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

Before the bright fire burning in the polished grate a lady was sitting in a low rocker of cushioned blue satin.

He advanced toward her, then started back. He thought he had made a mistake.

For the beautiful woman sitting there in her elegant morning-robe of quilted blue satin was looking down and smiling at something that lay on her arm, nestled close and warm against her breast.

It was the pink face of a very tiny baby, wrapped in costly robes of embroidered flannel, and lace and cambric.

Captain Ernscliffe was going out quite precipitately when a low, startled voice cried out:

"Lawrence!"

He turned back and looked more closely.

Yes, it was Queenie—but then—that baby—where on earth—and at that stage of his cogitations something flashed across his mind.

This, then, was the cause of that long, mysterious illness. What a fool he had been not to suspect it before.

He rushed to her side, and kneeling down upon the carpet, put his arms around the beautiful mother and child.

"My darling," he murmured, in a voice so broken by emotion that he could scarcely speak at all. "My precious Queenie, my own sweet wife, shall we mutually forgive and forget all that is past?"

One stifled sob of joy, and then the woman dropped her face upon his shoulder in silence.

One moment of rapturous stillness while she rested in the close clasp of his strong arm and then he whispered, with his lips against her warm cheek:

"Darling, you will forget my cruelty and come back to me—you and the little one?"

Then she lifted her head and looked at him with a happy, little laugh and a very bright blush.

"Lawrence, kiss our little boy," she said, putting the little bundle in his arms. "Is he not a pretty babe? I call him Robbie, for my uncle, who has been so good and kind in all my trouble."

"While I have been so cruel and unkind," he said, remorsefully.

"But that is all past now," she said, hopefully. "Oh, Lawrence, I thought you would never return to me again! What caused you to forgive me?"

"That villain—whom I cannot curse now because he was hung this morning—confessed all to me last night. My darling! you were cruelly wronged, and I was mad and blind to believe all the lies he told me at first."

"The best he could tell you was bad enough," she said, remorsefully. "It was wicked, it was terrible of me to have encouraged that clandestine acquaintance and secret love, deserting my home and loved ones for a stranger of whom I knew nothing, except that he was handsome, and that his romantic wooing took my foolish heart by storm.

"Oh, the bitter consequences that have followed that act of girlish folly!

"My own deep disgrace, my father's death from a broken heart, poor Sydney's dreadful murder, mamma and Georgina's everlasting alienation from me?"

She clasped her hands, and tears stood bright as dew-drops in her soft, blue eyes.

"Yes, darling," he said, as he laid his little son back in her arms, "your youthful folly has, indeed, worked out a terrible retribution. If your tragic story could be written it might teach many parents to guard their daughters more carefully, and many a thoughtless girl might grow wiser and profit by your dreadful experience. The fitting text for such a mournful story might be, 'Girls never keep a secret from your parents!'"

"Am I de trop?" asked Uncle Robert, putting his gray head and smiling face into the room at that moment.

"Never, Uncle Robert. You are one of us now, and always," said Captain Ernscliffe, bringing him in and giving him a cordial pressure of the hand.

Queenie looked up with the bright tears still shining in her eyes.

He kissed her fondly, then bent over the little babe to hide the dew of tenderness that dimmed his kindly blue orbs.

"I shall have to give up my little pet now," he said, a little sadly.

"No, you shall not, Uncle Robbie. You are to come home with us, and live with us always. You shall not live alone any longer," said Queenie, tenderly and gratefully.

Three years later, when Robbie was the loveliest and most mischievous little, dark-eyed lad that ever delighted a parent's heart, they all went abroad again.

Captain Ernscliffe, who was the fondest and most devoted husband in the world, had taken an absurd fancy that Queenie's roses were fading and that a European tour would improve her health.

So one bright, sunny morning in the month of roses, they found themselves registered as boarders at a famous health resort in Germany.

But after Captain Ernscliffe had smoked his cigar on the balcony, he came into his wife's airy room with a frown on his dark, handsome face.

"I shall have to take you away to-morrow, my dear," he said. "I have found out that your mother and sister are staying here. Of course it would be embarrassing to all parties if we remained."

"Yes, we must go away," she said, but she sighed as she spoke.

It had been a bitter cross to her that her mother and sister would not recognize her.

She loved them still, for the ties of kinship were very strong in her heart.

Now her own motherhood had made her even more gentle and loving than before.

She would have loved dearly to be friends with those proud ones who had discarded her, and to have shown her beautiful little son to his grandmother.

"Yes, we will go away to-morrow," she repeated, brushing away a quick-starting tear. "We must not trouble their peace."

But that evening, when her husband and her uncle had gone out for a walk, and she was alone with Robbie, she heard a timid and hesitating rap at her door.

"Enter," she said, looking up in some surprise.

The door opened, and Lady Valentine came abruptly into the room.

She was paler and graver than of old, and her stately form was draped in the gloomy sables of a widow.

"Georgina!" exclaimed Mrs. Ernscliffe, starting up.

Lady Valentine rushed forward, and threw her arms about the trembling, hesitating figure.

"Little Queenie, my sweet, wronged sister!" she cried, "will you forgive my cruelty to you, and love your Georgie again?"

"I have never ceased to love you, Georgie," was the answer.

Lady Valentine pressed a dozen kisses on the sweet lips and wavy, golden hair.