They lift the slight form out of its grim receptacle and bear her to the sexton's secluded cot where he lives alone, his wife having died a few months previous. They lay her down on his clean bed in the warm, cozy room; and still her strange, deep slumber is unbroken.
"I will watch beside her," says Mr. Campbell. "You must go back, restore the empty coffin to the grave, and throw in the earth again."
"You do not wish that this discovery shall ever be known, then?" the sexton asks, gravely.
"No—at least not now," Mr. Campbell answers, after a pause of silent thought.
A moment later he adds, wistfully:
"My wife's grave—you will open that too? Who knows but that she, too, may be only sleeping?"
"It is scarce probable, sir, but I will do it to satisfy you," the sexton answers, moving away.
The dawn of a new day is breaking when he returns, having just finished his weary task. Lawrence Campbell starts up from his weary vigil by his daughter's silent form.
"You promised to come for me, and I waited and waited!" he cries, reproachfully. "You did not do as I bade you."
The old sexton's face is ashen gray as if with the memory of some recent horror.
"Oh, sir, I swear to you, I kept my word," he cries, "but—but—oh, Mr. Campbell, I spared you in mercy that dreadful sight! You would not have known her, you could not have borne to see how death had effaced her beauty. You must remember her as she was—not as she is."
Lawrence Campbell's despairing moan is echoed by a low and fainter one.
Vera's dark eyes open slowly, her lips part in faint, shivering sighs.
"Quick—the wine!" exclaims the sexton. "Pour a few drops between her lips."
Lawrence Campbell obeys gladly, and Vera's lips part thirstily to receive the potent medicine. She lifts her white hand to her brow as if to clear away the shadows that cloud her brain.
"I have been asleep, and my dreams were strange and wild," she murmurs. "I thought I had found my father. You, sir, look at me lovingly and kindly. Can it be——"
"That I am your father—yes, my precious Vera," he answers, pressing a father's holy kiss on the sweet, wistful lips.
Her dark, dreamy eyes look searchingly up into the handsome, noble face.
"Ah, I am so glad," she murmurs, "and you are good and true and noble. I cannot understand why you went away from mamma, but I can tell by your face that you are not the bad and wicked wretch that woman pretended."
"Mrs. Cleveland?" he asks, a spasm of rage and hatred distorting his pallid features.
"Perhaps it will be best not to excite the young lady by talking to her just at first," the sexton interposes, anxiously and respectfully. "She must be very weak, having taken no nourishment for so long. I will go out and prepare a little warm broth for her."
"You must lie still and rest, darling," Lawrence Campbell whispers, pouring a little more of the stimulant between her pale lips—paler now from exhaustion than they were when she lay sleeping in the coffin, and with a faint sigh of assent she closes her eyes and lies silent, while the sexton goes out on his kindly meant errand.
The moments pass, Lawrence Campbell sits still with his head bowed moodily on his hand, his thoughts strangely blended, joy for his daughter's recovery, despairing grief for his wife's loss, and unutterable hate for Marcia Cleveland all mixed inextricably together. All that he has lost by that woman's perjury rushes bitterly over him. In the stillness, broken only by the crackle of the fresh coals upon the fire, and the monotonous ticking of the clock upon the mantel, he broods over his wrongs until they assume gigantic proportions.
And Vera—so strangely rescued from the coffin and the grave—she is very silent also, but none the less is her brain active and her mind busy. One by one she is gathering up the links of memory.
Her strange marriage, her mother's death, her terrible defeat in the triumph she had anticipated over the Clevelands—all come freshly over her memory, with that crowning hour in which wounded to the heart and filled with a deadly despair, she had crept away to die because she could not endure the humiliation and shame of the knowledge she had gained.
"I remember it all now; I could not decide upon the right vial, and by chance I took the wrong one. It was the sleeping potion. How long have I been asleep, and how came I here?"
Unclosing her languid eyes, she repeats the question aloud:
"Father, how came I here?"
He starts, nervously, at the unexpected question.
"My dear, you must not ask questions," he answers. "At least—not yet."
"But just this one, father. It keeps ringing itself in my head. I am filled with wonder. I drank a vial of what I imagined contained death, and lay down on my bed to die. But I only slept, and my dreams were wild. Then I awoke in this strange room, and saw you looking at me so kindly, and I knew you in my heart for my father. My wonder is so great that I cannot rest. Suspense is worse than knowledge. Only tell me how I came to be here?"
He looks at the beautiful, eloquent lips and pleading eyes, looking so dark with the purple shadows around them, and the pale, pale face.
"I must not tell her the truth," he said to himself. "She looks too slight and frail to bear the shock of hearing it. She need not ever know that she had been buried alive, and rescued out of the blackness of the grave. The horror of it would be enough to unhinge her reason."
"The last that I remember," she continues, "I was lying on my bed at Mrs. Cleveland's, waiting for death to come. I awoke here in this strange place. How did it happen?"
"I had you conveyed here in your sleep," he answers. "My dear, I see that you have all of woman's proverbial curiosity. But there is no mystery here. The simple truth is, that I went to Mrs. Cleveland's to seek my wife and child. I found that your mother was dead, and you were locked in a strange, narcotic sleep, almost as deep as death. I had you conveyed here, and watched over you until you awakened from your long slumber. That is all, my dear little daughter. Now, can you rest satisfied?"
The dark eyes seek his, still wistfully, and with dawning tenderness.
"Father, you do not know how I love the sound of your voice," she murmurs. "It does not excite nor weary me. It is full of soothing, calming power. It falls on my thirsty, yearning heart like the dew upon flowers. I wish that you would talk to me. Nothing you can say would weary me so much as my own tumultuous thoughts."
He sighs, and smooths back the soft waves of gold that stray over the blue-veined temples.
"What shall I talk of, little one?" he inquires.
"Tell me where you have been all these long years, father, and why you never came for mamma and I when you were so unhappy?" she sighs.
Tears that do not shame his manhood crowd into his dark, sad eyes.
"Vera, you will hate me when I tell you that it was a mad, unreasoning jealousy, aroused and fostered by Marcia Cleveland, that led me to desert my innocent wife, and you, my little child, before you were born," he answers, heavily.
Vera's dark eyes flash with ominous light. She lies silent a moment, brooding over her mother's terrible wrongs.
"I have been a lonely wanderer from land to land ever since," he goes on, slowly. "God only knows what I suffered, Vera, for I could never tear the image of my wife from my breast, although I believed her false and vile. But I was too proud to go back to her. I never knew how she was breaking her heart in silent sorrow for me, her life made doubly wretched by the abuses of the false sister who hated her because I loved her. At last I was recalled from my wanderings. I had fallen heir to a title I had never dreamed