By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.
"There is positively not a dollar left to buy a dress for Queenie and yet she will insist upon going to the ball. Could you let me have your old green silk to make over for her, Sydney?"
The small figure perched on the top of a large Saratoga trunk sprang down upon the floor, and stamped her foot so vehemently that the blue satin bow flew off from her tiny slipper.
"Wear Sydney's old green silk to the ball!" cried Queenie, indignantly. "Indeed I won't, mamma, I will stay at home first!"
"The best place for you," said her sister, Sydney, calmly. "I see no use in taking a child like you to Mrs. Kirk's grand ball."
"A child, indeed," flashed the younger sister, with a pout of her rosebud lips. "I am as tall as you, Syd, and I was seventeen yesterday. It's real mean to call me a child and leave me at home every time I get invited out. I know why it is, though. It's because mamma spends every dollar papa gives her decking out you and Georgie, and there's never a decent thing left for me to wear."
"It is because you are too pretty, my dear," laughed her father, who had entered the dressing-room unnoticed. "The girls keep you back because they are afraid you will cut them out with their fine beaux."
Sydney and Georgina flushed angrily and muttered that it wasn't so, and that papa ought to be ashamed of himself—it was all his fault that Queenie was setting herself up for a woman so fast when he couldn't afford to dress the two that were already grown decently enough for the position they had to fill in society.
The poor, worried mother, having been so quickly snubbed on the subject of the old green silk, looked on and said nothing.
"I give you every cent I can spare from my business, girls," said Mr. Lyle, in a vexed tone, "and this time I strained a point and pinched myself in order that little Queenie might have a new dress and go to the ball, too."
"But they have spent every cent upon themselves!" cried pretty little Queenie with the tears of vexation standing in her pansy-blue eyes. "The dressing-room is littered all over with their finery yet they want me to wear that horrid green silk of Syd's! A pretty fright I should look!"
"Never mind, dear, you can stay at home with your old papa. Your time will come after awhile when the girls are married and out of the way," said her father kindly, as he drew his arm about her. "Maybe it is true that I have spoiled you, dear, and that you are too young to go to such a grand ball."
"No, I am not, papa. I am quite old enough, and I know how to dance, and I love to dance, and I will go to the ball," exclaimed the pretty, willful little creature, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
"But, Queenie, what on earth will you wear?" asked the poor, tired mother, who was quite worn out with the worry of keeping herself and her two elder girls well-dressed. "I have no money to give you a new dress."
Queenie stood meditating, with her head perched on one side like a little bird, her slender, arched brows puckered into a thoughtful frown.
"I'll tell you," said she at length, "I shall sell my painted fan—the white satin one that Uncle Rob sent me from Paris. It is worth fifteen dollars at least, and I can certainly get five for it. Five dollars will buy lots of white tarleton, and I can make the dress myself. There are plenty of flowers in the garden, so you see I can make a toilet for the ball," she added, half laughing.
"Sell Uncle Rob's gift!" cried mamma and the girls in concert.
"Necessity knows no law!" answered Queenie, dancing out of the room to avoid their remonstrances.
"Mr. Lyle, you really should not allow her to sell her uncle's beautiful gift!" exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, in a vexed tone.
"I certainly shall not try to prevent her," answered her husband, rather shortly. "If you had acted fairly by her and divided the money I gave you for the three girls she need not have been driven to such straits as to sell her pretty fan. Why, I gave you a hundred dollars, and she only wants five for her dress. You might have spared her that small pittance!"
"I did not think she would be contented with such a shabby dress," muttered Mrs. Lyle.
"Queenie only wants to enjoy herself," said the fond father. "She will be as beautiful and as happy in her five-dollar tarleton as Georgie and Sydney in their elegant silks."
Full of her suddenly conceived purpose, Queenie Lyle went to her room, attired herself in a neat walking-suit, and tied a blue tissue veil over her luxuriant golden ringlets.
Then carefully wrapping a paper about the box that held her painted fan, she set forth upon her errand, feeling sorry that she must part with the elegant trifle, yet determined to sacrifice it rather than forego the ball, which to her young, imaginative fancy appeared like a promised peep into fairy-land.
In the large city where she lived there were plenty of stores that dealt in fancy articles.
She entered one of these stores, and presented her fan for the merchant's inspection.
"How much will you give me for it?" asked she, childishly, coming straight to the point.
"Did you paint it yourself?" asked the man; unfurling the beautiful fan, and gazing admiringly at the delicate leaves and flowers painted upon it by a skillful hand.
Queenie laughed at the question, and the gay, musical chime attracted the attention of a gentleman a little further down the counter—a tall, dark, handsome man, who drew nearer as if fascinated, and glanced furtively at the young girl, revealing a lovely face as fresh and fair as a flower, the eyes as dark as pansies, the cheeks as pink as roses.
She was smiling that moment, and the stranger saw two dazzling rows of milk-white teeth between her parted crimson lips, and the loveliest dimples in the world in her rounded cheeks and chin.
"No, indeed," she said, in answer to the merchant. "My uncle sent it to me from Paris. It is quite French, I assure you. I would not part with it if I did not need the money very much."
"We are overcrowded with such articles, miss," said the man, carelessly, not wishing to show his anxiety to possess the elegant fan, "but to oblige you, and because you need the money, I will give you five dollars for it."
"Very well, I will take it," said little Queenie, and as she spoke she looked up carelessly and suddenly encountered the fixed gaze of a pair of burning, dark eyes.
Blushing crimson, she knew not why, Queenie dropped the sweeping lashes over her eyes, and taking her money from the merchant, hurriedly left the store.
"A pretty trifle—what will you take for it?" said the handsome stranger, stepping forward as Queenie went out.
"Twenty dollars," answered the merchant, coolly. "It is a real Parisian fan and worth more than that, but as I bought it so cheap I will let you have it at a small profit."
"Do you know the young lady from whom you bought it?" inquired the gentleman, as he laid down a twenty-dollar bill on the counter.
"No, I do not; but she was a little beauty," laughed the merchant, as he wrapped up the fan and handed it to his customer.
