"Where the lamps quiverSo far in the river,With many a lightFrom window and casement,From garret to basement,She stood with amazementHouseless by night."
"Where the lamps quiverSo far in the river,With many a lightFrom window and casement,From garret to basement,She stood with amazementHouseless by night."
It is some time since we have seen Mrs. Lyle and her elder daughter.
We must seek them now in one of "the stately homes of England."
They are the guests of Lady Valentine at her elegant residence in the most fashionable quarter of London.
Nearly four years have elapsed since we first met the Lyles and heard the spirited discussion over little Queenie's first ball and Sydney's old green silk dress.
Sydney and Georgina would not need to scrimp little Queenie's share of finery to bedeck themselves now were she living.
Georgina's husband is wealthy and indulgent, and "Uncle Robert," the beneficent friend of their earlier days, has chargedhimself with Sydney's support ever since her father died until recently, when she has married a wealthy man.
Mrs. Lyle lives with Georgina, and still enjoys the whirl of fashionable life as much as ever—indeed more than ever, for now there is no vexing question relative to the girls' finery disturbing her placid mind.
It is a chilly morning in mid-winter, and the three ladies are sitting in a pleasant morning-room, Georgina, grown plump and indolent, idly reclining in an easy-chair, with her dimpled white hands lazily folded over her silken lap, Mrs. Lyle perusing a morning paper, and Sydney gazing restlessly out of the window—watching, perhaps, for her husband—the honeymoon is not a month old yet, and she is naturally impatient at his absence.
Into this quiet scene enters Lord Valentine and tosses some cards into his wife's lap.
"Tickets for La Reine Blanche to-night," he says.
All three ladies utter a cry of delight.
"At last," exclaims Mrs. Lyle, in a spasm of anticipation.
"Yes, at last," laughs my Lord Valentine. "The great American actress will play at the theater to-night, and we shall have a chance to see if she is really as great anartisteas Madame Rumor reports."
"Here is a paragraph regarding her now," says Mrs. Lyle, and taking up the paper, she reads aloud:
"The beautiful and gifted young American actress, Madame Reine De Lisle, will make herdebutbefore a London audience to-night in the great emotional play of 'Romeo and Juliet.' The fame of this wonderfulartistehas preceded her to England, and all lovers of the drama are on thequi vivefor the first appearance of La Reine Blanche, as her admirers call her."
"La Reine Blanche," said Lord Valentine's little sister, looking up from her volume of history as she sat in a corner by the fire. "La Reine Blanche—that means 'the white queen.' They used to call Mary Queen of Scots La Reine Blanche, because she was so fair and lovely, and because she wore a white dress when she was in mourning. I have just been reading about her in my history. I wonder if this great actress is beautiful also?"
"She is said to be the most beautiful blonde in the world, Alice," said Lord Valentine, smiling down at the little school-girl.
A slight cloud has shadowed the brightness of Lady Valentine's face while little Lady Alice is speaking. She leans toward her mother, and says in a slightly lowered voice, but one which is distinctly audible to Sydney:
"Alice's French recalls my own, mamma. Have you ever thought what the name of this great tragedyqueen, if rendered into English, would be?"
"Reine De Lisle," repeated Mrs. Lyle, musingly.
Then she gives a great start.
"It would be—ah, it would be Queen Lyle!"
"Exactly," says Georgina. "Quite an odd coincidence. Is it not?"
She leans back in her seat with a thoughtful look on her pretty pink and white face.
Old times and old interests crowd into her mind with the memory of her younger sister. Time has thrown a veil over Queenie's faults and follies, and Georgina recalls her now with a softening remembrance, and half regrets the scorn she cast upon her when she returned to them so strangely.
"But ah! that missing year," she asks herself, as she has done many times before. "Where was it spent?"
Sydney had risen at the first mention of Queenie's name and swept out of the room. Neither time nor change had softened her hatred and resentment against poor little Queenie.
She had hated her beautiful sister while living, and she hated her, even in her grave, so bitterly that she could not endure the mention of her name even now when years had come and gone.
"Let us go home, mother, I am tired already. The play is sickening; I always thought so."
It is Sydney who speaks, and her voice is full of restless discontent.
She is in a box at the theater, looking brilliantly beautiful in black velvet and diamonds.
The place is packed from pit to dome; but in the dazzling rows of fair faces, there is not one handsomer than hers, even now when it is marred by that look of impatience, almost anger, that rests upon it like a threatening cloud upon a summer sky.
Mrs. Lyle, a passionate lover of the drama, turns a look of dismay upon her handsome daughter.
"Oh, not yet," she said quickly. "I would not miss seeing the play through for anything!"
"You have seen it often enough before," objects Sydney. "But if you are determined to stay I will go alone, if Lord Valentine will put me into the carriage."
"Don't go yet," says Lord Valentine, turning his eyes a moment from the stage to glance at his sister-in-law a trifle impatiently. "At least wait until Ernscliffe comes."
"He does not appear to be coming at all. I will not wait for him," Sydney answers, and the look of discontent deepens into downright vexation.
At that moment the box door opens and a gentleman comes up behind her chair.
Georgina turns quickly.
"Ah, Captain Ernscliffe, you are just in time," she says. "Here is Sydney trying to persuade us to go home before the play is half over. Perhaps you can induce her to wait."
Sydney looks up to him and a tender smile curves her crimson lips.
"You are late," she murmurs.
"I was detained," he answers, carelessly. "How are you enjoying the performance of the great actress?"
Her lip curls scornfully.
"Not at all. I am tired of the whole sickening thing. Will you take me home?"
"Is the balcony scene over yet?" he asks.
"Oh, no," Lady Valentine answers; "only the first act."
"Do you really want to go, Sydney?" he asks.
"I really want to go," she answers, rising and drawing her opera cloak about her white shoulders.
He gives her his arm in silence, and leads her away, puts her into the carriage, and they are whirled rapidly homeward; but when he sees her safely inside Lord Valentine's handsome house he turns to go back.
"You will not leave me?" Sydney says, pleadingly, and laying her white, jeweled hand on his black coat sleeve.
