Transcriber’s Notes:

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

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

       *       *       *       *       *

SELECT LIBRARY No. 232

NEVA’S CHOICE

_By_ MRS. HARRIET LEWIS

[Illustration]




NEVA’S CHOICE


  A Sequel to “Neva’s Three Lovers”

  BY

  MRS. HARRIET LEWIS

  AUTHOR OF

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

  [Illustration]

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

       *       *       *       *       *

  Copyright, 1871 and 1892
  By Robert Bonner’s Sons

  Neva’s Choice




SYNOPSIS OF “NEVA’S THREE LOVERS.”


A beautiful young widow, Mrs. Octavia Hathaway, with the connivance of
her admirer, Craven Black, succeeded in marrying the wealthy widower,
Sir Harold Wynde, who had a daughter, Neva, at school in France, and a
son, George, with his regiment in India. A hurried call to the deathbed
of his son frustrated the design of the two adventurers to poison the
baronet, who, after his son died, was reported to have been killed by a
tiger in India, instead of which he was kept prisoner by a treacherous
native servant. After fifteen months of outward mourning Lady Wynde
married Craven Black, and in order to secure the large fortune of
her stepdaughter, she determined that Neva should marry Black’s son,
Rufus. The latter, however, although in fear of his father, was not
unscrupulous. He had married a young girl named Lalla Bird, but as both
were under age he was persuaded that the marriage was illegal. Lalla
was reported to have thrown herself into the river on learning this,
but the body recovered was not hers. She found employment as governess
to the children of a Mrs. Blight. Rufus, believing her dead, proposed
to Neva, but was refused, and the young heiress became betrothed to
Lord Towyn.

Copyright, 1871 and 1892, by Robert Bonner’s Sons

(All rights reserved)

Neva’s Choice

       *       *       *       *       *

NEVA’S CHOICE.




CHAPTER I. NEVA’S ANSWER TO LORD TOWYN.


Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, summoning the indispensable Mrs. Artress
to a private conference, passed some hours in their own room in
anxious deliberation upon their future course in regard to Neva.
It was necessary to the full success of the daring game they were
playing, that Neva should marry Rufus Black; but she had rejected him,
completely and finally, in obedience to her instincts of duty to God
and to herself, and her enemies began to believe that they would have
serious trouble in forcing her into the marriage.

In accordance with the conclusion to which they finally arrived, Mrs.
Artress went away from Hawkhurst that very afternoon in the family
brougham, and two trunks belonging to her were conveyed to Canterbury
in a spring wagon. It was given out that she was going to London to
visit a friend. She really went up to London, but to what point she
then directed her wanderings no one knew.

Rufus Black wandered disconsolately all day in the park, and came in an
hour before dinner. His father encountered him in the upper hall, and
went into his room with him.

“That’s a fine face, Rufus,” said Craven Black, sneeringly, “to win
the heart of a girl like Miss Wynde. You look as if you were traveling
straight to the dogs.”

“So I am, sir,” said Rufus, recklessly.

“You dare to answer me in that manner?”

“To whom should I tell the truth, if not to you?” cried Rufus
desperately. “You have made me what I am. I married a pure and innocent
young girl, who but for me was utterly friendless in the wide world.
You tore me from her. You persuaded me that my marriage was illegal--”

“And wasn’t it?”

“I suppose it was, but it was not null and void. It could have been
set aside by due process of law, because I was a minor, and because I
perjured myself in declaring that I was of age; but I refuse to believe
that it was null and void, no marriage at all. I never wronged my poor
Lally as you pretend.”

“Why this spasm of virtue?” demanded Craven Black, with a cynical
smile. “The girl’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she’s dead! God help me!”

“What a tragic groan! This morning you were in despair because
Miss Wynde rejected you. To-night you are mourning after your
corn-chandler’s daughter. I’d like to understand you--I would indeed.
Which are you wailing after, Miss Wynde or Lalla Rookh?”

“Which?” cried Rufus, with wild eyes. “For the girl you and I murdered!
It is she whom I mourn! I think of her stark form and open eyes and
dead bruised face, as she must have looked when they brought her up out
of the river, and my heart is like to break within me. She haunts me
day and night. In my bed I waken from my dreams to clasp her closer to
me, but my arms close on the empty air. I seem to feel the touch of her
hands on my face--oh, Heaven! I shall never feel them there again! I
was a poor pitiful coward. Yet what could I do? And yet you and I are
Lally’s murderers!”

Craven Black shivered involuntarily.

“You act as if you had a touch of the D. T.” he said. “Have you been
spending the day in a Canterbury pot-house?”

“No; I have been wandering in the park, trying to forget. You need not
fear that I shall get drunk again.”

“Your reflections were rather singular for a rejected lover of Miss
Wynde,” sneered Craven Black. “I thought you loved the heiress?”

“So I do, but not as I loved Lally. If Miss Wynde does not take pity on
me, I am lost. The love of a good woman would save me from madness and
utter despair. In time I might grow to love her as I loved Lally, and
in any case I would worship her from very gratitude.”

“I am blessed if I can understand you,” said Craven Black, his lips
curling. “You love a dead woman and a living woman, and mourn one while
you want to marry the other. It is very curious. It’s a pity you are
not a Mahommedan, so that you could have had both.”

“Stop!” cried Rufus, in a tone of command. “Don’t speak such words in
connection with the names of Lally and Miss Wynde. I want to marry Neva
to save myself from going mad--”

“After another woman? Exactly. No wonder Miss Wynde declined the honor,
with thanks.”

“I shall leave here to-morrow,” said Rufus.

“You won’t do any such thing. You will stay at Hawkhurst for the
remainder of the week, and play the lover to Miss Wynde, and sigh like
any donkey in her ears, and spout poetry, and touch her heart. ‘Faint
heart never won fair lady,’ says the proverb. Girls often refuse a man
the first time he offers, for fear of being held too cheap. Pursue the
girl gently, but keep pursuing.”

“She says her father wrote her a letter saying he knew me,” said Rufus
doggedly. “She asked me about him, and I told her I didn’t know Sir
Harold from a butcher.”

“You did?” gasped Craven Black. “The devil!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you have put your foot in it. I knew you were a fool, but I
didn’t suppose you had arrived at such a low state of idiocy as it
appears you have. Didn’t I tell you what to tell the girl if she ever
spoke of her father?”

“I believe you did, but I couldn’t stand there with her eyes on me and
deliberately lie to her. I understood about the letter. _You_ wrote it.”

“Hush! I’ve a good mind to leave you to yourself, and let you fetch up
in some union,” declared Craven Black angrily. “Such a dolt as you are
isn’t fit to live. How do you expect the girl to marry you when you
yourself put obstacles in the way?”

“See here,” said Rufus. “What are you going to make out of my marriage
with Neva Wynde?”

“Ten thousand pounds a year, which you are to formally agree to pay me
out of her income.”

“I thought you had some motive in the matter besides love to me. But
I’d pay it if she’d marry me. But she won’t.”

“She will, if you choose to be a little bolder. We leave here, my wife,
Neva and myself, next Monday for Wynde Heights. Mrs. Black will use all
her influence with Neva during our absence to induce her to accept you,
and I am sure she will succeed. You are to hold yourself in readiness
to come to us at any moment on receiving my summons.”

“Where is Wynde Heights?”

“In Yorkshire.”

“Very well. I will come when you notify me. But I don’t think going
will do any good. Miss Wynde is no coquette, and not likely to change
her mind. Besides, she is likely to marry Lord Towyn.”

“I think not,” said Craven Black significantly. “She is a minor, and I
don’t believe she would marry against the wishes of her step-mother?”

“The question is if your wife _is_ her step-mother,” remarked Rufus,
still recklessly. “The probability is that the relationship is worn
out by this time, and the sense of duty that Miss Wynde may have felt
toward her father’s widow will fall short when it comes to be directed
toward Craven Black’s wife.”

“We won’t go into details,” said his father coolly. “If you want to
marry the girl, keep telling her so. There’s nothing like persistence.”

“Ye-s; but about that ten thousand pounds a year?” said Rufus
thoughtfully. “I don’t think it would be right to take any such sum out
of her income, and besides, it might be impossible.”

“Leave that to me. As to the right and wrong of it, a perjurer is not
qualified to judge. Confine yourself to what you can understand. It
is time to get ready for dinner, and I advise you to come down with a
cheerful face.”

With this advice, Craven Black went away to his own rooms.

Rufus resolved to act upon his father’s advice, and when he went down
to dinner with a pale, melancholy face, and haggard eyes, he wore an
air of assumed cheerfulness which touched Neva’s heart.

That evening he sang with her while she played upon the piano. He
quoted poetry to her in the third drawing-room, where they were alone,
and afterward induced her to walk with him in the moonlight upon the
terrace.

The next day he was full of delicate attentions to Miss Wynde. She
found a bouquet of wood violets at her plate at breakfast, with the dew
still upon them, and knew who had procured them for her. He asked to be
allowed to accompany her on her morning ride, and Neva assented. After
the ride, they played chess, gathered bouquets in the conservatory,
and, later, walked in the park. Neva was gently courteous to him all
the while, but there was a quiet reserve in her manner that forbade him
to speak again of love or marriage to her.

The day after Lord Towyn called at Hawkhurst, and Mr. and Mrs. Craven
Black received him with all courtesy, and were so politely attentive to
him that he could not exchange a word with Neva unheard by them.

The young earl went away, as may be supposed, troubled and annoyed.

On Friday he rode over again from his marine villa, and was similarly
entertained, and again could not see Neva alone.

On Saturday he came to Hawkhurst in the early morning, and learned at
the lodge gate that Miss Wynde, attended by her groom, was gone for
a ride, and that she had gone by the Dingle Farm. His heart bounded
within him, and he spurred away in eager pursuit.

He traversed the wood and crossed the wide common, and skirted the
dangerous chalk pit, and rode up to the old farm gate just as Neva,
remounting her horse, came riding out on her return.

The young earl’s warm blue eyes flashed a tender radiance upon her,
and he raised his hat, his golden hair gleaming in the sunshine while
his noble face glowed with a laughing delight. An answering radiance
flashed from Neva’s red-brown orbs, and she blushed as she bade him a
careless good-morning.

“I came out to meet you,” said Lord Towyn, as he wheeled his horse and
rode at her side.

“I have much to say to you.”

He glanced over his shoulder, but the discreet groom was hanging back,
and with a mental blessing upon the fellow, Lord Towyn saw that the
field was clear, and that the time had arrived in which to learn his
fate.

They rode on for a little while in silence, until they were past the
chalk pit and out upon the breezy common. The groom was out of earshot,
and the young earl said gently:

“Neva, I have been twice to Hawkhurst to receive the answer you
promised me, but I could not speak to you alone. I may not find another
opportunity than this, as you go with the Blacks to Wynde Heights on
Monday. And so, although this does not seem a fitting place, I ask you
again if you will be my wife. I love you, Neva, with all my heart and
soul. If you will trust your happiness to me, you will find in me a
true lover to the end of our days. Do you think you could be happy with
me?”

Neva’s pure proud face flushed hotly, and she bent her head low
toward her saddle-bow. Lord Towyn waited for her answer in an almost
breathless suspense, but she did not speak until they were in the wood
path and out of sight of even the lagging groom.

Then she lifted her head shyly, and turned upon her lover a face as
divinely fair and roseate as a June morning, and although she spoke no
word he read assent in the drooping eyes, the reddening cheeks, and the
proud, tremulous mouth.

He pressed toward her in rapture, and seized one little gauntleted
hand, pressing it in his own.

“It is Yes, Neva?” he whispered, as if fearing the very birds might
hear him. “Oh, my darling, how shall I deserve this great joy?”

He raised her hand to his lips, and the contact thrilled his very soul.
He looked back. No one was in sight. He stooped in his saddle and bent
toward her, and his kiss, warm, tender and passionate, fell upon her
scarlet mouth, and thus they were betrothed.

The next instant he was again erect in his saddle, and the ecstasy of
his glowing face and the unrepressed rapture of his manner, and the
tender caressing in his very gaze, proclaimed his great and solemn joy.

“I have a ring, it was my mother’s, Neva, and I ask you to wear it as a
sign of our engagement to each other,” he said. “When I see my mother’s
ring on your finger, I shall feel that you are indeed mine.”

He took from his little finger a gold ring set with a single brilliant
of great size and splendor. Neva tremblingly removed her gauntlet,
and the young earl placed the ring upon that finger which custom has
dedicated to the purpose.

“That is the seal of our betrothal,” he whispered.

Neva slowly put on her glove.

“Arthur,” she said suddenly, “do you think papa would have approved my
marriage with you?”

“I know he would, my darling. It was his wish, as it was my father’s,
that we should marry.”

“If I could only think that he never changed his mind!” sighed the
young girl. “I have a letter he wrote me the night before he perished
in India, Arthur, and in this letter he says that he desires me to
marry Rufus Black.”

The young earl looked surprised, incredulous.

“I have the letter with me,” said Neva. “You can read it. In it papa
says he desires me to marry this young man, whom he esteems and
loves. I have struggled to obey papa’s last wishes, but I cannot--I
cannot! And he was such a good father, Arthur, that I reproach myself
continually for my disobedience. I never disobeyed him before, and I
seem to see his eyes full of reproach fixed upon me, and to hear his
voice--Oh, Arthur! Arthur!”

“Let me see the letter, darling.”

Neva extricated it from the folds of her dress, and gave it to
him. They halted while he read it. A look of surprise, wonder and
incredulity mantled Lord Towyn’s face as he read. It was followed by a
sternness that well became his fair and haughty face.

“I pronounce the letter a forgery!” he declared. “May I keep it, Neva,
for the present? I desire to show it to Mr. Atkins, who shall give us
his opinion on the handwriting.”

“Yes; keep it,” assented Neva.

Lord Towyn carefully put it in his pocket.

“I pronounce the letter a forgery,” he repeated sternly. “How did it
come to you, darling?”

“Lady Wynde gave it to me on my return from France. Papa desired her to
retain it for a year. Who would forge such a letter, Arthur?”

“I don’t know. I am puzzled. One cannot suspect Lady Wynde, and
yet--and yet--I don’t know what to think, Neva. I don’t believe Sir
Harold ever saw Rufus Black.”

“Rufus says he never saw papa, or that he never spoke to him,” said
Neva. “And that remark made me doubt the letter. But Rufus never forged
it, Arthur. Rufus is a kind-hearted, but weak-willed boy--he is no
more. If he had more ‘backbone’ in his character, he would be even
noble. I like him, Arthur, and I know he never wrote that letter. Lady
Wynde did not. She is too good for that. It might have been written by
Craven Black. I do not like him, and think him quite capable of the
forgery, only so many of the words are papa’s own that it seems wicked
to doubt its authenticity.”

“I will prove it a forgery!” cried the young earl. “Sir Harold was
incapable of binding your fate in this manner to a man you never saw
before it was written. There is some foul conspiracy against you, Neva,
but we have outwitted your enemies. I am impatient to have you under my
own guardianship. The possibility that you have enemies makes me afraid
to trust you from me. Give up this visit to Wynde Heights, darling.”

“It is too late, Arthur. We shall stay there but a fortnight, and I
have promised to go. Papa bade me love his wife and obey her, and
though she no longer bears his name, and I no longer owe her obedience,
yet I have given my word to go up to Yorkshire with her, and must keep
my promise.”

“But when you return, Neva, you will marry me? Do not condemn me to
a long probation. Let us be married quietly some morning at Wyndham
church, after due intimation to our friends. Shall it not be so?”

Neva yielded a shy assent.

“We will be married a month hence, Neva?” whispered the ardent young
lover.

“Two months,” said Neva, smiling. “I must not be too lightly won, Lord
Towyn. And, besides, I must have the orthodox trousseau. I will tell
Mrs. Black of our engagement when I am with her at Wynde Heights. Rufus
is not going with us, nor is Artress.”

They had threaded the wood and come out upon the highway long since
while they were talking, and were now within sight of Hawkhurst. Rufus
Black was riding out of the great gates, on his way to meet Neva.
The _tete-a-tete_ of the young pair was over for the morning, and
recognizing the fact, and not wishing to proclaim his happy secret to
his defeated rival, Lord Towyn made his adieus to Neva, begging her to
write him daily from Yorkshire, which she promised to do, and, then
raising his hat to Rufus Black, the young earl spurred his horse and
rode swiftly on toward Wyndham.

Neva returned home with Rufus.

On Monday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, accompanied by Miss
Wynde, departed for Wynde Heights.

On Wednesday, Lord Towyn looked for a letter from his young betrothed.
None came. Thursday, Friday and Saturday went by, and still there came
no letter from Neva, announcing her safe arrival in Yorkshire.

The young earl wrote every day, his uneasiness increasing as the time
passed. He communicated his alarm to Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins,
and they telegraphed to the clergyman of the little town in whose
vicinity Wynde Heights was situated, begging him to call and see if
Miss Wynde was in good health.

The answer to this dispatch came promptly, and also by telegraph. It
was to this effect:

 “Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins: Wynde Heights is untenanted, save by
 the housekeeper. Miss Wynde has not been here, nor have Mr. and Mrs.
 Black.”

On receipt of this astounding message, the young earl posted up to
town, as did Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins. They searched for the
missing heiress and her guardians, but their search was futile. Not
a trace of her could be found. She had come up to London with her
enemies, but no further clue to her could be found. She had completely
disappeared, and her fate was shrouded in dark and horrible mystery!




CHAPTER II. THE PUZZLE OF NEVA’S WHEREABOUTS.


On going up to town with Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins to engage
in the search for Neva Wynde, who had so strangely and mysteriously
disappeared, Lord Towyn had left orders with the steward of his marine
villa to forward to him in London without delay any and all letters
that might arrive to the address of the young earl. And so, while
he prosecuted his researches with desperate energy, Lord Towyn half
expected by every post some news from his young betrothed.

The three guardians of Neva’s estate were sadly puzzled and thoroughly
alarmed, but for Neva’s own sake they kept the mystery to themselves.
Mr. Atkins urged that no detectives be taken into their confidence, and
that no newspapers be permitted to publish the strange story.

“We shall do as well as any detectives,” said the attorney, “and if
there is any game afoot, we will not set the villains who are at work
in it upon their guard.”

“Villains?” echoed Sir John Freise disapprovingly. “The thing is
mysterious, Mr. Atkins, but it is susceptible of explanation. Had it
not been for Miss Wynde’s promise to write daily to Lord Towyn, and
her failure to comply with that promise, we should have suspected no
harm. ‘Villains’ is a strong word to apply to Miss Wynde’s companions.
Miss Wynde may have fallen ill on the way to Wynde Heights, or the plan
of the tour may have been changed. In fact, one of these alternatives
doubtless contains the truth. But ‘villains,’ Mr. Atkins--the word
troubles me. To whom do you apply it? Certainly not to the beautiful
lady who was the wife of our friend Sir Harold Wynde, and who was so
loved and trusted by him that he constituted her the sole personal
guardian of his beloved daughter?”

“And who so appreciated her husband’s love and noble qualities,” said
Mr. Atkins dryly, “that in one year from his tragic death she was
receiving the loving attentions of a Craven Black, and in fifteen
months after Sir Harold’s death became the wife of a Craven Black! Bah!
I was never deceived in Lady Wynde, not even when Sir Harold brought
her home to Hawkhurst. She is a bold, designing, unscrupulous creature,
and it is as well that Sir Harold died before she broke his heart.”

“Mr. Atkins, your harsh judgment amazes me--”

“I imagine, Sir John Freise,” said the attorney, “that in your secret
soul your opinion of Mrs. Craven Black is much higher than mine.
Have you been blind to the insatiable vanity, and the vulgarity and
ill-taste of the widow of Sir Harold Wynde, who, fifteen months after
losing the noblest husband the sun ever shone on, converts that
husband’s house into a ball-room, and sets his church bells ringing and
his tenantry dancing at her marriage with a gambler and adventurer,
unworthy even to breathe the same air with Sir Harold’s pure young
daughter? You look shocked, Sir John. If it were necessary, I could
give you my further opinion concerning Mrs. Craven Black, but you are
sufficiently shocked already.”

“You said, Mr. Atkins,” said Lord Towyn, “that you thought Mrs. Black
unscrupulous. I cannot believe her as base as you think, but I have
a question to submit to you and Sir John. When I asked Miss Wynde to
become my wife, she told me that it had been her father’s last wish
that she should marry Rufus Black--”

“Impossible!” cried Sir John and Mr. Atkins, in a breath.

“Miss Wynde showed me a letter purporting to have been written by Sir
Harold the night before his sudden death,” said Lord Towyn. “I have the
letter with me, and a study of it may throw light upon a matter that
certainly looks dark to me. I could almost make oath that the deceased
baronet never wrote this letter. It deceived Neva completely, if it
prove, as I have declared it, a forgery.”

He produced the letter, and gave it into the hands of Mr. Atkins. The
attorney read it aloud, weighing each phrase and turn of sentence.

“Sir Harold wrote it,” declared Sir John Freise, without hesitation. “I
have heard him express himself in those quaint, oddly turned sentences
a hundred times. Those pet names for his daughter, so tender and
poetical, were surely written by him. Miss Wynde accepted the letter as
genuine, and I do the same without question.”

“And you, my lord?” inquired Atkins.

“It seems to me a forgery,” said Lord Towyn. “Rufus Black confessed to
Neva that he had had no personal acquaintance with Sir Harold Wynde.”

“That is odd,” declared Sir John, puzzled. “Perhaps Sir Harold was not
quite in his right mind when he wrote the letter. His presentiment
of approaching death may have unsettled his judgment; but that is
preposterous. I can’t explain the incongruities, but I persist in my
opinion that Sir Harold Wynde wrote the letter.”

“What is your opinion, Mr. Atkins?” demanded Lord Towyn.

“Where is Rufus Black?” asked the lawyer abruptly.

“Down at Hawkhurst. He remains there during the absence of the bridal
party,” answered the young earl in surprise.

“And Rufus Black has confessed to Miss Wynde that he was not personally
acquainted with Sir Harold Wynde?” mused the attorney. “My opinion
about young Black is, that he is a well-meaning but weak-souled lad,
just the person to be made a dupe or instrument in the hands of more
unscrupulous and daring souls. I don’t dislike the boy. If he were his
own master, or had a different father, he’d be a decent fellow.”

“What do you think of his father, Atkins?” inquired Sir John.

“I think he’s a villain.”

“And what do you think of this letter, Atkins?” asked Lord Towyn.

“I think,” said Atkins quietly, “that it is a forgery. More, I know
that it is a forgery. Sir Harold Wynde was too tender a father to
attempt to control his daughter’s choice of a husband in a manner
so singular. The truth is, Craven Black has begun some sort of game
against the Wyndes, and if it don’t date further back than Sir Harold’s
death, I am mistaken. I see you look distressed, Sir John, so I will
keep my ideas to myself until I can prove their value. Lord Towyn, will
you allow me to retain this letter for the present, to study at my
leisure?”

The young earl assented, and Atkins secured the letter on his person.

“And now what are we to do?” asked Sir John.

“I shall take a turn up into Yorkshire, and have a look at Wynde
Heights for myself,” said Atkins. “You had better remain here, Sir
John, and not expose yourself to useless fatigue.”

“I shall go with you, Atkins,” declared the young earl.

Sir John Freise was anxious to accompany them, but he was scarcely able
to bear the fatigue of so hurried a journey, and permitted himself to
be overruled. He agreed to remain at their hotel, the Langham, until
the return of his friends from the north, and that very evening Lord
Towyn and Mr. Atkins departed for Yorkshire.

They arrived in due time at Wynde Heights, a lofty hill, crowned with
a beautiful, wide spreading villa, built after the Italian style, and
having long colonades. There were ample grounds attached to the villa,
a hundred acres or more in extent. Lord Towyn and Mr. Atkins drove out
to the place in a cab, and alighting at the carriage porch rang loudly
for admittance.

An old housekeeper, a Yorkshire woman, with a broad face and quiet
manners, and with but little of the usual Yorkshire burr in her speech,
opened the door cautiously after a long delay, and peeped out at them
with apparent timidity.

“How do you do, ma’am?” said the lawyer, raising his hat to her
respectfully. “We have called to see Miss Wynde and Mrs. Craven Black.”

“The leddies are not here, sir,” answered the housekeeper.

“Not here!” exclaimed Atkins. “But Mrs. Black said they were coming
here.”

“Her leddyship wrote to me to have the house ready for her, after her
new marriage,” said the housekeeper, “and to engage servants, which I
did. And about two weeks ago I got a letter from her leddyship, telling
me to dismiss the servants and shut up the house, as her leddyship had
decided not to come to the Heights, and I obeyed orders.”

“Will you show us that letter?” demanded the lawyer. “We are the
guardians of Miss Wynde’s estate, and find it necessary to see the
young lady at the earliest possible moment. We expected to find her
here, but the letter may afford us some clue to her whereabouts. This
gentleman is Lord Towyn, and I am William Atkins, the attorney of the
Wynde family.”

The housekeeper threw wide open the door of the house. Both names were
familiar to her, and she welcomed the visitors as those having a right
to the hospitalities of the place.

“Come in, my lord; come in, sir,” she exclaimed. “I will get the letter
for you.”

The visitors followed her into a cool, unused parlor, and seated
themselves, while the woman hurried away in quest of the letter of
which she had spoken.

“I had an idea that the Blacks might be stopping here secretly,” said
Atkins, in a low voice; “but I’ve changed my mind, my lord. They have
not been here. The housekeeper’s face is honesty itself. We’ll have to
look elsewhere. I’m sorry we’ve wasted time on the wrong tack.”

The housekeeper reappeared with the letter. Lord Towyn and Mr. Atkins
read it. It had been written by Mrs. Craven Black, and was to the
effect that she had changed her mind, and that the bridal party would
not come north that season, and ordering the newly engaged servants to
be dismissed, and the house to be again closed.

Atkins sighed, as he restored the letter to the housekeeper.

“We are much obliged to you ma’am,” he said, “and now we must hasten
back to London. If you hear from your mistress, be kind enough to drop
me a line at my address. There’s my card. But it’s not likely you will
hear from Mrs. Black before we do.”

The visitors bade the housekeeper good morning, and hurried back to the
railway station in their cab, catching the down train, and speeding on
their way to London.

“I don’t believe our party is in England,” said Atkins musingly, as
they steamed swiftly down the line to the southward. “It would be like
the Blacks, if they had any game afoot, to make for the Continent.
Our next point is to make inquiries at the docks, or at the railway
stations.”

They arrived in London in the morning, and hastened to the Langham
hotel, where they had an interview with Sir John Freise, who was
looking worn and ill under all this suspense and anxiety. The three
gentlemen devoted the day to visiting the various railway stations
and offices of the Continental boats. They visited also the foreign
packet-boats lying in dock, and toward evening learned from the steward
of an Ostend boat, that a party such as was described, consisting of
two ladies and one gentleman, had crossed the Channel to Ostend at
about the time indicated by Atkins.

“Thank Heaven! We are on the track!” breathed Sir John.

“Atkins and I will start for Ostend by way of Dover this very night,”
said Lord Towyn, all ardor and impatience.

Atkins drew out a golden sovereign, which he held tantalizingly before
the eyes of the steward.

“Answer a few more questions,” said the attorney, “and this is yours,
my good fellow. Describe the gentleman who accompanied the two ladies.”

The steward hesitated, eyeing the coin with greedy eyes.

“He was tall and fair, with mustaches,” he said slowly, as if fearing
the description would not suit his interlocutor, “and he was dressed in
black.”

“That would describe Craven Black well enough,” murmured Sir John.

“And the ladies?” questioned Atkins. “How did they look?”

“One was some years older than the other, and was dark, with black
eyes. The young lady had lighter hair. They were going on to Brussels,
and I took it that the elder lady and gentleman were newly married,”
said the steward, “they were that sickish, begging your pardon.”

“There’s no doubt we are on the right track,” cried Sir John, in a tone
of relief.

Atkins paid the steward the promised sovereign, and led the way ashore
and to the waiting cab.

“To the hotel,” he ordered.

The gentlemen entered the vehicle and hastened back to the Langham.
Atkins was very thoughtful and silent during the journey, but as they
drove up to the hotel he said:

“We are tired Lord Towyn, and must have rest. I propose that we sleep
here to-night, and go on to Dover and Ostend in the morning. I know how
anxious and impatient you are, but we must not overtask our strength.
You look quite worn out.”

“It is with anxiety then,” said the young earl. “I am eager to go on,
Mr. Atkins, but will wait till morning as you counsel.”

The three gentlemen ascended to their private parlor which they shared
in common. As they entered the room, a man who was standing at one of
the windows, looking out, turned and came forward to meet them.

He was the steward of Lord Towyn’s marine place.

“You here, Sewel?” exclaimed the young earl. “Is anything the matter?”

The steward, an elderly man, with a rugged countenance, as gnarled as
an old oak, yet full of kindly warmth, shook his head as he answered:

“There’s nothing wrong, my lord; but you ordered any letters to be sent
to you, and knowing how anxious you were, I feared the letter might
miscarry, and here it is. I brought it myself.”

“A letter!” cried the three gentlemen in chorus, having no thought of
any letter save the one they so much desired.

“It’s in a lady’s hand, and that’s why I brought it,” said the steward.

He took out his pocket-book and drew from it a small square envelope,
daintily addressed and sealed.

Lord Towyn uttered a cry of joy, recognizing the handwriting at once.

“It is from Neva!” he ejaculated.

He hurried with it to a window, turning his back on his friends, and
tore open the envelope, disclosing a four-page letter, signed with the
name of Neva Wynde.

“Ah!” he cried aloud. “It is dated Brussels.”

“We were on the right track then,” said Atkins exultantly.

The young earl perused his letter with a glad heart.

It was very tender and very sweet, full of delicate allusions to
their betrothal, and was indeed such a letter as only a woman could
write, yet the young lover was not satisfied. The letter lacked the
straightforward simplicity that distinguished Neva, and it seemed to
Lord Towyn to lack also sincerity. It had been written from the head
rather than from the heart, and his first great joy and gladness gave
way to a sudden and terrible sense of disappointment.

The steward, seeing that he was not wanted, went quietly from the room,
intent upon securing his dinner.

Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise approached our hero, and the baronet
laid a kindly hand upon the young earl’s shoulder.

“Forgive us for interrupting your happy reverie, Lord Towyn,” he said,
“but we are very anxious. Miss Wynde writes from Brussels, and in good
spirits? We have been troubling ourselves for nothing?”

The young earl did not look around, nor did he speak. He only clutched
the letter tighter in his fingers.

“We have got into a panic for nothing,” said Atkins, smiling. “We
will keep the joke to ourselves. I would not have Mr. Black curling
his cynical lips over our folly, not for worlds. No doubt Miss Wynde
satisfactorily explains her previous silence, my lord, and we are free
to return home again, wiser if not better men?”

The young earl turned to his companions now, and they started when
they saw how deadly pale he was, and what a look of terror and anguish
gleamed from his warm blue eyes.

“Miss Wynde is not ill?” cried Sir John.

Lord Towyn raised his arm, waving the letter in the air.

“This letter is in Neva’s handwriting, and signed with her name,” he
said, in a strained voice. “It purports to come from her, but, before
God, I believe it to be a forgery! My instinct tells me that Neva never
wrote it. We are upon the wrong track. Neva is not at Brussels. Perhaps
she is not out of England. She is in the hands of her enemies, who have
formed some foul conspiracy against her, and we, O God! are powerless
to save her!”




CHAPTER III. AN ADVERTISEMENT QUICKLY ANSWERED.


As the hour drew near for the arrival of the expected guest at Sandy
Lands, a suppressed excitement pervaded the pert little villa from
basement to attic. The servants had all received orders to wait upon
Mrs. Wroat with the utmost alacrity, and some notion of her wealth and
eccentricity had been conveyed to them, together with the idea that Mr.
and Mrs. Blight entertained “expectations” of inheriting the old lady’s
fortune at her death.

Mr. Blight had remained at home upon this day, in order that his
aunt-in-law might not conceive herself neglected by him. He was dressed
in his Sunday garments, and was practising a smile of welcome, which
had somewhat a sickly look, contrasted as it was with his anxious eyes,
and uneasy, apprehensive manner.

“Everything hangs upon this visit,” he muttered to himself, as he stood
at the parlor window, watching the road. “The old creature is a bundle
of whims and caprices, and if she should leave her money to a charity
we are undone. Our expenses are so heavy that I can no longer meet
them. The old woman _must_ make her will in my favor!”

Mrs. Blight had attired herself in a tightly fitting gown of red silk,
through which her rotund figure threatened to burst at any moment,
and she wore a massive gold chain, a necklace, bracelets and brooch,
so that she might have personated at a fancy ball the character of an
animated jeweller’s shop.

“What have you got on all that jewelry for?” demanded Mr. Blight,
glancing at his wife, as she complacently surveyed the reflection of
her stout person and flushed face in the long mirror.

“Why?” said Mrs. Blight, with a degree of worldly wisdom for which
her husband, it is to be feared, had never given her credit, “there’s
nothing like making the old woman think we are prosperous. Money brings
money. If Aunt Wroat sees us haggling about the butcher’s bills and
the school bills, she may think her money is going into a bottomless
bucket. But if she sees us apparently rich, and without money cares,
she will be more anxious to leave her money to us.”

“That’s so,” said Mr. Blight. “I wish she’d come. Upon my soul, I
do. Why didn’t my uncle leave me his money, and give his wife an
annuity? In that case, I shouldn’t have cared what became of her, and
I certainly would not have been dancing attendance upon her. All our
care,” he added sourly, “and all our flattery will go for nothing if
the children are not kept out of the way. And there the young savages
come pellmell down the stairs.”

“The ‘young savages!’” moaned Mrs. Blight, in terrible reproach. “Have
you the soul of a father? Can you call your own offspring savages, as
if they were the children of a red Indian, or of cannibals? I’ll send
the poor dears back to the school-room. Between you and your horrible
old aunt, the poor darlings are in terror of their lives.”

Mrs. Blight hastened out into the hall, but it was now empty. The young
governess and the nurse had captured all of the refractory brood save
Leopold, and had conveyed them back to the school-room. Leopold had
made good his escape into the garden, and was now careering about like
a young colt, shouting at the top of his voice.

Mrs. Blight, hearing the noise made by her offspring, was full of
terror lest her guest should arrive, and encounter the terrible infant
at the gate of Sandy Lands. She rang the bell violently, and ordered
Miss Bird to take charge of her pupil immediately. Lally descended to
the garden to obey this command, and at the very moment when he chose
to yield to her persuasions and be led away captive, a heavily laden
cab drove up to the garden door, and the garden bell was rung violently.

The smart housemaid hastened to give admittance to the visitor, and the
youthful Leopold, greatly excited at the prospect of seeing Mrs. Wroat,
whom he detested, but cordially loved to annoy, struggled in Lally’s
grasp. The young girl drew her charge into the shadow of a clump of
trees, and stood there, panting and flushed, just as the visitor’s
luggage was brought in in advance of the visitor herself.

First came three large trunks, a bandbox in a green cotton bag, a
parrot in a cage, who croaked and chattered and muttered hoarse
threats, and a blue silk family umbrella.

And then followed the queerest old lady Lally had ever seen. She leaned
upon the arm of a tall, angular, hatchet-faced woman, her maid and
constant attendant, who spoke to her mistress with a loving gentleness
a mother might exhibit toward her child, but which sounded strangely
from her thin, compressed lips, and who guided the faltering steps of
her mistress with the tenderest care.

It was the old lady, however, upon whom Lally’s gaze was fixed with
strange intensity. She was thin and withered and bent, a mere wreck of
a woman who had been in her day handsome, graceful and spirited. She
was nearly eighty years of age, and her hands, incased in black knitted
mittens, through whose open meshes her bony fingers showed, clasped a
gold-headed staff, which partially supported her, the maid giving her
an arm.

The old lady wore an old-fashioned brocade gown, a big traveling
cloak, a white frilled cap, and a huge scuttle-shaped bonnet, such as
had been worn in her early prime. But her eyes were black and keen
and penetrating, full of sparkle and brightness; her hooked nose was
prominent like an eagle’s beak; and her mouth was curled habitually in
a strangely cynical smile or sneer.

The old lady gave a quizzical glance up at the doorway, in which stood
Mr. and Mrs. Blight with outstretched arms, and then looked toward
Lally. The young girl shrank back, and hurried in at the rear porch
and up stairs with her young charge, just as Mrs. Wroat came in at the
front door and was received by her connections with loud exclamations
of welcome.

The visitor was installed in her own apartments, and she did not emerge
from them for the remainder of the day. Mr. Blight went to his office.
A supernatural stillness reigned throughout the villa. Mrs. Wroat
chose to appear at dinner, which was served at Sandy Lands at seven
o’clock; and Mr. Blight was then at home to give her his arm into the
dining-room, and to pay her all necessary attentions.

She looked, as Mrs. Blight privately remarked to her husband, “like a
witch of Endor,” in her dinner costume of black velvet, with a scarlet
velvet circular cloak thrown about her thin bent figure, and with
her keen black eyes peering sharply out of her sallow face. She only
needed a scarlet hood over her gray, wild looking hair, to complete her
resemblance to one of the witches who are fabled to meet in lonely wood
at midnight, to stir devilish messes in boiling caldrons. But then she
wore a set of very fine diamonds, and even a “witch of Endor,” with
diamonds, would have been handsomely treated by Mrs. Blight.

The old lady was not as courteous as a female Chesterfield. In fact
she snapped out spiteful remarks with the utmost unconsciousness of
the rising anger of host or hostess, taking a malicious pleasure in
stirring up their evil passions, knowing that they dared not give
vent to them. It may be that she comprehended their time-serving,
speculating natures, and realized that they paid court to her only for
her money.

“Miserable wine!” she commented, with a wry face, as she set down her
glass. “Gladstone, isn’t it, Charles? It comes at four and six the
dozen bottles, I believe. I never buy it myself. I prefer to take
wormwood and vitriol undiluted.”

The lawyer flushed. He prided himself on being a connoisseur of wines,
and having the choicest cellar in Canterbury.

“That’s real port, Aunt Wroat,” he exclaimed--“of the vintage of ’42.”

“Oh, they told you that, did they?” asked the old lady. “These cheap
wine dealers are up to all sorts of tricks. I am surprised that you
should have been taken in so, nephew Charles. At your time of life a
man should have some judgment of his own.”

Mr. Blight bit his lips furiously, and his wife fancied she heard the
old lady chuckle softly to herself, but a glance at her did not confirm
the impression.

Presently the old lady opened an attack upon the lawyer’s wife. She
looked at her though a quizzing-glass, and exclaimed suddenly, with
apparent astonishment:

“Laura, do you think it good taste to wear all that Brummagem? If I
could not get real gold, I wouldn’t put on servant’s ornaments; I
wouldn’t indeed.”

“But these are real gold, Aunt Wroat,” said Mrs. Blight, her voice
trembling with annoyance.

“Tut, tut,” said the old lady severely. “Don’t contradict me. I have
been used to good jewelry all my life, and ought to know it when I see
it. Good gold! Ha, ha! If you don’t know good gold, ask your cook.”

Mrs. Blight nearly choked with rage, and sulked during the remainder
of the dinner, or until her husband threw her a warning glance that
reminded her that she could not afford to quarrel with their eccentric
relative.

Several times during the repast the host and hostess were stirred to
anger they dared not exhibit, and several times Mrs. Blight fancied
she heard the old lady chuckle to herself, but of this she could not
be quite sure. The Blights fawned upon their wealthy guest, swallowed
her insults, and smiled distractedly at her deadliest thrusts. But both
drew a sigh of relief when the old lady had been carried back into the
drawing-room.

“May be she’ll go to her room now?” whispered Mrs. Blight to her
husband, as the old lady fanned herself vigorously, and appeared
oblivious of their existence.

“No such good luck,” returned the lawyer ill-naturedly. “She ought to
be shut up in a lunatic asylum, the old nuisance. If it wasn’t for her
money, she might die in an alms-house before I’d give her shelter.”

The whisper was not low, but then Mrs. Wroat was supposed to be “as
deaf as a post,” and of course she could not hear a sound so faint and
indistinct. Mr. and Mrs. Blight had frequently vented their opinions
much more loudly before her. But there was an odd snap in her eyes on
this occasion, as they thus whispered to each other, and again Mrs.
Blight fancied she heard a malicious chuckle, but the old lady fell to
coughing in a frightful manner, and the lawyer’s wife had no time for
fancies, believing the old lady likely to die on the spot.

When the paroxysm was over, and Mrs. Wroat began to breathe freely,
Mrs. Blight said, not without nervousness:

“You have a terrible cold, Aunt Wroat. Don’t you do anything for it?”

“It’s a cold that’ll last me my days,” said Mrs. Wroat. “It’s
consumption.”

“Do you employ a doctor for it?” asked the lawyer.

“Death is the best doctor,” answered the old lady, with grim
facetiousness. “He’ll cure it for nothing. This is my last visit to
you, Charles. I sha’n’t last much longer.”

“Oh, I hope you will live twenty years yet, and visit us every year!”
cried Mrs. Blight. “Dear Aunt Wroat, we love to have you with us.”

“Yes, I know it,” said Mrs. Wroat, with another odd snap in her
witch-like eyes. “I know it, my dear. It’s time to settle my affairs. I
am thinking of making my will soon.”

The Blights tried to look unconcerned, but failed. Their curiosity and
anxiety displayed themselves in their features.

“Shall you leave your money to a charity, dear Aunt Wroat?” inquired
Mrs. Blight caressingly.

“No, no! I shall leave it to--But don’t ask me. You’ll know in good
time.”

The lawyer looked significantly at his wife.

“She means to leave it to us!” he whispered. “The old nuisance will pay
us for our trouble at last.”

It was singular that just then another fit of coughing attacked the old
lady. When it was over, she said sharply:

“I’ll go to my room. I want to be composed, or I sha’n’t sleep a wink
to-night. We’ll visit to-morrow, but I am tired after my journey. I
should like some one to play a little music for me in my room, but I
don’t want any sentimental songs from your girls, Laura.”

“The governess will sing and play for you, dear Aunt Wroat,” said Mrs.
Blight. “She has orders to obey you during your visit, and you can
command her at any or all hours.”

“Then send her to me in half an hour. Charles, you can carry me up
stairs.”

The lawyer obeyed the intimation, carrying the old lady up to her own
room and depositing her in her armchair. The maid was in attendance,
and the lawyer and his wife bade their guest an affecting good-night,
and retreated to the drawing-room to speculate upon their prospects and
the state of Mrs. Wroat’s health.

“Shut the door, Peters,” said the old lady. “And you might open the
windows and air the room after those people’s presence.”

Peters obeyed. She was wont to humor all the whims of her mistress.

“Did you find them the same as usual, ma’am?” she asked.

“Just the same, Peters,” and the old lady sighed. “They call me ‘an
old cat’ and ‘a nuisance’ in whispers, and ‘dear Aunt Wroat’ out
aloud. Miserable hypocrites! I wanted to give them a last chance, but
they have ruined their prospects with me. Bah! A pair of fawning,
treacherous cats! They will never get a penny of my money beyond a
guinea to buy a mourning ring.”

“What shall you do, ma’am? Leave your money to a charity?”

“No, I won’t do that. I won’t have it scattered and doled out in
sixpennies and shillings, when the whole sum might go to enrich some
deserving person. I’ll leave you an annuity, Peters. You’re the only
true friend I have on earth.”

The woman caressed the withered hand of her old mistress with genuine
affection.

“Have you given up all hope of finding your own relatives, ma’am?”
she asked. “You tracked your niece until after her marriage with a
corn-chandler, and have discovered that she died, leaving one child,
a daughter, and that her husband died also. The girl may live, ma’am.
She’s the last of your blood, and surely it’s better to give to your
own kin than to undeserving connections or to strangers.”

“But I can’t find the girl,” sighed the old lady. “I’d adopt her and
leave her my money, if she was deserving of it; but I’ve set detectives
to look for her, and they have failed to discover anything except that
her moonstruck parents named her the ‘The Vailed Prophet,’ or ‘Lalla
Rookh,’ or some such nonsense. They did find out that she had been
educated like a lady--her mother was a lady--and that she had taught
music, or drawing, or something. But she may be dead by this time.”

“We might advertise for her,” cried the maid all enthusiasm. “We could
say, if Miss So and So would call at such a place, she would hear of
something to her advantage. I do wish you would leave your money to
some nice young lady, instead of these people below. I’ll write the
advertisement immediately. What is the name of your great-niece, Mrs.
Wroat?”

“It’s Kubla Khan, or Lalla Rookh Bird,” answered the old lady. “There
was a crack in my niece’s brain, as was shown by her marriage with
a corn-chandler, and by the naming of her child. I wonder what kind
of a bird the corn-chandler was,” and Mrs. Wroat laughed queerly.
“He left his daughter not one penny to bless herself with. Write the
advertisement, Peters, at once. What geese we were not to have thought
of an advertisement before. If I can find and cage my Bird, Peters,
and it turns out a good and worthy Bird, I’ll leave her the whole of my
fifty thousand pounds, and you shall have an annuity, Peters, and live
with her and take care of her. She’s only a child--not over seventeen.”