The handsome stranger bowed and hastily withdrew with his purchase. In the street he paused, and looked up and down.
Seeing Queenie's graceful little figure half a square ahead of him, he slowly walked on after her.
Little Queenie went into a dry goods store, and invested the price of her fan in a nice quality of white tarleton. She told the obliging clerk where to send the package, and dropping her veil over her sweet face, hurried homeward.
"Queenie, oh, Queenie, come in," called Georgina, as she was passing the open door of the dressing-room. "Only think—something so perfectly splendid has happened. Guess what it is."
"You have been buying some more finery, I suppose," answered the young girl, seeing a large box in the center of the floor.
"Uncle Rob has sent us another box from Paris," announced Sydney, triumphantly.
"Dresses and jewelry both," added Mrs. Lyle, joyfully.
"You can go to the ball as fine as a queen now," laughed Georgina, diving down into the box and bringing out a parcel which she placed in Queenie's hands.
"It is for you," she said.
Queenie unrolled the tissue paper from the bundle and shook out the folds of a magnificent cream-colored brocade silk.
"Oh, how exquisite!" she exclaimed. "What has he sent you, girls?"
Sydney, who was a brilliant brunette, exhibited a rose-colored brocade as handsome as Queenie's dress. Georgina, a plump blonde, rejoiced in the possession of a costly azure satin.
"Uncle Rob is a dear darling," exclaimed little Queenie, delightedly.
"And only look here," said Mrs. Lyle, who held three jewel-cases in her lap, "he has sent you each a lovely set of jewels—diamonds for Sydney, opals for Georgina, pearls for you."
Little Queenie looked and admired until she was almost wild with delight. She clasped the pearls on her neck and arms, and held the rich brocade up before her, admiring the sheeny richness of the creamy folds.
"If you had only waited a little while you need not have sold your painted fan," said Georgie. "You can have this lovely dress to wear to Mrs. Kirk's ball."
"No, I cannot," answered Queenie, with a sigh. "Madame Dufarge would charge thirty dollars to make such a dress as this, and where could I get thirty dollars? No, I'll wear my five-dollar tarleton and the pearls to the ball, but I will put this lovely brocade away, and keep it for my wedding-dress."
"Only hear the child," exclaimed Sydney, who was twenty-five and unmarried yet. "She talks of marrying as confidently as if husbands grew on trees."
"They do for pretty girls like me," answered Queenie, with a saucy nod at her sister. "But, mamma, did Uncle Robbie write? Is he getting well? Is he coming home soon?"
"Ah, the best of the news is yet to come," exclaimed Georgina, who was in brilliant spirits. "We are to go out to Uncle Robbie, you and I, and Syd, and mamma, and have a continental tour with him. Isn't that glorious news?"
Little Queenie's bright eyes danced with joy.
"Mamma, is it true?" she panted, breathlessly.
"Yes, dear, it is quite true," said Mrs. Lyle, looking quite happy. "He has sent us a check, and we are to go over in the Europa, which sails three months from now. We are to employ ourselves in the interim polishing up our French."
"Hurrah for Uncle Rob!" exclaimed the delighted little Queenie, boyishly waving her hat around her head, "he is a perfect fairy prince. The dream of my life has been to go to Europe."
"I think you will need to polish more than your French, Queenie," exclaimed Sydney, peevishly. "Your manners are as rude as a school-boy's!"
"And yours are as prim as an old maid's!" retorted Queenie, maliciously, for Sydney's perpetual fault-finding was a thorn in the flesh to the petted little creature.
Sydney flushed crimson at the retort. Her years were verging so near to the line of old-maidenhood that she was particularly sensitive on the subject. She now said angrily:
"Mamma, can you sit silently there and permit Queenie to address me so disrespectfully?"
Mrs. Lyle looked at her youngest daughter imploringly.
"Queenie, how often have I scolded you for aggravating Sydney? Apologize to her immediately."
Queenie looked at Sydney's tearful eyes and flushed cheeks, and her tender little heart melted at once. She crossed over and put her round, white arms about Sydney's stately neck.
"Sister, do forgive me," she said, sweetly. "I did not mean a word of it. Your manners are simply perfection, and I only wish that mine were half as polished!"
"You should cultivate yourself," answered Sydney, coldly, as she put the clinging arms away from her neck, "I am ashamed of your hoydenish manners."
"I will try to cultivate myself, Sydney, indeed I will," answered Queenie, innocently. "I am so young yet, you know; I have time to learn a great many things!"
Sydney bit her lip and made no reply. There was nothing she envied so much as Queenie's tender youth, and to have it thrust upon her notice like that, however innocently, was unendurable. The silence that fell was becoming awkward, when a servant entered the room with a small parcel which she laid in Queenie's hand.
"A small boy left it at the door for you," she said, as she withdrew.
Queenie stared at the parcel in bewilderment. It had a familiar look.
"Open it, my dear," said Mrs. Lyle, curiously.
Queenie tore off the paper and a box was revealed. She took off the lid with a trembling hand. Within the box lay the painted fan she had sold an hour ago to the dealer on —— Street.
"What is this?" said Georgina, stooping down.
She picked up a card that had fallen from the box. Upon it was written in a clear, bold, manly hand:
"From an unknown admirer of Miss Queenie Lyle."
"Someone has sent your painted fan back to you," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle. "How kind! But who could it have been?"
"Queenie has caught a beau!" said Georgina, laughing.
Involuntarily Queenie's thoughts reverted to the dark-eyed stranger who had looked at her in the store, but she said nothing.
"Who is the young debutante, Miss Lyle?"
Sydney Lyle, coming down the long ball-room on the arm of the most distinguished man in the room, looked up with ill-concealed annoyance at his words.
She followed his glance, and saw little Queenie standing in the center of a group of admirers, fluttering her satin fan with the grace of an embryo coquette. The girl looked lovely as a dream in her thin, white dress, with its multitudinous puffings and frillings.
