"Yes, Queenie was quite sick for more than a month after we returned from abroad. She is not strong yet, but she has promised to come down into the drawing-room for a little while this evening."

It was Mrs. Lyle who spoke, in the calmest, most composed tone in the world. She was leaning back in her chair, richly dressed in silk and lace and fluttering her fan as she talked to Captain Ernscliffe who leaned over the back of her chair, tall, handsome and stately, the most distinguished-looking man in the room.

Mrs. Lyle was giving a small reception after her return, and had bidden the creme de la creme of society only, to welcome her home.

There were beautiful women in plenty present, and none but had a flattering smile for Captain Ernscliffe, but though he smiled and chatted with all, he still kept looking over even the fairest heads toward the door for one absent face while his heart thrilled with anxiety and expectation.

She came at last, and though he had been watching for her so long he scarcely knew her when she entered. He had expected to see a little, fairy-like creature, with a sunny smile and falling ringlets, and cheeks like pinkest rose leaves. Instead, there entered a tall, pale, graceful girl, clad in a dress of white lace ornamented with knots of purple, golden-hearted pansies. The crimson lips were set in a proud curve instead of a smile, and the dark fringe of her lashes swept so low that they almost shadowed her cheeks. Her golden hair was confined in a thick braid and wound about her head like a coronet, making her seem as stately as a young princess.

She was changed, greatly changed, from a year ago, and yet none who looked at the fair, calm face, with pride sitting regnant on the broad, white brow, would have dreamed that the pathos and pain of a terrible tragedy had been wrought into her life and had seared her heart and soul as with fire.

Friends and acquaintances crowded around her and it was many minutes before she found her way to her mother's chair where Captain Ernscliffe still stood with his heart beating so fast that he thought she must have heard it. It seemed to him as if everyone in the room must read in his face the secret of his love for Queenie Lyle who had rejected him a year ago with all the thoughtless lightness of girlhood. But no, his face was perfectly calm to all appearance, and as the girl gave one timid, upward glance at him she thought he had forgotten or outlived the pain of his rejection.

"I scarcely dared hope that you would return home as you went," he said after the first formal greeting. "I feared some French count or English lord would claim you as his own."

She blushed, and her eyes fell until the dark lashes rested on her burning cheeks.

"I was not so fortunate as to claim the admiration of any of the nobility," she answered carelessly. "Georgie outshone us all. She is to be married to an English lord in a month from now."

"I am very glad it is not you who are to be married to him," he answered laughing, but with an undertone of sincerity.

Other friends claimed her for awhile, but by-and-bye his restless glance found her out sitting by a window alone for the moment, and looking tired and a little sad.

"You are not strong enough to stand the heat of the rooms," he said kindly. "Come out in the garden and walk in the moonlight with me."

She took his arm and they went out in the garden. It was summer, and the flowers were blooming in profuse sweetness. The air was heavy with the odor of the roses and honeysuckle. They sat down upon a rustic seat with the full flood of brilliant moonlight falling on Queenie's uncovered head and lovely white face.

"You have grown more beautiful than ever, Queenie," said her companion admiringly.

She did not answer, but he fancied that he heard a faint, quickly smothered sigh.

Impulsively he took into his own the small hand lying cold and listless in her lap.

"It has been a year since I saw you, Queenie," he exclaimed, "but I find the old love rising in my heart as passionately as if we had only parted yesterday. Dearest, have you ever repented of your cruelty to me?"

She looked up at him, and her eyes were full of a fathomless sadness and vague regret.

"Ah! yes," she said, and her voice was almost a wail of pain. "I have repented, Captain Ernscliffe, I have been sorry often and often for my blind mistake!"

He held out his arms, drawing he scarcely knew what hope from her agitated words.

"Queenie, come to me," he cried. "Let atonement follow repentance."

But she drew back, trembling and frightened.

"I—oh, I did not mean that," she said, "I cannot—it is too late!"

"Queenie, do not be cruel to me again," he pleaded, carried away by the rush of his wild passion. "If you knew how I have wearied for you since you went away, how blank my life has been, you could not be so cruel! You would give yourself to me out of sheer pity and tenderness."

"But I do not love you," she said.

"I will teach you to love me, Queenie. I love you so well that I could not help winning your love in return if you only gave me the privilege to try. Say yes, my beautiful darling, and make me the happiest of men!"

She sat still with her head bowed and her hands locked together in her lap like one thinking intently. At length she said, without lifting her head to look at him:

"I do not believe I can make you happy, Captain Ernscliffe, but I will be your wife if you want me."