Peters brought out her mistress’ portable writing-desk, and sat
down before it to pen the required advertisement. Being unused to
composition, she spoiled a dozen sheets of paper before she produced
the following, which she read aloud to her mistress:

 “If Miss Lalla Bird will apply to the undersigned she will hear of
 something to her advantage. M. W., Mount street, London, W.”

“That will do,” cried Mrs. Wroat delighted. “M. W.--Maria Wroat. Very
good. We’ll have it in all the London papers. Make a dozen copies of
it, and address them to a dozen different papers. You shall get the
post-office orders to put with them in the morning. But let us see if
the advertisement wants any improving. Read it again.”

The maid did so. As she concluded, and before she could speak, the
advertisement was answered, for a low knock was heard at the door,
and the young governess, in her black dress and with her young face
pitiful in its sadness, entered the room, and said shyly and with a low
courtesy:

“If you please, ma’am, I’m the governess, and Mrs. Blight sent me in to
play to you. My name is Miss Bird.”




CHAPTER IV. LALLY AND MRS. WROAT.


The simple and business-like announcement of her name by Mrs. Blight’s
young governess to Mrs. Blight’s eccentric guest, produced a sensation
as startling as unexpected to Lally. Mrs. Wroat uttered a strange
exclamation, and leaned forward on her staff, her black eyes staring
at the young girl in a piercing gaze, her hooked nose and her chin
almost meeting, and her shrivelled lips mumbling excitedly an inaudible
whisper. The old lady’s eagerness and agitation was shared by her maid,
who stared at Lally with a wondering and incredulous gaze.

“Who--who did you say you were?” demanded Mrs. Wroat, as soon as she
could speak, in cracked, hoarse tones--“_Who?_”

“I am Mrs. Blight’s governess, ma’am,” replied Lally wonderingly, and
concluding that Mrs. Wroat’s eccentricities verged upon madness.

“Yes, yes, I know,” cried the old lady impatiently, “but who are you?”

“Nobody, ma’am--only Lally Bird, the governess.”

“Ah-h!” said the old lady, in an odd, choked voice. “Lal-Lally Bird!
Lord bless my soul, Peters!”

Mrs. Wroat looked at the young governess with such a queer snap in
her eyes, and such a glow on her sallow, withered face, that Lally
involuntarily retreated a step toward the door.

“It’s the young lady, ma’am,” whispered Peters, full of amazement.
“Whatever does it mean? It’s like magic or sorcery.”

“It means that our advertisement is already answered,” returned Mrs.
Wroat grimly. “Saved the post-office orders, Peters. I believe in
advertising, Peters. We’ve just seen the benefit of it.”

Lally retreated another step toward the door.

“If you please, ma’am,” she said, in a little fluttering voice, “I will
come and play for you later--”

“No you won’t!” interrupted Mrs. Wroat. “Now you are here, you’ll stay
here till I am through with you. Do you know who I am?”

Lally brought to her support a pretty, girlish dignity which sat well
upon her round gipsy face.

“Yes, madam,” she answered; “you are Mrs. Wroat, the aunt of Mr.
Blight.”

“Wrong. I am only his uncle’s widow. Come under the chandelier.”

Lally came forward hesitatingly, and stood under the great chandelier
where a dozen wax candles burned mellowly from a forest of tall
unlighted ones. The soft glow fell upon Lally’s face and figure. She
was thin, and there was a tremulous anxiety on her features; but in
her mourning dress, with a red flush on her dark cheeks, and a bright
light in her velvety black eyes, she was very pretty, with a dark gipsy
beauty that seemed to startle Mrs. Wroat.

“The very image of poor Clara,” muttered the old lady, “and the very
image of what I was at her age. There, Peters, if you want to see how I
looked in my youth, look at that girl.”

However Mrs. Wroat might have looked in her far-past youth, she looked
now like a malignant old fairy in her gown of black velvet, and with
her cloak of scarlet velvet drawn around her shoulders. Her diamonds
were not brighter than her eyes, whose keen and piercing glances tried
to read Lally’s soul.

“Peters,” said the old lady, abruptly, “give the girl that copy of the
advertisement.”

The maid silently handed the slip of paper to Lally, who read it in
deepening amazement.

“Is this an advertisement for me, madam?” she demanded. “I am Lally
Bird. Are--are you ‘M. W.?’”

“Of ‘Mount street, London?’” finished the old lady. “Yes, I am ‘M.
W.’--Maria Wroat.”

“And you were about to advertise for _me_, madam? I--I don’t
understand. Or, is there some other Lally Bird?”

“No danger of that,” said Mrs. Wroat. “There were never two women in
this world so silly and moonstruck as your mother--never two women who
named their girls Lalla Rookh. Pah! What a name! But for fear your
mother was not the only goose in the world who married a Bird, just
answer me a few questions. What was your father’s name, and what was
his business?”

“He was a corn-chandler in the city, and his name was John Bird,”
answered Lally, quite bewildered.

“And what was your mother’s name before her marriage?”

“Clara Mulford Percy--”

Mrs. Wroat gave a queer little gasp, and her hands trembled, and she
looked at her faithful attendant in a sort of triumph.

“Do you hear that, Peters?” she whispered. “Do you hear it, I say?”
Then she added aloud, “Go on, girl. Who was your mother?”

“She was the daughter of a country gentleman who owned an estate in
Hampshire. There were several children besides my mother, but they
all died young and unmarried. The estate was entailed, and went to a
distant relative. My mother married my father against the wishes of
her friends, and was disowned by them for her misalliance.”

“And very properly too, I should say. If a girl chooses to descend
from her proper rank in society as a gentleman’s petted daughter, and
take to living in a back room behind a corn-chandler’s shop, she can’t
expect her friends to follow her,” said Mrs. Wroat, with some energy.
“And you were her only child?”

“Yes madam.”

“Any relatives living?”

“No, madam. My mother died young. My father lived to give me a good
education, and then died insolvent, leaving me dependent upon my own
exertions when I was less than sixteen years old. My father was a
tradesman, humbly born, madam, but he was a gentleman at heart--”

“So poor Clara said. Humph! So you’ve no relatives living, eh?”

“None whom I know, madam. The present holder of my grandfather’s estate
in Hampshire is my distant relative, but he knows as little of me as
I know of him. And--and,” added Lally, suddenly trembling, as if a
suspicion of the truth were dawning upon her soul, “I have a great-aunt
living in London--she was my mother’s aunt--who married a banker, and
is now a widow, if she still lives. She must be very old.”

“About my age!” said Mrs. Wroat, her eyes snapping. “Just about my age.
What was her name?”

“Her name was Maria Percy, when a girl. She was married many years
before my mother was born, and she was my mother’s god-mother. I don’t
know her married name. If I ever heard it, I have forgotten it.”

“Then I’ll tell it to you,” said the old lady. “Her present name is
Maria Wroat. Her home is in Mount street, London. And at this moment
she sits before you, taking stock of you.”

Lally grew pale, and her black eyes opened to their widest extent.

“You--you my aunt?” she ejaculated.

“So it seems, my dear. I’ve been searching for you for some time. And
so you are Clara’s child? You may kiss me if you want to, my dear.”

Lally approached the old lady with some hesitation, and bestowed a kiss
upon the proffered wrinkled cheek. Then she shrank back in a sort of
affright, wondering at her own temerity.

“Sit down,” said the old lady kindly. “I have a few questions to ask
you, and on your answers depend more than you know of. Peters, don’t
stare the poor child out of countenance. Girl, how old are you?”

“Seventeen years, ma’am.”

“And I’m eighty--one of us at the beginning, the other at the end of
life! Heigh-ho! And so you’re governess here?”

Lally replied in the affirmative.

“No wonder you look sorrowful and pale and woe-begone!” muttered Mrs.
Wroat. “To be governess of the young Blights is a horrible martyrdom.
Don’t you think so? And isn’t it martyrdom to be under the orders of
that odious, vulgar, garrulous Mrs. Blight? Hey?”

“When I came here,” said Lally agitatedly, “I had no home on earth.
I was out of money, out of clothes, and utterly friendless. And so,
madam, I am very grateful to Mrs. Blight for shelter and a home, and I
cannot consider any service that gives me these a martyrdom.”

“Grateful, eh? What have you to be grateful for?” asked the old lady
cynically. “You have shelter and food, but you earn them, I’ll be
bound. You work early and late for the pitiful sum of forty pounds a
year. That is what you get, is it not?”

“No, ma’am. I am young and inexperienced, and I needed the place so
much, so I get but twenty pounds a year.”

“Bless my soul!” cried the old lady. “Because you needed the place so
much, you get only half price! That is just like Laura Blight. How came
you to be so friendless?”

“After my father’s death,” said Lally, “I taught music in the school in
which I had been educated. The school broke up, the proprietors being
advanced in life and being able to retire from labor, and I was thrown
adrift. I was obliged to do anything I could get to do. I lived for
some weeks or months with an old woman who was seamstress to a boys’
school, and when she died I was out of work again, and came down into
Kent and worked in the hop-fields. I was so hungry--”

“Do you hear that, Peters?” interrupted the old lady, turning savagely
upon her attendant, her bright black eyes beaded with tears. “Do you
hear it, and sit there unmoved? She was hungry, while my servants flung
away the dainties from my table, and I grumbled because they could
not contrive newer delicacies to tempt my appetite. Hungry? Homeless?
Friendless? Heaven be merciful to me! Hungry! Ah-h!”

“That is all past now, madam,” said Lally softly.

“To begin again when Laura Blight chooses to send you packing! She’s
full of caprices, is Laura. You’re not sure of a place here over night,
unless her interest bids her keep you. How much money have you laid up?”

“Mrs. Blight advanced me five pounds, my first quarter’s salary, and I
have eighteen shillings remaining,” answered Lally.

“Humph. Eighteen shillings between you and the union. Look me in the
eye, Lally.”

The young girl obeyed, looking into Mrs. Wroat’s piercing eyes with a
steady, honest, unflinching gaze, although the color fluttered in and
out of her cheeks, as a bird flutters in and out of its cage.

“Have you ever done anything in your life of which you are ashamed?”
asked the old lady, in a low, sternly anxious voice.

“No, ma’am,” answered the girl truthfully, “I never have.”

“What do you think of her, Peters?” demanded Mrs. Wroat, turning to her
maid and confidant.

The woman was crying behind her handkerchief. She had hard features,
but her heart was warm and soft. She answered sobbingly:

“I think, ma’am, as you’d ought to take her and adopt her, and make her
your heiress--that’s what I think, poor, pretty dear!”

“Shows your sense, Peters,” said Mrs. Wroat. “You’re a woman of a
thousand, Peters, and I’ll double the annuity I’m going to give you.
Girl, come and sit here on the stool at my feet.”

Lally came forward and sat down as directed.

“I am alone in the world, except for my good old Peters,” said Mrs.
Wroat, with a quiver of her pointed, up-turned chin. “These people here
think only of what they can make out of me--of the fortune they hope to
inherit at my death. I am old, and very near my end. I should like to
leave my money to one of my own kindred, and to one who would really
mourn a little for me when I am gone. I’m a queer old woman, Lally,
full of notions, and so cross that any one but Peters would have given
me up long ago; but, strange as it may seem, the good soul actually
loves me. She’s been in my service five and thirty years, and she’s
more a friend to me than a servant. Now, Lally, do you think you could
ever love me? It’s odd, I own, but even a dried-up old woman like me
sometimes yearns to be loved.”

Her voice trembled, and tears brimmed over the bright black eyes, and
her sharp features were convulsed in sudden emotion. She looked at
Lally with a strange wistfulness and yearning, and Lally’s desolate,
frozen soul thawed within her, and with a great sob she sprang up and
threw her arms around her aged kinswoman, and kissed her fervently and
tenderly.

“I have no one to love,” whispered the girl, sobbing. “I would love you
if you would let me.”

A paroxysm of coughing seized upon the old lady, and Lally shrank back
affrighted into her seat. Peters patted her mistress gently on her back
and gave her water to drink, and she soon recovered, sinking back upon
her cushions, tired and panting.

“I am near the end, my dear,” she said, when she could command her
voice. “I may live weeks, or it may be months; but the time is short. I
like you, Lally, and I am going to adopt you and make you my heiress.
You shall change your name to mine, and be known as Lally Wroat, and at
my death you shall inherit my fifty thousand pounds. And all I ask of
you, Lally, is to love me a little, and try to be a daughter to me. I
never had a daughter of my own.”

Lally raised the old lady’s hand reverently to her lips.

“I am afraid all this happiness is not for me, madam,” she said
bravely. “I am not what you think me, and you may not deem me fit to
inherit your wealth. I--I have been married!”

“Peters, the girl’s head is turned.”

“No, madam, I speak the truth. I am pure in the sight of God, but I am
a disowned wife.”

“A wife--at seventeen?”

“Yes, madam. After I lost my situation as music teacher I was married
to a young gentleman, just from Oxford, where he had been educated. He
was only twenty years old, and we were married by license. He worked to
support us, having talent as an artist, and we struggled along together
until his father discovered our marriage and separated us, declaring
the marriage null and void, his son being under twenty-one years of
age. We were married in good faith; we loved each other; and Rufus was
good, although he made oath that he was of age in order to secure the
marriage license. His father threatened to prosecute him for perjury if
he did not give me up; and he gave me up.”

“And who is this precious youth?” asked Mrs. Wroat.

Lally replied by telling her story precisely as it had occurred,
excusing the conduct of her young husband as well as she could, and
displaying in every look and word how passionately she still loved him.

“So the young man is poor, but of good birth and connections, and
university bred?” commented Mrs. Wroat. “Well, Lally, my opinion is
that your husband is not free from you, but that he will have to have
recourse to law to secure his freedom. We’ll consult my London lawyer
when we get up to town, and we’ll see about the young man. I’m afraid
he’s a poor stick; but we’ll see--we’ll see. I haven’t changed my mind
about adopting you, and I shall immediately assume a guardianship over
you. You will quit Mrs. Blight’s service to-morrow. Peters, how soon
can we go back to town?”

“At the end of the week, ma’am, if you like,” responded Peters,
brightening.

“So be it then. Pack your trunk, Lally. You will finish your stay in
this house as my adopted daughter and future heiress, and to-morrow
you and Peters shall go out shopping--”

Mrs. Wroat paused, as a knock was heard at the door.

“Open the door, Peters,” commanded the old lady. “It’s Laura Blight.”

Before Peters could obey, the door opened from without, and Mrs.
Blight, her chains tinkling and her red silk gown rustling, came into
the room as airily as the rotund proportions of her figure would permit.

Her glances fell upon Lally, who was still sitting at the feet of her
great-aunt, and Mrs. Blight’s face showed her surprise and displeasure.

“I didn’t hear the piano, dear Aunt Wroat,” she exclaimed, “and I
feared my governess might not have obeyed my order and come in to you.
Miss Bird, I fear you forget your place. You are not a guest in this
house--you are merely a hired servant. If you try, like a treacherous
viper, to creep into the good graces of my poor unsuspecting relative,
I shall dismiss you in the morning. You are to play upon the piano, and
then go to your room.”

The old lady’s yellow and bony hand was stretched out and laid
caressingly on Lally’s black hair.

“I was talking to the child, Laura,” she said. “I have been hearing her
history. Don’t you remember that I’ve been trying for years to find my
niece, Clara Bird, or her children? Well, this girl is Clara’s child--”

A look of fear and anger disfigured Mrs. Blight’s face. The girl
became, upon the instant, a terror to her.

“Aunt Wroat,” said the lawyer’s wife hastily, “this girl is a mere
imposter that I took in out of charity. She has deceived you. Miss
Bird, go to your room at once. To-morrow morning you leave my house.”

“Peters,” said Mrs. Wroat quietly, “give me my purse.”

Peters brought a plethoric pocket-book from her mistress’
traveling-bag, and the old lady took out a five-pound Bank of England
note.

“Give that to Mrs. Blight, Peters,” continued the old lady calmly.
“Mrs. Blight, that is the amount you advanced to my great-niece when
she entered your service. I do not wish her to be indebted to you. And
here are twenty pounds to reimburse you for any expense I may have
put you to. I am sorry, Laura, to disappoint you,” added Mrs. Wroat,
putting her wallet in her pocket, “but you and your husband need the
lesson. I am not so deaf but that I heard every whisper you and your
husband exchanged in the drawing-room to-night. I am aware that you
consider me ‘an old cat,’ and ‘an old nuisance,’ and that you ‘would
send me to an alms-house, if it were not for my money.’ I have now only
to say to you that your heartlessness has met with its appropriate
reward. This young lady is my adopted daughter and future heiress, and
when you order a cab for her in the morning, you may let the boy come
up for my luggage also. I shall go with my adopted daughter.”




CHAPTER V. NEVA AND HER ENEMIES.


Neva Wynde had arrived in London, by the morning express train from
Canterbury, in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, and from the
moment in which she had emerged with them from the railway station, all
clue to her movements was suddenly and mysteriously lost.

What had become of her? How had she so singularly disappeared?

These questions, which filled the souls of Neva’s lover and guardians
with such unspeakable terror and anxiety and which they so signally
failed in their efforts to solve, we now purpose answering for the
benefit of the reader.

On alighting from the crowded morning train, Craven Black hurried his
bride, her maid and Neva into a waiting cab, superintended the mounting
of the luggage to the stout cab roof, and gave the order to be driven
to Gravesend, adding more explicit directions in an undertone. He then
entered the vehicle, and the vehicle rolled from the station.

“Where are we going, Mrs. Black?” asked Neva, looking from the cab
windows. “I fancied Mr. Black said Gravesend.”

“So he did, my dear,” said Mrs. Craven Black placidly. “Didn’t I tell
you that we are going to Yorkshire by water? September is such a lovely
month, and this is such lovely weather, and it’s quite the thing to
take a sea trip for a bridal tour, and I prevailed upon Craven to
charter--is not that the word--a beautiful little yacht, which we are
to have three months if we want it. We shall have a glorious voyage
down the Thames and up the Channel, and through the great German ocean.
The very idea stirs all my love of romance. Doesn’t it affect you in
the same manner!”

“But Wynde Heights is not near the sea,” objected Neva, in surprise.

“It’s not two hours distant by rail, and it will be delightful to get
up yachting parties by ourselves, and go off for a two-days’ excursion;
don’t you think so? Don’t throw cold water upon my little plans for
happiness, I beg of you, my dear Neva,” cried Mrs. Craven Black
imploringly. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t be perfectly happy,
if you won’t interpose objections, Neva.”

Thus adjured, Neva took care to “interpose” no more objections. She had
no liking for nor trust in Craven Black, but Mrs. Craven Black had been
her father’s beloved and honored wife, and Neva still believed in her.
That the pair could mean her harm never once occurred to her. Neither
did she realize how completely she was in their power. She had left
her maid at home, at Mrs. Black’s solicitation, the latter declaring
that one maid would suffice for both, and that she especially disliked
Meggy West, the girl who attended upon Neva. Thus the young heiress of
Hawkhurst was absolutely friendless and helpless, in the hands of her
enemies.

They had a long drive to Gravesend. On arriving at their destination,
they alighted at a pier at which a small boat with two oarsmen was
lying. These men were dressed in blue sailor custom, each having an
arrow embroidered on the breast of his jacket. Mr. Black went up to
them, accosting them familiarly.

“What boat do you belong to?” he demanded.

“To the _Arrow_, sir, lying out yonder,” said one of the men, pointing
to a graceful yacht lying in the stream, her sails unfurled, and
looking ready for flight. “We are waiting for Mr. Craven Black.”

“I am he. It’s all right, my men. Octavia, my love, let me assist you
into the boat. Miss Wynde, this way.”

The maid was left to scramble in by herself. The luggage was deposited
in the boat; Mr. Black took his seat, and the rowers pulled off for the
yacht.

The process of transferring passengers and luggage to the deck of the
_Arrow_ was speedily and safely accomplished. Mrs. Black was ecstatic
in her commendations of the arrangements of the little vessel, and
occupied the attention of Neva while Mr. Black conversed with the
sailors and their captain, and the vessel was gotten under way.

The _Arrow_ was no means a new vessel but she had been recently painted
and fitted with new sails, and presented a very trim appearance.
She was of about twenty tons burden. She had belonged to a member
of the Royal Yacht Club, but had been advertised to be sold for a
comparatively small sum, her owner having had built for him a vessel
of greater size and speed. Craven Black had seen, a week before, the
advertisment offering the _Arrow_ for sale, and warranting her ready
to put to sea at an hour’s notice; and a part of the business of Mrs.
Artress in town had been to purchase the vessel.

Among his friends of high and low degree, Craven Black possessed one
who was thoroughly disreputable, but who had proved useful to him
at too many periods of his life to be thrown aside. This person
had formerly been a lawyer, but had been stricken from the rolls
for illegal or dishonorable practice, and was a needy hanger-on and
parasite of Craven Black. This person had been called upon to assist
Mrs. Artress in the examination of the yacht, and had purchased the
boat in his own name, paying therefor a sum of money provided by
Mrs. Craven Black out of the jointure acquired by her marriage with
Sir Harold Wynde. This ex-lawyer had also engaged three experienced
sailors, one of whom had been a mate on an India vessel, and whom he
hired as captain of the _Arrow_, and these three men were now in charge
of the little yacht.

These sailors, we may as well mention here, had been chosen for other
qualifications than good seamanship. The ex-lawyer, in the days when he
had been qualified to practice his profession, had been called upon to
defend the three against a charge of mutiny, preferred against them
by their captain. The charge had been proved, they had been convicted,
and were now fresh from two years’ imprisonment. The ex-lawyer had come
upon them at a drinking shop, after their release, and only a few days
before, and knowing their reckless character, had engaged them for a
cruise of the _Arrow_.

Such was the character of the seamen in charge of the yacht; and in
such manner had the yacht itself been acquired by Craven Black.

As the vessel moved forward down the stream, the sails filling, Mrs.
Black said to her young charge:

“Let us go below, Neva, and take a look at our quarters. The luggage
and my maid have gone down.”

Neva assented, and the two went into the cabin, which was found to be
newly fitted up, and smelling unpleasantly of fresh paint. The cabin
was small, affording room only for the table and divans around it, but
there were three neat little state-rooms, newly carpeted and newly
furnished with mattresses, blankets, bed-linen, towels, camp chairs,
and all toilet appurtenances. One of these state-rooms was appropriated
by Mr. and Mrs. Black, the second by Neva, and the third was assigned
to the maid, a French woman completely won to the interests of her
mistress.

“We shall be very comfortable here, Neva,” said Mrs. Black, with
gayety. “The sea air will bring the roses to your cheeks. I think
you’ve not been looking well lately.”

“I wish you had told me that we were to go to Yorkshire by sea,” said
Neva gravely.

“How could I suppose, my dear child, that you cared whether you went
by train or by boat?” demanded Mrs. Black, in seeming surprise. “Your
dear papa told me once that you were a fine sailor, and I planned this
voyage as a little surprise to you--that’s the truth, Neva.”

“You are very kind,” said the young girl, “but I would have preferred
to know it beforehand. My friends will be anxious about me if I do not
write as soon as I promised.”

“Your friends?” and Mrs. Black arched her brows. “Are we not your
friends?”

“You are, madam, I trust, but you are not my only friend. I leave
those behind me who are dear to me, and who have a right to know my
movements.”

Mrs. Black looked significantly down upon the great diamond that
sparkled in limpid splendor upon Neva’s finger. She had noticed the
jewel before, but had refrained from alluding to it.

“Is that ring the gift of one who has a right to know your movements?”
she asked, smiling.

Neva blushed, but gravely assented.

“It is from Rufus Black?” asked the elder lady, well knowing to the
contrary.

“No, madam,” said Neva bravely, “it is the gift of Lord Towyn, and is
the emblem of our betrothal.”

Mrs. Black bit her lips fiercely, but made no response. There was a
hardness in her glittering eyes, and a cruel compression of her lips,
that boded ill for the engagement thus proclaimed to her.

One of the seamen was an excellent cook and steward, and presently
a luncheon was spread in the cabin which proved very tempting to
appetites sharpened by sea air. Mrs. Artress had provided such an
abundance of delicate stores that a cook was scarcely required. There
were tin boxes of assorted biscuits, jars of pickles, boxes of fruits
of every kind attainable in Covent Garden market, dried and crystalized
fruits, smoked salmon, jerked beef and venison, pickled reindeers’
tongues, and cheeses, cakes and fancy breads in every variety.

After the luncheon, the ladies went on deck, Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black
paced to and fro, arm in arm, and Neva leaned idly upon the rail,
watching the fleeting shores and the frequent sails and steamers, and
tried to shake off the shadow of distrust and gloom that would creep
over her soul.

At six o’clock, dinner was served in the cabin. This second meal
resembled the one that had preceded, but there were also roast beef,
roast fowls, and vegetables, and wines. The swinging lamp was lighted
in the cabin, which looked as comfortable as a yacht cabin can be
made to look. There is, at best, a dreariness about a ship’s cabin or
state-room which no art can conquer. And this cabin was no exception to
the rule. Neva was glad to throw a shawl around her and go out again
upon the deck.

The moon was shining when she sat down at one side of the boat in her
folding deck chair, and the pale flood of silvery light illumined the
white-capped waves, and the dark abysses of the waters, the sails of
vessels making into port, and the dusky little steamers, making the
whole scene a picture full of glorious lights and shadows, but a scene
that seemed a picture rather than a reality.

The yacht was out in the North Sea now, battling with the short,
chopping waves, but impelled onward by a fine breeze. She was well
ballasted, seaworthy, and a swift sailer. What more could be desired by
the guilty pair whose hearts beat exultantly at their evil success, as
they regarded the unconscious victim of their machinations.

“She has no suspicion,” murmured Craven Black, as he promenaded the
deck, his wife leaning on his arm.

“None whatever. She is too guileless herself to suspect guile in
others. And she trusts me implicitly,” laughed Octavia Black softly.

“That old dotard, her father, did you and me a good turn when he so
frequently urged his daughter to obey me and love me, and try to win my
love. I declare, Craven, it’s enough to make the old fellow come out of
his grave, to confront us; isn’t it now?”

“If I were superstitions, I might think so,” said Black.

“If he did come out of his grave, he’d be slightly astonished at
finding how I had cajoled and hoodwinked him, eh, Craven?” said the
woman mockingly. “I’d like him to find out the truth where he is; I
would, indeed. I hated the man; and to think you were jealous of him
even when you urged me to marry him! Oh, Craven? Do you know, dear,
speaking of jealousy, I was once jealous of Neva Wynde?”

“I did not know it.”

“No? Well, I was. It was absurd, of course. I fancied you fell in love
with her the first time you saw her.”

Craven Black’s heart stirred guiltily, and his fair cheek flushed. His
love for Neva Wynde was not altogether dead yet. It smouldered in his
breast, and although at times he believed that he felt an absolute
hatred for her, yet all the while a spark of the old passion remained
that circumstances might again fan into a flame.

“We’re likely to have more trouble than we looked for,” said Mrs.
Black, changing the subject, without awaiting a reply to her previous
remark. “Neva owned to me since we came on board that she is engaged to
Lord Towyn.”

“I suspected it when I saw that new ring she wears. But go to her now,
Octavia. She will suspect us of plotting against her if we whisper
together longer.”

Mrs. Black relinquished her husband’s arm, and went to Neva’s side,
drawing a deck chair beside her.

“Enjoying the moonlight, Neva?” she asked. “And thinking of the earl,
of course? I have not yet wished you joy of your future husband, and
I suppose I ought to do so now. But first I would like to ask you if
you have irrevocably chosen to obey your own wishes in regard to your
marriage, rather than to regard the last wishes of your father?”

“I am not certain what were my father’s wishes,” said Neva, with a
strange gravity, looking afar over the waters with her eyes of red
gloom.

“Not certain? My dear child, you puzzle me. Did I not give into your
own hands your father’s last letter to you, received by me from India
in the same mail that brought me the awful news of his death?”

“You gave me a letter purporting to be from my father, Mrs. Black,”
said the young girl, looking now at her companion, “but are you sure
that it was not changed by any one while in your possession? Do
not think I would hint one word against your watchful care of it,
or--or--your good faith with me; but I am not altogether convinced that
papa wrote that letter. Lord Towyn, on reading it, immediately declared
it a forgery.”

Mrs. Black started.

“Did you show it to Lord Towyn?” she demanded.

“Yes, and he has it now in his possession, and will submit it to Sir
John Freise and Mr. Atkins for their inspection and opinion,” answered
Neva.

Octavia Black’s dark cheeks paled in the moonlight, and a sudden terror
gathered in her hard black eyes.

“Neva,” she exclaimed harshly, “I am astonished at the singular want
of delicacy that prompted your display of your father’s last letter to
Lord Towyn. Of course the earl believes the letter a forgery, since
he purposes marrying you himself. He believes whatever it is to his
interest to believe.”

“Lord Towyn is the soul of honor,” asserted Neva, her cheeks flushing
hotly. “He would tell the truth, whether it might be for or against his
interests.”

“What simple, childlike faith!” murmured Octavia Black, in affected
admiration. “But, my dear child, Lord Towyn is no better than other
men. Did--did he think that _I_ forged Sir Harold’s letter?”

“No, he has too high an opinion of the lady who has been my father’s
wife,” returned Neva proudly, “to think such evil of her. But he
fancied the true letter might have been replaced with a forged one.
Mrs. Artress--Mr. Black--”

She paused abruptly, having been urged into saying more than she had
intended.

“Ah, Lord Towyn thinks them capable of the forgery. Let me tell you,
Neva Wynde, that your father told me with his own lips that he had
once hoped for your marriage with Lord Towyn, but that he desired in
his later days with all his mind and heart that you should marry Rufus
Black.”

“Papa said that--to you?”

“He did. I swear it,” cried the woman, perjuring herself, in her
eagerness to produce the desired impression upon Neva’s mind.

“But Rufus said he did not know papa?”

“That does not affect the fact that Sir Harold knew him,” said Octavia
Black firmly. “Rufus did some brave deed at Oxford--saved a comrade’s
life, or some such thing--and that first fixed Sir Harold’s eyes upon
him. From that moment Sir Harold watched the young fellow’s progress.
He saw him frequently, himself unseen. He studied his character, and he
became resolved upon your marriage to Rufus.”

“But, Mrs. Black, this is incredible!” exclaimed Neva, utterly refusing
to believe the preposterous story, although until this moment her faith
in her companion had remained unshaken. “Papa could not have wished
me to marry a man he did not know personally. He would not have laid
upon me the burden of a command--for that solemnly expressed desire was
little less than a command--to marry a man whom he admired for a single
act of personal courage, but of whose character he was ignorant. I know
papa too well to believe anything like this, Mrs. Black.”

“You accuse me of falsehood then. I say such was his wish!” declared
Octavia, doggedly and sullenly.

Neva looked pained, perplexed, and deeply troubled.

“If this indeed be so,” she murmured, “then he could not have been
in his right mind, terrible as it seems to utter the words. For
there never was a truer, kinder father, or a more noble man, than
papa. He thought my happiness of so much moment that he never would
have dictated my course in such a vital matter as the acceptance or
rejection of a lover, so long as the lover was worthy. I am sorry you
have told me this, Mrs. Black. I am compelled to doubt papa’s complete
sanity, or--or--”

“Or me?” said the handsome Octavia, with an ugly frown. “You ought to
know me too well by this time to doubt me. Old gentlemen frequently
get odd ideas, which seem at variance with their usual character, but
the having them does not prove them insane, only crotchety. As for me,
knowing Sir Harold’s wishes, I did not doubt that you would act upon
them as upon his actual command. Your father told you to obey me in all
things. Is that command to be as lightly set aside?”

“Have I failed to consider your wishes, madam?” asked Neva sorrowfully.

“Not until now. But it is my wish that you should marry Rufus Black.
Nay it is my command.”

Neva’s pure proud face looked very white in the moonlight, as she
answered:

“Then I must fail in my obedience to you now, Mrs. Black. Papa did not
desire me to obey unreasonable commands, to the destruction of my own
happiness. He would consider you unfaithful to the charge he gave you,
could he know that you are urging me to marry Rufus Black. My rejection
of Rufus was final.”

“We will see,” said Mrs. Black, compressing her lips.

In an angry mood, Octavia walked away, joining her husband on the
opposite side of the deck. Neva leaned over the low railing, her face
upturned to the stars, and murmured:

“Perhaps--perhaps, after all, _she_ forged the letter. How strange she
seems to-night. I fear her. I wish I had not come with her. A terrible
gloom is on my soul to-night!”

That gloom grew heavier and darker, and the pure face grew whiter and
more sorrowful as the time went on, and the yacht bowled on toward the
northward, bound--ah whither?




CHAPTER VI. WHERE NEVA’S TRAVELS ENDED.


Neva Wynde sat until a late hour upon the deck, watching the play of
the moonlight on the waters, the leaping white crests of the waves,
and the white furrow plowed by the _Arrow_ as she sped onward over the
waters on her way to the northward.

The prophetic gloom settled down yet more darkly upon the young girl’s
soul. A bitter, homesick yearning filled her heart--a yearning for her
father’s love to shield her, her father’s arm to lean upon, and her
father’s wisdom to counsel her.

Ah, could she but have known that far away upon other seas, but under
starlit skies, and speeding as fast as steam and wind could bear him,
her father whom she so mourned as dead--her father was hurrying toward
his home, with the same homesick longing in his breast, the same
yearning, to clasp her in his arms, together with the false wife he so
idolized!

And could that false wife have but guessed the truth, as she paced the
yacht’s deck arm in arm with her husband, conspiring against the peace
and happiness of Neva, much of grief and terror that was lying in wait
for the baronet’s daughter, and much of guilt and wickedness that the
two conspirators were planning, might have been avoided. But neither
knew nor guessed the truth, and long before Sir Harold could arrive in
England, Neva’s fate was likely to be decided by herself or her enemies.

At a late hour the young heiress went to her state-room, Mrs. Craven
Black bidding her a careless good-night as she passed. Mrs. Black’s
French maid Celeste was in the cabin, yawning and out of temper, and
she accompanied Neva to her room and assisted her to disrobe. Neva
soon dismissed her, finished her night toilet, and knelt to pray by
her small port window, through which she could see the dusky azure sky
gemmed with stars, and the white waves glorified by the shimmering pale
moonlight.

Neva crept into her narrow berth, leaving her lantern on the wall
burning. She could not sleep. A feverish unrest was upon her. The first
shadow of distrust of Octavia Black had flung its gloom across her
pathway. Until this night she had been full of innocent child-like
faith in the woman her father had deemed as pure as an angel. Sir
Harold’s praises of his second wife had been received by Neva without
allowance, and without suspicion that he might be deceived. She had an
implicit reliance upon his judgment, but now she questioned, with a
terrible pang, if he had not been deceived.

“I cannot believe Mrs. Black when she says that papa was determined
to marry me to a man of whom my father knew nothing, save that he had
committed a noble deed upon impulse. And when I refused to believe
the story, there was a look on Mrs. Black’s face I have never before
seen there, a look as of convicted treachery and falsehood. I distrust
her--I almost fear her! I am sorry I came with her. And if it be true
that she is false and treacherous, I am reconciled at last to papa’s
horrible death. He could never have borne the knowledge of her real
character!”

She sighed, and turned restlessly on her pillow.

“I believe Craven Black to be a villain,” her thoughts ran presently.
“He made love to me when he was already engaged to marry my father’s
widow. I am sure he hates me now. Perhaps he has perverted her mind
against me? Perhaps she never liked me? I was never allowed to come
back to my own home after she entered it, not even when dear papa
died, and my heart seemed breaking, until Madame Dalant wrote that my
school-days should terminate, and that I ought to be allowed to enter
society. Mrs. Black has a caressing manner toward me, and flatters me,
but I am sure she does not love me. Perhaps the two are my enemies?
If so, how completely I am in their power, having even left my
faithful maid behind me, at Mrs. Black’s request. I fear I have been
blind--blind!”

Poor Neva was now thoroughly alarmed. She remembered a score of
incidents, scarcely noticed at the time that went far to confirm the
truth of her sudden suspicion that Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black were her
enemies and that they were conspiring against her. She struggled with
her conviction, calling herself foolish, romantic and ungrateful, but
the conviction remained.

The fact that the yacht had been engaged for the voyage to Yorkshire,
when she expected to go by train, and that she had not been told
of the proposed route until her arrival in London, recurred to her
unpleasantly, and as something of sinister moment.

The fact also, that Mrs. Craven Black had a keen personal interest in
Neva’s marriage to Rufus Black, now for the first time obtruded itself
upon the young girl.

“Rufus is Craven Black’s son,” she said to herself, “and if I were
married to Rufus, Craven Black would probably assume control of all my
property! I acquit Rufus of any share in the conspiracy, but he is so
weak of will that he would not dare to resist his father, who could
appropriate half my income to his own use. Can this be Craven Black’s
design? Can Craven Black have forged that last letter purporting to
come from papa? And does Octavia know his designs, and willingly aid
him to carry them out? I must study them closely, without seeming to do
so. I must be on my guard.”

With thoughts like these, Neva tossed upon her pillow for hours, until
long after Craven Black and his bride had retired to their state-room,
and silence had fallen upon the cabin, and the creaking of a block, or
the rattling of cordage, or a voice or footstep on the little deck,
sounded through the night with startling loudness, and as something new
and strange.

At last she fell asleep, but her slumber was not refreshing, and she
was looking very pale and worn when, after a careful toilet in the
morning, she came out into the cabin.

The breakfast was spread upon the table and Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black
were seated upon a divan, conversing in whispers. They started guiltily
at Neva’s appearance, and Mrs. Black cried out gayly:

“Good-morning, my dear. You are a laggard this morning. It is ten
o’clock, and I have already taken a constitutional on deck. It’s a
fine, bracing air.”

“I hope I have not kept you waiting,” said Neva courteously.

“Did you think us barbarous enough to eat our breakfast before your
coming?” cried Craven Black, with exaggerated courtesy. “Sorry not to
see you looking better. Did you pass a pleasant night?”

“I did not sleep very well,” answered Neva quietly.

She took her place at the table, and Craven Black waited upon her and
his wife with careful attention. The breakfast consisted of stewed
chicken, coffee, bread, fancy biscuits, and delicate fruits, including
oranges, grapes, and peaches, and Neva brought to the meal an appetite
sharpened by the sea air.

“I suppose we shall sleep at Wynde Heights to-night?” said Neva,
forcing a cheerfulness she did not feel. “We must reach Yorkshire at
our present rate of sailing long before evening. Do you purpose landing
at Scarborough, or Whitby, or Stockton, Mr. Black?” she asked. “All
three are railway stations, and we can go on to the Heights without
delay.”

The husband and wife exchanged significant glances.

“Neva, dear,” said Mrs. Black caressingly, “would you care if we do
not go to Wynde Heights? You know the place so little, and have no
acquaintances in the neighborhood; and I have none, and I dread a
visit to the Yorkshire dower house as something dull and stupid beyond
comparison.”

Neva looked at the speaker with startled eyes.

“Are we not on our way to Wynde Heights, Mrs. Black?” she demanded, in
surprise.

“Yes, dear, if you insist upon adhering to the strict letter of our
original plan,” answered Mrs. Black. “But I am sure you will not be
so hard-hearted and cruel. I no longer want to go to Wynde Heights,
and Craven thinks a stay there would be a bore; but of course, if you
insist upon it, we will sacrifice our own pleasure to yours.”

Neva struggled with her bewilderment.

“I supposed we were on our way to Wynde Heights,” she said, “but do not
suppose I desire to go there, if you prefer to go elsewhere. It is your
wish and pleasure, Mrs. Black, that must be consulted. Would you prefer
a watering place, or a visit to the German coast?”

“Neither,” said Mrs. Black. “I am _so_ relieved, dear Neva, for I
feared you would oppose my wishes, and I think if a woman ought ever
to have her own way, it should be on her bridal tour. Craven has been
telling me of the only piece of property he owns in the world, a
worthless old Highland estate, valueless except for the shooting, with
a dear old tumble-down house which no one will rent, and I fairly long
to see it. It’s quite natural, I think, for a bride to desire to visit
her husband’s property, and this came to Craven through his Scottish
ancestors, the Macdonalds, and it has a host of curious legends and
ghost stories, and such a charming, romantic name--Wilderness--that I
am impatient to go there; and Craven says, if you do not object we will
go on to Wilderness.”

“Where is this place?” asked Neva.

“In Rosshire. There are post-offices convenient, so that you can write
back daily, if you like.”

“But our coming will be unexpected,” objected Neva. “The servants at
Wynde Heights are prepared for our coming, but no one will look for us
at Wilderness.”

“There is an old couple residing there,” said Craven Black, “and
everything will be done to make our stay pleasant at my old ‘Castle
Rackrent.’ I confess I should like to take my bride to the old
place--it is years since I was there--and a week could be very
pleasantly passed in mountain excursions, rows on the loch, and rides
to the village. Can I say nothing to melt the stern resolution I see
expressed in your face, Miss Neva?”

“September seems late for the Highlands,” said Neva.

“But this is exceptionally lovely weather,” urged Mrs. Black. “And
we only want to stay there a week. I see you mean to destroy all our
pleasure, Neva, and condemn us to follow your lead.”

“You are mistaken,” said Neva gravely. “I have no desire to urge my own
wishes in the matter. This project of visiting the Highlands takes me
by surprise, but I have nothing to urge against it. I wish, however,”
she added coloring, “that you would land me at some convenient point on
the coast, and permit me to return to Hawkhurst--”

“What! Alone and unattended?” cried Mrs. Black. “You wish to desert us,
when I count upon your companionship and society? If you insist upon
returning to Hawkhurst, Neva, of course you can go, and we will go with
you. But this selfish tyranny--forgive me--is not like your generous
self. I would not have believed you so ungracious. My pleasure is quite
spoiled. Craven, dear, let us turn back to London.”

Mr. Black arose to go on deck.

Neva detained him by a gesture, her proud face flushing.

“You need not turn back upon my account,” she said half haughtily. “I
will accompany Mrs. Black to the Wilderness. I have no wish to appear
ungracious, but you will remember that my friends do not know where I
am, and may be anxious about me.”

“Oh, Neva!” cried Mrs. Black reproachfully. “Are we not your best
friends? But I am too happy in your concession to find fault with your
phraseology. Craven, we will go to your dear old Wilderness, and if I
like it, I’ll fit it up for a shooting-box, and next year we will come
up here the gayest party that ever visited the ‘land o’ cakes.’”

Neva did not linger in the cabin, but went out on deck, and walked to
and fro for exercise, while her eyes scanned the waters and the horizon.

The yacht was far out upon the wide North Sea, or German Ocean, a mere
speck in the wild waste of waters. There were sails gleaming in the
distance in the clear September sunshine, but no shores were visible.
The wind was blowing fair and free, the sky was clear, the air crisp
and chilly, but nevertheless agreeable.

Neva walked alone until she grew tired, and then sat down in her
folding deck chair and thought until her brain was wearied. Mr. and
Mrs. Black joined her, and talked and chatted for some hours. Luncheon
was served on the deck, and the afternoon wore on as the morning had
done.

Night again settled down upon the sea, so bright with moonlight and
starlight that it was not less lovely than the day had been. Neva went
to bed early, and slept profoundly, not being even visited by dreams.

The next day passed as the other had done, but the coast was not
yet seen. The wind proved variable upon this day, but Craven Black
consulted his charts frequently, and talked with the sailors, and
Mrs. Black yawned, and declared that a sea voyage was charming, but
intolerably dull.

A third night dragged by, and Neva began to be anxious to get into
port. She knew that Lord Towyn must be looking for a letter from her,
and she desired to inform him of Mrs. Black’s change of plan of travel,
and of her own whereabouts.

Upon the fourth day after leaving London, the graceful little yacht
stood in for the land. Mrs. Black and Neva, as usual, spent the day on
deck. About noon the _Arrow_ sped into Moray Frith, in the wake of a
steamer bound for Inverness and the Caledonian canal, and followed by
one or two sailing vessels which were allowed to pass the swifter yacht.

“Do we go into Inverness?” asked Neva, as she looked at the chart which
Craven Black was exhibiting to her and his wife.

“No,” answered Black. “Look at the chart, Miss Wynde. Do you see those
narrow straits that connect Moray Frith with Cromarty Frith? We thread
those straits, and a not very pleasant excursion it is either. Once
safe in Cromarty Frith, we have plain sailing. I expect to sleep at
Wilderness to-night.”

The yacht in good time threaded the straits, and came out into the
calmer waters of the loch-like Cromarty Frith, sailing up a portion of
its distance, and then obeying the skillful hand at the helm, it shot
into a deep stream or river, and went on into the very shadow and heart
of the wild mountain region.

It seemed to Neva, as she looked around her in wonder, awe and delight,
that the chaos of the primeval creation yet reigned here. She saw no
villages, no hamlets, no houses, no signs of habitation--nothing but
grim mountain peaks and ranges, frowning cliffs, and inaccessible
rocks. The very vegetation was sparse and stunted, the few trees wildly
clinging to niches in the bare rocks, being dwarfed and sickly. Upon
higher peaks in the distance, Neva saw glittering crowns of snow, but
nearer all was deadness, desolation, chaos.

“It looks as if this part of the earth had been abandoned by God and
shunned by man,” she thought. “The utter dreariness is oppressive and
terrible.”

