"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 at _Lady Capulet's_ ball."
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 sighing _Romeo_ walking about and soliloquizing in the
garden of the hostile _Capulet_, the gentle _Juliet_ in 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 young _Juliet_ in a wild,
astonished, incredulous gaze as she leans upon the balcony, murmuring
words of love to handsome young _Romeo_ in the garden beneath. It was no
wonder, for _Juliet_, 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 heard _Romeo_ exclaim in
deep and passionate accents:
"'Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--'"
And _Juliet_ interrupted 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.'"
With those words:
"Oh! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,"
_Juliet_ raised 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.'"
"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 yonder _Juliet_ is 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
of _Juliet_. 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. I _must_ speak 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, I _must_ have 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 theater _sub 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.