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 your reason 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 with _her_ face 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.
"_Has_ the dead come back?" she asked herself. "Oh! no, it _cannot_ be!"
"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!"
"Your _all_!" exclaimed La Reine Blanche, with a curling lip. "Lady, you
prate of your love for Lawrence Ernscliffe, you tell me that he is your
_all_! You tell me what he is to _you_--will you tell me what you are to
_him_?"
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 you _are_ Queenie 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, and _never_ shall 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.