the success of a daring and
terrible conspiracy, she was wealthy, the real and nominal mistress
of one of the grandest seats in England; the personal guardian of
one of the richest heiresses in the kingdom; and the wife of her
fellow-conspirator, to obey whose behests, and to marry whom, she had
been willing to peril her soul’s salvation.

Only one thing remained to render her triumph perfect, her fortune
magnificent, and her success assured. Only one move remained to be
played, and her game would be fully played.

That move comprehended the marriage of Neva Wynde to Rufus Black, and
Mrs. Craven Black, from the moment of her third marriage, resolved to
devote all her energies to the task of bringing about the union upon
which she was determined.

The breakfast was eaten by Neva almost in silence. When the meal was
over Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black strolled out into the gardens, arm in
arm. Mrs. Artress, who had fully emerged from her gray chrysalis,
and who was now dressed in pale blue, hideously unbecoming to her
ashen-hued complexion, retired to her own room to enjoy her triumph in
solitude, and to count the first installment of the yearly allowance
that had been promised her, and which had already been paid her, with
remarkable promptness, by Lady Wynde.

Neva went to the music-room, and began to play a weird, strange melody,
in which her very soul seemed to find utterance. In the midst of her
abstraction, the door opened, and Rufus Black came in softly.

He was standing at her side when her wild music ceased abruptly, and
she looked up from the ivory keys.

“Your music sounds like a lament, or a dirge,” said Rufus, leaning upon
the piano and regarding with admiration the pale, rapt face and glowing
eyes.

“I meant it so,” said Neva. “I was thinking of my father.”

“Ah,” said Rufus, rather vacantly.

“I dreamed of papa last night,” said Neva softly, resting her elbow on
the crashing keys and laying one rounded cheek upon her pink palm. “I
dreamed he was alive, Rufus, and that I saw him standing before the
door of an Indian hut, or bungalow, or curious dwelling; and my dream
was like a vision.”

“A rather uncomfortable one,” suggested Rufus. “You were greatly
excited yesterday, Neva, I could see that; and, as your mind was all
stirred up concerning your father, you naturally dreamed of him. It
would make a horrid row if your dream could only turn out true, and you
ought to rejoice that it cannot. You have mourned for him, and the edge
of your grief has worn off--”

“No, no, it has not,” interrupted the girl’s passionate young voice.
“If I had seen him die, I could have been reconciled to the will of
God. But to lose him in that awful manner--never to know how much he
suffered during the moments when he was struggling in the claws of that
deadly tiger--oh, it seems at times more than I can bear. And to think
how soon he has been forgotten!” and Neva’s voice trembled. “His wife
whom he idolized has married another, and his friends and tenantry have
danced and made merry at her wedding. Of all who knew and loved him,
only his daughter still mourns at his awful fate!”

“It is hard,” assented Rufus, “but it’s the way of the world, you know.
If it will comfort you any, Neva, I will tell you that half the county
families came to the wedding breakfast to support and cheer you by
their presence, and the other half came out of sheer curiosity. But few
of the best families remained to the ball.”

“Papa thought much of you, did he not, Rufus?” asked Neva, thinking of
that skilfully forged letter which was hidden in her bosom, and which
purported to be her father’s last letter to her from India.

Rufus Black had been warned by his father that Neva might some day thus
question him, and Craven Black had told his son that he must answer
the heiress in the affirmative. Rufus was weak of will, cowardly, and
timid, but it was not in him to be deliberately dishonest. He could not
lie to the young girl, whose truthful eyes sought his own.

“I had no personal acquaintance with Sir Harold Wynde, Neva,” the young
man said, inwardly quaking, yet daring to tell the truth.

“But--but--papa said--I don’t really comprehend, Rufus. I thought that
papa loved you.”

“If Sir Harold ever saw me, I do not know it,” said Rufus, cruelly
embarrassed, and wondering if his honesty would not prove his ruin. “I
was at the University--Sir Harold may have seen me, and taken a liking
to me--”

Neva looked strangely perplexed and troubled. Certainly the awkward
statement of Rufus did not agree with the supposed last declaration of
her father.

“There seems some mystery here which I cannot fathom,” she said. “I
have a letter written by papa in India, under the terrible foreboding
that he would die there, and in this letter papa speaks of you with
affection, and says--and says--”

She paused, her blushes amply completing the sentence.

A cold shiver passed over the form of Rufus. He comprehended the
cause of Neva’s blushes, and a portion of his father’s villainy. He
understood that the letter of which Neva spoke had been forged by
Craven Black, and that it commanded Neva’s marriage with Craven Black’s
son. What could he say? What should he do? His innate cowardice
prevented him from confessing the truth, and his awe of his father
prevented him from betraying him, and he could only tremble and blush
and pale alternately.

“Papa might have taken an interest in you, without making himself known
to you,” suggested Neva, after a brief pause. “Some act of yours might
have made your name known to him, and he might secretly have watched
your course without betraying to you his interest in you, might he not?”

“He might,” said Rufus huskily.

