"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, pa.s.sionately, 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.

CHAPTER XXIV.

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 cl.u.s.ter 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----"

"_Our_ husband!" said the actress, filling up the embarra.s.sed 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 only _would_ go 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."

"_Your_ happiness, 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 pa.s.sion, 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."

"_That_ was 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 learned them 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?"