“Impossible, Sir Harold. You are not fit for the voyage,” said Mrs. Archer.
“I must go,” persisted the baronet, in a tone no one could dispute. “Think of my wife—of my daughter. Every day that keeps me from them seems an eternity. Major, I was robbed by Karrah of every penny I possessed. Plunder was a part of his motive, as well as desire for revenge. I shall have to draw upon you for a sufficient sum for my expenses.”
“It’s fortunate, and quite an unprecedented thing with me, that I have a couple of hundred pounds in bank in Calcutta,” said the major. “I wish it were a thousand, but you’re quite welcome to it, Sir Harold—a thousand times welcome. I appreciate your impatience to be on your way home. If it were I, and your wife was my Molly, I’d travel day and night—but there, I’ve said enough. I’ll go to Calcutta with you, and see you off on the Mongolian. I wish I could do more for you.”
“You can, Major. You can keep silence concerning my reappearance,” declared Sir Harold thoughtfully. “My wife is reported to be dying of grief. If she hears too abruptly that I still live, the shock may destroy her. Major, I am going home under a name not my own, that the story of my adventures may not be bruited about before she sees me. I will not reveal myself to any one in Calcutta, nor to any one in England, before reaching home. I will go quietly and unknown to Hawkhurst, and reveal myself with all care and caution to Neva, who will break the news to my wife.”
“Sir Harold is right,” said Mrs. Archer. “Lady Wynde and Miss Wynde should not first hear the news by telegraph, or letter, or through the newspapers. Their impatience, anxiety, and suspense, after hearing that Sir Harold still lives, and before they can see him, will be terrible. The shock, as Sir Harold suggests, might almost be fatal to Lady Wynde.”
“My wife is always right,” said the burly major, with a glance of admiration at his spouse. “Sir Harold, you cannot do better than to follow your instincts and my Molly’s counsels. It is settled then, that you return to England under an assumed name, and see your own family before you proclaim your adventures to the world. What name shall you adopt as a ‘name of voyage,’ to translate from the French?”
“I will call myself Harold Hunlow,” said the baronet. “Hunlow was my mother’s name. I am rested, Major, and if you can give me a mount, we’ll be off at sunset on our way to Calcutta.”
It was thus agreed. That very evening Sir Harold Wynde and Major Archer set out for Calcutta on horseback, arriving in time to secure passage in the Mongolian. And on the third day after leaving Major Archer’s bungalow, Sir Harold Wynde was at sea, and on his way to England. Ah, what a reception awaited him!
CHAPTER XXIII.
NEVA’S DECISION ABOUT RUFUS.
Could her guardian angel have whispered to Neva that her father did indeed still live, and that at the very moment of her vivid dream he stood upon the veranda of Major Archer’s Indian bungalow, weak, wasted and weary, but with the principle of life strong within him, what agony she might have been spared in the near future! what terrors and perils she might perhaps have escaped!