The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie's Part 51

"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 antic.i.p.ated continental tour.

CHAPTER V.

"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 hoa.r.s.ely, "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 G.o.d!" 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 G.o.d!" screamed Mrs. Lyle, falling down upon the floor, while Sydney and Georgina looked like statues of horror, "what has become of my little Queenie?"