CHAPTER XXVI.

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 saw _him_ standing 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, pa.s.sionately, "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 gla.s.ses 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 gla.s.ses.

She poured a little into a gla.s.s 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."

CHAPTER XXVII.

"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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s."

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 a.s.sure 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-gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s from her hand. It fell to the floor, shattered into a hundred fragments, the ruby wine splashing over the rich carpet.