"Your daughter, I suppose, sir?"
"Yes, sir, my daughter Jennie," said the farmer, with a glance of pride at his pretty daughter. "She's been out at service this three years, sir, but at present she's out of a place."
"Ah!" he said, politely; then turning back to the motionless form before him, he said: "Yes, Miss Jennie, I know this lady. She is my own sister. Unfortunately she is insane—driven mad by an unhappy love affair. She persists in dressing herself in white and calling herself a bride. This morning, just before daybreak, she escaped from us, and I have been seeking her everywhere. It was a fortunate chance that led me here.
"Do you think that she will revive, sir?" inquired Mrs. Thorn, who was watching the patient anxiously.
He turned and laid his hand over the girl's heart, knitting his brows with an air of medical wisdom.
"Oh, yes," he said, confidently. "There is life here yet. She is weak and exhausted, having eaten but little for several days. Have you tried forcing a little wine between her lips?"
"No; we had none," apologized the farmer; "we are but poor folks."
Pretty Jennie Thorn blushed and looked away at her father's frank admission. She felt ashamed of their poverty before the haughty glance of the handsome stranger.
The man took a little cut-glass flask with a golden stopper from his pocket. It was full of wine, and he lifted Queenie's head on his arm, poured a few drops between her pale lips and suffered them to trickle down her throat. He repeated the operation several times, then laid her head gently back on the pillow.
"You will soon see her rally now," he said, looking at Jennie with a smile. "And now I must be making arrangements to take my poor little sister home again."