"I wish to see the play out," he answers, with a touch of impatience in his voice.
"I assure you it is not worth seeing. The acting is merely mediocre. Madame De Lisle has been greatly over-rated," she urges, with a tone of anxiety in her voice, as she looks down, almost afraid that he will detect the falsehood she is telling in her eager face.
"You make me more curious than ever," he answers, lightly. "I must certainly see her and judge for myself. Perhaps the wonderful beauty over which men rave so much has blinded the judgment of the critics.Au revoir!"
He frees himself from her clasp gently but firmly, and runs down the steps.
Sydney stands as he has left her, the rich cloak falling from her shoulders, her hands clasped before her, a tearless misery looking forth from her dark eyes.
"I have lied to him and gained nothing by it," she murmurs, in a passionate undertone. "He will go back there, he will see that terrible resemblance that shocked us all, and he will be reminded of the one whom I wish him to forget. Oh, it is a dreadful coincidence! The same name, the same face, the same voice! If we had lost her in any way save by death, I could have sworn that it was Queenie herself that I saw to-night dancing on the stage atLady Capulet'sball."
Captain Ernscliffe hastened back to the theater, anxious to be in time for the second act, which is a favorite with all admirers of "Romeo and Juliet."
Lord Valentine glances around as he enters the box and drops into a chair.
"Ah, Ernscliffe," he says; "just in time. The balcony scene is on."
Ernscliffe leans forward, scanning the stage eagerly, and quite unconscious that his three companions in the box are regarding him with curious eyes, anxious to note what impression the great actress would produce upon him.
He sees the sighingRomeowalking about and soliloquizing in the garden of the hostileCapulet, the gentleJulietin the balcony above him. His dark eyes rest on her for a moment; then he gives a violent start.
"Heaven!" he mutters under his breath, and grows pale beneath his olive skin.
"He can see the likeness, too," Lady Valentine whispered to her mother.
Rapt, spellbound, like one in a bewildering dream, Captain Ernscliffe bends forward, the deep pallor of painful emotion on his dusk, handsome face, his dark eyes fixed on the hapless youngJulietin a wild, astonished, incredulous gaze as she leans upon the balcony, murmuring words of love to handsome youngRomeoin the garden beneath. It was no wonder, forJuliet, in her fair, young beauty, her misty, white robe, looped with rosebuds, her floating curls of gold, is the exact and perfect counterpart of Queenie Lyle when he first met her at Mrs. Kirk's grand ball. Not a tone of her voice, not a curve of her lip, not the fall of a ringlet differs from the lovely girl who had won his heart that never-to-be-forgotten night—the peerless bride that death had torn from his arms in the very moment that he claimed her as his own!
Like one in a dream he listened and looked. He heardRomeoexclaim in deep and passionate accents:
"'Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—'"
"'Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—'"
AndJulietinterrupted in those silver-sweet tones so strangely familiar to his ear:
"'Oh! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,That monthly changes in her circled orb,Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.'"
"'Oh! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,That monthly changes in her circled orb,Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.'"
With those words:
"Oh! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,"
"Oh! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,"
Julietraised her eyes that had been downcast and fixed on her lover, and looked upward as if to gaze upon the fair orb of which she spoke.
In that moment her dark-blue eyes, shining like stars of the night, encountered the fixed and passionate gaze of the handsome man in the box above her. She started—it was not his dreaming fancy—it was too palpable to all—recovered herself with an effort, and went on in a voice that trembled in spite of her brave endeavor:
"'That monthly changes in her circled orb,Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.'"
"'That monthly changes in her circled orb,Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.'"
"Great God! It is Queenie herself! Do the dead come back from the grave? I must see her, speak to her!" exclaimed Captain Ernscliffe, in a passionate undertone, as he sprang up and turned toward the box door.
Lord Valentine, who had watched him attentively, caught him by the arm.
"Ernscliffe, are you mad? We all see the resemblance. It is accidental, of course. What would you do?"
Ernscliffe shook off his grasp roughly.
"Yes, I am mad!" he exclaimed, "for I believe that the dead is alive, and that yonderJulietis my lost bride, Queenie Lyle!"
He opened the box door with a shaking hand and rushed wildly out.
La Reine Blanche went on with her part and acted more brilliantly than ever. She surpassed herself. She seemed under the influence of some strong excitement that lent new power and force to her superb rendition ofJuliet. The vast and brilliant audience was fairly carried away.
At the close of the second act flowers fairly rained upon her. She was called back before the curtain and the thunders of applause shook the building.
Then the manager came to her with a little bit of pasteboard in his hand.
"Madame De Lisle," he said, "there is a gentleman outside who is so opportune in his desire to see you that I was forced to bring you his card, although I know you always refuse to make men acquaintances."
She took the card and read the name:
"Lawrence Ernscliffe."
"Will you see him?" asked the manager, seeing that she stood silent as if hesitating.
"No, no," she answered. "Tell him he must excuse me—I have to dress for my part in the third act."
The manager turned away and the beautiful actress pressed her lips passionately upon the insensible little bit of pasteboard she held in her white and jeweled hand.
"At last, at last!" she murmured, "yet I must not meet him to-night. I could not go on with my part—it would unfit me for anything. I must postpone my long-sought happiness yet a little longer. To-morrow—ah,to-morrow!"
She walked up and down, pressing her hands on her wildly beating heart as if to still its convulsive throbs.
"They say that happiness never kills," she said. "If it were otherwise I should feel afraid—my heart aches with joy—it seems as if it would burst, it is so full of happy emotion!"
She went back on the stage and a timid glance showed her Lawrence Ernscliffe back in the box looking terribly restless and disappointed. She was afraid to meet his eyes again, but she knew that he watched her through every scene, devouring every movement with passionate, yearning eyes.
At the close of the act she saw a lovely bouquet thrown from his hand, and picking it up she discovered a tiny note among the flowers.
When the curtain fell she read the hastily penciled lines:
"Madame De Lisle:—For God's sake let me see you, if only for a moment. Imustspeak to you; I shall go mad if you don't take pity on my anxiety and grant an interview to"Lawrence Ernscliffe."
