"Well?" she interrogated, curtly and haughtily.
"Send your maid away, please, Miss Fielding," said a low, imploring voice that made Jewel start in spite of her haughty self-command. She immediately motioned Marie away, and, rising quickly, turned the key in the lock after her exit.
Then, with a swift tremor shaking her whole frame, she confronted the veiled figure.
"Now," she said, sharply, and the veil was flung aside by an agitated hand, and Jewel and Flower, the long-parted half-sisters, the beautiful rivals, stood face to face!
Something like a groan of despair came from Jewel's blanched lips, and Flower said, bitterly:
"You know me!"
Jewel was not taken wholly by surprise. She had been looking for something like this for two years, never having quite believed her own story of Flower's suicide. She remained silent a moment, collecting her thoughts, then said, coldly:
"I have believed you dead for two years, but the moment you spoke I knew your voice. I never heard a voice quite like yours. But where have you been so long, and what has brought you here to-night?"
Flower, whose beautiful face was wan and ghastly white, answered, with sudden passion: