The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret

"Nothing," she answered. "I thank you for your information," and staggered down the steps into the street again.

"Dead, dead!" she kept moaning to herself as she staggered along the street in white, tearless despair. "Papa is dead! and died of a broken heart for me. Oh, I was not worth such devotion!"

Her mind was so full of this terrible blow that had fallen upon her that she could think of nothing else, until suddenly she saw that the brief winter twilight was settling fast over everything. Then a terror of the night and cold took hold of her. She thought of her husband.

"They are all gone—papa and the rest," she murmured; "I have no one but Lawrence now. I will go to him."

The thought seemed to invest him with added tenderness and dearness. She hastened her footsteps, and before long she stood in front of the splendid mansion where Captain Ernscliffe lived, and which he had refurnished in splendid style for his fair young bride. The windows were closed as if the house was deserted, but she went up the steps and rang the bell. A woman servant answered the summons.

"Is Captain Ernscliffe at home?" asked Queenie, in a faint and trembling voice.

CHAPTER XX

The woman whom Queenie had addressed, and who had the appearance of being the housekeeper, stood still and looked at the young girl a moment without replying.

"Is Captain Ernscliffe at home?" repeated Queenie, in a tone of wistful eagerness.

"What do you want of Captain Ernscliffe?" asked the woman, rudely, as she stared suspiciously into the troubled, white face of the beautiful questioner.

Queenie drew her slight figure haughtily erect.

"My business is with Captain Ernscliffe," she said, in a cool, firm tone that rebuked the woman's impertinent curiosity. "Can I see him?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," said the housekeeper, with a palpable sneer. She was offended because Queenie had failed to gratify her curiosity.

"Show me in at once, then," said Queenie, making a motion to step across the threshold.

But the woman held the door in her hand and placed herself in front of it.

"You'll have to travel many a mile from this to see him," she said, maliciously.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Queenie, turning pale. "Is he not at home? I will wait here until he comes then."

"You'll wait many a month then," was the grim reply of the offended woman.

"I do not understand you," Queenie answered, passing her small hand across her brow with a dim presentiment of coming evil. "Will you please tell me where I can find Captain Ernscliffe?"

"You'll find him across the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere in Europe, ma'am!"

She fired the words off like a final shot and looked at Queenie, prepared to enjoy her chagrin and amazement, but she was almost frightened by the expression of terrible despair that came over the beautiful, young face.

"In Europe," she said in a voice so low and heart-broken the woman could scarcely hear it. "Are you quite sure?"

"Quite sure, ma'am. He went away to travel a week after his wife's death, and may not return for years."

She made a motion to shut the door, intimating that the conference was ended, but Queenie leaned up against it so that she was compelled to desist.

"Can you give me his address that I may write to him?" she said.

"Well, I never!" ejaculated the housekeeper, staring at her in amazement.

Queenie only repeated her words more plainly.

"I know no more of his whereabouts than the dead!" was the answer. "He expected to be traveling all the time."

A smothered moan of pain came from the white lips of the listener.

"Have you done with me?" asked the woman, impatiently.

Queenie looked out into the street. It was almost dark, and a sleety mist was beginning to fall. The lamp-lighters were going their rounds lighting up the gas-lamps at the corners of the streets, and belated pedestrians were hurrying homeward.

With a shiver she turned back to the portly, comfortable figure of the woman rustling on the door-sill in her black silk dress, quite unconscious that she was holding the door against her mistress, and the mistress of that elegant brown stone mansion on whose threshold she stood.

"You are Captain Ernscliffe's housekeeper?" said Queenie.

"Yes, and I am left in charge of the house during his absence," answered the woman, bridling with a sense of her importance.

"I am a friend of Captain Ernscliffe," said Queenie, timidly. "Will you let me stay here to-night? I am homeless and penniless!"

The housekeeper favored her with a stare of scornful incredulity.

"Captain Ernscliffe's friends are all rich people," she said, with a toss of the head. "He don't have any acquaintance with tramps!"

"I assure you that I am not a tramp," answered the young girl, quickly. "I have been very unfortunate in arriving in this city and finding my friends all dead or away. If your master were here he would certainly give me shelter this wintery night."

"It's more than I'll do, then," said the housekeeper sharply; "come, young woman, don't tell no more lies! Captain Ernscliffe don't know you, but I do! You're a burglar's accomplice, and you want to get into the house that you may open it to your friends in the night and rob the house."

"Indeed you are mistaken," said Queenie earnestly. "Oh! do let me stay! If you don't I shall perish of cold in the streets to-night and my death will be on your hands. You may lock me into a room if you are afraid of me—only give me shelter."

It had been on her mind to declare herself the wife of Captain Ernscliffe, and force the woman to admit her into the house that was virtually her own. But a moment's reflection showed the utter futility of such a course. No one except those who loved her would give credence to such a wild, improbable tale; no one would believe that the grave had given back its dead unless she could offer more substantial proof than she had at command. This woman before her would have laughed such an assertion to scorn.

"Come, move on," she said roughly, at the same time seizing the girl by the shoulder and pushing her from her position against the door. "I can't shelter the likes of you, and I won't stand here in the cold wasting breath on you a minute longer."

Queenie turned as the woman pushed her toward the steps and looked her in the eyes.

