The man turned around, and looked at the farmer's exceedingly pretty daughter with a furtive look of admiration. Instead of answering her he spoke to the farmer.

"Your daughter, I suppose, sir?"

"Yes, sir, my daughter Jennie," said the farmer, with a glance of pride at his pretty daughter. "She's been out at service this three years, sir, but at present she's out of a place."

"Ah!" he said, politely; then turning back to the motionless form before him, he said: "Yes, Miss Jennie, I know this lady. She is my own sister. Unfortunately she is insane--driven mad by an unhappy love affair. She persists in dressing herself in white and calling herself a bride. This morning, just before daybreak, she escaped from us, and I have been seeking her everywhere. It was a fortunate chance that led me here.

"Do you think that she will revive, sir?" inquired Mrs. Thorn, who was watching the patient anxiously.

He turned and laid his hand over the girl's heart, knitting his brows with an air of medical wisdom.

"Oh, yes," he said, confidently. "There is life here yet. She is weak and exhausted, having eaten but little for several days. Have you tried forcing a little wine between her lips?"

"No; we had none," apologized the farmer; "we are but poor folks."

Pretty Jennie Thorn blushed and looked away at her father's frank admission. She felt ashamed of their poverty before the haughty glance of the handsome stranger.

The man took a little cut-gla.s.s flask with a golden stopper from his pocket. It was full of wine, and he lifted Queenie's head on his arm, poured a few drops between her pale lips and suffered them to trickle down her throat. He repeated the operation several times, then laid her head gently back on the pillow.

"You will soon see her rally now," he said, looking at Jennie with a smile. "And now I must be making arrangements to take my poor little sister home again."

A startled cry came from the lips of the invalid.

The man's last words had penetrated her reviving senses.

She raised herself on her arm and looked about her at the unfamiliar room and the strange faces around her.

"Leon Vinton, _you_ here?" she exclaimed in a piteous tone. "Oh, Heaven, where am I?"

"We are all friends, miss," said Mrs. Thorn, soothingly. "You fell exhausted by the roadside, and we took you in and cared for you until your brother came along and found you here."

Queenie's eyes flashed scornfully into Leon Vinton's face.

"Does _he_ say that he is my brother?" she demanded, pointing her finger at him and looking at Mrs. Thorn.

"Yes, miss," answered the woman.

"He lies!" exclaimed Queenie, pa.s.sionately, gaining strength with her anger. "I am nothing to him, nothing! He is trying to deceive you that he may get me into his power!"

Leon Vinton sighed mournfully, and shook his head as he looked around at the girl's auditors.

"Ah, my friends, I told you she was mad," he said, sadly. "You see she denies her own brother!"

"You are _not_ my brother, villain!" exclaimed Queenie, angrily; and looking round at the others, she said: "My good friends, do not believe this man--I am no relative of his, and he is trying to deceive you, and get me into his power to torture my life out! Oh, sir, I appeal to you, and to you, madam, also, to protect me from this villain. Drive him forth this moment from this honest house whose pure air he pollutes with his foul presence!"

The farmer and his wife began to cast dark looks at Leon Vinton, so impressed were they with the earnestness of the girl's words and looks.

They began to think it was the truth she spoke instead of the ravings of madness. The arch villain soon saw that they were inclined to doubt his word, and threw fresh earnestness and eloquence into his dramatic manner.

"Oh, my darling, unfortunate little sister," he cried, dropping on one knee beside her, and trying to take her hands in his, "how it grieves me that your distraught mind should take me for the accursed villain who has destroyed your happiness forever--me, your devoted brother, whose whole life is devoted to your service!"

"Villain! wretch!" exclaimed Queenie, "out of my sight before I try to kill you! Oh, will no one drive the monster away?" she wildly cried.

"She grows violent," said Vinton, looking sadly around him. "I must remove her from here before her frenzy leads her to harm some of you.

Have you any kind of a comfortable trap that I could take her home in?"

he inquired, looking at the farmer.

"I will not go with you!" exclaimed the unhappy girl. "I am going home to my husband. You shall not prevent me! Oh, sir," she cried, turning her streaming eyes on Mr. Thorn's face, "you will not suffer this man to take me away from here! I a.s.sure you, I am no kin of his, and that he is seeking my destruction. Grant me the shelter of your roof, and your manly protection against this villain's arts, till I can send word to my father and my husband to come for me."

Mr. Thorn looked at the agonized face of the beautiful girl, and he could not believe that she was insane. There seemed too much "method in her madness." He cast a suspicious look on Vinton, and answered firmly:

"Be calm, lady. He shall not take you away without proof of what he says about you. I will protect you!"

"Oh, father! how can you presume to doubt the gentleman's word?"

exclaimed Jennie Thorn impulsively, for the man's handsome face and consummate acting had quite won her young, impressionable heart over to his side.

Leon Vinton cast a grateful look upon her, throwing so much impressiveness into his look that she dropped her eyes and blushed deeply. In that moment the villain saw the impression he had made upon her innocent heart, and the simple, trusting girl was from that instant marked as his victim.

"Sir," he said, turning to the farmer, and speaking in an imperious tone, "do not you know that I can take legal means to punish you for thus depriving me of the custody of my insane sister?"

"I do not believe she is insane," said the farmer, doggedly. "Neither do I believe that she is your sister. And you can't take her away from here without proving your right."

"Well said, husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorn, approvingly, for her motherly heart was full of sympathy for the distressed girl, who had so touchingly implored her protection.

Queenie cast a look of heartfelt grat.i.tude upon these homely friends, who had espoused her cause in so outspoken a way; but simple Jennie Thorn exclaimed quickly:

"Oh, mother! oh, father! I'm sure the gent speaks the truth. The lady _must_ be crazy; for how else could she be wandering in the night and the storm, in her white dress and thin satin slippers?"

"Hold your peace, girl. This is a matter for wiser heads than yours!"

answered her father, rather shortly; and Jennie subsided into silence, not, however, without receiving the reward in another beaming look of grat.i.tude from the dark eyes of the man whom she was defending.

Mr. Vinton tried another tack. Finding the farmer's sense of justice impregnable to threats, he put his hand in his pocket, and withdrew it filled with gold pieces. He held them toward the man with a significant look.

"Put your gold back, sir," said the farmer, st.u.r.dily. "We are poor folks enough, but gold can't buy our honor!" and though he was but a poor tiller of the soil, his mien was princely as he thus defended his honor.

Leon Vinton's brow grew black as night. He muttered some inaudible curses between his teeth. Only his sense of policy restrained him from knocking Mr. Thorn down.

"What am I to do?" he said, with an air of great perplexity. "Here is my poor sister lying here needing the care of her friends, and the comforts and luxuries of her home. Yet you will not permit me to exercise my right to remove her."

"Prove your right, sir," said the farmer, firmly; "that's all I want you to do."

"And if I prove my right to remove her you will suffer me to do so?"

asked Leon, after a moment's earnest thought.

"Why, of course, sir. I'd have no right to detain her after that."

"He cannot prove his right!" exclaimed Queenie, who had lain silent for some minutes.

"Have you an errand boy?" asked Vinton, disregarding the interruption.