The plan suited Mr. and Mrs. Black, who resolved to act upon it. The whole party adjourned to the drawing-room. Mrs. Craven Black brought forth several letters she had formerly received from Neva while at the Paris school, and which she had preserved for possible use. Mr. Black still retained the envelope to the letter Neva had addressed to her lover, and which he had intercepted. With these materials, and his skill at counterfeiting, Craven Black set to work to write a letter in Neva’s name, and dated at Brussels. While he was thus engaged, Mrs. Black supplying him with suitable paper and ink, the French maid wrote to her sister at Brussels, requesting her to stamp and forward the inclosed missive. Octavia Black gave her attendant a Bank of England note to inclose in payment of the service. The double letter was finished and sealed that night, and Craven Black went to Inverness the next day in the yacht and posted it. This then was the letter which had been brought up to London to Lord Towyn by his steward, and which the young earl, having read, and so instantly and vehemently pronounced a forgery. But though it failed of its object, and did not deceive the keen-witted young lover as to its origin, it did not enlighten him as to Neva’s whereabouts. He continued his search for her, calling in the aid of professional detectives, Mr. Atkins devoting his time also to the search, but they failed to find a clue to the missing young girl. And she, hidden in the far-off Scottish wilds, among mountain peaks and in a secluded rocky wilderness, looked in vain for her lover’s coming. Her enemies were indeed more cunning than she had dreamed, and it seemed indeed as if the words of Craven Black would prove true, and the matter between the “besiegers and the besieged” would become a question of resistance. Which would be the first to yield to the loneliness and gloom of the Wilderness, and to the rigors of the swiftly approaching Highland winter? CHAPTER XI. MRS. BLIGHT ENTERS UPON HER MOURNING. The sudden death of Mrs. Wroat proved a severe shock to poor Lally Bird, who had grown to love the eccentric, but kind-hearted old lady with a daughter’s affection. She hurriedly dressed herself, and came down to Mrs. Wroat’s chamber, pale and awe-struck, with a horrible sense of desolation and misery. It seemed as if a fatality attended her--that those whom she loved were in some way doomed. Her parents were dead, her young husband had been taken from her, and now her great-aunt had died, and she was again alone. She was not selfish in her grief, but she could not help thinking of her own bitter loneliness, as she bent over the still figure, and softly and reverently touched the straying locks of gray hair, and pressed her lips to the shrivelled mouth from which the angel smile seemed slowly fading.