“I can explain the matter in no other way. It is singular. Perhaps poor
papa might not have well known what he was writing, but the letter is
so clearly written that that idea is not tenable. After all, so long as
he wrote the letter, what does it matter?” said Neva wearily. “He must
have known you, Rufus--or else the letter was forged!”

Rufus averted his face, upon which a cold sweat was starting.

“Who would have forged it?” he asked hoarsely.

“That I do not know. I know no one base enough for such a deed. It
could not have been forged, of course, Rufus, but the discrepancy
between your statement and that in the letter makes me naturally
doubt. Papa was the most truthful of men. He hated a lie, and was
so punctilious in regard to the truth that he was always painfully
exact in his statements. He trained me to scorn a lie, and was even
particular about the slightest error in repeating a story. How then
could he speak of knowing you? Perhaps, though, I am mistaken. I may
find, on referring to the letter, that he speaks of liking you and
taking an interest in you, without alluding to a personal acquaintance.”

“If I had known Sir Harold, I should have tried to deserve his good
opinion,” said Rufus, his voice trembling. “I have the greatest
reverence for his character, and I wish I might be like him.”

“There are few like papa,” said Neva, a sudden glow transfiguring her
face.

“How you loved him, Neva. If I had had such a father!” and Rufus
sighed. “I would rather have an honorable, affectionate father whom I
could revere and trust than to have a million of money!”

Neva reached out her hand in sympathy, and the young man seized it
eagerly, clinging to it.

“Neva,” he exclaimed, with a sudden energy of passion, “it is more than
a month since I asked you to be my wife, and you have not yet given me
my answer. Will you give it to me now?”

The girl withdrew her hand gently, and rested her cheek again on her
hand.

“I know I am not worthy of you,” said Rufus, beseechingly. “I am poor
in fortune, weak of character, a piece of drift-wood blown hither and
thither by adverse winds, and likely to be tossed on a rocky shore at
last, if you do not have pity upon me. Neva, such as I am, I beseech
you to save me!”

“I am powerless to save any one,” said Neva gently. “Your help must
come from above, Rufus.”

“I want an earthly arm to cling to,” pleaded Rufus, his tones growing
shrill with the sudden fear that she would reject him. “I have in me
all noble impulses, Neva; I have in me the ability to become such a
man as was your father. I would foster all noble enterprises; I would
become great for your sake. I would study my art and make a name of
which you should be proud. Will you stoop from your high estate, Neva,
and have pity upon a weak, cowardly soul that longs to be strong and
brave? Will you smile upon my great love for you, and let me devote my
life to your happiness and comfort?”

His wild eyes looked into hers with a prayerfulness that went to her
soul. He seemed to regard her as his earthly saviour--and such indeed,
if she accepted him, she would be, for she would bring him fortune,
and, what he valued more, her affection, her pure life, her brave soul,
on which his own weak nature might be stayed.

“Poor Rufus!” said Neva, with a tenderness that a sister might have
shown him. “My poor boy!” and her small face beamed with sisterly
kindness upon the tall, awkward fellow, the words coming strangely from
her lips. “I am sorry for you.”

“And you will marry me?” he cried eagerly.

The young face became grave almost to sternness. The lovely eyes
gloomed over with a great shadow.

“I want to obey papa’s wishes as if they were commands,” she said. “I
have thought and prayed, day after day and night after night. I like
you, Rufus, and I cannot hear your appeals unmoved. I believe I am not
selfish, if I am true to my higher nature, and obey the instincts God
has implanted in my soul. I must be untrue to God, to myself, and to
my own instincts, or I must pay no heed to that last letter and to the
last wishes of poor papa. Which shall I do? I have decided first one
way, and then the other. The possibility that that letter was--was not
written by papa--and there is such a possibility--I cannot now help but
consider. Forgive me, Rufus, but I have decided, and I think papa, who
has looked down from heaven upon my perplexity and my anguish, must
approve my course. I feel that I am doing right, when I say,” and here
her hand took his, “that--that I cannot marry you.”

“Not marry me! Oh, Neva!”

“It costs me much to say it, Rufus, but I must be true to myself, to
my principles of honor. I do not love you as a wife should love her
husband. I could not stand up before God’s altar and God’s minister,
and perjure myself by saying that I thus loved you. No, Rufus, no; it
may not be!”

Rufus bowed his head upon the piano, and sobbed aloud.

His weakness appealed to the girl’s strength. She had seldom seen a man
in tears, and her own tears began to flow in sympathy.

“I am so sorry, Rufus!” she whispered.

“But you will not save me? You will not lift a hand to save me from
perdition?”

“I will be your sister, Rufus.”

“Until you become some other man’s wife!” cried Rufus, full of jealous
anguish. “You will marry some other man--Lord Towyn, perhaps?”

The girl retreated a few steps, a red glory on her features. A strange
sweet shyness shone in her eyes.

“I see!” exclaimed Rufus, in a passion of grief and jealousy. “You will
marry Lord Towyn? Oh, Neva! Neva!”

“Rufus, it cannot matter to you whom I marry since I cannot marry you.
Let us be friends--brother and sister--”

“I will be all to you or nothing!” ejaculated Rufus violently. “I will
marry you or die!”

