“I—I don’t know. I must have time to think. It is all so strange—so terrible.”
“You can have all day in which to consider the matter. I have engaged a bedroom for you on the opposite side of the hall. I will show you to it, and you can think the matter over in solitude.”
Mr. Black arose and conducted his son across the hall to a bedroom overlooking the street and the four corners, and here, with a last repetition of the two alternatives offered him, he left him.
Poor Rufus, weak and despairing, locked the door and dropped upon his knees, sobbing aloud in the extremity of his anguish.
“What shall I do? What can I do?” he moaned. “She is not my wife. My poor Lally! And I am helpless in my father’s hands. I shall have to yield—I feel it—I know it. I wish I were dead. Oh, my poor wronged Lally!”
CHAPTER X.
NEVA AT HOME AGAIN.
The home coming of the heiress of Hawkhurst was far different from that which her father had once lovingly planned for her when looking forward to her emancipation from school. There was no sign of festivity about the estate, no gathering of tenants to a feast, no dancing on the lawn, no floral arches, no music, no gladness of welcome. The carriage containing Neva Wynde and Mrs. Artress, and attended by liveried servants, turned quietly into the lodge gates, halted a moment while Neva spoke to the lodge keepers, whom she well remembered, and then slowly ascended the long shaded drive toward the house.
Neva looked around her with kindling eyes. The fair green lawn with its patches of sunshine and shade, the close lying park with the shy deer browsing near the invisible wire fence that separated the park from the lawn, the odors of the flower gardens, all these were inexpressibly sweet to her after her years of absence from her home.
“Home again!” she murmured softly. “Although those who made it the dearest spot in all the world to me are gone, yet still it is home. No place has charms for me like this.”
The carriage swept up under the high-pointed arch of the lime trees, and drew up in the porch, where the ladies alighted. Artress led the way into the house, and Neva followed with a springing step and a wildly beating heart.