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.”