He broke from the grasp she laid upon him, and with a wild cry upon his
lips, dashed from the room.

In the hall he encountered Craven Black and his bride, just come in
from the garden. He would have brushed past them unseeing, unheeding,
but his father, seeing his excitement and agitation, grasped his arm
forcibly, arresting his progress.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Craven Black fiercely. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to kill myself!” returned Rufus shrilly, trying to break
loose from that strong, unyielding clasp. “It’s all over. Neva has
refused me, and turned me adrift. She is going to marry Lord Towyn!”

“Oh, is she?” said Craven Black mockingly. “We’ll see about that.”

“We will see!” said Neva’s step-mother, with a cruel and fierce
compression of her lips. “I am Miss Wynde’s guardian. We will see if
she dares disobey her father’s often repeated injunctions to obey me!
If she does refuse, she shall feel my power!”

“Defer your suicide until you see how the thing turns out, my son,”
said Craven Black, with a little sneer. “Go to your room and dry your
tears, before the servants laugh at you.”

Rufus Black slunk away, miserable, yet with reviving hope. Perhaps the
matter was not ended yet? Perhaps Neva would reconsider her decision?

As he disappeared up the staircase, Mrs. Craven Black laid her hand on
her bridegroom’s arm, and whispered:

“The girl will prove restive. We shall have trouble with her. If we
mean to force her into this marriage, we must first of all get her away
from her friends. Where shall we take her? How shall we deal with her?”




CHAPTER XXIV. LALLY FINDS A NEW HOME.


Nearly six weeks had intervened between Rufus Black’s proposal of
marriage to Neva Wynde on the road-side bank and his final rejection by
her in the music-room at Hawkhurst.

It will be remembered that there had been a hidden witness to the
half-despairing, half-loving, proposal of Rufus, and that this hidden
witness, seeing, but unseen, was no other than the wronged young wife
whom Rufus Black mourned as dead, and whom in his soul he loved a
thousand-fold better than the beautiful young heiress.

During the six weeks that had passed, what had become of Lally--poor,
heart-broken, despairing Lally?

We have narrated how she staggered away in the night gloom, after
seeing Rufus and Neva together in the square of light from the home
windows upon the marble terrace, not knowing whither she went,
but hurrying as swiftly as she might from her young husband, from
happiness, and from hope itself.

She had no thought of suicide. She had learned many lessons by the
bedside of her old friend the seamstress, whose dying hours she had
cheered. She had learned that life may be very bitter and hard to bear,
but that it may not be thrown aside, or flung back in anger or despair
to the Giver. Its burdens must be borne, and he who bears them with
earnest patience, and in humble obedience to the divine will, shall
some day exchange the cross of suffering for the crown of a great
reward. No; Lally, weak and frail as she was, deserted by humanity,
would never again seriously think of suicide.

She wandered on in the soft starlight and moonlight, a helpless,
homeless, hopeless creature, with nowhere to go, as we have said. She
had no money in her pocket, no food, and her shoes were worn out, and
her clothes were patched and darned and pitiably frayed and worn. The
very angels must have pitied her in her utter forlornness.

For an hour or two she tottered on, but at last wearied to exhaustion,
she sank down in the shelter of a way-side hedge, and sobbed and moaned
herself to sleep.

She was awake again at daybreak, and hurried up and on, as if flying
from pursuit. About eleven o’clock she came to a hop-garden, divided
from the road by wooden palings. There were men and women, of the tramp
species, busy at work here under the supervision of the hop farmer.
Lally halted and clung to the palings with both hands, and looked
through the interstices upon the busy groups with dilating eyes.

She was worn with anguish, but even her mental sufferings could not
still the demands of nature. She was so hungry that it seemed as if a
vulture were gnawing at her vitals. She felt that she was starving.

The hop-pickers, many of them tramps who lived in unions and
alms-houses in the winter, and who stray down into Kent during the hop
season, presently discovered the white and hungry face pressed against
the palings, and jeered at the girl, and called her names she could not
understand, making merry at her forlornness.

The hop raiser heard them, and discovering the object of their rude
merriment, came forward, opened a gate in the palings, and hailed the
girl. He was short of hands, he said, and would give her sixpence a
day, and food and drink, if she chose to help in the hop picking.

Lally nodded assent, and crept into the gate, and into the presence of
those who mocked at her. Her eyes were so wild, her manner so strange
and still, that the workers stared at her in wonder, whispered among
themselves, discovering that she was not of their kind, and turned
their backs upon her.

It was taken for granted that the new hand had had her breakfast,
and not a crust was offered to her. The hop raiser had doubts about
her sanity, and observed her narrowly, but a dozen times that day he
mentally congratulated himself on his acquisition. Lally worked with
feverish energy, trying--ah, how vainly--to escape from her thoughts,
and she did the work of two persons. She had bread and cheese and a
glass of ale at noon, and a similar allowance of food for supper.

That night she slept in a barn with the women tramps, but chose
a remote corner, where she buried herself in the hay, and slept
peacefully.

