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.'"