The _Arrow_ felt her way on up the river, the banks growing steeper and
narrower, the rocks and cliffs more frowning, and the waters blacker.
Mrs. Black began to look nervous, and to express a fear that the vessel
would presently be caught in the narrowing throat of rocks, but her
husband smiled reassuringly, and a little later the yacht shot into a
little placid mountain loch, shut in by towering mountains, the waters
looking black with the everlasting shadows of the hills bending above
them.

Both the ladies breathed freer at this unlooked for termination to
their voyage. Half way up the loch the yacht came to anchor, and a boat
was lowered to convey the passengers ashore.

“But, Craven,” said Mrs. Black wonderingly, “I see no house.”

“Look half way up the mountain side,” said her husband, pointing with
his finger. “Do you see that broad ledge set thick with black looking
trees, firs, larches and mountain pines? Back of the ledge, at a
distance of half a mile, rises the high mountain peak. Well, on that
wild looking ledge, perched in mid-air, as one might say, an outlaw
ancestor of mine who fought on the losing side in one of the Scottish
wars, and was compelled to flee for his life, built an outlaw’s den, in
which he spent his last years and finally died. The house has since
been improved and enlarged--”

“But, my dear Craven,” interrupted Octavia, “the Wilderness cannot
be upon that ledge, up this steep pile of rocks. Why, the ledge is
inaccessible, unless to yonder eagle. We cannot get up there without
wings.”

“You comprehend why I could never let nor sell the place,” said Craven
Black. “But we can get up the cliff. There is a narrow footpath, not
especially dangerous, but rather fatiguing. The men will bring up the
luggage, and we will walk up. The boat is ready. Come.”

He assisted his wife into the boat, and then Neva. The maid came next.
Dressing bags followed. Mr. Black sprang in, and two of the sailors
pulled lustily for the shore.

The passengers were landed at a projecting rock at the water’s edge,
and Craven Black, ordering the seamen to remain where they were until
he should send a servant to them, conducted his wife, Neva and the
maid, by a narrow, steep and tortuous path, up the precipitous face of
the cliff. The dreary night fell before they had gained the ledge, but
the soft moonlight flecked their path with gleams of brightness, and at
last they stood upon the ledge, high up among the mountains, with the
loch lying like a tarnished jewel far below at their feet.

“We are buried alive here, _mon Dieu_!” gasped the little French woman,
staring around her. “We are in a tomb!”

Neva’s heart echoed the words.

The wide plateau, with its thickly growing trees on every side, looked
very grim in the moonlight, obscured as that light was by the towering,
frowning mountains. In the midst of the plateau stood an old stone
house, long and low, and hideously ugly in its proportions, having a
frowning and grim appearance well in keeping with its surroundings.

The front door of this house was opened, and lights gleamed from the
windows, and forms were seen hovering near the dwelling in watchful
expectation.

“It looks as if we were expected!” said Neva, in surprise. “The house
is not closed, as you said, Mr. Black!”

Octavia Black laughed with a strange, mocking cadence that struck a
chill to Neva’s heart.

“Give Neva your arm, my dear,” she said gayly. “What an idea of yours
that we are expected, Neva! Why, we only decided to come while we were
on the sea. I am nearly famished, and hope some one will prepare supper
for us and give us something better than oatmeal.”

As the new-comers drew near the house, the forms Neva had seen
disappeared. The travelers ascended the single step to the low broad
porch, and entered the wide hall of the dwelling. This hall was lighted
by a lantern suspended from the ceiling, and had a stone floor, a stone
staircase, and doors upon each side opening into the living rooms of
the house.

The travelers halted in the midst of the hall, and at the same moment
the parlor door opened, and a woman came out with smiles of welcome--a
woman clad in bright-colored garments, but with ash-colored hair and
complexion.

This woman was Mrs. Artress!

Neva recognized her with a sudden horror. She knew in that instant that
her visit to the Wilderness had been pre-arranged by her enemies--that
her wildest suspicions of the falseness and perfidy of Octavia Black
had fallen short of the truth--that she had been snared in a trap--that
she was a prisoner!




CHAPTER VII. HOW LALLY TOOK HER DEPARTURE.


The composed and defiant announcement by Mrs. Wroat that she had
adopted Lally Bird as her daughter and heiress, was like a bombshell
flung into the enemy’s camp. Mrs. Blight stood as if turning to stone,
in an utter panic, her eyes glaring upon Mrs. Wroat and upon Lally
alternately, her chest heaving, her face livid. All her fine schemes
of future grandeur became in an instant “airy visions fading into
nothingness.” She beheld herself and her family upon the brink of
insolvency, which this old lady’s fortune might have averted. She was
convulsed with rage and amazement, and with bitter hatred of her young
governess.

What she might have done or said cannot be known, for Peters, desiring
to spare her aged mistress a scene and expected reproaches, pushed the
bank-notes she held into Mrs. Blight’s hand, and taking her by the arm,
gently forced her out into the hall and closed the door upon her.

This last indignity was too much for the disappointed woman. With a
wild shriek, she fled precipitately down the stairs, and burst into
the drawing-room and into her husband’s presence like an incarnate
whirlwind. And here flinging herself into a chair, she gave way to a
burst of hysterics as violent as terrifying.

The first act of Mr. Blight was to deluge his wife with the contents of
a carafe of water which happened to be at hand. Then bending over her
and chafing her hands, he adjured her to tell him what was the matter,
and if the children were all killed.

“You--you beast!” gasped the wife, with the tones and breathing of
a drowning woman. “You’ve ruined my new dress, and it cost fifteen
shillings a yard, if it cost a penny! The dear knows where I am to get
another. I expect to find myself in the union by this time next year,
on account of that treacherous viper that I warmed in my bosom! Oh, my
poor children--my poor ruined lambs!”

“What do you mean, Laura?” demanded her husband impatiently. “Don’t be
a fool, if you can help it, for once. What has happened?”

“Everything has happened!” wailed Mrs. Blight. “We are wretched,
good-for-nothing beggars. The old wretch up stairs has gone and left
all her money to that jade of a governess--”

“Speak sense, if you can. What do you mean, I ask again? How can Aunt
Wroat have ‘gone and left all her money’ to Miss Bird? Is your mind
wandering?”

“No, I wish it was. I’d rather be a wild maniac of Bedlam than what I
am at this moment,” moaned the unhappy lawyer’s wife. “My governess,
Miss Bird, you know, is hob-nobbing with Aunt Wroat; and who do you
think the artful minx has turned out to be? Why, she says she’s the
daughter of Clara Percy, who married a corn-chandler--the very girl
that Aunt Wroat has been looking for for over a year. And Aunt Wroat
has adopted her, and says the girl is to inherit every penny of her
fifty thousand pounds, except money enough to buy you and me each a
penny whistle, or some such thing. And the girl is to have all of Aunt
Wroat’s splendid diamonds. O dear! O dear! What is life but a trial?
Why was I born?”

“But this is infamous!” gasped the lawyer. “It’s preposterous. The
girl’s an impostor. Why didn’t you tell Aunt Wroat so?”

“I did--I did. But she sneered at me--she did, indeed. And here is the
five pounds I advanced the girl, and Aunt Wroat paid it back to me.
And here is twenty pounds for the expenses we’ve been put to on Aunt
Wroat’s account. They made me take it. But what can pay us for our
blighted hopes? The girl ought to be arrested. If I were only a judge
I’d send her to Botany Bay!”

“Serves you right for taking the jade in! And so she’s the daughter
of Clara Percy. I thought her name seemed familiar,” said the lawyer.
“Aunt Wroat was always uttering that name on her visit to us last year.
What fatality!”

“Must we give up in this way?” sobbed Mrs. Blight. “Is there nothing we
can do?”

The lawyer paced the floor excitedly, his features working. Suddenly he
paused before his wife, and said in a whisper:

“Are you sure the girl is honest?”

“As sure as that I am--the treacherous cat!”

“Are you sure, Laura, that she hasn’t stolen something of yours--a
jewel, a bit of lace, or a trinket?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” answered the obtuse Mrs. Blight. “She’s had no chance
to take anything of mine since she came into this house. Ellen’s been
sewing in my bedroom every day from morning till night.”

“Are you sure--”

“You’re worse than the solicitor-general in the Tichborne case, with
that eternal repetition,” snapped Mrs. Blight angrily. “‘Would you
be surprised to hear?’--‘Are you sure?’--I’m not sure of anything,
Charles, except that we are lost, ruined, and undone. Yes, I am sure
that what you’re thinking of can’t be done. I won’t be dragged into
court; I won’t swear to a lie, for I’d be sure to be caught. I won’t
be publicly disgraced in an attempt to ruin the girl. We shouldn’t
deceive Aunt Wroat, and she’d get a keener lawyer than you are to turn
you and me inside out.”

“You needn’t tell all that to the whole house, servants included,”
exclaimed Mr. Blight. “Our game is up, unless this girl is got rid of.
We can turn her out of the house to-night, and that we will do. But,
first of all, we will go up stairs and argue the case with Aunt Wroat.”

“I haven’t told you all,” said Mrs. Blight, still weeping. “Aunt Wroat
is not deaf at all, and heard you call her an old cat, and an old
nuisance.”

“It was you called her so!”

“It was you! Of course, if we are ruined you’ll lay all the blame on
me. Men are all alike, from Adam down. It’s always the woman did it.
The idea of her pretending to be deaf and listening to what we said!
It’ll do no good to go up stairs to talk with Aunt Wroat, but I’ll make
a last effort for the sake of my dear children.”

The well-mated pair went up to the door of Mrs. Wroat’s chamber, and
knocked loudly for admittance. Peters replied to them through the
key-hole:

“My mistress desires to be excused. She can bear no more excitement
to-night. Besides, she is occupied with her niece.”

The lawyer tried the door fiercely: it was locked. Then he stooped,
applying his mouth to the key-hole.

“Tell your mistress,” he said, in a sort of roar, “that that girl is an
impostor, and no more her niece than she’s her grandfather. The girl is
deceiving her--”

He paused discomfited as he heard the old lady hobble away into the
inner room, followed by Lally.

“You’d better go down stairs,” advised Peters, through the medium Mr.
Blight had employed. “May be you don’t know you are laying yourself
liable to a suit for slander.”

“We had better go down,” said the lawyer. “The servants are collecting
on the basement stairs to learn the cause of the hubbub. We’ll see Aunt
Wroat in the morning, and convince her that she’s been taken in by a
clever adventuress, but the girl goes to-night.”

With this resolve the couple returned to the drawing-room, leaving the
door ajar that they might hear Lally’s return to her room. They waited
hours, but they did not hear it. The servants retired to bed, and the
clocks through the house struck twelve, and still Lally did not emerge
from Mrs. Wroat’s room. The Blights crept up again to their visitor’s
door, but silence reigned within.

“The old thing has gone to sleep,” murmured Mrs. Blight. “I can hear
that odious Peters breathing. Perhaps the girl has slipped to her room
so silently that we did not hear her.”

They stole up to the third floor to see. They found Lally’s room empty
and dark.

“They’ve outwitted us,” said Mr. Blight, with an oath. “The girl is
going to sleep with the old woman to-night. By George, I wish the old
creature would die in her sleep. I’d have the girl arrested for her
murder. We may as well go to bed, Laura. We must be up early in the
morning.”

They retired to their room, but we may safely assert that they did not
sleep. They lamented the failure of their plans, accused each other of
ruining their mutual prospects and the prospects of their children,
and arose soon after daybreak, imbittered, angry, and full of rage and
bitterness.

About seven o’clock they heard Lally come forth from Mrs. Wroat’s
chamber and go up to her room. The young governess had slept with her
aged kinswoman, and now, by Mrs. Wroat’s command, was about to pack
her few effects in her box, ready for departure.

Mr. and Mrs. Blight followed Lally to her room, and entered, without
knocking.

The girl was busy, folding her garments, and her round gipsy face was
all aglow, her black eyes had in them a look of hopefulness of late a
stranger to them, and she was altogether changed from the piteously
sorrowful young creature of the day before. Even the love of her
eccentric kinswoman had served to kindle the spark of new hopes and
new interests in Lally’s lonely life. She regarded her visitors with
something of surprise, but received them courteously.

“Good-morning, madam; good-morning, sir,” she said, bowing. “Will you
be seated?”

“Viper! Ingrate!” cried Mrs. Blight theatrically, but with genuine
anger. “I warmed you in my bosom, as it were; I fed you at my table; I
paid you at the rate of twenty pounds a year; and this is the way you
reward me! Serpent! Base serpent!”

“I don’t understand you, madam. What is it I have done?”

“Hear her!” cried Mrs. Blight, her hands uplifted, apostrophizing
the ceiling. “She asks what she has done!” and the lady’s tones grew
hysterical. “She has taken the bread from my children’s mouths! She has
made me a beggar! She has traduced us and lied about us, and now asks
us what she has done!”

“Madam,” said Lally, her black eyes flashing, “I have not traduced you,
nor lied about you.”

“You have repeated to Mrs. Wroat my unguarded remarks about her, made
to you in confidence.”

“Again you are mistaken, madam,” said Lally sternly. “I have not
repeated those remarks. Mrs. Wroat judged you by words she herself
overheard. I have done nothing to injure you, nor is it my fault that
my great-aunt has chosen to exalt me at your expense. Believe me, Mrs.
Blight, if my aunt had not found me, she would not have left her money
to you.”

“Your aunt?” cried the lawyer. “Seems to me you are getting along fast,
young woman. Your aunt, eh? It is my opinion that you are a clever
adventuress, and I deem it my duty to protect my dear aunt from your
evil machinations. Put your things into that trunk. Laura, ring the
hall bell for Buttons.”

Mrs. Blight complied. Buttons made his appearance.

“Take that trunk down to the street, and call a cab,” commanded Mr.
Blight.

The trunk being locked with a spring catch, Buttons shouldered it and
vanished down the stairs.

“Now, Miss,” said the lawyer, with vindictive triumph, “you must be
off. You cannot be allowed to speak again to the infirm old lady
you have persecuted. March down the stairs quietly, or I’ll call a
policeman and accuse you of stealing.”

“Mr. Blight--”

“Not a word, Miss. On with your bonnet and shawl, and depart. One word
to arouse Mrs. Wroat, and I’ll have you dragged off to jail.”

The color went in and out of the girl’s cheeks, and she was frightened
and confused. Her situation seemed to her indeed terrible. Peters had
confided to her during the previous night, while Mrs. Wroat slept, that
the old lady, in addition to her pulmonary disease, had an affection
of the heart, and her physician had declared that she must not be
unnecessarily excited, for excitement might prove dangerous to her. The
excitement of finding her great-niece for whom she had so long sought
had been almost too much for her, and Lally feared to disturb her
further.

“You need not lay your hands upon me, Mr. Blight,” said the young girl,
drawing herself away from his touch. “I will go from your house, as you
command--but don’t touch me!”

She hastened down the stairs, followed by her late employers, and
paused for a second in the lower hall with her gaze fixed upon Mrs.
Wroat’s door. But the door did not open, and she went on and came into
the yard. The garden door was open, and a cab stood in front of it,
Lally’s box already mounted upon its roof.

“Where shall I tell the cabby to go, Miss?” asked the lawyer, ushering
Lally into the street, and laying hold of the cab door. “Get in,” he
added fiercely, in an under tone, “or I’ll send for a policeman!”

Lally climbed into the cab, not answering. “To the railway station,”
said the lawyer, closing the door softly.

The cab rolled down the street. The Blights, triumphant, reentered
their villa.

“I’ll make it right with the old woman,” muttered the lawyer, rubbing
his hands. “I’ll tell her the girl has run off, after acknowledging
that she was an impostor, and that her real name is Jones. Come in,
Laura. We’re not quite ruined yet.”

If he was not quite ruined, he was certainly nearer ruin than he
thought. Astute as he believed himself, he had not quite understood the
young lady with whom he had to deal. Lally had not gone a block down
the street, when she lowered the front window of the cab, and quietly
touched the driver’s arm.

“We’ll go back to Sandy Lands,” she said, in a tone of command. “I have
no money with me.”

“Forgot your purse, hey?” said the driver. “All right, Miss.”

He turned and drove back.

Lally commanded him to halt in the middle of the road, in full view
of the front windows of the villa. The parlor of Mrs. Wroat faced
the street. The inside blinds were raised, and Lally gazed up at the
windows expectantly.

“Could you throw a pebble to hit those upper windows, driver?” she
asked, of the puzzled cabman.

“Doubtful, Miss. Might break the glass, and have a big bill to pay. Is
there somebody up stairs there you want to call?”

Lally nodded.

The cabman glanced up and down the street; there was no policeman to
be seen; and he then gave utterance to such a yell as brought to the
window not only Mrs. Wroat and Peters, but Mr. and Mrs. Blight at the
drawing-room windows.

Mrs. Wroat at the upper window saw Lally, the cab, and the box upon it,
and comprehended what had occurred. Peters threw up the sash.

“Wait a minute, cabby,” said the old lady, leaning from the window, and
speaking shrilly. “There’s two more of us, and a parrot and a dog and
plenty of luggage. I’ll give you double fare, cabby--wait!”

She disappeared, just as the lawyer bounded out of the house to order
the cabman away. That worthy, obeying Lally’s command, stood his
ground, and offered to fight the lawyer if he received “any more of
his sarce.” Mr. Blight retreated with his wife, and hurried up to Mrs.
Wroat’s chambers. He met her hobbling out of her room leaning upon
the arm of the faithful Peters, who was laden with the parrot’s cage,
the bandbox and umbrella, and was followed by the dog. This latter
immediately conceived a desire to nip the lawyer’s legs, and Mr. Blight
was obliged to keep up a very undignified dance to avoid him, while he
addressed the old lady in terms of expostulation and entreaty, heaping
vituperations upon Lally.

“Send my trunks down, and be lively,” said Mrs. Wroat, paying no heed
to his words. “Don’t act like a Dancing Jack, or your friends will put
you in Bedlam, Blight. Come, Peters, Mr. Blight has kindly ordered a
cab for us, and we must be off. If we’re lively, we can catch the up
express.”

She brushed past the Blights, husband and wife, the latter weeping and
pleading, and descended into the yard. The cabman was induced to go up
after her baggage, the exhibition of a half-crown lending him wonderful
strength and alacrity, and the cab was soon piled high with luggage.
Mrs. Wroat, Lally and Peters took their places inside, the driver
mounted, and just then the Blights, resolved upon a last despairing
effort to gain the fleeting fifty thousand pounds, came out to the
garden door.

Mrs. Wroat bowed to them mockingly, and said as she waved her hand,
with glowing exultation, her eyes snapping:

“Good-bye, Mr. and Mrs. Blight. My daughter and I will breakfast at the
station, and dine at our house in town. My Blighted friends, if you are
ever in need, write to my heiress, and I dare say she will send you a
half-crown. Driver, to the railway station.”

The cab with its occupants rolled away in triumph.




CHAPTER VIII. LALLY’S NEW EXISTENCE.


After their triumphant departure from Sandy Lands, and from the
presence of the utterly discomfited Mr. and Mrs. Blight, Mrs. Wroat,
accompanied by Lally, and attended by the faithful Peters, proceeded
without molestation to the Canterbury railway station. The up express
was due in some ten minutes, and Mrs. Peters found opportunity to send
a telegraphic message to Mrs. Wroat’s housekeeper in town announcing
the immediate return of her mistress with a young lady guest, and
ordering that suitable preparations be made for their reception.

This duty had scarcely been fulfilled, when the train came puffing into
the station, and the party took their seats in a first-class coach,
securing a compartment to themselves.

On alighting at the London station Peters procured a cab.

“This is my last journey, Peters,” sighed Mrs. Wroat, leaning back her
head, as the cab rolled out of the station and into the streets. “My
traveling days end here!”

“So you always say, ma’am,” said Peters cheerfully. “But you’ve no call
to travel any more. You’ve found what you’ve been searching for so
long,” and she glanced at Lally. “You should stay at home now and take
comfort.”

“The end is near!” sighed the old lady--“very near!”

Peters and Lally looked at the old lady with a sudden keenness of
vision. Her hooked nose and pointed chin seemed sharper than usual. Her
black eyes were more piercing and lustrous than was their wont; her
features were pinched; and over all her face was spread an ominous gray
pallor that told to the experienced eyes of Peters that the diseased
heart was not properly performing its functions.

Peters turned and looked from the window with tears in her eyes. Her
heart echoed those sad words: “The end is near!”

In due time the cab came to a halt in Mount street, Grosvenor Square,
before the stately and somewhat old-fashioned mansion which had been
the home of Mrs. Wroat for more than half a century. It was a double
house, with parlors on either side of a wide hall, and was built of
brick with stone copings and lintels, and possessed a pretentious
flight of steps guarded by stone lions, and a great oriel window
projecting from the drawing-room.

The front door of this house opened as the cab drew up, and a footman
and a boy came down the steps and assisted their aged mistress to
alight and enter the house. Lally and Peters came after, and Mrs. Wroat
was taken to her own room, one of the rear parlors on the first floor,
which she had appropriated twenty years before as her bed-chamber.

Out of doors the September air was mild, but in this room of Mrs. Wroat
a sea-coal fire was burning in the grate, and its genial heat in that
great house was not unpleasant. A crimson carpet covered the floor;
crimson damask curtains half draped the wide windows that looked out
upon a small square garden; and crimson-hued easy chairs and couches
were scattered about the room in profusion.

Mrs. Wroat sank down upon one of the couches, and Peters bent over
her, removing her huge scuttle-shaped bonnet and her Indian shawl.
The footman and the boy were bringing in the luggage. Lally stood
apart, not knowing what to do, when the housekeeper, an elderly,
plain-featured Scottish woman, appeared. Mrs. Wroat beckoned the woman
to come nearer to her.

“Mrs. Dougal,” she said, in a clear, loud voice, and looking
affectionately at the slender, black-robed figure of Lally, “I have
brought home with me my great-niece, Miss Lalla Bird, who is also my
adopted daughter and heiress. I desire you to consider her as your
future mistress.”

Mrs. Dougal bowed low to the young lady, and Mrs. Wroat continued:

“Let the best room in the house be prepared for her use, Mrs.
Dougal--the amber room. Ah, it is ready! Show Miss Bird to it then, and
see that her trunk is sent up to her. And have luncheon ready for us in
half an hour or less, Mrs. Dougal. We are nearly famished.”

The housekeeper again bowed, and conducted Lally into the hall and up
the broad stairs to a front chamber, one of the state apartments of
the house. Here, soon after, she left the young girl to renovate her
toilet, going again to her aged mistress.

“This is a wonderful change for me!” murmured Lally. “I must be
dreaming. So lately I slept in a barn with tramps and thieves, glad of
even that shelter, and now I am housed in a palace. I am afraid I shall
wake up presently to find myself in the barn. Ah, I never even dreamed
of such magnificence!”

She examined her surroundings with the delighted curiosity of a child.
There was a fire behind the silvered bars of the low, wide grate, and
its red gleams streamed out over the rich blue velvet carpet with its
bordering of amber arabesques on a blue ground, and one long red spike
of dancing light fell upon the amber silk curtains of the low canopied
bedstead. The square pillows were covered with the daintiest of linen,
frilled with real lace. The coverlet was of amber satin, embroidered
with a great medallion in blue silk. The curtains were of amber satin,
with blue fringe, over white lace drapery, and the couches and chairs
were upholstered in amber relieved with blue.

Lally observed two doors at one side of the room, and crossing the
floor softly, she opened them successively. The first door opened upon
a large and handsomely fitted bath-room, with marble basin and marble
floor, half covered by a Turkish rug. The other door opened into a
beautiful little dressing-room, furnished to match the bed-chamber.
A massive armoire of carved ebony, with doors formed of plate-glass
mirrors, completely covered one side of the wall, and a long swing
mirror, framed in ebony, stood opposite. A gasolier depended from the
middle of the ornate ceiling, and in three of the globes a mellow light
was burning.

“It is like fairy-land!” thought the girl. “All this for me--for me! I
can hardly believe it.”

There were ivory-handled brushes on the low dressing bureau, and Lally
handled them carefully, almost afraid to use them. Her poor garments
seemed out of place in these beautiful rooms, but she had no better
dress, and with a smothered sigh she bathed her face and hands in the
bath-room, and brushed her hair and dress in the dressing-room. She
tied anew the bow in her hair and her black sash, and her toilet was
complete. She gave a last look to her new quarters, and hastened down
stairs to the chamber of her benefactress.

She found Mrs. Wroat comfortably ensconced in an easy chair by her
fire. The parrot’s cage swung by a stout silver chain from the ceiling;
the ugly little dog lay dozing upon a cushion near the fender; and a
general atmosphere of delicious warmth and coziness prevailed.

“Come here, my dear, and kiss me,” said Mrs. Wroat, not looking around,
but recognizing Lally’s step.

The girl obeyed, and sat down upon a stool at the old lady’s feet.
Mrs. Wroat smiled upon her and talked to her, and when Peters came in,
announcing that luncheon waited, Lally and her great-aunt were in the
midst of a confidential talk, and their friendship had already deepened
into a mutual affection.

Luncheon was served in the dining-room, across the hall from Mrs.
Wroat’s chamber. The windows of the dining-room opened into a small
conservatory overlooking the garden, and the room itself, lofty and
handsome, seemed to Lally the realization of one of her long-ago
girlish dreams. Mrs. Wroat sat at one end of the oval table, Peters at
the other, and Lally took a place at one side. The footman waited at
table, but was soon dismissed, and the three were left to themselves
and the enjoyment of the dainties plentifully displayed before them.

After the luncheon, Peters assisted her aged mistress back to her own
room, Lally lending an arm to the support of the old lady.

“Ring the bell, Peters,” said Mrs. Wroat, as she again ensconced
herself in her favorite chair. “But stay! Bring me my little desk. I
want to write a note.”

Peters brought a portable malachite writing-desk, and placed it upon a
table before her mistress. Mrs. Wroat, with an unsteady hand, penned a
brief note to her lawyer, demanding his immediate attendance upon her,
upon a matter of the utmost moment.

“Read it, Peters,” she said, when she had appended her name and the
date. “It must be sent immediately. I feel, somehow, as if I had no
time to waste. Let the footman take the letter to Mr. Harris and wait
for an answer.”

Peters read and sealed the missive, removed the desk and went out upon
her errand.

Some two hours later, Mr. Harris, Mrs. Wroat’s lawyer, arrived and was
shown into the old lady’s presence. He was an old man, sharp-witted,
business-like, and reticent, but honest, kindly, and devoted to the
interests of his client, whose personal friend he had been for over a
third of a century.

Mrs. Wroat welcomed him with outstretched hands and exclaimed:

“My friend, I have a surprise for you. You have sought, at my request,
for my great-niece, Lally Bird, and failed to find her, even with a
detective officer to assist you. I am neither lawyer nor detective, but
I am more clever than you both. _I_ have found my niece, and here she
is. Lally, come nearer. Mr. Harris, this is Lally Bird, the daughter of
my niece Clara Percy.”

Lally bowed. Mr. Harris stared at the girl in surprise.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wroat,” he exclaimed, “but your great-niece,
Lally Bird, is dead. Our detective discovered the facts some weeks
ago, but I feared to communicate them in your present state of health.
I cannot, however, permit you to be imposed upon by a possible
adventuress. Miss Lally Bird committed suicide last July. She sprang
from London Bridge, and struck upon a passing boat, killing her
instantly. I have a newspaper in my pocket--”

“Never mind your paper,” interrupted Mrs. Wroat vivaciously. “Look at
the girl. Has she not my black eyes? Can you not remember when I had
hair like hers, and that dear olive skin? You are too suspicious, my
friend. Where do you suppose I found her? Why, down at Blight’s, at
Canterbury. She was governess to the Blight children. Now sit down, and
I’ll tell you the whole story. Stay, I am tired, and Lally will tell
it. Question her, and be convinced of the truth of my assertions. Sit
down, Lally, dear, and tell Mr. Harris all about yourself.”

Lally sat down near her great-aunt. She was a little frightened under
the searching gaze of the lawyer, but her clear honest eyes met his
unflinchingly, and he read in the sad and innocent face how deeply he
had wronged her in deeming her a “possible adventuress.” He asked her
a few questions in a quiet, careless manner, referring to a note-book
which he produced and then his professional spirit stirring itself,
he cross-questioned her as if she had been a witness in court whose
evidence he was trying to shake, and upon whose impeachment the success
of his cause depended.

He asked her her name, age, and date of her birth, and applied the
same questions in regard to each of her deceased parents. He demanded
where she had been educated, how she had maintained herself after her
father’s death, and finally said, in a tone that betrayed how important
the question and its answer was to the establishment of the girl’s
claims:

“I have discovered--Miss Bird--assuming that you are Miss Bird--that
you left your situation as music-teacher, or, to be more exact, that
the school in which you were engaged closed, and you were thrown out of
a situation, in the spring of this year. Where did you spend the months
that passed between last May and this present month of September?
And how, I may as well ask here, did your handkerchief happen to be
found upon the water at the precise moment when that poor girl who was
drowned, and who was supposed to be Lally Bird, was picked up?”

Lally blushed and paled, and looked appealingly at Mrs. Wroat. The old
lady stroked the girl’s black hair softly, and said:

“Mr. Harris, you have touched upon a point of which I, as well as my
niece, would have preferred not to speak. But you are my personal
friend, and the confidence will be safe with you. Lally, tell Mr.
Harris your story.”

Thus adjured, Lally, with much embarrassment, told her story with a
quiet truthfulness that carried conviction to the mind of the lawyer;
after which, at a sign from Mrs. Wroat, Lally withdrew with the maid,
who soon returned alone.

“Now,” said the old lady briskly, “I want to come to business. Mr.
Harris, I desire to make my will. Have you the necessary form with you?
I want a will as strong as a will can be made, for the Blights may
choose to question its validity, on the ground that I am infirm, or
something of the sort. Peters, wheel up the writing-table.”

The maid obeyed. Mr. Harris drew from his pocket a large note-case,
from which he extracted a document, which he silently handed to his
aged client.

“Ah,” she said, “it is my will, which I requested you, months ago, to
draw up, without date or names, ready for signature when I should be
ready to sign it. It begins by declaring that I am of sound mind--ah,
yes, that is all right. The property is enumerated, and the legacy to
Peters is down. I must have the annuity to her, to be paid out of the
estate, doubled.”

She read the document carefully and slowly, weighing every word and
sentence. When she had finished, she gave it back into her lawyer’s
hand.

“Write in the name of the legatee, Mr. Harris. ‘I give and bequeath
all my real estate, bank-stock, consols and personal property to my
great-niece Lalla Bird.’ Make it plain and strong, so that no one but
Lally can get my money. I want the property settled upon her. She may
marry some day, if her first marriage was no marriage at all. I’ll
discuss that first marriage with you at some future time, for I want to
know whether the child is bound or not. But no husband must have power
to squander Lally’s money.”

Mr. Harris did as he was directed, making out the will to the perfect
satisfaction of Mrs. Wroat. Peters, at the command of her mistress,
called up the household, and in the presence of the housekeeper, the
house-maid, the cook and the footman, Mrs. Wroat signed the will.
The domestics appended their signatures as witnesses, and were then
dismissed; Lally was called back to her great-aunt, and soon after the
lawyer took his leave.

The next day Mrs. Wroat was so much better that she insisted on going
out with her young relative upon a shopping excursion. She presented
Lally with a silver portmonnaie, filled with bank-notes, and early in
the day Mrs. Wroat, Lally and Peters went out in the ancient family
carriage, visiting the most celebrated shops in the West End. The old
lady did not permit Lally to expend the money she had given her, but
bought, and paid for from her own plethoric pocket-book, a magnificent
Indian shawl, jewels, rich and costly laces, a set of Russian sables, a
dressing-case with gold fittings, odor cases, a jewel case, and a host
of costly luxuries of which Lally knew neither the uses nor the names.

“Why do you buy an Indian shawl for so young a lady, ma’am?” whispered
Peters, in surprise. “And why buy those costly furs in September?”

“I shan’t be here when the cold weather comes, Peters,” answered Mrs.
Wroat, in a low voice. “And though I have Indian shawls which she will
inherit, I want to buy her one for her own self. She will keep it
always, because I bought it for her.”

Lally, as may be supposed, was grateful for her aunt’s kindnesses; she
was more than grateful. But in the midst of her pleasure, a pang shot
to her heart. She noticed that although this aged relative bought her
an abundance of all standard articles, and toilet appurtenances, and
dainty personal belongings, she bought but few dresses--a token that
she expected Lally soon to put on a mourning garb.

After a visit to the ladies’ outfitter, where Mrs. Wroat purchased
for Lally a trousseau fit for a wealthy bride, they returned to Mount
street, and to dinner.

The next fortnight passed swiftly both to Lally and her great-aunt.
The health of the latter seemed to improve, and Lally and Peters
entertained high hopes that their kind friend and benefactress would
live many years. The old lady’s physician contracted the habit of
calling in daily, but even Mrs. Wroat smiled at his anxiety, and
accused him of desiring to increase his fees at her expense without
just cause.

These two weeks sufficed to knit the souls of Lally and her aged
relative together in a bond which time alone could sever. They grew to
entertain a mutual love, which would be to the survivor a sweet and
tender memory while life should endure. Lally’s experiences had been
very bitter, and she had thought she should never smile again, yet in
her aunt’s society she felt a great degree of actual happiness, and
waited upon her, and tended her, with the care and love of a daughter.
She played and sang to her; she read to her; she listened with keen
interest to the old lady’s tales of her youth; and soon Mrs. Wroat was
heard to wonder many times each day how she had so long existed without
her bright young niece; and Peters grew to love Lally with a protecting
tenderness.

During this fortnight, which passed so happily in the great old
mansion in Mount street, Mr. Harris had traced out Lally’s history step
by step from the hour of her birth until the present moment, not that
he doubted her, but that he desired to be supplied with irrefragable
proofs of her identity, should the need arise for them.

The lapse of the fortnight indicated brought the time to October.
One evening, when the night was wild without, Mrs. Wroat, Lally and
Peters sat late in the parlor adjoining the bedroom of the former.
Lally played and sang a grand old anthem, while the old lady’s crooked
chin was bent forward upon her gold-headed staff, and her bright black
eyes filled with tears. Then followed some old-time hymns, such as the
Covenanters sang in the lonely Scottish wilds, in their hours of stolen
secret worship. When the sweet voice had died away, and the strains
of music melted into silence, the old lady called Lally to her. The
girl came, and seeing the unwonted emotion of her aged relative, knelt
before her and caressed her hand softly. The withered yellow hands were
upraised tremblingly, and dropped upon the girl’s dusky head.

“God bless you, even as I bless you, my darling,” said Mrs. Wroat, with
a great yearning over the young creature. “Poor orphaned child! You
have blessed my last days; may your life be blessed. Peters, when I am
gone, stay with Lally. Be everything to her--maid, attendant, nurse,
mother--all that you have been to me.”

“I will--I will!” said Peters, as if registering a vow.

“And now, my darling, good-night,” said Mrs. Wroat softly. “Kiss me,
Lally! Again! Again! Good-night.”

The girl enfolded the withered form in her arms, and kissed the old
lady a hundred times with passionate fervor, and then, sobbing, went up
to her own room.

Peters put her mistress to bed. The old lady seemed as well, or better
than usual, but there was something unusual in her manner, and Peters
sat up to watch by her.

“If she wakes, she’ll find old Peters by her side,” the woman said to
herself. “How sweet she sleeps!”

Toward morning the maid dozed. Just at dawn she awakened with a great
start, and a sudden chill. She sprang up and leaned over the recumbent
figure of her mistress. How pale the thin, sharp features were! One
long lock of gray hair lay on the withered cheek; the bony hands were
clasped upon the bosom; the hooked nose and the crooked chin almost
met, but upon the shrivelled mouth was a smile far more sweet and
lovely than any that had played upon those lips in the old lady’s
far-past youth--a smile such as angels wear!

Peters thrust her hand upon the sleeper’s heart. It was silent. The
heart, clogged or hampered by disease, had ceased to work hours before;
all the machinery of life had stopped; and Mrs. Wroat had wakened from
her sleep in another world! Lally’s generous and noble friend and
protector was dead!




CHAPTER IX. A SURPRISE FOR MISS WYNDE.


Miss Neva Wynde, on finding herself confronted by Artress at the very
door of Mr. Black’s wild Highland retreat, comprehended in one swift
flash that she had been betrayed by her enemies, and caught in a snare,
as we have said--that, in short, she was virtually their prisoner.

But after her first wild start of amazement, after the first wild
glance at her enemies, she sternly repressed all signs of terror or
surprise, and although her pure, proud face was paler than usual, yet
she did not otherwise betray her fears.

“Mrs. Artress here!” she said. “This is a surprise. You said, Mrs.
Black, that she was staying with friends in London, did you not?”

An evil smile played about the full sensual lips of Octavia Black, and
she looked at Neva keenly as she answered, with affected carelessness:

“I did say so, I believe. But I intended to surprise you. You are so
fond of Mrs. Artress, Neva, that I wished her to be of our party. I am
glad you are so pleased.”

Neva did not reply, but she drew up her slight figure with a sudden
haughtiness, and her pale, proud face wore an expression of sternness
before which Mrs. Black ought to have quailed. But Octavia only
laughed, and as Neva thought, mockingly.

“Come into the drawing-room, good people,” cried Mrs. Artress. “I have
made the house habitable, and I want you to compliment me upon my
handiwork.”

Mrs. Black went into the room, and Neva followed her, Craven Black
coming last like a body-guard. Neva had an uncomfortable feeling that
she was already a prisoner.

The drawing-room at the Wilderness was a long barrack-like apartment,
with bare white walls, upon which were hung a few engravings. The
furniture was old, but well kept, being a combination of mahogany and
black haircloth. The six windows were curtained with faded damask of
the color of mahogany, and an old book-case, containing a few old and
worn volumes, completed the list of furniture.

“It’s a perfect old barrack, Craven!” said Mrs. Black, with a shudder.
“But I suppose it must be fearfully difficult to get furniture and such
things up the cliff. However, if we make a shooting box of this place,
decent furniture and pictures and things have got to be brought here.
This room is like a draughty old barn.”

“So is the whole house,” said Mrs. Artress. “But the place is so
delightfully romantic, and secluded and hidden, you know, that one can
put up with drawbacks. I have had my hands full, I assure you, since I
arrived here. How do you like the Wilderness, Miss Wynde?”

“It is romantic and secluded, as you say, Mrs. Artress,” answered Neva
quietly, yet with a shade of hauteur. “Have you been here long?”

“I came direct from Hawkhurst, stopping only a day in London,” said
Mrs. Artress. “I came by rail to Inverness, and there I chartered a
fishing smack and loaded her with provisions and furniture, and bed and
table-linen, and whatever else I fancied we were likely to need during
our stay here. I had visited the Wilderness once when I was a girl, and
knew about what we should require. I came on, sent away the sloop, and
put the house in order. I have two women servants in the house, of the
stolidest possible description. You will find it next to impossible to
make them comprehend your soft southern tongue, Miss Wynde.”

Neva wondered if the last sentence contained a hidden meaning.

“It is September at Hawkhurst,” continued Mrs. Artress, with a shiver,
“but here one might swear it was January, the mountain air is so cold.
Will you go up to your rooms?”

“Yes,” responded Mrs. Black. “When do we dine?”

Mrs. Artress consulted a tiny jewelled watch, one of her recent
acquisitions.

“A half an hour,” she said. “You won’t have time to dress. I’ll send
one of the servants down the cliff to guide up the sailors with the
luggage. But first I will show you to your rooms.”

She passed out into the hall, her train sweeping the floor with silken
rustle. Mrs. Black linked her arm in Neva’s, but the young girl quietly
withdrew her person from her enemy’s touch, and walked apart proudly,
and with a shade of defiance. Thus they passed up the wooden stairs,
Craven Black bringing up the rear.

The upper part of the house was very simply arranged, there being a
central hall, with chambers opening off it on either side. At the rear
end of the hall was a door opening upon a flight of steps, beyond which
lay the passage from which the servants’ rooms opened, and from which
the servants’ staircase led down to the kitchen.

“The room at the left is yours, Octavia,” said Mrs. Artress. “You will
find two dressing-rooms attached, such as they are. The chamber just
opposite, here upon the right, is Miss Wynde’s. Permit me to show you
into your room, Miss Neva.”

She opened a door upon her right, and ushered Neva into a long
ante-room, furnished as a bed-chamber. Beyond this ante-room, the door
open between them, was a large square bed-room, where candles were
burning in battered silver sconces.

“This ante-room was intended for the use of your maid,” remarked Mrs.
Artress, “but as you did not bring your maid, and as Celeste is to
attend upon you as well as upon Octavia and me, she may as well occupy
your ante-room. In fact, we are so cramped for habitable quarters, that
I have been compelled to assign it to her. How do you like your room?”

It was decently furnished, with a new carpet, curtains, and green
roller blinds. There was a wood fire on the broad, old-fashioned
hearth. The high-post bedstead, a modern armed chair and a low
chintz-covered couch were particularly noticeable.

“You have a dressing-room beyond, Miss Wynde,” said Mrs. Artress, as
Neva did not answer, pointing out a large light closet adjoining the
bedroom. “This is a dear, delightful, out-of-the-world place, is it
not?”

Neva deliberately looked into the closet, and surveyed the walls.

“I see no outlet from this room except through the ante-room,” she said
abruptly.

“There is none. Those queer old-fashioned architects were very
outlandish in their ideas; but then an ante-room is convenient, my
dear--”

Neva checked Mrs. Artress’ familiarity by a haughty gesture. She had
not liked the woman when Mrs. Artress had been Lady Wynde’s silent
and unobtrusive gray companion, and she liked her still less now that
she had bloomed into a devotee of fashion, and was obtrusively and
offensively familiar and patronizing.

“It strikes me, Mrs. Artress,” she said quietly, “that the marriage of
Lady Wynde to Mr. Black has completely transformed you. You do not seem
like the same person.”

“And I am not,” declared Mrs. Artress. “There is no use in keeping
the secret any longer, Miss Wynde. The whole world may know that I am
the cousin of Craven Black, and being his cousin, of course I am his
wife’s equal. I am going into society with Mrs. Craven Black during
the approaching season, and it is quite possible that I may make as
brilliant a marriage as Octavia Hathaway did when she married Sir
Harold Wynde.”

Neva started, those careless words bringing to her awakening mind a
crowd of new and strange suspicions. She remembered that Mrs. Artress
had been in Octavia Hathaway’s employ before the marriage of the
latter with Sir Harold. And Mrs. Artress was Craven Black’s cousin!
Perhaps it was through Mrs. Artress, and after the death of Sir Harold
Wynde in India, that Craven Black and Lady Wynde had become acquainted?
And perhaps Craven Black had known Octavia Hathaway before her marriage
to Sir Harold Wynde?

The thought--the doubt--was torture to her.

“I had not suspected your relationship to Mr. Black,” she said coldly;
“but I saw, upon the very morning after Mrs. Black’s marriage, that
your relations to her had changed.”

She longed to ask, directly or indirectly, how long Octavia had known
Craven Black, but her pride would not permit her to put the question.
She turned haughtily away from Mrs. Artress, signifying by her manner
that she desired to be alone.

The woman’s face reddened, and she turned away with scarcely smothered
anger.

“There is no bell in the room, Miss Wynde,” she said, halting an
instant at the door; “but you will hear the dinner bell, even in
here. There will be a servant in the hall to show you down to the
dining-room.”

She went out, closing the door behind her.

Neva’s first act, on being left alone, was to examine the two windows
under their roller blinds and chintz curtains. The windows were of
the quaint, old-fashioned sort, with tiny diamond panes set in heavy
divisions of lead. The windows were casements, opening like doors, upon
hinges, but the lock and fastening were intricate, and had they not
been, it would have been difficult to open the windows owing to the
presence of the inside blinds and curtains.

And even while Neva was tugging with all her strength at the cumbrous
fastenings, she heard the savage baying of dogs as they chased across
the grounds below, and knew that, whether intentionally or otherwise,
her escape by her windows, should she ever desire to escape in that
manner, would be utterly impracticable.

She retreated from the window and sat down for a few moments by her
fire, thinking.

“It will not do to show suspicion,” she decided at length. “Perhaps I
am alarmed without cause. Why can my father’s wife, whom my father so
loved, desire to harm me? Is she determined upon my marriage to Rufus
Black? How will such a marriage benefit her? I acquit Rufus of any
share in the conspiracy. They dared not bring him with them to this
place. He would not permit this oppression and wickedness. Can it be
that my fortune tempts Craven Black and his wife to force me into a
marriage that is repugnant to me, and that they count upon the weak
nature of Rufus, and that when they get me securely wedded to Rufus,
they will seize upon my income and divert it to their own use?”

She could not rid herself of this idea, which, as the reader is aware,
approached so nearly to the truth.

“I know that I am in the midst of enemies,” she said to herself
energetically. “There is no use in shutting my eyes to the truth. The
whole truth has come upon me to-night like a revelation. I must be on
my guard, brave and watchful. I must seem unsuspicious, to throw my
enemies off their guard. How strange it seems that I, who hate no one,
have enemies!”