The next day she would have wandered on in her unrest, but the farmer,
discovering her intention, offered her a shilling a day, and she
consented to remain. That night she again slept in her remote corner of
the barn, and no one spoke to her or molested her.

She made no friends among the tramps, not even speaking to them. They
were rude, vicious, quarrelsome. She was educated and refined, had been
the teacher and companion of ladies, and was herself a lady at heart.
She went among these rude companions by the soubriquet of “The Lady,”
and this was the only name by which the hop farmer knew her.

For a week Lally kept up this toil, laboring in the hop-fields by
day, and sleeping in a barn at night. At the end of that period, the
work being finished, she was no longer wanted, and she went her way,
resuming her weary tramp, with six shillings and sixpence in her pocket.

For the next fortnight she worked in various hop-fields, paying
nothing for food or lodging. Her pay was better too, she earning a
sovereign in the two weeks.

Three weeks after overhearing Rufus solicit the hand of Miss Wynde in
marriage, Lally found herself at Canterbury, shoeless and ragged, a
very picture of destitution. Her first act was to purchase a pair of
shoes, a ready-made print dress and a thin shawl. Her purchases were
all of the cheapest description, not costing her over five shillings.
She added to the list a round hat of coarse straw, around which she
tied a dark blue ribbon.

She found a cheap lodging in the town; and here put on her new clothes.
The lodging was an attic room, with a dormer window, close up under the
slates of a humble brick dwelling. There was no carpet on her floor,
and the furniture comprised only an iron bed-stead, a chair and a
table. The house was rented by a tailor, who used the ground floor for
his shop and residence, and sub-let the upper rooms to a half dozen
different families. The three attic rooms were let to women, Lally
being one, and two thin, consumptive seamstresses occupying the others.

It was necessary for Lally to find employment without delay, and she
inserted an advertisement in one of the local papers, soliciting a
position as nursery governess. She had the written recommendation of
her former employers, the superintendents of a ladies’ school, and with
this she hoped to secure a situation.

Her advertisement was repeated for three days without result. Upon
the fourth day, as she was counting her slender store of money, and
wondering what she was to do when that was gone, the postman’s knock
was heard on the private door below, and presently the tailor’s little
boy came to Lally’s room bringing a letter.

She tore it open eagerly. It was dated Sandy Lands, and was written in
a painfully minute style of penmanship, with faint and spidery letters.
The writer was a lady, signing herself Mrs. Blight. She stated that
she had a family of nine children, five of whom were young enough to
require the services of a nursery governess. If “L. B.”--the initials
Lally had appended to her advertisement--could give satisfactory
references, was an accomplished musician, spoke French and German, and
was well versed in the English branches, she might call at Sandy Lands
upon the following morning at ten o’clock.

Accordingly the next morning Lally set out in a cab for Sandy Lands,
whose location Mrs. Blight had described with sufficient accuracy. It
was situated in one of the fashionable suburbs of the old cathedral
town. Lally expected from the grandeur of its name to find a large and
handsome estate, but found instead a pert little villa, close to the
road, and separated from it by a high brick wall in which was a wooden
gate. The domain of Sandy Lands comprised a half-acre of rather sterile
soil, in which a few larches struggled for existence, and an acacia and
a lime tree led a sickly life.

The little villa, with plate-glass windows, green parlor shutters
drawn half-way up, a gabled roof, from which three saucy little dormer
windows protruded, was unmistakably the house of which Lally was in
search, for on one side of the gate, over a slit in the wall required
for the use of the proper letter-box, was the legend in bright gilt
letters, “Sandy Lands.”

The cabman alighted and rang the garden bell. A smart looking housemaid
with white cap and white apron answered the call. Lally alighted and
asked if Mrs. Blight were at home. The smart housemaid eyed the humbly
clad stranger rather contemptuously, and remarked that she could not
be sure; Mrs. Blight might be at home, and then again she might not.

“I received a letter from her telling me to call at this hour,” said
Lally, with what dignity she could summon. “I am seeking a situation as
nursery governess.”

“Oh, then Missus is at home,” replied the housemaid. “You can come in,
Miss.”

Bidding the cabman wait, Lally followed the servant across the garden
to a rear porch and was ushered into a small over-furnished reception
room.

“What name shall I say, Miss?” asked the maid, pausing in the act of
withdrawal.

“Miss Bird,” answered poor Lally, who had relinquished her young
husband’s name, believing that she had no longer any right to it.

The maid went out, and was absent nearly twenty minutes. Lally began
to think herself forgotten, and grew nervous, and engaged in a mental
computation of her cabman’s probable charges. The maid finally
appeared, however, and announced that “Missus was in her boudoir, and
would see the young person.”

Lally was conducted up stairs to a front room overlooking the road.
This room, like the one below, was over-furnished. The wide window
opened upon a balcony, and before it, half-reclining upon a silken
couch, was a lady in a heavy purple silk gown, and a profusion of
jewelry--a lady, short, stout, and red-visaged, with a nose much turned
up at the end, and so ruddy as to induce one to think it in a state of
inflammation.

“Miss Bird!” announced the maid abruptly, flinging in the words like a
discharge of shot, and retired precipitately.

Mrs. Blight turned her gaze upon Lally in a languid curiosity, and
waved her hand condescendingly, as an intimation that the “young
person” might be seated.

Lally sat down.

Mrs. Blight then raised a pair of gold-mounted eye-glasses to her
nose, and scrutinized Lally more closely, after what she deemed a very
high-bred and _nonchalant_ fashion indeed.

She beheld a humbly dressed girl, not past seventeen, but looking
younger, with a face as brown as a berry and velvet-black eyes, which
were strangely pathetic and sorrowful--a girl who had known trouble
evidently, but who was pure and innocent as one might see at a glance.

“Ah, is your name Bird?” asked Mrs. Blight languidly. “Seems as if I
had heard the name somewhere, but I can’t be sure. Of course you have
brought references, Miss Bird?”

“I have only a recommendation signed by ladies in whose service I have
been,” said Lally. “I have been a music-teacher, but I possess the
other accomplishments you require.”

She drew forth the little worn slip of paper which she had guarded as
of more value to her than money, because it declared her respectable
and a competent music-teacher, and gave it into the lady’s fat hands.

“It is not dated very lately,” said Mrs. Blight. “How am I to know that
this recommendation is not a forgery? People do forge such things, I
hear. Why, a friend of mine took a footman on a forged recommendation,
and he ran away and took all her silver.”

Lally’s honest cheeks flushed, and her heart swelled. She would have
arisen, but that the lady motioned to her to retain her seat, and so
long as there was a prospect that she might secure the situation Lally
would remain.

“The recommendation looks all right,” continued Mrs. Blight, scanning
it with her glass, while she held it afar off, and daintily between
two fingers, as if it were a thing unclean. “You look honest too, but
appearances are _so_ deceiving! I had a nurse girl once who looked like
a Madonna, and as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she turned
out a perfect minx, artful as a cat. What salary do you expect?”

“I--I don’t know, Madam. I have never been employed as nursery
governess.”

“My husband allows me forty pounds a year for the salary of the
governess,” said Mrs. Blight. “But, of course, forty pounds ought
to get a governess with the very best of references. You are
inexperienced, as you confess. Now I will take the risk of you turning
out bad, if you should decide to remain with me as governess to my
five children, at a salary of twenty pounds a year, board and washing,
lights and fuel, included.”

It was “Hobson’s choice--that or none”--to poor Lally. Twenty pounds
a year, and to be sheltered and fed and warmed besides, seemed very
liberal after her recent terrible struggle with the vulture of
starvation.

“I will accept it, Mrs. Blight,” she said, her voice trembling--“that
is, if you will take me when you know that I have only the clothes
I stand in, and that for a few weeks I shall need my pay weekly to
provide me with decent garments.”

“Oh, as to that,” said Mrs. Blight, “your clothes are poor, beggarly,
I might say. They will have to be improved at once. I will advance you
a quarter’s salary, five pounds, if you are quite sure you will use it
for clothes, and that you do not intend to cheat me out of my money.
You see I always speak plainly. My governesses are not pampered. They
have to earn their money, but that you probably expect to do. I don’t
know of another lady in Canterbury who would do as I am doing, lending
money to a perfect stranger, on a recommendation you may have written
yourself. But I am different from other ladies. _I_ am a judge of
physiognomy, and am not often deceived in my estimate of people. Why
are you out of clothes?”

“I have been out of a situation as a teacher for some time,” said
Lally. “I have the present addresses of the ladies who signed my
recommendation, and I beg you to write to them to assure yourself
that I have spoken the truth. The addresses are written on the
recommendation itself.”

“I noticed them, and shall write this very morning,” declared Mrs.
Blight. “Go now for your clothes, and be back to luncheon. I want to
introduce you to the children, who are running wild.”

She waved her hand, and Lally, with her five pounds in her hand,
took her departure. She had found a new home, and one not likely to
be pleasant, but it would afford her shelter, and she believed she
could bear all things rather than to pass again through the poverty
and misery she had known. She little knew that it was the hand of
Providence that had brought her to Sandy Lands, and that the acceptance
of her present situation was destined to change the entire future
current of her existence, and even to affect that of her young husband.




CHAPTER XXV. LALLY IN HER NEW SITUATION.


Lally returned to Canterbury in the cab that had brought her out to
Sandy Lands, Mrs. Blight’s pert little villa in the suburbs, and
entered upon the task of procuring a neat although necessarily scanty
wardrobe. She bought a cheap box, which she had sent to her lodgings.
A lady’s furnishing house yielded her a change of under garments,
another print dress, and a gown of black alpaca, and a supply of
collars and cuffs; her entire purchases amounting to three pounds ten
shillings. She carried her effects to her attic lodgings, the rent of
which she had paid in advance, packed her box, and set out again in the
cab for Sandy Lands.

