Transcriber’s Notes:

“Adrift in the World,” “The Bailiff’s Scheme,” “The Belle of the
Season,” “Cecil Rosse,” “The Haunted Husband,” “Sundered
Hearts,” and numerous other books published in the
Eagle, New Eagle, and Select Libraries.

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Neva’s Choice

SYNOPSIS OF “NEVA’S THREE LOVERS.”

A beautiful young widow, Mrs. Octavia Hathaway, with the connivance of her admirer, Craven Black, succeeded in marrying the wealthy widower, Sir Harold Wynde, who had a daughter, Neva, at school in France, and a son, George, with his regiment in India. A hurried call to the deathbed of his son frustrated the design of the two adventurers to poison the baronet, who, after his son died, was reported to have been killed by a tiger in India, instead of which he was kept prisoner by a treacherous native servant. After fifteen months of outward mourning Lady Wynde married Craven Black, and in order to secure the large fortune of her stepdaughter, she determined that Neva should marry Black’s son, Rufus. The latter, however, although in fear of his father, was not unscrupulous. He had married a young girl named Lalla Bird, but as both were under age he was persuaded that the marriage was illegal. Lalla was reported to have thrown herself into the river on learning this, but the body recovered was not hers. She found employment as governess to the children of a Mrs. Blight. Rufus, believing her dead, proposed to Neva, but was refused, and the young heiress became betrothed to Lord Towyn.

Neva’s Choice

NEVA’S CHOICE.

CHAPTER I.
NEVA’S ANSWER TO LORD TOWYN.

Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, summoning the indispensable Mrs. Artress to a private conference, passed some hours in their own room in anxious deliberation upon their future course in regard to Neva. It was necessary to the full success of the daring game they were playing, that Neva should marry Rufus Black; but she had rejected him, completely and finally, in obedience to her instincts of duty to God and to herself, and her enemies began to believe that they would have serious trouble in forcing her into the marriage.

In accordance with the conclusion to which they finally arrived, Mrs. Artress went away from Hawkhurst that very afternoon in the family brougham, and two trunks belonging to her were conveyed to Canterbury in a spring wagon. It was given out that she was going to London to visit a friend. She really went up to London, but to what point she then directed her wanderings no one knew.

Rufus Black wandered disconsolately all day in the park, and came in an hour before dinner. His father encountered him in the upper hall, and went into his room with him.

“That’s a fine face, Rufus,” said Craven Black, sneeringly, “to win the heart of a girl like Miss Wynde. You look as if you were traveling straight to the dogs.”

“So I am, sir,” said Rufus, recklessly.

“You dare to answer me in that manner?”

“To whom should I tell the truth, if not to you?” cried Rufus desperately. “You have made me what I am. I married a pure and innocent young girl, who but for me was utterly friendless in the wide world. You tore me from her. You persuaded me that my marriage was illegal—”

“And wasn’t it?”

“I suppose it was, but it was not null and void. It could have been set aside by due process of law, because I was a minor, and because I perjured myself in declaring that I was of age; but I refuse to believe that it was null and void, no marriage at all. I never wronged my poor Lally as you pretend.”

“Why this spasm of virtue?” demanded Craven Black, with a cynical smile. “The girl’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she’s dead! God help me!”

“What a tragic groan! This morning you were in despair because Miss Wynde rejected you. To-night you are mourning after your corn-chandler’s daughter. I’d like to understand you—I would indeed. Which are you wailing after, Miss Wynde or Lalla Rookh?”

“Which?” cried Rufus, with wild eyes. “For the girl you and I murdered! It is she whom I mourn! I think of her stark form and open eyes and dead bruised face, as she must have looked when they brought her up out of the river, and my heart is like to break within me. She haunts me day and night. In my bed I waken from my dreams to clasp her closer to me, but my arms close on the empty air. I seem to feel the touch of her hands on my face—oh, Heaven! I shall never feel them there again! I was a poor pitiful coward. Yet what could I do? And yet you and I are Lally’s murderers!”

Craven Black shivered involuntarily.

“You act as if you had a touch of the D. T.” he said. “Have you been spending the day in a Canterbury pot-house?”

“No; I have been wandering in the park, trying to forget. You need not fear that I shall get drunk again.”

“Your reflections were rather singular for a rejected lover of Miss Wynde,” sneered Craven Black. “I thought you loved the heiress?”

“So I do, but not as I loved Lally. If Miss Wynde does not take pity on me, I am lost. The love of a good woman would save me from madness and utter despair. In time I might grow to love her as I loved Lally, and in any case I would worship her from very gratitude.”

“I am blessed if I can understand you,” said Craven Black, his lips curling. “You love a dead woman and a living woman, and mourn one while you want to marry the other. It is very curious. It’s a pity you are not a Mahommedan, so that you could have had both.”

“Stop!” cried Rufus, in a tone of command. “Don’t speak such words in connection with the names of Lally and Miss Wynde. I want to marry Neva to save myself from going mad—”

“After another woman? Exactly. No wonder Miss Wynde declined the honor, with thanks.”

“I shall leave here to-morrow,” said Rufus.

“You won’t do any such thing. You will stay at Hawkhurst for the remainder of the week, and play the lover to Miss Wynde, and sigh like any donkey in her ears, and spout poetry, and touch her heart. ‘Faint heart never won fair lady,’ says the proverb. Girls often refuse a man the first time he offers, for fear of being held too cheap. Pursue the girl gently, but keep pursuing.”

“She says her father wrote her a letter saying he knew me,” said Rufus doggedly. “She asked me about him, and I told her I didn’t know Sir Harold from a butcher.”

“You did?” gasped Craven Black. “The devil!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you have put your foot in it. I knew you were a fool, but I didn’t suppose you had arrived at such a low state of idiocy as it appears you have. Didn’t I tell you what to tell the girl if she ever spoke of her father?”

“I believe you did, but I couldn’t stand there with her eyes on me and deliberately lie to her. I understood about the letter. You wrote it.”

