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.