"Madame De Lisle:—For God's sake let me see you, if only for a moment. Imustspeak to you; I shall go mad if you don't take pity on my anxiety and grant an interview to
"Lawrence Ernscliffe."
Tears came into the eyes of the beautiful actress as she read those lines; but when after another act the same card was handed her, she again refused to see the writer on pretence of dressing for her next appearance.
"To-morrow," she murmured to herself, "I will see him. To-night I cannot, I am utterly exhausted, Imusthave rest."
When the play was over she came out on the arm of the manager, her maid on the other side of her. As she stepped into her carriage she saw a dark, handsome face regarding her earnestly and a little reproachfully. The closing door sent it from sight, and she was whirled away to her hotel. She did not know that Captain Ernscliffe had sprung into a cab and followed her.
Neither did Captain Ernscliffe know that a mysterious-looking lady, heavily cloaked and veiled, had gotten into another cab and followed him.
It was Sydney, driven to desperation by her jealous misery.
She had returned to the theatersub rosa, and been a witness to Captain Ernscliffe's agitated recognition of the actress, and his subsequent persistent attempt to secure an interview with her. Heedless of everything, and rendered reckless by her indefinable dread of some impending evil, she determined to follow him and prevent, if possible, an interview between him and the brilliant actress who so strikingly resembled his lost and lamented bride.
It was midnight when the three vehicles drew up before the grand entrance of the hotel where La Reine Blanche had her elegant suite of apartments. She was crossing the pavement on the arm of her elderly duenna when a light touch arrested her footsteps. She turned and looked into the face of Captain Ernscliffe. It was white, wild, eager.
"One word, if you please, Madame De Lisle," he exclaimed, in an eager, agitated voice.
She paused a moment and clung tremblingly to the arm of her attendant.
"That is impossible to-night, sir," she answered in a low, constrained voice. "Call on me to-morrow at noon. I will hear you then."
Without another word she turned and fled up the steps. He stood looking at her blankly a moment, then re-entered his cab and was driven away. He did not notice the heavily-draped figure of a woman that had stood almost at his elbow, and that now ran lightly up the hotel steps, into the wide, lighted hall.
La Reine Blanche went directly to her dressing-room, where her maid divested her of her heavy wrappings and out-door costume, and substituted a dressing-gown of white Turkish silk confined at the waist by gold cord and tassels. Then she took down the burnished golden hair, and prepared to brush and plait it for the night.
As she took up the pearl-handled brush there came a timid, hesitating rap at the outer door. Madame De Lisle started and trembled.
"Admit no one to-night, Elsie," she said, nervously, as the maid turned toward the door.
Elsie came back in a minute with a penciled slip of paper. Her mistress took it, and read these words:
"Will Madame De Lisle accord the favor of a brief interview to a lady who calls on important business?"
"A lady—at this time of the night!" said La Reine Blanche, lifting her arched brows very slightly.
"Yes, madam, a real lady—at least she spoke and moved like one," replied Elsie, respectfully.
"Tell her I can see no one to-night. I am too weary; she must call another time," said the actress, in an agitated voice.
Elsie turned away with the message, but before she reached the door she was confronted by the lady, who had heard the refusal and entered in spite of it.
She advanced into the room, and stood before the actress, who had risen from her seat and leaned against a chair, her golden hair falling about her like a misty veil.
"Madame De Lisle," said the intruder, in a slightly tremulous voice, "I entreat you to pardon this untimely intrusion. Will you send your maid away, that I may plead my justifiable excuse?"
La Reine Blanche motioned to the maid to withdraw into an inner room at the pleasure of her visitor. Then she looked wistfully at the lady, who had thrown off her concealing hood and cloak, and stood revealed in all her majestic beauty, clothed splendidly in black velvet and sparkling diamonds.
"You are surprised to see me here?" said Sydney, interrogatively.
The actress bowed silently. She seemed like one stricken dumb and incapable of speech.
"You were annoyed this evening by the persistent attempts of a gentleman to obtain speech with you," went on Sydney.
Again Madame De Lisle bowed silently. She seemed like one dazed, and stood regarding her visitor without remembering that courtesy required her to offer her a seat.
"It is of that I wish to speak, madam. I heard you tell him he might call on you to-morrow at noon. I beg you, Madame De Lisle, to recall that permission, and to utterly decline the acquaintance of Lawrence Ernscliffe now and forever."
The failing senses of La Reine Blanche seemed to return to her with a gasp. She straightened her drooping figure and looked haughtily at the speaker.
"May I inquire why you proffer such a singular request?" she asked, coldly.
"Is it necessary that I should explain my motive for the request? If I do so, it will be at the expense of some humiliation to myself," said the visitor, and a faint flush colored her handsome, high-bred face.
For a moment they stood regarding each other fixedly—the handsome brunette in her velvet and diamonds, the lily-white blonde in her sweeping robe and veil of golden hair, looking like a "white queen" indeed.
Then the actress said, in a voice full of veiled passion and almost defiance:
"It would take a strong motive indeed to cause me to decline the acquaintance of Lawrence Ernscliffe. Let me know yourreason that I may judge if it be potent enough to secure your wish."
With a swift rush forward Sydney fell on her knees before the beautiful woman.
"Madame De Lisle," she said, pleadingly, "I humble myself before you to beg for my happiness! I love Lawrence Ernscliffe; I hoped I was winning his love in return until he saw you on the stage to-night. Your beauty, your splendid acting, above all, your striking resemblance to one he has loved and lost, took his heart by storm. He is carried away by this mad and wicked infatuation. Nothing but a studied coldness from you can check this mad passion. Will you, now that I have told you all, do as I have begged you?"
Something pathetic in the woman's humility touched a pitying chord in the heart of La Reine Blanche. She took her gently by the hand and placed her in a chair.
"You say that I resemble one whom he has loved and lost," she said. "Who was she?"
"She was his bride," answered Sydney, "his bride and my sister. She died at the altar. But I had the better claim upon him. He admired me and I believe he would have loved and married me if he had not inopportunely met her. But, as I have told you, she died. Now, after years, I had almost won his love again when you came here withherface and won him from me! It is almost as if the dead had come back."