“Hush! I’ve a good mind to leave you to yourself, and let you fetch up in some union,” declared Craven Black angrily. “Such a dolt as you are isn’t fit to live. How do you expect the girl to marry you when you yourself put obstacles in the way?”

“See here,” said Rufus. “What are you going to make out of my marriage with Neva Wynde?”

“Ten thousand pounds a year, which you are to formally agree to pay me out of her income.”

“I thought you had some motive in the matter besides love to me. But I’d pay it if she’d marry me. But she won’t.”

“She will, if you choose to be a little bolder. We leave here, my wife, Neva and myself, next Monday for Wynde Heights. Mrs. Black will use all her influence with Neva during our absence to induce her to accept you, and I am sure she will succeed. You are to hold yourself in readiness to come to us at any moment on receiving my summons.”

“Where is Wynde Heights?”

“In Yorkshire.”

“Very well. I will come when you notify me. But I don’t think going will do any good. Miss Wynde is no coquette, and not likely to change her mind. Besides, she is likely to marry Lord Towyn.”

“I think not,” said Craven Black significantly. “She is a minor, and I don’t believe she would marry against the wishes of her step-mother?”

“The question is if your wife is her step-mother,” remarked Rufus, still recklessly. “The probability is that the relationship is worn out by this time, and the sense of duty that Miss Wynde may have felt toward her father’s widow will fall short when it comes to be directed toward Craven Black’s wife.”

“We won’t go into details,” said his father coolly. “If you want to marry the girl, keep telling her so. There’s nothing like persistence.”

“Ye-s; but about that ten thousand pounds a year?” said Rufus thoughtfully. “I don’t think it would be right to take any such sum out of her income, and besides, it might be impossible.”

“Leave that to me. As to the right and wrong of it, a perjurer is not qualified to judge. Confine yourself to what you can understand. It is time to get ready for dinner, and I advise you to come down with a cheerful face.”

With this advice, Craven Black went away to his own rooms.

Rufus resolved to act upon his father’s advice, and when he went down to dinner with a pale, melancholy face, and haggard eyes, he wore an air of assumed cheerfulness which touched Neva’s heart.

That evening he sang with her while she played upon the piano. He quoted poetry to her in the third drawing-room, where they were alone, and afterward induced her to walk with him in the moonlight upon the terrace.

The next day he was full of delicate attentions to Miss Wynde. She found a bouquet of wood violets at her plate at breakfast, with the dew still upon them, and knew who had procured them for her. He asked to be allowed to accompany her on her morning ride, and Neva assented. After the ride, they played chess, gathered bouquets in the conservatory, and, later, walked in the park. Neva was gently courteous to him all the while, but there was a quiet reserve in her manner that forbade him to speak again of love or marriage to her.

The day after Lord Towyn called at Hawkhurst, and Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black received him with all courtesy, and were so politely attentive to him that he could not exchange a word with Neva unheard by them.

The young earl went away, as may be supposed, troubled and annoyed.

On Friday he rode over again from his marine villa, and was similarly entertained, and again could not see Neva alone.

On Saturday he came to Hawkhurst in the early morning, and learned at the lodge gate that Miss Wynde, attended by her groom, was gone for a ride, and that she had gone by the Dingle Farm. His heart bounded within him, and he spurred away in eager pursuit.

He traversed the wood and crossed the wide common, and skirted the dangerous chalk pit, and rode up to the old farm gate just as Neva, remounting her horse, came riding out on her return.

The young earl’s warm blue eyes flashed a tender radiance upon her, and he raised his hat, his golden hair gleaming in the sunshine while his noble face glowed with a laughing delight. An answering radiance flashed from Neva’s red-brown orbs, and she blushed as she bade him a careless good-morning.

“I came out to meet you,” said Lord Towyn, as he wheeled his horse and rode at her side.

“I have much to say to you.”

He glanced over his shoulder, but the discreet groom was hanging back, and with a mental blessing upon the fellow, Lord Towyn saw that the field was clear, and that the time had arrived in which to learn his fate.

They rode on for a little while in silence, until they were past the chalk pit and out upon the breezy common. The groom was out of earshot, and the young earl said gently:

“Neva, I have been twice to Hawkhurst to receive the answer you promised me, but I could not speak to you alone. I may not find another opportunity than this, as you go with the Blacks to Wynde Heights on Monday. And so, although this does not seem a fitting place, I ask you again if you will be my wife. I love you, Neva, with all my heart and soul. If you will trust your happiness to me, you will find in me a true lover to the end of our days. Do you think you could be happy with me?”

Neva’s pure proud face flushed hotly, and she bent her head low toward her saddle-bow. Lord Towyn waited for her answer in an almost breathless suspense, but she did not speak until they were in the wood path and out of sight of even the lagging groom.

Then she lifted her head shyly, and turned upon her lover a face as divinely fair and roseate as a June morning, and although she spoke no word he read assent in the drooping eyes, the reddening cheeks, and the proud, tremulous mouth.

He pressed toward her in rapture, and seized one little gauntleted hand, pressing it in his own.

“It is Yes, Neva?” he whispered, as if fearing the very birds might hear him. “Oh, my darling, how shall I deserve this great joy?”

He raised her hand to his lips, and the contact thrilled his very soul. He looked back. No one was in sight. He stooped in his saddle and bent toward her, and his kiss, warm, tender and passionate, fell upon her scarlet mouth, and thus they were betrothed.

The next instant he was again erect in his saddle, and the ecstasy of his glowing face and the unrepressed rapture of his manner, and the tender caressing in his very gaze, proclaimed his great and solemn joy.

“I have a ring, it was my mother’s, Neva, and I ask you to wear it as a sign of our engagement to each other,” he said. “When I see my mother’s ring on your finger, I shall feel that you are indeed mine.”

He took from his little finger a gold ring set with a single brilliant of great size and splendor. Neva tremblingly removed her gauntlet, and the young earl placed the ring upon that finger which custom has dedicated to the purpose.