When the reception was over and the guests all gone, Queenie sought her father and found him alone in the library.

"Papa," she said, abruptly, laying her hand on his arm. "Captain Ernscliffe has proposed to me again!"

"You refused him, of course, Queenie," he answered, looking at her with the grave sadness that always rested on his features now.

Her eyes fell, and a crimson flush crept slowly over her features, but she answered steadily:

"Au contraire, papa, I have accepted him."

"Queenie!"

"Papa!"

"Why have you acted thus? You do not love him?"

"No, papa, but it will be a fine match for me!" she answered, with a hard little laugh, and a slight ring of sarcasm in her voice.

He looked at her almost angrily.

"Queenie, I have never intended—never contemplated the possibility of a marriage for you—since—since you came back home. I took you back and forgave you, kept your secret, and forced your mother and sisters to receive you and overlook that dreadful blank year whose secret I would not reveal to them. But I cannot—you must not expect it—allow you to deceive an honest man."

"Oh, papa! papa!" she fell on her knees and looked up at him imploringly, "for sweet pity's sake, have mercy on me! Keep my secret and let me marry Captain Ernscliffe! I need another home—mamma and the girls are so cold and hard to me—I will be a good wife to him—I will indeed! He shall never know."

"Ah, Queenie, if your sin should find you out!" he said.

"It will not, it cannot," she said, with a shudder; "it is buried too deep. And I have prayed—oh, how I have prayed, papa—and God has forgiven me!"

"God has forgiven you, but men would not," he said.

"You forgave me, papa."

"Because you had been sinned against, and because I love you so dearly, and pitied you also. But, Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe would recoil from you in horror if he knew what I know."

"Papa, he shall never know," she cried, clasping his knees with her round, white arms, and lifting her wild, streaming eyes to his face. "I will try to make him happy; and he wants me so very much. You will only make him unhappy if you come between us."

A gleam of relenting came into his eyes. He had loved her so dearly even since her innocent babyhood, and now, despite her fault, despite the hidden tragedy in her young life, the father's heart bled for her, and sweet pity stood sentinel over her past.

"Queenie, do you think you are doing right?" he said, appealing to her honor.

Alas! her terrible wrongs and deep despair had steeled her heart against all appeals.

"Right or wrong," she said, almost defiantly, "I shall marry him, unless you tell him my secret, papa. And if you do, what good will you accomplish! You will only break his heart."

"Go, then, unhappy, willful child," he answered, sternly, "go; but if shame and sorrow come of your folly, remember the fault is on your own head."

"I accept the responsibility," she answered, with a hard, steely ring in her voice.

He turned away with a groan and went abruptly out of the room.

"She is changed almost beyond belief," he said to himself. "That dreadful tragedy has warped her whole nature and made her reckless and heartless. Unless some softening influence is brought to bear upon her she will be lost forever!"

Queenie was about to leave the library, when a rustling noise made her look around, and the next moment Sydney Lyle stepped from behind the heavy curtains at the window, where she had been an unsuspected listener to the conversation.

Sydney looked brilliantly beautiful in a ruby-colored satin, trimmed with Spanish lace. A cluster of rich, scarlet roses were fastened in the dark braids of her hair, and diamonds blazed on her neck and arms, but they were scarcely brighter than the fire in her dark eyes as she seized Queenie by the white shoulder and shook her roughly.

"Queenie Lyle, you little wretch!" she exclaimed, in a low voice of concentrated rage and passion, "how dare you promise to marry Captain Ernscliffe?"

Queenie shook herself loose from the cruel grasp that had left ugly red marks on her smooth, white shoulder, and answered defiantly:

"What business is that of yours, Sydney?"

"You shall not marry him!" Sydney continued, passionately. "You are not fit to marry any man; but I care not whom you wed so that it be not Captain Ernscliffe."

"I shall marry no other," answered Queenie, stung into defiance by Sydney's overbearing look and manner. "I shall marry Captain Ernscliffe as surely as I live, Sydney, and you cannot prevent it."

"Can I not?" hissed Sydney, furiously. "What if I tell him to ask you for the secret of that missing year of your life?"

Queenie looked back at her calmly and quietly.

"You will not dare to do it," she said. "If you did I would tell him that you wanted him for yourself."

"He would not believe you," flashed Sydney.

"You dare not risk it, Sydney," said Queenie, defiantly. "As for me, I have promised to marry Captain Ernscliffe at the same hour that Georgina marries Lord Valentine, and I shall surely keep my word."

She swept from the room without pausing to listen to the reply of her infuriated sister.