SYNOPSIS OF “NEVA’S THREE LOVERS.”
A beautiful young widow, Mrs. Octavia Hathaway, with the connivance of her admirer, Craven Black, succeeded in marrying the wealthy widower, Sir Harold Wynde, who had a daughter, Neva, at school in France, and a son, George, with his regiment in India. A hurried call to the deathbed of his son frustrated the design of the two adventurers to poison the baronet, who, after his son died, was reported to have been killed by a tiger in India, instead of which he was kept prisoner by a treacherous native servant. After fifteen months of outward mourning Lady Wynde married Craven Black, and in order to secure the large fortune of her stepdaughter, she determined that Neva should marry Black’s son, Rufus. The latter, however, although in fear of his father, was not unscrupulous. He had married a young girl named Lalla Bird, but as both were under age he was persuaded that the marriage was illegal. Lalla was reported to have thrown herself into the river on learning this, but the body recovered was not hers. She found employment as governess to the children of a Mrs. Blight. Rufus, believing her dead, proposed to Neva, but was refused, and the young heiress became betrothed to Lord Towyn.