Whether Sydney Lyle was frightened or not by her sister's threat she made no effort to interfere with the marriage, whose appointed day was swiftly approaching. Captain Ernscliffe was a daily visitor at Mr. Lyle's, but Sydney kept her room, or was constantly absorbed in fashionable gayeties, so that she saw but little of Queenie and her lover.
But though Sydney had apparently given up the contest, she still preserved a tacit feud with Queenie, refusing to speak to or notice her in any way, and haughtily repelling the questions and remonstrances of the family on the subject.
Lord Valentine, the lover of the fair Georgina, at length arrived, and the cards of invitation were issued for the double wedding, which Mrs. Lyle had determined should be quite a brilliant affair.
Mrs. Lyle was jubilant over the prospect of marrying off two of her girls so advantageously; and Mr. Lyle, in the midst of histrouble and anxiety over Queenie, was still conscious of a certain sense of relief, for there had been a coldness and estrangement between Queenie and the other members of the family ever since her return, and the atmosphere of home had seemed charged with electricity that threatened at any moment to burst into storm. So that none, except, perhaps, Sydney, were sorry when the eventful night arrived, and the two brides were dressing in their respective rooms, Georgina attended by her mother and Sydney, and the single maid employed by the family waiting on Queenie.
The unhappy girl was keenly conscious of the tacit slight, but she did not seem to notice it by word or sign, and after her toilet was completed she sent the maid away, saying that she wished to be alone a little while.
"Everything is perfect," she said, surveying herself critically in the mirror. "I am a shade too pale, but then they allow that to brides, I believe. Ah, me!"
She walked up and down the room, her small hands locked before her, her beautiful face as white as death, a look of deep unrest in her large, violet eyes.
There was a slight tap at the door. She knew it at once for her father's familiar knock.
"Enter, papa," she said.
He turned the door-handle softly and came in.
"I have come to see if the bride looks pretty," he said, veiling his emotion under an affectation of lightness.
"You are the only one who cares to know," she answered, with a ring of bitterness in her sweet voice.
He stood silent, surveying her with sad yet admiring eyes.
She wore the rich brocaded silk that her uncle had sent her a year ago from Paris, and which she had laughingly declared then should be her wedding-dress. Its rich shining folds trailed far behind her, and the soft folds of the bridal veil fell over it like a mist. Her wreath and the knots of flowers that looped up her dress were of natural orange blossoms, the gift of her lover. Their fragrance pervaded the room deliciously. She wore a magnificent set of diamonds, the bridal gift of Captain Ernscliffe.
Young, beautiful, elegantly attired, she made a picture on which the eyes might feast and never grow weary, and none would have guessed how heavy was the heart beating under the satin corsage, or that the fearful elements of a tragedy had been woven into that life that seemed yet in its earliest spring.
Her father looked at her a moment, then silently opened his arms, and she as silently glided into them, heedless that the bridal veil was disarranged as she laid her fair head down upon his breast.
"Papa," she murmured, with quivering lips, "youlove me, you are kind to me in spite of—of—all."
"God bless you, my little daughter," he said, solemnly, and touched his lips lightly to her brow.
It was the first time he had kissed her since she had come back. He had forgiven her, and been kind to her, but the loving caresses that had been showered on the little Queenie who went awayhad never been given to the Queenie who returned. This silent, gentle kiss seemed to have all the solemnity of a farewell.
"Papa, I feel strangely," she said, putting her hands to her brow; "my head whirls, my—oh! oh! God, oh, God, what is that?"
With a wild and ringing shriek of horror she tore herself from his arms, and stood pointing at the window with one jeweled finger, her blue eyes dark and dilated, her face transfigured with terror.
That frightened shriek penetrated to Georgina's room across the hall. The bride and her mother and sister all made a rush for Queenie's room, apprehending some dire calamity.
They found her standing in the centre of the floor, her face transfigured with terror, her shaking finger pointed at the window, while she wailed aloud in accents of remorse and despair:
"The dead! The dead!"
"Queenie, Queenie, you rave!" her father exclaimed, catching her arm as she held it forward, still pointing at the window.
She turned around and clung to him, sobbing wildly:
"A ghost was there, papa—a horrible ghost!"
"No, no, dear, there was nothing—I saw nothing. Queenie. There is no one at the window," he answered soothingly.
She gave a fearful, shuddering look at the window.
"It is gone, now, papa; but I tell you I saw a ghost at the window—one from the dead came and looked at me—hisghost, papa," she moaned, hiding her face on his shoulder.
"Whose ghost was it, Queenie?" asked Georgina, curiously, as she stepped forward in her elegant bridal robe. "Whom did you see?"
"Do not tease her, Georgie—stand back and give her air—see, she is about to faint!" exclaimed her father, a little shortly.
The bride stepped back with a murmur of discontent. She thought it exceedingly rude in her father to snub the prospective Lady Valentine.
"Oh! for mercy's sake, Queenie," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, rushing forward with a bottle ofeau de cologne, "don't give way to hysterical fancies now when it is almost time for the ceremony to begin! You saw nothing at the window but the moonlight; come, come, compose yourself! Your toilet will be totally disarranged!"
She fell to work bathing the limp, nerveless hands and cold brow of the girl, while Sydney and Georgina stood coldly aloof—the bride because she was afraid of ruffling her delicate plumage, and Sydney because she would not have lifted a finger to save Queenie if she had lain dying before her.
In the midst of the tumult the maid rushed in.
"Oh! Mrs. Lyle," she exclaimed, "the company is arriving. Mrs. Preston's carriage is at the door, and Mrs. Alden's and Mrs. Howe's."
"Oh! dear," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, "was there ever such acontre temps? Not a soul in the drawing-room to receive them! Sydney, you must go down, I cannot leave Queenie in this state."
Sydney curled her lip in a disdainful smile and went.
The marriage was to take place at home, and the drawing-room was profusely decorated with flowers. A beautiful arch of white flowers was arranged where the bridal couples were to stand, and wreaths and bouquets were variously disposed about the room.