It was looped here and there with natural rosebuds, and she wore her set of pearls clasped round her white throat and wrists, while her golden hair rippled to her waist in a shower of natural ringlets. Anything more sweetly fair and happy could scarcely be imagined than Queenie, as she stood there, warm and flushed from the dance, and enjoying, with all the keenness of youth and novelty, the honied flatteries of the little court around her. An irrepressible pang of jealousy gave a touch of sharpness to Sydney's voice, as she answered:
"That is my sister Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe—a willful child who ought to be in the school-room this moment, but who has persuaded mamma to let her come here instead."
"Ah! your sister," said Captain Ernscliffe. "I might have known it by her beauty. She has lived near the rose," and he pointed the compliment by a meaning glance that made Sydney blush. "You will introduce me, Miss Lyle?"
"Certainly." Sydney answered, and pausing beside Queenie, she said, carelessly:
"Captain Ernscliffe, this is my sister, Queenie. If she should shock you by her outre manners, please remember that she is but a child and quite unaccustomed to appear in society."
Captain Ernscliffe bowed low over the white-gloved hand of the enchanting little beauty, and Queenie looked up at him and said, with a flash of wrath against Sydney:
"You need not believe Sydney, when she tells you I am nothing but a child, Captain Ernscliffe. I am seventeen years old, and I know how to behave myself just as well as any young lady of my age, in spite of Sydney's warning."
The gentleman saw that the young heart was sorely wounded, despite her quick assumption of dignity, and hastened to say, consolingly:
"I can well believe you, Miss Queenie, for I see there is but one unanimous opinion among the gentlemen. You are the belle of the ball."
Sydney passed on with the words rankling in her heart, though she knew that they were true. Among all the beautiful women present, in their cosily dresses and splendid jewels, little Queenie, with her sunny smile and her cheap, white tarleton dress, was the most admired and sought after.
The women who envied her fresh, young loveliness sneered at the simple dress, but the men—bless their ignorant hearts—did not know whether the snowy mist that floated about her cost a hundred dollars or five. They only saw that her face was the fairest, her eyes the brightest, her voice the sweetest of any in the room. Mrs. Lyle saw the sensation she created, and straightway began to lay matrimonial plans for her.
"Sydney and Georgina are both handsome and stylish, yet they are very slow in marrying off well," she said to herself, with a sigh. "Perhaps I shall have better luck with my willful Queenie. There is that rich Ernscliffe with her now. He is a splendid catch, but then, Sydney has had her heart set on him this long while. She would be very angry if Queenie were to rival her."
In the meantime little Queenie was clapping her tiny hands and saying, in a voice full of girlish pleasure:
"The belle of the ball, Captain Ernscliffe? Oh, how nice that is! I love for people to like me, yet Syd and George said that no one would look at me in this cheap dress, that I bought for five dollars and made with my own hands."
"It is the prettiest dress in the rooms. I had no idea but that it cost at least a hundred dollars," said Captain Ernscliffe, regarding the fairy-like puffs attentively. "And your bouquet, as the ladies say, is too sweet for anything. Was it a tribute from some admirer?"
She blushed and smiled, and lifted the fragrant triumph of the floral art to her sweet face.
"You have guessed right," she said. "It was handed in at our door this evening, with the compliments of an unknown admirer."
"The fellow had fine taste anyway," laughed the captain, "both in the selection of the flowers and their recipient."
"Thank you," answered Queenie, demurely, looking up with a smile, and dropping her lashes very quickly a minute after, for something in the glance of his dark eyes sent a blush to her cheek and made her silly little heart thrill strangely.
Captain Ernscliffe only smiled like one used to such effects. He was a bachelor, and thirty years old, and women called him a flirt. Be that as it may, he was as handsome as a prince, and knew how to make women's lashes flutter down upon cheeks that blushed crimson under his glance.
"What an innocent little darling she is," he thought, to himself. "How different from her sisters, and from the girls one meets usually in society! One might well resign all the liberties of bachelorhood to win and wear so sweet a flower." "Doubtless you have woven a pretty web of romance about the unknown giver of your flowers, Miss Lyle," he said, jestingly.
She had pressed the flowers to her lips unconsciously, and at his words she started and smiled, and looked up to reply with the brightest face he had ever looked upon. But suddenly, before a single word left her lips, her aspect changed strangely and marvelously. Her cheeks and lips grew white as death, her eyes grew wild with horror, and she swept her hand across her brow as if to dispel some horrid vision. Her form trembled like a leaf in a storm, and with a wild, inarticulate cry she wavered and fell in a lifeless heap at Captain Ernscliffe's feet.
It was all so sudden that Captain Ernscliffe lifted her up and carried her through the low window out on the balcony before anyone had noticed her fall. He laid her down on a rustic lounge, turned her white face up to the air, and went and called her mother very quietly.
"Oh! Captain Ernscliffe, is she dead?" exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, wringing her hands in terror.
"Oh! no, she has only fainted, I think. The rooms were too warm, perhaps. See, she is already reviving in the cooler air out here."
The girl's breath came fluttering back in a long, quivering sigh. She caught Captain Ernscliffe's arm and half-lifted herself without seeming to notice her mother.
"Oh! Captain Ernscliffe, did you see it?" she gasped, rather than spoke.
"Did I see what?" he inquired, rather blankly.
"The horrid vision that came between me and the flowers and made me faint," she answered, sitting up and looking at him in surprise.
"My dear young lady, there was nothing to see, only the dancers. You were tired and excited, and the heat overcame you. You are unaccustomed to the crush and excitement of balls, you know."
"And you saw nothing but the dancers?" she said to him, shivering as she spoke, like one in a chill, and passing her hand before her eyes.
"Nothing, I assure you," he answered, gravely.
"What did you see, Queenie?" inquired Mrs. Lyle, coming forward.
"Oh! mamma, is that you?" Little Queenie reached out her white arms, twined them about her mother's neck, and sank on her bosom trembling and shivering, and moaning faintly: "Oh! mamma! mamma!"
"My dear, my dear, compose yourself. You are nervous and hysterical," remonstrated Mrs. Lyle. "See, you are distressing Captain Ernscliffe very much."
