The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret

Captain Ernscliffe sat alone in the spacious library of his elegant mansion.

The windows were raised, and the rich curtains of silk and lace were drawn back, admitting the bracing October air.

The playful breeze lifted the dark, clustering locks from his high, white brow, and wafted to his senses the delicate perfume of roses and lilies that filled the vases on the marble mantel.

The evening sunshine lay in great, golden bars on the emerald-velvet carpet.

But none of these beautiful things attracted the attention of the master of this luxurious mansion.

He sat at his desk with an open book before him, and a half-smoked cigar between his white, aristocratic fingers; but the fire had died out on the tip of his prime Havana, and the idle breeze turned the leaves of his book at its wanton will.

He sat there, perfectly still and silent, in his great arm-chair, staring drearily before him, a stern, sad look on his handsome face, the fire of a jealous, all-consuming passion smouldering gloomily in the beautiful dark eyes, half veiled by their sweeping lashes.

He had been trying to read, but the strange unrest that possessed him was too great to admit of fixing his attention on the author, yet now he slowly repeated some lines that caught his eye as the light breeze fluttered the book leaves:

"Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung."

"Ah! she is all that, and more," he exclaimed, bitterly, showing by those quick words where his thoughts were.

A slight cough interrupted him. He looked up quickly and saw Robert Lyle standing within the half-open door. The old man moved forward deprecatingly.

"Pardon my abrupt entrance, Captain Ernscliffe," he said; "I knocked several times without eliciting a reply, so I ventured to enter through the half-open door."

Captain Ernscliffe arose and shook his visitor's hand with a cordiality tempered by an indefinable restraint.

"Pray make no apologies, sir," he said. "They are quite unnecessary."

He placed a chair for the visitor, then resumed his own seat, gazing rather curiously at the pleasant-looking, kindly old gentleman, who reminded him so much of his wife's father.

What had brought him there, he wondered, with some slight nervousness at the thought.

Mr. Lyle looked a little nervous, too. He wiped the dew from his fine old forehead, and remarked that it was a warm day.

"I suppose so," assented the host in a tone that seemed to say he had not thought about it before.

"I have come on a thankless mission, Lawrence," Mr. Lyle said, with some slight embarrassment. "At least on an unsolicited one. I wish to speak to you of—of Queenie."

Captain Ernscliffe flushed crimson to the roots of his hair, and then grew deathly pale.

"I must refer you to my counsel, then," he answered, after a pause. "I have nothing to say about her myself."

"Lawrence!"

The gently rebuking tone in which the one word was uttered made the hearer start. He looked up quickly.

"Well, sir?"

"Do you know that you are treating my niece very unfairly in this matter. It is cruel to condemn her with her defense unheard."

"She condemned herself, Mr. Lyle, without a word from anyone else. Her guilt and shame were written all too legibly on her face the moment she looked upon Leon Vinton."

"Let us grant that she had reason to be ashamed of his acquaintance, Lawrence. Still may there not be some extenuation for her fault?"

"None, none! The more I think of it the blacker her dreadful sins appear. Oh, my God, to think of her with her face as lovely as an angel's, and her heart all black with sin! To think how I trusted and loved her, and how basely she repaid my confidence! How cruelly she deceived and betrayed me!" exclaimed the outraged husband, rising from his seat and pacing the floor excitedly.

"I cannot effect any compromise, then?" said Mr. Lyle, irresolutely. "You are bent on a divorce, I suppose. A separation would not content you?"

"Did she send you to ask this?" angrily exclaimed Captain Ernscliffe, pausing in his restless tramp to glare furiously at the would-be peacemaker.

"No, Lawrence, I told you I came on an unsolicited mission. Queenie knows nothing of my coming, and would not thank me for having asked that useless question. She asks no favors from you, but she means to defend her honor, and fight the divorce which would brand her with shame."

"My counsel and hers will settle that affair. In the meantime, why this useless dallying for long months on the pretence of illness? Why does she shirk appearing at court in answer to the summons? If not guilty, why does she not hasten to protest her innocence?"

"Queenie is ill, Captain Ernscliffe—has been ill for months. But we hope now that she may soon be able to appear at court and confront her accusers."

"Why does she not instruct her lawyer to manage the case without her if she is unable to be present herself? This suspense is unendurable. If this delay is continued much longer, I shall endeavor to push the matter without her. I am tired of this dilly-dallying!"

They looked at each other a moment in silence. Then the elder man said, with a repressed sigh:

"That is one thing I came to ask you, Lawrence. Grant us this much grace, my poor, unfortunate Queenie, and her fond, old uncle. Do not push the matter for a little while. Wait until she can come into court and tell her own story before her fiendish accusers."

"But, Mr. Lyle, I am growing too impatient to wait longer. I chafe at the bonds that bind me to that beautiful deceiver."

"They will not bind you much longer," Mr. Lyle answered, sadly. "Either death or the law will soon sever your hated fetters."

Captain Ernscliffe started and looked at the speaker wildly.

"Death," he said, with an uncontrollable shudder. "Why do you talk of death? What is this mysterious illness that has held her in its chains so long? She used to be strong and well. She never talked of weakness."

"I cannot tell what ails her, Lawrence," said Mr. Lyle, rising as if the conference were ended, "but I have the word of her physician to tell you that within a month she will either be able to appear in court, and do what is necessary to defend her rights, or she will be in her grave. In either case you will be free."

The words fell coldly on Lawrence Ernscliffe's hearing, chilling the hot and passionate tide of resentment that hurried through his heart.

He thought with an uncontrollable pang of all that bright, fair beauty he had loved so long and so fondly lying cold in the grave—those lips that had kissed him so tenderly sealed in death, the white lids shut forever over the heaven of love in those soft blue eyes.

"Will that content you, Lawrence?" asked the old man, wistfully, pausing with his hat in his hand. "A month is not so very long."

"That depends on the mood one is in," was the unsatisfactory reply.

"But you will wait?" Mr. Lyle said, almost pleadingly.

There was a minute's pause, and then the answer came, coldly:

"I will wait."

"Thanks—and farewell," said Mr. Lyle, passing silently out of the room.

The outraged husband was alone once more, the red glow of the sunset shining into the room and touching with its tender warmth his pallid, marble-like features.