La Reine Blanche looked at her with a strange smile.
"I have heard it said," she remarked, "that if the dead could come back after a few years they would find their places filled, their names forgotten, and themselves unwelcome."
Sydney gave her a keen glance, half-frightened, half-defiant.
"Madam, that is true," she said. "If my sister could come back to us we could not help being sorry. She was a trouble and disgrace to us while living, and we cannot help feeling relieved that the grass is growing over all her faults and follies."
"You did not love your sister?" said the actress, with her blue eyes blazing like stars.
Sydney looked at her with a flash of hatred in her dusky orbs.
"Madam," she said, "could you love the thing that stood between you and your happiness?"
They looked at each other a moment in silence, and the flashing eyes of the beautiful actress seemed to burn into Sydney's heart. A sudden horrible fear darted into her mind.
"Hasthe dead come back?" she asked herself. "Oh! no, itcannotbe!"
"You will not answer me," she said, wildly. "Oh, Madame De Lisle, be generous! You have lovers by the score; they tell me you have refused to marry a duke. One heart more or less cannot matter to you. You must not take my Lawrence from me! He is my all!"
"Yourall!" exclaimed La Reine Blanche, with a curling lip. "Lady, you prate of your love for Lawrence Ernscliffe, you tell me that he is yourall! You tell me what he is toyou—will you tell me what you are tohim?"
There was a tone of triumph in her sweet, incisive voice as she confronted her visitor.
"Madam," said Sydney, proudly and haughtily, "he is my husband—I am his wife!"
"His wife! Oh! my God!"
It was the cry of a breaking heart that cleft the midnight air. The actress staggered backward, tried to catch at a chair to save herself from falling, and then dropped heavily to the floor and laid there without a sign of life.
Elsie came rushing in from the next room, frightened at the sound.
"Oh, my poor mistress—you have killed her!" she cried.
"It is nothing but a swoon—she will soon revive," was the contemptuous answer.
But in her heart Sydney prayed, "Oh, that it might be death!"
But the impious prayer was not answered thus. Elsie's energetic efforts soon restored her mistress to consciousness, and lying languidly on a silken divan, she turned her beautiful eyes back to Sydney's face.
"You may retire again," Sydney said to the maid. "We have much still to say to each other."
The maid was about to refuse, but an imperative command from her mistress caused her to retire at once. Then the two beautiful women looked at each other with ominous glances.
"So youareQueenie herself? I thought as much," exclaimed Sydney, in a hissing tone of hate.
"Yes, I am Queenie," answered the actress, coolly. "I have come back from the grave, Sydney; but it seems that I have neither name nor place in the hearts that once were mine!"
"No, andnevershall have!" exclaimed Sydney, passionately, to herself, but aloud she said, in a voice that she strove to render calm and controlled:
"Will you tell me why you are here?"
"I am here to claim my husband!" answered Queenie, promptly and firmly.
If a look could have killed, Queenie Ernscliffe would have been stricken dead at her sister's feet.
"You will have to prove a few things before you accomplish your purpose," she retorted.
"I can prove all that is necessary," was the calm reply.
"Can you justify yourself in the matter of that shameful hidden year in your life of which I shall surely inform Captain Ernscliffe?" asked Sydney, malevolently.
"Sydney, forbear," exclaimed the actress, lifting her hand as if to ward off some cruel blow. "I have borne all that I can bear to-night! You must leave me now. Come and lunch with me to-morrow, and you shall hear the story of that missing year—you shall judge whether I can justify myself in the eyes of my husband."
"Will you promise not to see him until after that?" asked Sydney, anxiously, as she turned to go.
"Yes, I will promise," answered Queenie.
Sydney could not wait until the hour for luncheon next day. She was terribly afraid that Captain Ernscliffe might by some means secure a meeting with La Reine Blanche, and that the fatal truth might be revealed, to the utter destruction of the frail superstructure of her own happiness.
He had not been back to the house since he had left her to return to the theater the night before, and the most dreadful fancies continually darted through her mind.
It was impossible for her to wait until the hour her sister had specified. As early as ten o'clock she entered the hotel and was shown into the parlor of the great actress.
Queenie was at home. She had just returned from an early rehearsal at the theater, and lay resting on a low divan of cushioned blue satin.
She wore a trained dress of black velvet and satin, with creamy-hued laces at the wrists, and a fichu of the rarest old lace fastened at her throat by a brooch of dead gold. A single cluster of white hyacinth was fastened in with the lace, and filled the room with its subtle, delicious fragrance.
Her abundant, golden hair was braided into a coronet and confined with a comb of pearl. In spite of an almost marble pallor, and a look of terrible suffering, she appeared as lovely as Sydney had ever seen her.
At the entrance of her rival she lifted her head, and with a faint sigh motioned her to a seat near her.
"You come early," she said.
"I could not wait," Sydney answered. "I was too impatient. You have not spoken with—with——"
"Ourhusband!" said the actress, filling up the embarrassed pause with a faint and mirthless laugh. "No, Sydney, I have not spoken with him. I saw him on the pavement this morning when I left the theater, but I drew down my veil and looked another way."
The look of dread in Sydney's dark eyes softened into relief.
"Oh, Queenie," she exclaimed, "if you onlywouldgo away from here without speaking to him! Think of the consequences that would follow such a revelation—the nine days' wonder over you, the shame, the despair, the utter desolation for me! Oh, Queenie, if you would but go away with your secret untold, and leave my husband."
Queenie's red lips curled scornfully.
"Ah! Sydney," she said, "you were always selfish. You think only of yourself. You would sacrifice my happiness to your own."
"Yourhappiness, Queenie? Ah! what happiness could it give you to be re-united to Lawrence Ernscliffe? You never professed to love him!"
A crimson blush rose into Queenie's cheek. She put up her small hand to hide it; but when it fell to her side again the warm color had not faded. It seemed but to burn the brighter as she said in a low and earnest voice:
"No, Sydney, I never professed to love him. I do not think I loved him when I promised to marry him. And yet, in the few weeks that intervened before he led me to the altar, I learned to love him with as deep and fond a love as the most exacting heart could have asked for. Time, silence and suffering have but deepened and intensified that passion, until it has become like the very pulse of my heart. He is the one dear thing to me, yet you ask me to give him to you."