Little Queenie hushed her sobs and looked up at the gentleman, who did indeed look anxious and distressed.
"What was it you saw, Miss Lyle?" he inquired, gently.
"Perhaps you will not credit it," she said, lifting her white, awe-stricken face in the moonlight that flooded the balcony, "but, Captain Ernscliffe, just as I looked up from my flowers to speak to you, the whole scene of the ball faded out into blackness, and then I saw a vision come before me in its place."
She paused, shuddered visibly, then resumed:
"I saw a thick, dark wood before me with the rain-drops falling down through the leaves of the trees. I saw a tall man with his back to me, and close by that man was a grave—a shallow grave, so shallow that it could not hide the girl that lay within it, for the wind and the rain had beaten away the earth and the dead leaves with which the man had covered her. I saw her awfully white, dead face upturned to the light, and there were cruel black marks around her throat as if someone had choked her—and a purple wound on her brow."
"My darling, it was only your excited imagination," said Mrs. Lyle, soothingly.
"Oh, no, I saw it quite plainly," answered little Queenie, with a sharp wail of anguish; "and, oh, mamma, mamma, the face of that dead girl was just exactly like mine!"
"I always knew you were a little simpleton, Queenie, but I never thought you could be so foolish and ungrateful as this! No girl in her senses would refuse the chance of spending Captain Ernscliffe's money!"
Three months had elapsed since the grand ball at Mrs. Kirk's, and Queenie Lyle was arraigned before the bar of maternal justice. Little Queenie had spent those three months in a perfect whirl of excitement, pleasure and conquest. And now Captain Ernscliffe, the irresistible, the invincible, had surrendered at discretion, and actually proposed to marry her! And little Queenie Lyle had had the audacity to refuse the honor.
"To think," went on Mrs. Lyle, reproachfully, "how we have humored and indulged you the last three months, and all for this! You have been to all the balls and parties worth going to—you have had nice dresses and laces—and we all thought you would marry off well, and rid your papa of one of his expensive daughters—yet last month you refused that rich old Myddleton! I did not care as much for that, for I saw that Ernscliffe was madly in love, and thought you would be sure to accept him. Yet now you have actually refused him, too, you wicked, ungrateful girl!"
"Mamma, mamma," pleaded Queenie, with a quivering lip, "do not be angry with me. I could not marry Captain Ernscliffe, because I do not love him."
"Then if you do not love him you can never love anyone," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle. "He is handsome, accomplished, wealthy; and there's not a girl I know but would jump at your chance, Sydney not excepted."
"Sydney loves him, mamma—let her marry him."
"She cannot get him—more's the pity. I wish he had fancied her instead of you," said Mrs. Lyle, sharply.
"I wish so too mamma. I am very sorry for Sydney, and for Captain Ernscliffe, too," said Queenie, with a long, quivering sigh.
"You had better be sorry for yourself, foolish girl; you have thrown away the best chance for marrying that you ever will have!" exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, angrily, for she was deeply chagrined at Queenie's willful disregard of her best interests.
To her surprise Queenie threw herself down at her feet and began to sob wildly.
"Mamma, I am sorry for myself," she moaned, faintly, "so sorry that I wish I were dead!"
"For shame, Queenie, to go into such a passion because I scolded you! Get up and stop making a baby of yourself," said her mother severely.
Little Queenie dried her eyes at that sharp reproof and went on with her packing, which Mrs. Lyle's entrance had interrupted, for they were to sail for Europe that week, and the house was "topsy-turvey" with their preparations.
Her mother sat moodily watching her as she folded silks and laces, and packed them away securely in the great Saratoga trunk.
"What have you in that box, Queenie?" she inquired, seeing the girl put a box in the trunk with a half-conscious glance. "You look as if you were smuggling something."
Queenie blushed violently, and Mrs. Lyle saw that she trembled as she answered falteringly:
"Nothing of any importance, I assure you, mamma."
"Let me see," said Mrs. Lyle, resolutely, and she took the box from the trunk and lifted the lid. "Why, what have we here? Flowers—withered flowers! Queenie, why upon earth are you keeping these dead, ill-smelling things? Throw them out of the window."
"Oh, no, mamma," cried Queenie, blushing very much and trying to take the box from her mother's hand.
But Mrs. Lyle held on to the box and took out three bouquets of withered flowers, and three cards that lay in the bottom of the box. She read aloud:
"From an unknown admirer of Miss Queenie Lyle."
"Oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Lyle, impatiently; "now I begin to understand. These flowers, which were sent by some impudent fellow, have made a fool of you, Queenie. You have been building a romance over him, and that is why you have no eyes for better men. Tell me the truth now, Queenie; do you know who sent you these flowers?"
"How should I know, mamma?" asked the girl, evasively, and turning her crimson face away from her mother's keen scrutiny. "You see he writes himself unknown."
"Well, known or unknown, here is an end to that foolishness," said Mrs. Lyle, crossing the room and tossing the luckless flowers out of the window. "I did not know you were so silly and romantic, Queenie, as to carry a bunch of dead flowers to Europe."
Queenie stamped her little foot on the floor, and her eyes flashed fire.
"Mamma, you had no right to throw my flowers away!" she passionately exclaimed. "Papa would never have intermeddled with my affairs like that!"
Mrs. Lyle dropped into a chair and buried her face in her hands.
"To think that I should have a child that would treat me so disrespectfully," she sighed.
"What has mamma been doing to my little pet?" asked Mr. Lyle, entering quietly and unexpectedly, as he always did.
There was an awkward silence for a moment; then Queenie said, with her sweet face turned away:
"Mamma has been scolding me because I would not marry Captain Ernscliffe."
"Your papa would do well to scold you also," flashed Mrs. Lyle. "After all your father's goodness to you, and your pretense of loving him so well, to think that you would throw away your chance of helping him in his old age. I have no patience with such folly!"
"Papa, you are not angry with me, are you?" asked his daughter, turning her soft, beseeching eyes, now swimming in tears, upon his kind yet troubled face. "I could not marry Captain Ernscliffe, papa, because I do not love him."