Sydney in the white heat of anger that filled her heart felt sick and faint as the overpowering fragrance pervaded her senses.
Yet she had to stand up and receive the guests and smile and talk as if it were the happiest evening she had ever known.
She had refused to become one of the bridesmaids, so when the bridal party with their long string of lovely attendants entered the room and stood before the bishop, she drew back into an obscure corner that no one might see the jealous pain and hatred in her heart disfiguring her handsome face.
Georgina was married first, taking precedence of Queenie by virtue of her own four years seniority, and her betrothed's superior rank. Then the newly-wedded couple stepped quietly back, and Captain Ernscliffe and his radiantly-beautiful bride took their place; the solemn words were spoken, the ring slipped over her slim finger, and they turned to receive the congratulations of their friends.
One of the servants came bowing and smiling into the group carrying a magnificent bouquet of white flowers.
"For Mrs. Ernscliffe," he said, presenting it, "with the compliments of a friend."
She took it into her white hand with a faint smile.
"It is rarely beautiful," she said, and lifted it to her face and inhaled the strong, sweet odor of the costly flowers.
Something more pungent than the innocent breath of the flowers entered into her brain as she inhaled the fragrant incense. She threw up her hands, and without a word or cry, the smiling bride fell lifeless at her husband's feet.
No one suspected the agency of the beautiful and odorous bouquet in the sudden and tragical death of the fair young bride. It lay upon the floor where it had fallen when she fell, and in the grief and excitement of the moment no one thought of picking it up. Who would have thought that death could lurk in the fragrant breath of so beautiful an offering? So the lovely destroyer lay unheeded where it had fallen, and in the morning it was removed by the servants, who saw in it only a withered bouquet that littered the rich carpet.
But its mission was accomplished, and when Lawrence Ernscliffe lifting the drooping head of his new-made bride, he saw only the marble mask of death on that peerless face that a moment ago was wreathed in smiles. But he could not believe it, and when the physician who was hastily summoned gave the verdict so often wrongly given in cases of sudden death, that heart-disease had caused the calamity, the groan of agony that broke from the strong man's lips was heart-rending.
"She cannot bedead!" he cried, falling on his knees andclasping the beautiful form to his wildly-beating heart. "Oh! God, give her back to me, my darling, my own!"
"Queenie, my little pet, my precious child, speak to me," cried the gray-headed old father, bending over her in agony.
"My daughter, oh, my daughter!" shrieked the mother, and Georgina wailed aloud, both of them forgetting their coldness and estrangement, and remembering only the little Queenie they had loved and petted and teased so long ago, and who now was dead.
Alas! they might have stood aloof as silent and as cold as Sydney stood, for all the answer they won from those pale lips that the bridegroom kissed so passionately, as though those agonized caresses could have beguiled her back to life and love again.
One by one the bridal guests stole away and left them alone with their dead, the silent domestics crept about closing windows and doors, and dimming the brilliant lights; the banquet stood untasted under the glitter of flowers and lights and silver, the music was hushed, the garlands drooped low, and the house of feasting was turned into the house of mourning. The fairest daughter of the house of Lyle lay dead.
Mr. Lyle fell down in a fit after the dreadful certainty of his loss became manifest to him. He was removed to his chamber, attended by skillful physicians, but their potent art was of no avail. Entire consciousness never returned to him again. He lay through the long hours of the night tossing restlessly on his pillow, and babbling of the dead girl who lay in the chamber above, deaf to his agonized appeals as to those of her lover-husband. They thought he was delirious, he talked so strangely.
"I knew she would die," he said. "Her spirit face came and looked at me through the window one night—it was when she was away"—a shudder shook him from head to foot—"I knew it was a token of her death! Ah! but I forget—did she not tell me it was herself that came, full of love, and pity, and sorrow, and looked at her poor papa, sitting lonely for lack of his little girl? Queenie, Queenie, where are you? Come back, dear! Papa forgives you! He will take you home again out of the cold and wet, and the dark, stormy night."
He started up and held out his arms to clasp her to his heart, but instead he encountered the form of the bereaved bridegroom who sat by the side of his bed. They had persuaded, nay, almost forced him away from the side of the dead bride to the relief of the suffering living. He sat there half dazed with grief and horror, hearing dreamily the strange ravings of his father-in-law—ravings that he scarcely heeded then, but which burned themselves into his memory, and were recalled in after years with inexpressible pain.
"Ah, Ernscliffe, it is you," said the poor father, when the yearning arms that sought for Queenie touched him instead. "Are you waiting for her, too! You must not blame her very much. She was very young and temptation found her an innocent victim. You remember the woman in the Bible who was forgiven much—because she loved much? Ernscliffe, you willnot be hard upon little Queenie—you will forgive her—for she also loved much!"
The physician tapped his forehead significantly with his forefinger.
"Do not heed him—he raves," he said.
"Queenie, Queenie," called the poor sufferer, "come back, dear, I forgive you, but you must ask God to forgive you, too. Get your Bible, pet—read what Christ said."
Sydney, standing near the foot of the bed, looked strangely at her mother. The dying man, as his restless glance roved about, saw that look, and beckoned her with a warning finger.
"Come nearer, Sydney—you were cold and hard to her when she came home—you, and mamma, and Georgie. Women are always hard to each other. How could you be so cruel to the little one?"
He paused a moment, as if for reply, but Sydney turned her pale, changeless face aside, and Mrs. Lyle was sobbing too wildly for words. He went on babbling to himself on the one theme that held his thoughts:
"She was such a sweet child—was she not, mamma? So lovely, and so loving! I can see her now with her golden curls flying on the breeze and her light feet dancing over the turf! Little Goldilocks, we used to call her sometimes. Goldilocks, Goldilocks, come, and kiss me. Papa forgives you!"
Georgina, who had stood apart weeping against Lord Valentine's shoulder, came forward and fell on her knees by the bed, thrilled to the heart by the tender recollections his words awoke.
"Oh, papa, papa," she sobbed, "poor, little Queenie!"
