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 passed 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!'"

"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.

Queenie put her gently into a chair, and then she saw a little, dark-eyed lad looking at her with a great deal of wonder.

"What a lovely boy!" she said, "and it is yours, Queenie, I know, for he looks so like your husband."

"Yes," answered Queenie, proudly; then she led her little son up to her sister.

"Robbie, you must kiss your aunt," she said.

Lady Valentine stayed a long while with Queenie, and many mutual, touching confidences were exchanged by the long-parted sisters. At last she rose to go.

"May I have Robbie a little while?" she asked.

"You may go with your aunt, my dear," said Queenie, kissing the child.

Lady Valentine took his hand and led him away to a room where a gray-haired lady was sitting alone in the fast-falling twilight with a grave, rather sad expression on her handsome old face. Georgie lifted up Robbie and placed him on the lady's knee.

"Grandmother," she said, half-laughing, half-crying, "kiss your grandson."

"It is Queenie's child!" cried Mrs. Lyle, pressing him to her heart, and kissing him, then crying over him in her womanly joy and excitement.

"We must take him to his mother now," said Georgie. "Come, mamma," and Mrs. Lyle followed her without a word.

So when Captain Ernscliffe and Mr. Lyle returned from their walk they found them all together, Queenie's fair face perfectly radiant and every one very happy in this touching reunion.

They were never parted afterwards. When Mr. Lyle and the Ernscliffes returned to the United States Mrs. Lyle and Lady Valentine went with them. Mrs. Lyle had conceived such an affection for her little grandson that she could not bear to be separated from him. Georgina had no ties to bind her to England, so she followed them also. Many years of calm happiness came to Mrs. Ernscliffe afterward, but she never forgot the terrible secret that had almost desolated her life.

She had one daughter, a sweet and lovely girl, who bore the name of one long dead, and sometimes when she kissed and caressed her, Captain Ernscliffe would hear her say, sweetly and gravely:

"Sydney, my darling daughter, you must never have any secrets from your papa and mamma!"

[THE END.]