“That is the seal of our betrothal,” he whispered.

Neva slowly put on her glove.

“Arthur,” she said suddenly, “do you think papa would have approved my marriage with you?”

“I know he would, my darling. It was his wish, as it was my father’s, that we should marry.”

“If I could only think that he never changed his mind!” sighed the young girl. “I have a letter he wrote me the night before he perished in India, Arthur, and in this letter he says that he desires me to marry Rufus Black.”

The young earl looked surprised, incredulous.

“I have the letter with me,” said Neva. “You can read it. In it papa says he desires me to marry this young man, whom he esteems and loves. I have struggled to obey papa’s last wishes, but I cannot—I cannot! And he was such a good father, Arthur, that I reproach myself continually for my disobedience. I never disobeyed him before, and I seem to see his eyes full of reproach fixed upon me, and to hear his voice—Oh, Arthur! Arthur!”

“Let me see the letter, darling.”

Neva extricated it from the folds of her dress, and gave it to him. They halted while he read it. A look of surprise, wonder and incredulity mantled Lord Towyn’s face as he read. It was followed by a sternness that well became his fair and haughty face.

“I pronounce the letter a forgery!” he declared. “May I keep it, Neva, for the present? I desire to show it to Mr. Atkins, who shall give us his opinion on the handwriting.”

“Yes; keep it,” assented Neva.

Lord Towyn carefully put it in his pocket.

“I pronounce the letter a forgery,” he repeated sternly. “How did it come to you, darling?”

“Lady Wynde gave it to me on my return from France. Papa desired her to retain it for a year. Who would forge such a letter, Arthur?”

“I don’t know. I am puzzled. One cannot suspect Lady Wynde, and yet—and yet—I don’t know what to think, Neva. I don’t believe Sir Harold ever saw Rufus Black.”

“Rufus says he never saw papa, or that he never spoke to him,” said Neva. “And that remark made me doubt the letter. But Rufus never forged it, Arthur. Rufus is a kind-hearted, but weak-willed boy—he is no more. If he had more ‘backbone’ in his character, he would be even noble. I like him, Arthur, and I know he never wrote that letter. Lady Wynde did not. She is too good for that. It might have been written by Craven Black. I do not like him, and think him quite capable of the forgery, only so many of the words are papa’s own that it seems wicked to doubt its authenticity.”

“I will prove it a forgery!” cried the young earl. “Sir Harold was incapable of binding your fate in this manner to a man you never saw before it was written. There is some foul conspiracy against you, Neva, but we have outwitted your enemies. I am impatient to have you under my own guardianship. The possibility that you have enemies makes me afraid to trust you from me. Give up this visit to Wynde Heights, darling.”

“It is too late, Arthur. We shall stay there but a fortnight, and I have promised to go. Papa bade me love his wife and obey her, and though she no longer bears his name, and I no longer owe her obedience, yet I have given my word to go up to Yorkshire with her, and must keep my promise.”

“But when you return, Neva, you will marry me? Do not condemn me to a long probation. Let us be married quietly some morning at Wyndham church, after due intimation to our friends. Shall it not be so?”

Neva yielded a shy assent.

“We will be married a month hence, Neva?” whispered the ardent young lover.

“Two months,” said Neva, smiling. “I must not be too lightly won, Lord Towyn. And, besides, I must have the orthodox trousseau. I will tell Mrs. Black of our engagement when I am with her at Wynde Heights. Rufus is not going with us, nor is Artress.”

They had threaded the wood and come out upon the highway long since while they were talking, and were now within sight of Hawkhurst. Rufus Black was riding out of the great gates, on his way to meet Neva. The tete-a-tete of the young pair was over for the morning, and recognizing the fact, and not wishing to proclaim his happy secret to his defeated rival, Lord Towyn made his adieus to Neva, begging her to write him daily from Yorkshire, which she promised to do, and, then raising his hat to Rufus Black, the young earl spurred his horse and rode swiftly on toward Wyndham.

Neva returned home with Rufus.

On Monday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, accompanied by Miss Wynde, departed for Wynde Heights.

On Wednesday, Lord Towyn looked for a letter from his young betrothed. None came. Thursday, Friday and Saturday went by, and still there came no letter from Neva, announcing her safe arrival in Yorkshire.

The young earl wrote every day, his uneasiness increasing as the time passed. He communicated his alarm to Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins, and they telegraphed to the clergyman of the little town in whose vicinity Wynde Heights was situated, begging him to call and see if Miss Wynde was in good health.

The answer to this dispatch came promptly, and also by telegraph. It was to this effect:

“Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins: Wynde Heights is untenanted, save by the housekeeper. Miss Wynde has not been here, nor have Mr. and Mrs. Black.”

On receipt of this astounding message, the young earl posted up to town, as did Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins. They searched for the missing heiress and her guardians, but their search was futile. Not a trace of her could be found. She had come up to London with her enemies, but no further clue to her could be found. She had completely disappeared, and her fate was shrouded in dark and horrible mystery!

CHAPTER II.
THE PUZZLE OF NEVA’S WHEREABOUTS.

On going up to town with Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins to engage in the search for Neva Wynde, who had so strangely and mysteriously disappeared, Lord Towyn had left orders with the steward of his marine villa to forward to him in London without delay any and all letters that might arrive to the address of the young earl. And so, while he prosecuted his researches with desperate energy, Lord Towyn half expected by every post some news from his young betrothed.

The three guardians of Neva’s estate were sadly puzzled and thoroughly alarmed, but for Neva’s own sake they kept the mystery to themselves. Mr. Atkins urged that no detectives be taken into their confidence, and that no newspapers be permitted to publish the strange story.

“We shall do as well as any detectives,” said the attorney, “and if there is any game afoot, we will not set the villains who are at work in it upon their guard.”