He reached out and laid one trembling hand on the fair head still crowned with the orange wreath. His words, though they seemed to the physicians but the purposeless ravings of a disordered fancy, burnt themselves upon her memory as if written in fire.
"Georgie, forgive her—she was more sinned against than sinning—and she went mad and avenged the wrongs—remember that when she comes back."
"Queenie isdead, papa," sobbed Lady Valentine.
"Dead—who said that Queenie is dead?" he asked, looking vacantly about him.
The physician came forward and forced a composing draught upon him.
"Do the vagaries of illness often assume such forms as this?" inquired Sydney's clear voice from the foot of the bed, where she stood supporting the form of her hysterical mother.
"As what, miss?" inquired the physician, politely.
"These strange and dreadful fancies about—about my sister," she answered, flushing slightly. "His words, ifrational, would imply so much."
"But taken as the ravings of a disordered fancy they imply nothing," answered he, quickly. "He is not conscious of what he says. The shock of your sister's sudden death has simply assumed some other form to his delirious brain. Who can fathom the mysterious workings of a mind diseased?"
Sydney glanced furtively across at Captain Ernscliffe. He was listening, and his heavy, grief-filled gaze met her strange, inscrutable one.
"Do not distress yourself, Sydney," he said, very gently, "it is only the raving of a mind distraught. Of course we know that our lost darling"—his voice broke and quivered over the words and he paused a moment and repeated them—"of course we know that our lost darling was as pure as the snow. She never could have sinned."
"Who says that she sinned?" exclaimed Mr. Lyle, rousing slightly from the stupor stealing over him. "Who says that she sinned? Let him among you that is without sin, cast the first stone!"
He fell back exhausted on his pillow, and never spoke again. With the first faint glimmer of the dawn the flickering spark of his life went out—went out so gently that they could scarcely tell what moment the soul was released from its earthly tabernacle.
His heart had been a tender one, more tender than is often found in man, and his youngest daughter had been his idol all her life long. Her protracted absence and her terrible return had strained the chords of his heart almost to breaking—her sudden death had snapped them asunder. Two days later they buried the two who had been so fondly united in life, side by side, in a green and quiet graveyard, away from the noise and tumult of the great, crowded city, and Lawrence Ernscliffe, as he stood by the grave, calm to all outward appearance, though pale as sculptured marble, when he turned away left all the heart he ever had to give buried in the low mound that held his lost little Queenie.
And night fell, chilly, moonless and starless. The "homeless winds" sighed over the two graves new-made in the green churchyard, and the summer rain wept over them in the darkness, as though
"The heart of Heaven were breakingIn tears o'er the fallen earth."
"The heart of Heaven were breakingIn tears o'er the fallen earth."
But, hark! who are those that disturb the peace that broods like the wing of an angel over the city of the dead?
Under cover of the darkness and the rain, two dark, cloaked forms steal along the graveled walk and pause beside the spot where the dark, fresh-smelling earth is heaped in swelling mounds over the hapless father and daughter.
The light of a bull's-eye lantern, flashing transiently over the form and face of one, shows a tall, straight form, and features as handsome as those of a Greek god. He speaks:
"To your work, Perkins! They were so cursed long putting her into the ground that I feared my plot would fail! Hasten now. There is not a minute to lose. As it is, we may be too late!"
The man called Perkins produced a spade from under his cloak, and set to work, cautiously but rapidly throwing the earth off of one of the new graves.
"Are you sure you are right now, Perkins? I believe I should kill you if you made a mistake!" said the handsome man with the lantern, grinding a terrible oath between his white teeth.
"You'll not have the chance to wreak your dev'lish temper on me," said Perkins, in a familiar tone, as if addressing one with whom he was thoroughly acquainted. "I'm sure of what I'm doing. I saw them put her into this very hole this evening."
"Hurry up, then. What do you stop to talk for? Make your strokes as light as possible. You might be heard!" said the lantern-bearer, irascibly.
Perkins redoubled his exertions, but it seemed an age to his impatient employer before the dull, horrible thud of the spade announced that the coffin was reached.
"You'll have to help me git the coffin out," said Perkins. "It will be no easy job in this darkness and the pouring rain."
It was no easy job, as he had said, but their united efforts, with the usual appliances for such work, at length enabled them to raise it out of the grave and set it on the ground beside them. Even as they did so, a dreadful sound mingled with the sob of the wind and the putter of the rain. It was a low and smothered moan from within the coffin!
"Great God, Perkins, wrench the lid off!" exclaimed the other, excitedly. "She revives!"
Again and again the low moan echoed within the coffin, having a horrible sound from within that prison-house of death, and fevering the blood of the waiting man who swore audibly at Perkins, whose swiftest efforts seemed like the progress of a snail to his impatient mood.
"Now, sir," said Perkins, at last, as panting, and perspiring, he threw off the lid of the elegant casket, "now, sir, there's your game!"
The man flashed the lantern light forward. It shone on a beautiful white face, fixed in unconsciousness, now, the dews of horror standing thick and wet on the brow, the lips bleeding where the pearly teeth had bitten them in anguish, the small, dimpled white hands clenched in the lace upon her breast that was frayed and torn with her frantic struggles at finding herself in that awful prison. But blessed unconsciousness had supervened, and she looked death-like indeed to the eyes that beheld her.
"Looks like she might be gone, sure enough, this time sir," said Perkins, uneasily.
"If sheis, I'll killyou, d—n you!" cried the man. "I'll not be balked of my revenge like that. I'll glut it on somebody!"
Even while speaking he bent down and laid his hand upon her heart.
"No, she lives; I feel her heart beat faintly," he said. "Quick, Perkins, the cloak! It rains on her."
"The rain will revive her," said Perkins, as he unfolded a long, dark waterproof cloak and handed it to his companion.
The man lifted Queenie's slight form, and wrapped the long cloak over the bridal robe in which she had been buried.
"Now, then," he said, putting a thick roll of bank-notes intothe man's hand, "cover up the grave, and remove every trace of this night's work. And—remember, one word ofthisto a living soul, and I'll send your black soul to the devil!"
"Mum's the word, sir!" answered the man, beginning to lower the empty coffin back into the grave.
