Her head fell back helplessly, and the wet and matted locks of gold trailed over the velvet carpet, drenching it with rain-drops. The long, dark lashes lay close upon the marble-white cheeks and no breath fluttered over the pale, parted lips to show that life still dwelt in the frame of the hapless girl.
A cry of agony broke from the lips of the poor father whose fondest affections had been concentrated on the daughter now lying lifeless in his arms.
"Oh, God! oh, God! what fearful mystery is here? Queenie is dead; and oh! those horrible marks upon her throat and brow! Someone has murdered my little darling!"
Again the frightened shrieks of the women rose above the dreadful tumult of the storm outside. They huddled together by the marble hearth, shuddering as though afraid to approach that dreadful-looking object that had come upon them with the face of the little Queenie they had alternately scolded and petted in the past. Mr. Lyle looked at them with a keen reproach and pain in his heavy eyes.
"Queenie is dead," he said to them, in a hollow, broken voice. "Why do you stand aloof from her?"
His lips were white, and he trembled so that he could scarcely hold the still form that lay so helpless in his arms. But even as he spoke, her lips parted in a faint and scarce audible sigh, the eyelids fluttered slightly and grew still again.
"No, no, she lives!" he cried, rapturously. "Quick, quick! let us take her to her room and apply restoratives."
He lifted her in his arms and the women mechanically followed him as he bore her to her room and laid her down upon her little white bed. Then he turned around with the dazed look gone from his white face and a gleam of resolution there instead.
"There is some dreadful mystery here," he said, in deep, low tones. "The servants must not know of this. Let them think that she came back with you from Europe. Sydney and Georgie, you may retire to your rooms. Your mamma and I will do all that is necessary."
Frightened and weeping the girls went away to their rooms and the fearfully stricken parents went to work to restore life in the exhausted frame of poor little Queenie.