Then, before they even guessed what she was about to do, she clasped both hands about the dagger's hilt, and with a terrible effort wrenched it from her breast and threw it far from her. Her heart's blood spurted out in a great, warm, crimson tide over the bodice of her white satin dress, she quivered from head to foot, and died with her dim eyes fixed in a long, last look of love on Lawrence Ernscliffe's handsome face.
When the play was over, and the beautiful actress was leaving the theater for the last time, someone touched her arm and detained her. She looked up into the pale face of Captain Ernscliffe.
"Nay, Queenie," he said gently, "you need not shrink from me now. Sydney has confessed all."
She looked up at him in wonder as he drew her hand lovingly within his arm.
"She has given you up to me, and you know all?" she repeated, like one dazed.
"Yes, Queenie, I know all, and I am yours alone now, for—prepare yourself for a great shock, my darling—your sister, Sydney, is dead!"