She arose, not daring to give way further to the suspicions and
anxieties crowding upon her, and brushed her brown cloth traveling suit
and her red-brown hair, and washed her face and hands. A fresh collar
and cuffs were found in her dressing bag, and she had hardly put them
on when the loud clangor of a bell in the lower hall announced that
dinner was ready.

She went through the ante-room into the hall, and found Celeste, the
French maid, waiting to show her down to the dining-room.

“One moment,” said Neva in French, slipping a gold coin into the
woman’s hand. “How far is the nearest post-office, Celeste?”

“Fifteen miles across the mountains and lochs, Miss,” answered the
woman, pocketing the coin, with a courtesy. “There is a village, or
hamlet, fifteen miles from here, but it’s a day’s journey nearly to
reach it. It’s over twenty miles to Inverness, and that is a half
day by water, with a favorable wind, but Inverness is the family
post-office, Miss.”

Neva’s heart sank.

“Could I send a letter to Inverness, do you think?” she inquired.

“Oh yes, Miss. The sailors can go in the sloop. Mr. Black will send
them at your bidding, Miss.”

“I prefer a quicker mode,” said Neva, feeling not at all confident
that Mr. Black would accede to such a request from her. “I desire
to write to an old friend of my father, one of the guardians of my
estate--Sir John Freise. Is there no hanger-on about this place who
would go secretly and swiftly to Inverness for me? If you can find such
a person, I will give him five pounds, and also give you five pounds,
Celeste,” she added, carefully concealing her anxiety.

“I will do it, Miss,” exclaimed Celeste enthusiastically. “There is a
young man hanging about the kitchen, a relative of the old cook. I will
send him. Write your letter to-night, Miss Wynde, and I will send it
immediately.”

Neva expressed her satisfaction at this arrangement, and descended
the stairs to the lower hall, not seeing the singular gleam in the
French woman’s eyes, nor the treacherous smile on the French woman’s
countenance. Celeste guided her to the dining-room, a large, long,
low room, where Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black and Artress were already
gathered. The three greeted Neva courteously, and Craven Black came
forward to meet her, and conducted her to her seat at the table.

The dinner consisted of broiled birds upon toast, vegetables, coffee,
crystalized fruits, fresh grapes and other delicacies, some of which
had been brought up from the yacht. Neva was silent during the meal,
and very thoughtful during the subsequent hour she passed with her
enemies in the drawing-room. At a very early hour she retired to her
own room.

Her luggage had been brought up, and stood unstrapped in her chamber.
Neva closed her door, and discovered that there was no key in the
lock. She pushed one of her heavy trunks against the door to guard
against surprise, and unlocked another trunk, taking out from the tray
a dispatch box, upon which she proceeded to write a letter to Sir John
Freise.

This was no sooner begun than it was torn up.

“Sir John is too old to be distressed about me,” she thought. “I will
write to Arthur, who must be very anxious at not hearing from me. He
can consult with Mr. Atkins and Sir John about me if he chooses, or
come for me, as he thinks proper.”

She wrote a long letter to her lover, recounting her suspicions of
Craven Black and his wife, and declaring that, while she was not
locked in her room at the Wilderness, she nevertheless felt herself
a prisoner. She entreated her lover to come to her, but not to come
alone. She desired him to bring with him either Sir John or Mr. Atkins,
whose support of Lord Towyn’s claims to take her home might be
necessary. She declared that she was afraid, and that she should count
the days until his coming.

Neva sealed and addressed this letter to Lord Towyn, and then stamping
it, stole softly out into the ante-room. Celeste sat there sewing a
frill upon one of her mistress’ robes by the light of candles, but she
arose at Neva’s entrance.

“Celeste,” said the young girl, in a whisper, “here is my letter.
And here are five pounds for the boy, and five pounds for you,” and
she took out two crisp Bank of England notes from her well-filled
pocket-book. “When I receive the answer to this letter which I expect,
I will give you as much more. You must be very secret, and let no one
see you. Have you spoken to the boy?”

“Yes, Miss, and he has got a rough Highland pony, and he says he’ll
start for Inverness immediately.”

With a feeling of relief, Neva placed the two bank-notes and the money
in the hands of the French woman.

“Go,” she whispered. “And remember, let no one suspect your errand.”

The French woman assented, and putting the money and the letter in her
pocket, hurried away.

“I am forced to trust her, having no one else to trust,” said Neva to
herself, after a few minutes of reflection. “Surely she would not take
my money and deliberately betray me? She must know my position, but she
cannot be sure that I know it. The money must tempt her to be true to
me. But will the boy be true? I must see him--I will see him!”

She acted upon the impulse, going out into the hall, and softly
descending the stairs. Here she paused, uncertain whether to seek the
youth in the kitchen, or out at the stable. He was more likely to be at
the latter place, and she flitted along the hall, pausing abruptly as
a burst of laughter came from the drawing-room, the door of which was
ajar.

She had halted at a point which commanded a view of the interior of the
drawing-room, and involuntarily she looked in.

The sight she beheld absolutely transfixed her for the moment.

She beheld Craven Black seated at the centre-table, under a swinging
lamp whose light fell full upon him. His wife was looking over his
shoulder. Mrs. Artress and the treacherous French woman stood at a
little distance, looking also at Mr. Black. And he--and he--Neva could
scarcely believe the evidence of her senses--he was reading her letter
which she had written to her lover, and he twirled his waxed mustaches
and uttered little mocking sneers as some especially tender passage
came under his vision.

“By Jove, she’s sweet on Lord Towyn!” he muttered, with bitter envy,
and jealousy, his brows darkening. “But to go on. ‘Oh, my own Arthur--’”

With the spring of a leopardess, with her soul on fire, with her wild
eyes flaming, with a cry of awful indignation on her lips, Neva bounded
into the room, snatched the letter from the hands of Craven Black, and
retreated a few steps, clutching it to her bosom, and glaring around
her like some fierce wild creature turned at bay.




CHAPTER X. THE INAUGURATION OF HOSTILITIES.


The sudden entrance of Neva Wynde into the midst of her exulting
enemies struck them dumb. Craven Black sat with hands outstretched,
as they had grasped the letter Neva had snatched from them, his face
growing livid, and a look of consternation glaring from his eyes.
Octavia Black stood, half leaning still over her husband’s shoulder,
as if turned to stone, the mocking smile frozen on her lips, a look
of terror and defiance on her face. Mrs. Artress, retaining more of
self-possession than the others, stared at Neva with unmistakable
hatred and triumph. The treacherous French woman drooped her gaze, and
grew pale and awe-stricken.

Neva, still clutching the letter to her bosom, looked at her enemies
one by one, her red-brown eyes blazing. It seemed to those who looked
upon her that the red flames leaped from her eyes of gloom, and they
trembled before her. Her pure, proud face was deathly white, but it
was stern and awful in its wondrous beauty, as she turned it from one
to another in an expression of scathing contempt that stung Craven and
Octavia Black to the very soul.

Then, without a word, but with her letter still clutched against her
panting breast, the young girl swept from the room with the air, the
step, and the haughty carriage of an insulted empress.

The conspirators heard her slowly ascend the stairs to her own room.
They stared at each other for a brief space in an utter and terrible
silence. Mrs. Craven Black was the first to speak, and her companions
started as her voice broke the dead and awful hush.

“Well, upon my word!” she ejaculated, forcing a strange, hoarse, and
uneasy laugh, that jarred on the ears of her fellow conspirators.

“A queen of tragedy!” muttered Mrs. Artress, referring to Neva’s
appearance and departure from their presence.

Craven Black sighed and scowled darkly. An ugly smile disfigured his
mouth.

“Well,” he said, “matters have been brought to a crisis. I would have
preferred to keep up the semblance of friendship a while longer, but
the girl has torn the masks from our faces. She has declared war--so
war let it be. In the fight before us, the strongest must conquer!”

“I could not dream she would follow me,” said the French woman
deprecatingly. “I am not to blame. I am sure, very sure, that she is
going to run away. She will leave the Wilderness to-night.”

The ugly smile deepened upon Craven Black’s visage.

“We will see!” he said, and his voice was terrible in its significance
and threatening.

The French woman had read Neva’s purpose aright.

The young lady went up to her room and closed her door, and held in
the flames of the bright wood fire the torn and crumpled letter she
had written to her lover, and which she had rescued from the hands of
Craven Black. She let the small burning remnant of paper fall upon the
blazing log, and watched the blue shrivelled ash wave to and fro in the
current of air, and then whirl upward into the capacious chimney.

The letter thus destroyed, Neva, with a white face and wild eyes, set
about her few preparations for departure. Her soul was in a tumult;
her brain seemed on fire. She could not think or reason yet; she only
knew that she longed to get away, that she _must_ get away. She put
on her round hat above her braids, and was about to throw about her a
light shawl, when a sudden fierce rattling of the casements in the wind
warned her that a night in late September in the Scottish Highlands
was likely to be cold. She opened one of her trunks and dragged out to
the light a pretty sleeved jacket of the soft and delicate fur of the
silver fox, and this she put on. She took up her muff and dressing bag
and hurried into the ante-room, panting and breathless, eager for the
outer air.

The door opening from the ante-room into the hall was closed. Neva
pulled it open--and found herself face to face with Mr. and Mrs. Craven
Black, Mrs. Artress and the French woman!

The girl recoiled an instant before this human barricade as if she
had received a blow. Then she waved her hand in a haughty, commanding
gesture, and said:

“Let me pass! Stand aside!”

“Not so fast, Miss Wynde,” said Craven Black mockingly. “This lady, my
wife, is your personal guardian, and she has the authority to control
your movements--”

The girl’s passionate eyes flashed stormily at her enemies.

“Let me pass I say!” she cried, in a low, suppressed voice. “Attempt to
detain me here, and I will arouse the household!”

“Do so,” said Craven Black, tauntingly. “The two stolid women in the
kitchen cannot hear you; and if they could, they have been prepared for
your outcries, and will not heed them. The sailors are on the yacht,
in the loch below. You are out of the world up in this eagle’s eyrie,
and you may beat your wings against the bars of your cage till you drop
dead, my pretty bird, but no one will heed your flutterings. Call, if
you will. Try the effect of a shriek!”

He took a step nearer to Neva, who retreated before him, shrinking from
his touch. He went after her into the room, his companions following.
Celeste closed the door, and placed herself against it.

“Sit down, Neva,” said Octavia Black, with a mocking intonation. “Lay
aside your hat and sacque. Don’t abandon us upon the very evening of
our arrival in our new residence.”

Neva made no answer, but Octavia shrank before the stern accusing of
the girl’s gloomy, passionate eyes.

“As your guardian,” said Mrs. Black, recovering her self-possession,
which had been momentarily shaken, “I desire to ask you where you were
about to go when we intercepted you?”

“I might refuse to answer, madam,” replied Neva, “but you know as well
as I do that I was about to start for Inverness on foot, and that I
intended to go back to Hawkhurst and to my friends. Unfortunately, Mrs.
Black, you are my personal guardian; but Sir John Freise and my other
guardians, are desirous that I should choose another in your stead, and
I shall now do so. Your character, madam, is at last revealed to me
in all its moral hideousness. My recent vague suspicions of you have
become certainties. Mr. Atkins was right in his distrust of you. But,
madam, because my dead father loved and trusted you to the last hour
of his life, because you have borne his honored name, I will spare you
from blame and obloquy, and screen your ill-doings and ill-treatment of
me even from my guardians. I will agree to thus screen you if you will
stand aside and let me go forth now, at this moment.”

“But, Neva,” said Mrs. Black, “you will lose your way on the mountains;
you will make a misstep over some cliff, or into some ravine; or you
will die of cold and exhaustion long before you can reach Inverness. It
is twenty miles as the crow flies. It is forty, as you would have to
travel. We will not send you in the yacht. Your scheme of departure is
impracticable. In fact, you cannot go.”

“You mean to detain me here a prisoner?”

“Call yourself by what name you will,” said Craven Black, “you cannot
go.”

The young girl looked around her desperately, like a hunted deer. There
was no pity or sympathy in those hard and greedy faces. Had she been
penniless, she would have been as free as the birds of the air; but
being rich, her enemies looked upon her as their rightful prey.

“Are you a pack of outlaws?” demanded Neva, her young voice ringing
through the room. “How dare you thus interfere with the liberty of an
English woman?”

“You are not an English woman, but only an English girl,” interrupted
Octavia Black. “You are a minor, without right or liberty or the
exercise of your own will. You are my ward, Neva, and as your guardian
I command your obedience. How can you reconcile it with your conscience
to rebel against your step-mother?”

“You are not my step-mother,” cried Neva hotly. “When you ceased to be
my father’s widow, you ceased to be my step-mother.”

“I think the law takes another view of such a case,” said Mrs. Black.
“But, at any rate, I am still your guardian, and as such I have a right
to read all the letters you write or receive. I read your letter to
Lord Towyn, and exhibited it to my husband--”

“And to your husband’s cousin, and to your maid,” said Neva. “I am
aware of all that. As to your right to examine my letters, I do not
believe in it. Your action in opening my letter to Lord Towyn,” and
Neva’s cheeks flamed, “and in reading its contents aloud to your
familiars, was an act of the grossest indelicacy and want of honor and
moral principle. Any person with a grain of decency in his composition
will confirm what I say!”

Mrs. Craven Black was stung to fury by this outspoken declaration, its
truthfulness giving it keener effect. She compressed her lips, being
unable to speak, and hurried to and fro with uneven tread like a caged
tigress.

“We will not discuss the right or wrong of Mrs. Black’s very natural
and proper act,” said Craven Black. “She had the right to read your
letter, and therefore did read it. I think you have no further fault to
find with us than this?”

“Such an indelicate letter for a young lady to write,” murmured Mrs.
Artress, turning her eyes upward. “‘My own dear Arthur.’ I never was so
shocked!”

Neva turned her back upon the woman, without a word, and replied to
Craven Black as if she had not heard his cousin speak.

“I have other fault to find with you, Mr. Black,” the young girl said
haughtily. “You and your wife have been false and treacherous to me
from the beginning. You planned to come to this place before you left
Hawkhurst, and you sent Mrs. Artress on in advance to prepare this
house for your reception. Yet you pretended to me that we were to go
by rail into Yorkshire. You allowed me to convey that impression to
my friends, while you intended the impression to be a false one. The
manner in which you proceeded from the railway station to Gravesend,
and in which you have come to this place, has been secret and furtive,
as if you meant to throw off pursuit. You have shamefully deceived me,
and I regard your conduct and that of your wife, now that my eyes have
been opened, as base, mean, and treacherous.”

“Regard it as you like,” said Craven Black airily, although his face
flushed. “My dear child, you are beating against your bars like the
bird in the cage to which I likened you. Don’t waste your strength in
this manner. Be reasonable, and submit to the power of those who have
right and strength upon their side.”

Mrs. Black paused in her walk before Neva, and said vindictively, and
even fiercely:

“That is what you will have to do, Neva--submit! We are stronger than
you, I should think your conscience would reproach you for rebelling
against me in this manner. Did not your father a score of times enjoin
you in his letters to love and obey me? Did he not in his will enjoin
you to cling to me, and be gentle and loving and obedient to my wishes?
Is it thus you respect his wishes and memory--”

“Stop!” cried Neva imperiously. “How dare you urge my father’s
wishes upon me? How dare you speak of respect to his memory, which
you outraged at the time of your recent and third marriage, when you
summoned my father’s tenantry to a ball, and made merry in my father’s
house, thus virtually rejoicing in his death? I cannot hear my father’s
name from your lips, madam.”

“Oh, you can’t!” sneered Octavia Black. “You will have to hear whatever
I may choose to say of him; let me tell you that, Miss Neva. You may
fling off my authority and your late father’s together, if you choose,
but his last letter to you should be held sacred by you, and its
injunctions fulfilled to the letter, as sacred commands from the dead
to the living.”

“That last letter!” said Neva. “The letter written by Craven Black,
with your assistance and connivance! Ah, you start. You see that I
comprehend you at last--that I have fathomed your wickedness! That
letter, now in the hands of Lord Towyn or Mr. Atkins, or Sir John
Freise, emanated from Craven Black’s brain and hand. It was a clever
forgery, but, thank God, I know it to be a forgery! My father could
never have so coolly and easily disposed of his daughter’s future. He
never wrote that letter!”

The girl spoke in a tone of such firm conviction, as if she knew
whereof she affirmed, that the discomfited plotters made no attempt
to deny her assertion. The Blacks looked at each other darkly, and
read in each other’s eyes incitement to continue in their wickedness
with unabated courage. Mrs. Artress looked on, evilly exultant. She
had never liked the heiress of Hawkhurst, with her dainty beauty, her
piquant witchery of face and manner, and with all the wealth that
seemed so boundless. Mrs. Artress was jealous, envious, and full of
hatred of her, and her greed of money had been enlisted against the
young girl.

There was a brief pause, during which Neva sat down laying aside her
muff and dressing bag. Presently she said:

“I understand you now, as you know. I trust that you understand me.
I will not trouble you to deal more in subterfuges and deceptions. I
comprehend that I have been decoyed here for a purpose, and that I am
now your prisoner. What is your purpose against me?”

“We have no purpose against you, Neva,” said Octavia Black quite
calmly, and even pleasantly. “You deceive yourself. We saw you anxious
to plunge into marriage with Lord Towyn, but disapproving the match,
I have brought you here. I stand in the relation of a parent to you,
and use a parent’s authority, as I have a right. I have other designs
for you. A worthy and accomplished young man, the son of my present
husband, has solicited your hand in marriage, and I am anxious that
you should enter the same family with myself. We will not coerce
you; but I am sure, after a residence more or less prolonged at this
Wilderness, you will be glad to marry Rufus Black and go back into
society. You shall have sufficient time for consideration. I am ready
to sacrifice myself and remain here all winter, if necessary to bring
you to the desired view of the subject.”

“One thing we may as well make plain,” said Craven Black deliberately.
“When you leave this house, Miss Wynde, it will be as the promised
bride of my son.”

Neva’s eyes flashed mutiny.

“Is Rufus Black a party to this scheme?” she demanded.

“No,” said Mr. Black promptly. “He knows nothing of my designs. I
have told him to hope that you will relent, and he thinks that his
step-mother has unbounded influence over you, which she will use in
his behalf. Rufus is a poor, weak young fellow, with all his desirable
qualities, and he would sooner cut his throat than force you into a
marriage with him. No; Rufus is at Hawkhurst, where I have ordered him
to remain until our return, or until he hears from me. He supposes
us to be in Yorkshire. We are ready to start for your home with you
any day when you shall have given us your oath that this visit to the
Highlands shall be kept secret by you, and that you will marry Rufus on
your return to Hawkhurst. These are our terms.”

“I have said upon what terms I am willing to keep your villainy
secret,” said Neva haughtily. “My condition is that I am immediately
allowed to go free. I shall not repeat that offer after to-night. I
shall never agree to your terms. I shall never marry Rufus Black. I am
betrothed to a noble and honorable gentleman, and I regard my promise
to him as sacred as any oath. In short, Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, I
will stay here until I die before I will yield to your dominion, or
perjure myself by a cowardly oath.”

“Very well,” said Black. “It only remains to see which will hold out
the longest, besiegers or besieged. Octavia, let us go. A night of
reflection may bring our young lady to terms.”

“I have a last word to say,” exclaimed Neva, arising, her young face
full of a bitter and passionate rebellion against her enemies. “You
have not fairly counted the cost of your present undertaking, Mr. and
Mrs. Black. The heiress of Hawkhurst, the only child of the late Sir
Harold Wynde, the betrothed wife of the wealthiest young nobleman in
Great Britain, cannot disappear in a manner so mysterious without
exciting attention. I shall be sought after far and wide. My three
guardians will set the officers of the law upon my track. Even now
it is quite possible my friends may be on their way to this place. I
shall be rescued from your hands, and you will be rewarded with the
punishment and ignominy you deserve.”

“You believe all this?” cried Craven Black. “You think I am clumsy
enough to permit myself to be tracked? How little you know me! I defy
all the detectives in the world to trace me. I did not buy the yacht. A
friend bought it in his own name, and provisioned it. The three sailors
on board the yacht will never see a newspaper; will not stir out of the
loch, and will see no one. I have attached them to me by a free use
of money, and I have a hold upon them in knowing their past. If the
officers of the law were to trace you to the loch below us, the men
would not dare to reveal your whereabouts, for fear of being held as
conspirators against your liberty. The two women-servants in this house
never stir off the plateau. The cabman I hired to convey us from the
London railway station to Gravesend, I discovered, in my conversation
with him, was employed for that day alone, to take the place of the
cabman who was ill. The fellow told me he was a navvy, bound for a
voyage the next day, and he wished he could sail our yacht instead of
going out to Australia in a steamer. You see how my tracks are covered?
Your help must come from yourself, not from Lord Towyn. I have no more
to say at present. If you choose to come to terms, you can send Celeste
to my wife at any moment. Permit me to wish you a good-night.”

He approached her as if to shake hands. Neva gathered up her effects
and retreated into her room. The next instant a key was inserted in the
lock, and the bolt was shot home. Neva was in truth a prisoner.

“Celeste, you will occupy this room,” said Mrs. Black, to her maid,
“and you must sleep with one eye open. Miss Wynde is desperate, and may
attempt to pick the lock, or to escape by one of her windows.”

“I am not afraid of pursuit,” said Mr. Black meditatively, “but I would
like to throw the pursuers upon a wrong scent. I wish I could get
Lord Towyn over upon the Continent, with that sharp-eyed Atkins. How
can we contrive to give them the impression that we are gone upon a
Continental tour?”

They pondered the question for many minutes.

“I have it,” said Celeste at last. “I have a sister who lives in
Brussels, and who works in a milliner’s shop in the Rue Montague de la
Cour. You shall write a letter for Mademoiselle, Mr. Black, in her very
handwriting, and date the letter Brussels, and I will send it under
cover to my sister to be posted at Brussels. Yes, my faith, we have
it. One of the sailors shall post my letter, with its inclosure, from
Inverness. It is well, is it not?”

The plan suited Mr. and Mrs. Black, who resolved to act upon it. The
whole party adjourned to the drawing-room. Mrs. Craven Black brought
forth several letters she had formerly received from Neva while at the
Paris school, and which she had preserved for possible use. Mr. Black
still retained the envelope to the letter Neva had addressed to her
lover, and which he had intercepted. With these materials, and his
skill at counterfeiting, Craven Black set to work to write a letter in
Neva’s name, and dated at Brussels. While he was thus engaged, Mrs.
Black supplying him with suitable paper and ink, the French maid wrote
to her sister at Brussels, requesting her to stamp and forward the
inclosed missive. Octavia Black gave her attendant a Bank of England
note to inclose in payment of the service.

The double letter was finished and sealed that night, and Craven Black
went to Inverness the next day in the yacht and posted it.

This then was the letter which had been brought up to London to Lord
Towyn by his steward, and which the young earl, having read, and so
instantly and vehemently pronounced a forgery.

But though it failed of its object, and did not deceive the keen-witted
young lover as to its origin, it did not enlighten him as to Neva’s
whereabouts. He continued his search for her, calling in the aid of
professional detectives, Mr. Atkins devoting his time also to the
search, but they failed to find a clue to the missing young girl. And
she, hidden in the far-off Scottish wilds, among mountain peaks and in
a secluded rocky wilderness, looked in vain for her lover’s coming. Her
enemies were indeed more cunning than she had dreamed, and it seemed
indeed as if the words of Craven Black would prove true, and the matter
between the “besiegers and the besieged” would become a question of
resistance. Which would be the first to yield to the loneliness and
gloom of the Wilderness, and to the rigors of the swiftly approaching
Highland winter?




CHAPTER XI. MRS. BLIGHT ENTERS UPON HER MOURNING.


The sudden death of Mrs. Wroat proved a severe shock to poor Lally
Bird, who had grown to love the eccentric, but kind-hearted old
lady with a daughter’s affection. She hurriedly dressed herself,
and came down to Mrs. Wroat’s chamber, pale and awe-struck, with a
horrible sense of desolation and misery. It seemed as if a fatality
attended her--that those whom she loved were in some way doomed. Her
parents were dead, her young husband had been taken from her, and
now her great-aunt had died, and she was again alone. She was not
selfish in her grief, but she could not help thinking of her own
bitter loneliness, as she bent over the still figure, and softly and
reverently touched the straying locks of gray hair, and pressed her
lips to the shrivelled mouth from which the angel smile seemed slowly
fading.

Peters had by this time regained her self-command. There was much to
do, and it devolved upon her to do it. Her tears must wait for a more
convenient season. She was anxious that “all things should be done
decently and in order,” and that due respect should be given the dead
mistress she had so loved. Her first act then, after arousing Lally and
the servants, was to dispatch the footman to the family physician, and
to Mr. Harris, Mrs. Wroat’s lawyer.

The physician came first. He showed no surprise at the summons, and
acknowledged to Peters that he had expected it before. He could only
confirm the discovery of Peters that the old lady was dead.

The lawyer arrived while the doctor was in the house. Mrs. Wroat had
requested that Mr. Harris should assume control of her affairs after
her death, and he proceeded to seal her desk and to take charge of her
private papers, while he gave directions for the management of the
household while the dead should remain in the house. An undertaker was
sent for, and all the grim preparations for the sepulture, so terrible
to surviving friends, was entered upon.

The next morning’s papers contained the obituary notice of Mrs. Maria
Wroat, relict of the late John Wroat, banker, with a statement of her
age and of the time appointed for the funeral.

The next afternoon brought to the door of the mansion in Mount street
a cab, from which alighted Mr. and Mrs. Blight of Sandy Lands. They
sounded the knocker pompously, ringing the bell at the same moment. The
footman hastened to give them admittance.

“I see by the morning’s papers that my dear aunt is dead, Toppen,”
said the Canterbury lawyer, who was known and detested by Mrs. Wroat’s
servants. “Why was I not informed of her dangerous illness?”

“Mrs. Wroat died sudden, sir,” answered the man respectfully.

“Why was I not telegraphed to immediately upon her death?”

“I don’t know, sir. Mr. Harris, he manages the funeral, sir.”

“Show us up to our room, Toppen. You are perhaps aware that I am the
old lady’s heir? I am the nephew of her deceased husband, who left her
a good share of his property. It all comes to me. I shall continue you
in my service, Toppen, when I come up to town to live, which will be
immediately. But, come. Show us our room.”

Toppen hesitated.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but I’ll just speak to Mrs. Peters. Miss
Wroat she can’t be disturbed, and I don’t know which room azackly Mrs.
Peters intends for you.”

“The amber room, of course,” said Mrs. Blight superciliously. “We shall
have the best room in the house, whatever Mrs. Peters or any one else
may say.”

“Miss Wroat has the amber room,” said Toppen.

“Miss Wroat!” repeated the lawyer. “And who may Miss Wroat be?”

“She is Mrs. Wroat’s young niece, sir, that she fetched home with her
from Canterbury. The Missus said we were to call the young lady Miss
Wroat. If you’ll walk into the drawing-room, I’ll go for Mrs. Peters.”

The Blights went into the drawing-room as desired, and there awaited
Mrs. Peters’ appearance with outward bravado and some inward anxiety.

“You don’t suppose the old woman can have made a will giving Lally Bird
her fortune?” whispered the Canterbury lawyer’s wife.

“No. I think she went off so suddenly at the last that she had no time
to make a will. But if she did make one I stand as good a chance as
any one of inheriting her money, even after all that has come and gone
between her and us. She got her money from her husband, who was my
uncle. The old woman had a stern sense of justice, and she would never
have left her entire fortune away from her husband’s nephew, who had,
as one may say, a claim upon it. No doubt she left her great-niece
a legacy, but you’ll find that we come in for the best share of her
money.”

Mr. Blight did not reflect that Mrs. Wroat’s “stern sense of justice”
might cause her to leave her money away from him, instead of leaving it
to him.

“No matter whether she leaves the girl fifty pounds a year or two
hundred pounds a year,” said Mrs. Blight venomously, “she goes out of
this house on the day after the funeral, bag and baggage, the artful
jade! I won’t have her under my roof a night longer than I can help.”

“Quite right, Laura. We should have had the whole pile only for her.”

“I shall furnish the whole house new,” said Mrs. Blight reflectively.
“Aunt Wroat had abominable taste, and the colors here quite ruin my
complexion. Why don’t Peters or the housekeeper come? I shall discharge
Peters--”

The last words were overheard by Peters herself, who came in in list
slippers and a black gown, staid, angular, and sour-visaged as usual,
with a warm heart nearly bursting with grief under her prim bodice. She
courtesied to the self-invited guests, her lips tightly compressed, and
an ominous gleam in her tear-blurred eyes.

“Ah, Peters at last!” said Mrs. Blight condescendingly. “We want to go
up to our room, Peters, before we see the remains of our dear aunt. Why
were we not sent for yesterday, Peters?”

“I suppose Mr. Harris forgot to telegraph to you,” said Peters grimly.
“He spoke of doing so. Your room is ready, and I’ll send Buttons up to
show you the way.”

“Toppen calls Miss Bird Miss Wroat--ha, ha!” laughed the Canterbury
lawyer. “A queer idea, isn’t it, Peters? Does the girl call herself
Miss Wroat?”

Peters bowed.

“It was my lady’s wish,” she said.

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Blight. “By the by, Peters, here’s a sovereign for
you. I always admired your sturdy independence, Peters. My aunt loved
you, ah, like a sister, and leaned upon you, and all that, Peters. I
hope she has remembered you at the last. It would be a pity if she had
not left some trifle, to mark her appreciation of your fidelity and
affection.”

“I have no fault to find,” said Peters coldly, rejecting the coin. “My
dear lady remembered me generously in her will--”

“Her will?” interrupted Mr. Blight eagerly. “She did make a will then?
I am glad to hear it. Had she died without a will, Miss Bird and Mrs.
Wroat’s other relatives would have divided the Wroat property and
fattened upon it. As it is, I am sure Mrs. Wroat has done me justice.
She would not have remembered any faults of ours in her dying hour, but
would have seen to it that Mr. Wroat’s nephew had his proper share in
Mr. Wroat’s property. I suppose you know the purport of the will.”

Peters bowed assent.

“I shouldn’t mind a matter of five pounds,” said Mr. Blight
insinuatingly. “I should like to know if my poor aunt did justice to me
in her last moments?”

“I don’t want your money, Mr. Blight,” said Peters, “but if you are
anxious to know, I will tell you that Mrs. Wroat did you justice in her
will. That is all that I will say. I am not at liberty to betray the
contents of the will, which will be read immediately after the burial.”

The countenances of the two fortune-hunters glowed with delight. They
interpreted Mrs. Peters’ words to suit themselves.

Mrs. Peters gave them no time for further questioning. She summoned the
boot-boy, and ordered him to conduct the guests to their chamber, and
then departed to the room where her dead mistress was lying. The boy
led the way up stairs, Mr. and Mrs. Blight following, and ushered them
into the red room, opposite Lally’s apartment, and next in beauty and
convenience to Lally’s rooms.

“Peters goes out of this house when Miss Bird goes,” cried Mrs.
Blight, sinking into a chair and puffing heavily. “Charles, I believe
I shall take the old lady’s room for mine, and save coming up stairs.
It will be so convenient. And you must run out a new dressing-room
and bath-room; those down stairs don’t suit me at all. Aunt Wroat’s
personal tastes were so horrid plain. I shall clean out all the present
servants. I know that Toppen hates us both, but he was forced to be
civil to the heir, you know. And, by the way, we must have mourning
clothes, Charles. You must write to your tailor to send a man to take
your measure immediately, and I will drop a note to Jay’s, and have
them send a complete mourning outfit and a dressmaker to me.”

The notes were written in Mr. Blight’s most grandiloquent style, and
although they were brief, they betrayed the complacency of a satisfied
heir in every line.

The tailor and dressmaker arrived in due time, and Mrs. Blight
discussed ribbons and shades of silk, and the respective merits of
French and English crape up stairs, while the old lady was being robed
for the grave below, and Lally lay upon her own bed, weeping as though
her heart were breaking.

Lally kept to her own room until after the funeral. She could not eat
nor sleep. Etiquette forbade her attending her deceased relative to the
grave, but she watched the departure of the funeral train from her
window, her eyes almost blinded with her tears.

After the funeral, Mr. Blight and Mr. Harris the lawyer returned to the
mansion in Mount street, and the latter summoned Mrs. Blight, Lally and
Peters, to hear the will read.

Mrs. Blight swept in, clad in the deepest mourning, her garments
covered deep with crape, a black-bordered handkerchief held at her
eyes. Mr. Blight placed an armed chair for her near the hearth, the
October day being chilly, and took a seat at her side with quite an air
of proprietorship of the house.

Lally, in deep mourning, came next, with the faithful Peters, also in
mourning habiliments. Mr. Harris placed a chair for Lally, and Peters
sat near her young mistress, to whose service she intended to devote
herself.

Mr. Harris then, with preparatory clearings of his throat, read the
will. It commenced by declaring the testator of sound mind, being the
usual formula, and proceeded with an enumeration of property at which
the Blights grew inwardly radiant.

“All this, my real and personal property,” read Mr. Harris, in effect,
“I give and bequeath, absolutely and without reserve, to--my beloved
great-niece, Lally Bird, the daughter of John Bird and Clara Mulford
Percy his wife, to her and to her heirs and assigns forever.”

The Blights gasped for breath.

Lally’s countenance did not change. She knew that her days of poverty
were over; that she would never again wander shelterless and forlorn,
glad to find shelter at night in a barn, and famished for food. All
that distress for her was forever past. Her comfort and prosperity
had been secured by the tenderness of her kindly and eccentric old
relative, but Lally would willingly have gone back to her old-time
poverty and toil, if by so doing she might have recalled her good
friend from her grave.

“I say, this is simply infamous!” gasped Mr. Blight, turning upon Mr.
Harris fiercely. “Infamous, sir! Do you know whose money, sir, this
wretched old dotard has willed away so lightly? I’ll tell you, sir. It
was my late uncle’s. It should be mine--and, by Heaven, it shall be
mine. I’ll appeal to the law. I’ll contest the will!”

“Are you a lawyer? Why do you talk so childishly?” demanded Mr. Harris.
“The property of which Mrs. Wroat has disposed was hers absolutely, to
dispose of as she pleased. If your late uncle had wished to provide
for you, he would have done so. You are no relative of Mrs. Wroat, and
you ought to know that if you contest the will, you won’t get a penny.
The girl would get it just the same--at least a portion of it--even
if you succeeded in breaking the will, which you can’t. Mrs. Wroat
was indisputably in sound mind when she dictated that will. Under any
circumstances, Mr. Blight, you can get nothing. With the exception of
an annuity to be paid out of the income to Peters during her lifetime,
the remainder of the property is absolutely Miss Bird’s--or Miss
Wroat’s, as it was the wish of our deceased friend that the young lady
should be called.”

Mr. Blight sullenly recognized the truth of these words. He had been
left out in the cold, and he was angry, disappointed, infuriated.

“Oh, my new and expensive mourning!” said Mrs. Blight spitefully. “I
wouldn’t have put on black for the old creature if I had known the
truth. Peters ought to pay me the hundred pounds I have expended. I
shall sell every black rag I’ve bought!”

Lally arose to retire, and Mr. Harris and Peters attended her from the
room. Mr. Harris presently returned, and said gravely:

“Miss Wroat is fatigued, and Mrs. Peters thinks her unequal to the task
of entertaining guests. At the request of Mrs. Peters, therefore, I
have to suggest, sir and madam that you take your leave without again
seeing Miss Wroat. I will remain to do the honors of the house, in Miss
Wroat’s stead, at your departure.”

Mr. and Mrs. Blight, thus quietly dismissed, retired to their room and
packed their effects. An hour later their cab was announced, and they
came down stairs, the lady leaning on her husband’s arm and weeping
with rage.

As they sat in the cab, the luggage piled on top, and slowly departed
from the house where they had hoped to reign, Mrs. Blight looked back,
sobbing in her anguish:

“And it might have been ours but for the artful minx I took in, as it
were out of the streets. I’ll never do a good action again in all my
life--never. And now I must go back to poverty, and scrimp to save what
I’ve spent in mourning, and we and our poor dear lambs may fetch up at
the union, while that treacherous cat Lally Bird lolls in wealth. O
dear! O dear!”




CHAPTER XII. A FREAK OF DESTINY.


Upon the morning after the burial of Mrs. Wroat, and the utter
discomfiture of the fortune-hunting Mr. and Mrs. Blight, Mr. Harris the
lawyer called upon Lally. His card, with a message written upon it, was
brought up to the young girl in her own room by Toppen, and Lally came
down to the drawing-room, accompanied by Peters. Poor Lally looked
very small and weak and childlike in her deep mourning garb, but when
she lifted her sorrowful black eyes, the lawyer read in them a woman’s
capacity for suffering, a woman’s strong and resolute character, a
woman’s enlightened and awakened soul.

“Good-morning, Miss Wroat,” he said, with paternal kindness, shaking
her hand warmly. “You are looking ill. Ought you not to seek change of
air and scene?”

“I would rather remain here, sir,” said Lally wearily; “that is, if I
may.”

“You can go and come at your own will, my dear young lady,” said Mr.
Harris. “Mrs. Wroat has left you entire liberty to do as you please.
This house is yours, and a small country property as well. I came
this morning to discuss business with you. I have been the lawyer and
business agent of our lamented friend Mrs. Wroat for a third of a
century or more, and it was her will that I should continue to have the
management of the Wroat property until your marriage, or the attainment
of your majority. You are absolute mistress of this house. Is it your
desire to keep up the establishment just as it is, or would you prefer
a life of greater freedom and of less care?”

“I will stay here,” declared Lally. “This house seems home to me. Aunt
Wroat loved it, and I will keep it just as she left it. Everything that
she has loved or treasured will be sacred to me.”

Mr. Harris looked approval of the sentiment. Peters’ sour,
sharp-featured countenance actually beamed with an unwonted warmth
and pleasure. She had feared in her inmost soul that the massive,
old-fashioned furniture with its odd carvings and quaint designs was to
be sent to an auction room, and to be replaced by modern upholstery.

“Shall you retain the present housekeeper and servants?” inquired the
lawyer.

“Yes,” said Lally, “the household is to remain exactly as it is. Mrs.
Peters will also remain with me as a friend and attendant. She is the
only friend I have now.”

“Not the only one, Miss Wroat,” said the lawyer warmly. “I am your
friend, if you will permit me to call myself so. I have now to explain
to you the amount of your income. When the late Mr. Wroat died, many
years ago, he bequeathed to his wife who has just died the sum of
fifty thousand pounds in securities and real estate. Mrs. Wroat had
few expenses outside her own household, and did not expend her entire
income, the balance of which has been allowed to accumulate, being
annually added to the principal. Thus Mrs. Wroat died possessed of over
sixty thousand pounds, ten thousand of which is in real estate. This
house is not included in the estimate I have made, having been settled
upon Mrs. Wroat at her marriage, as her own property to do with as she
pleased. In addition to the real estate, therefore, you have fifty
thousand pounds, which is invested in the three per cents, in foreign
railway shares, in United States bonds, and in other perfectly safe and
reliable securities. The interest upon these investments varies from
three to seven per cent., but averages five per cent., and I have to
announce to you that you have therefore an annual income of twenty-five
hundred pounds, of which, by your aunt’s will, you come into immediate
possession. Out of this twenty-five hundred pounds per annum, one
hundred pounds is to be paid each year to Mrs. Peters, so long as
she lives. The rest is absolutely your own! Have I made the matter
perfectly plain to you?”

“Perfectly,” said Lally. “It is a large fortune, is it not?”

“It is a very fine income for a young lady,” assented Mr. Harris,
“very fine indeed. Your expenditures need not be limited, you see. All
reasonable desires can find perfect gratification upon your income,
Miss Wroat. Should you desire it, you can take a house at Brighton for
the season, or you might find an agreeable change in visiting your
country place, although this is scarcely the season.”

“I like the country,” said Lally, “and I think it very pleasant in
October.”

“Yes, so it is in Kent and Surrey, and the south of England,” said Mr.
Harris, “but this is not a fancy seat, Miss Wroat, and it’s away off at
the north--in Scotland, in fact, and on the sea coast. It’s fearfully
wild in winter, I’m told, up there. The snow falls early, and the winds
rage, and the thermometer falls below zero.”

“I was never in Scotland,” said Lally, a little flush of interest
brightening her wan small face. “And I own a place up there--a farm
perhaps?”

“Two or three farms, but the soil is sterile, and there is an old house
in fine order.”

“Where is this place? Near Edinburgh?”

“Far north of Edinburgh, Miss Wroat. It’s near Inverness--away out of
the world at this season, you see. I was up there last year with a
shooting party, Mrs. Wroat kindly placing the house at my disposal.
There’s capital shooting over the estate, and we had a good time, the
house being furnished, and a steward residing in a cottage on the
estate.”

“I should like to go up there,” said Lally. “Perhaps I will a little
later--but not yet. I don’t mind the lateness of the season, Mr.
Harris, and I am not afraid of cold and wind and snow, if I can have
shelter and fires. In fact, I think I would like to hide myself in
some far off hidden nook until I shall have learned to bear my trials
with fortitude. Life is so very bitter to me, Mr. Harris.”

“Life bitter at seventeen!” said the lawyer, with an indulgent smile.
“You have money, youth, beauty, and will have hosts of friends. You
will learn, as we all do, sooner or later, Miss Wroat, to take the
bitter with the sweet, and to thank God for all his goodness, instead
of repining because one or two blessings are withheld out of so many
given. But I will not bore you with a sermon. I have little more to say
this morning except that, should you need me, I entreat that you will
call upon me at any time. I will come to you at a moment’s notice. Is
there anything I can now do for you?”

There was nothing, but Lally expressed her gratitude for the offer.
Mrs. Peters had a few questions to ask, and when these had been duly
answered, Mr. Harris paid into Lally’s hands the sum of six hundred
pounds being one quarter’s income. He then departed.

The young girl spent the remainder of the day in her own room, not
even coming forth to her meals. The next day she came down to the
dining-room, but immediately after dinner retired to her apartment.
She read no books nor newspapers, but sat before her fire hour after
hour, silently brooding, and Peters with an unspeakable anxiety beheld
the round gipsy face grow thin and pallid, dark circles form under the
black eyes, and the light figure grow lighter and more slender, until
she feared that the young mistress would soon follow the old one.

In her distress, Peters had an interview with the housekeeper, and
expressed her fears and anxieties.

“A good wind would just blow Miss Lally away,” she said. “She’s
pining, and the first we know she’ll be dead. What can I do?”

“Who’d have thought she’d have loved the Missus so much?” said the
housekeeper.

“It isn’t that alone,” declared Peters, “although she loved Mrs. Wroat
as a daughter might have loved her, but she’s had other troubles that
I’m not at liberty to speak of, but which are pressing on her, along
with her great-aunt’s death, until, I think, the double burden will
crush her into the grave. She don’t eat more than a bird. I ordered her
mourning for her, and when the shopman brought great parcels of silks
and bombazines and crapes, she never even looked at them, but said,
‘Peters, please select for me. You know what I want.’ The dressmaker
was in despair yesterday, because my young lady would not take an
interest in her clothes, and did not give a single direction beyond
having them made very plainly. I’ll go and see Mr. Harris about her, or
else the doctor.”

“What does a man know in a case like this?” exclaimed the housekeeper.
“The young lady is pining herself to death, Mrs. Peters, and that’s the
long and the short of it. This great house is dull and lonely to her,
and the gloom of the funeral isn’t out of it yet. The young mistress
wants change--that’s what she wants. Take her to some watering-place,
or to the Continent, or somewhere else, and give her new interests and
a change of scene, and she’ll come back as pert and chipper as any
bird.”

The idea struck Mrs. Peters favorably. She hastened up stairs to the
amber room, and softly entered. Lally sat in a great chair before the
hearth, her little shrunken figure quite lost among the cushions, her
small wan face startlingly pale, and her great black eyes fixed upon
the fire. She looked up at her attendant, who approached her with a
swelling heart, but with outward calmness.

“If you please, Miss Lally,” said Peters, broaching her wishes without
delay, “I’ve been thinking that the house is so gloomy without the dear
old mistress, and that you keep so close to your room that you will
be ill directly unless some change is made. And I am sure I’d like a
change too, for a week or month. And so I make bold to ask you to go
for a month to Brighton.”

The girl shook her head with a look of pain.

“Not there,” she murmured. “I cannot bear the crowds, the gayety, the
careless faces and curious eyes.”

“Then let us go up to the Heather Hills, your Scottish place,” urged
Peters. “I have been there once, and we could take Toppen with us,
Miss Lally. The steward who lives on the estate can provide us with
servants. Let me telegraph him to-day, and let us start to-morrow.”

“Very well,” said the young mistress listlessly. “If you wish it,
Peters, we will go.”

The sour face of the faithful maid brightened, and she expressed her
thanks warmly for the concession.

“I’ll telegraph at once, Miss Lally,” she said. “But then the steward
is not likely to receive the telegram unless he happens to be at
Inverness, which is not likely. I will send Toppen by the first train
to prepare for our coming, if you are willing, Miss Lally.”

Lally was willing, and Mrs. Peters withdrew to acquaint the tall
footman with her mistress’ design, and to dispatch him on his journey
to the northward. When he had gone she returned to Lally.

