Lawrence Ernscliffe advanced and stood before her in the doorway. She could not bear the passionate pain and reproach in the beautiful eyes he fastened on her face. Her gaze wavered and fell before his. "Queenie," he said, slowly and sadly, "you have not deceived me! You cannot deny that you are my own! Your soul is too white and pure to suffer such a falsehood to stain your lips! Yet you will not let me claim you, you are sacrificing your happiness and mine for a mere chimera! I understand it all. Sydney has asked for the sacrifice and you have made it. It is for _her sake_!" He bent down, lifted a spray of white hyacinth that had fallen from the lace on her breast to the floor, pressed it to his lips, and silently withdrew. Queenie closed the door upon his retreating form and turned back to her sister. "He was right," she said slowly, "I have sacrificed my happiness and his for your sake, Sydney." Sydney lifted her heavy eyes and looked at her without speaking. Queenie went on slowly: "This is my revenge, Sydney: you have scorned and insulted me, you have branded me with a cruel name, you have tried to poison me--me, the little sister you loved and petted when we were children at our mother's knee! Yet, for the sake of those old days, and the love we had for each other then, I forgive you--nay, more, I make the sacrifice you were cruel enough to ask of me. I resign the one being whom I have sought for years--the one thing dear to me upon earth. I give you the pulse of my heart, the life of my life, the soul of my soul!" Cold and white as marble in her sublime self-abnegation, she pointed to the door. "Go," she said, "I can bear no more!" Sydney obeyed her without a word. Then the beautiful queen of tragedy, the lovely woman who counted her admirers by the hundreds, knelt down upon the floor, and lifted her white, despairing face to Heaven. "Oh! God," she moaned, "If indeed I am a sinner, as she said, surely this great and bitter sacrifice for another's sake must win for me the pity and pardon of Heaven!" CHAPTER XXIX. The three weeks of La Reine Blanche's London engagement were drawing to a close. She had achieved a brilliant success. Her beauty and her genius were the themes of every tongue. Her admirers were legion. She had a score of wealthy and titled lovers. It was even said that a noble and well-known duke had proposed to marry her, and met with a cold and haughty refusal. The managers of the theater where she was playing tried to secure her for another month. It would be worth a fortune to them, they said, and they allowed her to make her own terms. To their consternation she utterly declined a longer engagement and announced her intention to retire from the stage.