"It has been but the means to an end," replied Queenie. "It has never filled but half my heart. The other half has never been at rest. It has always been seeking its lost mate. How could I give him up now that I have found him?" "You mean to take him from me, then?" said Sydney, with a dangerous gleam of hatred firing into her black eyes. La Reine Blanche did not answer. The blush had faded from her cheeks, and left them deathly pale. Sydney could read nothing of her thoughts in the blue eyes, half veiled by the sweeping lashes. She moved restlessly in her chair. "You promised to tell me your story," she said, coldly and sharply. "I am here to listen." The faded color rushed back in crimson waves to Queenie's face. She looked up into the proud, scornful features of her sister. "I am going to keep my word," she said, "and yet, Sydney, will you believe me when I tell you that I would rather tell my story to any other person on earth than you? Yes, I think I could sooner tell Lawrence Ernscliffe himself. I do not believe that anyone else would judge me as harshly and unpityingly as you will do--not even a stranger." She was silent a moment, and lay still, shading her face with one small, white hand that sparkled with diamonds; then, as Sydney made no answer, she said, with a visible effort: "Where shall I begin, Sydney?" "At the beginning," answered Sydney, curtly. "I must go back four years, then," said Queenie. "Sydney, do you remember the day that I sold my painted fan that Uncle Robert gave me to buy a tarleton dress to wear to Mrs. Kirk's grand ball?" "Yes, I remember." "_That_ was the beginning, Sydney. I saw a gentleman in the store where I sold my fan--the handsomest man I ever saw in my life--tall, dark, elegant. He looked me straight in the face as I left the store, and my foolish heart fluttered into my mouth. You know I was very young and romantic at that time--both things of which I cannot accuse myself now," added Queenie, thinking sagely that her present twenty-one years made her quite elderly. "Yes," said Sydney, curtly. "The man bought my fan as soon as I left the store; then he followed me. I did not know these things then, but I learned them afterward. Perhaps you remember that 'an unknown admirer' sent the fan back to me?" "Yes," said Sydney, curtly. "You remember also, Sydney, that every day an elegant bouquet, formed of the choicest hot-house flowers, came to me from the same unknown source?" Sydney nodded an affirmative answer.