“Toppen is on his way to the station, Miss,” she announced. “He will
have everything in order for us against our arrival. It is cold at
Heather Hills, Miss Lally, with the wind blowing off the sea, and you
will need flannel and thick boots, and warm clothing.”

“Order them for me then, Peters,” said Lally, with listless voice and
manner.

“But you will want an astrachan jacket to wear with your black dresses,
and you must try it on, to be sure that it fits,” said Peters. “And
you will want books at Heather Hills, and these you can choose best
for yourself. And the newspapers must be ordered to be sent to our new
address, but that I can do this evening by letter. And you will want
work materials, Miss Lally, such as canvas, Berlin wools and patterns;
drawing materials, new music, and other things, perhaps. Let me order
the carriage, and let us go out and make our purchases.”

Lally looked out of the window. The sun was shining, and the air was
clear. She had not been out of the house for days, and she assented to
Mrs. Peters’ proposition. The maid ordered the carriage, and proceeded
to array her young mistress for her drive.

The carriage, which was called Mrs. Wroat’s carriage, was a job
vehicle, hired by the month at a neighboring mews, with horses, and
with coachman and footman in livery. It looked like a private brougham,
and with its mulberry-colored linings, and plain but elegantly
gotten-up harness, was very stylish, and even imposing.

When the carriage came around, Lally and her attendant were quite
ready. They descended to the vehicle, and drove away upon their
shopping excursion. A fur dealer’s was first visited, then a
stationer’s and bookseller’s, then a shop for ladies’ work and their
materials. Lally’s purchases were deposited in the carriage. And lastly
the young girl stopped at a picture dealer’s in Regent street, a small
cabinet painting in the window having caught her eye.

It was simply a quaint Dutch interior, with a broad hearth, a boiling
pot over the flames, a great tiled chimney-piece, a Dutch house-wife
with ample figure and round, good-natured face, and three or four
children pausing at the threshold of the open door to put off their
shoes before stepping upon the immaculate floor; a simple picture,
executed with fidelity and spirit; but its charm, in Lally’s eyes, lay
in the fact that in the early days of her marriage, during the brief
period she had passed with Rufus Black in New Brompton, in their dingy
lodgings, he had painted a cabinet picture of a Dutch interior, nearly
like this in design, but as different in execution as may be imagined.
His had been but a daub, and he had been glad to get fifteen shillings
for it. The price of this picture which had now caught Lally’s eye was
ten guineas.

The young lady had the picture withdrawn from the window and examined
it closely.

“I will take it,” she said. “I will select a suitable frame, and you
may send it home to-day. Here is my card.”

The picture dealer brought an armful of frames for her selection, and
while she examined the designs and gilding, a man walked into the shop
with a sauntering gait, and paused near her, in contemplation of an
old cracked painting to which was attached a card declaring it to be a
genuine Murillo.

“This is no more a Murillo than I’m one!” announced the new-comer
loudly, half turning his face toward the shopman. “A Murillo? It’s a
modern daub, gotten up to sell.”

At the sound of the stranger’s voice Lally started, dropping the frame
she held in her hand. She turned around quickly, looking at him with
dilating eyes and whitening face, and gasping breath.

The strange connoisseur, who had so boldly given his opinion of the
pretended Murillo, was Rufus Black!

He had tired of the loneliness of Hawkhurst, and had run up to town
for a day’s recreation and amusement. The picture shop in Regent
street, into which Lally had strayed that morning, had long been one of
his favorite haunts, and the picture Lally had just bought had really
given him the idea of the picture he had painted so long before in the
dingy room at New Brompton.

His face was half averted, but Lally knew him, and a deathly faintness
seized upon her. He was well dressed and possessed an air of elegance
that well became him. His hair was worn long under an artist’s
broad-brimmed hat, and his features from a side view were sharp and
thin. His mouth and chin seemed to have gained firmness and character
during the past few months, but in the latter feature was still
prominent the dimple Lally had loved, and which, pretty in a woman, is
nearly always a sign of weakness and irresolution in a man.

Rufus turned slowly toward the girlish figure in black, his gaze
seeking the shopman. A low, strange cry broke from Lally’s lips. Rufus
heard it and looked at her. Her heavy crape vail was thrown back over
her bonnet, and her small face framed in the heavy black folds was so
white, so eager, so piteous, that Rufus thought it a vision--an optical
illusion--a freak of his imagination. He recoiled in a species of
terror.

“Rufus! Oh, Rufus!” cried the deserted young wife in a wild,
involuntary appeal.

Mrs. Peters heard the name, and comprehended the identity of the young
man. She came and stood by Lally’s side, warning off Rufus by her harsh
face and angry eyes.

“Come, my dear,” she said, “let us go.”

“Rufus! Oh, Rufus!” moaned the poor young wife again, seeing nothing
but the anguished, horrified face of her husband, hearing nothing but
his quick breathing.

Rufus slowly passed his hand over his forehead.

“My God!” he murmured. “Lally’s face! Lally’s voice!”

Mrs. Peters took the hand of her young mistress, attempting to lead
her from the shop, which but for them and the amazed shopman was
happily deserted. But Lally stared at her young husband in a species of
fascination, and he returned her gaze with one of horror and amazement,
and the old woman’s efforts were fruitless.

“My dear, my dear!” whispered Peters anxiously. “Come with me. Come, my
darling! He abandoned you. Pluck up a spirit, Miss Lally, and leave him
alone!”

Lally slowly arose and moved toward the door, but coming quite near to
her stupefied young husband.

“It is I--Lally,” she said, with the simplicity of a child, her great
black eyes staring at him piteously. “I am not dead, Rufus. It was
not I who was drowned in the Thames. I know that you are going to
be married again to a great heiress, and I hope you will be happy
with her; but she will never love you as I loved you. Good-bye,
dear--good-bye forever!”

With a great sob Lally flitted past him, and hurried out to the waiting
carriage. Rufus dashed after her, wild-eyed and wild-visaged; but Mrs.
Peters grasped him vigorously by the arm, detaining him.

“None of that!” she ejaculated harshly. “I won’t have my young lady
tampered with. You shan’t follow her. You’ve broken her heart already.”

“She’s mine--my wife!” cried Rufus, still amazed, but in an ecstasy of
joy and rapture. “I tell you she’s mine. I thought she was dead. I am
not engaged to an heiress. I won’t marry one. I want my wife--”

“You’re too late, sir,” said Mrs. Peters grimly. “You should have made
up your mind to that effect at the time you abandoned her.”

“But I was compelled to abandon her! God alone knows the remorse and
anguish I have known since I supposed her dead. I love her better than
all the world. How is it that she lives? Why does she wear mourning?
Woman let me go to her!” And he tried to break from the detaining grasp
of Peters.

“No, sir,” said the woman still more grimly. “If you have a spark of
manliness, you will let the young lady alone. She hates you now. I
assure you she does. She’s only a governess, and you’ll lose her her
place if you hang around her. I tell you again she hates you.”

Rufus uttered a low moan, and sat down abruptly upon a shop bench. Mrs.
Peters glided out and entered the carriage, giving the order to return
home.

“I told him a lie, God forgive me!” she muttered, as she looked at
Lally, who lay back upon the cushions, faint and white. “I told him
that you were a governess, Miss Lally. Let him once get wind of your
good fortune, and he’ll abandon his heiress and come back to you. Let
us start for the north to-night, dear Miss Lally, and you will not see
him if he comes to Mount street. We can take the night express, and
sleep comfortably with our lap robes, and to-morrow night we will sleep
at Edinburgh.”

“We will do as you say, Peters,” said Lally wearily. “Only don’t speak
to me now.”

She buried her face in the cushions, and was silent with a stillness
like death.

Meanwhile Rufus Black sat for some minutes in a sort of stupor, but at
last raised his haggard eyes and said to the shopkeeper:

“The--the lady who passed out, Benson, was my wife. I had heard she was
dead. Can you give me her address?”

The shopman was all sympathy and kindness. He knew Rufus Black had
come of a good family, and he suspected, from the scene he had just
witnessed, that he had experienced trouble through his marriage. He
picked up the mourning card Lally had laid down and read the address
aloud.

“‘Miss Wroat, Mount street, Grosvenor Square,’” repeated Rufus. “My
wife is governess in that family. Thanks, Benson. I will go to Mount
street.”

He went out with staggering steps, hailed a hansom cab, gave the order,
and was driven to the Wroat mansion in Mount street. The boy called
Buttons waited upon the door in Toppen’s absence. He was a shrewd lad,
and had received private instructions from Peters, who had just come in
with her young mistress.

“I want to see Miss Bird,” said Rufus abruptly, making a movement to
enter the hall.

The boy blocked his path.

“No such lady here, sir,” he replied.

“Mrs. Black perhaps?” suggested Rufus.

“No such lady,” persisted the boy.

Rufus offered him a bright coin, and said desperately:

“I want to see the governess--”

“No governess here, sir,” said Buttons, pocketing the coin. “No
children to teach, sir. There’s no lady in the house but the mistress,
Miss Wroat, and she don’t see no one, sir.”

Rufus stood amazed and bewildered.

“Can I not see Miss Wroat?” he asked. “I wish to inquire after a young
lady whom I supposed to be here--”

“Miss Wroat can’t be disturbed, sir, on no account,” said Buttons.
“She’s not well, and don’t receive to-day.”

“I will call to-morrow then,” said Rufus, with increasing desperation.
“I must see her.”

He descended the steps, and the door closed behind him.

“Benson must have picked up the wrong card,” thought Rufus. “Or Lally
might have given a wrong card. Why should she give her employer’s card,
unless indeed she was buying a picture for her employer? I’ll go back
and see Benson.”

He went back, but the picture dealer affirmed that Lally had given him
the card with Miss Wroat’s name upon it, and Rufus said to himself:

“I have it. Miss Wroat is the sour-looking, servant-like woman in
black, some _parvenue_ grown suddenly rich, and Lally is her companion.
This Miss Wroat knows Lally’s story and despises me. I’ll go back to
Mount street this evening, and see Miss Wroat. When I tell her the
whole truth she will pity me, and allow me to see Lally, I am sure. I
won’t care for poverty or toil if I can have back my poor little wife.
I will fly with her to some foreign country before my father comes
back. But what did Lally mean by my ‘marriage with an heiress?’ My
father must have told her of Neva. Why, I’d rather have my poor little
Lally than a thousand haughty Nevas, with a thousand Hawkhursts at
their backs.”

Early in the evening Rufus returned to Mount street, and Buttons again
answered his double knock.

“Family gone away, sir,” said the lad, recognizing the visitor.

“Where have they gone?” inquired Rufus in sudden despair.

Buttons declined to answer, and was about to close the door, when Rufus
placed his knee against it and cried out:

“Boy, I must see Miss Wroat, or her young companion. If they have gone
away, I must follow them. My business with them is imperative. Tell me
truthfully where they have gone, and I will give you this.”

He held up as he spoke a glittering half sovereign.

Buttons hesitated. Clearly he had had his instructions to betray to no
one the course his young mistress had taken, and just as clearly his
virtue wavered before the glittering bribe offered to him. He reasoned
within himself that no one need ever know that he had told, and here
was an opportunity to make ten shillings without work. He yielded to
the temptation.

“Miss Wroat and Mrs. Peters,” he began, with his eyes fixed on the
coin--“they--”

“Mrs. Peters? That is what the young companion calls herself? Go on.”

“Miss Wroat and Mrs. Peters,” repeated the boy, “they have gone to
Heather Hills to stay a month--that’s where they’ve gone. Now give me
my money.”

“In one moment. As soon as you tell me where is Heather Hills.”

“Scotland,” said the lad. “Inverness. I don’t know nothing more, only I
know the boxes and trunks were labelled Inverness, for I looked at ’em.
The money!”

Rufus paid it, and hurried away, proceeding to the Great Northern
Railway station. When he reached it, the night express had gone!




CHAPTER XIII. AN ACTIVE RESISTANCE.


Neva Wynde was not one to waste her strength in useless repining, nor
to give way to weakness and tears at a time when she needed all her
keenness of wit and vigor of body, in the contest begun by her enemies.
She was a brave, resolute young girl, and she did not lose her bravery
and resolution even after matters had been so singularly precipitated
to a crisis, and she knew her enemies as they were. She retired into
her own room, as we have said, and was locked in. As the bolt shot
home and Neva comprehended that she was an actual prisoner, her cheeks
flamed with her indignation at the indignity practised upon her, but
she did not weep or moan.

She quietly laid aside her fur jacket and hat and went to her window,
essaying to look out. The baying of the dogs in the yard below reached
her ears, and she went back to her fire, smiling bitterly.

“I see no way of escape,” she murmured. “The night is cold, and I might
die on the mountains in my wanderings, should I get out. I am in lonely
Scottish wilds, but I am in the hands of Providence, and I will fear no
evil. Surely Arthur will find me out. Craven Black may be keen-witted,
but Arthur is keener. He will find me.”

She stirred the logs on the hearth to a brighter blaze, and sat before
her fire, until long after she heard the French woman go to her bed
in the ante-room. At last she arose and barricaded the door with her
trunks, and undressed, said her prayers, and went to bed, but not to
sleep.

At the usual hour of the morning she arose and dressed herself, making
her own toilet. When she had completed it, the door opened and the
French woman entered her presence.

“What, dressed, Mademoiselle?” said Celeste. “I am come to dress
you, but of course I had to dress Madame and Mrs. Artress first.
Mademoiselle is no longer the first person to be considered and waited
upon, you see. Mademoiselle was first at Hawkhurst; she is last at the
Wilderness.”

“Leave the room, Celeste,” said Neva haughtily. “After your base
treachery to me last night, I must decline your attendance.”

“Madame the step-mamma is to be obeyed, not the refractory
Mademoiselle,” said the French woman insolently. “If Mademoiselle
is not satisfied, the remedy lies in Mademoiselle’s own hands. The
breakfast waits, and foreseeing that Mademoiselle would be ready for
it, Monsieur and Madam are already in the dining-room. I will show you
the way.”

Neva had not expected to be allowed to leave her room, and descended at
once to the dining-room, closely attended by Celeste, who gave her not
the slightest chance of escape. The Blacks and Mrs. Artress were in the
dining-room, and addressed Neva courteously; she responded coldly, and
took her seat at the table. Not a word was spoken on either side during
the progress of the meal, after which Celeste appeared to conduct Neva
back to her room, and the captive was again locked in.

During Neva’s brief absence her room had been put in order, and her
fire had been freshly made. She sat down with a book, but she could not
read. She took out her drawing materials, but she could not work. Her
thoughts were with her young lover, and she indulged in speculations as
to what he was doing at that moment, and when he would find her.

At noon, Celeste came in bearing a tray on which was a plate of bread
and a jug of water. She went out without speaking.

At night, Celeste appeared again with similar refreshments, and made
up the fire afresh, and went out without speaking. The prison fare
and prison treatment on the silent system was intended to subdue the
haughty young captive, whom her enemies expected to see a suppliant
for mercy in the course of a few hours. They did not know Neva Wynde.
Her proud lip curled, and her soul rebelled against the meanness and
wickedness of her oppressors, but she ate her dry bread composedly, and
drank the clear water as if it had been wine.

That night, after barricading her door, she went to bed and to sleep.

The next morning, when she was dressed and standing by her window,
looking out into the gloom of the firs and mountain pines that grew
near to the house, and shut out nearly all light and brightness from
her room, her door was unlocked, and Mrs. Craven Black swept into the
apartment.

Mrs. Black was attired in a Parisian morning robe of white cashmere
faced with ermine, and lined throughout with quilted cherry-colored
silk. A band of ermine confined her robe at the waist, and was fastened
with a jewel clasp. Her countenance was supercilious and domineering,
and her eyes gleamed with prospective triumph.

Neva did not turn from her window after the first glance at her
visitor, but continued to look out into the gloom, as if unconscious of
her visitor’s presence.

“Still rebellious, eh?” said Octavia, pausing near the door, and
regarding Neva with smiling insolence. “Are you not ready to become the
obedient step-daughter, Neva, and to comply with my commands?”

“I shall never be ready to comply with your commands, madam,” said Neva
haughtily.

“Never! Ah, that’s a word with a long meaning,” said Mrs. Black
superciliously. “I think you’ll change your mind after a little longer
imprisonment. How do you like your Lenten fare? Bread and water is
what they give to contumacious prisoners, and it is found effective in
subduing obstinate tempers. Don’t you think such meagre diet affects
your resolution, Neva?”

The young girl did not answer.

“Sulky? Yes, I see. You are but a child, Neva, rebelling against
rightful authority. Your father enjoined you to yield me a daughter’s
obedience. I have not been unreasonable, and you should respect my
superior knowledge of the world and my superior wisdom, and give way to
them. You are not yet prepared to do this?”

“As much now as I ever shall be,” said Neva, her eyes flashing. “Are
you really so foolish, Mrs. Black, that you believe you will force me
into perjuring myself? Do you really think me a child, whom you can
coerce or frighten into obedience to an unjust will? You are mistaken
in me. You will find me at the end of a year as firm in my refusal to
obey you in this same thing, as you find me now.”

Mrs. Black looked incredulous.

“My dear Neva,” she said caressingly, “I have just been down to the
dining-room, and have discovered that we are to have broiled birds on
toast, hot rolls and coffee, for breakfast, with the most delicious
Scotch marmalade made of Seville oranges. It’s a bitter cold morning,
just like January. I can feel the cold wind coming in through your
windows. Think of going down to the breakfast that is prepared for us
below. There is a cover laid for you. Come down with me, Neva, and
after breakfast we will go down to the sloop and start on our return
home. Is not the picture pleasant? Will you come?”

“I suppose there is a condition attached to partaking of this
breakfast,” said Neva. “You have not relented?”

“Ah, I hoped you had relented,” said Octavia Black, smiling. “Are you
sure I have not tempted you? You have only to speak one little word,
Yes, and you shall share our breakfast, and we will start for home
to-day.”

“You must have a high opinion of me,” said Neva bitterly. “I will not
sell my birthright, madam, for a mess of pottage. I prefer bread and
water to the end of my days, rather than to become a party in your vile
schemes, or to marry a man I do not love.”

“Then I will send your breakfast up to you,” said Mrs. Black. “I had
hoped that you would go down with us. But to-morrow morning may not
find you so obstinate.”

She retired, and Celeste brought up a tray with bread and water. The
French woman put the room in order and made up the fire anew, bringing
in a huge back-log herself, which she dragged along upon a reversed
chair. She went out without speaking.

The next day was like this one. Mrs. Black came in in the morning with
her proposals, and retired discomfited. Then Celeste brought bread and
water and put the room in order, and went out, to return at noon and
evening with more bread and water.

Still Neva did not yield. Her imprisonment was telling on her strength,
but her courage did not lessen. Her red-brown eyes glowed with courage
and resolution from out a pale face, and her lips wore a smile of
patience and cheerfulness which angered her enemies.

Upon the fourth morning Neva arose with a determination to make a bold
attempt at escape. She could not render her condition worse in any
event, and perhaps she might gain her freedom. While she was dressing
she formed a plan, upon the success of which she felt that her fate
depended.

“I begin to believe that Arthur will never find me here,” she thought.
“I must help myself.”

She dressed herself warmly, secured her pocket-book in her bosom and
her jewels on her person, and put on her fur jacket and round hat. Thus
equipped, she waited at her window with keen nervous anxiety, her ears
live to every sound, and her heart beating like a drum.

At the usual hour Mrs. Black came in alone, as she usually came.

There was no one in the ante-room, as Neva knew, Celeste being in
attendance upon Mrs. Artress, who grew more and more exacting of the
French woman’s services with each day.

Mrs. Black started as she beheld Neva in out-door costume, and halted
near the door, looking suspiciously at her captive.

“What! Dressed to go out?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, madam,” answered Neva wearily, yet with every nerve in her
slender frame quivering. “I am tired of this forced inaction. I long
for exercise, for the fresh air, and the songs of birds.”

“You know on what terms you can have these blessings,” said Octavia
Black, still suspiciously.

“Yes, madam, I know.”

Mrs. Black’s face brightened. In the girl’s dejected tone and drooping
attitude she believed that she read her own victory. She came toward
Neva, her hard black eyes shining, her cheeks burning redly, her lips
parted in an exultant smile.

“My dear child,” she cried, stretching out her hands. “I was sure the
close confinement and prison diet would bring you to a sense of your
duty. I have no reproaches to offer; I am too happy in the victory I
have won. You have now only to take a solemn oath to marry Rufus Black
on our return to Hawkhurst, and never to betray this affair at the
Wilderness, and we will set out in the yacht this very morning on our
return to Hawkhurst. You shall--”

Neva did not wait for the sentence to be finished.

With a furtive glance she had seen that the door was ajar, and that no
one was yet in the ante-chamber; and so, suddenly, with a dart like
that of a lapwing, she flew past Mrs. Black, sprang into the outer
room, and locked the door upon her utterly amazed and stupefied enemy.

Then she sped across the floor of the ante-room and peeped into the
hall.

The upper and lower halls and the stair-way were alike deserted. By
some strange fatality, or providence, not one of the household was
within sight.

Neva fled down the stair-way with the speed and lightness of an
antelope. The front door was ajar. She pulled it open and darted out
upon the lawn, and sped away amid the gloom of the trees. And as she
thus fled, the loud shrieks of Mrs. Black rang through the house,
rousing Mr. Black in the dining-room, Mrs. Artress and Celeste, and
even the women in the kitchen.

In seemed less than a minute to Neva, when she heard shouts and cries
at the house, the barking of dogs, and the sounds of pursuit.

Neva dared not venture down to the loch, nor dared she risk an appeal
to the sailors on board the yacht. Her safety lay in avoiding every one
in the vicinity of the Wilderness, and she turned up the wild mountain
side, with the idea of skirting the mountain and descending to the
valley upon the opposite side.

The low-growing mountain shrubbery screened her from view, but it also
impeded her flight. She bounded on and on, panting and breathless, but
a horrible pain in her side compelled her to slacken her speed, and
finally she proceeded onward at a walk. Her heart seemed bursting with
the thronging life-blood, her head and body were one great throbbing
pulse, and her feet grew heavy as if clogged with leaden weights.

Unable to proceed further without rest, she sat down upon a huge
boulder under a protecting cliff to rest. The gray morning scarcely
penetrated to the gloomy spot in which she had halted. The trees were
all around her, and the winds made wild moaning among their branches.
She could see nothing of the Wilderness, nor of any house. She was lost
in the pathless wild, in the chill gray morning, with a drizzling mist,
as she now for the first time noticed, falling all around her like a
heavy mourning vail.

“At any rate, I am free,” she thought, lifting her pale wild face to
the frowning sky in rapture. “Free! O God, I thank thee!”

And then, with that prayer of gratitude upon her lips, with her head
raised to ecstacy of joy, there was borne to her ears the barking of
dogs and the loud yells of men--the sounds of an active and terrible
pursuit! The enemy was close at hand!




CHAPTER XIV. NEVA STILL DEFIANT.


The sounds of active and hostile pursuit, growing every instant louder
as the pursuers neared Neva’s temporary halting-place, startled the
young fugitive into renewed flight. She started up like a wearied bird
from its nest, and fled onward through tangled shrubbery and over
outcropping boulders, tripping now and then over some loose rock,
which, at the touch of her light feet, went rumbling down the steep
mountain side with a crash that rang in her ears, frightening her to
yet greater speed. She sped through thickets of the dwarfed mountain
pines and firs, and over open and sterile patches of ground, where
there were no trees nor friendly rocks to screen her flying figure, and
the drizzling Scotch mist fell around her like a dusky vail, and the
skies were gloomy above her, and the air was keen with wintry chill.

And still was borne to her ears, sometimes louder, sometimes fainter,
the sounds of the barking of dogs and the shouts of men. These sounds
quickened Neva’s flagging steps, but she could not outrun her pursuers.
They were on her track, and sooner or later, unless she could out-wit
them, or hide from them, they must capture her.

Her wild eyes searched the mountain side as she hurried on. There was
no hole in the rocks into which she might creep, and lie concealed
until her enemies should have passed. The trees were too low and
scraggy to offer her shelter among their few and scanty foliaged
branches. Her way was difficult and tortuous, and with a sudden change
of purpose, Neva turned aside from her course of skirting the mountain,
and plunged downward toward the mountain’s base.

“I shall come down upon the side nearly opposite the loch,” she
thought. “At any rate, I have passed beyond the plateau.”

In the course of ten minutes more, she struck into a rude wagon track,
which Neva conjectured led from the Wilderness to some farm-house
or hamlet upon the opposite side of the mountain. She followed the
circuitous, steep, and slowly descending track, looking, as she ran,
like some wild spirit of the mist.

The sounds of pursuit faded out of hearing, and again she sat down to
rest, her limbs giving way beneath her. Her tongue was parched and
swollen, and the blood surged through her frame still with that one
gigantic throbbing, and her feet ached with an utter weariness, yet she
got up presently and staggered on, with fearing backward glances over
her shoulders, and her eyes staring wildly from out the wet whiteness
of her young face.

“I can’t keep on much longer,” she murmured aloud. “I feel very strange
and ill. Perhaps I shall die here, and alone. Oh, is there no help for
me?”

No answer came to that piteous cry save the wailing of the winds among
the pine boughs, and the dashing of the sleet-like rain in her face.
She moved more and more slowly. Her garments seemed strangely heavy to
her, and her feet grew more and more like leaden clogs weighing her
down to the earth.

A terrible despair seized upon her. With a wild prayer on her lips
and a faintness like that of death upon her, she leaned against a low
tree, clinging to it to prevent herself from falling. As her head sunk
forward wearily upon her breast, her closing eyes caught a glimpse
through the trees of an object at a little distance that lent to her
for the moment an unreal strength and vigor, and she gave a great cry
of joy, as hope surged back into her young fainting heart.

The object was only a small cabin built of cobblestones, a mere
shepherd’s hut perhaps, or, as was far more likely, it had been built
long ago for the occasional use of belated sportsmen who, during a
stay at the Wilderness, found themselves lost upon the mountain. It
had a strong roof and a capacious chimney, but it exhibited no sign of
habitation. Neva did not observe this fact, and pressed onward to the
door of the cabin, which she opened without preliminary knocking. There
was no one in the cabin.

Neva’s heart sank as she made this discovery. There was no one here to
whom she could appeal for protection. She hesitated whether to go or to
remain here, but her physical exhaustion decided the question. It was
absolutely necessary that she should rest, and she entered the humble
dwelling and closed the door.

The cabin contained but a single room with two closets attached, and
but a single window. This was provided with an inside shutter. There
was also a stout wooden bar and iron rests for its support, as a means
of securing the door. Neva barred the door and shuttered the window,
and then sank down in a confused heap upon the floor, listening with
sharpened hearing for some sound of pursuit.

But she heard none. Evidently her divergence from her first course had
thrown her enemies off her track. A wild joy and gratitude filled her
soul. But when its first flush was over, a chill like that of death
again seized upon her. Her teeth chattered, and strange rheumatic pains
shot through her frame. She shook too, as with an ague.

The room was bare of furniture, but the great blackened hearth, with
a few half burnt sticks upon it, testified that some person had lately
spent the night in the cabin. The door of one of the closets was open,
and Neva could see that there were fagots of wood stored within. She
arose feebly, and brought out an armful of wood, piling it on the
hearth. She stirred the ashes, in the hope of finding a living coal;
and finding none, went back to the closet. Here, to her great joy, she
found a tin box half filled with matches hanging against the wall.

In three minutes more she had a glorious fire on the hearth, crackling
and blazing and flaming cheerily, and the girl’s heart leaped up at the
sight of those dancing flames. She sank down upon the hearth, her hands
held out to the genial blaze, her pale wild face looking strangely
weird and lovely in the red glow, and the steam arising from her wet
garments like a thick mist.

A delicious sense of rest pervaded her frame, and the rheumatic pains
disappeared before the penetrating heat of the great fire. But a
terrible sense of weakness remained. Her prison fare of bread and
water, and her lack of exercise, during her dreary days of confinement
at the Wilderness, had told seriously upon her strength. She began to
fear that she could go no further, and a great hunger began to assail
her, seeming like a vulture tearing at her vitals.

Impelled by a vague hope that there might be food in the dwelling, she
went to the second small closet. It was filled with empty shelves. In
one corner an old torn basket had been carelessly thrown. Neva examined
the basket, and discovered in it a small black bottle, with a few
drops of Highland whiskey in it, but there was no food. She drank the
whiskey and crouched down again upon the hearth, weary and worn, and a
little later a merciful stupor enwrapped her senses--the stupor of a
death-like sleep, such as utter exhaustion sometimes produces.

It seemed to her that she had slept but a minute, but really she had
slept for hours, when she was awakened by a loud beating upon the cabin
door. She started up broad awake, and stood in an attitude of flight,
her head bent toward the door.

“I say she’s in here!” she heard a voice crying loudly--a voice which
she recognized with a thrill of terror as the voice of Craven Black.
“We’ve scoured the mountain on this side, and have not found her. She
must have taken refuge in this unused cabin. Miss Wynde! Miss Neva!”

Neva was still as death. She scarcely dared to breathe.

Again Craven Black beat furiously upon the door.

“Break in the door!” he shouted. “Here, one of you sailors, bring that
log of wood yonder, and we’ll see who has barred this door on the
inside. The log of wood! Quick!”

Neva stared around her with wild, frightened eyes. There was no outlet
from the cabin save through the door or window, and these were side by
side, and both commanded by her enemies.

With a terrible despair she crouched again on the hearth, her head
still bent toward the door.

“We’ll make a battering-ram of the log,” said Craven Black. “So! Now
the four of us will break the door in in a second. Guard the door, men,
while I go in. Keep out those sheep dogs. They act like wolves. Now!”

There was a combined assault upon the door. It trembled and creaked,
and one of the iron rests in the wall, unable to resist the pressure
brought to bear upon it, gave way, bursting from its socket. The wooden
bar dropped to the floor, and the door was burst open so violently and
so suddenly that Craven Black came flying into the room like some
projectile hurled from a mortar.

He gave a yell of triumph at sight of the slender, crouching figure on
the hearth.

“Here she is, boys,” he cried. “We’ve found her! Poor creature! She is
still in the delirium of the fever, as I told you. How wild she looks!”

The sailors stood without the door, half-careless, half-pitying. Craven
Black had told them that his wife’s step-daughter was ill, and had fled
from the Wilderness in the delirium of fever, and they saw nothing
in Neva’s appearance to contradict the statement. For the young girl
sprang to her feet and retreated from Craven Black with both hands
upraised, the palms turned outward, and her wild face full of horror
and loathing. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her cheeks and lips
were tinted with vivid carmine. Even Craven Black was alarmed at her
appearance, and was calmed into instant gentleness.

“My poor Neva!” he cried. “I am come to take you home--”

“I will not go!” cried the girl, her red-brown eyes flashing. “O God,
am I utterly forsaken and abandoned to my enemies?”

“You hear her?” exclaimed Black. “Poor thing! she needs her
step-mother’s tender care and nursing. We brought her up to the
Wilderness, hoping that the change would cure her propensity to these
paroxysms. Come, Neva. Your step-mother is very anxious about you, and
the whole household is alarmed.”

“Let me die here,” said Neva, her sweet young voice rising to a wail.
“Oh, men, have you no pity for me? Can you not see that Craven Black
is my enemy? Will you not protect me, and set me free? In the name of
Mercy--”

“Hear her!” said the sailor who had acted as captain of the yacht,
speaking in an audible whisper. “As mad as a March hare--and so young
too!”

Clearly there was no help to be expected from the sailors.

Neva retreated to the further corner, as a helpless mouse retreats to
a corner of the trap, and Craven Black followed her. There was a brief
struggle, and Neva was again a captive.

“We must take turns in carrying her home,” said Craven Black, pinioning
Neva’s arms to her sides. “It’ll be a tough job up the steep mountain
path, but we can do it.”

“It’s no great task,” said one of the seamen. “She can’t weigh much.
She’s fell away since she came to Scotland, and she can’t be heavier
nor a child of ten.”

Craven Black caught up the girl’s light figure, and bore her from the
cabin, the men following. He strode up the steep hill, holding Neva
fiercely to his breast, and now and then he looked down upon her still
white face with an expression singularly made up of love and hatred.

Yes, although he had married Lady Wynde from motives of interest, and
because, as he had said to himself, a half-loaf of bread was better
than none at all, his old love for Neva was not dead in his guilty
breast. It was a strange passion, growing hot and cool by turns, now
verging toward hatred, and now reviving to its olden strength. As he
gathered the girl in his arms, and went up the hill with her at long,
fierce strides, he said to himself that there was no crime at which he
would pause, no obstacle which he would not sweep from his path, if the
heiress of Hawkhurst would only promise to marry him on the attainment
of his freedom.

“Neva!” he whispered.

The young girl raised her eyes to his with such a look of loathing and
detestation that his love for her changed suddenly again to hatred.
He knew in that moment that the guilty scheme he had just conceived
was only a vain fancy, and that Neva could never be induced under any
circumstances to marry him.

“I’m tired, captain,” he said abruptly. “You can carry her.”

The captain took the helpless burden and went on, Black keeping at his
side.

In this manner, taking turns in carrying the young captive, the party
returned to the Wilderness.

The mist was still falling when they came upon the plateau, but
Mrs. Black stood out upon the lawn, her head bare, her morning robe
saturated with wet, and her face worn and haggard with anxiety. There
were great dark circles under her hard black eyes, and her mouth was
compressed, and there were deep lines about it that added ten years to
her apparent age. What she had suffered that day from fear of exposure
through her injured step-daughter, her face declared, but she had known
less of remorse than of apprehension and terror.

Behind Octavia, upon the porch, and comfortably wrapped in a
water-proof cloak, stood Mrs. Artress. Both had thus been watching
nearly all the day for the return of the pursuers, and it was now three
o’clock of the afternoon, and the dusk was rapidly falling.

“They’ve come! They’ve come!” cried Octavia Black hysterically. “They
are alone--No; they have got the girl! We are safe--safe!”

She came running to meet her husband, who was now in advance of his
men. Craven Black briefly informed his wife how and where he had found
Neva, and at the porch he took the captive in his own arms, dismissing
the three men to the yacht. He carried Neva to her own room, where
Celeste was busy at the moment, and he unloosed the cord confining the
girl’s arms, setting her free.

There was a wood fire blazing on the hearth. Neva, paying no heed to
her enemies, crouched down before it.

“Leave her to herself,” said Craven Black. “Celeste, you may remain to
dress your young lady--”

“I will dress myself,” interposed Neva, in a low, weary voice. “I want
to be alone.”

“Celeste had better dress Octavia,” exclaimed Mrs. Artress abruptly.
“Octavia has acted like some cowardly, frightened child all day,
Craven. She has stood on the lawn bare headed, in the mist, until she
is wet to the skin, and has a fearful cold. She is nearly ill.”

“I will have hot drinks prepared immediately,” said Craven Black.
“Octavia, you must take a hot bath. Celeste, bring a hot bath to Miss
Wynde.”

He led the way from the room, the others following. Celeste locked
Neva’s door, putting the key in her pocket. Octavia went to her own
room, coughing dismally.

“Do you hear that?” demanded Mrs. Artress, stopping Craven Black in
the hall. “Exercise has prevented any serious harm to Miss Wynde from
to-day’s exposure; but Octavia has taken a fearful cold. You’d better
nurse her carefully. In your desire to get ten thousand a year more,
don’t throw away the four thousand you already have. Remember, if
Octavia should die, you and I would be beggars!”

“What an infernal croaker you are!” said Black angrily. “It isn’t
necessary to twit me with my poverty. As to Octavia, if she’s foolish
enough to stand out in a chilling mist out of sheer cowardice, let
her cure herself. I am cold and hungry, and I intend to take care of
myself.”

He proceeded to do so, ministering to his own wants with assiduity.

The French woman brought in a hot bath to Neva, and a bowl of steaming
hot whisky punch, then hastening away to attend upon her mistress. Neva
took her bath, changed her wet garments for dry ones, drank her punch,
and went to bed. A free perspiration was induced, and the fever that
had threatened her subsided, her pulse beat evenly, and her brain grew
cool. She went to sleep, and did not awaken until late in the evening.

When she opened her eyes, Mrs. Artress was standing at her bedside,
feeling her pulse.

“How do you feel?” demanded the woman, her ashen eyes surveying the
girl insolently.

“I am quite well--only tired.”

“Only tired!” echoed Mrs. Artress. “Only tired--after all the trouble
you’ve made us to-day? Octavia is downright ill. You won’t get another
opportunity to repeat your proceeding of this morning, my fine young
lady. Celeste is with me, and hereafter we two shall call upon you
together. Octavia was foolish to come in here alone, but she did not
know you so well this morning as she does now. We have brought you up a
hot supper, by Craven’s orders, but in the morning you go back to the
bread and water diet, if you choose to remain obstinate.”

Celeste was standing at the foot of the bed, and now wheeled forward a
small table, on which were lighted candles and a large tray of food.
This done, Mrs. Artress and the French woman went out together, locking
the door behind them.

Neva sat up in bed, leaning against her pillows, and looked hungrily at
the tray. There was a pot of steaming coffee, a plate of buttered hot
scones, a dish filled with daintily broiled birds on toast, a dish of
baked fish, and a basket filled with oranges, apples and grapes. Neva
thought she had never beheld a meal so tempting in her life, and surely
she had never been so famished. Craven Black had feared the result of
her day’s exposure on the bleak mountain to the chilling mist, upon her
weakened frame, and had sent her strengthening food more from policy
than pity. It was not to his interest that she should die.

Neva ate her dinner, or supper, as it might more properly be termed,
and concealed the remnants of fowl in her trunk. It was well she did
so, for the next morning Celeste brought to her only a meagre supply of
bread and water. The remains of the wild fowls and of the whisky punch,
however, were produced by the young girl when alone, and gave her the
sustenance she needed.

Her limbs were somewhat stiff upon the day after her adventure on the
mountain, but this stiffness wore off gradually, leaving her as well as
ever.

Her diet continued meagre in the extreme, no change being afforded her
from bread and water. Mrs. Artress and Celeste came to her once a day
with food, Craven Black remaining in the ante-room during their visit,
as a guard against another possible attempt at escape on the part of
the young captive.

A week passed in this manner, before Octavia Black came again to
Neva’s room. But what a change in her that week had wrought! She had
grown thin, and her features were worn to sharpness. A red flush
burned fitfully on her cheeks, and her hard black eyes were strangely
glittering. She had lost many of the graces that had distinguished her,
and looked what she was--a bold, unscrupulous, unprincipled woman. Neva
could not particularize in what her charm of person and manner had
lain, but those charms were now gone. She looked ten years older than
her age, and coughed like a consumptive.

“What have you to say to-day, Neva?” asked Octavia, in a hoarse voice.

“Nothing,” said Neva calmly.

“You have put us to a terrible trouble; you have given me a horrible
cold and cough; and yet you sit here as obstinate as if you were a
princess and we were your subjects. Will nothing subdue your proud
spirit? Will nothing bend your haughty will? Do you like bread and
water and close confinement so well that you prefer them to a marriage
with a handsome young man who adores you?”

“I prefer them to perjuring myself, madam,” said Neva bravely. “I
prefer a brief imprisonment to a lifetime of sorrow and repining.”

“A brief imprisonment!” repeated Octavia. “It won’t be so brief as you
think. We are going to remain here all winter, if necessary to subdue
you. We have entered on a path from which there is no turning back. The
winters, I am told, are fearful in these wild Highlands. We shall soon
be shut in with snows and awful winds. Your lover can never trace you
here, and if he could he would not be able to reach the Wilderness in
the dead of winter. We shall have a dismal winter--you especially. What
do you say, Neva?” and her tone grew anxious. “Will you yield?”

“Never!” said Neva quietly. “I am no child to be frightened by cold,
and I am not so fond of the pleasures of the table as to sell my soul
for them. I will live here till I die of old age before I will yield!”

Octavia Black’s face darkened with an awful shadow. She dreaded the
terrible Highland winter; and a strange terror, for which she could
not account, held possession of her soul night and day. But, as she
had said, she had entered on a path from which there was no turning
back. Neva _must_ yield, sooner or later, she said to herself, even if
compelled to yield through physical weakness.

“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Black, arising. “We will make preparations
to spend the winter here. Craven will go to Inverness in the yacht one
day this week, and purchase stores for our use during the cold season.
We need blankets, and food of every description. If you should decide
to go to Inverness with him, as the promised bride of Rufus Black, you
have only to let me know before he sails.”

She went out and locked the door, giving the key to Celeste, who waited
in the outer room.




CHAPTER XV. MORE TROUBLE IN THE HIGHLANDS.


Upon the afternoon of the same day on which occurred the interview
between Octavia Black and young Neva Wynde, as detailed at the
conclusion of the preceding chapter, Lally Bird, attended by Mrs.
Peters, arrived at Inverness, having come up from London by easy stages.

It was a week after Neva’s wild flight among the mountains of
Ross-shire, but a fine, thick rain, like that through which Neva had so
fruitlessly wandered, was falling like a dusky pall. The sky was dark
and frowning, the air was chill and heavy, and the streets were dismal
with the rain.

There was no carriage in waiting to convey the travelers to their
destination, and they entered a cab and were conveyed to the Caledonian
Hotel, where they passed the night.

The next morning, the mist was still falling thickly, in a dreary,
drizzling, listless fashion, as if it never intended to leave off.
Lally looked out of her sitting-room window, into the gloomy streets,
and said:

“I fear it was a foolish idea to come to Scotland, and so far north
too, at this season. And yet I wanted to come.”

“It was the best thing we could do,” said Mrs. Peters. “You were just
pining to death in that great London house, Miss Lally.”

“But if we had remained there, I might have seen Rufus again, perhaps,”
said the girl regretfully. “How shocked he seemed to be at beholding
me! He stared at me as at a ghost. I suppose he has long ago ceased
to love me. He loves another now. And yet, Mrs. Peters, for the sake
of the dear old days when I was all the world to him, he might have
followed me to the carriage--he might have traced us home.”

“I told him that you were a poor governess, Miss,” said Peters, who had
not informed her young mistress of Rufus Black’s visit to Mount street,
having conceived a cordial dislike to Lally’s young husband. “P’raps
the young gentleman had to go back to his heiress that he is engaged to
marry? Surely, Miss Lally, you wouldn’t take him back, and he engaged
to another lady?”

Lally’s brown cheek flushed, and a sudden light leaped to her black
eyes.

“Don’t ask me, Peters,” she said softly. “He was not so much to blame
as you think. His father forced him to give me up. He’s only a boy,
Peters, and this is his birthday. He is twenty-one to-day. How he used
to talk of his birthday; quite as if he were a lord, and expected to
come into a property upon this day. He was weak and cowardly, but you
could see how he had suffered, Peters. He will marry this beautiful and
grand young lady, a baronet’s daughter, and he’ll go to court, and his
bride will worship him; while I--”

She paused, sighing heavily.

“While you marry some great man, and go to court also, Miss Lally,”
said Peters.

The girl shook her head sorrowfully.

“He wrote that I am not his wife,” she said, “but if I am not his wife,
I shall never be the wife of any one else. I thought I was truly his
wife, Peters, and I loved him as such, and a woman cannot unlove where
she has loved with her whole soul. I shall consider myself in my own
heart as the wife of Rufus so long as I live. His grand young bride
cannot love him as I love him--my poor wronged boy! He would have been
true to me always if his father had let him alone.”

Before Mrs. Peters could reply there was a knock on the door, and
Toppen, Lally’s London footman, entered, his hat in his hand.

“The Heather Hills carriage waits, Miss Wroat,” he announced
respectfully. “The horses have been baited, and are fresh for the
journey. We left the Hills yesterday, but broke down on the way, and
did not get into Inverness until the evening, when we came to this
hotel and found your name registered, and that you had retired for the
night. The carriage has been put in repair, and we can leave at any
hour it may please you.”

“We will go now,” said Lally. “Have the luggage taken down, Toppen. We
will follow.”

She rung for the hotel bill, and paid it. The luggage was carried down,
and Lally put on her wrappings and bonnet and vail. Mrs. Peters also
hastily attired herself, and they descended to the waiting vehicle.

The Heather Hills carriage proved to be an old-fashioned, cumbrous
coach, painted green, and with wheels heavy enough for a luggage cart.
It had a stout roof, upon which the luggage was piled. Lally was
assisted into the coach, Mrs. Peters entered after her, the windows
were drawn up nearly to the top, the footman mounted beside the
coachman, who cracked his whip, and away the equipage went, to the
edification of several small boys and hotel waiters.

There were plenty of lap blankets and traveling rugs, and Lally rolled
herself snugly in a corner, and rubbing a spot on the window glass,
tried to look out into the streets as they passed. Mrs. Peters also
rolled herself up comfortably, and was silent.

The estate of Heather Hills was situated on the coast, between Fort
George and Nairn--much nearer to Nairn in fact, than to Inverness--but
the drive was pleasant in good weather, and the late Mrs. Wroat had
always proceeded by carriage from Inverness, a good and sufficient
reason why her successor should do so.

The house at Heather Hills was old and picturesque, with a lofty tower
that commanded a fine view of Moray Frith. It was of mixed styles of
architecture, and was home-like, while it was imposing. The estate took
its name from a low range of hills covered with heather, which formed
a portion of its boundaries; but these hills were at a considerable
distance from the house, which stood upon a tall and naked bluff,
overlooking the Frith.