"Love," sneered Mrs. Lyle, scornfully. "Love is the last thing to be considered nowadays!"
Papa drew the tearful pleader down by his side on the lounge, and smoothed away the disheveled golden ringlets from the flushed little face.
"No, dear, I am not angry with you," he said. "It is true that my business affairs are tottering on the verge of failure, and if you had accepted the captain he might have helped me to tide over the crisis, but I would not have you sacrifice yourself, my pet, for I would be loth to part from you even if you went willingly and happily to another home. But let us hope for the best. Now that your Uncle Rob is about to take my expensive family off my hands for a year, I may be able to save some money and get straight again."
Three days later Mrs. Lyle and her three fair and charming daughters stood on the deck of the Europa bound for their long and anxiously anticipated continental tour.
"How I miss them all," Mr. Lyle said to himself often and often in the long year while his family were absent, and he went home every night to his solitary supper and lonely newspaper. "I would give anything to see my little Queenie, or even to get a letter from her. Strange that she does not write to me. And mamma, too, in her brief letters never says a word about Queenie, though she must know that I want to hear something about my little one. She always says that the girls are well and enjoying themselves, but she never goes into particulars."
It was quite true. The Lyles were traveling from place to place, and Mrs. Lyle, never fond of writing, always dropped the briefest of notes to her husband, and invariably informed him that he need not reply, for they were constantly on the wing and could not tell him where to direct his letter so that it would reach them. She spoke of the girls casually, never naming them in particular save once in her first letter when she said that "Robert was much disappointed, and even vexed at Queenie's defection."
Mr. Lyle puzzled a great deal over those words at first, and at last concluded that Mrs. Lyle referred to Queenie's rejection of Captain Ernscliffe.
Robert Lyle was a younger brother of Mr. Lyle, and had inherited a large fortune from a deceased uncle. He was an invalid, and spent most of his time abroad from whence many fine presents found their way to his elder brother's family in America.
Mr. Lyle felt rather vexed that Robert should have blamed little Queenie for her course in regard to Captain Ernscliffe.
"The child is too young to be forced into a loveless marriage," he said to himself. "I hope she will marry money some day, for I know how sad the lack of it is, but I hope it may be a love-match, too."
The longing for his little girl was very strong upon him one night as he sat in his quiet library trying to interest himself in the daily paper—so strong that he laid the paper down, and rested his head a little wearily on his hands.
"It is six months since they went away," he said. "How long it seems, and how much I want to see my little Queenie. It is strange, but ever since she was born I have loved her better than the other children."
Something like a quivering sigh sounded faintly through the room. He looked up quickly, but he was quite alone.
"I am growing fanciful in my old age and solitude," he thought, and dropped his head again upon his hands.
Again that soft, low sigh went trembling through the room.
This time some strange instinct drew his eyes to the window, and he sprang to his feet with a smothered cry. A sweet, white face, framed in golden hair, was pressed against the window-pane looking at him, with dark eyes full of love and sorrow—the beautiful face of his absent daughter, Queenie.
"She has come home—my darling!" he cried joyfully, and rushed to the window and threw up the sash.
But in that moment the lovely young face had disappeared.
"Queenie, my love—where are you?" he called. "Do not tease your poor old papa!"
But silence and darkness answered him only. He went out into the garden and wandered about in the shrubbery, calling, softly.
"Queenie, Queenie!"
But echo only answered him.
He went back sadly into the house and thought over the perplexing mystery.
"She is dead," he said, at last; "I have seen her spirit. She has come to me from far-off foreign lands to bid me an eternal farewell. Oh, Queenie, Queenie, my lost darling!"
And from that night Mr. Lyle began to grow old and broken. He could neither eat, nor sleep, nor rest until he heard from his wife again.
In a month one of her short, careless epistles came to hand. She said, as usual, that the girls were well and enjoying themselves very much, and added that Georgina had caught a beau, and was apt to make a splendid match.
"She is living, then, my little pet!" exclaimed the doting old father, in delighted surprise, "and yet I surely saw her spirit face looking in upon me that night. It was a warning—or a token of sorrow."
And the burden of heaviness still clung about his heart, and the shadow brooded in his kindly blue eyes until Mrs. Lyle wrote at last that they were coming home on the Europa the next month.
It was a dark and stormy night when the Lyles came home again. Mr. Lyle had not known when the Europa would be in, so they took him by surprise when they drove up to the door that night. It was verging on to midnight and the domestics were all asleep, but Mr. Lyle was still up, poring over an account book.
"This is a joyful surprise!" he exclaimed, as he led the way to the drawing-room and turned up the gas that he might look at their sweet faces clearly.
Mrs. Lyle fell on his neck and embraced him, and Sydney, then Georgina, glided forward and touched his cheek with their lips. He looked behind them for the little one whom he had thought would be first to embrace him.
"Queenie—where is Queenie?" he asked.
Mrs. Lyle, slowly drawing off her gray kid gloves, looked at him in some surprise.
"Bless the darling—is she not asleep?" she said. "It was so late and stormy that we expected you would all be in bed and asleep."
The rain beat dismally outside, the wind howled like a demon in despair. Something of the chill and coldness outside seemed to strike to the man's heart as he said quickly:
"The servants are all asleep—but Queenie—she is with you, of course?"
"Why do you say of course, papa?" said Sydney. "Did Queenie come down to the steamer to meet us in this dreadful storm?"
Mr. Lyle looked bewildered.
"Sydney," he exclaimed hoarsely, "did not Queenie come home with you from Europe?"
"Why, Papa, Queenie did not go with us, you know," said Georgina, coming forward, and laying her hand on his arm. "She came back to stay with you. Is she not at home?"
Mr. Lyle dropped back into a chair, and wrung his hands like one distracted.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "You torture me with your inexplicable words. I tell you I have never laid eyes on Queenie, living, since I bade her good-bye on the deck of the Europa a year ago."
"My God!" screamed Mrs. Lyle, falling down upon the floor, while Sydney and Georgina looked like statues of horror, "what has become of my little Queenie?"
