And all this the jealous, disowned wife saw, with her face growing death-like, and the flame burning yet more brightly in her sombre eyes.
“She has accepted him,” she muttered. “She will not take the week to consider his suit. They are betrothed. I was sure she lived here. Perhaps she owns the place, and he will be its master. They will both be rich and happy and beloved, while I—Ah, how swiftly he comes! He walked like that the night I accepted him. But I am not his wife; I never was, even when I thought myself so. He must not see me. No shadow from the past must darken his happy life—his and hers. It is all over—all over—and I shall never see his face again!”
With one last, long lingering look, and a sob that came from her very soul, she turned and sped down the road like a mad creature—away from Wyndham, and Rufus, and all her hopes—going, ah, where?
And Rufus, with his new love-dream glowing in his soul, came out of the Hawkhurst grounds, and hurried toward his inn, never dreaming how near he had been to his lost wife, nor how surely he had lost her.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ONE OF NEVA’S LOVERS DISPOSED OF.
Upon his return to the Wyndham inn, Rufus Black found his father awaiting him in their private parlor. The elder Black arched his brows inquiringly as his son came in, and Rufus bowed to him gayly, as he said:
“Well, father, you ought to be pleased with me now. I have offered myself to Miss Wynde.”
Craven Black started.
“She has accepted you?” he demanded.
“Not yet. She wants to think the matter over, and I have consented to let the thing rest where it is for a week. I take it as a good sign that she did not refuse me at once. Her hesitation implies a regard for me—”