It was noon when the vehicle stopped again before the little villa. The
cabman rang the garden bell as before, and when the housemaid appeared
he dumped down Lally’s box upon the gravelled walk, received his pay,
and departed. The smart housemaid was as contemptuous as before of
Lally’s humble garments, but spoke to her familiarly, as if the two
were upon a social level, and conducted her toward the rear porch,
saying:

“Missus said you was to be shown up to your room, Miss, to make your
twilet before seeing the children. If you please,” added the girl,
with increasing familiarity, “you and I are to see a good deal of each
other, and so I want to know what to call you.”

Whatever the social rank of Lally’s parents, Lally herself was a lady
by instinct and education. The housemaid’s easy patronage was offensive
to her. She answered quietly:

“You may call me Miss Bird.”

“Oh,” said the housemaid, with a sniff and a toss of her head. “That’s
the talk, is it? Well, then, Miss Bird, follow me up to your room. This
way, Miss Bird. Up these stairs, Miss Bird.”

Lally followed her guide up the stairs to the third and topmost story,
and to a rear room.

“This is the room of the nussery governess,” said the offended
housemaid, her nose in the air. “The room on your right is the
school-room, Miss Bird. That on the left is the nussery. You are to
have your room to yourself, Miss Bird, which I hopes will suit you.
There’s no petting of governesses in this here ’stablishment. You rises
at seven, Miss Bird, and eats with the children. You begins lessons at
nine o’clock, Miss Bird, and keeps ’em up till luncheon, and then comes
music, langwidges, and them sort. Dinner in the school-room, Miss Bird,
at five o’clock. Your evenings you has to yourself.”

“I shall receive my list of duties from Mrs. Blight,” said Lally
pleasantly, “but I am obliged to you all the same.”

The housemaid’s face softened under Lally’s gentleness and sweetness.

“I wouldn’t wonder if she was a born lady, after all,” the girl
thought. “She won’t stand putting down, and her face is that sorrowful
I pity her.”

But she did not give expression to these thoughts. What she did say was
this:

“My name’s Loizy, and if I can do anything for you just let me know.
There’s my bell, and I must go. When you get ready, come down stairs to
Missus’s boo-door.”

She vanished just as the house boy, or Buttons, as he was called,
appeared with Lally’s box. He set this down near the door, and also
departed. Left alone, Lally examined her new home with a faint thrill
of interest.

The floor was bare, with the exception of a strip of loose and
threadbare carpet before the low brass bedstead. There was a
chintz-covered couch, a chintz-covered easy-chair, a chest of drawers,
and a green-shuttered blind at the single window. The room had a dreary
aspect, but to Lally it was a haven of refuge.

She locked her door and knelt down and prayed, thanking God that He had
been so good to her as to give her a safe shelter and a home. Then,
rising, she dressed herself as quickly as possible, putting on her
black alpaca dress, a spotless linen collar and cuffs, a black sash,
and a black ribbon in her hair. Thus attired, she descended the stairs,
finding the way to the boudoir, at the door of which she knocked.

Mrs. Blight’s languid voice bade her enter.

She obeyed, finding her employer still reclining in an armed chair,
looking as if she had not moved since Lally’s previous visit. She had
a book in one hand, a paper cutter in the other. She recognized Lally
with a sort of pleased surprise.

“Ah, back again, and punctual!” she exclaimed, glancing at a toy clock
in white and blue enamel on the low mantel-piece. “I had a great many
misgivings after you went away, Miss Bird. Five pounds is a good deal
of money to one in your position in life, and the world is _so_ full of
swindlers. I have already written to the ladies to whom you referred
me. I suppose I should have waited for their answer before engaging
you, but I am such an impulsive creature, I always do just as I feel at
the spur of the moment. My husband calls me ‘a child of impulse,’ and
the words describe me exactly. I’m glad to see you back. I don’t know,
I’m sure, what I should have said to Mr. Blight if you had decamped,
for he does not appreciate my ability to read faces. The time I got
taken in with my last cook--the one we found lying with her head in a
brass kettle, and the kitchen fire gone out, at the very hour when I
had a large company assembled to dine with me--Charles said, ‘Fudge,
don’t let us hear any more about physiognomy.’ You see, I engaged the
woman because her face was all that could be desired. And since that
time Charles won’t hear a word about physiognomy.”

Lally sat down, obeying a wave of Mrs. Blight’s hand. That “child of
impulse,” silly, garrulous, and puffed up with self-importance and
vulgarity, pursued her theme until she had exhausted it.

“You are looking very well, Miss Bird,” she said, changing the subject,
“but all in black--why, you are quite a black-bird, I declare,” and she
laughed at her own wit. “Are you in mourning? Have you lately lost a
friend?”

“Yes, madam,” replied Lally sorrowfully, “I have lately lost the only
friend I had in the whole world.”

“Oh, indeed. That is sad; but I do hope you won’t wear a long face and
go moping about the house, frightening the children,” said Mrs. Blight,
with a candor that was less charming than oppressive to her newly
engaged governess. “You must do as the poet so romantically says:

                            “‘Wear a smile,
  Though the cold heart runs darkly to ruin the while.’

“If he doesn’t say that, it’s some such thing, and a very pretty
sentiment too. And now let us discuss your new duties.”

She proceeded to sketch Lally’s duties much as the housemaid had
done. Then she gave a history of each one of the five children who
were to be under Lally’s supervision. Three of the children were boys,
and their fond mother described them as paragons. Her girls also were
extraordinary in their mental and physical attractions, “having once
been taken at the Zoological gardens during a visit to London, by a
strange gentleman, for the children of a nobleman!”

“I will accompany you to the nursery, Miss Bird,” said the lady,
arising. “I desire to introduce you to my darlings. I have great faith
in the instincts of children, and I want to see what my children think
of you.”

Accordingly Mrs. Blight conducted Lally again to the upper floor and
to the nursery, which was at the moment of their entrance in a state of
wildest confusion and disorder.

The nurse, a stout old woman, and the nursemaid, a red-faced young
girl, were in a state of despair, and frantically holding their hands
to their ears, while five robust, boisterous, frouzy-headed children
rode about the room upon chairs, played “tag,” and otherwise disported
themselves.

The entrance of Mrs. Blight and Lally caused a cessation of the noise.
The mother called her children to her, but they retreated with their
fingers in their mouths, looking askance at their new governess. The
three “noble boys” presently set up a loud bellowing, and the two girls
who had been “mistaken by a strange gentleman for the children of a
nobleman,” hid behind their nurses.

It required all the persuasions, coupled with threats, of Mrs. Blight,
to induce her shy children to show themselves to Lally. It appeared
that they had a horror of governesses, regarding them as tyrants and
ogresses created especially to destroy the happiness of children; but
Lally’s smiles, added to the fact that she looked but little more than
a child, finally induced them to be sociable and to approach her.

“In a day or two you won’t be able to do anything with them, Miss,”
said the head nurse. “They’ll ride rough-shod over you.”

“They are so spirited,” murmured Mrs. Blight. “Study their characters
closely, Miss Bird, and be very tender with them. I have one child
more than the Queen, and my children are named for the royal family.
These three boys are Leopold, Albert Victor, and George. The girls are
named Victoria and Alberta. My elder children are at school. Children,
this is Miss Bird, your new governess. Now come with her into the
school-room. Lessons begin immediately.”

The little flock, with Lally at their head, was conducted to the
school-room, a large, bare apartment, furnished with two benches, a
teacher’s chair and desk, and a black-board. Here Mrs. Blight left
them, convinced that she had fulfilled her duties as parent and
employer, and returned to her book.

Lally proceeded to examine into the acquirements of her pupils, finding
them lamentably ignorant. Lessons were given out, but there was no
disposition on the part of her pupils to study. They threw paper balls
at each other, whispered and giggled, and altogether proved at the very
outset a sore trial to their young teacher. Their shyness lasted for
but a brief period, and then, having no longer fear of the sad-faced
governess, they began to romp about the room, to shout, and to engage
in a general game of frolics.

Lally had a vein of decision in her character, and with the exercise
of a gentle firmness induced her pupils to return to their seats. She
explained their lessons to them, with an unfailing patience, but the
hours of that September afternoon seemed almost endless to her. The
children were froward, disobedient, and idle. They had been spoiled by
their mother, and were full of mischievous tricks, so that Lally’s soul
wearied within her.

Dinner, a very plain and frugal one, was served to the governess and
the children in the school-room at five o’clock. After dinner, Lally’s
time belonged to herself, and she put on her hat and went out for a
walk, having a longing for the fresh air.

This first day at Sandy Lands was a fair type of the days that
followed. The children, under Lally’s firm but gentle rule, became
more quiet and studious, and conceived an affection for their young
governess. Mrs. Blight was delighted with their improvement. She had
received a reply from Lally’s former employers, giving the young girl
very high praise, and was consequently well pleased with herself for
securing such valuable services as Lally’s at a salary less than half
she had ever before paid to a governess.

Mr. Blight was a lawyer in good practice at Canterbury, and spent his
days at his office, returning to Sandy Lands to dine, and leaving home
immediately after breakfast. He was a small, ferret-eyed man, always
in a hurry, a mere money making machine, with a great ambition to make
or acquire a fortune. At present he lived fully up to his income, a
fact which gave both him and Mrs. Blight much secret anxiety. With
ten children to educate and provide for, several servants to pay, a
carriage and pair for Mrs. Blight, and the lawyer’s wines, cigars,
frequent elaborate dinners to his friends, and other items by no means
small to settle, Mr. Blight was continually harassed by debt, and yet
had not sufficient strength of will to reduce his expenses and live
within his income.

One cause, perhaps, of their indiscreet self-indulgence was that they
had “expectations.”

There was an old lady connected with the family, the widow of a wealthy
London banker who had been Mr. Blight’s uncle. This old lady was
supposed to have no relatives of her own to enrich at her death, and
the Blights had lively hopes of inheriting her fifty thousand pounds,
which had descended to her absolutely at her husband’s death, and of
which she was free to dispose as she might choose.