In summer the house was fanned with the salt sea-breezes, making it a
delightful retreat. Seen, however, through a Scotch mist upon a day in
late October, under a frowning sky, and with the dreariness of coming
winter already apparent in the grounds, it was not so delightful. It
looked cold, wind-swept, and deserted, to Lally, as she lowered her
window and took a survey of her domain.

Around the house was a wide and fine lawn dotted with trees. There were
flower-gardens, and the usual appanages to a fine country seat; but
Lally’s regards were fixed upon the mansion, which, wrapped in gray
mist, seemed to its new owner one of the grandest as well as one of the
loveliest houses she had ever seen.

The carriage passed up the long winding drive and halted in the
wide porch. Toppen sprang nimbly down from the box, threw off his
Mackintosh, and opened the coach door, assisting its occupants to
alight.

Then he flung open the house door and led the way up the steps into the
great hall, while the carriage went around to the stables.

In the wide hall the steward and his wife were waiting, to welcome the
new owner of Heather Hills.

The former was a hale, sandy-haired Scotsman, with a plain honest face.
The latter was a broad-faced motherly Scots-woman, who fell in love
with the young mistress of the house at first sight.

“Miss Wroat,” said Peters, “these are Mr. and Mrs. Lang, the steward
and his wife.”

Lally acknowledged the introduction with a gentle courtesy that won the
Scotsman’s heart.

“The house is all in order, Miss,” he said respectfully. “There’s a
cook and house-maid from Inverness, and new furniture has been put in
your own room, Miss, and your sitting room has been newly furnished, as
Mrs. Peters ordered. If the house is not to your liking, anything can
be changed as you wish.”

“I will show you up to your room, Miss,” said Mrs. Lang, noticing
Lally’s pallor, and evident weariness. “Dinner will be on the table in
an hour.”

Lally and Peters followed the steward’s wife to the upper hall, and
to a large octagon chamber, newly fitted up with a crimson carpet,
crimson-covered chairs, and a cottage piano. A wood fire burned on the
hearth, and an easy-chair in a white slip cover was drawn up before it.

“How cozy and pleasant!” exclaimed Lally. “All is warmth and brightness
in here, but I can look from my windows upon the wild sea, white with
fury. See the sails! I shall never tire of this charming room and
charming prospect.”

“Your bed-room adjoins this room, Miss Wroat,” said Mrs. Lang, well
pleased with Lally’s praise. “Mrs. Peters’ room is next beyond, and
opens into yours.”

“Do you live in the house, Mrs. Lang?” asked Lally.

“No, Miss. We live at the cottage half a mile back, which you passed
just before turning into the grounds. We have lived there twenty years.
No other spot in the world seems so like home to us. If we had to leave
it now,” and Mrs. Lang’s voice trembled, “I think my old man would just
fret himself to death.”

“You won’t have to leave it,” said Lally cheerfully. “I do not intend
that my aunt’s old friends or faithful servants shall suffer through
me. I desire Mr. Lang to continue his stewardship so long as he lives
and I live. I do not know anything about the revenue or this little
estate; Mr. Harris forgot to mention it perhaps; but I am sure it
cannot be in better hands than those in which my aunt placed it.”

Mrs. Lang looked relieved and gratified.

“The estate has yielded some three hundred a year to Mrs. Wroat, after
all salaries were paid,” she explained. “It is not as profitable as
most places of its size, but it has served as a grand country seat in
its day, and the grounds are very extensive and beautiful. The house
and outbuildings are in perfect repair; there is a pair of carriage
horses, besides the work animals; and there are a fine lot of sheep and
cattle of the best breeds, and they can be made a source of greater
revenue if you are willing to go to some outlay for stock.”

“We will see to all that,” said Lally beginning to feel an interest in
her new possession. “I would like to talk with Mr. Lang about it some
day when he has leisure. I wish you and Mr. Lang would remain to dinner
with us.”

The steward’s wife accepted the invitation with delight, and went down
to acquaint her husband with his prospects for the future.

Lally made her toilet, with Mrs. Peters’ assistance.

“I can see my future,” said Lally, with the first gleam of brightness
Mrs. Peters had seen in her black eyes and on her gypsy face since
Mrs. Wroat’s death. “I dare say I shall in time go to town and the
house in Mount street for three months in the year; and I shall live
here at Heather Hills, and raise prize pigs and prize sheep and prize
Highland cattle, and look out of the windows at the sails; and so the
years will pass and I shall grow gray. And, oh, I’ll get up a charity
school of some sort and teach it myself; and the children, instead
of being disfigured with baglike blouses and horrid starched caps,
shall all wear the prettiest pink and blue dresses, according to their
complexions, and the prettiest white ruffled aprons; and when I die
they shall stand in two rows around my grave, and may be somebody will
say that I was ‘a mother in Israel.’”

It was not a very bright picture of the future of one so young and
pretty as Lally, with fortune and all good gifts. She seemed intended
for a home fairy, to cheer and uphold and strengthen a kindly, loving
husband; to gather little children of her own to her breast; and good
Mrs. Peters could not help praying that such might be Lally’s destiny.

When the young mistress of Heather Hills had changed her black
bombazine traveling dress for a black lustreless silk trimmed heavily
with crape, and provided with white crape ruffles at the throat, and
had put on her jet jewelry, she was ready for dinner. Her black hair
had been gathered into braids, and was ornamented with a black bow,
and she looked as she was, gentle, refined, intelligent, weighted with
sorrow too heavy for her to bear, yet meek and patient as some young
martyr.

“We will go down now to our guests, Peters,” she said. “How soon will
you be ready?”

Mrs. Peters’ face flushed.

“Miss Lally,” she said hesitatingly, “it is not suitable I should dine
with you. I am only your maid, you know. Mrs. Wroat had me always dine
with her, because otherwise she must have dined alone, and she liked
company. Mr. Lang is the younger son of a Scottish laird, and he might
be affronted to dine with me.”

“But I insist,” said Lally.

“No, no, Miss Lally. When you are alone, I’ll dine with you for
company,” said Mrs. Peters stoutly, “but I assure you I would rather
eat by myself when there’s company. I won’t have any one say that my
young mistress doesn’t know what is suitable to her station. If I
could, I’d set you up on a pedestal above everybody else; indeed I
would, Miss Lally. I would like to be housekeeper here, and manage the
servants, but I can’t dine with you when there’s company.”

“You shall do as you please, Peters,” said Lally. “You are my friend
as well as my maid--my only friend, Peters. If you don’t like to dine
with company, you shall dine where you please. There, give me a kiss
Peters, and I’ll go down.”

Peters gave the desired kiss, with many additional ones, and wiped her
eyes as Lally went out, and muttered:

“She is just the bonniest, sweetest young lady that ever lived. If that
young gentleman comes up here to see her, he’ll go away with a flea in
his ear--see if he don’t.”

Lally went down to her guests and talked with them until the dinner
bell rung. Mr. Lang offered her his arm with quite the air of a man of
fashion, giving his wife his other arm, and the three went in to dinner.

The dining-room was long and low, with two great wood fires on
capacious hearths, and a seven-windowed oriel overhanging the sea. It
was bright with ruddy colors and fine china and gleaming silver, and
the dinner upon the oval table was in keeping with the room. It was a
feast fit for a princess, and had been ordered by Mrs. Lang, with a
view to presenting to the heiress of Heather Hills as many varieties of
birds and game and fish off her estate as could be obtained.

After dinner, Lally had a long business conversation with Mr. Lang,
and repeated the promise she had already given the steward’s wife. She
appointed another interview with the steward for the following day, and
about dusk the visitors took their leave.

Lally spent the evening playing upon her piano, in singing, and in
thought.

The next morning she walked over to the steward’s cottage, and made a
brief visit. The day was dark and gloomy, but it did not rain. In the
afternoon the steward came up to the great house to see Lally, and he
remained until nearly dinner. At five o’clock, Lally and Mrs. Peters
dined together in the dining-room overlooking the sea, a dozen candles
lighted and sending their bright gleams out over the troubled waters.

“You look better to-night, Miss Lally,” said her faithful attendant.
“You will find new interests up in this region, and will find that you
have something to live for yet.”

Lally smiled sadly but did not answer.

They still lingered in the dining-room, Lally standing in the great
oriel window and looking out upon the sea, which was being furiously
beaten by the winds, when Mrs. Peters heard a carriage come up the
drive and halt in the carriage porch.

The good woman’s face turned pale. She glanced at her young mistress,
but Lally heard no sound save the tumult of the winds and the waves.

“It’s a wild night,” said the young girl. “I don’t see a sail in the
Frith. The boats have all made for harbor.”

At that moment a double knock was heard upon the front door, and Mrs.
Peters heard the housekeeper going to the door.

But Lally’s face was pressed against the cold glass, and she did not
hear the summons for admittance.

“The wind is rising,” the girl said, with a shudder. “I see a steamer
coming in. She’ll make port just in time. I would not like to be on the
sea to-night.”

Mrs. Peters heard the front door open.

With a nervous glance at her young mistress, she stole out into the
hall.

The front door was open, and a gust of wind was sweeping through the
hall like a hurricane. Upon the threshold a man wearing a greatcoat and
broad-brimmed artist’s hat, a man with a slender figure and eager face,
was standing, talking with the house-maid.

Mrs. Peters recognized the unwelcome guest as Rufus Black.

“I want to see Mrs. Peters,” he was saying earnestly--“Miss Wroat’s
companion. I have come up expressly from London to see her. I cannot go
back to Inverness without seeing Mrs. Peters. She is my wife!”

“Lawks, sir!” said the housemaid, with a wild idea that her visitor was
a lunatic.

The reader, who knows how naturally Rufus Black’s mistake had arisen,
will not wonder at it.

“I must see her,” persisted Rufus, his voice trembling. “Tell Mrs.
Peters a gentleman wishes to see her--”

At that moment Mrs. Peters, grim and terrible, resolving to protect
her young mistress from one she deemed unworthy of her, marched out
into the full glare of the hall lamp, and placing her arms akimbo, and
assuming her most warlike aspect, exclaimed:

“Well, sir! and what may you want of me, sir? _I_ am Mrs. Peters!”




CHAPTER XVI. THE DESPAIR OF RUFUS AND LALLY.


At the grim and warlike announcement of Mrs. Peters’ identity,
delivered in Mrs. Peters’ grimmest and most warlike manner, Rufus Black
recoiled involuntarily, his face expressing his utter amazement.

He had felt confident that this angular and sour-visaged woman was
Miss Wroat, and that his deserted young wife was in the woman’s
employ, under the assumed name of Mrs. Peters. In his astonishment and
disappointment, he stood pale and speechless.

“You may go down, Mary,” said Mrs. Peters to the housemaid. “The
gentleman came to see me, you hear.”

The housemaid, being in awe of Mrs. Peters, precipitately retired to
the servants’ hall.

“And now, sir,” said Mrs. Peters, in such a voice as she might have
employed in uttering a challenge, “what may you want with me?”

Rufus Black struggled to regain his self-control.

“There is some mistake,” he gasped. “I--I remember you. I saw you in
the Regent street picture-shop the other day, with--with a young lady.
I thought she called herself Mrs. Peters. I am come to see her.”

“Come in,” said Mrs. Peters, who was in inward terror of Lally’s
appearance upon the scene, and who had made up her mind to prevent an
interview between the young pair at all costs. “Come in, sir, and I’ll
hear what you have to say.”

She conducted him to the library, which was across the hall from the
drawing-rooms. It was lighted by a pendant chandelier, in which were
a dozen wax candles which burned with mellow light. A great circular
bay-window took up one side of the apartment, the opposite side
containing a great fire-place, in which logs were burning. The angles
on either side the chimney were fitted with tall book-cases, and one
end of the room was also lined with rows of shelves well filled with
books, and protected by plate-glass doors. At the opposite end of the
room was a glazed garden door, opening upon the grassy terrace.

This room already bid fair to become a favorite resort of Lally. She
had ordered it to be warmed and lighted at the same time with the
drawing-room, and was likely to visit it during the evening. Mrs.
Peters locked the door, therefore, as she motioned Rufus to a seat. He
declined the civility, however, and remained standing, his hat in his
hand.

“I remember you very well now,” said Mrs. Peters, pretending to search
her memory, “now that you have mentioned the picture-shop. You are the
young gentleman who annoyed the young lady with me? Yes, I remember
you. What are you doing here? Why have you followed us to Scotland? Why
have you come to Heather Hills?”

“I am come, madam,” cried Rufus, white and agitated, “to see the
young lady who was in your company at Benson’s the other day. It is
imperative that I should see her.”

“I think not,” said Mrs. Peters gravely. “In the first place, how can
you be sure that the young lady is in this house?”

“I have traced her and you all the way from London,” cried Rufus. “I
saw the card you gave to Benson, with the name upon it of ‘Miss Wroat,
Mount street,’ with the number. I went to Mount street twice, and the
second time discovered that you had left town. I hurried to the station
of the great Northern, and found that the express had gone. And then--”

“And then?”

“I went to my hotel. I had not money enough for such a trip as this,”
said Rufus frankly, “and so I could not come on the morning train. I
had to sell my watch, a recent present from my father, and as I had
then all day on my hands before I could start for the north, I went
to Mount street again. In one of the streets near, I inquired at a
shop about Miss Wroat, and there learned that she was an eccentric old
lady--excuse me, madam, but I received a very accurate description of
_you_. And so I knew that you were Miss Wroat, and that Lally is Mrs.
Peters. I took the night train for Edinburgh, twenty-four hours later
than yourself. I reached Inverness this afternoon, and discovered the
names of Miss Wroat and Mrs. Peters registered at the Caledonian. A
servant of the house told me that you were at Heather Hills, and a
cabman brought me here. I know that Lally is in this house, madam, and
I must see her!”

Mrs. Peters smiled grimly as a full comprehension of Rufus Black’s
mistake dawned upon her. She understood readily that the shopman whom
Rufus had interrogated had not known of Mrs. Wroat’s death, and had
confounded the names of Mrs. Wroat and Miss Wroat, and that Rufus very
naturally thought her the “eccentric old lady” of whom he had heard.

“And so you don’t believe that I am Mrs. Peters?” she asked.

“No, madam,” said Rufus bluntly. “I have traced an elderly
lady--yourself--and a young girl--Lally--all the way from London, and
under the names of Miss Wroat and Mrs. Peters. You are not Mrs. Peters,
and I demand to see her.”

“You can not see her,” said Mrs. Peters stoutly. “I have heard the
young lady’s story, and I shall protect her from the persecutions of a
man who deserted her in the most cowardly fashion, and who, believing
her to be dead, never made one movement to save her supposed remains
from interment in a pauper’s grave. You have no claim upon Miss Bird,
Mr. Rufus Black; you have yourself declared that she is not your wife.”

“Lally has told you all?” cried Rufus, in a low, heart-broken voice.
“Not all though, for even she does not know all--the sleepless nights
I’ve passed, the days of anguish! I’ve hated myself, and despised
myself. I have been on the point again and again of committing suicide.
Her poor young face, as I fancied it, mutilated and dead, has haunted
me sleeping and waking. God alone knows my anguish, my remorse! If
Lally only knew all!”

“She knows more than you think,” said Mrs. Peters significantly.

“How? What? I do not understand.”

“Miss Bird has a shelter under this roof now, and while I live she
shall never want a friend,” said Mrs. Peters, purposely confirming
Rufus Black’s impression that Lally was a dependent, “but she has
known such extremes of poverty as would make you shudder. She left her
lodgings in New Brompton, turned out by an insolent landlady, having
only the clothes she stood in. She went out upon Waterloo Bridge in her
despair, to commit suicide. An unfortunate girl did commit suicide,
springing from Lally’s very side and Lally’s handkerchief fluttering
after the poor lost creature fixed upon her Lally’s identity. Lally
fled from the terrible scene, and that night she slept upon Hampstead
Heath, under the open sky, with tramps and thieves all around her in
the darkness, and she knowing it not--homeless, houseless, penniless--”

“O Heaven!” cried Rufus Black, in an uncontrollable agitation.

“You think it terrible for a girl so young and beautiful? Listen.
Worse was to come. She went to a poor old seamstress she had known
when teaching music in a school. This seamstress gave her shelter and
protection, but she was dying of consumption, and Lally had soon to
work for her and nurse her, and after a little to bury her. When the
poor woman died, Lally was once more homeless, and without work. She
was nearly starved, and her one great desire was to look upon your face
again, herself unseen. And so she wandered down into Kent--”

“Into Kent? Oh, my poor girl!”

“She was ragged and tattered, hungry and forlorn. She worked in the
hop-gardens for food and shelter. She saw you--”

Rufus uttered a cry of incredulity.

“She did not see me!” he ejaculated. “I should have known her in any
guise. I should have felt her nearness, had she been on the opposite
side of the street.”

Mrs. Peters’ lip curled.

“You think so?” she said dryly. “Let me tell you that your wronged
and deserted young wife was nearer to you than that, and yet you did
not know it. Do you remember a certain September evening when you sat
beside the heiress of Hawkhurst upon a way-side bank, in the shadow
of Hawkhurst park? Do you remember your passionate vows of love to
Miss Wynde? Do you remember telling Miss Wynde that your very life
here and beyond depended upon her answer to your suit? Well, there was
one listening to those passionate vows whom you thought dead. In the
thicket, almost within an arm’s length of you, a poor worn-out, ragged
tramp was lying for a brief rest--a hungry, houseless, tattered tramp,
Mr. Black--and that tramp was your disowned young wife!”

“O my God! Impossible!”

“You passed on with your beautiful new love in all her pride and her
beauty, and the old love rose up from her thorny bed and crept after
you like a shadow, and when you stood in the light upon the Hawkhurst
terrace, with the hand of your new love pressed to your lips, the old
love stood outside the great gates a long way off, and with her face
against the bars looked in upon you both, as a lost soul might look in
upon Paradise.”

“Oh, Lally, Lally!” cried Rufus, in a wild anguish, utterly losing his
self-control. “Lally! Was she there? My poor, poor darling!”

“When you turned to come back down the avenue, she fled moaning. She
had seen you, and it seemed as if she must die. But she was young and
strong, and life clung to her, although her heart was breaking. She
wandered on for hours, and finally lay down under a wayside hedge. The
next day she worked in hop-gardens, and the next night she slept in a
barn with the hop-pickers, many of whom are tramps and thieves out of
London for a holiday. She earned a little money, and went to Canterbury
and advertised for a situation, which she obtained--”

“As your companion, madam? May God in heaven bless you for your
goodness to my poor forsaken girl! And she lived and suffered while I
mourned her as dead. Oh, madam, I can explain all that seems so strange
to you and her. I never loved Miss Wynde as I loved Lally. I believed
Lally dead, and that I was her murderer. I was consumed with remorse
and anguish. I was desperate, and going to the bad, and I prayed Miss
Wynde to save me. But I loved only Lally. I pray you to let me see her.
She will believe me--”

“That is the very reason I shall not permit you to see her. She is
getting to take an interest in life, and I will not have her growing
peace disturbed. You are engaged to this heiress--”

“O no, I am not. And if I were I would not marry her now that I know
that Lally lives. My father threatened me with arrest and imprisonment
if I did not give Lally up. He assured me that the marriage was null
and void, and that he would provide for my poor girl. I’m a coward,
Miss Wroat, a poor, pitiful coward, and I have had all my life long
a deadly fear of my father. You cannot understand that fear; perhaps
no one can; but I shall fling off that awe and terror of him, and be
henceforth my own master. I was one-and-twenty yesterday, madam, and
I am now accountable alone to God and to the laws of my country. I
love Lally, and Lally alone, in all the world. I am going to try to
be worthy of her. She is poor, and I am poor; but if she will take me
back again,” said Rufus, humbly, “we will begin life anew, and I will
try to be a better man. I will work for her, and I’ll try to be a great
painter, so that she may be proud of me. And if I can’t be that, I’ll
be anything that is honest and manly to earn our support. I know you
have a poor opinion of me, madam, and I know I deserve it. I don’t
amount to much from any point of view, but if you would intercede for
me with Lally, and beg her to try me again and marry me, I will bless
you always as my benefactress and savior.”

The young man’s humility and anguished pleading touched the heart of
Mrs. Peters, but she steeled herself against him, and said:

“Mr. Black, I am sorry for you. I believe that you mean what you say
now, but if you were once to get under your father’s influence again,
Miss Lally would be as unhappy as ever. I advise you to go back to Miss
Wynde, and leave Lally here. In time she may marry an honorable and
upright gentleman, with whom she will be far happier than she could be
with you.”

A quick flush of jealousy overspread the youth’s face. His eyes glared
at Mrs. Peters with a hunted expression.

“She won’t marry again until I die, or the law has freed her from me,”
he exclaimed. “I would never have proposed marriage to Miss Wynde,
had I not supposed Lally to be dead. She is my wife, madam, and I’ll
declare her to be such until she herself forbids me to do so. If she
marries any other man I’ll kill him!”

The young man’s jealous fury was succeeded by an instant and terrible
despair.

“Forgive me,” he said humbly. “What am I, to talk of controlling
Lally’s movements? I have forfeited all claim upon her and upon
her forgiveness. If she refuses to take me back, I can only go to
perdition. If she will stretch out her hand to save me, I will be her
slave. Will you not take a brief message to her from me, madam--only a
few words?”

Mrs. Peters fancied she heard a light step in the hall. She listened,
but convinced of her mistake, said nervously and hastily:

“I cannot convey your message, sir. I entreat you to leave Miss Bird in
peace. I repeat that you cannot see her under this roof.”

“How summarily you dispose of the happiness and the very destiny of a
fellow-being!” said Rufus despairingly and reproachfully. “I would see
her in your presence--”

“You cannot. You have prolonged this interview beyond bounds, sir. Take
my advice and go back to Miss Wynde. I must bid you a good-evening, Mr.
Black. You can go out at this garden door, if you please.”

Mrs. Peters threw open the garden door, and a gust of chill wind swept
in, nearly extinguishing the lights. Rufus hesitated, but the door
remained open, and Mrs. Peters looked so grim and stern that he obeyed
her without a murmur, and went out in a dead silence, his wild eyes
giving her a last look of reproach and despair.

A minute later, she heard his cab roll away from the house.

“I wonder if I have done right,” the woman muttered uneasily, as she
closed the door. “I have taken a great responsibility upon myself in
deciding the fate of my young mistress. I almost wish that I had let
him see her, but she is so young and tender and pitiful, she would be
sure to take him back again. His eyes will haunt me. He looked as a man
might look on his way to execution.”

At that moment the library door was tried from the hall, and an
imperious little knock sounded upon the panels.

“Peters,” cried Lally, from without, in an agitated voice, “let me in!
let me in!”

Peters calmed her face, and hastened to unlock the door.

Lally swept in impetuously, her gypsy face aglow, her black eyes full
of fire, her chest panting. She held in one hand a gentleman’s glove,
which she had just picked up from the hall floor.

Her keen eyes swept the room, and her countenance fell with
disappointment at finding Mrs. Peters alone.

“I heard a carriage go away just now, Peters,” she cried. “Who has been
here?”

“Was it not the wind, Miss?” cried Peters, flushing.

“No; I heard wheels going down the drive. And here is something I found
in the hall, Peters--a man’s glove. Whose is it?”

“It might be Toppen’s, Miss--”

“It might be, but it isn’t,” said Lally, full of suppressed excitement,
that made her strangely beautiful. “This is a gentleman’s glove. See
how soft and fine the kid is. The color is just the shade of lavender
Rufus used to wear when he wore gloves, and it has just the jessamine
scent he used to drop always into his gloves. And--and here is one
of the very glove buttons he used to slip from one pair of gloves to
another. I would know that small gold knob, with its chased edge,
anywhere. Peters, he has been here! Rufus has been here.”

The flushing, agitated face of Mrs. Peters confessed the truth.

“He has followed us up from London!” cried Lally, her eyes glowing like
suns. “He has come after me and traced me to this place. He loves me
still--he must love me, Peters! He must love me better than Miss Wynde?”

“He said so, Miss Lally.”

“Ah, then it is true? But why did he go away without seeing me? Why did
you not call me? Perhaps he will give up all for me, thinking me still
poor like himself?”

“He said he would, Miss Lally,” said poor, honest Mrs. Peters, driven
to full confession. “He thinks that I am Miss Wroat, and that you are
Mrs. Peters, my poor companion. And he says he loves you, and wants to
marry you; but he is so unstable and cowardly, and I knew you ought to
make a grand marriage, with your face and your fortune; and so--and so,
Miss Lally, I sent him off, and he’s gone back to England and to Miss
Wynde.”

Poor Lally stared at her maid with dilating eyes and horror-stricken
countenance. Then she said, in a wailing voice:

“Oh, Peters, you meant well, I know: but--but you’ve broken my heart!”

And with a low, wild moan, Lally fell forward in a dead swoon.




CHAPTER XVII. SIR HAROLD’S RETURN.


That night upon which Rufus Black visited Heather Hills, and was sent
away again in despair, was a wild night throughout Great Britain and
upon its coasts. Ships were wrecked upon the Goodwin Sands, and upon
the south and west coasts. Over the open moors and heaths of the
country the winds went roaring like unloosed demons, bent upon terrible
mischief. Women with husbands at sea cowered before their blazing fires
that night, and children in their beds snuggled closer and held their
breaths with very fear. Houses were unroofed in many places, chimneys
were blown down, and lives were lost upon bridges and country roads
through falling timbers and uprooted trees. The gale that night was one
long to be remembered for its wild violence, one so severe not having
been experienced in Great Britain for years.

Mr. Atkins, the Canterbury solicitor, sat in his office until a late
hour that night. His house was in a pleasant, quiet street, in a good
neighborhood, and the lower floor was occupied by him as his office,
the drawing-room being upon the second floor, and the family rooms
above. The main office had an independent entrance from the street,
with a door opening directly into the office--a convenient arrangement
duly appreciated by Mrs. Atkins, as it left the house entrance free to
her family and guests.

The solicitor had changed somewhat since his first introduction to
the reader. His honest face had grown thin and sallow, his hair was
streaked with gray, and there were anxious lines about his mouth and
eyes that told of unrest and trouble.

He sat in a lounging chair before the fire, his feet on the fender.
His family had long since retired, and the hour was wearing on toward
eleven o’clock. His fire flamed up in a wild glow, the gas burned
brightly, the red fire gleams lighted the dull office carpet and the
well-polished furniture, making the room seem especially cozy and
delightful. The shutters were lowered, but no care could shut out the
sound of the mad winds careering through the streets, clutching at
resisting outer blinds, and bearing along now and then some clattering
sign-board or other estray.

“An awful night,” sighed the solicitor. “I have a strange feeling as if
something were going to happen!”

He shifted uneasily in his chair, and bent forward and laid fresh coals
upon the fire. Then he leaned back again and thought.

The office clock struck eleven, and the loud clangor struck upon Mr.
Atkins in his nervous mood with singular unpleasantness. Before the
echo of the last stroke had died out, footsteps were heard in the
street, unsteady and wavering, as if the pedestrian were battling with
the storm, and found it difficult to advance against it.

“Some poor fellow,” thought Mr. Atkins. “He must be homeless, to be out
at this hour and in such a gale.”

The steps came nearer still and nearer, their sound being now and
then lost in the tumult of the winds. They paused at the foot of the
solicitor’s office steps, and then slowly mounted to the door.

“Who can it be at this time of night?” muttered Mr. Atkins. “Some
vagabond who means to sleep on my steps? Or is it some houseless
wanderer who sees my light through the shutters, and is come to beg of
me?”

It almost seemed as if it were the latter, for the office lights did
gleam out into the black streets, and lighted up a patch of pavement.

A knock, low and unsteady, was rung upon the knocker.

Mr. Atkins hesitated. He was not a timid man, but he had no client
who found it necessary to visit him at that hour, and his visitor, he
thought, was as likely to be some desperate vagrant or professional
thief as an honest man.

The knock, low and faint and imploring, sounded again. It seemed to the
solicitor as if there was something especially guarded and secret in
the manner of it.

He arose and took from his office desk a loaded pistol, and placed it
in his breast pocket. Then he went to the door and undid the bars and
bolts, throwing it half way open, and peering out.

A man stood upon the steps, muffled in a thick long overcoat, whose fur
collar was turned up above his ears. A slouched hat was drawn over his
face, and Mr. Atkins could not distinguish a feature of his face.

“Who is it?” asked the solicitor, his hand feeling for his pistol.

“An old friend,” was the reply, in a hoarse whisper. “I must see you.
Let me in, Atkins.”

He stepped forward, with an air of command that impressed Atkins, who
involuntarily stepped aside, giving the stranger admittance.

The new-comer quietly turned the key in the lock.

Atkins clutched his pistol, quietly upon his guard.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

The stranger took off his hat, revealing the upper portion of a noble
head, crowned with grizzled hair. Then slowly he turned down his
greatcoat collar, and stood before Atkins without disguise, displaying
a grandly noble face, with keen blue eyes, a pale bronzed countenance,
and sternly set lips above a gray military beard.

Atkins’ hand dropped to his side. With a wild and stifled shriek, he
staggered to a chair, his eyes glaring wildly at the stranger.

“My God!” he cried, with white lips. “Sir Harold Wynde!”

Sir Harold--for it was indeed he, returned that day to England, after a
prolonged journey from India--smiled his old warm smile, and held out
his hand.

“Sir Harold Wynde!” repeated Atkins, not taking the hand--“who--who
died--”

“I can give you the best of proofs, Atkins, that I did not die in
India,” said the baronet, with a cheery little laugh. “You look at me
as at a ghost, but I’m no ghost. Feel my hand. Is not that real flesh
and blood? Atkins, you are giving me a sorry welcome, my old friend.”

Atkins still stared with a wild incredulity at his old friend and
employer. He could not yet comprehend the glad truth.

“I--I must be dreaming,” he muttered. “I felt queer to-night. I--”

Sir Harold advanced and, pulling off his glove, laid his hand on that
of Atkins. Its touch was chill, but unmistakably human.

“What!” cried the baronet. “Do you believe in ghosts, my friend? I
wouldn’t have believed a bona-fide wraith could have so startled the
hard-headed Atkins I once knew. I was not eaten by the tiger, Atkins,
but I have been kept a prisoner in the hands of human tigers until I
managed to escape last month. You know me now, and that I am no ghost?”

Atkins rose up, pale and trembling still, but with an unutterable joy
on his face.

“It is Sir Harold alive, and in the flesh!” he ejaculated. “Sir Harold
whom we mourned as dead! This is a miracle!”

He clasped the baronet’s hand, and laughed and cried in a breath. He
seemed overflowing with his great joy.

The baronet held the trembling hand of his friend in a strong, restful
pressure for some minutes, during which not a word was spoken between
them. Their hearts were full.

“I am not myself to-night, Sir Harold,” said Atkins brokenly, after a
little. “I have been upset lately.”

He drew Sir Harold toward the fire, helped him off with his greatcoat,
and ensconced him in the lounging chair before the fender. Then he drew
a chair close beside the baronet’s, and asked tremulously:

“Have you been to Hawkhurst yet, Sir Harold?”

“No, not yet. You could not think I would leave home again so soon,
if I had gone there? I only landed in England to-day, coming through
France. I am a week overdue. I arrived in Canterbury an hour ago, and
as soon as I had food I came to you. I saw your light through the
shutters, but if I had not seen it I should have rapped you up, in my
impatience. I want you to go with me to Hawkhurst, and to break the
news that I still live to my wife and daughter. My appearance shocked
you nearly into an apoplexy. I must not appear unannounced to them.”

Mr. Atkins trembled, and covered his face with his hands.

“You would go to-night--in this storm?” he asked.

“Yes, yes. What is the storm to me? A few miles only divide me from
my home and loved ones. And I shall see them before I sleep. Oh,
Atkins, how I have looked forward to this hour of my home coming: I
have thought of it during the days and nights when I lay chained in an
Indian hut among the Himalayas; I have thought of it when pacing the
lonely deck at midnight under the stars. I have prayed for this hour as
the crowning joy of my life. Almost home! It seems as if my soul would
burst with rapture. My home! My wife! My child! The sweetest, holiest
words in our language!”

The baronet’s face glowed with a joyous radiance. Atkins was sick at
heart.

“I have been careful that no hint of my return as from the dead should
arrive before me,” continued Sir Harold. “I came home under the name of
Harold Hunlow. Only Major Archer and his family, besides yourself, know
that I still live. At the hotel I registered the name of Hunlow, and no
one but a new waiter I had never seen before saw my face. The surprise
of my family will be complete. Come, Atkins, let us be off. I have a
cab waiting at the hotel.”

“I--I wouldn’t go to-night, Sir Harold,” said Atkins feebly.

Something in his tones alarmed the baronet.

“Why not?” he demanded. “I--I have taken it for granted that they are
all well at home. Octavia--Neva--how are they? Speak!”

Atkins arose, twisting his hands nervously together. His pallor
frightened Sir Harold, who arose also.

“What is it?” he whispered. “They--they are not dead?”

“No, Sir Harold--no!”

“Thank God! You frightened me, Atkins. I can bear anything, now that
I know they are alive. What has happened? They have not met with an
accident? Don’t tell me, Atkins, that my wife, my beautiful young
wife, is insane through grief at my supposed death?”

Atkins groaned aloud.

“No, no,” he said, grating his teeth and clenching his hands. “It is
not that.”

“What is it then? Speak, for God’s sake. The suspense is killing me!”

“I have bad news for you, Sir Harold,” said the solicitor tremblingly.
“Let me give you a glass of wine--”

Sir Harold clutched the solicitor’s arm, his burning eyes fixed upon
the solicitor’s face.

“Speak!” he said hoarsely.

“I will, if you will sit down.”

Sir Harold dropped silently into his chair.

“Lady Wynde,” said Atkins--“Lady Wynde--how can I speak the words to
you who love her so, Sir Harold--She has married again!”

Every vestige of color died from the baronet’s face, and he lay back
upon his chair fainting. Atkins rang for water and brandy. He bathed
Sir Harold’s face and chafed his hands, and poured brandy down his
throat, the tears on his own cheeks. Presently Sir Harold gasped for
breath, and looked up at him with a dazed and stunned expression.

“Say that over again, Atkins,” he said feebly. “I don’t quite
understand.”

“I said, Sir Harold,” said the solicitor, every word giving him a pang,
“that Lady Wynde had married again.”

Sir Harold gave a strange cry, and covered his face with his hands.

“Don’t take it so, Sir Harold,” cried Atkins. “You’ve had a happy
escape from her. She’s a heartless, unprincipled--”

Sir Harold put up his hand.

“Don’t!” he said pleadingly. “You hurt me, Atkins. She thought me dead,
my poor Octavia. Who--who did she marry!”

“A gamester and adventurer named Craven Black. During the past month,
Sir Harold, I have devoted much time to the study of Mrs. Craven
Black’s antecedents. Forgive me, Sir Harold, but in this hour you must
know all the truth. I am like the physician who cuts deeply to extract
a ball. Sir Harold, the woman you married was never fit to be taken
into your family; she was never fit to be placed as step-mother and
guardian over a pure young girl--”

“Atkins, she is my wife. Mine still, although another claims her. I
will not hear a word against her.”

“You must hear it, Sir Harold,” said Atkins resolutely. “If you do
not hear it from me, others less kind will pour it into your ears.
You cannot escape the knowledge. As I said, during the past month I
have studied up Lady Wynde’s antecedents. I have seen Mrs. Hyde, Lady
Wynde’s aunt, and I have also seen a former maid of her ladyship. I
tell you, Sir Harold, and I pray you to forgive me for telling you the
truth, the woman you married never loved you. She married you only as a
part of a daring conspiracy--”

“Atkins!”

“It is true, so help me God!” cried Atkins solemnly. “Lady Wynde--I
suppose she is Lady Wynde still, her last marriage being rendered
invalid by your return to the living, as one might say--Lady Wynde was
engaged to marry Craven Black before she ever saw you. Mrs. Hyde told
me this herself.”

“I cannot believe it!”

“Craven Black was poor, and so was Octavia Hathaway. You were at
Brighton, rich, a widower. Craven Black conceived the idea that
Octavia should win and wed you, and secure a rich jointure, upon which,
in due time, having rid themselves of you, they should marry--”

“This is monstrous! Atkins, you are deceived. You are belying a noble
woman!”

“Hear the rest, Sir Harold. As God is my judge, I believe your wife
married you intending to poison you!”

Sir Harold shook his head. The idea seemed too monstrous for belief.

“That affair in the water at Brighton was planned beforehand,”
persisted Atkins. “You rescued the lady, as was expected of you. She
followed up the acquaintance, and married you. You went to India; and
I believe, if you had not gone, you would have died here suddenly of
poison. When Lady Wynde had worn mourning a year in most decorous
fashion, Craven Black and his son came up to Wyndham, and early in
September there were great festivities at Hawkhurst, at the third
marriage of Lady Wynde. There was a ball at the great house, and a ball
for the tenantry on the lawn, with music and fire-works. It was for all
the world an affair such as might have greeted the coming of age of an
heir to a grand property, rather than the marriage of a widow from the
house of her late husband to a notorious adventurer.”

Sir Harold groaned heavily.

“And they are at Hawkhurst now?” he said, in a voice so altered that
Atkins hardly recognized it.

“No; they have been away for a month.”

“You understand that all these charges are not proved against Lady
Wynde?” said Sir Harold. “I shall take my wife back again, Atkins,
if she will come, and I will stand between her and the censure of a
gossipping world.”

“Did you write from India the night before you disappeared, enjoining
your daughter by her love for you to marry the son of Craven Black?”
demanded Atkins abruptly.

“No; how should I? I don’t know Craven Black, nor his son.”

Atkins went to his desk, and took out a letter.

“Read that, Sir Harold,” he said, returning and presenting it to the
baronet. “Lady Wynde gave that letter to Miss Wynde, telling her that
it was your last letter to your daughter, written upon the eve of your
supposed death.”

Sir Harold read the letter to the very end, an awful sternness
gathering on his countenance. The tender epithets by which he had
called his daughter, his particular modes of speech, and his own
phraseology, in that skillfully forged letter staggered him.

“I never wrote it,” he said briefly. “It is a forgery!”

“Of course. I knew that. But Lady Wynde gave it to Miss Neva, declaring
it to be your last letter.”

“Who is this Rufus Black?”

“A weak-souled, kindly young fellow, the son of a villain, and a ready
instrument in the hands of his father. He loves Miss Neva, and proposed
to her. She, however, loves Lord Towyn--”

“Lord Towyn! My old college-mate?”

“No; his son. Arthur has come into the title and property, and is as
noble a young man as any in England. Miss Neva favored him, and the
result is, Lady Wynde and Craven Black conceived a hatred of your
daughter, and determined to bend her to their will. Sir Harold, as God
hears me, Lady Wynde is a wicked, unscrupulous woman.”

Sir Harold’s face was deathly white. The letter, still held in his
trembling hands, was proof of his wife’s wickedness, and he began to
be convinced that he had been cruelly deceived by an unprincipled woman.

“It would have been better if I had died in India!” he moaned.

“Not so. Sir Harold, there is more to hear. Can you bear another blow?”

Sir Harold bowed; he was too broken to speak.

“A month ago, Lady Wynde, with her new husband and Miss Wynde, went
away, ostensibly to Wynde Heights. But they did not go there. A letter
came from Brussels to Lord Towyn, purporting to be from Miss Wynde, but
Lord Towyn went to Brussels, and discovered that the young lady and her
enemies have not been there. We have had detectives at work for weeks;
Lord Towyn is at work day and night scarcely knowing rest, and I have
done all that I could, but the fact remains. Craven Black and his wife
have abducted Miss Wynde, and God alone, besides her enemies, knows
where she is.”

The baronet leaped to his feet.

“Neva missing!” he cried.

“Yes, Sir Harold, missing for a month past, and she is in the hands of
enemies who would not scruple to take her life, if they could hope to
make money by her death. We have searched Great Britain for her, and
have detectives at this moment upon the Continent. She is gone--lost!
Her enemies have determined to force her into a marriage with Rufus
Black, and to seize upon her property. She is helpless in their hands.
You have returned in time to help search for her, but I am hopeless. We
shall never find her except she is dead, or married to the son of that
villain!”

Sir Harold was about to speak, but his voice choked. He leaned against
his chair, looking like one dying.

And at this juncture, while the wind tore yet more madly through
the streets, footsteps were heard ascending to the street door of
the office, and, for the second time that night, the office knocker
sounded lowly, secretly, and cautiously, yet with an imperiousness that
commanded an instant admittance.




CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE RIGHT TRACK AT LAST.


The conclusion of the low and cautious knocking upon the office door of
Mr. Atkins was lost in a wild burst of the gale which tore along the
streets, shrieking and moaning like some maddened demon. Sir Harold
Wynde and Mr. Atkins looked at each other, and then both glanced at the
clock. It was upon the stroke of twelve.

“A late hour for a call,” said the baronet uneasily. “I have no wish
to be seen, Atkins. I am in no mood to encounter a possible client of
yours.”

The knock sounded again, in a lull of the storm, low, secret and
imperative.

Atkins’ face brightened up with sudden relief and joy.

“I know that knock,” he said. “Please step into the inner office, Sir
Harold. You shall see no one but friends to-night.”

He opened the door of the small, dark, inner office, and Sir Harold
passed in and stood in the darkness, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Atkins hastened to open the outer door. A gust of wind swept fiercely
in, and with it, and as if impelled by it, a man hurried into the
office, and closed the door with both his hands.

He was slender, but so muffled in coat collar and cap that no one could
have guessed his identity.

“Lord Towyn?” said Atkins doubtfully.

The new-comer took off his cap and turned down his collar. The lawyer’s
instinct had not deceived him. The noble face, the bright blue eyes, so
full of warmth and glow, the tawny mustache, and the golden hair above
a grand forehead--all these, now displayed to the solicitor’s gaze,
were the features of Neva’s favored lover. But the young earl looked
pale and worn by anxieties, and although now there was a glow and
brightness and eagerness in his face and manner, yet one could see in
all his features the traces of great and recent suffering.

“Alone, Atkins?” he exclaimed, extending his hand, while he swept a
quick glance about the room. “I am glad to have found you up, but had
you gone to sleep, I must have awakened you. I have just received
important news by messenger, who routed me up at my hotel. I came to
you as soon as I could--”

“If the news is unpleasant, do not tell it just yet,” said Atkins
nervously, with a glance at the inner room. “I have news too, Lord
Towyn. Come to the fire. Bless us, how the wind howls!”

The young earl removed his greatcoat and advanced to the fire, and
Atkins went into the inner office. The sound of whispering followed.
Lord Towyn heard the sound and started, and at the same moment his
glance fell upon Sir Harold Wynde’s cast-off greatcoat and hat.
Presently Atkins returned, rubbing his hands together with excitement.

“You are not alone, I see,” said the young earl. “I will see you again,
Atkins--”

“Stay, my lord,” said the solicitor. “I have news, great news, to
impart to you. Let me communicate mine first. Can you bear a great
surprise--a shock?”

“You have heard from Miss Wynde?” cried Lord Towyn. “You have later
news even than mine? Speak, Atkins. Those villains have not succeeded
in forcing her into a marriage with young Black? It is not that--say
that it is not.”

“It is not that, my lord. How am I to tell you the startling news
I have just learned? My lord, I have had a visit to-night from a
gentleman who has just returned from India. He knew Sir Harold Wynde
well, and came to give me all the particulars of Sir Harold’s supposed
death!”

“_Supposed_ death? How strangely you choose your words, Atkins.
_Supposed_ death?”

“Yes, my lord,” cried Atkins, trembling and eager. “We have all mourned
Sir Harold as dead. And this gentleman says--prepare for a surprise, my
lord--he says that Sir Harold Wynde still lives!”

The young earl started, and grew white.

“It is impossible!” he ejaculated. “He lives? It is preposterous!
Atkins, you are the sport of some impostor!”

“No, no, my lord. I believe it; I believe that Sir Harold lives!”

“Have you forgotten the letter of Surgeon Graham, giving a
circumstantial and minute account of Sir Harold’s death?” demanded Lord
Towyn. “If Sir Harold had survived his encounter with the tiger, would
he not have returned home over a year ago?”

“The--the gentleman who gave me the particulars of Sir Harold’s fate,”
said Atkins, full of suppressed excitement, “says that the baronet was
unfortunate enough to incur the enmity of his Hindoo servant, who
secretly swore revenge. Sir Harold actually encountered the tiger, as
was said, but a shot from the servant frightened the beast, and he
fled back into the jungle. Sir Harold was wounded and bleeding and his
horse was killed. The Hindoo servant picked up his disabled master,
and, instead of taking him back to Major Archer’s bungalow, he carried
him forward and gave him into the hands of some of his own friends
and country people, and these friends of the Hindoo carried off Sir
Harold further into the hill country, to their home, a sort of mountain
fastness. They kept him there closely imprisoned, and while we mourned
our friend as dead, he was chained in a cell but little better than a
dungeon.”

Lord Towyn still looked incredulous.

“How did the bearer of this strange tale discover these strange facts,
if facts they are?” he demanded. “I should like to see this gentleman
from India? I should like to question him--”

He paused, as the door of the inner room opened, and Sir Harold Wynde,
pale and haggard, came into the outer office.