"You have your art—your profession. Surely you love that," said Sydney, anxiously.
"It has been but the means to an end," replied Queenie. "It has never filled but half my heart. The other half has never been at rest. It has always been seeking its lost mate. How could I give him up now that I have found him?"
"You mean to take him from me, then?" said Sydney, with a dangerous gleam of hatred firing into her black eyes.
La Reine Blanche did not answer. The blush had faded from her cheeks, and left them deathly pale.
Sydney could read nothing of her thoughts in the blue eyes, half veiled by the sweeping lashes. She moved restlessly in her chair.
"You promised to tell me your story," she said, coldly and sharply. "I am here to listen."
The faded color rushed back in crimson waves to Queenie's face. She looked up into the proud, scornful features of her sister.
"I am going to keep my word," she said, "and yet, Sydney, will you believe me when I tell you that I would rather tell my story to any other person on earth than you? Yes, I think I could sooner tell Lawrence Ernscliffe himself. I do not believe that anyone else would judge me as harshly and unpityingly as you will do—not even a stranger."
She was silent a moment, and lay still, shading her face with one small, white hand that sparkled with diamonds; then, as Sydney made no answer, she said, with a visible effort:
"Where shall I begin, Sydney?"
"At the beginning," answered Sydney, curtly.
"I must go back four years, then," said Queenie. "Sydney, do you remember the day that I sold my painted fan that Uncle Robert gave me to buy a tarleton dress to wear to Mrs. Kirk's grand ball?"
"Yes, I remember."
"Thatwas the beginning, Sydney. I saw a gentleman in the store where I sold my fan—the handsomest man I ever saw in my life—tall, dark, elegant. He looked me straight in the face as I left the store, and my foolish heart fluttered into my mouth. You know I was very young and romantic at that time—both things of which I cannot accuse myself now," added Queenie, thinking sagely that her present twenty-one years made her quite elderly.
"Yes," said Sydney, curtly.
"The man bought my fan as soon as I left the store; then he followed me. I did not know these things then, but I learnedthem afterward. Perhaps you remember that 'an unknown admirer' sent the fan back to me?"
"Yes," said Sydney, curtly.
"You remember also, Sydney, that every day an elegant bouquet, formed of the choicest hot-house flowers, came to me from the same unknown source?"
Sydney nodded an affirmative answer.
"I was very young and foolish in those days," said Queenie, with a sigh. "I do not suppose that any girl ever lived more silly and romantic than I was. I brooded day and night over the mysterious donor of the fan and flowers. All my secret thoughts were of him. I felt quite sure in my own mind that the handsome man who had looked at me so admiringly in the fancy store was my unknown admirer. I expected daily to meet him somewhere in the haunts of the gay society in which I had become somewhat of a belle. You remember, Sydney?"
Sydney did not answer, and she went on, slowly:
"I did not meet him in society; but after a time we met in a public park. I was walking there alone. I slipped and fell, spraining my ankle severely. A gentleman rushed to my assistance. It was the handsome stranger of whom I had dreamed so much that I had become perfectly infatuated with him. He placed me in a carriage and took me home. You were all out that day, and I never told of that event in my life through some undefined fear of censure. That was where my fault began—in that first act of secrecy."
She paused a moment, and a heart-wrung sigh drifted over her pale and quivering lips.
Sydney sat perfectly still, regarding her with stern, unpitying eyes, as though they were strangers instead of sisters whom the same mother had nursed on her breast.
"We met again and again," said Queenie, slowly. "Always by accident, it seemed at first, Sydney, and I am quite sure itwasaccident on my part; but I know now that it was by design on the part of Mr. Vinton. He wooed me in the most romantic fashion. Flowers and poetry were the vehicles through which he conveyed his sentiments, until at last grown bolder, he openly avowed his love for me."
"You must have been very forward to have encouraged him to a declaration so soon," said Sydney, with a sneer.
"Sydney, I declare to you I was not. Oh! if you knew Leon Vinton as I do now, you would know that I was not—you would know that the more timid and shrinking the dove the more fierce and unrelenting would be his pursuit," exclaimed Queenie, with a scarlet blush at her sister's cruel charge.
"I knew, of course," she continued, after a moment's thoughtful pause, "home was the proper place for my lover to woo me. I said as much to him. His ready excuse appeared perfectly sufficient in my silly eyes. He told me that he was a foreigner of high birth and rank, exiled from his native land through a political offense and that he had heard that my father was bitterly opposed to all foreigners. He, therefore, felt it to be quite hopeless to seek for theentreeto my father's house. Little simpleton thatI was, I swallowed the whole stupendous lie because it was baited with the one single grain of truth—namely, the well-known fact that my father was bitterly prejudiced against all persons of foreign birth. I believed all he told me, and, worse than all, I believed that I was deeply and devotedly in love with him. That was the blind mistake of my life, Sydney.NowI know that I was not in love with theman. It was the romance and poetry of his manner of wooing me, the mystery that surrounded him with an atmosphere of ideality that fascinated and infatuated me. I was very young and romantic, as he well knew when he set his artful trap for me. He knew too well how to bait it. It was only the wooing that I loved when I thought it was the wooer."
Her voice broke a moment, and she buried her face in her hands.
Sydney offered no comment, but sat as still and silent as a statue, regarding her intently.
"Yet, why do I linger over those fatal hours?" resumed Queenie, with a heavy sigh. "They can have but little interest for you. I will briefly relate what came after. You remember, Sydney, how I left you all the day we started to Europe on the pretense of returning to remain with papa?"
"Yes," Sydney answered, in a tone of scorn.
"It was a preconcerted plan," said the actress, dropping her eyes in shame and remorse. "In less than an hour after I left you, Sydney, I met Leon Vinton and was married to him."
"Married to him!" exclaimed Sydney, incredulously.