This lady lived in London, at the West End, was very eccentric, very
irascible, and went little in society, being quite aged and infirm. She
was in the habit of coming down to Sandy Lands annually in September,
ostensibly to spend a month with her late husband’s relatives; but she
always returned home within a week, alleging that she could not bear
the noise of the Blight children, and that a month under the same roof
with them would deprive her of life or reason. It was now about the
time of this lady’s annual visit, and one morning, when Lally had been
about two weeks at Sandy Lands, Mrs. Blight came up to the school-room,
an open letter in her hand, and dismissing the children to the nursery
for a few minutes, said confidentially:

“Miss Bird, I have just received a letter from the widow of my
husband’s uncle, a remarkable old lady, with fifty thousand pounds at
her own absolute disposal. My husband is naturally the old lady’s heir,
being her late husband’s nephew, and we expect to inherit her property.
Her name is Mrs. Wroat.”

“An odd name!” murmured Lally.

“And she’s as odd as her name,” declared Mrs. Blight. “She comes here
at this time every year, and always brings a parrot, a lap-dog, a
band-box in a green muslin case, a blue umbrella, and a snuffy old
maid, who eyes us all as if we had designs on her mistress’s life. The
absurd old creature is devoted to her mistress, who is a mere bundle
of whims and eccentricities. The old lady calls for a cup of coffee at
midnight, and she hates our dear children, and she thrashed Leopold
with her cane last year, because he put nettles in her bed and flour
on her best cap, the poor dear innocent child. And I never dared to
interfere to save Leopold, though his screams rang through the house,
and I stood outside her door listening and peeping, for you know we
must have her fifty thousand pounds, even if she takes the lives of all
my darlings!” and Mrs. Blight’s tone was pathetic. “She’s a nasty old
beast--there! Of course I say it in confidence, Miss Bird. It would
be all up with us, if Aunt Wroat were to hear that I said that. She’s
very tenacious of respect, and all that bother, and insisted I should
punish Albert Victor because he called her ‘an old curmudgeon.’”

“When do you expect this lady?” asked Lally.

“To-morrow, with her maid, lapdog, parrot, umbrella and bandbox. She
writes that she will stay a month, and that she must have no annoyance
from the children, and that she won’t have them in her room--the old
nuisance! If it wasn’t for her money, I’d telegraph her to go to
Guinea, but as we are situated I can’t. I must put up with her ways.
And what I want of you, Miss Bird, is to see that the children do
not stir off this floor while she is here. Let them die for want of
exercise, the poor darlings, rather than we offend this horrid old
woman. If we sacrifice ourselves, she can’t leave her property to some
fussy old charity, that’s one comfort.”

“I will do my best to keep the children out of Mrs. Wroat’s sight,”
said Lally gravely.

“You must succeed in doing so, for the old lady says this will probably
be her last visit to us, as she is growing more and more infirm, and
she hints that it is time to make her will. Everything depends upon
her reception on the occasion of this visit. Let her get miffed at us,
and it’s all up. I declare I wish I had a place where I could hide the
children during her stay. She must not see or hear them, Miss Bird.”

“Is there anything more that I can do, Mrs. Blight?”

“Yes; she always has the governess play upon the piano and sing to her
in the evening. She is fond of music, desperately so. We always hire
a cottage piano and put it in her sitting-room while she stays, and
the governess plays to her there evenings. She’s very liberal with a
governess who can play well. She gave Miss Oddly last year a five-pound
note. And always when she leaves us after a visit, she hands me twenty
pounds and says she never wants to be indebted to anybody, and that’s
to defray her expenses while here. I have to take it. I wouldn’t dare
to refuse it.”

“I shall be glad to amuse her in any way, Mrs. Blight,” declared the
young governess. “I shall not mind her eccentricities, and shall
remember that she is ‘aged and infirm.’”

“And she has fifty thousand pounds which we must have,” said Mrs.
Blight. “Don’t fail to remember that!”

Much relieved at having guarded against a meeting between her expected
guest and her children, Mrs. Blight departed to seek an interview with
her cook.

Extensive preparations were made that day for the reception of Mrs.
Wroat. Two rooms were prepared for her use, one of them having two
beds, one bed being for the use of the maid. A cottage piano was hired
and put into one of the rooms. The choicest articles of furniture in
the house were arranged for her use. The hint that Mrs. Wroat was
thinking of making her will was sufficient to render her time-serving,
money-hunting relatives gentle, pliable, and apparently full of tender
anxiety for her happiness and comfort.

Mr. Blight was informed of the good news when he came home to dinner,
and he sought a personal interview with his children’s governess,
entreating her to keep the youngsters out of sight during the visit of
Mrs. Wroat, as she valued her situation.

Everything being thus arranged, it only remained for the guest to
arrive.

No. 232 of the SELECT LIBRARY, entitled “Neva’s Choice,” is the sequel
to the foregoing novel, and the story of Neva’s romance, together with
the intrigues and plottings of her enemies, is charmingly brought to
its conclusion.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.

The following changes were made:

p. 35: Missing letter assumed to be C (Even Madame Da-Caret, the)

p. 114: second changed to third (her third marriage)

p. 216: In changed to I’ll (cruel. I’ll dismiss)

p. 247: Dobson’s changed to Hobson’s (was “Hobson’s choice)

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEVA'S THREE LOVERS ***

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