“Villains?” echoed Sir John Freise disapprovingly. “The thing is mysterious, Mr. Atkins, but it is susceptible of explanation. Had it not been for Miss Wynde’s promise to write daily to Lord Towyn, and her failure to comply with that promise, we should have suspected no harm. ‘Villains’ is a strong word to apply to Miss Wynde’s companions. Miss Wynde may have fallen ill on the way to Wynde Heights, or the plan of the tour may have been changed. In fact, one of these alternatives doubtless contains the truth. But ‘villains,’ Mr. Atkins—the word troubles me. To whom do you apply it? Certainly not to the beautiful lady who was the wife of our friend Sir Harold Wynde, and who was so loved and trusted by him that he constituted her the sole personal guardian of his beloved daughter?”

“And who so appreciated her husband’s love and noble qualities,” said Mr. Atkins dryly, “that in one year from his tragic death she was receiving the loving attentions of a Craven Black, and in fifteen months after Sir Harold’s death became the wife of a Craven Black! Bah! I was never deceived in Lady Wynde, not even when Sir Harold brought her home to Hawkhurst. She is a bold, designing, unscrupulous creature, and it is as well that Sir Harold died before she broke his heart.”

“Mr. Atkins, your harsh judgment amazes me—”

“I imagine, Sir John Freise,” said the attorney, “that in your secret soul your opinion of Mrs. Craven Black is much higher than mine. Have you been blind to the insatiable vanity, and the vulgarity and ill-taste of the widow of Sir Harold Wynde, who, fifteen months after losing the noblest husband the sun ever shone on, converts that husband’s house into a ball-room, and sets his church bells ringing and his tenantry dancing at her marriage with a gambler and adventurer, unworthy even to breathe the same air with Sir Harold’s pure young daughter? You look shocked, Sir John. If it were necessary, I could give you my further opinion concerning Mrs. Craven Black, but you are sufficiently shocked already.”

“You said, Mr. Atkins,” said Lord Towyn, “that you thought Mrs. Black unscrupulous. I cannot believe her as base as you think, but I have a question to submit to you and Sir John. When I asked Miss Wynde to become my wife, she told me that it had been her father’s last wish that she should marry Rufus Black—”

“Impossible!” cried Sir John and Mr. Atkins, in a breath.

“Miss Wynde showed me a letter purporting to have been written by Sir Harold the night before his sudden death,” said Lord Towyn. “I have the letter with me, and a study of it may throw light upon a matter that certainly looks dark to me. I could almost make oath that the deceased baronet never wrote this letter. It deceived Neva completely, if it prove, as I have declared it, a forgery.”

He produced the letter, and gave it into the hands of Mr. Atkins. The attorney read it aloud, weighing each phrase and turn of sentence.

“Sir Harold wrote it,” declared Sir John Freise, without hesitation. “I have heard him express himself in those quaint, oddly turned sentences a hundred times. Those pet names for his daughter, so tender and poetical, were surely written by him. Miss Wynde accepted the letter as genuine, and I do the same without question.”

“And you, my lord?” inquired Atkins.

“It seems to me a forgery,” said Lord Towyn. “Rufus Black confessed to Neva that he had had no personal acquaintance with Sir Harold Wynde.”

“That is odd,” declared Sir John, puzzled. “Perhaps Sir Harold was not quite in his right mind when he wrote the letter. His presentiment of approaching death may have unsettled his judgment; but that is preposterous. I can’t explain the incongruities, but I persist in my opinion that Sir Harold Wynde wrote the letter.”

“What is your opinion, Mr. Atkins?” demanded Lord Towyn.

“Where is Rufus Black?” asked the lawyer abruptly.

“Down at Hawkhurst. He remains there during the absence of the bridal party,” answered the young earl in surprise.

“And Rufus Black has confessed to Miss Wynde that he was not personally acquainted with Sir Harold Wynde?” mused the attorney. “My opinion about young Black is, that he is a well-meaning but weak-souled lad, just the person to be made a dupe or instrument in the hands of more unscrupulous and daring souls. I don’t dislike the boy. If he were his own master, or had a different father, he’d be a decent fellow.”

“What do you think of his father, Atkins?” inquired Sir John.

“I think he’s a villain.”

“And what do you think of this letter, Atkins?” asked Lord Towyn.

“I think,” said Atkins quietly, “that it is a forgery. More, I know that it is a forgery. Sir Harold Wynde was too tender a father to attempt to control his daughter’s choice of a husband in a manner so singular. The truth is, Craven Black has begun some sort of game against the Wyndes, and if it don’t date further back than Sir Harold’s death, I am mistaken. I see you look distressed, Sir John, so I will keep my ideas to myself until I can prove their value. Lord Towyn, will you allow me to retain this letter for the present, to study at my leisure?”

The young earl assented, and Atkins secured the letter on his person.

“And now what are we to do?” asked Sir John.

“I shall take a turn up into Yorkshire, and have a look at Wynde Heights for myself,” said Atkins. “You had better remain here, Sir John, and not expose yourself to useless fatigue.”

“I shall go with you, Atkins,” declared the young earl.

Sir John Freise was anxious to accompany them, but he was scarcely able to bear the fatigue of so hurried a journey, and permitted himself to be overruled. He agreed to remain at their hotel, the Langham, until the return of his friends from the north, and that very evening Lord Towyn and Mr. Atkins departed for Yorkshire.

They arrived in due time at Wynde Heights, a lofty hill, crowned with a beautiful, wide spreading villa, built after the Italian style, and having long colonades. There were ample grounds attached to the villa, a hundred acres or more in extent. Lord Towyn and Mr. Atkins drove out to the place in a cab, and alighting at the carriage porch rang loudly for admittance.

An old housekeeper, a Yorkshire woman, with a broad face and quiet manners, and with but little of the usual Yorkshire burr in her speech, opened the door cautiously after a long delay, and peeped out at them with apparent timidity.

“How do you do, ma’am?” said the lawyer, raising his hat to her respectfully. “We have called to see Miss Wynde and Mrs. Craven Black.”

