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: