The Stolen Statesman. William Le Queux

and rest—not to sleep, till I have news of my darling father.”

      Through the weary hours of the night, the two men watched and dozed by turns, waiting in the vain hope of word or sign of Reginald Monkton.

      None came, and in the early morning Sheila stole down and joined them. Her bearing was more composed, and she had washed away the traces of her tears.

      “I intend to be very brave,” she told them. “I have roused the maids, and I am going to give you breakfast directly, after your long vigil.”

      Impulsively she stretched out a hand to each, the youthful lover and the aged servitor. “You are both dear, good friends, and my father will thank you for your care when he comes back to me.”

      Moved by a common impulse the two men, the young and the old, bent and imprinted a reverent kiss on the slender hands she extended to them.

      It was a moment of exquisite pathos, the fair, slim girl, resplendent yesterday in the full promise of her youth and beauty; to-day stricken with grief and consumed with the direst forebodings of the fate of a beloved father.