Many changes had come to Eva since that golden May day when her father had brought her away from West Virginia into this new life of luxury and ease; she had traveled in many lands, she had learned to know the world, and many lovers had knelt at her feet; but none had touched her heart, none had dimmed the image of the handsome face of him from whom she had been parted at the altar by so cruel a tragedy, who had so nearly been her husband that it seemed to her as if their souls were eternally one, though their lives were sundered by the cruel vendetta of hate, begun by their families before they were born. While she traveled those eighteen months abroad with her father, acquiring the culture and polish necessary to her new station in life, Eva kept up a constant correspondence with her friend Ada Winton, and through her kept informed of all that had transpired since she left. She had been nearly wild with fear lest Doctor Rupert Ludington should be hanged for her cousin’s murder. She knew in her heart that he was not guilty, that the accident had happened while he was defending his own life. But she feared lest the jury would not believe the plea for the defense. She said to herself that, though she was parted eternally from her heart’s beloved, she could not bear her life if they found him guilty--if they punished him for his innocent sin. She looked eagerly for the letters from Ada Winton; she read them over and over; she wept with joy at the news that he was found guilty only of manslaughter and his punishment fixed at only three months in prison. The two young men who had been eyewitnesses of the tragedy had boldly come forward and testified that Terry Groves’ death was an accident caused by the struggle for the weapon with which he had first shot Doctor Ludington. So the jury had brought in their verdict as manslaughter, and in accordance with the result he had been sentenced. The verdict created different sensations, of course, among the opposing clans of Groves and Ludingtons. That was history now, and the young doctor had long ago been released from prison and gone away from the scenes of tragedy that had embittered his life. The Ludingtons had grown rich by the discovery of oil on their lands, and the old people dwelt in luxury at Fernside, but their son had become a wanderer, seeking surcease of sorrow in distant scenes and pleasures, Ada wrote, with generous sympathy and pity for the discarded lover. The Groves twins had gone with Miss Ruttencutter to live at Clarksburg, and within the past year Lydia had married a rich merchant of Charleston and now made her home there. Cousin Tabby had visited her there and realized her ambition “to see the governor and the other big men,” but Patty was still sighing for New York and the great catch she hoped to make there. She had been heard to remark that she was sorry she was “at outs” with her Cousin Eva, for she might otherwise have visited her there for a season.