His employer turned without another word and passed swiftly away through the rain and the darkness to the carriage that waited for him near the gates, bearing the unconscious girl in his arms.
He entered the carriage, deposited the still unconscious Queenie on a seat in a recumbent attitude, and holding her head in his arms, was whirled rapidly away through the murky night. For an hour or more he rode thus, and the carriage stopped at length before a cottage embowered in trees on the banks of a broad, dark river. He lifted his burden, stepped through the gate, and the carriage whirled away.
Hurrying up the steps, he paused on the low, ornate piazza that ran around the house, and rang the bell.
The door was opened by a neat-looking woman of middle age, who held a lamp above her head.
"Ah! it is you," was all she said.
"Yes, it is I; and I have brought back your mistress, Mrs. Bowers, as I said I would, though youdidhave the impudence to insinuate that I had made way with her," he answered, in a tone of rough pleasantry.
"You are none too good to have done it," she answered, with a certain cool and familiar impertinence.
"Confound your impudence—lead the way to her room," he said, carelessly. "She is ill and needs attention."
Mrs. Bowers went up the stairway and opened the door into a large, airy room, exquisitely furnished and draped with hangings of white lace over rose-colored silk. Costly pictures and statuettes adorned the walls, and all the appointments were of elegant design, and evidently selected regardless of expense.
Mrs. Bowers held back the sweeping lace canopy of the low French bed, and the man laid his fair burden down upon it, after removing the dark cloak.
"What ails her?" asked the woman, starting as a low moan broke from the lips of the only half-conscious girl.
"I told you she was ill," he said, curtly. "She has been in a swoon. Get restoratives."
Mrs. Bowers obeyed him, and was soon bathing the pale face and limp, nerveless hands, with refreshing perfume.
Directly Queenie started up, passed her hand across her brow and looked about her. An expression of loathing swept across her face.
"Are you glad to find yourself in your old quarters, my dear?" asked the man, sardonically, from the window to which he had retreated.
She started as if someone had struck her a terrible blow, and looked across the room. Fear, horror, despair, were all blended in the look she cast upon his handsome, satanically smiling face.
Mrs. Bowers, seeing that her mistress had revived, lighted a brilliant jet of gas and went out. Queenie did not even notice her departure so intently was her gaze fixed on the man at the window, who stood there calm,nonchalant, even smiling, standing the scathing fire of her beautiful eyes like a soldier.
"So," she said, at last, and there was surprise and regret both commingled in her tone, "so you are notdead!"
"No thanks to you, little tigress," he answered, with a fierce, yellow light flaring into his black eyes. "You did your best to further that end."
"I might have forseen how vain was the endeavor," she retorted, in passionate anger, and quoted an old saying: "They cannot be drowned who are born to behung."
He laughed in mockery at the bitter insinuation, but years after, when the light of Heaven shone on him through the grated bars of a prison cell, and he heard outside the horrible sound of the hammers driving the nails into his scaffold, he remembered the words with wonder, and thought she must have been gifted with "second-sight," as the Scotch called the gift of prophecy.
"Now I know it was you that sent me the flowers," she said. "Why did you do it? They were poisoned!"
"No, only drugged! It was a subtle drug I bought in the east long ago—a drug warranted to produce a long and sudden sleep perfectly resembling death."
"Again I ask you, why did you do it?" she said, and her voice was full of wonder.
"I wanted to get you into my power once more. That was the safest plan to effect it. I let them bury you, and then I resurrected you."
"What did you want of me? You wearied of me before. Why not have let me go in peace?"
She tried to speak calmly, but her voice trembled with some inward resentment, and there was a passion of hatred in her dusky eyes that might have killed him where he stood. A rage as deadly as hers leaped up in his eyes in answer.
"Because Ihateyou!" he said, wickedly.
"We always hate those whom we have wronged," she replied, and her whole form trembled with her passionate indignation.
"I hate you because of that cowardly blow in the dark," he said angrily. "But for that I might have let you go free, though I pitied Captain Ernscliffe for being deceived by you."
"Villain!" she exclaimed, "I have not deceived him!"
"You have not?" he sneered. "Did you not withhold from him the story of that year which he supposed you to have spent in Europe? Did you not allow him to think you an innocent woman?"
She sprang to her feet and stood facing him, her dark-blue eyes dilating, her cheeks flushing, her small hands clenched tightly in her breathless anger. An artist's pencil might have handed his name down to immortal fame could he have put on canvas that striking scene—the beautiful room, and the man in his splendid,insolent, satanic beauty, standing before that lovely incarnation of pride and passion, with her glorious veil of golden hair falling loosely about her superb form, and the shining folds of her costly bridal robe sweeping far behind her on the rich velvet carpet.
"Iaman innocent woman," she said, proudly, and the light shone on her lifted face and the earnest fire in her eyes. "Iaman innocent woman! I have done no wrong, though I am a betrayed, unhappy, and insulted victim! I have been sinned against, but I have not sinned!"
He laughed, cruelly, mockingly, insultingly.
"Why do you laugh?" she said. "Youknow that it is true. You deceived me and betrayed me, but was I to blame? I carried the marriage certificate in my breast as a precious thing! I thought it was true as Heaven, I thought I was pure as the snow! And Iam! How couldyoursin touch me?"
Again he laughed mockingly.
"Your mind is strangely warped," he said. "But if you were innocent in the one thing, how about the blow in the dark? Was there no sin in that?"
"I deny that there was sin!" she said, with passionate defiance in her look and tone. "It was simple justice—'a blow for a blow.' You drove me mad with the horror and cruelty of all I learned! It seemed to me that I was given back from the grave to rid the world of a monster!"
"You failed," he said, derisively.
"Yes, to my sorrow," she answered. "But, ah! Leon Vinton, surely a day of reckoning will come to you. The justice of God will not always sleep. I was not permitted to take your punishment out of His hands who has said 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay.' It will come, it will come!"
"You prate of God's vengeance," he said, sneeringly, "but it suits you to forget that the preachers call him also a God of mercy, and love, and forgiveness!"