Lord Towyn uttered a strange cry, and sprang backward, his face
whitening to deathliness.

Sir Harold approached the young man, extending his hand.

“Behold ‘the gentleman from India,’” he said, faintly smiling. “My dear
boy, ask me as many questions as you like. Don’t you know me, Arthur,
that you stare at me so? I am no ghost, although our friend Atkins took
me for one.”

Another cry, but this time a cry of rapture, broke from the young
earl’s lips. He bounded forward and clasped Sir Harold’s hands in his,
and both were silent with an emotion too mighty for speech.

Atkins turned aside to add fresh fuel to the blazing fire, his own
features working.

“Sir Harold! O, Sir Harold!” cried Lord Towyn at last, in a very
ecstasy of gladness. “What a joy this will be to my poor little Neva!
She has mourned for you as dead, and I have thought that the shadow of
your supposed fate would darken all her life. How glad she will be, my
poor little girl!”

“Your little girl?” said Sir Harold.

Lord Towyn’s fair face flushed.

“I love Neva, and she loves me,” he said frankly. “She has promised
to marry me, and I hope, Sir Harold, that you retain your former good
opinion of me, and will sanction our union.”

“We will see,” said the baronet, pressing the young earl’s hand warmly.
“It has always been my desire, as it was that of your father, to unite
my family to yours. Your face tells me that you have fulfilled the
glorious promise of your boyhood. If Neva consents to marry you, my
dear Arthur, I shall not refuse my consent.”

Lord Towyn looked his delight, and then cast a quick, inquiring glance
at Atkins.

“Does Sir Harold know?” he asked significantly.

“I have told him,” answered the solicitor, “that Miss Wynde has
disappeared in the most mysterious manner and that she is in the power
of a couple of adventurers--”

Sir Harold interrupted Atkins by a passionate gesture.

“Arthur,” exclaimed the baronet, his proud face drawn with pain.
“Atkins tells me that I have been deceived in--in Lady Wynde, and
that he has discovered her to be an adventuress, unscrupulous and
unprincipled. Is this his prejudice? I cannot give utter credence to
it.”

“It is God’s truth, Sir Harold,” said Lord Towyn solemnly, holding
the baronet’s hand in a strong, firm pressure. “It is better that
you should know the truth from us than to hear it from strangers, or
be further deceived by the woman you made your wife. Lady Wynde is an
adventuress, bold and false and wicked.”

“You forget that I knew her history even back to her childhood,” cried
Sir Harold eagerly. “I did not marry her with my eyes blindfolded.
She never attempted to impose herself upon me as other than she
was. She made known her whole life to me. She was the daughter of a
naval officer, and the niece of Mrs. Hyde, a lady of good family and
position, who lives a very retired life in Bloomsbury Square, London.
We ate our wedding breakfast in Mrs. Hyde’s house. Lady Wynde’s first
husband was the Honorable Charles Hathaway, the younger son of a
Viscount. Lady Wynde’s family connections both by birth and marriage
are excellent. I knew all this beyond a peradventure before I married
her. And yet you call her an adventuress!”

“And so she was, Sir Harold,” exclaimed Atkins. “Her past life, her
family and her connections were all you say. Her record was all fair.
Not a word had ever been whispered against her reputation, and she
went in the best society, and had admirers and suitors. All this I
grant. But she was none the less an adventuress at heart. She had an
income of three hundred pounds a year and spent a thousand, sponged
from relatives, or given her by Craven Black, from his winnings at the
gaming table or at the races. She was engaged to marry Craven Black
soon after Mr. Hathaway’s death, and before her marriage with you. Mrs.
Hyde is not overfond of her niece, and told me this fact herself. This
marriage, owing to the meagre fixed income of the pair, was deferred,
and finally they conceived the idea that Mrs. Hathaway should contract
a wealthy marriage, secure a comfortable jointure, become a widow, and
then marry Craven Black. There can be no doubt that your marriage
with Mrs. Hathaway was the result of a conspiracy against you by these
two villains, male and female--that they had set a trap for you, Sir
Harold, and that you fell into it!”

Sir Harold turned his haggard eyes upon Lord Towyn.

“It is true,” said the young earl, full of the tenderest sympathy.
“You were imposed upon, Sir Harold. The woman you married, so fair and
spotless in seeming, was like some fair fruit with a worm at its core.
There are adventuresses in good society, of good birth and spotless
reputations, as there are well-born adventurers. Mr. Atkins is right.
Craven Black and Mrs. Hathaway have played a daring game, but they have
not yet won. This is a terrible stroke to you, dear Sir Harold; but
bear it bravely. You are not desolate because Lady Wynde feigned a love
for you, and has proved false and wicked. You have the holy memories
of your first wife to keep pure and steadfast your faith in woman. You
have Neva to love you. You have your friends.”

But Sir Harold threw up his arms with a gesture of despair.

“I loved _her_!” he said brokenly. “I have thought of her in my Indian
dungeon, and on the lonely sea, and have planned how to break to her
the news of my return tenderly and gently, that her reason might be
spared a shock which I feared might destroy it. And, O God! all the
while she never loved me! While I thought of her upon the deck, with
longings for wings, that I might sooner reach her, she was the wife of
another, and exulted in the thought that she was rid of me forever! Ah,
this is a dreary coming home!”

“It is, Sir Harold,” said Lord Towyn sorrowfully; “but the wickedness
of one person whom you have loved need not darken your life, nor
paralyze your energies. Neva is in peril. Rouse yourself from this
great grief for her sake. Think what joy your return will be to her. We
must find her, and save her.”

The young earl had touched the right chord. Sir Harold aroused himself
from his despair, and said:

“Yes; we must find her, and save her. But where are we to look for her?
If the detectives have failed to find a clue to her whereabouts, how
are we to succeed?”

“I have been upon the Continent,” said Lord Towyn, “and have traveled
from one end of England to the other. I have been upon a score of
false trails, and failed to find a trace of those I sought. I have now
been three or four days in this town, consulting every day with Atkins
or Sir John Freise, while the detectives continued the search. And
to-night I have received news which for the first time gives me hope
that we are nearing the end. A messenger, sent by one of my detectives,
came to me by the last down train from London, with a report of
discoveries.”

“They have been found?” cried Sir Harold eagerly.

“Not yet. The object of Craven Black and his wife--I hardly know how to
call her, Sir Harold--was to marry Neva to Black’s son, and so obtain
control over the Hawkhurst property,” said Lord Towyn. “It is to effect
this marriage that Craven Black and his wife are engaged in persecuting
Neva. When they left Hawkhurst, they left Rufus Black behind them. It
occurred to me that when they should deem matters in a fair state of
progress, or when Neva showed signs of relenting, they would send for
Rufus to come and plead his cause, or to marry her, wherever they might
be. I therefore hired a detective to watch Rufus, and it is from this
detective, and not from those in search of Neva, that I have to-night
heard.”

“And what does he say?” demanded Atkins breathlessly.

“Young Black has remained at Hawkhurst ever since the marriage--some
five weeks. Two or three days ago he went up to London. The detective,
who had been stopping at Wyndham as a commercial traveler in broken
health, went up on the same train. It seemed at first, my messenger
says, as if young Black had had no object beyond a day’s saunter in
town. He visited picture shops and so on, but that night he went to the
Great Northern railway station, and found the train gone. That movement
of his, as the detective said, began to look like business. Black went
to his hotel, the detective still on his track. The next morning young
Black sold his watch and chain, and the next evening he was off again
to the Great Northern railway station. He caught the night express, and
went on it, the detective on the same train. The detective sent a note
from Edinburgh to a fellow-officer, who brought it to me to-night. I am
convinced that Rufus Black has gone to rejoin his father, and that if
we follow him we shall find Neva.”

“To what place did he book himself?” asked Atkins.

“To Inverness. It is plain that while the Blacks tried to persuade
us that they were upon the Continent, they were safely hidden with
Neva in the Scottish Highlands. They may have gone there from some
idea of bringing about an informal Scottish marriage between Neva and
young Black. Neva can know nothing of the marriage laws of Scotland,
where a declaration from a woman that a certain man is her husband,
when he hears and does not contradict the assertion, and vice versa,
constitutes a legal and binding marriage. The Blacks may calculate upon
Neva’s ignorance, and hope to avail themselves of the facilities of
Scottish law in marrying her to Rufus.”

“It is very probable,” said Atkins, knitting his brows.

“Young Black has the start of us. He must have arrived at Inverness
to-day. I came here to propose, Atkins, that we start for the north by
the earliest morning train. We are on the right track now,” said Lord
Towyn. “Let us follow it up promptly.”

“We will go in the morning,” declared Atkins.

“I shall go also,” said Sir Harold. “Let the secret of my return be
kept a secret still. I do not wish to warn this Craven Black, or put
him on his guard. Call me Mr. Hunlow. It is the name I traveled home
under. And be careful not to betray my secret until I myself declare
it.”

The three sat together by the office fire all the remainder of the
night and talked. In the morning Atkins wrote a note to his wife, and
another to his clerks, and leaving the notes upon his desk, went out
with his two guests before the family were astir. Sir Harold muffled
his face beyond recognition, and conducted Lord Towyn and Atkins to
his hotel. Here they were served with breakfast, and soon after they
proceeded to the station, and took the train for London.

Sir Harold breathed more freely when they had left the Cathedral town
behind them. He was well known in Canterbury, and with a strange
nervous shrinking, he dreaded recognition before he should choose to
make his return known.

On arriving in London, the three pursuers hastened to the Great
Northern Railway station, and an hour later they were on their way to
Scotland, upon the trail of Rufus Black.




CHAPTER XIX. REUNITED.


Upon the day after the storm, a high wind still prevailed. No sailing
vessel dared put out to sea from Inverness. The sky was dun and gray,
with now and then a fitful gleam of sickly yellowish sunlight. The
black waters were all alive with “white caps,” and the sullen roar of
the waves, as they hurled themselves against the cliffs upon whose
summit stood the house of Heather Hills, filled all the house with its
monotonous tumult.

Lally Bird spent the morning in her own room, upon a sofa in a recessed
window. Mrs. Peters came and went softly, bestowing pitying glances
upon the round gipsy face lying so white and sorrowful against the
cushions, but the dusky eyes were looking seaward with a strange, far
off, steadfast gaze, and it was evident that the young girl was not
even conscious of the presence of her attendant.

At noon Mrs. Peters brought up a tray on which was spread a tempting
luncheon of chocolate, hot rolls, delicate game birds, and jellies. She
placed the tray upon a low table, and wheeled it beside the sofa. Still
Lally did not stir.

“Miss Lally,” cried the good woman, her lips quivering. “Are you not
going to eat to-day? You had no breakfast. You will be ill. I know
that I have offended you beyond all forgiveness, and that my face must
be unpleasant in your sight, but I would undo what I have done if I
could. Better almost any kind of a marriage than to see you lying here
looking so wan and hopeless. Oh, Miss Lally, if you would only speak to
me!”

Lally turned her face slowly, with a look of surprise mingling with her
expression of pain.

“Why, Peters,” she said kindly, “I did not know you were so troubled
about me. I am not angry at you. You meant what you did for the best.
There, don’t cry, Peters. I am not angry; indeed, I am not. You are as
much my friend as ever. Sit down by me, and we will eat our luncheon
together.”

Peters complied as soon as she could command her emotion, and Lally
aroused herself to speak cheerfully, and to inquire concerning the
results of the storm.

After the luncheon the young mistress of Heather Hills announced her
intention of going out for a solitary walk. The wind was not so high
as it had been in the morning, and Mrs. Peters did not venture any
objections. Lally attired herself in a bombazine walking dress and
astrachan jacket, hat and muff, and about two o’clock she went out
alone for a walk along the cliffs.

For an hour or more she rambled on, stopping now and then to rest, and
keeping near the sea, over whose wide wild waters her gaze strayed and
fixed itself with singular steadfastness. At last she sat down upon a
great bowlder, and the slender black figure was outlined against the
gray sky with startling distinctness.

Before her lay the wild and restless sea, behind her the undulating
fields of her new domain. At one side of her, in the gray distance, was
the house of Heather Hills, and on the other hand, and nearer, was the
low range of heath-clad hills which gave the estate its name.

It was a lonely spot, that upon which she had paused to rest, with a
bold bluff surmounted by a very chaos of rocks, upon whose summit she
had perched herself. A few sea-gulls were screaming in the air, but
besides them and the wild birds on the heath there was no sign of life
far or near.

An hour passed. The wind still blew strong and fierce, tugging at her
hat and garments with strong, despoiling hands. Her vail was swept over
the bluff into the abyss of waters, and her hair was torn from its
confining braids, and tumbled over her shoulders in a dusky cascade.
But still Lally sat high up upon the rocky mass, paying no heed to wind
or murmur of wave, her soul being busy with the great problem of her
destiny.

And so, looking seaward with great longing eyes, she did not see a
human figure coming toward her over the fields. It came nearer and
nearer--the figure of Rufus Black!

The young man had gone back to Inverness upon the previous night,
but he had not been content to accept his dismissal at the hands of
Mrs. Peters. His old love for Lally was strong and fierce, and he was
determined to win back his lost young wife, if energy and patience and
love and sincere repentance could win her back. So, after a sleepless
night, and a morning spent in indecision and irresolution, he had come
out again to Heather Hills. Mrs. Peters was in her own room, and the
housemaid had answered his knock. Rufus had inquired for Miss Bird, but
the housemaid had never heard the name. He then asked for Mrs. Black.
That name was also unknown at Heather Hills. In this dilemma, believing
Lally to be at the Hills, as a companion to Miss Wroat, and believing
her to have taken a new name as a disguise, he boldly asked for Miss
Wroat, determined to see Lally’s supposed employer, and to entreat
her to intercede in his behalf with Lally. The housemaid had told him
that Miss Wroat had gone out for a walk, indicating the direction, and
calling up all his courage, Rufus had started in pursuit.

He saw the dark and slender figure perched on the peaks while yet afar
off. Something in its droop reminded him of Lally, and he came on at a
swinging pace, his eager gaze never swerving from her; and as he came
nearer and yet nearer, the conviction stole upon him that it was Lally
at whom he looked.

“She must have come out with Miss Wroat,” he thought. “Rich ladies
never walk without an attendant. She has dropped behind, being tired.
It is Lally! it is--it is!”

He came up swiftly, the damp soil deadening the sound of his footsteps.
He gained the rocks, and began to climb them to Lally’s side, but the
girl did not stir, nor notice his approach.

A sudden sound at her side at last startled her. With a quick
exclamation, she turned her head--and beheld him!

She did not speak, but her great black eyes grew larger, and her face
grew suddenly so deathly white that he thought she must be fainting.

“Lally! O Lally!” he cried to her, in an anguished, broken voice.
“Thank God! I have found you! Oh, my darling, my little wife, whom I
have mourned as dead!”

He knelt down before her, in the shadow of a projecting rock, the tears
streaming over his face, and his eyes regarding her in wild imploring.
So a devotee might have knelt to his patron saint, feeling unworthy
to approach her, but longing and praying with his whole soul for
forgiveness and mercy.

Lally felt her soul melt within her.

“Oh, Rufus!” she gasped, in a choking whisper.

He put up his arms to enfold her. She shrank back, not with loathing,
but with a sudden dignity, a sort of majesty, that awed him.

“You must not touch me, Rufus,” she commanded. “I am not your wife--”

“You are! You are! Before God, I declare that you are my wife--”

“Hush, Rufus! You wrote to me that I was not your wife. Don’t you
remember? You said that our marriage was ‘null and void.’”

“I thought it was. My father told me so!” cried Rufus. “O Lally, I
have been a poor, weak-souled wretch. I am not worthy of your love. I
should have stood by you, instead of basely deserting you through my
own personal cowardice. My father threatened to have me indicted for
perjury, in swearing that we were of age at the time of our marriage,
and I--I was afraid. You can never respect me, Lally, nor love me
again, I know, but if you knew how I have suffered you would pity me.”

“I have always pitied you,” she murmured.

“I thought you dead. I saw your poor mutilated drowned body in my
dreams. Day and night it haunted me. I was nearly beside myself. I
thought I should go mad. My father’s mind was set upon my marriage with
a great Kentish heiress who loved another than me. I appealed to her
to save me--to save me from my anguish, torture and remorse, produced
by continual thoughts of you! I had no heart to give her. I was base
and unmanly in offering her the dregs of the cup that had been filled
for you; but oh, Lally, I was half mad and wholly despairing! I wanted
the love of some good woman to interpose and save me from going to
perdition.”

“I heard your offer of marriage to her,” said Lally. “And you are
engaged to marry her?”

“No; she refused me. I am free, Lally, and I thank God for it. What
should I have done if I had married her and then discovered that you
still live? I love you and you alone in the whole world. I am of age
and my own master. I have thrown off the shackles my father has kept
upon me. I mean to be brave and honest and true henceforward, so help
me God! I mean to be a man, Lally, in the best and noblest sense of the
word. It shall never be said again of me that I am ‘unstable as water,’
or that I am a coward. Lally, I offer you a second marriage, which no
one can contest. Will you forgive me, and take me back?”

His words found echo in Lally’s heart, but she did not speak. Her
pallor gave place to a sudden rose stain, and she began to tremble.

“I came to-day to entreat Miss Wroat to intercede with you for me,”
said Rufus, becoming alarmed at her silence. “I have not a fine home
to offer you, such as Miss Wroat gives you, but I will work for
you, Lally. I will make myself a great painter for your sake. Those
worthless daubs I painted at New Brompton belong to the past life.
Henceforward I will paint better pictures, and show that there is
something in me. We will have two cosy rooms somewhere in the London
suburbs, and you shall have a sunny window for flowers, and I will
work for you, and you shall never know want or misery again. I can do
anything with and for you, Lally, but if left to stand by myself I
shall surely fall. Lally, little wife, take me back!”

He crept up nearer to her and held out his arms.

She crept in to them like a weary child.

She might justly have reproached him for his weakness and cowardice,
and have taunted him with having courted the heiress of Hawkhurst, but
she did neither. She nestled in his arms, and looked up at him with
great tender eyes full of a sweet compassion and love and offered him
her lips to kiss!

And so they were reunited.

For a while they sat in silence, their hearts too full for words. Then
Rufus Black reverently touched her black garments, and asked simply:

“Are these worn for me?”

Lally shook her head.

“For the lost love and vanished trust?” he asked. “Yes, I see. But,
my wife, if you will love and trust me again, I will try to make your
life all rose color. Poor little wife! How you have suffered! I know
the whole story from Miss Wroat. When I called at the house yonder last
evening and asked for you as Mrs. Peters, a tall bony woman who stood
in the hall came forward and said she was Mrs. Peters. I was completely
mystified, for I had decided in my own mind that you were known here as
Mrs. Peters, but I now see how it is. The old lady knows your story and
was angry at me, and called herself Mrs. Peters to throw me off your
track. She told me all your adventures since we parted. And now, little
wife, let us seek your employer and tell her that you have taken me
back, and that we are to be married to-morrow morning at Inverness.”

“So soon, Rufus?”

“Yes. I mean to make you mine in a new bond that no one can contest.
I have never taken steps to have our first marriage set aside, and I
think it still stands. But we will be married quietly to-morrow morning
in a Presbyterian church, and we can be so married without a license or
publication of bans. May I take you to church to-morrow, little wife?”

“Yes,” said Lally, softly. “Oh, Rufus, I do think you are going to be
strong and brave and true henceforward, and if so I shall not regret
what I have suffered. It has been very bitter,” and she shuddered; “but
God is good to us at the last. I will try and be a good wife, and to
strengthen and uphold you.”

“You were always a good wife to me,” sobbed Rufus, with a sudden
remembrance of her gentleness, her tenderness, her strong faith in
him, and her resolute faith that he would some day achieve honors and
wealth. “Oh, Lally, I am not worthy to touch the hem of your garments,
but for your sake I will be a man.”

Lally stroked his cheek softly, as she had been wont to do in the
long-ago, at the dingy lodgings at New Brompton.

“My poor boy!” she whispered yearningly. “My poor dear boy!”

“Shall we go now in search of Miss Wroat?” asked Rufus, drying his
eyes. “I do not see her on the shore. I own I am afraid to meet her,
Lally. It’s a remnant of the old cowardice, you see. But last night,
when she told me your pitiful story, I quailed before her. She must
despise me, and she will surely try to persuade you to cast me off.”

“My poor Rufus!” said Lally, with a gay, sweet smile, such as had not
visited her roguish mouth since the blight had fallen on her life.
“Mrs. Peters is harsh in seeming, but her heart is true and tender. She
loves me dearly, and I love her more as a friend than as a mistress.
One thing we must understand, Rufus,” and Lally’s gayety increased, “I
can’t part with dear old Peters.”

Rufus looked aghast.

“You--you won’t marry me then?” he gasped.

“Yes, Rufus; but I must keep Peters. She won’t leave me; and besides,
it was only yesterday I thought her the only friend I had in the world.”

“Her name _is_ Peters then?” said Rufus, bewildered. “I traced you two
up from London under the names of Miss Wroat and Mrs. Peters. I didn’t
notice a third name as belonging to the party. By what name are you
known here then, Lally?”

“As Miss Wroat, dear.”

Rufus looked his amazement.

“I--I don’t understand,” he said helplessly. “They said that Miss Wroat
was an eccentric old lady, who was rich, and odd as Dick’s hatband. Has
she adopted you?”

“Do you remember, Rufus, that last morning we spent together at New
Brompton?” said Lally gravely. “I told you then that I had no relative
living except a great-aunt, an old lady who lived in London, and
who was rich, but whose name I did not know. That aunt I afterward
discovered. Her name was Mrs. Wroat. She was an eccentric old lady, but
good and sweet at heart, and I loved her. She is dead, and it is for
her I wear mourning.”

Rufus looked open-eyed astonishment.

“That is not all,” said Lally. “I took my aunt’s name at her death, at
her request. She made me her heiress. I am the owner of the town house
in Mount street, and of the estate of Heather Hills, and have besides
fifty thousand pounds safely invested, so that I have an income of
about three thousand pounds a year.”

Rufus’ arms dropped from his wife’s waist.

“An heiress!” he muttered. “And I have dared to dream that you would
take me back? An heiress! A trifle of money will set you free, Lally,
from any marriage claims, and you can marry according to your new
position. I do not wonder that Mrs. Peters turned me out of your house,
a poor, good-for-nothing coward unfit even to address you. An heiress!
O Heaven! The word is like a two-edged sword between us!”

He moved backward, white and trembling.

A mischievous gleam shot from Lally’s gipsy eyes.

“I have known so much of poverty,” she said, “that I should like to
keep this wealth. It would make a good basis to build upon. But if it
is ‘like a two-edged sword between us,’ I suppose I can endow some
already rich hospital with it, or give it to Peters, or send it to the
heathen.”

“You don’t mean, Lally,” cried Rufus, all agitation, “that you, a rich
lady, will stoop from your high estate and marry me, and try to make
something of me?”

“I do mean just that!” cried Lally, with spirit. “For you know, Rufus,
I--I love you.”

Rufus was at her side again in an instant.

The hour wore on, and the early dusk of the gathering evening fell
around the reunited lovers. Lally started at last, crying out:

“How dark it grows! It must be five o’clock, and Mrs. Peters will be
distracted about me. I don’t know as it is just etiquette, Rufus, but
the circumstances are peculiar, and I don’t believe that Mrs. Grundy
has laid down any rule to fit the precise case, and the situation is so
remote, and I don’t believe anybody will know or care; and so--and so
I’ll invite you to remain to dine with me. But at an early hour--by ten
o’clock, mind!--you must start for Inverness.”

“And you will meet me there at eleven o’clock in the morning, at the
kirk, little wife?”

“Yes,” said Lally solemnly, and with a holy joy in her black eyes, “I
will be there! Who shall part us now, Rufus?”




CHAPTER XX. AN UNTIMELY ARRIVAL.


In the early dawn of a gray wild morning, Sir Harold Wynde, Lord Towyn,
and Mr. Atkins arrived at Inverness. They proceeded directly to the
Railway Hotel, and secured bedrooms and sitting-room, and ordered
breakfast. Some attention to their toilet was necessary, and after
baths and vigorous brushing, they met in their sitting-room, and here a
very tempting Scottish breakfast was served to them.

They were still lingering at the table, discussing their future
movements, when a knock was heard at the door, and the detective who
had been set to watch Rufus Black entered the room.

He was a thin, small man, with a sharp business face, and looked the
very ideal of a keen commercial traveler, and Sir Harold for the moment
supposed that such was his vocation, and that the man had strayed into
the wrong room. This impression was speedily corrected.

“Good-morning, my lord,” said the officer, addressing himself to the
young earl. “Expected your lordship up yesterday. Good-morning, Mr.
Atkins. Fine morning, sir--for Scotland. My lord, can I see you alone
for a few minutes?”

“Say what you have to say here, Ryan,” said the young earl. “Mr. Atkins
is a fellow-guardian of the young lady of whom we are in search, and
this gentleman, Mr. Hunlow, is also a friend of Miss Wynde. Speak out,
therefore. Have you any news?”

The detective glanced half uneasily at the baronet, whose striking face
announced that he was no common personage. The gray hair and gray
military beard had not greatly changed Sir Harold’s looks, but Ryan had
never seen the baronet before, and of course conceived no suspicion of
his identity.

The baronet arose and went to the hearth, sitting down before the fire,
his face half turned away from the detective, who again addressed
himself to Lord Towyn.

“There is news, my lord,” he announced. “I succeeded in tracing Rufus
Black up to this place. He stopped at the Caledonian. In fact, he is
stopping there now.”

The young earl’s face kindled with excitement.

“Then we cannot be far from Miss Wynde!” he exclaimed. “He has stopped
two or three days at Inverness, and that proves that he has not much
further to go. Has he been out of Inverness since he came?”

The detective’s face clouded a little.

“Rufus Black arrived at Inverness the day before yesterday,” he said.
“Upon the afternoon of the very day on which he arrived, while I was
at dinner, he went off in a cab, and did not return till late in the
evening. I was lounging about the door when he came back, and he looked
the very picture of despair, and came in recklessly and went to his
room.”

“That proves that Miss Wynde is not many miles from here,” said Lord
Towyn. “His despair may be readily accounted for, if he had just come
from an interview with her.”

“Yesterday,” continued the officer, “he strolled about the town all the
forenoon, and went down to the river, and visited the wharves on the
Canal, and seemed to be making up his mind to something that required
courage. After luncheon at the Caledonian, he took a cab and went off
again, not returning till midnight last night.”

“And you followed him?” cried Atkins.

“What, and put that sharp old ferret Craven Black on his guard!”
ejaculated Ryan, in astonishment. “No, sir. We’ve got an uncommon pair
to deal with. Mr. Black and his lady are as shrewd and keen as any old
stagers I ever knew. It wouldn’t do to let them suspect that we are on
their track, or they would outwit us yet, and perhaps put this young
lady in peril. People do a many things when they get desperate that
will do them no good, and is sure to harm them if found out.”

A stifled groan came from Sir Harold. Ryan shot a quick, suspicious
glance at him.

“Then you are at a stand-still, Ryan,” said Mr. Atkins impatiently.
“You have treed the game and sat down to wait for us?”

“By no means, sir,” answered Ryan deliberately. “I saw the cabby after
Rufus Black had gone to bed, and arf-a-crown drew out of the fellow
all that he knew. Mind you my lord, that gold and silver make the best
cork-screws in existence. The cabby owned up all he knew, as I said,
and a pity it wasn’t more. He drove out with his fare to an estate
called Heather Hills, between this and Nairn, on the coast, and a wild,
bleak spot it is, according to cabby. They went up a long drive and
stopped in a carriage porch, and Rufus Black he knocked and rung, and
a house-maid came to the door, and he asked her something, and she
pointed down the coast. And, telling cabby to wait, young Black went
down the bluffs and struck across the fields. Cabby put an oil-cloth on
his horse, for the wind was blowing free and strong from the sea, and
sat there on his box, and sat there till it began to grow dark and he
began to swear a blue streak; and then, at last, young Black came back
with a young lady dressed in black upon his arm, a hanging on to him so
very fond, and a looking up at him so very tender, that cabby saw that
they were lovers.”

“Impossible!” cried Lord Towyn, turning pale. “I will stake my very
soul on Miss Wynde’s courage, and her fidelity to me. No personal
fears, no cruelty even, could drive her into accepting Rufus Black. I
know her brave and glorious nature; I know that she could never know a
moment of weakness or yielding. The cabman has deceived you, Ryan.”

“No, my lord,” said the detective doggedly. “I’ll stake anything your
lordship likes on his good faith. Rufus Black hung over the lady as if
the ground wasn’t good enough for her to walk on, and she smiled up
at him as loving as--as a basket of chips,” said Ryan, at fault for a
simile, and concluding his comparison rather ignominiously. “The lady
saw cabby, and says she, blushing and smiling, ‘The gentleman will
stay to dinner, and you can put up your horses in the stable,’ says
she, ‘and go into the servants’ hall and get a glass of ale and your
dinner.’ And cabby put up his horses, and went into the kitchen.”

“A queer story,” muttered Atkins. “Perhaps Miss Wynde was playing a
part--pretending to love Rufus Black in order to throw her jailers off
their guard, and so obtain a chance of escape?”

The young earl’s face now flushed.

“I can’t understand it,” he said. “It is not like Miss Wynde to play
such a part, even to effect her escape from her enemies. She is truth
incarnate. She could never summon to her lips those false smiles; she
could never for one moment allow Rufus Black to consider himself her
favored lover.”

“The earl is right,” said Sir Harold. “Neva could never play such a
part. She is too truthful and straightforward.”

The detective bent another quick glance at the baronet.

“Did the cabman make any further discoveries?” inquired Atkins.

“One or two, of some importance,” said Ryan. “In the first place,
there were too few servants for so grand a house. In the second place,
the young lady, with an older woman, had come up here within a week.
In the third place, the house-maid said that her young mistress was
called Miss Wroat, but that that was not her real name, for the young
gentleman had asked for her by another name. And altogether, an air of
mystery seems to hang about the young lady. But the fact of the most
importance of all is, that on the way home from Heather Hills last
night, young Black got up on the box with the cabby, and asked him no
end of questions about the Scotch laws concerning marriage--if licenses
were necessary, if publication of banns was usual, and so on. And the
young man asked him which was the best church to step into for a quiet,
informal marriage, without license or publication of banns, but the
marriage to be perfectly legal and binding.”

“Ah!” said Atkins. “That begins to look as if he meant business.”

“Young Black seemed to be in gay humor all the way home,” said Ryan.
“He sung to himself, and talked and laughed, and acted as if he had
had a fortune left to him. And as they drove into Inverness, he told
the cabby that he wanted him to take him to church this morning at a
quarter to ten o’clock, and he told him that he was going to be married
to a great heiress whom he adored.”

“Is there not some mistake?” asked Lord Towyn excitedly. “Can he be in
love with some other lady?”

“I should say not,” said Atkins dryly. “Heiresses are not as plenty
as oat cakes in Scotland. He’s been courting Miss Wynde since last
July, and was dead in love with her, as any one could see. He could not
shift his affections so soon, and fix them upon another heiress. The
young lady is Miss Wynde, fast enough. And she is either deluding him,
meaning to denounce him to the minister at the altar, or to escape from
him in Inverness, or else her courage is weakened, and she believes
herself helpless, and has yielded to her enemies in a fit of despair.”

“If she were alone upon the cliffs, she might then have attempted an
escape,” said Lord Towyn, thoroughly puzzled. “I cannot feel that this
smiling, loving bride is Neva. I know she is not. But we will present
ourselves at the marriage, and if the bride be Neva, we will save her!”

“I cannot think that she is Neva,” said Sir Harold thoughtfully. “And
yet, as Atkins says, where could he have found another heiress so soon?
And how, if he loved Neva so devotedly, could he be so deeply in love
with this young lady who has just come up to Inverness?”

“She comes from Kent,” said Ryan. “The housemaid has heard her speak of
being at Canterbury within the month.”

“That settles it!” cried Atkins. “It is Miss Wynde!”

“Ryan,” exclaimed Lord Towyn, “you must go now and discover to what
church Rufus Black is going. We will wait here for you to guide us.”

Ryan bowed and departed.

He was gone until nearly ten o’clock, and the time dragged heavily to
Neva’s friends, who remained in their closed sitting-room, exchanging
surmises and doubts, and preparing themselves for an encounter with
Craven Black and Octavia.

Sir Harold put on his greatcoat and turned up his collar, and wound a
gray woolen muffler about the lower part of his face. He was standing
thus disguised, hat in hand, when Ryan came back and quietly slipped
into the room.

“The cab is waiting,” announced the detective. “I have been at Rufus
Black’s heels ever since I left you. When I got back to the Caledonian,
he was just going out in his cab. I rode on top as a friend of the
driver, who was won over to make a friend of me by a gift of a crown.
We drove to the minister’s, and to the sexton’s, and finally to a
jeweller’s, where Black bought a ring. We then went back to the hotel.
And a few minutes ago young Black entered his cab again, and gave the
order ‘to the church.’ I know the church, and we must get on our way to
reach it, if we expect to get there in time to stop the ceremony.”

Sir Harold and Lord Towyn hurried impetuously out of the room and down
the stairs, and were seated in the cab when Atkins and the detective
reached the street. These two also entered the vehicle, which rolled
swiftly down the street.

A few minutes’ drive brought them to the plain, substantial kirk which
had been chosen by Rufus Black as the scene of his second marriage to
Lally.

The four pursuers leaped from the cab, and hastily entered the edifice
by its half-opened door.

Passing through the dim and chilly vestibule, they pushed open one
of the baize-covered inner doors, which swung noiselessly upon its
well-oiled hinges, and stood within the kirk.

It was a plain church interior, without stained glass or lofty arched
window, with bare walls and ceilings, and with the plainest of
gasoliers; the reading desk of solid oak, beautifully carved, was yet
in keeping with the rugged simplicity of this house of worship. Here
the old Covenanters might have worshiped; and here their descendants
did worship, in all the stern simplicity of the faith in which they had
been trained.

There was no one save the pew-opener in the church at the moment of
the intrusion of Sir Harold Wynde and his companions. The four passed
silently down the long dim aisle, and entered a tall-backed pew, in
which they were nearly hidden from view. Lord Towyn gave the pew-opener
a shilling, and they were left to themselves.

“It doesn’t look like a wedding,” said Sir Harold, shivering in his
greatcoat. “If the bridegroom came on before us, where is he?”

The question was answered by the appearance of Rufus Black and the
minister from the little vestry, in which they had gone to warm
themselves. Rufus wore his ordinary garments, but had bought a white
waistcoat and neck-tie, which gave him a clerical air. He kept his eyes
upon the door with an anxious, uneasy glance.

“He’s afraid she’ll give him the slip, after all,” muttered Ryan.

The green baize-covered door swung open and closed again. Rufus Black
and the occupants of the high-back pew in the corner near the reading
desk alike started, but the arrival was only that of a few persons
who had seen the open church door, and surmised that a wedding was in
progress. They questioned the pew-opener, and subsided into pews.

Presently a few more curious persons appeared, and took their seats
also.

The occupants of the high-backed pew grew impatient. It was after ten
o’clock, an early hour for a wedding, but the hour Rufus had himself
appointed, in his eager impatience to claim his young wife. A cold
sweat started to the young bridegroom’s face. He began to think that
Lally had thought better of her promise to remarry him, and had decided
to give him up for the worthless, weak, irresolute being he knew
himself to be.

“There’s a hitch somewhere,” said Ryan.

Again the baize-covered door swung open, and four persons came slowly
up the aisle.

It was the bridal party at last.

Rufus Black started forward with an irrepressible eagerness, joy and
relief. Sir Harold Wynde and Lord Towyn, alike pale and agitated,
regarded the approaching party with burning eyes.

First of all came the steward of Heather Hills, with a girlish figure
clinging to his arm. Behind these two came the steward’s wife in gray
silk, and Peters in black silk and crape, but with white ribbons at her
throat, and white lace collar and sleeves.

Sir Harold and the young earl looked at the three strange figures in
a sort of bewilderment. They had expected to see Craven Black and
Octavia. Not seeing them, they fixed their glances upon Lally.

The young wife had laid aside her mourning for her great-aunt upon this
occasion, and wore a dress that Mrs. Wroat had bought for her upon
their memorable shopping expedition immediately after Lally’s arrival
in London.

It was a delicate mauve moire, made with a long train. Over it was worn
an upper dress of filmy tulle, arranged in foam-like puffs over all its
surface. This too formed a trail. The corsage was of puffs of tulle
over the moire, and was made low in the neck and short in the sleeves.
The bride wore a tulle vail, which fell over her face in soft folds,
and was confined to her head by an aigrette of diamonds. Through the
filmy folds of her vail the spectators caught the gleam of diamonds on
her arms and neck and bosom.

The steward conducted his beautiful young charge to the altar, and
bride and bridegroom stood side by side and the minister slowly took
his place.

Lord Towyn made a movement to dash from his seat, but Sir Harold caught
his arm in a stern grip, and compelled him to remain.

At the moment of beholding the bride, a mist had swept over the young
earl’s vision. His brain had seemed to swim. For the instant he had
scarcely doubted, in his excitement, that it was Neva who stood before
him; but as his vision cleared, he knew that this young bride was not
his betrothed wife. He knew it, although he could not see Lally’s face.
He missed the haughty carriage of Neva’s slender figure, the proud
poise of her small, noble head, the swaying grace of her movements.
This young bride was not so tall as Neva, and had not Neva’s dainty
imperial grace.

“It’s not Neva!” he whispered excitedly. “That is Rufus Black, sure
enough, but the lady is not Neva.”

“You can’t see her face,” said Atkins. “I think it is Miss Wynde.”

At this moment the bride with a sweep of her hand, threw back her
vail. As her bright, dark face, so like a gipsy’s and with a glow of
happiness upon it, met the gaze of the spectators, Sir Harold stifled a
groan.

Lord Towyn stared at the pretty brown face, with its fluctuating color,
and the softly melting black eyes, and a dead pallor covered his face.

If this young girl was the chosen bride of Rufus Black, where was Neva?
Why had Rufus given her up? The wildest fears for her life and safety
possessed him.

The marriage went on. The four pursuers who had come to interrupt the
proceedings sat in their high-backed pew as if utterly stupefied.
What objection could they raise to the marriage of Rufus Black to a
stranger who came to the church escorted by her friends? Why should
they object to such a marriage? They heard the questions and answers as
in a trance. The name of Lalla Bird sounded strangely upon their ears.
And when the minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife, and whom
God has joined together let not man put asunder,” Sir Harold Wynde and
the young earl looked at each other with terrified, inquiring eyes,
that asked the question that filled their souls alike: Where was Neva?

After the prayer that followed the ceremony, the minister went into the
vestry, followed by the newly married pair, the steward and his wife,
and good Mrs. Peters.

The casual spectators of the wedding stole silently out of the church.

“Well, I’ve come up here on a fool’s errand,” muttered Ryan, in a tone
of chagrin.

“Perhaps not,” said Lord Towyn. “Rufus may be able to give us some clue
to his father’s whereabouts, if we approach him judiciously. I am going
into the vestry to see him.”

“And I too,” said the baronet, rising.

The young earl led the way from their pew to the vestry, Sir Harold at
his side, and Mr. Atkins and Ryan behind them.

The bride, all blushes and smiles, was writing her name in the marriage
register, when the young earl and his companions entered the small
room. Rufus Black had just signed it, and was putting on his gloves. He
gave a great start as he recognized Lord Towyn and Atkins, and stared
beyond them with an unmistakable terror, as if he expected to behold
the cynical sneering face and angry eyes of his father looming up
behind the intruders.

“You here, my lord?” he faltered.

“Yes, Rufus,” said the young earl, holding out his hand. “We happened
to be at Inverness and have been witnesses to your marriage. Permit us
to congratulate you.”

Rufus drew a long breath of relief and shook the earl’s hand heartily.

“I thought--I thought--” he began, confused and hesitating--“I was
afraid-- But never mind. It’s odd your being up here, my lord. How do
you do, Atkins? Lally,” and Rufus turned to his young wife, who was
looking curiously at the new-comers, “here are some friends of mine, up
from Kent. Lord Towyn, Lally, and Mr. Atkins of Canterbury.”

Lally blushed and acknowledged the introduction gracefully.

“Can we see you in the church a moment, Mr. Black?” asked Lord Towyn.

Rufus consented, with that look of fear again in his eyes. He
apologized for a moment’s absence to his bride and her friends, who
were now signing their names to the register, and accompanied his
pursuers back into the church. His face brightened when he found that
his father was not in waiting for him in the church.

“You have a pretty young bride, Rufus,” said the young earl pleasantly.
“We have followed you up from Kent, with the idea that you were on
your way to Miss Wynde. It was in this way we happened to be at your
wedding. Is Mrs. Rufus Black a recent acquaintance?”

Rufus hesitated, with a quick glance at Sir Harold’s muffled face and
figure. Then he said bravely, resolving to act upon his new principles
of straightforwardness and courage:

“It is an odd story, Lord Towyn. I have been married before to my wife
to whom I was married this morning. My father separated me from her and
I read in a London paper that she was dead. I discovered my mistake
the other day in London. I met her in a picture-shop. She came off
to Scotland that night, and I found her yesterday. She is an heiress
now, my lord, but the same true and loving wife she used to be. I was
desperate at her loss; I was half mad, I think, when I asked Miss Wynde
to marry me. I never loved any one but my own wife, and I beg you to
say to Miss Wynde for me, that I send my best wishes for her happiness,
and I should be glad to witness her marriage with you, my lord.”

“Thank you, Rufus. But where is Miss Wynde?”

A look of genuine surprise appeared in Rufus Black’s eyes.

“Why, she is at Wynde Heights, with my father and her step-mother,” he
answered.

“She is not there. They have not been there. They have conveyed her
to some lonely place, where they hope to subdue her into consenting
to marry you,” said Lord Towyn. “Can you give us no clue to their
whereabouts?”

“None whatever, my lord. My father said they were going to Wynde
Heights, and ordered me to hold myself in readiness to come to him at
a moment’s warning. I have not heard from him since he left Hawkhurst.
I am now of age, and have flung off my father’s authority forever. I
know no more than you do, my lord, where my father can have gone. But
one thing is sure. When he sees the announcement of my marriage in the
_Times_, he’ll give up the game, and bring Miss Wynde back to her home.”

“He may not dare to do that,” said Atkins. “He has carried matters with
too high a hand, and has gone too far to make an easy retreat. Has your
father any property, Mr. Black?”

“About three hundred a year,” said Rufus. “His wife is rich.”

“I mean, does he own any real estate?”

Rufus smiled, shook his head, and hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “I believe he does own a small
estate somewhere, but it never brought him in a penny. It is barren,
unproductive, and out of the world.”

“The very place to which he would have gone!” cried Atkins. “Where is
it?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Rufus. “You see my father never talked of
his affairs to me. In fact, I never lived with him. I was always at
school, and we were more like strangers, or master and serf, than like
father and son. His property may be in Wales, and it may be elsewhere.
I believe there are mountains near it or around it, but I am not sure.
Indeed, my lord, almost any one who ever knew my father can tell you
more about his affairs than I can.”

Rufus spoke with a plain sincerity that convinced his hearers of his
truthfulness.

“We have had our journey to Scotland for nothing,” said Atkins.

Ryan looked crestfallen.

“We will detain you no longer, Rufus,” said Lord Towyn, a shadow
darkening his fair and noble face. “Make our excuses to your bride for
taking you from her so soon after your marriage, and accept our best
wishes for your future prosperity and happiness. And now good-morning.”

With an exchange of courtesies and friendly greetings the party broke
up, Rufus Black returning to his young wife and her wondering friends,
to make all necessary apologies for his absence from them, and Lord
Towyn and his companions making their way into the street.

“What are we to do now?” demanded the young earl, as they paused at the
open door of the cab.

Sir Harold looked at his daughter’s lover with haggard eyes.

“I am worn out with excitement and fatigue,” said the baronet, in a
low, weary voice. “I will go back to the hotel and lie down. I must not
become worn out. Heaven knows I shall need all my strength.”

“And you, Atkins?” said Lord Towyn.

“I shall try to catch a nap also,” said the solicitor gloomily. “I’m
tired too. I can’t stand it to go banging back to Kent by the first
south-bound train.”

“And you, Ryan?” asked the earl.

“I don’t know,” said the detective. “I want to think over what has
happened, and see if I can get any new ideas.”

He raised his hat, and walked away.

“I’ll take a stroll about the town, Sir Harold,” said the earl. “I feel
strangely restless, and not at all sleepy. I slept very well last night
on the train--as well as I have slept since Neva disappeared. I’ll
meet you and Atkins in our sitting-room at the Railway Hotel by four
o’clock.”

Sir Harold and Atkins entered the cab, and were driven to their hotel.
The young earl watched the cab until it disappeared from sight, and
then he walked down the street, idly taking his way toward the river.

The wind blew strong and fiercely--a very winter wind, as cold and keen
as if it blew directly from the North pole, and having suggestions of
icebergs in it. The young earl shivered, and drew up his coat collar.

“Pretty weather for this season,” he muttered. “The gale of night
before last has not quite blown itself out, and is giving us a few
parting puffs.”

