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.