"Forgiveness!" she echoed, wildly. "Neither God nor man could forgive you, Leon Vinton! You have committed an unpardonable sin. You have broken my heart, you have tried to kill my soul, you murdered me! Can I ever forgivethis?"
She swept back the golden waves of hair that shaded her white brow and showed him the livid scar of a deep wound beneath them.
"It is your hellish work!" she said. "You ground your cruel boot-heel into the brow your false lips had kissed a thousand times; you strangled my life out with the hands that had caressed me uncounted times! Oh, my God, can I ever forgive or forget my wrongs?"
"I will kill you the next time more surely, curse you!" he hissed, in ungovernable rage, and striding forward, he caught her white arm rudely, almost crushing it in his iron grasp. "Cease, girl, not another word!"
She wrenched herself out of his grasp and answered, defiantly:
"Let me go, then, if you cannot bear my reproaches. Let me return to my husband."
A sneer curled his thin lips as she spoke with an unconscious accent of tenderness on the words "my husband."
"Your husband, as you call him, shall never know that you are not mouldering yonder in Rose Hill Cemetery. You shall never look upon his face again, Queenie Lyle."
"Mrs. Ernscliffe, if you please," she said, drawing her graceful form erect with a defiant dignity.
"Mrs. Ernscliffe, then, if it pleases you better," he answered, mockingly. "Though why you care for the name I do not know. You do not love the man."
"Idolove him," she answered, firmly, her fair head slightly drooped, and a burning blush crimsoning her cheeks.
"Since when?" he queried, sneeringly. "You did not love him when he asked you to marry him. I heard you tell him so."
"You heard me!" she exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes, I was a witness to that moonlight wooing. I have seldom lost sight of you since you returned to your father's house, and resumed theroleof innocent maidenhood."
"A spy!" she said, scornfully.
"Yes, if you put it so," he answered, coolly. "We need not be particular about terms."
She looked at him as if he were something wonderful. The effrontery of his wickedness almost paralyzed her. She clasped her hands and lifted her blue eyes.
"Oh, just Heaven," she said, "why does thy vengeance tarry in smiting this monster?"
"Permit me to commend your dramatic ability," he said, with a mock-courtly bow. "Your tones and gestures would make your fortune on the tragic stage."
She sank into a chair and dropped her face into her hands. She was very weary and physically exhausted, having eaten nothing since the day of her supposed death, but she felt no hunger now, though she was faint and thirsty.
"Your tirade appears to be over," he remarked, with his evil sneer.
She looked up.
"Tell me one thing," she said, trying to speak calmly. "What do you want of me? Why did you care to get me back, when we both hate each other?"
The glare of that hatred of which she spoke flamed luridly up in his dark eyes.
"That is the very reason that I brought you back," he answered; "because I hated you, and because I intended to make your life one long, insufferable weariness to you until you die."
Again she looked at him with wonder. Her gentler nature could not fathom the cruel vindictiveness of his.
"Oh, Leon," she gasped, "you would not be so cruel? Think of all that I have suffered at your hands already. Let me go, I beg you! I am so young, I may make something of my life yet, if I can only go back to the good, true man I have already learned to love and honor."
The words seemed to madden him.
"Never!" he shouted, hoarsely, with a terrible oath. "Never!I hate Lawrence Ernscliffe—I have an old grudge against him. I will have my revenge on you both. You shall stay here, locked in these four walls, a hated prisoner, as long as you live. Mrs. Bowers shall be your jailer, and here you shall dwell, eating your heart out in abject wretchedness and misery unutterable. Do you like the picture?Au revoir, Mrs. Ernscliffe!"
Queenie heard the key grate in the lock and sprang up, uttering wild shrieks of passion and despair, almost beside herself with the horror of her new situation.
But no response came to her frenzied screams and cries. Perhaps those gilded walls had echoed such wails of agony before, and the hearts of those who heard them had grown callous with long familiarity.
She ran up and down the room like one mad, alternately skrieking and beating upon the locked door, until she fell upon the floor, conquered by sheer exhaustion.
She lay there awhile, then sprang up restlessly again.
"I will endure it no longer," she said, passionately; "I will throw myself down from the window and kill myself!"
Full of that wild, suicidal resolve, she ran to the window and pushed up the sash.
The night was far spent, and that awful darkness that comes just before dawn obscured everything, its blackness intensified by the drizzling rain that still poured steadily down.
Queenie fell upon her knees with the rain beating in upon her white face and long, flowing hair, and clasped her little hands together as her father had taught her to do when she was but a toddling baby-girl.
"Oh, God!" she prayed, lifting her lovely, despairing face to the dark sky as if to catch a glimpse of the all-merciful Father to whom she appealed. "Oh, God, pity and forgive me for sending my soul uncalled for before its divine Maker. And, Heavenly Father, whatever of wrong I have committed, do Thou pity and pardon it. That sin with which I stand charged Thou knowest I would have died a thousand deaths rather than willfully commit it, and——"
She paused, overcome by agonized recollections, and rising, peered out into the darkness below.
"In the morning when he comes out into the garden," she said, "he will find my poor, crushed, bleeding body lying beneath this window. Surely, then, when his murderous hate has driven me to self-destruction, his revenge will be complete!"
She placed her hand on the sill of the window, and leaned forward for the fatal spring that was to end her earthly sorrows.
How slight a thing can distract our attention even in the most absorbing moments of our lives.
Queenie's hands fell upon a cold, wet mass of leaves, and a gust of intoxicating perfume blew into her face. She immediately drew back.
She had suddenly remembered that some thickly twisted vines of ivy and sweet-scented honeysuckle were trained up to her window in the second story.
A thought, as sudden as an inspiration, darted into her mind.
Instead of dashing her brains out on the hard ground below, why not escape down this ladder of vines to love and happiness again?
"I will do it," she said to herself. "I will go back to my husband. I will tell him I was stolen from my grave, and that I revived in the fresh air, and life came back to me in its full tide. Oh! how glad he will be to see me—my poor Lawrence. He loved me so dearly!"