“The leddies are not here, sir,” answered the housekeeper.

“Not here!” exclaimed Atkins. “But Mrs. Black said they were coming here.”

“Her leddyship wrote to me to have the house ready for her, after her new marriage,” said the housekeeper, “and to engage servants, which I did. And about two weeks ago I got a letter from her leddyship, telling me to dismiss the servants and shut up the house, as her leddyship had decided not to come to the Heights, and I obeyed orders.”

“Will you show us that letter?” demanded the lawyer. “We are the guardians of Miss Wynde’s estate, and find it necessary to see the young lady at the earliest possible moment. We expected to find her here, but the letter may afford us some clue to her whereabouts. This gentleman is Lord Towyn, and I am William Atkins, the attorney of the Wynde family.”

The housekeeper threw wide open the door of the house. Both names were familiar to her, and she welcomed the visitors as those having a right to the hospitalities of the place.

“Come in, my lord; come in, sir,” she exclaimed. “I will get the letter for you.”

The visitors followed her into a cool, unused parlor, and seated themselves, while the woman hurried away in quest of the letter of which she had spoken.

“I had an idea that the Blacks might be stopping here secretly,” said Atkins, in a low voice; “but I’ve changed my mind, my lord. They have not been here. The housekeeper’s face is honesty itself. We’ll have to look elsewhere. I’m sorry we’ve wasted time on the wrong tack.”

The housekeeper reappeared with the letter. Lord Towyn and Mr. Atkins read it. It had been written by Mrs. Craven Black, and was to the effect that she had changed her mind, and that the bridal party would not come north that season, and ordering the newly engaged servants to be dismissed, and the house to be again closed.

Atkins sighed, as he restored the letter to the housekeeper.

“We are much obliged to you ma’am,” he said, “and now we must hasten back to London. If you hear from your mistress, be kind enough to drop me a line at my address. There’s my card. But it’s not likely you will hear from Mrs. Black before we do.”

The visitors bade the housekeeper good morning, and hurried back to the railway station in their cab, catching the down train, and speeding on their way to London.

“I don’t believe our party is in England,” said Atkins musingly, as they steamed swiftly down the line to the southward. “It would be like the Blacks, if they had any game afoot, to make for the Continent. Our next point is to make inquiries at the docks, or at the railway stations.”

They arrived in London in the morning, and hastened to the Langham hotel, where they had an interview with Sir John Freise, who was looking worn and ill under all this suspense and anxiety. The three gentlemen devoted the day to visiting the various railway stations and offices of the Continental boats. They visited also the foreign packet-boats lying in dock, and toward evening learned from the steward of an Ostend boat, that a party such as was described, consisting of two ladies and one gentleman, had crossed the Channel to Ostend at about the time indicated by Atkins.

“Thank Heaven! We are on the track!” breathed Sir John.

“Atkins and I will start for Ostend by way of Dover this very night,” said Lord Towyn, all ardor and impatience.

Atkins drew out a golden sovereign, which he held tantalizingly before the eyes of the steward.

“Answer a few more questions,” said the attorney, “and this is yours, my good fellow. Describe the gentleman who accompanied the two ladies.”

The steward hesitated, eyeing the coin with greedy eyes.

“He was tall and fair, with mustaches,” he said slowly, as if fearing the description would not suit his interlocutor, “and he was dressed in black.”

“That would describe Craven Black well enough,” murmured Sir John.

“And the ladies?” questioned Atkins. “How did they look?”

“One was some years older than the other, and was dark, with black eyes. The young lady had lighter hair. They were going on to Brussels, and I took it that the elder lady and gentleman were newly married,” said the steward, “they were that sickish, begging your pardon.”

“There’s no doubt we are on the right track,” cried Sir John, in a tone of relief.

Atkins paid the steward the promised sovereign, and led the way ashore and to the waiting cab.

“To the hotel,” he ordered.

The gentlemen entered the vehicle and hastened back to the Langham. Atkins was very thoughtful and silent during the journey, but as they drove up to the hotel he said:

“We are tired Lord Towyn, and must have rest. I propose that we sleep here to-night, and go on to Dover and Ostend in the morning. I know how anxious and impatient you are, but we must not overtask our strength. You look quite worn out.”

“It is with anxiety then,” said the young earl. “I am eager to go on, Mr. Atkins, but will wait till morning as you counsel.”

The three gentlemen ascended to their private parlor which they shared in common. As they entered the room, a man who was standing at one of the windows, looking out, turned and came forward to meet them.

He was the steward of Lord Towyn’s marine place.

“You here, Sewel?” exclaimed the young earl. “Is anything the matter?”

The steward, an elderly man, with a rugged countenance, as gnarled as an old oak, yet full of kindly warmth, shook his head as he answered:

“There’s nothing wrong, my lord; but you ordered any letters to be sent to you, and knowing how anxious you were, I feared the letter might miscarry, and here it is. I brought it myself.”

“A letter!” cried the three gentlemen in chorus, having no thought of any letter save the one they so much desired.

“It’s in a lady’s hand, and that’s why I brought it,” said the steward.

He took out his pocket-book and drew from it a small square envelope, daintily addressed and sealed.

Lord Towyn uttered a cry of joy, recognizing the handwriting at once.

“It is from Neva!” he ejaculated.

He hurried with it to a window, turning his back on his friends, and tore open the envelope, disclosing a four-page letter, signed with the name of Neva Wynde.

“Ah!” he cried aloud. “It is dated Brussels.”

“We were on the right track then,” said Atkins exultantly.

The young earl perused his letter with a glad heart.

It was very tender and very sweet, full of delicate allusions to their betrothal, and was indeed such a letter as only a woman could write, yet the young lover was not satisfied. The letter lacked the straightforward simplicity that distinguished Neva, and it seemed to Lord Towyn to lack also sincerity. It had been written from the head rather than from the heart, and his first great joy and gladness gave way to a sudden and terrible sense of disappointment.

