"Yes, pet. Did you think I was a crusty, forlorn old bachelor from choice? No, no; I was betrothed to a sweet and lovely girl in my early youth, but she went away to live with the angels, and I have been true to her memory ever since."

"Poor uncle! I did not know you had so sad a secret in your life," she said, with the dew of sympathy shining in her beautiful blue eyes.

"Every heart knoweth its own bitterness," answered the kind, old man, sadly.

The next day he took her away to the seash.o.r.e, hoping that the change of air and scene might divert her mind from its sorrows.

It was a vain hope. Her terrible trouble was too deeply graven on her mind. She became ill the day they took possession of their cottage, and for several weeks lay tossing with fever, closely attended by a skillful physician and two careful old nurses, while Mr. Lyle veered to and fro, his gentle heart nearly broken by this unexpected stroke of fate.

But at length, when they had almost begun to despair of her recovery, her illness took a sudden turn for the better.

She began to convalesce slowly but surely, and one day she turned the nurses out of the room and sent for her Uncle Robert.

"I want to ask you something," she said, putting her feverish, wasted little hand into his strong, tender clasp.

"I am listening, dear," he answered, kindly.

"Has--has that divorce been granted yet?" she inquired, flushing slightly.

"Oh, no, my dear. Your husband has applied for it, but they have been waiting since your illness to know what steps you will take in the matter--whether or not you would engage a lawyer and contest the divorce. I would not give them any satisfaction while you were sick, for I thought you might change your mind."

"I _have_ changed my mind, Uncle Rob," she said. "I mean to contest the divorce. There is a reason now" (she blushed and drooped her eyes from his perplexed gaze) "why I should try to save my fair fame as much as I can. Not that I wish to live with Lawrence again, whether there is a divorce or not, but I wish to defend my own honor and leave behind me as pure a name as I can. You will secure an able lawyer for me, will you not, Uncle Robbie?"

"Yes, darling, you shall have the best counsel that money can procure,"

he answered, deeply moved at her earnest words.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

Captain Ernscliffe sat alone in the s.p.a.cious 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, cl.u.s.tering 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 pa.s.sion 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," a.s.sented 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 embarra.s.sment. "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 G.o.d, 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."