In the swift revulsion of feeling from despair and desperation to love and hope again she gave way to a burst of hysterical tears.
"I must not stay here to weep," she said, at length, brushing the crystal drops away from her cheeks. "I must be far on my way to my husband before he discovers my escape."
She took up the thick, hooded waterproof cloak that lay on a chair, and wrapped it around her.
"This will never do," she said, seeing the long train of her splendid dress sweeping from beneath the hem of the cloak. "I must not be seen going into the city in this plight."
She took off the cloak and tucked up the long train and pinned it securely around her, resumed the waterproof, and climbed up into the window.
"Farewell, Leon Vinton," she said. "Pray God I may never look on your evil face again!"
She took a firm hold of the thick body of the vine with both hands, and with a slight shudder swung herself forward into the darkness.
The vine swayed and creaked with her weight, and for one dreadful moment she thought she should be precipitated to the ground to the death which a moment before she had courted, but which now, in the new dawn of hope, she shunned. The shower of rain-drops, shaken down from the leaves into her face, almost took her breath away. The wild wind tossed her from side to side like a feather as she clung to her frail support.
"I shall surely be killed," she said to herself in terror.
But no—the delicate reed to which she had trusted her existence did not fail her. She waited breathlessly a moment, then feeling that it still held secure, she cautiously slipped one hand and then the other down to a lower hold on the body of the vine. In that way, with many frightened heart-beats, with sore and bleeding hands, and at infinite pains, she at length accomplished the descent, and stood upon the ground enfolded like a mantle by the thick darkness and pouring rain.
At the gate she paused again, and looked up at one window in a wing of the house where a night-light glimmered faintly.
"Farewell, Leon Vinton," she said, again. "May the vengeance of God be swift to overtake and punish you for your awful sins!"
She opened the gate softly and stepped out into the wet andslushy road, wetting her thin, white satin slippers and silk stockings through and through at the first step. She did not care for it, she scarcely felt it, her heart was beating so quick and fast with joy.
"I am free!" was the exultant cry of her heart. "I am free—I am going back to my husband. I shall tell him how fondly I have learned to love him since I promised to be his wife. I will cling so closely to his side that Leon's vindictive rage can never touch me!"
She pushed on steadily through the mud and water, her long garments speedily becoming soaked with the watery elements and greatly impeding her ease and rapidity of motion, while her heart began to beat wildly with terror at the darkness, the desolation and loneliness of the country road.
"I am very tired," she moaned, after traveling what seemed to her a long distance. "It is five miles to the city. I must have come two miles at least. I wonder if I can hold out to get there. My feet are so heavy with the mud and the water that I can scarcely lift them. I must sit down here and rest myself one minute—onlyone little minute!"
She dropped down like a log on the grass by the side of the road, and the first pale beams of the watery dawn just breaking in the east, showed her deathly-white face just fading into unconsciousness.
When Queenie threw herself down upon the wet grass in a weariness so utter that she could no longer hold her aching limbs upright, she had thought that a minute of rest would put new strength into her exhausted frame, and enable her to pursue her journey.
But exhausted nature could bear no more. Her unbroken fast of nearly three days, and her wet and draggled condition combined to weaken and depress her. Her limbs trembled under her, and when she fell down for one minute's rest, a deep unconsciousness stole upon her, wrapping her senses in lethargy. Her last conscious thought was one of agonized terror, lest ere she revived her enemy should discover her escape, and set out to trace her.
While she lay there mute and still, the dawn began to grow brighter in the east, the rain slackened, and a few pale beams of sunshine striking upon the scene, showed that she had fallen almost at the gate of a little farm-house from whose chimneys the blue smoke curled cheerfully up, showing that the inhabitants were already up and about their daily labors.
Presently a middle-aged man, in the rough, coarse garb of a farmer came out of the house and strode down to the gate, whistling a merry tune, and snapping and cracking the great leathern whip he carried in his hand.
As he stepped outside the gate his cheerful whistle suddenly ended in an exclamation of terror.
His glance had fallen on the still form lying just outside thegate, with its lovely, white face and closed eyes upturned to the light.
He stood still a moment, looking down at her in awe and consternation.
"What a pretty young un," he said, aloud, "And she's dead, I mistrust—stone dead!"
The next moment he leaned over the gate and called loudly:
"Wife, wife, come out!"
The door opened and a middle-aged, pleasant-looking woman appeared. She was flushed as if she had been over the fire, and held some small cooking utensil in her hand.
"Well, Jerry," she said, "what do you want now?"
"Come out and see," he answered.
"Well, but I can't leave the cakes," said she, intent on her housewifely cares; "they will burn."
"Tell Jennie to mind the gridiron," he said, "and do you come out to me."
She went in and reappeared after a minute, coming down the path with her homely check apron thrown over her head.
"What now, Jerry?" she said, half-pettishly, half good-naturedly. "What is lost this morning? A pity I have to mind the farm-tools as well as the frying-pans!"
Jerry, whom this home thrust betrayed to be a good-natured, shiftless fellow, dependent on his better-half's more orderly ways, looked up to laugh, then checked himself, awed by the presence of that still form at his feet.
"There's naught misplaced this time, my dear," he said; "you shouldn't be forever twitting a poor, careless fellow with his faults."
"What is't amiss, then?" she said, as she came up to the gate.
"Lookthere!" he answered, pointing down. "A poor tramp dead in the road!"
The good woman looked, started, and her healthy, red cheeks turned white.
"Oh, my Heavenly Father!" she ejaculated. "Who is't, Jerry?"
"How should I know, woman?" asked her husband. "I've but just stepped outside the gate and found her."
"And is she really, trulydead, Jerry?"
"She looks like it," he said. "But stoop down and feel of her heart, Jane. See if it beats."
The woman came out of the gate, and bending down, put her hand half-timorously inside of Queenie's cloak and felt her heart.
"Yes—no—yes, it does beat just the leastest bit," she said. "Poor creature! Take her up and carry her into the kitchen, Jerry. Perhaps we may revive her."
"That's like your good heart, Jane," said the farmer, as he lifted up the limp form and conveyed it into the kitchen.