The steward, seeing that he was not wanted, went quietly from the room, intent upon securing his dinner.

Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise approached our hero, and the baronet laid a kindly hand upon the young earl’s shoulder.

“Forgive us for interrupting your happy reverie, Lord Towyn,” he said, “but we are very anxious. Miss Wynde writes from Brussels, and in good spirits? We have been troubling ourselves for nothing?”

The young earl did not look around, nor did he speak. He only clutched the letter tighter in his fingers.

“We have got into a panic for nothing,” said Atkins, smiling. “We will keep the joke to ourselves. I would not have Mr. Black curling his cynical lips over our folly, not for worlds. No doubt Miss Wynde satisfactorily explains her previous silence, my lord, and we are free to return home again, wiser if not better men?”

The young earl turned to his companions now, and they started when they saw how deadly pale he was, and what a look of terror and anguish gleamed from his warm blue eyes.

“Miss Wynde is not ill?” cried Sir John.

Lord Towyn raised his arm, waving the letter in the air.

“This letter is in Neva’s handwriting, and signed with her name,” he said, in a strained voice. “It purports to come from her, but, before God, I believe it to be a forgery! My instinct tells me that Neva never wrote it. We are upon the wrong track. Neva is not at Brussels. Perhaps she is not out of England. She is in the hands of her enemies, who have formed some foul conspiracy against her, and we, O God! are powerless to save her!”

CHAPTER III.
AN ADVERTISEMENT QUICKLY ANSWERED.

As the hour drew near for the arrival of the expected guest at Sandy Lands, a suppressed excitement pervaded the pert little villa from basement to attic. The servants had all received orders to wait upon Mrs. Wroat with the utmost alacrity, and some notion of her wealth and eccentricity had been conveyed to them, together with the idea that Mr. and Mrs. Blight entertained “expectations” of inheriting the old lady’s fortune at her death.

Mr. Blight had remained at home upon this day, in order that his aunt-in-law might not conceive herself neglected by him. He was dressed in his Sunday garments, and was practising a smile of welcome, which had somewhat a sickly look, contrasted as it was with his anxious eyes, and uneasy, apprehensive manner.

“Everything hangs upon this visit,” he muttered to himself, as he stood at the parlor window, watching the road. “The old creature is a bundle of whims and caprices, and if she should leave her money to a charity we are undone. Our expenses are so heavy that I can no longer meet them. The old woman must make her will in my favor!”

Mrs. Blight had attired herself in a tightly fitting gown of red silk, through which her rotund figure threatened to burst at any moment, and she wore a massive gold chain, a necklace, bracelets and brooch, so that she might have personated at a fancy ball the character of an animated jeweller’s shop.

“What have you got on all that jewelry for?” demanded Mr. Blight, glancing at his wife, as she complacently surveyed the reflection of her stout person and flushed face in the long mirror.

“Why?” said Mrs. Blight, with a degree of worldly wisdom for which her husband, it is to be feared, had never given her credit, “there’s nothing like making the old woman think we are prosperous. Money brings money. If Aunt Wroat sees us haggling about the butcher’s bills and the school bills, she may think her money is going into a bottomless bucket. But if she sees us apparently rich, and without money cares, she will be more anxious to leave her money to us.”

“That’s so,” said Mr. Blight. “I wish she’d come. Upon my soul, I do. Why didn’t my uncle leave me his money, and give his wife an annuity? In that case, I shouldn’t have cared what became of her, and I certainly would not have been dancing attendance upon her. All our care,” he added sourly, “and all our flattery will go for nothing if the children are not kept out of the way. And there the young savages come pellmell down the stairs.”

“The ‘young savages!’” moaned Mrs. Blight, in terrible reproach. “Have you the soul of a father? Can you call your own offspring savages, as if they were the children of a red Indian, or of cannibals? I’ll send the poor dears back to the school-room. Between you and your horrible old aunt, the poor darlings are in terror of their lives.”

Mrs. Blight hastened out into the hall, but it was now empty. The young governess and the nurse had captured all of the refractory brood save Leopold, and had conveyed them back to the school-room. Leopold had made good his escape into the garden, and was now careering about like a young colt, shouting at the top of his voice.

Mrs. Blight, hearing the noise made by her offspring, was full of terror lest her guest should arrive, and encounter the terrible infant at the gate of Sandy Lands. She rang the bell violently, and ordered Miss Bird to take charge of her pupil immediately. Lally descended to the garden to obey this command, and at the very moment when he chose to yield to her persuasions and be led away captive, a heavily laden cab drove up to the garden door, and the garden bell was rung violently.

The smart housemaid hastened to give admittance to the visitor, and the youthful Leopold, greatly excited at the prospect of seeing Mrs. Wroat, whom he detested, but cordially loved to annoy, struggled in Lally’s grasp. The young girl drew her charge into the shadow of a clump of trees, and stood there, panting and flushed, just as the visitor’s luggage was brought in in advance of the visitor herself.

First came three large trunks, a bandbox in a green cotton bag, a parrot in a cage, who croaked and chattered and muttered hoarse threats, and a blue silk family umbrella.

And then followed the queerest old lady Lally had ever seen. She leaned upon the arm of a tall, angular, hatchet-faced woman, her maid and constant attendant, who spoke to her mistress with a loving gentleness a mother might exhibit toward her child, but which sounded strangely from her thin, compressed lips, and who guided the faltering steps of her mistress with the tenderest care.

It was the old lady, however, upon whom Lally’s gaze was fixed with strange intensity. She was thin and withered and bent, a mere wreck of a woman who had been in her day handsome, graceful and spirited. She was nearly eighty years of age, and her hands, incased in black knitted mittens, through whose open meshes her bony fingers showed, clasped a gold-headed staff, which partially supported her, the maid giving her an arm.

