Neva's Choice: A Sequel to Neva's Three Lovers
9781465674210
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, summoning the indispensable Mrs. Artress to a private conference, passed some hours in their own room in anxious deliberation upon their future course in regard to Neva. It was necessary to the full success of the daring game they were playing, that Neva should marry Rufus Black; but she had rejected him, completely and finally, in obedience to her instincts of duty to God and to herself, and her enemies began to believe that they would have serious trouble in forcing her into the marriage. In accordance with the conclusion to which they finally arrived, Mrs. Artress went away from Hawkhurst that very afternoon in the family brougham, and two trunks belonging to her were conveyed to Canterbury in a spring wagon. It was given out that she was going to London to visit a friend. She really went up to London, but to what point she then directed her wanderings no one knew. Rufus Black wandered disconsolately all day in the park, and came in an hour before dinner. His father encountered him in the upper hall, and went into his room with him. “That’s a fine face, Rufus,” said Craven Black, sneeringly, “to win the heart of a girl like Miss Wynde. You look as if you were traveling straight to the dogs.” “So I am, sir,” said Rufus, recklessly. “You dare to answer me in that manner?” “To whom should I tell the truth, if not to you?” cried Rufus desperately. “You have made me what I am. I married a pure and innocent young girl, who but for me was utterly friendless in the wide world. You tore me from her. You persuaded me that my marriage was illegal—” “And wasn’t it?” “I suppose it was, but it was not null and void. It could have been set aside by due process of law, because I was a minor, and because I perjured myself in declaring that I was of age; but I refuse to believe that it was null and void, no marriage at all. I never wronged my poor Lally as you pretend.”
