Category: Romance
Sir Harold Wynde, Baronet, was standing upon the pier head at Brighton, looking idly seaward, and watching the play of the sunset rays on the waters, the tossing white-capped waves, and the white sails in the distance against the blue sky.
Sir Harold Wynde, Baronet, was standing upon the pier head at Brighton, looking idly seaward, and watching the play of the sunset rays on the waters, the tossing white-capped wa...
2. CHAPTER II. A DECISIVE MOVE COMMANDED.Sir Harold and Lady Wynde ate their wedding breakfast in Bloomsbury Square, at the house of Lady Wynde’s miserly aunt, Mrs. Hyde. A few of the baronet’s choice friends were pres...
3. CHAPTER III. A FATEFUL MOVE DECIDED UPON.Notwithstanding that the sinister message, contained in the single line of the mysterious missive brought to Lady Wynde by her gray companion, had been long expected, it brought...
4. CHAPTER IV. A DOOR OPENED TO WICKEDNESS.Soon after daybreak, upon the morning following the occurrence of the incidents related in the preceding chapter, Lady Wynde’s gray companion departed from Hawkhurst for Canterb...
5. CHAPTER V. SETTLING INTO HER PLACE.The announcement of Sir Harold Wynde’s death in India, so soon too after the death of his son and heir, produced a shock throughout his native county of Kent, and even throughou...
6. CHAPTER VI. HER LADYSHIP’S ACCOMPLICE.The morrow to which Lady Wynde looked forward with feverish expectation dawned at last, bright and clear, and deepened into a sultry afternoon. The baronet’s widow spent hours a...
7. CHAPTER VII. NEVA’S FIRST LOVER.The dingy little packet-boat from Calais to Dover, carrying the mails, bore her usual complement of passengers upon the bright midsummer day upon which young Neva Wynde returned...
8. CHAPTER VIII. THE SON OF THE HONORABLE CRAVEN BLACK.Upon the morning of the day on which Neva Wynde and Lord Towyn so strangely encountered each other upon the dingy packet-boat--an encounter that was destined to be fateful--a sc...
9. CHAPTER IX. A KNOT SUMMARILY SEVERED.Rufus Black’s heart grew heavier still, and his sense of dread deepened, as he steamed down to Canterbury in the express train. He had a seat by a window in a second-class compa...
10. 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....
11. CHAPTER XI. LADY WYNDE’S IDEA ACTED UPON.It was still early upon the evening of Neva’s return to Hawkhurst when Craven Black took his leave of the handsome widow and set out upon his walk to Wyndham. The summer night w...
12. CHAPTER XII. BLACK CONTINUES HIS CONSPIRACY.As the hours wore on after Rufus Black’s departure from the dingy little lodging he had called home, poor Lally became anxious and troubled. Her young husband had inspired her w...
13. CHAPTER XIII. HOW NEVA RECEIVED THE FORGERIES.While Craven Black was successfully pursuing his machinations to destroy the happiness of two young lives, Lady Wynde had been active in carrying out her part in the infamous pl...
14. CHAPTER XIV. THE MEETING OF NEVA AND RUFUS.The hours of his father’s absence in London were full of an insupportable suspense to Rufus Black. He was tempted to hurry up to town by the next train, and only his weakness an...
15. CHAPTER XV. MR. BLACK GETS A NEW IDEA.As Neva recognized the youngest of her three guardians, as they rode up the avenue of Hawkhurst at a leisurely pace, a strange embarrassment seized upon her. The horsemen had no...
16. CHAPTER XVI. RUFUS ASKS THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION.Craven Black and his son met at their late breakfast in the private parlor of the former. The father was himself again, cold, polite, and cynical. The son was sullen and irritab...
17. CHAPTER XVII. THE YOUNG WIFE’S DESOLATION.It was indeed poor Lally Bird, the wronged young wife, whom her husband mourned as dead, who, crouching in the shelter of the way-side thicket, stared after Neva Wynde and Rufus...
18. 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...
19. CHAPTER XIX. NEVA’S CHOICE FORESHADOWED.In accordance with the advice of his scheming father, Rufus Black wrote a letter to Neva Wynde entreating her to take a month or six weeks, instead of the single week for which...
20. CHAPTER XX. WAS IT A DREAM?As the time appointed for the marriage of Lady Wynde and Craven Black drew near, great preparations were entered upon for its celebration. One would have thought, from the scale...
21. CHAPTER XXI. A SCENE IN INDIA.Neva Wynde had retired to her bed, as will be remembered, upon the marriage night of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, her thoughts all of her father and of his tragic fate in India....
22. CHAPTER XXII. BACK AS FROM THE DEAD.The stranger who stood upon the veranda of Major Archer’s bungalow was tall and thin, with a haggard face, worn and sharp of feature, and full of deeply cut lines, such as a lon...
23. 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...
24. CHAPTER XXIV. LALLY FINDS A NEW HOME.It will be remembered that there had been a hidden witness to the half-despairing, half-loving, proposal of Rufus, and that this hidden witness, seeing, but unseen, was no other...
25. CHAPTER XXV. LALLY IN HER NEW SITUATION.Lally returned to Canterbury in the cab that had brought her out to Sandy Lands, Mrs. Blight’s pert little villa in the suburbs, and entered upon the task of procuring a neat al...