He walked down to the wharves and stood by the water’s edge, his hat
pulled over his fair brows to keep it on, his hands in his pockets, the
very picture of a careless saunterer, but a great wave of despair was
surging in his heart.

“My poor Neva!” he said to himself. “Where is she this wild day? Does
she begin to think I am never coming to rescue her?”

His wild glances, straying over the boats in the river, settled at that
instant upon a graceful yacht just coming to anchor. He could read on
her stern her name--_The Arrow_. He watched her idly for a long time.
He saw a boat lowered from her deck, and two sailors descend into it. A
gentleman in greatcoat and tall silk hat followed them, and was rowed
toward the shore.

The young earl started, his blue eyes flaming. Something in the
attitude and carriage of the gentleman excited his keenest scrutiny. As
the boat came nearer, and the faces of its occupants were revealed more
plainly, a strange cry sprang to Lord Towyn’s lips. He had recognized
in the tall stranger gentleman his own and Neva’s enemy--Craven Black!




CHAPTER XXI. TROUBLE AHEAD FOR THE PLOTTERS.


It was a strange fatality that had brought Craven Black to Inverness at
the very time when his enemies were there, engaged in a search for him.

The cold weather had set in early in his Highland retreat, and already
a foretaste of winter reigned in the Wilderness. Octavia’s cold had
settled upon her lungs, and she coughed dismally, and in a way that
made Artress tremble lest the wealth upon which they all counted
and Octavia’s life should die out together. Medicine was needed
imperatively, and so were all manner of winter supplies: and it was for
these things Craven Black had ventured from his stronghold like some
beast of prey, and when he should have obtained them he intended to
return to the Wilderness, and there wait patiently until Neva should
yield to his infamous demands that she should wed his son.

He sprang nimbly from the boat on reaching the wharf, and taking the
cigar from his mouth, said, in a voice loud enough to convey his words
to the ears of Lord Towyn, whom he had not even seen:

“I am going up among the shops, boys, to make my purchases. I shall go
nowhere except to the shops, for I don’t want to incur any risks. Be
guarded, and say nothing to any one about your business or employer. I
sha’n’t go aboard under two or three hours, and you can spend the time
in some gin-shop. Here’s a crown to divide between you, but don’t get
drunk. Remember, we must get all our stores aboard early and be off at
daybreak in the morning. Be back at the boat here in a couple of hours.”

The men assented and took the money given them, hurrying away. Craven
Black walked in an opposite direction, and was soon lost to view.

Lord Towyn turned his gaze on the yacht. He saw that a man had been
left in charge of the yacht, for the captain stood on the deck smoking
a pipe.

A waterman was rowing along the river near the wharves, and Lord Towyn
signalled him. He came up swiftly to the edge of the wharf upon which
the young earl stood, and doffed his tarpaulin.

“Row me out to the yacht yonder,” said Lord Towyn, springing into the
boat. “I’ll board her on the further side.”

He sat down and the waterman pulled lustily out into the stream. In
a very brief space of time the boat had crept into the shadow of the
yacht on its further side, and the young earl climbed lightly to the
deck.

The captain approached him, scowling.

“Hallo, you there; what do you want?” he demanded gruffly. “This here’s
a private yacht, sir.”

“So I supposed,” said his lordship coolly. “It belongs to Mr. Craven
Black, doesn’t it?”

The pipe fell from the captain’s hands. He changed color.

“I don’t know as it makes no difference who it belongs to,” he said
blustering. “I work for pay, and it makes no difference to nobody who I
work for. Get out of this, young man!”

“Come, come,” said Lord Towyn sternly, his blue eyes blazing with a
light that terrified the captain. “None of your bluff, fellow. It won’t
work with me. I know with whom I am dealing. You are the servant of
Craven Black, and what have you to urge against my having you indicted
with him for the abduction of Miss Wynde?”

The captain fairly gasped for breath. He looked helplessly toward the
shore.

“I haven’t done nothing,” he muttered presently, quailing under the
steady, fixed and stern gaze of the earl’s blue eyes. “I’ve hired as
cap’n, and I am cap’n; but that’s all. On my soul, I an’t no party to
no abduction.”

“Your past character will be examined to throw light upon your present
motives and doings,” said the earl, with a telling random shot.

The captain winced and quavered.

“Now see here, my man,” said Lord Towyn, following up his advantage.
“If you have done anything wrong in the past, it will be like a leaden
weight to drag you down when the officers of the law arrest you for
assisting in the abduction of Miss Wynde. It makes no difference to you
whom I am. Your game is up. The officers of the law have accompanied us
up from London. There are four of us in all upon the trail of Craven
Black. Refuse to do as I tell you, and I’ll call yonder policeman on
the wharf and give you up on the charge of abducting a lady of rank and
fortune.”

“What do you want of me?” the captain asked falteringly. “I haven’t had
my pay from Mr. Black, and he’ll kill me if I betray him.”

“He need not know that you have betrayed him,” said our hero. “You need
not leave this vessel. All that you have to do to secure your safety is
this: Tell me exactly the whereabouts of Miss Wynde, and her friends
will follow the yacht at a safe distance, quite out of sight from your
deck, and you can remain on board and collect your pay of Mr. Black. He
need not suspect that you have betrayed him.”

“And what will I gain by betraying him?”

“Your freedom from arrest. You see the policeman still stands on the
wharf? So sure as you refuse to speak, and speak quickly, I’ll call
him!”

Lord Towyn meant what he said, and the captain comprehended the fact.
He saw that Craven Black had been caught in a trap, and with the usual
instinct of villainy, he resolved to save himself from the general ruin.

“You swear that I shall be protected if I tell the truth?” he asked.

“I do.”

“I suppose it’s penal servitude for abducting a young lady,” said the
captain. “Jack said so last night. Blamed if I haven’t been sick of
the job, anyhow. I don’t mind a mutiny at sea, when there’s cause, but
I can’t relish making war on a helpless girl, and I haven’t from the
first.”

“Come to the point. Where is Miss Wynde?”

“At a place up in the mountains owned by Mr. Black, and called the
Wilderness.”

“Miss Wynde is there, and Mrs. Craven Black?”

“Yes; and the servants, and Mrs. Artress.”

“How far from here is the Wilderness?”

“About twenty miles, if you could go direct, which you can’t.
It’s forty miles by water. You know Cromarty Frith, up in
Ross--and--Cromarty?”

Lord Towyn assented.

“You go about half-way up the Frith and turn into a river that leads
up among the mountains. The stream grows narrower as you ascend, but
the water remains deep, and at last your boat fetches into a small loch
lying at the foot of the mountains and surrounded by them. A steep
mountain rises right before you. Half-way up its side lies a wide
ledge, and on that the house is built. It’s a wild-looking spot, sir,
and a dreary one. It’s mighty cold up there, and I haven’t relished
the prospect of spending the winter there, not by no means.”

The earl asked several questions, to make himself conversant with the
route, and also to make sure that the man was not lying to him. Assured
on this point, he said:

“Craven Black intends to return home in the morning. He must not
suspect that you have betrayed him. Keep the secret, and we will do so.”

The captain’s look of fear showed conclusively that he would be careful
not to allow his employer to suspect his treachery.

After a few further words, Lord Towyn re-entered his boat and returned
to the shore.

“Anything more, sir?” asked the waterman, as the boat ground against
the wharf.

“Nothing more--unless,” added the earl, with a sudden thought, “you
could direct me to a small vessel, a fast sailer, that I could hire for
a day or two. I should want a couple of men to take charge of her.”

“I don’t know of any such boat,” said the waterman, scratching his
head. “And yet _The Lucky_ might suit you, sir, though it isn’t a
gentleman’s boat. She’s built for a fishing vessel, is brand-new, and
had a trial sail the day afore the gale, when she went like a bird.”

“I’d like to see her. Take me out to her.”

_The Lucky_ lay out in the stream, half a mile further inland. Lord
Towyn rowed out to her, and found her joint-owners, two brothers, on
board. He went over the vessel, and found it new and clean, and in
fine order. The owners were willing to let the little craft with their
services, and the young earl hired it for a week, paying in advance
twice the sum the thrifty Scotsmen demanded for it.

“She must be provisioned immediately,” said Lord Towyn. “Her
destination is a secret, which I will tell you in the morning. I have
three friends who will make the excursion with me. We shall want
blankets, and all kinds of cooked meats and stores. We must leave
Inverness at day-break. Come ashore with me, one of you, and I will
select the stores we are likely to need.”

One of the brothers accompanied the earl ashore, and conducted him to
various shops, Lord Towyn keeping a keen look-out for Craven Black, in
order to avoid him.

Blankets and mattresses and bed linen were sent down to _The Lucky_;
various kinds of cooked meats, including rounds of roast beef, roasted
chickens, meat puddings, ham and veal pies, smoked salmon and boiled
ham, were packed in hampers and sent aboard; and Lord Towyn added
baskets of fruits, both dried and fresh, and jams and confitures of
every sort in abundance, besides boxes of biscuits of every description.

“It looks like a v’y’ge to Ingy,” said Macdonald, the one of the two
brothers who had accompanied Lord Towyn ashore, contemplating the
array of stores with kindling eyes. “We can provision a ship’s crew to
Australy.”

“Whatever is left, you will be welcome to,” said the earl, smiling.

The young lord saw his new purchases deposited on board _The Lucky_,
and himself attended to the arrangement of the little cabin, and then
paying his waterman liberally, he returned to his hotel.

The day had passed swiftly, and he found that it was nearly five
o’clock of the short afternoon, and the street lamps were lighted, when
he entered his hotel and went up stairs, two steps at a time, to his
sitting-room.




CHAPTER XXII. THE FINAL MOVE IMPENDING.


The young Lord Towyn came into his sitting-room and the presence of
his friends like a sunny south breeze, all hopefulness and gladness.
He found Sir Harold walking the floor, his head bowed upon his breast,
his face ghastly pale, his eyes haggard, his mind bordering upon
distraction. The father’s anxieties concerning his missing daughter was
almost more than the overstrung brain and tortured heart could bear.

Mr. Atkins stood at the window, sullenly despairing.

Ryan, completely at his wit’s end, sat before the blazing fire in a
crouching attitude, and with crestfallen visage.

Sir Harold, Atkins and Ryan turned, as by one impulse, toward the young
earl, as he bounded lightly into the room. Their eyes expressed their
wonder at the change a few hours had wrought in him.

“You look like incarnate sunshine, Arthur,” said the baronet sadly.
“Ah, the elastic spirit of youth!”

The young lord laughed joyously, his fair face aglow with the gladness
that filled his being. He took off his greatcoat and hat, great drops
of sleet or rain falling from it, and shook himself, as he said:

“There’s a mist beginning to fall. We shall have a wet day to-morrow.”

Sir Harold looked more keenly at the young earl, and a sudden
excitement possessed him.

“What has happened, Arthur?” he demanded. “You have news of Neva?”

The glad smiles rippled like waves of sunlight over the young lord’s
mouth, and a joyous light danced in his blue eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “I have news of Neva.”

In an instant, Sir Harold, Atkins and Ryan crowded around our hero, all
eagerness and excitement.

“Is she here, at Inverness?” cried Atkins. “Have you seen her?”

“No; she is hidden among the Highlands, up in Ross and Cromarty. She is
safe and well.”

“But how do you know it?” demanded Ryan, full of professional zeal and
jealousy at once.

Lord Towyn took in his own the right hand of Sir Harold and pressed it,
as he answered gravely:

“I have seen Craven Black!”

A series of exclamations burst from the earl’s hearers. Sir Harold
Wynde trembled like a leaf, and turned his back upon the keen-eyed
detective.

“Black is here?” ejaculated Ryan, all thoughts of “the mysterious Mr.
Hunlow” lost in his sudden amazement. “Then our trip to Scotland was
not a wild-goose chase, after all? Tell me where he is, my lord;” and
Ryan took a step toward the door.

“Leave the management of the affair to me for the present, Ryan,” said
Lord Towyn. “You have placed us on the right track, and you shall have
all the credit for doing so, but we want no arrests, no noise, no
scandal. The matter must be hushed up for family reasons. No whisper
must go forth to the world of the wickedness of Lady Wynde. The failure
of the conspirators must be their punishment.”

“Yes, yes,” said Sir Harold. “The earl is right. There must be no
scandal.”

The detective shot a keen glance at the baronet, whose back was still
toward him.

“I have discovered,” continued Lord Towyn, “that Craven Black has an
old house up in the Highlands, and that he has Neva there in close
imprisonment. Neva has all the courage for which we gave her credit,
and holds out stoutly against her enemies. Black apprehends a long stay
in the Highlands while reducing her to subjection, and has come to
Inverness to-day for winter stores. His yacht lies in the river, and he
will be off at daybreak.”

“What are we to do?” exclaimed Atkins. “He will escape us. It will be
necessary to arrest him.”

“I have made all the preparations for pursuit,” replied our hero. “I
have a sloop, provisioned and ready, in which we will follow the yacht.
We will dine here, and at a late hour this evening we will go aboard
our vessel. We must be off in the morning, soon after the yacht.”

Sir Harold plied the earl with questions, and the latter told the tale
of his day’s adventures at full length.

At six o’clock, dinner was served in their sitting-room. After dinner
they talked for hours, and at ten o’clock that evening they quitted
their hotel and went down to the wharf.

A fine mist was falling. The river was shrouded in darkness, but watery
gleams of light came from the yacht and the other vessels lying in the
river. The wind was still strong and free, blowing in fitful gusts.

The party had hardly come to a halt upon the wharf, when a small boat
manned by two rowers shot out of the gloom, and ran along-side the
landing-place.

“Is it you, Macdonald?” asked the young earl, bending forward and
straining his eyes through the darkness.

“Aye, aye, sir. Is it you, my lord!” said Macdonald, in a loud whisper,
rising in the boat.

“You are on time,” said Lord Towyn. “The clock is striking the hour at
this moment.”

The earl assisted Sir Harold into the boat, and sprang in after
him. Atkins and Ryan followed, and the boat shot out again into the
stream. A vigorous row of several minutes on the part of the brothers
Macdonald, brought the party alongside _The Lucky_, and they climbed to
her deck. The boat was drawn up and secured to the davits.

The young earl led the way out of the wet and gloom down into the
cabin. There was no fire here, but a lantern hung from the ceiling,
shedding a bright light upon the table and the bench around it. The
air was chilly, and the small cabin, despite its snugness, had the
comfortless appearance usual to a ship’s cabin.

“It’s cold here,” said the elder Macdonald, the captain of the sloop.
“I’ll just mix you a punch. There’s nothing like a good punch to keep
the rheumatiz out of one’s bones.”

He brought from the pantry a spirit lamp, which he lighted. Over this,
upon a light frame-work, he placed a tea-kettle. Then he brought out
an immense bowl and ladle, a netted bag full of lemons, a tin can of
sugar, various spices, and a jug of Scotch whisky. When the water
in the tea-kettle boiled, he rolled up his sleeves and set to work,
concocting a punch which proved a success. The four passengers, as well
as the two Macdonalds, did full justice to the warming beverage.

About eleven o’clock Sir Harold Wynde was persuaded to retire to a
state-room and berth, but he did not sleep. A host of anxieties pressed
upon him, and he tossed for hours on his hard bed, the prey of a
torturing anguish.

Atkins and Ryan went to bed, and to sleep.

Lord Towyn went out upon the deck, and walked to and fro with
Macdonald, whom he found to be a shrewd, kindly Scotsman, and he told
him enough concerning the misdeeds of Craven Black, and the abduction
of Miss Wynde, to interest him personally in the restoration of Neva
to her friends.

“We must keep an eye upon the yacht all night,” said the earl. “She
may creep out in the darkness, and if she attempts that, we will creep
after. I know the route she will take, but I prefer to arrive at the
inland loch not an hour behind her.”

“I will keep watch,” said Macdonald. “You ought to get a little sleep,
my lord.”

“I cannot sleep,” answered Lord Towyn, more to himself than to his new
ally. “My veins seem full of quicksilver to-night, rather than full of
blood. So near to her--so near!”

He paced the deck alone in the mist and the darkness. Around him the
watery gleams of light flickered upon the river, and from the wharves
other watery gleams strayed, looking like reflections of the first. The
bells rang the hours with muffled clangor. A strange ghostliness fell
upon the dark river and the sleeping city.

All through the night Lord Towyn continued his weary tramping to and
fro upon the deck. One of the Macdonalds shared his vigil; the other
slept.

_The Arrow_ lay quietly at her moorings throughout the night, but at
daybreak signs of activity were seen upon her deck. The morning had not
fairly dawned when the yacht slipped out of the stream, heading toward
Moray Frith.

The breeze was favorable to her progress, without being astern, and she
bowled away at a fine rate of speed. The young earl, looking through a
sea glass, could distinguish four figures upon the deck of _The Arrow_,
and one of these he recognized as that of Craven Black.

“Shall we shake out the sails, my lord?” asked the elder Macdonald.
“The yacht goes well, but I fancy we might show her the heels of _The
Lucky_ in a fair race. We can keep her in sight the whole distance.”

“That won’t do, Macdonald. Black must not suspect he’s followed. This
mist is like a vail, and will conceal us if we keep at a reasonable
distance behind. Let him get half way to Fort George, and then we will
start.”

In good time, when _The Arrow_ had made about the distance indicated as
desirable, _The Lucky_ slipped from her moorings, and shaking out her
sails as a bird shakes its wings, she flew onward over the waters in
pursuit.

The sloop was half-way to the fort, and the yacht was out of sight,
when the baronet, fully dressed, and showing by his haggard face that
he had not slept during the night, came out upon the deck.

The young earl took Sir Harold’s arm and they walked the deck together,
conversing in low tones.

A little later, Mr. Atkins and Ryan appeared, and the four passengers
adjourned to the cabin, where the younger Macdonald, who acted as
steward, had set out upon the cabin table a formidable array of cold
meats, bread, biscuits, and fruits, both fresh and preserved. A pot of
hot coffee had also been provided, and a bowl of hot punch was ready
for those who preferred it.

After breakfast, the passengers returned to the deck.

They passed Fort George in good time, and came out into the rougher
waters of the Moray Frith. Here their progress was less rapid. _The
Lucky_ lurched somewhat; but when she turned into the straits, and
finally emerged into the smoother waters of Cromarty Frith, she was
moving as steadily, although by no means as swiftly, as a bird upon the
wing.

_The Arrow_ was out of sight, and Macdonald crowded on all the sail the
small sloop would bear. It was well he did so, for as the day wore on
the wind grew shifty, and sometimes blew dead ahead, and the average
rate of speed up the Cromarty Frith did not exceed four miles an hour.

It was after midday when they turned into the river which led to
the loch of the Wilderness. Lord Towyn recognized the stream by the
description that had been given him, and unhesitatingly directed an
advance. Sir Harold and Mr. Atkins had many misgivings as the sloop
crept slowly up the river, a mere deep cut between high hills, their
progress like the snail’s, but they did not venture to express it to
their hopeful and confident young guide.

As the stream grew narrower their misgivings increased, and the young
earl read their thoughts in their grave faces.

“Courage!” he said, approaching the baronet. “It is true we barely
creep along here, and the day is wearing on, but the yacht has had to
go slowly here also, and cannot be more than an hour in advance of us.”

“But, Arthur,” suggested the baronet, giving voice to his
apprehensions, “suppose that the man of the yacht deceived you as to
the proper route, or that we have taken the wrong course in running up
this river? I can’t believe that any one can make a cut in the hills
like this one an approach even to a Highland stronghold. No wind can
strike our sails, or so little, at any rate, that we could easily walk
faster than we sail, if only we had a level road to walk on. And if we
_are_ upon the wrong tack, what will become of Neva, my poor wronged
little Neva?”

His voice trembled as he asked the question.

“I know we are going straight to her, Sir Harold,” said the earl
hopefully. “Believe and trust in my convictions. You may smile at the
idea, but I feel that I am getting nearer and nearer to Neva with every
inch we gain.”

The night closed in early in that wild Highland region, a night of
wind and mist. Not a light gleamed from the deck of _The Lucky_, as
she felt her way between the narrowing rocks. About six o’clock of the
early evening, she glided from the narrow river with a sudden bound, as
a puff of wind filled her flapping sails, into the hidden loch of the
Wilderness.

The yacht lay at anchor at the further side of the loch, and a mile
away. A lantern hung at her masthead, and the forms of men were seen in
the spectral glare, moving hurriedly to and fro on her deck.

“We have come to the right place, you see,” said Lord Towyn exultantly.
“This is the loch. Yonder lies the yacht, but recently come in. The men
are busy unloading their purchases.”

Sir Harold and Atkins swept the bold and rocky shores with their keen
glances. The rugged steeps were black and bare, and in the dense gloom
they saw no gleaming lights, no signs of habitation.

“We must come to anchor up in the deeper shadow of this overhanging
cliff,” said Lord Towyn.

The order was obeyed.

“Now lower a boat,” said the earl. “We will go ashore.”

The boat was lowered; the two McDonalds and the four passengers entered
it, and the boat was rowed toward the yacht, keeping close to the black
shore.

As they drew near, a row-boat was seen to shoot away from the yacht.
The McDonalds held their oars uplifted until the yacht’s boat had
grounded on the shore, and the three seamen belonging to the yacht had
landed. Two of the three employes of Craven Black loaded themselves
with hampers and parcels, and the third preceded them up the steep and
circuitous path in the mountain side, bearing a lantern which he swung
at his side.

“They are all gone up the cliff,” said the earl. “No one is left to
watch the shore. Strike out, men. Let us land and follow them up the
mountain. The man with the lantern shall guide us as well as his
comrades.”

To say was to do. The sloop’s boat speedily grounded on the strip of
beach, and Lord Towyn leaped out and sought for the entrance to the
narrow path up which the three figures were slowly climbing, one still
waving his light. The path was found. The earl bade the boatmen wait,
and the four men, Lord Towyn, Sir Harold Wynde, Mr. Atkins and Ryan,
glided up the path toward the Wilderness like so many shadows.




CHAPTER XXIII. THE END OF THE GAME.


The yacht had arrived at the loch at the foot of Wilderness mountain
just as the dusk was falling. Craven Black had immediately gone ashore
in the mist and gloom, climbed the rugged steep, and hastened to his
temporary home. The windows were all uncurtained, and a broad stream of
watery light penetrated for a little distance into the darkness. There
was no sound of barking of dogs, and the silence struck upon Craven
Black’s ears strangely. The front door stood wide open, but no one was
in the hall.

He entered the house and looked into the drawing-room. Mrs. Artress
was there, pale and perturbed, a restless spark in her ashen eyes, and
disorder in her attire. She uttered an exclamation as she beheld Mr.
Black, and sprang toward him, exclaiming:

“I am so glad you are come, Craven. Have you got the medicines for
Octavia?”

“Yes. How is she?”

“I don’t know. I am very anxious about her. She looks like death, and
her breathing is very strange. She won’t lie down, but just wanders
about the house like some restless ghost. I think that her lungs are
congested, and that she is in serious danger. I really think you ought
to take her to Inverness and put her in a physician’s care. What if she
should die in this remote Wilderness?”

“She won’t die while she is able to ‘wander about the house,’”
responded Craven Black lightly. “When people are seriously ill they
take to their beds. Why are the dogs shut up?”

“Octavia ordered it. She could not bear their noise; it drove her wild,
she said.”

“Humph. Nervous. She will be better of her cold in a day or two. How is
Miss Wynde?”

“She is still obstinate, Craven, and never says a word against her
starvation diet. I am afraid we’ve made a serious mistake in our
estimate of her. She is what you sometimes call ‘game all through.’
She’ll die, but she won’t give in. I wish we had left her alone, and
allowed her to marry whom she pleased. That escapade of hers on the
mountain may cost Octavia her life. And if Octavia dies, her four
thousand a year dies too, and I shall have to become a companion to
some lady, and lead a horrible life of dependence and fear, and you
will have to go back to your precarious existence.”

“You are a pleasant comforter,” said Craven Black impatiently. “All
these horrors exist only in your imagination. Octavia will outlive us
all. Where is she?”

“In her own room.”

Black ran up the stairs to his wife’s room. He found Octavia standing
before the fire, clad in a loose wrapper, whose bright hue made her
pallid face look hideous. Her eyes were strangely large, and they were
thrown into relief by heavy black circles under them. Her long black
hair hung loosely down her back. She looked thin and old and spectral,
all the brightness and beauty gone from her. Her features were hard in
their expression, and the wicked soul declared itself plainly in her
unlovely countenance.

Craven Black recoiled at sight of her. How two or three days had
changed her! He felt a sudden repugnance to her. He had a horror of
weakness and illness, and a fear came over him that his cousin’s
terrors might not be without foundation.

“Oh, it’s you, Craven?” cried Octavia, in a thin, querulous voice. “How
long you have stayed. Did you get my medicine?”

“Yes, here it is,” and Black produced a bottle from his pocket. “It’s a
cough mixture.”

“I feel such a tightness here,” and Octavia put her hand upon her
chest. “Such a horrible restriction. I dare say, though it will be all
right in the morning. I remember, Craven, you hate sick people. Your
dinner is waiting. Let us go down.”

“You had better go to bed,” said Craven abruptly.

“I cannot lie down. My chest pains me when I attempt it. Had you good
luck at Inverness?”

Craven Black assented.

“Did you see any one you knew?”

“No; how should I? None of my acquaintances come to the Highlands
in November. I was as unrecognized at Inverness as I should be in
Patagonia. I will change my clothes and take you down to dinner.”

He went into his dressing-room and changed his garments. Octavia paced
the room restlessly during his absence. He returned in the course of
some minutes and escorted his wife down to the dining-room, where Mrs.
Artress joined them.

He noticed that Octavia ate nothing at the meal. She complained of a
lack of appetite, and moved restlessly in her chair, starting at every
sound.

“I have read of the ancients placing a death’s head at their feasts,”
said Black grimly, “and I seem to have followed their customs. Octavia,
do try to look like something better than a galvanized corpse.”

Octavia arose and went to the window, a spasm of pain convulsing her
hard features. The heartless mockery of her confederate in guilt smote
upon her in that hour of suffering like an avenging sword. How she had
loved him, and had sinned for him! And this was her reward!

Craven Black finished his dinner quietly, and drank his wine. Then he
arose with an air of gayety, and said:

“I have everything you sent for, Octavia, and some things you neglected
to send for. We can stand a siege in this old house all winter, if need
be. The boys are already bringing up the hampers. Will you have a look
at them?”

Octavia assented with a heavy sigh, and passed out into the front hall
with Craven Black and Mrs. Artress.

The three seamen stood in the hall, one with a lantern in his hand, the
other two in the act of depositing their hampers upon the floor.

And over the edge of the plateau at that very moment and not a score
of rods distant, four men were coming silently and slowly, with stern
faces and cautious mien, toward the house.

“That is right,” said Craven Black, examining the hampers. “Bring up
the wine baskets next.”

The three men went out. The four pursuers stood in the shadow of the
trees as they passed, and then resumed their approach to the dwelling.

“I’d like to see how the girl stands her imprisonment,” said Craven
Black. “I’ll let her know that we are prepared to spend the winter
here. By the way, Octavia, I posted that second letter to Brussels
to-day, addressed under cover of a letter to Celeste’s sister, to Lord
Towyn. We have nicely hood-winked the earl, and I should like the girl
to know of our successful manœuvres. Where is Celeste?”

“In Neva’s ante-room.”

“Come then. We will visit our prisoner.”

He went upstairs, Octavia following slowly, assisted by Mrs. Artress.
Celeste sat at work in the ante-room of Neva’s chamber, and admitted
the visitors into Neva’s presence, entering with them.

And outside the house, upon the lawn, the four shadows came nearer
and yet nearer. They flitted up the steps of the porch, and in at the
open door. They paused a moment in the deserted lower hall, and then,
hearing voices above, came silently and darkly up the stairs, and
paused at the door of the ante-room.

That room was deserted. The light streamed from the inner room, where
Neva and her enemies were grouped. The sound of voices came out to
the intruders. Softly, with sternly eager faces, the four crept
across the floor of the ante-room, and two--Sir Harold Wynde and Lord
Towyn--looked in upon the Blacks and their young victim.

The earl breathed hard, and would have leaped in like a lion to the
rescue of his betrothed and to the confusion of his enemies, but Sir
Harold Wynde held him back with a grasp of iron. The baronet meant to
learn the falseness and perfidy of the wife he had so idolized and
trusted, from her own lips.

And with what unconscious frankness she bared her guilty soul to his
scrutiny. How completely she revealed her wickedness to him.

At the moment the intruders looked in with burning eyes upon them,
Octavia was speaking. Neva stood up near the fire, very pale and
slender and fragile of figure, as her father and lover saw with
swelling hearts, but her red-brown eyes glowed with the light of an
undying courage, her head was poised haughtily upon her slender throat,
and her lips were curled in a smile of dauntless defiance.

“You see, Craven,” Octavia was saying querulously. “We have starved the
girl; we have fed her for weeks on bread and water, until her bodily
strength must be nearly gone, and yet she stands there and defies us.
What are we to do with her?”

“Miss Wynde does not sufficiently realize her own helplessness and our
power,” said Craven Black. “Your friends think you traveling with us
upon the Continent, Miss Neva. I have posted to-day a letter apparently
in your handwriting, under cover to a friend in Brussels, who will post
it back to England. That letter is addressed to Lord Towyn. How he
will kiss and caress it, and wear it in his bosom, never doubting that
you wrote it. I shall send him another letter next week, in your name,
breaking your engagement with him.”

The young earl made a slight movement but Sir Harold held him still in
a grip of iron.

Neva’s pure, proud face flushed with scorn for her enemies.

“You may send as many letters as you please to Lord Towyn,” she said
haughtily, “but you will not deceive him so readily as you did me with
that letter purporting to come from papa. Oh, Octavia, I am glad papa
never lived to know you as you are, base, treacherous, and full of
double-dealing! It is well for him that he did not live, for you would
have broken his noble heart. He loved and trusted you, and you have
repaid him by oppressing his daughter whom he loved.”

The hard, haggard features of Octavia distorted themselves in a sneer.

The baronet wondered with a sudden horror if this was the woman he had
loved. She looked a very Medusa to him now.

“Your father! Your ‘poor papa!’” mocked Octavia, with her hand upon her
chest. “You have flung Sir Harold’s name and memory at me ever since
we came to this place. And what was Sir Harold? A mere Moneybags to
me, that’s all. If you hope to move me to pity you, you couldn’t use a
worse name to give effect to your appeal than the name of your father.
I never loved Sir Harold Wynde, but I married him because he was rich.
You needn’t look so horrified. People marry for such reasons every day,
but they have not my frankness to avow it. There stands the man whom I
have loved for years,” and she pointed at Craven Black. “It is his son
whom I intend you shall marry--”

“To enrich you, madam!” cried Neva.

“Yes, to enrich me, since you say so?” exclaimed Octavia. “You have
seventy thousand pounds a year; I have four thousand. I intend to
equalize matters before you and I separate. Craven has just returned
from Inverness with household stores sufficient to last us through the
winter, and we will stay here till spring, if necessary to compel you
to accede to our wishes. Your fare, every day through this winter,
until you yield to us, shall be bread and water. I warn you not to
carry your resistance too far for I may be moved to deprive you of a
fire.”

Neva’s lovely face continued to glow with her haughty scorn.

“You seem to think that I am deserted by God and man, and completely
given over to you,” she cried. “You are mistaken. God has not deserted
me. And I can assure you, Craven and Octavia Black, that before many
weeks--before many days perhaps--Lord Towyn will trace me to this place
and rescue me from your hands.”

“Let him come!” sneered Craven Black. “Let him come!”

“Yes,” mocked Octavia, “let him come!”

Lord Towyn broke from the grasp Sir Harold still held upon him, and
stalked into the chamber.

With a shriek of delight, loud and piercing, Neva flew to his arms.

He held her clasped to his breast and backed toward the door, coming to
a halt, looking at Neva’s enemies with stern, accusing eyes.

Craven Black, Octavia, Mrs. Artress and Celeste stared at him appalled.
Not one could speak, but Octavia’s hand clutched at her chest with
sudden frenzy.

“Lord Towyn!” gasped Mrs. Artress at last, faintly.

Craven Black broke forth into curses. His hand flew to his breast
pocket, but fell again, as the door pushed open and Mr. Atkins and
Ryan, the detective, entered the room.

“By Heaven, the game is up!” he cried.

“Yes,” said our young hero, “the game is up. You have played a daring
game, Craven Black, and you have lost it.”

Octavia gasped for breath. The bitterness of defeat was almost more
than she could bear. The sight of Neva in the arms of her lover nearly
goaded her to madness.

“Yes, the game is up,” she said hollowly, “I suppose that you traced
Craven here from Inverness; but how did you get upon our trail? How did
you happen at Inverness? No matter. I do not care to know just yet. You
cannot prosecute us, Lord Towyn, if you care to preserve your bride’s
family name from scandal. I was Sir Harold Wynde’s wife, and that fact
must shield me and my friends. You cannot take from me my jointure
of four thousand a year, and with that Craven and I need not suffer,
especially as we have the Wynde Heights estate. The game is up, Lord
Towyn, as you say, but we are not discomforted nor overthrown. You will
keep silence for the sake of the family. Besides, you know I am Neva’s
personal guardian, and had a right to take her where I please.”

“That remains to be seen,” said the young earl sternly. “Neva, darling,
look up. I have news for you.”

Neva slowly lifted her pale, joyous face from her lover’s bosom, and
stood a little way from him, eager, expectant, and wondering.

“My poor little girl!” said the young earl, with an infinite yearning.
“How you have suffered! I have brought you very startling news, and you
will need all your bravery to bear it. Give me your hands--so! Neva, I
have news from India.”

Something in his tone startled the girl. Her face grew paler on the
instant.

“Yes, Arthur,” she said softly. “You have heard more about his
death--poor papa!”

“A gentleman has come from India,” said the earl telling the story
much as Atkins had told it to him. “He says--can you bear to hear it,
darling--he says that Sir Harold did not die out there at all: that he
was attacked by a tiger, but was rescued by his Hindoo servant, who
sent him away into the mountains in the care of other Hindoos, who kept
Sir Harold a captive. And he says that Sir Harold is alive and well
to-day.”

“Oh, Arthur, Arthur! Can it be?” cried Neva, trembling. “My poor
father! I dreamed that he still lived, and my dream has come true. We
will start for India at once, and rescue papa. Oh, Arthur, do you think
it is true!”

“Yes, my darling, I believe it.”

“Well, I don’t!” sneered Craven Black, turning pale nevertheless. “Such
trumpery tales are common enough. Look at Livingstone. He’s been said
to be dead these several years, but every little while the newspapers
resurrect him. I _know_ Sir Harold is dead!”

“And I know it,” scoffed Octavia. “Alive, after an absence of so long
duration! Bah! I wonder you haven’t more sense, Lord Towyn. Sir Harold
Wynde alive! I should like to see him!”

The door swung slowly on its hinges, and Sir Harold Wynde walked into
the room. He paused near the door, and surveyed his false wife with
stern and awful eyes.

Octavia gave utterance to a frightful scream--whose horror was
indescribable--and bounded forward, her hand upon her breast, and fell
to the floor upon her face.

Sir Harold’s awful gaze turned upon Craven Black, and seemed to turn
that individual to stone. It rested upon Artress, and she cowered
before it in terror. It passed over the French woman, and fixed itself
upon Neva, softening and melting to almost more than human tenderness
and love, and then, with a great joy shining in his keen blue eyes, he
opened wide his arms. Neva sprang forward, and was clasped close to his
great heart.

The sacred joy of that reunion need not be dwelt upon.

Presently, as Sir Harold was about to lead his daughter from the room,
his glance rested upon the still prostrate figure of Octavia.

“Look to your wife, Mr. Black,” he said; his irony arousing Black from
his stupor. “She has fainted!”

Craven Black obeyed the voice of command, essaying to lift the
prostrate figure of Octavia, but with a cry of horror he let it fall
again, shouting hoarsely:

“She’s dead! Octavia is dead!”

It was true. The engorged lungs had ceased their work. The heart had
stopped its beating.

That night, the yacht and the sloop started upon their return to
Inverness. In the former were Craven Black, dispirited and despairing;
Mrs. Artress, full of bewailings for the poverty into which she was now
plunged; the French maid; the dead body of the false Octavia; and the
three sailors in Black’s employ.

In the sloop were Neva and her friends.

The two vessels arrived safely at Inverness, and the remains of Lady
Wynde were consigned to the grave. Craven Black did not wait to see
the last rites performed for her who had served his wicked purposes so
faithfully and so well, but, abandoning his cousin, put to sea in his
yacht with three sailors, not caring whither he went.

A week later, the wreck of the yacht was found upon the north German
coast, and four bodies were washed ashore, two still living, two dead.
And of the dead, one was identified, from the papers on his person, as
Craven Black.

Sir Harold with his daughter and his friends returned to Hawkhurst.
The story of Sir Harold’s return to England had preceded them, and
from the moment that the party alighted at the Canterbury station
until after their arrival at their own home, Sir Harold received one
continual ovation. The tenantry of Hawkhurst turned out in a body to
welcome home their beloved landlord. The joy bells were rung in the
little village of Wyndham, and guns were fired. It was a day long to be
remembered throughout that part of Kent.

The shadow that had fallen on Sir Harold’s life when he first learned
the baseness of his second wife, was dispelled by the tender love and
attentions of Neva and her young lover. The smiles came back to his
lips and the joy to his heart, and he learned the lesson that many must
learn, that life need not be all dark and desolate because one friend
of the many has proved false.

A few months later the joy bells rang again, and again the tenantry of
Sir Harold made merry. The occasion was the marriage of the heiress of
Hawkhurst to the young Lord Towyn. It was a joyous bridal. Sir John
Freise and wife, and their seven daughters were there. Mr. Atkins’
plain face beamed from the midst of the throng. Rufus Black and his
gipsy-faced young wife, both happy and loving, had come down from Mount
street to grace the wedding, and no congratulations to the young bridal
pair were more sincere than those uttered by Rufus.

At the wedding breakfast, while Neva, fair and proud, and radiant as
a star, sat beside her equally radiant young bridegroom, Rufus Black
found opportunity to speak a word privately to the bride.

“It has all ended as it ought to, Miss Neva--my lady, I mean,” he
whispered joyously. “Your father has got over his disappointment and
grief, and looks like a king, as he stands yonder. I am getting to be
a _man_--an honest, upright, strong-souled man, with genuine backbone
and downright vim. Lally believes in me, you see, and upholds me, God
bless her. And you and the earl are as happy as angels, Miss Ne--my
lady, and you deserve to be. Mrs. Artress is a governess--where do you
think--oh, divine justice--in the house of the Blights at Canterbury!
What worse could we wish her? Our enemies--they were mine as well as
yours, Lady Towyn--played a daring game, and they lost it!”

THE END.

No. 233 of the SELECT LIBRARY, is the first volume of “The Three
Musketeers,” by Alexandre Dumas.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Big Step

forward in quality is the reason for the unprecedented strides in
popularity that the S. & S. novels are making.

The demand has been greater than the supply, the latter having been
somewhat restricted on account of war conditions. We are running our
presses night and day turning out “good ones” for the consumption of
men and women who want good reading matter and who have got to get it
at a modest price.

If you want to read a novel really worth while, buy a copy of No. 1020
NEW EAGLE SERIES--SLIGHTED LOVE--by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. This is
a book that will be appreciated by every woman.

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 4c. must be added to the
retail price of each copy to cover postage.

  STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
  79 Seventh Avenue, New York City

       *       *       *       *       *

1855-1919

For sixty-four consecutive years, Street & Smith have specialized in
the publication of clean, wholesome fiction. During this time we gave
the public what it wanted, and as the demand changed, our publications
changed with it.

What most American readers want at present are the S. & S. novels,
especially those in the NEW EAGLE SERIES by Emma Garrison Jones, who
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Here are some of the best Jones books:

  =Against Love’s Rules=  =No. 890=
  =All Lost but Love=     =No. 868=
  =Her Twentieth Guest=   =No. 860=
  =His Good Angel=        =No. 786=
  =Just for a Title=      =No. 909=

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AN ANALYSIS

of public taste in literature shows an overwhelming preference for
fiction.

Our mode of living is very complex. The average business man and woman
and the house-wife have a lot to be troubled about these days, so that
the turning to good fiction as an escape from daily cares is perfectly
natural. This explains in part why the S. & S. novels are so popular.
The rest of the reason is that they are mighty good stories at mighty
low prices.

There isn’t a red-blooded man with a few hours to spare who will
not enjoy reading the stories of Buffalo Bill, by Colonel Prentiss
Ingraham, published in the BUFFALO BILL BORDER STORIES. There are some
fifty titles to choose from, and your dealer is sure to have a good
assortment of them to offer you. Here are a few of the titles in the
series which have recently made their appearance:

  =Buffalo Bill and the Gold King=   =No. 50=
  =Buffalo Bill, Deadshot=           =No. 51=
  =Buffalo Bill’s Buckskin Bravoes=  =No. 52=
  =Buffalo Bill’s Big Four=          =No. 53=
  =Buffalo Bill’s One-Armed Pard=    =No. 54=

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 4c. must be added to the
retail price of each copy to cover postage.

  STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
  79 Seventh Avenue, New York City

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A Big Customer

The American reading public is the biggest and only customer we have
for the S. & S. novels. It’s a good-natured, clean-minded customer,
too. That’s why the demand for our books is so phenomenal.

The MEDAL LIBRARY contains over five hundred different books by authors
who know how to write stories exactly suited to the wants of the
American reading public.

The quality of the stories, however, is not to be judged by the low
price.

Ask your news dealer to show you some MEDAL LIBRARY books, especially
those by Edward C. Taylor and Maxwell Stevens.

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 4c. must be added to the
retail price of each copy to cover postage.

  STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
  79 Seventh Avenue, New York City

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What Makes a Superwoman?

  Beauty?      No!
  Daintiness?  No!
  Wit?         No!
  Youth?       No!
  Femininity?  No!

Seek the Superwoman

You will find her in almost every generation, in almost every country,
in almost every city. She is not a typical adventuress, she is not a
genius. The reason for her strong power is occult. The nameless charm
is found as often in homely, clumsy, dull, old masculine women as in
the reverse of these types.

What Makes a Superwoman?

If you think the problem worth while, why not try to solve it by
reading Albert Payson Terhune’s great book, SUPERWOMEN? From Cleopatra
to Lady Hamilton--they are mighty interesting characters. Some of
them smashed thrones, some of them were content with wholesale heart
smashing. You will know their secret, or rather their secrets, for
seldom did two of them follow the same plan of campaign.

We have prepared a very handsome, special, limited edition of the
book, worthy of a place on your “best book” shelf. If you subscribe to
AINSLEE’S MAGAZINE now you can purchase it for 50c. Send us a money
order for $2.50 and receive SUPERWOMEN postpaid, and, in addition, over
1900 pages of splendid fiction throughout the coming year. AINSLEE’S
MAGAZINE is the best and smartest purely fiction magazine published.
You cannot invest $2.50 in reading matter to better advantage than by
availing yourself of this offer. Send check or money order or, if you
remit in cash, do not fail to register the envelope. Act now!

  The Ainslee Magazine Company
  79 Seventh Avenue New York City

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History of the World War

_By Thomas R. Best_

The most portentous crisis in the history of the human family has just
passed. The World War was conceived in greed and will be consummated
in justice. It will prove a blessing to mankind, because it spells
emancipation to countless unborn generations from enslaving political
and social evils. It is a big subject and one that will be discussed in
every household for many years to come. Questions will arise that only
a clear, concise account of the war in handy form can settle.

Therefore, we ask you to consider _=History of the World War=_ by
Thomas R. Best which has been written from the American standpoint. It
is purely history--not vituperation. This volume has a chronology of
important events that will prove of inestimable reference value.

Price 25 Cents

_If ordered by mail add four cents to cover cost of postage_

  STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
  79 Seventh Avenue New York City

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A REQUEST

Conditions due to the war have made it very difficult for us to keep in
print all of the books listed in our catalogues. We still have about
fifteen hundred different titles that we are in a position to supply.
These represent the best books in our line. We could not afford, in the
circumstances, to reprint any of the less popular works.

We aim to keep in stock the works of such authors as Bertha Clay,
Charles Garvice, May Agnes Fleming, Nicholas Carter, Mary J. Holmes,
Mrs. Harriet Lewis, Horatio Alger, and the other famous authors who
are represented in our line by ten or more titles. Therefore, if your
dealer cannot supply you with exactly the book you want, you are almost
sure to find in his stock another title by the same author, which you
have not read.

It short, we are asking you to take what your dealer can supply, rather
than to insist upon just what you want. You won’t lose anything by such
substitution, because the books by the authors named are very uniform
in quality.

In ordering Street & Smith novels by mail, it is advisable to make a
choice of at least two titles for each book wanted, so as to give us an
opportunity to substitute for titles that are now out of print.

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

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.

The following changes were made:

p. 72: Blight’s changed to Wroat’s (Mrs. Wroat’s chamber,)

p. 93: Unclear text assumed to be “A half (”A half an hour,“)

p. 243: missing word assumed to be for (scorn for her)

p. 246: Missing word assumed to be “He (him. ”He says)