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: