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.