"Oh, Heaven! how little I dreamed of the changes that awaited me in the home from which I had been carried a seeming corpse but a few months before. Papa was dead, the rest of you were gone to Europe; there were strangers in the house. Staggering blindly along, almost overwhelmed by the shock of my father's loss, I went to my husband's home. Alas! he, too, was traveling abroad. My last prop was swept from under me. I was homeless, friendless, penniless and forsaken in the great, heartless city, alone in the streets at night, beaten and tossed about by the wind and storm."
"Oh, if she had but died then!" breathed Sydney, inaudibly.
"Sydney, try to put yourself in my place for a moment. You who have lain in luxury's silken lap all your life—who have never known a sorrow. Think of your wronged little sister alone and friendless in the dark and dangerous streets of the city, buffeted by the wintery storms. Surely, then, you will feel some pity for all that I have endured."
Sydney would not even look at the sorrowful face; her ears were deaf to the tremulous, appealing voice.
"Go on with your story," she said, coldly. "These digressions are wearisome. What happened to you then?"
But Queenie had thrown herself back on the divan, with her white hands over her face, and for a moment a profound silence reigned throughout the room. The little French pendule on the mantel was ticking the hours toward noon, but neither of the two women, in their all-absorbing interest in the present, seemed to remember that the actress had made an appointment with Captain Ernscliffe at that hour. Presently Queenie spoke in a faint and mournful voice.
"Sydney, I cannot go on now; I am too faint and exhausted. These painful recollections have wearied and depressed me. Wait a little. I must rest."
"You have come so near to the end of the story, surely you can finish it now," objected Sydney, unfeelingly.
The actress did not speak for a moment; the small hands dropped away from her face, and she lay still, with her long-fringed lashes resting on her white cheek, a look of pain and exhaustion on her delicate lips.