But he shrank back aghast at her words.

"Oh, Sydney, don't ask me! Will you not see them all first, and say good-bye--your mother, your sisters?'

"No, no, I want--none--but you," she moaned, "and, oh, my G.o.d, how terrible the pain is! Yet, Lawrence--I will stay yet a little longer--I will try to bear it still, if you will kneel down there and pray for me!

I am such a sinner, I am almost _afraid to die_!"

"Do you repent, Sydney?" he asked, gently.

"Do I?" she wailed; "oh, my G.o.d, _yes_! I am sorry for it all, now! Tell her I tried to make atonement at the last. She will forgive me. Little Queenie was always very tender-hearted. Pray for me now--ask G.o.d to forgive me, too."

He bowed his head and prayed fervently for the welfare of the soul about to be launched upon the sh.o.r.eless waters of eternity.

When the low "amen" vibrated on the night air, she looked up and said moaningly:

"Have you forgiven me, too, Lawrence?"

He bent and kissed the poor, pale, quivering lips.

"All is forgiven, Sydney," he answered, gently.

"Then call the physician," she moaned. "Let him draw this cruel steel from--my breast! I cannot--bear it--any longer!"

But the physician recoiled as Captain Ernscliffe had done when she told him what she wished him to do.

"I should feel like a murderer," he gasped. "You could not live a minute after the blade was drawn out of your breast."

She turned away from him and put out her hand to the man she loved so madly.

"Farewell, Lawrence," she said. "Think of me sometimes as of one who--loved you--'not wisely, but too well!'"

Then, before they even guessed what she was about to do, she clasped both hands about the dagger's hilt, and with a terrible effort wrenched it from her breast and threw it far from her. Her heart's blood spurted out in a great, warm, crimson tide over the bodice of her white satin dress, she quivered from head to foot, and died with her dim eyes fixed in a long, last look of love on Lawrence Ernscliffe's handsome face.

When the play was over, and the beautiful actress was leaving the theater for the last time, someone touched her arm and detained her. She looked up into the pale face of Captain Ernscliffe.

"Nay, Queenie," he said gently, "you need not shrink from me now. Sydney has confessed all."

She looked up at him in wonder as he drew her hand lovingly within his arm.

"She has given you up to me, and you know _all_?" she repeated, like one dazed.

"Yes, Queenie, I know all, and I am yours alone now, for--prepare yourself for a great shock, my darling--your sister, Sydney, is dead!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

"Dead!" exclaimed Queenie, with a start of horror; "oh, no, that cannot be! It is but a little while since I saw her living and beautiful under this roof!"

"Her body is here still, Queenie, but her soul has fled to the G.o.d who gave it," he answered solemnly.

She trembled like a leaf in a storm at that grave a.s.surance.

"Queenie, let me take you back to your dressing-room," he said. "Stay there a little while until I come for you."

Utterly unnerved by the shock of his revelation, she suffered him to lead her back. He left her at the door of her room and went out to seek Lord Valentine.

He had just put his wife and mother-in-law into the carriage, and stood talking with the driver on the pavement.

"Yes sir," the man was saying, "you know you brought her out and put her into the carriage yourself, and I jumped up on the box and drove right off. But when I got to Valentine House, my lord, the carriage was empty.

Yet I could swear to you, my lord, that the carriage was never stopped an instant between here and home."

"Come with me, my lord," said Captain Ernscliffe, in a whisper, as he touched his arm, "I will explain the mystery."

"Very well. Let the carriage wait until I return," he said to the man as he walked away with his brother-in-law.

Captain Ernscliffe led him back into the theater where Sydney lay still and cold in death, watched by the manager and several of the theater employes. They had lifted the body and laid it on a pile of silken cushions, to remain until it had been viewed by the coroner, who had been immediately notified of the terrible event.

At a whispered request the manager gave the paper containing the dying deposition of Sydney into Ernscliffe's hands, and he in turn pa.s.sed it over to Lord Valentine.

"Great Heaven! this is terrible," he exclaimed, looking down at the rigid form of his sister-in-law. "What is to be done? Who will break the news to her mother and sister?"

They walked apart, and Captain Ernscliffe briefly told him the truth--that Madame Reine De Lisle was his lost wife, Queenie, and that Sydney's knowledge of that fact had maddened her with suspicion and jealousy, and driven her into the fatal error that had cost her her life.

"It is too wonderful to be true," said Lord Valentine. "I cannot believe that the woman I saw lying dead in her coffin has been so strangely resurrected. Surely, Ernscliffe, this beautiful actress has but traded on her wonderful resemblance to your lost bride, and deceived you and Sydney both. Have nothing to do with this beautiful siren."

Captain Ernscliffe looked at him half angrily.

"My Lord Valentine," he answered haughtily, "you charge her with that of which she is not guilty. She has not deceived us. She did not seek us; we sought her, and as long as Sydney lived she evaded the truth and would not acknowledge her ident.i.ty to me, because my second wife had begged her to sacrifice herself for her sake. But come with me. Since you doubt her ident.i.ty let us see if she will recognize you. If you appear as a stranger to her we may then afford to doubt her."

They went to Queenie's dressing-room and knocked on the door. She opened it and bade them enter in a faltering voice, with her cheeks bathed in tears, her blue eyes downcast and troubled.

"Queenie, look up," said Captain Ernscliffe. "Do you recognize this gentleman?"

The actress lifted her lovely eyes, dimmed with bitter weeping and looked at him. A gleam of recognition shone in her face.

"Yes," she answered, in her sweet, low voice. "It is Lord Valentine, who was married to my sister Georgina the night you married me."

Captain Ernscliffe flashed a triumphant look upon his brother-in-law.

"You see she knows all about us," he said. "Now you cannot but admit her ident.i.ty. You must believe that she is my wife!"

Lord Valentine grew white and red by turns as he gazed upon the beautiful, queenly woman.

"I admit madam's wonderful beauty, her grace and her talent," he said, slowly, "and I will not deny her astonishing resemblance to your lost bride; but, Ernscliffe, I will not believe this trumped-up story of poor Queenie's resurrection. You are the victim of a monstrous fraud!"