The old lady wore an old-fashioned brocade gown, a big traveling cloak, a white frilled cap, and a huge scuttle-shaped bonnet, such as had been worn in her early prime. But her eyes were black and keen and penetrating, full of sparkle and brightness; her hooked nose was prominent like an eagle’s beak; and her mouth was curled habitually in a strangely cynical smile or sneer.

The old lady gave a quizzical glance up at the doorway, in which stood Mr. and Mrs. Blight with outstretched arms, and then looked toward Lally. The young girl shrank back, and hurried in at the rear porch and up stairs with her young charge, just as Mrs. Wroat came in at the front door and was received by her connections with loud exclamations of welcome.

The visitor was installed in her own apartments, and she did not emerge from them for the remainder of the day. Mr. Blight went to his office. A supernatural stillness reigned throughout the villa. Mrs. Wroat chose to appear at dinner, which was served at Sandy Lands at seven o’clock; and Mr. Blight was then at home to give her his arm into the dining-room, and to pay her all necessary attentions.

She looked, as Mrs. Blight privately remarked to her husband, “like a witch of Endor,” in her dinner costume of black velvet, with a scarlet velvet circular cloak thrown about her thin bent figure, and with her keen black eyes peering sharply out of her sallow face. She only needed a scarlet hood over her gray, wild looking hair, to complete her resemblance to one of the witches who are fabled to meet in lonely wood at midnight, to stir devilish messes in boiling caldrons. But then she wore a set of very fine diamonds, and even a “witch of Endor,” with diamonds, would have been handsomely treated by Mrs. Blight.

The old lady was not as courteous as a female Chesterfield. In fact she snapped out spiteful remarks with the utmost unconsciousness of the rising anger of host or hostess, taking a malicious pleasure in stirring up their evil passions, knowing that they dared not give vent to them. It may be that she comprehended their time-serving, speculating natures, and realized that they paid court to her only for her money.

“Miserable wine!” she commented, with a wry face, as she set down her glass. “Gladstone, isn’t it, Charles? It comes at four and six the dozen bottles, I believe. I never buy it myself. I prefer to take wormwood and vitriol undiluted.”

The lawyer flushed. He prided himself on being a connoisseur of wines, and having the choicest cellar in Canterbury.

“That’s real port, Aunt Wroat,” he exclaimed—“of the vintage of ’42.”

“Oh, they told you that, did they?” asked the old lady. “These cheap wine dealers are up to all sorts of tricks. I am surprised that you should have been taken in so, nephew Charles. At your time of life a man should have some judgment of his own.”

Mr. Blight bit his lips furiously, and his wife fancied she heard the old lady chuckle softly to herself, but a glance at her did not confirm the impression.

Presently the old lady opened an attack upon the lawyer’s wife. She looked at her though a quizzing-glass, and exclaimed suddenly, with apparent astonishment:

“Laura, do you think it good taste to wear all that Brummagem? If I could not get real gold, I wouldn’t put on servant’s ornaments; I wouldn’t indeed.”

“But these are real gold, Aunt Wroat,” said Mrs. Blight, her voice trembling with annoyance.

“Tut, tut,” said the old lady severely. “Don’t contradict me. I have been used to good jewelry all my life, and ought to know it when I see it. Good gold! Ha, ha! If you don’t know good gold, ask your cook.”

Mrs. Blight nearly choked with rage, and sulked during the remainder of the dinner, or until her husband threw her a warning glance that reminded her that she could not afford to quarrel with their eccentric relative.

Several times during the repast the host and hostess were stirred to anger they dared not exhibit, and several times Mrs. Blight fancied she heard the old lady chuckle to herself, but of this she could not be quite sure. The Blights fawned upon their wealthy guest, swallowed her insults, and smiled distractedly at her deadliest thrusts. But both drew a sigh of relief when the old lady had been carried back into the drawing-room.

“May be she’ll go to her room now?” whispered Mrs. Blight to her husband, as the old lady fanned herself vigorously, and appeared oblivious of their existence.

“No such good luck,” returned the lawyer ill-naturedly. “She ought to be shut up in a lunatic asylum, the old nuisance. If it wasn’t for her money, she might die in an alms-house before I’d give her shelter.”

The whisper was not low, but then Mrs. Wroat was supposed to be “as deaf as a post,” and of course she could not hear a sound so faint and indistinct. Mr. and Mrs. Blight had frequently vented their opinions much more loudly before her. But there was an odd snap in her eyes on this occasion, as they thus whispered to each other, and again Mrs. Blight fancied she heard a malicious chuckle, but the old lady fell to coughing in a frightful manner, and the lawyer’s wife had no time for fancies, believing the old lady likely to die on the spot.

When the paroxysm was over, and Mrs. Wroat began to breathe freely, Mrs. Blight said, not without nervousness:

“You have a terrible cold, Aunt Wroat. Don’t you do anything for it?”

“It’s a cold that’ll last me my days,” said Mrs. Wroat. “It’s consumption.”

“Do you employ a doctor for it?” asked the lawyer.

“Death is the best doctor,” answered the old lady, with grim facetiousness. “He’ll cure it for nothing. This is my last visit to you, Charles. I sha’n’t last much longer.”

“Oh, I hope you will live twenty years yet, and visit us every year!” cried Mrs. Blight. “Dear Aunt Wroat, we love to have you with us.”

“Yes, I know it,” said Mrs. Wroat, with another odd snap in her witch-like eyes. “I know it, my dear. It’s time to settle my affairs. I am thinking of making my will soon.”

The Blights tried to look unconcerned, but failed. Their curiosity and anxiety displayed themselves in their features.

“Shall you leave your money to a charity, dear Aunt Wroat?” inquired Mrs. Blight caressingly.

“No, no! I shall leave it to—But don’t ask me. You’ll know in good time.”

The lawyer looked significantly at his wife.

“She means to leave it to us!” he whispered. “The old nuisance will pay us for our trouble at last.”

