SELECT LIBRARY No. 231

Neva’s Three Lovers

BY

Mrs. Harriet Lewis

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.

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

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[10] 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[11] 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,[12] 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[13] 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[14] 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.

[15]

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:

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[16] 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.[17] 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[18] 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[19] 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.

[20]

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[21] 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[22] 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.”

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[23] 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[24] 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.”

[25]

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[26] 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[27] 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.

[28]

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.

[29]

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[30] 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!”

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!”

[31]

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[32] 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[33] 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,[34] 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[35] 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.”

[36]

“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[37] 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[38] 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[39] 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!”

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[41] 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.

[42]

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,”[43] 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[44] 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.

[45]

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[46] 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,”[47] 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[48] 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.”

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[50] 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[51] 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[52] 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[53] 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[54] 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[55] 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.”

[56]

“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[57] 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.

[58]

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[59] 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!”

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:

[61]

“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[62] 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!”

[63]

“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[64] 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[65] 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[66] 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[67] 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.

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[69] 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.

[70]

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[71] 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.”

[72]

“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[73] 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[74] 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.”

[75]

“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[76] 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.

[77]

“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.

[78]

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.

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.[80] 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[81] 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[82] 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.

[83]

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:

[84]

“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,”[85] 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[86] 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.

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[87] 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[88] 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[89] 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.

[90]

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[91] 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.[92] 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?”

[93]

“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.

[94]

“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[95] 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[96] 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[97] 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[98] 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.”

[99]

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!”

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[101] 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[102] 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.

[103]

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[104] 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[105] 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[106] 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[107] 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.

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[109] 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[110] 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[111] 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[112] 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[113] 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[114] 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[115] 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.

[116]

“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[117] 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[118] 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!

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[120] 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[121] 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.

[122]

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[123] 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[124] 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[125] 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,[126] 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[127] 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!”

[128]

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.

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[130] 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,”[131] 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[132] 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[133] 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[134] 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[135] 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[136] 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[137] 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[138] 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.”

[139]

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.”

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[140] 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[141] 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.

[142]

“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[143] 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[144] 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[145] 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,[146] 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.

[147]

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[148] 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!

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.

[149]

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,[150] 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,[151] 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.

[152]

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[153] 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[154] 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[155] 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—”

[156]

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[157] 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[158] 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[159] 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.”

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?”

[160]

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[161] 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[162] 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[163] 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[164] 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[165] 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[166] 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[167] 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[168] 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!

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[169] 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[170] 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[171] 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[172] 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[173] 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.

[174]

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[175] 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[176] 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,[177] 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[178] 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.

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[180] 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[181] 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[182] 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[183] 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[184] 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[185] 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.

[186]

“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[187] 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!”

[188]

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[189] 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!”

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.

[190]

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[191] 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[192] 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[193] 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.[194] “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[195] 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.”

[196]

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[197] 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:

[198]

“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,[199] 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[200] 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.

[201]

“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,[202] 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!”

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[203] 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[204] 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[205] 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[206] 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[207] 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[208] 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,[209] 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!”

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[210] 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.

[211]

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[212] 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[213] 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[214] 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?”

[215]

“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[216] 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[217] 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.

[218]

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!”

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[219] 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:

[220]

“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.[221] 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[222] 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.[223] 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[224] 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.[225] 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[226] 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.[227] “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[228] 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!

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[230] 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[231] 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[232] 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.”

[233]

“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[234] 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[235] 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[236] 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,[237] 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!”

[238]

“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.

[239]

“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?”

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.

[241]

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[242] 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,[243] 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,[244] 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[245] 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.

[246]

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[247] 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[248] 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.

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[249] 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,[250] 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[251] 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[252] 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:

“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[253] 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[254] 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.[255] 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[256] 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,[257] 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[258] 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.