"You may be sorry for this some day," she said.

"Ha, ha," laughed the heartless housekeeper, "sorry indeed! Sorry that I didn't take a tramp into the house to rob my master."

"Will you let me stay?" said Queenie, once more looking over her shoulder as she was wearily descending the marble steps.

If the woman's heart had not been made of stone it must have melted at the anguish in that sweet, white face, but she only reiterated her refusal more angrily.

"I am friendless and penniless," pleaded Queenie, still hoping to melt that icy heart. "Think what may happen to me in the streets at night!"

"Go! go!" exclaimed the hard-hearted creature, fiercely.

"I will go," said Queenie, drawing her cloak about her, and preparing to breast the wintery storm. "I will go, but remember, madam, that you may one day repent this! It is quite, quite possible that I may one day turn you from these doors as you have turned me to-night."

For all answer the woman slammed the door in her face, and fiercely locked it.

Queenie was left alone standing on the wet pavement in the wintery night, locked out of her husband's house like a thief, a waif and a stray by night, while over her loomed the great brown-stone palace that a few months ago had been splendidly refitted and furnished in velvets, tapestries, gildings and bronzes, for her pleasure. It was hers—her husband's—therefore her own. Yet she turned away from its inhospitable doors, homeless, friendless, penniless—worse than all, hopeless!

"Where the lamps quiverSo far in the river,With many a lightFrom window and casement,From garret to basement,She stood with amazementHouseless by night."

CHAPTER XXI

It is some time since we have seen Mrs. Lyle and her elder daughter.

We must seek them now in one of "the stately homes of England."

They are the guests of Lady Valentine at her elegant residence in the most fashionable quarter of London.

Nearly four years have elapsed since we first met the Lyles and heard the spirited discussion over little Queenie's first ball and Sydney's old green silk dress.

Sydney and Georgina would not need to scrimp little Queenie's share of finery to bedeck themselves now were she living.

Georgina's husband is wealthy and indulgent, and "Uncle Robert," the beneficent friend of their earlier days, has charged himself with Sydney's support ever since her father died until recently, when she has married a wealthy man.

Mrs. Lyle lives with Georgina, and still enjoys the whirl of fashionable life as much as ever—indeed more than ever, for now there is no vexing question relative to the girls' finery disturbing her placid mind.

It is a chilly morning in mid-winter, and the three ladies are sitting in a pleasant morning-room, Georgina, grown plump and indolent, idly reclining in an easy-chair, with her dimpled white hands lazily folded over her silken lap, Mrs. Lyle perusing a morning paper, and Sydney gazing restlessly out of the window—watching, perhaps, for her husband—the honeymoon is not a month old yet, and she is naturally impatient at his absence.

Into this quiet scene enters Lord Valentine and tosses some cards into his wife's lap.

"Tickets for La Reine Blanche to-night," he says.

All three ladies utter a cry of delight.

"At last," exclaims Mrs. Lyle, in a spasm of anticipation.

"Yes, at last," laughs my Lord Valentine. "The great American actress will play at the theater to-night, and we shall have a chance to see if she is really as great an artiste as Madame Rumor reports."

"Here is a paragraph regarding her now," says Mrs. Lyle, and taking up the paper, she reads aloud:

"The beautiful and gifted young American actress, Madame Reine De Lisle, will make her debut before a London audience to-night in the great emotional play of 'Romeo and Juliet.' The fame of this wonderful artiste has preceded her to England, and all lovers of the drama are on the qui vive for the first appearance of La Reine Blanche, as her admirers call her."

"La Reine Blanche," said Lord Valentine's little sister, looking up from her volume of history as she sat in a corner by the fire. "La Reine Blanche—that means 'the white queen.' They used to call Mary Queen of Scots La Reine Blanche, because she was so fair and lovely, and because she wore a white dress when she was in mourning. I have just been reading about her in my history. I wonder if this great actress is beautiful also?"

"She is said to be the most beautiful blonde in the world, Alice," said Lord Valentine, smiling down at the little school-girl.

A slight cloud has shadowed the brightness of Lady Valentine's face while little Lady Alice is speaking. She leans toward her mother, and says in a slightly lowered voice, but one which is distinctly audible to Sydney:

"Alice's French recalls my own, mamma. Have you ever thought what the name of this great tragedy queen, if rendered into English, would be?"

"Reine De Lisle," repeated Mrs. Lyle, musingly.

Then she gives a great start.

"It would be—ah, it would be Queen Lyle!"

"Exactly," says Georgina. "Quite an odd coincidence. Is it not?"

She leans back in her seat with a thoughtful look on her pretty pink and white face.

Old times and old interests crowd into her mind with the memory of her younger sister. Time has thrown a veil over Queenie's faults and follies, and Georgina recalls her now with a softening remembrance, and half regrets the scorn she cast upon her when she returned to them so strangely.

"But ah! that missing year," she asks herself, as she has done many times before. "Where was it spent?"

Sydney had risen at the first mention of Queenie's name and swept out of the room. Neither time nor change had softened her hatred and resentment against poor little Queenie.

She had hated her beautiful sister while living, and she hated her, even in her grave, so bitterly that she could not endure the mention of her name even now when years had come and gone.

CHAPTER XXII

"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.

CHAPTER XXIII

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.