"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.