"Papa," said Sydney, in a trembling voice, "there is some dreadful mystery here. Queenie did not go to Europe with us. After you bade us good-bye that day on the steamer, she cried and wept, and almost went into hysterics, begging mamma to let her go back and stay with you, instead of going to Europe. She was so unmanageable that mamma consented at last, and she and her trunks were put on shore, and we went aboard without her. Did she not come home to you?"
"No, never," groaned the wretched father, like one demented. "I have never seen her since that day. Oh, Queenie, my lost darling, where are you?"
For a moment there came no answer to the question. They stood around spellbound with horror, while a peal of awful thunder reverberated outside and seemed to shake the house from its foundations. The next moment the door was burst violently open, and the dripping figure of a woman rushed into the room.
"Queenie!" burst from the quivering lips of the unhappy father.
Yes, it was Queenie, but oh, how terribly changed! Her streaming golden hair, matted with mold and dead leaves, hung wet and cold over her shoulders. Her dress of dark silk was stained with great patches and wisps of dead autumn leaves. The tight bodice, open at the top, exposed her throat, which—oh, Heaven!—was marked round and round with the purple and red print of finger-marks as though she had been strangled.
Her face was white as death, showing the plainer for its whiteness a mark upon her brow above her eyes—the horrible purple print of a man's boot heel on the tender flesh, from which a thin stream of blood trickled down on her ghastly face. A fearful—fearful apparition, strangely unlike little Queenie of other days. Yet it was Queenie, for she staggered blindly forward, and panting out: "Papa, papa, forgive!" fell in a lifeless heap at his feet.
At little Queenie's sudden and terrible appearance Mrs. Lyle and the two elder sisters screamed aloud in fright and horror, and even the agonized father recoiled a moment from the dreadful-looking creature that lay at his feet to all appearances dead.
Directly, however, with a strong revulsion of feeling from dismay and terror to pity and tenderness, he bent down and lifted the white face of his daughter on his arm.
Her head fell back helplessly, and the wet and matted locks of gold trailed over the velvet carpet, drenching it with rain-drops. The long, dark lashes lay close upon the marble-white cheeks and no breath fluttered over the pale, parted lips to show that life still dwelt in the frame of the hapless girl.
A cry of agony broke from the lips of the poor father whose fondest affections had been concentrated on the daughter now lying lifeless in his arms.
"Oh, God! oh, God! what fearful mystery is here? Queenie is dead; and oh! those horrible marks upon her throat and brow! Someone has murdered my little darling!"
Again the frightened shrieks of the women rose above the dreadful tumult of the storm outside. They huddled together by the marble hearth, shuddering as though afraid to approach that dreadful-looking object that had come upon them with the face of the little Queenie they had alternately scolded and petted in the past. Mr. Lyle looked at them with a keen reproach and pain in his heavy eyes.
"Queenie is dead," he said to them, in a hollow, broken voice. "Why do you stand aloof from her?"
His lips were white, and he trembled so that he could scarcely hold the still form that lay so helpless in his arms. But even as he spoke, her lips parted in a faint and scarce audible sigh, the eyelids fluttered slightly and grew still again.
"No, no, she lives!" he cried, rapturously. "Quick, quick! let us take her to her room and apply restoratives."
He lifted her in his arms and the women mechanically followed him as he bore her to her room and laid her down upon her little white bed. Then he turned around with the dazed look gone from his white face and a gleam of resolution there instead.
"There is some dreadful mystery here," he said, in deep, low tones. "The servants must not know of this. Let them think that she came back with you from Europe. Sydney and Georgie, you may retire to your rooms. Your mamma and I will do all that is necessary."
Frightened and weeping the girls went away to their rooms and the fearfully stricken parents went to work to restore life in the exhausted frame of poor little Queenie.
They bathed and dressed the wound upon her brow, laved the fearfully discolored throat with arnica, wrung and dried the dripping golden tresses, and lastly Mrs. Lyle removed her soiled, wet garments and robed her in a pretty nightdress. All the while the hapless girl lay still and motionless, without a sign of life save an occasional quiver of the eyelids, and a faint, scarce perceptible throbbing in her wrist.
"My dear, you are tired and overcome," Mr. Lyle said to his wife when they had done all that was possible. "Go to your room and rest. I will stay here and watch by our little girl."
Mrs. Lyle leaned her head on his shoulder and burst into hysterical weeping.
"Oh! what does it mean?" she moaned, wringing her hands. "Where, oh! where, has Queenie been this past year?"
"My dear, we shall know when she revives, if she ever does. Go now and rest," he answered, pushing her gently from the room.
He went back to his lonely vigil and watched the weary night through by that silent form upon the bed. Now and then he rose and poured a few drops of wine between the pale, unconscious lips and sat down again with his finger upon the fluttering, thread-like pulse. At length, between the dark and the dawn, Queenie opened her eyes upon his face, sighed, and murmured:
"Papa!"
He bent over her anxiously.
"You are better, darling?" he said.
"I am better," she answered faintly.
There was silence a little while after that. She lay quite still with her large, hollow eyes fixed wistfully on her father's pale and troubled face as he bent over her, holding her white and wasted hand in both his own. Everything was very still about the house. The storm outside had spent itself, and only now and then the fitful muttering of the "homeless wind" reminded one of the war of the elements that had raged so fiercely a few hours ago.
Mr. Lyle's voice, hoarse, trembling, agonized, broke strangely upon the utter stillness:
"Queenie, where have you been all this long, dreadful year?"
Queenie turned her face and buried it in the pillow, and a low sob of utter agony answered him only.
Again he repeated the question, this time more firmly and resolutely.
"Oh! papa, must I tell you?" she moaned, without lifting her face from its friendly refuge.
"Yes, Queenie, I must have a full explanation of your mysterious absence, for I fear it covers wrong or guilt. Secrecy is seldom without sin," he answered, in a firm but heart-wrung voice.
His daughter wrung her white hands, moaning and weeping.
"Oh! papa, I cannot, cannot tell you," she exclaimed.
