The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie's Part 82

"Mamma, let me kiss you once," she said, "only once, dear mamma, before I go away! I have loved you so, I have hungered for you so these long years while I have been away from you! Let me even kiss your hand, mamma, and I will try to be content. Oh! surely you will show me a little kindness if only for papa's sake, who loved me so dearly!"

But the mother's heart was turned to stone. She thrust away the clinging hands, she spurned the tender, beseeching lips.

"Go away," she harshly reiterated, "you are no child of mine. My daughter Queenie is dead and buried!"

The discarded daughter knelt down by Sydney's beautiful, lifeless clay and took the cold hand in hers, then kissed the white, breathless lips.

"Good-bye, Sydney," she whispered against the icy cheek. "You were kinder to me than they. You sought to kill my body, but they have broken my heart!"

She rose, after one long look of grief and pain, and went back to Captain Ernscliffe.

"I have only you left, Lawrence," she said, mournfully.

"I will be father, mother, sister, husband--everything to you, my darling," he answered, fondly, as he drew her hand in his arm.

"Put me in the carriage now," she said. "I am very weary. I must go home."

"You will have to be present at the inquest to-morrow. Did you know that?" he said.

"Yes, I will be there. Good-night, Lawrence," she said, putting her hand out from the carriage window.

He clasped and kissed it, then after watching the carriage out of sight, went back to where the mourners kept their weary vigil by the side of the beautiful woman who had loved him so fondly and fatally.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

All London rang with the romantic facts that were elicited at the inquest over the body of poor, murdered Sydney, but though the examination was conducted with the utmost strictness, and every available witness was interrogated, no light was thrown upon the matter that could lead to a conviction of the murderer.

Everyone who heard the tragic story of how Sydney came to her death, thought that Madame Reine De Lisle's evidence would certainly furnish some satisfactory clew to the enemy who had sought her life. To their surprise and consternation, she declared herself utterly ignorant in the matter.

The note which Sydney had read was found on the dressing-room floor but Queenie did not recognize the writing and could not guess the writer.

"If I had found the note myself I should have thought precisely as she did, that it was written by Captain Ernscliffe," she admitted, frankly.

"But I should not have gone to meet him, for I had promised my sister to avoid him, and deny my ident.i.ty to him. I have not an enemy upon earth that I am aware of, neither a jealous lover who might seek my life. I had an enemy once, who was cruel and vindictive enough for any deed of darkness, but he is dead long ago."

They cross-examined her, they tried to trip her in every way, but she never varied in her evidence, and never faltered in her reiterated declarations, so at last they let her go, feeling convinced that nothing but the truth had pa.s.sed her lips.

So the mystery only deepened, and taken together with the romance and pathos that clung about the story of the resurrected wife and her brilliant career while seeking her husband, it created a perfect _furor_ of excitement.

The interested parties had tried to keep it a secret, but the facts had leaked out in spite of them.

Everybody had heard that the great actress was Captain Ernscliffe's first wife, who had died and been resurrected from the grave and restored to life, kept a prisoner for months, then escaped, and been cared for in her friendlessness and desolation by an old actor and actress, who had found her dying in the wintery night when she had escaped from her cruel jailers.

They had taught her their profession, and she had gone upon the stage to earn money to seek her husband.

All this the world knew, and it knew also that the proud Lady Valentine and her mother refused to recognize the actress, and branded her as a lying impostor.

All these facts only added to the interest and admiration that had followed La Reine Blanche wherever she moved.

And poor Sydney was laid away in her grave, while her cowardly murderer roved at large, "unwhipped of justice."

One single clew to the criminal had been found. Captain Ernscliffe had employed the most noted detective of the day to ferret out the mystery.

This man had been thoroughly over the ground of the murder, and had found one trifling clew.

Yet he confidently told his employer that it was an important link in the chain and might possibly convict the murderer.

It seemed a very trifling thing to Captain Ernscliffe, who had not learned by grave experience what simple things might lead to great results.

It was only a woman's handkerchief of plain white linen that he had found outside the western door, wet and soiled where it had lain on the damp earth all night.

Only a woman's handkerchief, but it was marked in one corner with a name--the simple name of "Elsie Gray."

Queenie started when she heard what the detective had said about the handkerchief. She sent for him immediately.

"Do you believe that there was a woman in complicity with the man who murdered my unfortunate sister?" she inquired.

"Madam, I cannot tell you," he answered. "She may have been in complicity with him or she may have been a chance witness. Anyhow I am bound to find Elsie Gray."

"I can give you this much information about her," was the startling reply. "Elsie Gray was my maid, and she has been missing ever since the hour of the murder."

"Elsie Gray your maid!" exclaimed the detective. "That throws new light on the matter. Can you account for her disappearance?"

"Not at all. She was in the habit of going to the theater every night with me to help me to change my costumes for the different scenes. She went with me that night, but when I went to my room after the first act she was not there. I have never seen her since."

"Had she any grudge against you?"

"None that I am aware of. She was a good-natured, middle-aged woman, and appeared to be attached to me."

The detective took out pencil and paper.

"Will you describe her appearance to me, Mrs. Ernscliffe?" he said, courteously.

Queenie started and blushed at being addressed by her husband's name.

She had not yet decided whether she would return to him again or not, but she complied with the detective's request and minutely described her maid's appearance.

He carefully noted it down, bowed and withdrew. He reported what he had learned to Captain Ernscliffe, who bade him go ahead and spare neither pains nor expense until he had discovered the murderer.

In the meantime the wide-spread notoriety of the whole affair was very distressing to Mrs. Lyle and the Valentines, and to Queenie and Lawrence Ernscliffe as well. They could not bear to remain in London.

Lord Valentine took his wife and mother-in-law to Italy for an indefinite sojourn.

Lawrence Ernscliffe begged his wife to let him take her back to America to the beautiful home he had prepared for her reception three years before.