“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!”