His Heart's Queen

by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

Mrs. Mencke was somewhat reassured after these investigations, and tried to think that her sister had gone out for a walk—possibly to the town to post the letter she had been writing the previous night, rather than to wait for it to go later with the hotel mail.

Still, she was terribly anxious, and her face was pallid with fear and anxiety.

She had staked so much—far more than any one save herself knew—to achieve this brilliant marriage for Violet, and it seemed more than she could bear to have it fail at the last moment, and after all the heavy expense of the beautiful trousseau from Worth's.

She wandered restlessly from room to room in an agony of suspense, Lady Cameron following her and vainly trying to speak words of comfort and cheer, while they waited for the return of those who had gone to search for the missing one.

Lord Cameron came back after a time, accompanied by Mr. Mencke, who had arrived on the first train from Nice, but he brought no tidings of Violet.

"There will be no wedding to-day, even if she is found," he said, with a stern, set face, "so let all preparations be stopped at once."

Then without another word, he went out, mounted his horse, and rode away toward the mountains.

The wretched day passed, and evening shut down again upon the place, where but one theme was thought of or talked about. Many believed that the young girl had gone out for a walk in the early morning and had, perhaps, fallen into some ravine among the mountains, or into the sea and been drowned.

There were only a few who thought otherwise, and these were Mr. and Mrs. Mencke, Lord Cameron, and his mother.

Mr. and Mrs. Mencke did not lisp their suspicions that Violet might have fled from an uncongenial marriage to a suicide's fate; but Lord Cameron, who remembered his last interview with his betrothed, had a terrible fear that such might be the case; while Lady Cameron, having told him of Violet's strange excitement and remarks of the evening previous, suggested that she might have fled to escape wronging him and being untrue to herself.