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SELECT LIBRARY No. 231

NEVA'S THREE LOVERS

MRS. HARRIET LEWIS

Neva's Three Lovers

MRS. HARRIET LEWIS

"Adrift in the World," "The Bailiff's Scheme," "The Belle of the Season," "Cecil Rosse," "The Haunted Husband," "Sundered Hearts," and numerous other books published in the EAGLE, NEW EAGLE, and SELECT Libraries.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION PUBLISHERS 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Neva's Three Lovers

NEVA'S THREE LOVERS.

Sir Harold Wynde, Baronet, was standing upon the pier head at Brighton, looking idly seaward, and watching the play of the sunset rays on the waters, the tossing white-capped waves, and the white sails in the distance against the blue sky.

He was not yet fifty years of age, tall and handsome and stately, with fair complexion, fair hair, and keen blue eyes, which at times beamed with a warm and genial radiance that seemed to emanate from his soul. The rare nobility of that soul expressed itself in his features. His commanding intellect betrayed itself in his square, massive brows. His grand nature was patent in every look and smile. He was a widower with two children, the elder a son, who was a captain in a fine regiment in India, the younger a daughter still at boarding-school. He possessed a magnificent estate in Kent, a house in town, and a marine villa, and rejoiced in a clear income of seventy thousand pounds a year.

As might be expected from his rare personal and material advantages, he was a lion at Brighton, even though the season was at its height, and peers and peeresses abounded at that fashionable resort. Titled ladies--to use a well-worn phrase--"set their caps" for him; manoeuvring mammas smiled upon him; portly papas with their "quivers full of daughters," and with groaning purses, urged him to dine at their houses or hotels; and widows of every age looked sweetly at him, and thought how divine it would be to be chosen to reign as mistress over the baronet's estate of Hawkhurst.

But Sir Harold went his ways quietly, seeming oblivious of the hopes and schemes of these manoeuverers. He had had a good wife, and he had no intention of marrying again. And so, as he stood carelessly leaning against the railing on the pier head, under the gay awning, his thoughts were far away from the gaily dressed promenaders sauntering down the chain pier or pacing with slow steps to and fro behind him.

The sunset glow slowly faded. The long gray English twilight began to fall slowly upon promenaders, beach, chain pier, and waters. The music of the band swallowed up all other sounds, the murmur of waters, the hum of gay voices, the sweetness of laughter.

But suddenly, in one of the interludes of the music, and in the midst of Sir Harold's reverie, an incident occurred which was the beginning of a chain of events destined to change the whole future course of the baronet's life, and to exercise no slight degree of influence upon the lives of others.

Yet the incident was simple. A little pleasure-boat, occupied by two ladies and a boatman, had been sailing leisurely about the pier head for some time. The boatman, one of the ordinary pleasure boatmen who make a living at Brighton, as at other maritime resorts, by letting their crafts and services to chance customers, had been busy with his sail. One of the ladies, a hired companion apparently, sat at one side of the boat, with a parasol on her knee. The other lady, as evidently the employer, half reclined upon the plush cushions, and an Indian shawl of vivid scarlet lavishly embroidered with gold was thrown carelessly about her figure. One cheek of this lady rested upon her jewelled hand, and her eyes were fixed with a singular intentness, a peculiar speculativeness, upon the tall and stalwart figure of Sir Harold Wynde.

There was a world of meaning in that long furtive gaze, and had the baronet been able to read and comprehend it, the tragical history we are about to narrate would never have happened. But he, wrapped in his own thoughts, saw neither the boat nor its occupants.

The little craft crept in quite near to the pier head--so near as to be but a few rods distant--when the boatman shifted his helm to go about and stand upon the other tack. The small vessel gave a lurch, the wind blowing freshly; the lady with the Indian shawl started up, with a shriek; there was an instant of terrible confusion; and then the sail-boat had capsized, and her late occupants were struggling in the waters.

Sir Harold Wynde was startled from the trance-like musings by the lady's shriek. He looked down upon the waters and beheld the result of the catastrophe. The boat's sail lay half under water. The boatman had seized the lady's companion and was clinging to the upturned boat. The companion had fainted in his arms, and he could not loosen his hold upon her unless he would have her drown before his eyes. The lady, at a little distance from her companions in peril, tangled in her mass of scarlet and gold drapery, her hat lost, her long hair trailing on the waves, seemed drowning.

Her peril was imminent. No other boats were near, although one or two were coming up swiftly from a distance.

The lady threw up her white arms with an anguished cry. Her glance sought the thronged pier head in wild appealing. Who, looking at her, would have dreamed that the disaster was part of a well-contrived plan--a trap to catch the unwary baronet?

As she had expected from his well-known chivalrous character, he fell into the trap. His keen eyes flashed a rapid glance over beach and waters. The lady was likely to drown before help could come from the speeding boats. Sir Harold pulled off his coat and made a dive into the sea. He was an expert swimmer, and reached the lady as she was sinking. He caught her in his arms and struck out for the boat. The lady became a dead weight, and when he reached the capsized craft her head lay back on his breast, her long wet tresses of hair coiled around him like Medusean locks, and her pale face was like the face of a dead woman.

Sir Harold clung to the side of the boat opposite that on which the boatman supported his burden. And thus he awaited the coming of the boats.

Among the eager thronging watchers on the pier head above was a tall, fair-faced man, with a long, waxed mustache, sinister eyes and a cynical smile. He alone of the throng seemed unmoved by the tragic incident.

"It was pretty well done," he muttered, under his breath--"a little transparent, perhaps, and a trifle awkward as well, but pretty well done! The baronet fell into the trap too, exactly as was hoped. Your campaign opens finely, my beautiful Octavia. Let us see if the result is to be what we desire. In short, will the baronet be as unsuspicious all the way through?"

Sir Harold certainly was unsuspicious at that moment. The helpless woman in his arms aroused into activity all the chivalry of his chivalric nature. He held her head above the creeping waves until the foremost boat had reached him. His burden was the first to be lifted into the rescuing craft; the lady's companion followed; the baronet and the boatman climbing into the boat last, in the order in which they are named.

The capsized boat was righted and its owner took possession of her. The rescuing craft transported the baronet and the two ladies to the beach. The lady companion had recovered her senses and self-possession, but the lady employer lay on the cushions pale and motionless.

On reaching the landing, a cab was found to be in waiting, having been summoned by some sympathizing spectator. The companion, uttering protestations of gratitude, entered the vehicle, and her mistress was assisted in after her. The former gathered her employer in her arms, crying out:

"She is dead! She is dead! I have lost my best friend--"

"Not so, madam," said Sir Harold, in kindly sympathy. "The lady has only fainted, I think. To what place shall I tell the cabman to drive?"

"To the Albion Hotel. Oh, my poor, poor lady! To die so young! It is terrible!"

Sir Harold made some soothing response, but being chilled and wet, did not find it necessary to accompany to their hotel the heroines of the adventure. He gave their address to the cabman, watched the cab as it rolled away, and then breaking loose from the crowd of friends who gathered around him with anxious interrogatories, he secured his coat and procured a cab for himself and proceeded to his own hotel.

It was not until he had had a comfortable bath, and was seated in dry attire in his private parlor, that Sir Harold remembered that he did not know the name of the lady he had served, or that he had not even seen her face distinctly.

"She is as ignorant of my name and identity," he thought, "as I am of hers. If the incident could be kept out of the papers, I need never be troubled with the thanks of her husband, father, or brother."

But the incident was not kept out of the papers. Sir Harold Wynde, being a lion, had to bear the penalty of popularity. The next morning's paper, brought in to him as he sat at his solitary breakfast, contained a glowing account of the previous evening's adventure, under the flaming head line of "Heroic Action by a Baronet," with the sub-lines: "Sir Harold Wynde saves a lady's life at the risk of his own. Chivalry not yet dead in our commonplace England." And there followed a highly imaginative description of the lady's adventure, her name being as yet unknown, and a warm eulogy upon Sir Harold's bravery and presence of mind.

The baronet's lip curled as he read impatiently the fulsome article. He had scarcely finished it when a waiter entered, bringing in upon a silver tray a large squarely enveloped letter. It was addressed to Sir Harold Wynde, was stamped with an unintelligible monogram, and sealed with a dainty device in pale green wax. As the baronet's only lady correspondent was his daughter at school, and this missive was clearly not from her, he experienced a slight surprise at its reception.

The waiter having departed, Sir Harold cut open the letter with his pocket knife, and glanced over its contents.

They were written upon the daintiest, thickest vellum paper unlined, and duly tinted and monogrammed, and were as follows:

ALBION HOTEL, Tuesday Morning.

"SIR HAROLD WYNDE: The lady who writes this letter is the lady whom you so gallantly rescued from a death by drowning last evening. I have read the accounts of your daring bravery in the morning's papers, and hasten to offer my grateful thanks for your noble and gallant kindness to an utter stranger. Life has not been so sweet to me that I cling to it, but yet it is very horrible to go in one moment from the glow and heartiness of health and life down to the very gates of death. It was your hand that drew me back at the moment when those gates opened to admit me, and again I bless you--a thousand thousand times, I bless you. Alas, that I have to write to you myself. I have neither father, lover, nor husband, to rejoice in the life you have saved. I am a widow, and alone in the wide world. Will you not call upon me at my hotel and permit me to thank you far more effectively in person? I shall be waiting for your coming in my private parlor at eleven this morning.

"Gratefully yours, "OCTAVIA HATHAWAY."

The baronet read the letter again and again. His generous soul was touched by its sorrowful tone.

"A widow and alone in the world!" he thought. "Poor woman! What sentence could be sadder than that? She is elderly, I am sure, and has lost all her children. I do not want to hear her expressions of gratitude, but if I can make the poor soul happier by calling on her I will go."

Accordingly, at eleven o'clock that morning, attired in a gentleman's unexceptionable morning dress, Sir Harold Wynde, having sent up his card, presented himself at the door of Mrs. Hathaway's private parlor at the Albion Hotel, and knocked for admittance.

The door was opened to him by the lady's companion, who greeted him with effusiveness, and begged him to be seated.

She was a tall, angular woman, with sharp features, whose characteristic expression was one of peculiar hardness and severity. Her lips were thin, and were usually compressed. Her eyes were a light gray, furtive and sly, like a cat's eyes. Her pointed chin gave a treacherous cast to her countenance. Her complexion was of a pale, opaque gray; her hair, of a fawn color, was worn in three puffs on each side of her face, and her dress was of a tint to match her hair. Sir Harold conceived an instinctive aversion to her.

"Mrs. Hathaway?" he said politely, with interrogative accent.

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