The blue eyes and the black ones met for a moment—one pair cold and incredulous, the others full of raging scorn.
"Sydney, you are cruel!" exclaimed Queenie, indignantly. "How else should I have gone away with him? I was as pure and innocent as a little child. There was not a thought of evil in my heart. I would have died the most horrible death that could be conceived of before I would have willfully sinned."
"Why, then, did you not confess the truth when you came home?" asked Sydney. "If you were married, where was your husband? Why did you suffer us to think worse things of you?"
"Wait until I have finished my story, Sydney, then you will understand why," answered Queenie, mournfully. "We were married, as I told you," she continued. "We went to live in a beautiful cottage on the banks of the river, about five miles from the city where we lived. My husband appeared to be a man of wealth and taste. My home was splendidly furnished. I had servants to wait upon me, the best of everything to eat and wear. He appeared to be perfectly devoted to me. I had but two things to complain of. One was the utter seclusion in which we lived. He went into no society, and we saw no company—not a single person ever visited us. I rode out in a carriage with Mr. Vinton sometimes. Once we went to the theater near my old home, and an irresistible desire seized upon me to look upon the face of my father once more. Mr. Vinton had always sternly forbidden me to venture near my home, but I eluded him somehow in the crush coming out of the theater, and ran homeward with flying footsteps.I looked into the window, Sydney. It was late, but I saw papa. He was sitting, sad and alone, thinking, perhaps, of his absent dear ones. He looked so old and broken it almost broke my heart."
Queenie paused a moment, and Sydney saw that warm, passionate tears were streaming down her cheeks. The sight awoke no pity in the heart of the elder sister. It seemed to her that her hatred was simply measureless for the beautiful young sister who, living or dead, held Lawrence Ernscliffe's heart.
"Papa looked up and saw me," continued Queenie, brushing away the crystal drops with her perfumed handkerchief. "He took me for a ghost, I think. I ran away and met Mr. Vinton coming after me. He was very angry with me, and I promised him I would not venture near the place again. Poor papa! As I went away I heard him wandering in the garden, calling my name. I longed to turn back and throw my arms about his neck. I often begged Mr. Vinton to allow me to make known our marriage to papa and trust to his kind heart to forgive us, but he always refused angrily. He had a terrible temper—a sleeping devil coiled within his heart."
"You said that you had but two things to complain of," suggested Sydney. "You have named but one."
"The other was Mr. Vinton's frequent absence from me. He spent more than half his time in the city, and I passed more than half my time alone, save for the company of his housekeeper, a wicked woman, whom I cordially detested. When I complained of his long absence, he represented that business detained him from my side, but when I ventured to inquire into the nature of his business, he almost rudely informed me that it was no part of my province to inquire into his affairs. I asked him no more questions, and I do not know to this day what engaged his time and attention, nor what was the source of his apparent wealth.
"We had been married almost a year," she continued, after a slight pause, "when I began to notice that Mr. Vinton grew cold and careless to me, and his mysterious absences became longer and more frequent. In my loneliness and isolation I began to pine more and more for papa, whose sad and troubled face, as I saw it last, when I looked into the window that night, haunted me persistently. To my surprise, Mr. Vinton ceased to chide me for indulging in my grief, and pretended to be willing to reveal our marriage to papa and beg his forgiveness. In my joy at this assurance, I threw my arms around his neck, and kissed him as fondly as I had ever done in the first days of our union. That evening he ordered out the phaeton to take me home to papa. You know how fond I was of papa, Sydney—you can imagine my happiness."
Sydney only bowed coldly in reply.
"'I am going to take you home by a new route,' Mr. Vinton said to me, turning the phaeton into a lonely, unfrequented road. In my joy at going back to papa, I consented without a thoughtof the oddity of the words. I only said to him: 'Do not make it a longer route, dear Leon. I am so impatient to see papa again.'"
She was growing more excited now. She rose from her reclining position, and sitting upright, looked at Sydney with scarlet cheeks and burning, violet eyes. She was dazzlingly beautiful in this new phase.
Her fair, expressive face, and graceful, white throat rose from the rich and somber setting of black velvet like some rare flower. Her voice sounded like a wail of the saddest music.
"It was the cruelest lie a man ever told a woman, Sydney!" she went on, clasping and unclasping her white hands together in passionate excitement. "We never went near home. He never intended it. It began to rain soon, and we had no cover to the phaeton. We were passing through a thick wood, and he forced me to get out and stand under the trees under pretense of seeking shelter. Then, oh, Sydney, Sydney, with the chilly rain beating down upon us, and our feet half buried in the thick drifts of autumn leaves, he told me—oh, Sydney, can you guess what horrible thing that villain told me?"
The tears were falling down her cheeks like rain as she looked at her sister, but she, conjecturing the truth at once, answered, promptly and coldly:
"He told you that he had deceived you—that you were not his wife!"
"Yes, Sydney, that was what he told me," answered Queenie, with burning cheeks. "He said that the minister who united us was no more a minister than he was, and had only done it for a lark! He said he was tired of me and did not intend to charge himself with my support any longer, and that I might return to my father."
She stopped a moment and brushed away the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.
"Oh! how can I go on?" she exclaimed.
"I am impatient," remarked Sydney.
"I was fairly maddened by that cruel revelation," continued Queenie. "Oh, Sydney, may the dear Lord spare you from such suffering as was mine in that terrible hour! I went mad! All the softness of womanhood died out of me in the face of that cruel wrong! The instinct of the tigress sprang into my heart. I thirsted for Leon Vinton's blood. I cursed him. I rushed upon him and fastened my little, white fingers in his throat and tried to kill the wretch who had betrayed me."
"A murderess!" exclaimed Sydney, recoiling.
"My hands were all too weak and frail to wreak justice upon the villain," Queenie went on, heedless of her sister's ejaculation. "He pushed me off, he swore at me, he strangled me with his strong, white fingers, threw me down upon the earth and spurned me with his foot—aye, trampled upon me! You saw the purple print of his boot-heel on my brow, Sydney. It is here yet," she said, pushing back the fluffy waves of golden hair from her brow and showing the livid scar.