Mr. Lyle took the white hands that were wildly beating the air, and held them firmly in both his own.
"Be calm, Queenie," he said, "and listen to me. There can be no question of cannot between you and me! You have deceived us all and spent a year away from us. You return to us wretched and alone, with the marks of cruel violence upon your person. What are we to think of you, Queenie, if you refuse to explain the mystery? How can we receive you back with a secret, perhaps a shameful one, in your life? I must have your vindication from your own lips, my poor child. Answer me, Queenie, where have you spent this missing year of your life?"
She wrenched her hands away and looked about her wildly.
"Let me go—I cannot stay here! Oh! why did I ever come?" she wailed. "I was mad, mad!"
He laid her forcibly back upon the bed. She was too weak to resist him, and lay panting and moaning in wild despair.
"Queenie, you torture me," he said, hoarsely; "I must have the truth from you. Tell me, dear, has anyone wronged you? If it is so, I will have the villain's heart's blood!"
She shivered and trembled where she lay held down by his strong hands.
"Too late," she moaned, in a voice half-triumphant, half-despairing. "I have taken vengeance into my own hands—I have," she broke off shivering and sobbing, with a look of awful horror in the white face with the terrible, purple print of a boot-heel on the marble brow.
"Tell me all, dear," he said, his voice sharp with anxiety and foreboding.
She looked up, trembling and shivering, and wailed out:
"Papa, be merciful—spare me, spare me!"
He made no answer. His head was bowed on his hands, his face hidden. Queenie looked at him and saw with a sudden sharp pang how strangely his clustering locks had whitened in the past year. She raised herself up and threw her arms around him, laying her cheek against his shoulder.
"Papa," she whispered, mournfully, "look up—I will tell you all—but only to you, you alone, dearest and best of fathers—can I reveal the terrible secret that has ruined my life!"
With her cheek against his shoulder and her hand locked in his, Queenie Lyle poured forth in burning words the story of that missing year—the saddest story to which her father had ever listened—yet he made no comment, uttered no word, until she had finished and thrown herself down at his feet with the wailing cry:
"Papa, can you ever forgive me?"
He did not try to lift her up as she lay there. He only said in a deep, intense voice, with a lightning flash in his deep eyes:
"Queenie, you have forgotten to tell me one thing—his name."
She shuddered from head to foot.
"Papa, it is the only thing I must keep from you—that hated name! What matters it? Is he not beyond the reach of your vengeance?"
"True, true," he answered with a strong shudder. "Oh, Queenie, my poor child, would to God I had died before this terrible thing came upon me!"
She crept nearer him and rested her bowed head on his knee, all her glorious, golden tresses sweeping to the floor.
His heart ached as he saw that bright head lying there bowed low with shame and disgrace.
"Papa," she whispered, in a voice like saddest music, "papa, do you condemn me?"
He was silent a moment, struggling with the keenest agony he had ever known. Then he answered very gently:
"My poor Queenie, I forgive you." Then added in the words of the great Teacher of men: "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."
And the first beams of the newly risen day shone into the room and crowned his gray head like a halo of light.
"Yes, Queenie was quite sick for more than a month after we returned from abroad. She is not strong yet, but she has promised to come down into the drawing-room for a little while this evening."
It was Mrs. Lyle who spoke, in the calmest, most composed tone in the world. She was leaning back in her chair, richly dressed in silk and lace and fluttering her fan as she talked to Captain Ernscliffe who leaned over the back of her chair, tall, handsome and stately, the most distinguished-looking man in the room.
Mrs. Lyle was giving a small reception after her return, and had bidden the creme de la creme of society only, to welcome her home.
There were beautiful women in plenty present, and none but had a flattering smile for Captain Ernscliffe, but though he smiled and chatted with all, he still kept looking over even the fairest heads toward the door for one absent face while his heart thrilled with anxiety and expectation.
She came at last, and though he had been watching for her so long he scarcely knew her when she entered. He had expected to see a little, fairy-like creature, with a sunny smile and falling ringlets, and cheeks like pinkest rose leaves. Instead, there entered a tall, pale, graceful girl, clad in a dress of white lace ornamented with knots of purple, golden-hearted pansies. The crimson lips were set in a proud curve instead of a smile, and the dark fringe of her lashes swept so low that they almost shadowed her cheeks. Her golden hair was confined in a thick braid and wound about her head like a coronet, making her seem as stately as a young princess.
She was changed, greatly changed, from a year ago, and yet none who looked at the fair, calm face, with pride sitting regnant on the broad, white brow, would have dreamed that the pathos and pain of a terrible tragedy had been wrought into her life and had seared her heart and soul as with fire.
Friends and acquaintances crowded around her and it was many minutes before she found her way to her mother's chair where Captain Ernscliffe still stood with his heart beating so fast that he thought she must have heard it. It seemed to him as if everyone in the room must read in his face the secret of his love for Queenie Lyle who had rejected him a year ago with all the thoughtless lightness of girlhood. But no, his face was perfectly calm to all appearance, and as the girl gave one timid, upward glance at him she thought he had forgotten or outlived the pain of his rejection.
"I scarcely dared hope that you would return home as you went," he said after the first formal greeting. "I feared some French count or English lord would claim you as his own."
She blushed, and her eyes fell until the dark lashes rested on her burning cheeks.
"I was not so fortunate as to claim the admiration of any of the nobility," she answered carelessly. "Georgie outshone us all. She is to be married to an English lord in a month from now."
"I am very glad it is not you who are to be married to him," he answered laughing, but with an undertone of sincerity.
Other friends claimed her for awhile, but by-and-bye his restless glance found her out sitting by a window alone for the moment, and looking tired and a little sad.
"You are not strong enough to stand the heat of the rooms," he said kindly. "Come out in the garden and walk in the moonlight with me."
She took his arm and they went out in the garden. It was summer, and the flowers were blooming in profuse sweetness. The air was heavy with the odor of the roses and honeysuckle. They sat down upon a rustic seat with the full flood of brilliant moonlight falling on Queenie's uncovered head and lovely white face.
