“No, no, it has not,” interrupted the girl’s passionate young voice. “If I had seen him die, I could have been reconciled to the will of God. But to lose him in that awful manner--never to know how much he suffered during the moments when he was struggling in the claws of that deadly tiger--oh, it seems at times more than I can bear. And to think how soon he has been forgotten!” and Neva’s voice trembled. “His wife whom he idolized has married another, and his friends and tenantry have danced and made merry at her wedding. Of all who knew and loved him, only his daughter still mourns at his awful fate!” “It is hard,” assented Rufus, “but it’s the way of the world, you know. If it will comfort you any, Neva, I will tell you that half the county families came to the wedding breakfast to support and cheer you by their presence, and the other half came out of sheer curiosity. But few of the best families remained to the ball.” “Papa thought much of you, did he not, Rufus?” asked Neva, thinking of that skilfully forged letter which was hidden in her bosom, and which purported to be her father’s last letter to her from India. Rufus Black had been warned by his father that Neva might some day thus question him, and Craven Black had told his son that he must answer the heiress in the affirmative. Rufus was weak of will, cowardly, and timid, but it was not in him to be deliberately dishonest. He could not lie to the young girl, whose truthful eyes sought his own. “I had no personal acquaintance with Sir Harold Wynde, Neva,” the young man said, inwardly quaking, yet daring to tell the truth. “But--but--papa said--I don’t really comprehend, Rufus. I thought that papa loved you.” “If Sir Harold ever saw me, I do not know it,” said Rufus, cruelly embarrassed, and wondering if his honesty would not prove his ruin. “I was at the University--Sir Harold may have seen me, and taken a liking to me--” Neva looked strangely perplexed and troubled. Certainly the awkward statement of Rufus did not agree with the supposed last declaration of her father. “There seems some mystery here which I cannot fathom,” she said. “I have a letter written by papa in India, under the terrible foreboding that he would die there, and in this letter papa speaks of you with affection, and says--and says--” She paused, her blushes amply completing the sentence. A cold shiver passed over the form of Rufus. He comprehended the cause of Neva’s blushes, and a portion of his father’s villainy. He understood that the letter of which Neva spoke had been forged by Craven Black, and that it commanded Neva’s marriage with Craven Black’s son. What could he say? What should he do? His innate cowardice prevented him from confessing the truth, and his awe of his father prevented him from betraying him, and he could only tremble and blush and pale alternately.