"After that I remember nothing more for several hours," she went on, seeing that Sydney made no answer, "and he musthave thought that he had killed me, for when I came to myself I was lying in a grave, a very shallow grave. I was covered with fresh earth and dead leaves, which the hard and steady rain had partly beaten aside, leaving my face exposed. My murderer had not buried me deep enough. I sprang up out of the shallow hole in which he had laid me, my heart beating wildly with hatred and the thirst for revenge. All the hours of unconsciousness, all the rain and cold that had chilled my body had not cooled the fire of hate, the murderous instinct that possessed me. It seemed to me that nothing could wipe out my wrongs except Leon Vinton's blood."
"And this is the innocent little child that used to be my father's pet!" exclaimed the listener, with a shudder.
"Yes," said Queenie, mournfully. "It seems strange, does it not? I, who only four years ago was the petted child of my father's heart—now I am dead to all that once knew and loved me. I have gone wrong. I have wandered into strange paths. I have buried peace and joy. I have broken my father's heart—all for the sin of one man—mandid I say? Nay, rather a devil in the guise of an angel of light!"
If Sydney's heart had been less hard than marble she must have pitied the beautiful, unfortunate young sister so sadly rehearsing the story of her terrible wrongs.
But she uttered no word of sympathy or pity, she did not take the golden head upon her breast and weep over it as a loving sister would have done. She only said, in her cold, hard, jealous voice:
"Go on, Queenie. You went home to papa then?"
"No, I did not. I went back to the beautiful cottage where I had lived in a fool's Paradise one fatal year. Before I reached there I sawhimstanding alone on the banks of the river. I told you I thirsted for his blood. Nothing could have cooled the fire of my terrible hate but his life-blood poured out in a free libation. His back was turned to me, he neither saw nor heard me. I crept up behind him, I—oh, Sydney, do not look at me so! Remember it was not little Queenie, but a woman gone mad over her terrible wrongs. I could not help it. I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him down into the river!"
"You are even worse than I thought you, Queenie," exclaimed her sister; "yet you—a Magdalen, a murderess—you dared to come back to us and to marry Captain Ernscliffe!"
"I disclaim either of the hard names you have called me, Sydney," her sister answered, defiantly. "I have been deeply sinned against, but I have not sinned. I had no intention of evil when I eloped with Leon Vinton. I thought I was his wife when I lived with him. When I pushed him into the river it was a simple act of justice. If I had gone home to papa and told him my wrongs, and he had killed Leon Vinton, society would have applauded the act and any jury would have acquitted him. It was right for me to punish him. I gloried in the deed."
Sydney made a gesture of abhorrence.
"The only pity," continued the actress, passionately, "is that I did not succeed in my revenge. He rose upon the water once after I pushed him in, and saw me on the bank. Then he shook his fist at me and shouted, with his mouth full of water: 'If I live I will have revenge for this!' Then he went under again, and I ran away and went home to papa."
"Then he was not drowned, after all?" said Sydney.
"No, he was saved from a watery grave, and forthwith began to dog my footsteps again, though so cautiously that I never dreamed but that he was dead. The night I was married I saw him looking in the window at me, but I took him for a ghost or an illusion of fancy, never for a moment as a living creature. But in the moment that I was made a bride he sent me a bouquet. I inhaled the perfume and fell senseless. It was drugged with a powerful sleeping potion. I was not dead, only asleep and unconscious, when they buried me. Leon Vinton resurrected me that night, and confined me as a hated prisoner at the cottage to which he had taken me a happy, thoughtless young bride. That was his diabolical revenge. He knew where I was all the time, but he waited until the full cup of happiness was pressed to my lips, then dashed it away, and spilled the precious wine forever."
She looked at her elder sister with a tearless agony in her pansy-blue eyes, but Sydney only said, impatiently:
"I am anxious to hear how you happened to become such a noted actress."
"A few months after my supposed death, Leon Vinton was killed by the outraged father of a young girl whom he had basely betrayed. In the consequent excitement my prison door was left open, and I escaped and went back to the city, toiling on through the stormy, winter weather as though it was summer time, in my joy at the thought of going back to my home again."
She wrung her jeweled hands and groaned aloud.
"Oh, Heaven! how little I dreamed of the changes that awaited me in the home from which I had been carried a seeming corpse but a few months before. Papa was dead, the rest of you were gone to Europe; there were strangers in the house. Staggering blindly along, almost overwhelmed by the shock of my father's loss, I went to my husband's home. Alas! he, too, was traveling abroad. My last prop was swept from under me. I was homeless, friendless, penniless and forsaken in the great, heartless city, alone in the streets at night, beaten and tossed about by the wind and storm."
"Oh, if she had but died then!" breathed Sydney, inaudibly.
"Sydney, try to put yourself in my place for a moment. You who have lain in luxury's silken lap all your life—who have never known a sorrow. Think of your wronged little sister alone and friendless in the dark and dangerous streets of the city, buffeted by the wintery storms. Surely, then, you will feel some pity for all that I have endured."
Sydney would not even look at the sorrowful face; her ears were deaf to the tremulous, appealing voice.
"Go on with your story," she said, coldly. "These digressions are wearisome. What happened to you then?"
But Queenie had thrown herself back on the divan, with her white hands over her face, and for a moment a profound silence reigned throughout the room. The little French pendule on the mantel was ticking the hours toward noon, but neither of the two women, in their all-absorbing interest in the present, seemed to remember that the actress had made an appointment with Captain Ernscliffe at that hour. Presently Queenie spoke in a faint and mournful voice.
"Sydney, I cannot go on now; I am too faint and exhausted. These painful recollections have wearied and depressed me. Wait a little. I must rest."
"You have come so near to the end of the story, surely you can finish it now," objected Sydney, unfeelingly.
The actress did not speak for a moment; the small hands dropped away from her face, and she lay still, with her long-fringed lashes resting on her white cheek, a look of pain and exhaustion on her delicate lips.
Sydney rose and walked impatiently up and down the floor.
"Sydney," said her sister presently, "there is some wine and glasses on the cabinet there. Will you give me a few drops? Perhaps it may rally my fainting strength."