It was singular that just then another fit of coughing attacked the old lady. When it was over, she said sharply:

“I’ll go to my room. I want to be composed, or I sha’n’t sleep a wink to-night. We’ll visit to-morrow, but I am tired after my journey. I should like some one to play a little music for me in my room, but I don’t want any sentimental songs from your girls, Laura.”

“The governess will sing and play for you, dear Aunt Wroat,” said Mrs. Blight. “She has orders to obey you during your visit, and you can command her at any or all hours.”

“Then send her to me in half an hour. Charles, you can carry me up stairs.”

The lawyer obeyed the intimation, carrying the old lady up to her own room and depositing her in her armchair. The maid was in attendance, and the lawyer and his wife bade their guest an affecting good-night, and retreated to the drawing-room to speculate upon their prospects and the state of Mrs. Wroat’s health.

“Shut the door, Peters,” said the old lady. “And you might open the windows and air the room after those people’s presence.”

Peters obeyed. She was wont to humor all the whims of her mistress.

“Did you find them the same as usual, ma’am?” she asked.

“Just the same, Peters,” and the old lady sighed. “They call me ‘an old cat’ and ‘a nuisance’ in whispers, and ‘dear Aunt Wroat’ out aloud. Miserable hypocrites! I wanted to give them a last chance, but they have ruined their prospects with me. Bah! A pair of fawning, treacherous cats! They will never get a penny of my money beyond a guinea to buy a mourning ring.”

“What shall you do, ma’am? Leave your money to a charity?”

“No, I won’t do that. I won’t have it scattered and doled out in sixpennies and shillings, when the whole sum might go to enrich some deserving person. I’ll leave you an annuity, Peters. You’re the only true friend I have on earth.”

The woman caressed the withered hand of her old mistress with genuine affection.

“Have you given up all hope of finding your own relatives, ma’am?” she asked. “You tracked your niece until after her marriage with a corn-chandler, and have discovered that she died, leaving one child, a daughter, and that her husband died also. The girl may live, ma’am. She’s the last of your blood, and surely it’s better to give to your own kin than to undeserving connections or to strangers.”

“But I can’t find the girl,” sighed the old lady. “I’d adopt her and leave her my money, if she was deserving of it; but I’ve set detectives to look for her, and they have failed to discover anything except that her moonstruck parents named her the ‘The Vailed Prophet,’ or ‘Lalla Rookh,’ or some such nonsense. They did find out that she had been educated like a lady—her mother was a lady—and that she had taught music, or drawing, or something. But she may be dead by this time.”

“We might advertise for her,” cried the maid all enthusiasm. “We could say, if Miss So and So would call at such a place, she would hear of something to her advantage. I do wish you would leave your money to some nice young lady, instead of these people below. I’ll write the advertisement immediately. What is the name of your great-niece, Mrs. Wroat?”

“It’s Kubla Khan, or Lalla Rookh Bird,” answered the old lady. “There was a crack in my niece’s brain, as was shown by her marriage with a corn-chandler, and by the naming of her child. I wonder what kind of a bird the corn-chandler was,” and Mrs. Wroat laughed queerly. “He left his daughter not one penny to bless herself with. Write the advertisement, Peters, at once. What geese we were not to have thought of an advertisement before. If I can find and cage my Bird, Peters, and it turns out a good and worthy Bird, I’ll leave her the whole of my fifty thousand pounds, and you shall have an annuity, Peters, and live with her and take care of her. She’s only a child—not over seventeen.”

Peters brought out her mistress’ portable writing-desk, and sat down before it to pen the required advertisement. Being unused to composition, she spoiled a dozen sheets of paper before she produced the following, which she read aloud to her mistress:

“If Miss Lalla Bird will apply to the undersigned she will hear of something to her advantage. M. W., Mount street, London, W.”

“That will do,” cried Mrs. Wroat delighted. “M. W.—Maria Wroat. Very good. We’ll have it in all the London papers. Make a dozen copies of it, and address them to a dozen different papers. You shall get the post-office orders to put with them in the morning. But let us see if the advertisement wants any improving. Read it again.”

The maid did so. As she concluded, and before she could speak, the advertisement was answered, for a low knock was heard at the door, and the young governess, in her black dress and with her young face pitiful in its sadness, entered the room, and said shyly and with a low courtesy:

“If you please, ma’am, I’m the governess, and Mrs. Blight sent me in to play to you. My name is Miss Bird.”

CHAPTER IV.
LALLY AND MRS. WROAT.

The simple and business-like announcement of her name by Mrs. Blight’s young governess to Mrs. Blight’s eccentric guest, produced a sensation as startling as unexpected to Lally. Mrs. Wroat uttered a strange exclamation, and leaned forward on her staff, her black eyes staring at the young girl in a piercing gaze, her hooked nose and her chin almost meeting, and her shrivelled lips mumbling excitedly an inaudible whisper. The old lady’s eagerness and agitation was shared by her maid, who stared at Lally with a wondering and incredulous gaze.

“Who—who did you say you were?” demanded Mrs. Wroat, as soon as she could speak, in cracked, hoarse tones—“Who?”

“I am Mrs. Blight’s governess, ma’am,” replied Lally wonderingly, and concluding that Mrs. Wroat’s eccentricities verged upon madness.

“Yes, yes, I know,” cried the old lady impatiently, “but who are you?”

Transcriber’s Notes:

NEVA’S CHOICE

SYNOPSIS OF “NEVA’S THREE LOVERS.”

CHAPTER I.NEVA’S ANSWER TO LORD TOWYN.

CHAPTER II.THE PUZZLE OF NEVA’S WHEREABOUTS.

CHAPTER III.AN ADVERTISEMENT QUICKLY ANSWERED.

CHAPTER IV.LALLY AND MRS. WROAT.

CHAPTER I.
NEVA’S ANSWER TO LORD TOWYN.

CHAPTER II.
THE PUZZLE OF NEVA’S WHEREABOUTS.

CHAPTER III.
AN ADVERTISEMENT QUICKLY ANSWERED.

CHAPTER IV.
LALLY AND MRS. WROAT.