"You have grown more beautiful than ever, Queenie," said her companion admiringly.
She did not answer, but he fancied that he heard a faint, quickly smothered sigh.
Impulsively he took into his own the small hand lying cold and listless in her lap.
"It has been a year since I saw you, Queenie," he exclaimed, "but I find the old love rising in my heart as passionately as if we had only parted yesterday. Dearest, have you ever repented of your cruelty to me?"
She looked up at him, and her eyes were full of a fathomless sadness and vague regret.
"Ah! yes," she said, and her voice was almost a wail of pain. "I have repented, Captain Ernscliffe, I have been sorry often and often for my blind mistake!"
He held out his arms, drawing he scarcely knew what hope from her agitated words.
"Queenie, come to me," he cried. "Let atonement follow repentance."
But she drew back, trembling and frightened.
"I—oh, I did not mean that," she said, "I cannot—it is too late!"
"Queenie, do not be cruel to me again," he pleaded, carried away by the rush of his wild passion. "If you knew how I have wearied for you since you went away, how blank my life has been, you could not be so cruel! You would give yourself to me out of sheer pity and tenderness."
"But I do not love you," she said.
"I will teach you to love me, Queenie. I love you so well that I could not help winning your love in return if you only gave me the privilege to try. Say yes, my beautiful darling, and make me the happiest of men!"
She sat still with her head bowed and her hands locked together in her lap like one thinking intently. At length she said, without lifting her head to look at him:
"I do not believe I can make you happy, Captain Ernscliffe, but I will be your wife if you want me."
When the reception was over and the guests all gone, Queenie sought her father and found him alone in the library.
"Papa," she said, abruptly, laying her hand on his arm. "Captain Ernscliffe has proposed to me again!"
"You refused him, of course, Queenie," he answered, looking at her with the grave sadness that always rested on his features now.
Her eyes fell, and a crimson flush crept slowly over her features, but she answered steadily:
"Au contraire, papa, I have accepted him."
"Queenie!"
"Papa!"
"Why have you acted thus? You do not love him?"
"No, papa, but it will be a fine match for me!" she answered, with a hard little laugh, and a slight ring of sarcasm in her voice.
He looked at her almost angrily.
"Queenie, I have never intended—never contemplated the possibility of a marriage for you—since—since you came back home. I took you back and forgave you, kept your secret, and forced your mother and sisters to receive you and overlook that dreadful blank year whose secret I would not reveal to them. But I cannot—you must not expect it—allow you to deceive an honest man."
"Oh, papa! papa!" she fell on her knees and looked up at him imploringly, "for sweet pity's sake, have mercy on me! Keep my secret and let me marry Captain Ernscliffe! I need another home—mamma and the girls are so cold and hard to me—I will be a good wife to him—I will indeed! He shall never know."
"Ah, Queenie, if your sin should find you out!" he said.
"It will not, it cannot," she said, with a shudder; "it is buried too deep. And I have prayed—oh, how I have prayed, papa—and God has forgiven me!"
"God has forgiven you, but men would not," he said.
"You forgave me, papa."
"Because you had been sinned against, and because I love you so dearly, and pitied you also. But, Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe would recoil from you in horror if he knew what I know."
"Papa, he shall never know," she cried, clasping his knees with her round, white arms, and lifting her wild, streaming eyes to his face. "I will try to make him happy; and he wants me so very much. You will only make him unhappy if you come between us."
A gleam of relenting came into his eyes. He had loved her so dearly even since her innocent babyhood, and now, despite her fault, despite the hidden tragedy in her young life, the father's heart bled for her, and sweet pity stood sentinel over her past.
"Queenie, do you think you are doing right?" he said, appealing to her honor.
Alas! her terrible wrongs and deep despair had steeled her heart against all appeals.
"Right or wrong," she said, almost defiantly, "I shall marry him, unless you tell him my secret, papa. And if you do, what good will you accomplish! You will only break his heart."
"Go, then, unhappy, willful child," he answered, sternly, "go; but if shame and sorrow come of your folly, remember the fault is on your own head."
"I accept the responsibility," she answered, with a hard, steely ring in her voice.
He turned away with a groan and went abruptly out of the room.
"She is changed almost beyond belief," he said to himself. "That dreadful tragedy has warped her whole nature and made her reckless and heartless. Unless some softening influence is brought to bear upon her she will be lost forever!"
Queenie was about to leave the library, when a rustling noise made her look around, and the next moment Sydney Lyle stepped from behind the heavy curtains at the window, where she had been an unsuspected listener to the conversation.
Sydney looked brilliantly beautiful in a ruby-colored satin, trimmed with Spanish lace. A cluster of rich, scarlet roses were fastened in the dark braids of her hair, and diamonds blazed on her neck and arms, but they were scarcely brighter than the fire in her dark eyes as she seized Queenie by the white shoulder and shook her roughly.
"Queenie Lyle, you little wretch!" she exclaimed, in a low voice of concentrated rage and passion, "how dare you promise to marry Captain Ernscliffe?"
Queenie shook herself loose from the cruel grasp that had left ugly red marks on her smooth, white shoulder, and answered defiantly:
"What business is that of yours, Sydney?"
"You shall not marry him!" Sydney continued, passionately. "You are not fit to marry any man; but I care not whom you wed so that it be not Captain Ernscliffe."
"I shall marry no other," answered Queenie, stung into defiance by Sydney's overbearing look and manner. "I shall marry Captain Ernscliffe as surely as I live, Sydney, and you cannot prevent it."
"Can I not?" hissed Sydney, furiously. "What if I tell him to ask you for the secret of that missing year of your life?"
Queenie looked back at her calmly and quietly.
"You will not dare to do it," she said. "If you did I would tell him that you wanted him for yourself."
"He would not believe you," flashed Sydney.
"You dare not risk it, Sydney," said Queenie, defiantly. "As for me, I have promised to marry Captain Ernscliffe at the same hour that Georgina marries Lord Valentine, and I shall surely keep my word."
She swept from the room without pausing to listen to the reply of her infuriated sister.