Sydney went to the cabinet and found a flask of port wine and delicate little crystal glasses.
She poured a little into a glass and looked over at her sister.
Her eyes were still closed, and she looked death-like and pallid as she lay there in her velvet dress and rich surroundings.
A terrible look came into Sydney's face. She put her hand into her bosom and drew out a little vial, unstoppered it, and poured a few drops into the wine.
Then she crossed the room to Queenie's side. Her eyes were burning with some inward fire.
"Here, Queenie," she said, "drink your wine."
"Drink your wine, Queenie," repeated Sydney, in a slightly impatient voice.
The beautiful actress struggled up to a sitting posture and looked into her sister's face.
"Good Heaven, Sydney, what ails you?" she said. "You look positively ghastly. This interview has been too much for you. I entreat you to drink the wine yourself."
But Sydney shook her head, although she was trembling like a leaf and her face was ashen white. She could scarcely keep from spilling the wine, the glass wavered so unsteadily in her hand.
"I insist upon it," said Queenie. "You need a restorative as much as I do. Drink that yourself and give me another glass."
A frightened look came into Sydney's eyes. Was it possible that Queenie had been watching her from under the hands that covered her face?
"I—I assure you I do not need it in the least," she faltered; "you looked so ghastly yourself, lying there, that I was frightened,but my nervousness is quite over now. Pray drink it yourself. I am anxious to see you revive enough to continue your story."
Queenie took the wine-glass in her hand and raised it to her lips.
Sydney watched her with parted lips and burning eyes. Her heart gave a bound of joy as her unfortunate sister touched the fatal draught with her beautiful lips.
They were so absorbed that they had not heard a rapping at the door. Both were quite unconscious that the person seeking admittance had grown impatient and recklessly turned the handle.
But little as they dreamed of such a thing, it was true. Sydney's dreadful crime had had an unthought-of spectator. A man had stood just inside the room and watched her with wild, astonished, horrified eyes.
As Queenie was about to drink the wine he rushed forward and violently struck the glass from her hand. It fell to the floor, shattered into a hundred fragments, the ruby wine splashing over the rich carpet.
The actress sprang to her feet and confronted the daring intruder.
"Lawrence Ernscliffe!" she gasped.
"Lawrence Ernscliffe!" echoed Sydney, in a voice of horror.
"Yes, Lawrence Ernscliffe," he answered, looking at Queenie.
He seemed to have no eyes for anyone but her, although his second wife stood just at his elbow.
"Why are you here?" demanded the actress, haughtily.
The tall, handsome man looked at her in astonishment.
"Madam, you permitted me to call," he said, "and this is the hour you specified. I knocked, but no one came; then I opened the door and entered."
The pride and anger on the lovely face before him softened strangely.
"That is true, I had quite forgotten it," she said. "But then your rudeness in striking the glass from my hand—how do you account for that? What did you mean by it?"
Her beautiful eyes were looking straight into his—the dusky, pansy-blue eyes of the lost bride whom he had worshiped so madly.
His reason seemed to reel before that wonderful resemblance, his heart was on fire with the passion she roused within him; yet through it all he had a vague feeling that he must shield Sydney, that he must not betray her to the beautiful woman whom she had wronged.
His dark eyes fell before her steady gaze, his cheek reddened, his tongue felt thick when he tried to speak.
Sydney's heart was beating almost to suffocation, while he stood thus hesitating. She knew when he struck the glass from Queenie's hand that he had witnessed her dastardly crime.
She wondered if his mad passion for the beautiful actress would lead him to betrayher—his wife!
In her terror and desperation she grasped his arm and looked up pleadingly into his face.
Captain Ernscliffe looked down at her—oh! the withering scorn, the just horror of that look.
She shrank back abashed before it, but he slowly shook his head.
She was safe—he could not forget that she bore his name, however unworthily.
"I ask you again, sir," said the actress, in a voice that demanded reply, "why did you strike the glass from my hand?"
"Madam, I—I—pardon me, I was excited, I knew not what I did!" he stammered, not daring to meet her searching gaze.
Suddenly Queenie uttered a cry of grief and terror. A little pet dog had left his cushion in the corner and lapped up the spilled wine from the floor with its tiny, pointed tongue.
Now, after a few, unsteady motions, and two or three whining moans of pain, it uttered one sharp, despairing yelp, rolled over upon the carpet and expired.
After Queenie's one terrified cry a dead silence reigned throughout the room.
Sydney dropped into a chair, trembling so that she could not stand, and put her hands before her face. Her sin had found her out.
Queenie would certainly revenge herself now by revealing her identity. What mercy could she expect from the sister she had hated and tried to murder?
"I understand your reluctance to explain yourself now, sir," said the voice of the actress, falling on her ears like the knell of doom. "You would shield your wife!"
He did not answer. His head was bowed on his breast, his handsome, high-bred face was pale with emotion. She went on coldly after a moment's pause:
"I thank you, Captain Ernscliffe, for the ready hand that struck the poisoned wine from my lips, although my life is so valueless to me that it was scarcely worth the saving. But now will you withdraw and leave me to deal with this lady?"
Sydney glanced up through the fingers that hid her shamed face. What did Queenie mean to do? Was it possible that she would not reveal her identity to her husband?
"Madam," he remonstrated, "you were willing to accord me an interview. Surely you will not send me away like this. I cannot go until I have told you why I am here!"
The resolution in his voice alarmed her. She stepped back a pace and stood looking at him with parted lips and burning eyes, her face as white as marble against the background of her rich but somber velvet robe, her loosened, golden hair falling around her like a veil of light.
"We—I—that is—you can have nothing to say to me that I wish to hear!" she panted. "Pray go—let us part as we met—strangers!"
He looked at her with a strange light in his dark eyes, a warm flush creeping into his face.
Sydney watched him with wild, fascinated eyes. What would he say to this speech of the actress?
"We have not met as strangers—we cannot part thus!" he answered firmly. "Surely my eyes and my heart cannot both deceive me! La Reine Blanche, you are my lost wife, Queenie!"