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 cluster 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 embarrassed 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 passion, 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.