CHAPTER XLIII.

Captain Ernscliffe found that it was almost midnight when he reached home after his visit to the condemned murderer.

He was too excited for sleep, and going to the library he turned up the dimly-lighted gas and prepared to spend the remaining hours of the night among his books.

A pleasant warmth pervaded the luxurious apartment, and the fragrance of some white hyacinths, blooming in vases on the marble mantel, filled the air with sweetness.

They were Queenie's favorite flowers. He remembered the one she had worn on her breast the day he had come upon her in her strange interview with Sydney.

Breaking off a beautiful spray he pressed it to his lips, then pinned it on his coat.

"I wonder where she is now?" he said to himself, with a heavy sigh, as he drew up a chair to the table and laid his head down upon his folded arms.

Something rustled under his touch as he did so, and he looked up quickly.

There was a sealed letter lying upon the table, addressed to himself in an unfamiliar writing. It had been laid there by a servant while he was absent.

Mechanically he tore it open and glanced at the bottom of the page for his unknown correspondent's name.

"Robert Lyle," he read, aloud, with a suddenly quickened heart-beat.

Yes, it was from Robert Lyle--a brief note, coldly and curtly written.

"CAPTAIN ERNSCLIFFE," it simply ran, "I arrived in this city to-day with your wife. She is now quite well and prepared to defend her case at any time the lawyers agree upon--to-morrow, if necessary."

That was all. It was brief, cold, and to the point. Yet the reader's heart thrilled with sudden joy.

"She is here in this city; she is well," he said to himself. "Oh, how can I wait until to-morrow?"

But he waited, nevertheless, though burning with anxiety and impatience, and at the earliest permissible hour he was shown into Robert Lyle's private parlor at the hotel where he was stopping.

Mr. Lyle was sitting cozily over his morning paper and cigar, his slippered feet on the fender, his gorgeous dressing-gown wrapped comfortably around him.

He rose in some surprise as his unexpected visitor was ushered in.

"You did not expect me," said Captain Ernscliffe, as they shook hands.

"I received your letter at midnight, sir, and came this morning as early as propriety would allow. I want to see my wife, Mr. Lyle," he added, in a trembling voice. "Will you take her my card and see if she will admit me to her presence?"

Mr. Lyle looked at him curiously a moment. He saw that he was struggling with some unexplained agitation, and that he had not come with any hostile intent.

He pointed toward a side door that stood slightly ajar.

"She is in there," he said; "there is no need of formalities. Go in and see her."

With a faltering step Captain Ernscliffe advanced and pa.s.sed through the partly open door.

He found himself in a beautiful little dressing-room, with hangings of pale-blue silk, exquisitely furnished and pervaded with the delicate perfume of white hyacinth.

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!'"