She dressed herself warmly, secured her pocket-book in her bosom and her jewels on her person, and put on her fur jacket and round hat. Thus equipped, she waited at her window with keen nervous anxiety, her ears live to every sound, and her heart beating like a drum. At the usual hour Mrs. Black came in alone, as she usually came. There was no one in the ante-room, as Neva knew, Celeste being in attendance upon Mrs. Artress, who grew more and more exacting of the French woman’s services with each day. Mrs. Black started as she beheld Neva in out-door costume, and halted near the door, looking suspiciously at her captive. “What! Dressed to go out?” she exclaimed. “Yes, madam,” answered Neva wearily, yet with every nerve in her slender frame quivering. “I am tired of this forced inaction. I long for exercise, for the fresh air, and the songs of birds.” “You know on what terms you can have these blessings,” said Octavia Black, still suspiciously. “Yes, madam, I know.” Mrs. Black’s face brightened. In the girl’s dejected tone and drooping attitude she believed that she read her own victory. She came toward Neva, her hard black eyes shining, her cheeks burning redly, her lips parted in an exultant smile. “My dear child,” she cried, stretching out her hands. “I was sure the close confinement and prison diet would bring you to a sense of your duty. I have no reproaches to offer; I am too happy in the victory I have won. You have now only to take a solemn oath to marry Rufus Black on our return to Hawkhurst, and never to betray this affair at the Wilderness, and we will set out in the yacht this very morning on our return to Hawkhurst. You shall--” Neva did not wait for the sentence to be finished. With a furtive glance she had seen that the door was ajar, and that no one was yet in the ante-chamber; and so, suddenly, with a dart like that of a lapwing, she flew past Mrs. Black, sprang into the outer room, and locked the door upon her utterly amazed and stupefied enemy. Then she sped across the floor of the ante-room and peeped into the hall. The upper and lower halls and the stair-way were alike deserted. By some strange fatality, or providence, not one of the household was within sight. Neva fled down the stair-way with the speed and lightness of an antelope. The front door was ajar. She pulled it open and darted out upon the lawn, and sped away amid the gloom of the trees. And as she thus fled, the loud shrieks of Mrs. Black rang through the house, rousing Mr. Black in the dining-room, Mrs. Artress and Celeste, and even the women in the kitchen. In seemed less than a minute to Neva, when she heard shouts and cries at the house, the barking of dogs, and the sounds of pursuit.