The lodge was closed, and a faint light streamed out through the dotted white curtains. Lally crept close to the great gates formed of bronze spears tipped with gilt, like the gates of the Tuileries gardens at Paris, and pressing her face against the cool rods, looked up the avenue. At the distance of half a mile or more, the great gray stone mansion sat throned upon a broad ridge of land, and lights flared from the wide uncurtained windows far upon the terrace, and the glass dome of flowers was all alight, and the stately old house looked to the homeless wanderer down by the gates like Paradise. Her eager eyes searched the terrace, and then, inch by inch, the great tree-arched avenue. Midway up the avenue, walking slowly, as lovers walk, she saw her young husband and Neva Wynde. With great jealous eyes she watched their progress through the shadows, and, when they paused in the stream of light upon the terrace, and Rufus Black bent low toward the heiress, a great flame leaped into poor Lally’s sombre eyes, and she caught her breath sharply. The heiress and her suitor stood for some moments upon the terrace, unconscious of the eyes upon them. Rufus declined to go into the house that evening, alleging his agitation as an excuse. Neva took her small parcel which he had carried, and he seized her hand, uttering passionate words of love, and begging her to look favorably upon his suit. Then not waiting for an answer, he pressed her hand to his lips, and dashed down the avenue toward the gates, while Neva entered the house. And all this the jealous, disowned wife saw, with her face growing death-like, and the flame burning yet more brightly in her sombre eyes. “She has accepted him,” she muttered. “She will not take the week to consider his suit. They are betrothed. I was sure she lived here. Perhaps she owns the place, and he will be its master. They will both be rich and happy and beloved, while I--Ah, how swiftly he comes! He walked like that the night _I_ accepted him. But I am not his wife; I never was, even when I thought myself so. He must not see me. No shadow from the past must darken his happy life--his and hers. It is all over--all over--and I shall never see his face again!” With one last, long lingering look, and a sob that came from her very soul, she turned and sped down the road like a mad creature--away from Wyndham, and Rufus, and all her hopes--going, ah, where? And Rufus, with his new love-dream glowing in his soul, came out of the Hawkhurst grounds, and hurried toward his inn, never dreaming how near he had been to his lost wife, nor how surely he had lost her. 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 bowed to him gayly, as he said: “Well, father, you ought to be pleased with me now. I have offered myself to Miss Wynde.”