A rosy, exceedingly pretty, dark-eyed girl who was busily frying corn-cakes over the fire came forward with an exclamation of surprise as he laid his burden down upon the lounge that stood in one corner.
"Never mind the cakes, Jennie," said her mother. "Comeand lend a hand to save a poor creetur as your father found perishin' in the road."
"What can I do, mother?" asked the girl.
"Take them muddy things off her feet, and rub the poor creetur's limbs dry," said the good woman, busying herself in removing the wet cloak, "I declare to gracious!" she said, after a moment. "How blind men are. Jerry called her a tramp. Look at them rings on her fingers! Look at that dress, fine enough for the finest bride! Is that the way tramps dress, Mr. Thorn?"
"She's of the finest quality, mother," said the girl called Jennie. "Her slippers are white satin, her stockings pure silk, and worked all over with flowers."
"Never mind the shoes and the stockings, Jennie," said her father, "but rub the little un's feet. See how cold and blue they are."
Thus adjured, Jennie brought a warm flannel cloth, and began to rub the icy little feet of the wayfarer, while her mother brought strong camphor and bathed the pale face; now and then applying a bottle of ammonia to her nostrils.
Under this vigorous treatment, and the revivifying heat of the room, the patient's heart began to beat quicker, and a faint, thread-like pulse to flutter in her blue-veined wrist.
"Poor soul!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorn. "Idowonder how she came to be out in such a storm? All in her party dress, too! She'd be as pretty as a pink, with her eyes open, and a bit more color in her cheeks."
The farmer now approached with a cup of warm coffee and a teaspoon.
"Belike she needs summat to warm her up," he said. "Take the spoon, Jane, and force a wee bit of coffee between her lips."
Mrs. Thorn did as requested, but with no visible result for the better. The patient still lay with closed eyes and lips, showing no sign of life, save in the tremulous beat of her heart and the faint, faint pulse of her wrist.
Mrs. Thorn still worked patiently over her, but at the end of an hour looked disheartened.
"I mistrust that this is a case for the doctor," she said; "we have done what we could, but all to no use."
"I could bring a doctor, but who's to pay him?" said the farmer. "We have no money, Jane, and Jennie's out of work."
"The lady could pay him, herself," suggested Jennie. "There's them rings on her fingers worth a mint of money."
"Yea, that's so," said the mother. "Go and get the doctor, Jennie. The lady will die, I'm afraid, if she lays in this state much longer."
"I'll go and bring Dr. Pillsbury, then," said the farmer, going out, followed by repeated injunctions from his wife to hurry.
"There's not a minute to lose," she said. "Even now it may be too late to raise the poor creetur to life again, so low as she has sunk."
Farmer Thorn stepped out of the gate, and was about to proceed on his way, when his attention was arrested by the rather unusual sight of a gentleman tearing madly along the road on a fine black horse.
The farmer was so impressed with the parting injunction of his wife as to the necessity of a physician's immediate presence, that a wild fancy that this hurrying horseman might belong to the medical fraternity darted directly into his mind.
He accordingly lifted his hand as a signal for the impetuous rider to pause.
The gentleman checked his impatient steed, and inquired with a smothered oath.
"What the deuce is your business with me? I'm in a devil of a hurry!"
"I mistrusted you might be a doctor?" said the farmer, inquiringly.
"The devil! Who's sick?" was the exceedingly civil rejoinder.
"A strange lady that we found in the road this morning. She's like to die," said Mr. Thorn.
In the twinkling of an eye the rider was off his horse, with the bridle thrown over his arm.
"Yes, I'm a doctor," he said, briskly. "Here, tie up my horse, and let me see the patient at once."
Mr. Thorn was so impressed by the confident air of the man that he readily obeyed the somewhat arrogant command, and Mrs. Thorn and Jennie were somewhat surprised at his quick return, accompanied by an utter stranger.
"I met a doctor right at the gate, wife," he explained; "so I did not go for Dr. Pillsbury."
"Here's your patient, sir," said Mrs. Thorn, turning back the gay patchwork counterpane, in which she had carefully enveloped the unconscious Queenie.
What was her surprise to see him fall upon his knees and clasp his hands, while his dark, handsome features became luminous with mingled joy and sorrow.
"Oh, my dear sister, my sweet, unhappy girl!" he exclaimed, "is it thus I find you. Oh! madam, is she indeed dead?" he inquired, turning sadly to Mrs. Thorn.
"Her heart beats just a little, sir," said Mrs. Thorn, looking at him in surprise.
"Do you know the lady, sir?" asked Jennie Thorn, a little timidly.
The man turned around, and looked at the farmer's exceedingly pretty daughter with a furtive look of admiration. Instead of answering her he spoke to the farmer.
"Your daughter, I suppose, sir?"
"Yes, sir, my daughter Jennie," said the farmer, with a glance of pride at his pretty daughter. "She's been out at service this three years, sir, but at present she's out of a place."
"Ah!" he said, politely; then turning back to the motionless form before him, he said: "Yes, Miss Jennie, I know this lady.She is my own sister. Unfortunately she is insane—driven mad by an unhappy love affair. She persists in dressing herself in white and calling herself a bride. This morning, just before daybreak, she escaped from us, and I have been seeking her everywhere. It was a fortunate chance that led me here.
"Do you think that she will revive, sir?" inquired Mrs. Thorn, who was watching the patient anxiously.
He turned and laid his hand over the girl's heart, knitting his brows with an air of medical wisdom.
"Oh, yes," he said, confidently. "There is life here yet. She is weak and exhausted, having eaten but little for several days. Have you tried forcing a little wine between her lips?"
"No; we had none," apologized the farmer; "we are but poor folks."
Pretty Jennie Thorn blushed and looked away at her father's frank admission. She felt ashamed of their poverty before the haughty glance of the handsome stranger.
The man took a little cut-glass flask with a golden stopper from his pocket. It was full of wine, and he lifted Queenie's head on his arm, poured a few drops between her pale lips and suffered them to trickle down her throat. He repeated the operation several times, then laid her head gently back on the pillow.
"You will soon see her rally now," he said, looking at Jennie with a smile. "And now I must be making arrangements to take my poor little sister home again."
A startled cry came from the lips of the invalid.
The man's last words had penetrated her reviving senses.
She raised herself on her arm and looked about her at the unfamiliar room and the strange faces around her.
"Leon Vinton,youhere?" she exclaimed in a piteous tone. "Oh, Heaven, where am I?"
"We are all friends, miss," said Mrs. Thorn, soothingly. "You fell exhausted by the roadside, and we took you in and cared for you until your brother came along and found you here."
Queenie's eyes flashed scornfully into Leon Vinton's face.
"Doeshesay that he is my brother?" she demanded, pointing her finger at him and looking at Mrs. Thorn.
"Yes, miss," answered the woman.
"He lies!" exclaimed Queenie, passionately, gaining strength with her anger. "I am nothing to him, nothing! He is trying to deceive you that he may get me into his power!"
Leon Vinton sighed mournfully, and shook his head as he looked around at the girl's auditors.
"Ah, my friends, I told you she was mad," he said, sadly. "You see she denies her own brother!"
"You arenotmy brother, villain!" exclaimed Queenie, angrily; and looking round at the others, she said: "My good friends, do not believe this man—I am no relative of his, and he is trying to deceive you, and get me into his power to torture my life out! Oh, sir, I appeal to you, and to you, madam, also, to protect me from this villain. Drive him forth this moment from this honest house whose pure air he pollutes with his foul presence!"
The farmer and his wife began to cast dark looks at Leon Vinton,so impressed were they with the earnestness of the girl's words and looks. They began to think it was the truth she spoke instead of the ravings of madness. The arch villain soon saw that they were inclined to doubt his word, and threw fresh earnestness and eloquence into his dramatic manner.
"Oh, my darling, unfortunate little sister," he cried, dropping on one knee beside her, and trying to take her hands in his, "how it grieves me that your distraught mind should take me for the accursed villain who has destroyed your happiness forever—me, your devoted brother, whose whole life is devoted to your service!"
"Villain! wretch!" exclaimed Queenie, "out of my sight before I try to kill you! Oh, will no one drive the monster away?" she wildly cried.
"She grows violent," said Vinton, looking sadly around him. "I must remove her from here before her frenzy leads her to harm some of you. Have you any kind of a comfortable trap that I could take her home in?" he inquired, looking at the farmer.
"I will not go with you!" exclaimed the unhappy girl. "I am going home to my husband. You shall not prevent me! Oh, sir," she cried, turning her streaming eyes on Mr. Thorn's face, "you will not suffer this man to take me away from here! I assure you, I am no kin of his, and that he is seeking my destruction. Grant me the shelter of your roof, and your manly protection against this villain's arts, till I can send word to my father and my husband to come for me."
Mr. Thorn looked at the agonized face of the beautiful girl, and he could not believe that she was insane. There seemed too much "method in her madness." He cast a suspicious look on Vinton, and answered firmly:
"Be calm, lady. He shall not take you away without proof of what he says about you. I will protect you!"
"Oh, father! how can you presume to doubt the gentleman's word?" exclaimed Jennie Thorn impulsively, for the man's handsome face and consummate acting had quite won her young, impressionable heart over to his side.
Leon Vinton cast a grateful look upon her, throwing so much impressiveness into his look that she dropped her eyes and blushed deeply. In that moment the villain saw the impression he had made upon her innocent heart, and the simple, trusting girl was from that instant marked as his victim.
"Sir," he said, turning to the farmer, and speaking in an imperious tone, "do not you know that I can take legal means to punish you for thus depriving me of the custody of my insane sister?"
"I do not believe she is insane," said the farmer, doggedly. "Neither do I believe that she is your sister. And you can't take her away from here without proving your right."
"Well said, husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorn, approvingly, for her motherly heart was full of sympathy for the distressed girl, who had so touchingly implored her protection.
Queenie cast a look of heartfelt gratitude upon these homelyfriends, who had espoused her cause in so outspoken a way; but simple Jennie Thorn exclaimed quickly:
"Oh, mother! oh, father! I'm sure the gent speaks the truth. The ladymustbe crazy; for how else could she be wandering in the night and the storm, in her white dress and thin satin slippers?"
"Hold your peace, girl. This is a matter for wiser heads than yours!" answered her father, rather shortly; and Jennie subsided into silence, not, however, without receiving the reward in another beaming look of gratitude from the dark eyes of the man whom she was defending.
Mr. Vinton tried another tack. Finding the farmer's sense of justice impregnable to threats, he put his hand in his pocket, and withdrew it filled with gold pieces. He held them toward the man with a significant look.
"Put your gold back, sir," said the farmer, sturdily. "We are poor folks enough, but gold can't buy our honor!" and though he was but a poor tiller of the soil, his mien was princely as he thus defended his honor.
Leon Vinton's brow grew black as night. He muttered some inaudible curses between his teeth. Only his sense of policy restrained him from knocking Mr. Thorn down.
"What am I to do?" he said, with an air of great perplexity. "Here is my poor sister lying here needing the care of her friends, and the comforts and luxuries of her home. Yet you will not permit me to exercise my right to remove her."
"Prove your right, sir," said the farmer, firmly; "that's all I want you to do."
"And if I prove my right to remove her you will suffer me to do so?" asked Leon, after a moment's earnest thought.
"Why, of course, sir. I'd have no right to detain her after that."
"He cannot prove his right!" exclaimed Queenie, who had lain silent for some minutes.
"Have you an errand boy?" asked Vinton, disregarding the interruption.
Mr. Thorn went to the door, and called "Jotham," and the boy-of-all-work shambled in.
"Do you know a cottage on the banks of the river, two miles from here, Jotham?"
"Ya'as, sur," said the boy, broadly.
Leon Vinton wrote these words on a slip of paper:
"Take the carriage and come here immediately."
He directed the note to Mrs. Bowers, and gave it to the boy, with instructions to deliver it at the cottage by the river.