French
leave, when the figure of a woman enters, drops her cloak, and--Roger
sees no more. He hears a sudden painful gasp at his side, and turns to
see Olive, whiter than her lilies, rising from her seat slowly, as if
faint.

"Olive," he exclaimed, hastily drawing the curtain between them and the
audience, but she put out her hand, and then sank back in her chair, too
weak to stand, for the first time in her life:

"Ernestine!" she said, huskily. "It is Ernestine!"

In incredulous amaze, he looked back at the stage, just as the queen was
leading Florestein off, and he sees a frail-looking figure heaped in
gaudy toggery, that looks as though it would drag her down with its
weight; and, above it, is a pale flower-like face, with great dark,
weary-looking eyes, and a heavy coronet of yellow hair twisted with
tinsel and gauze.

"How can I go to her?" Olive is saying with intense eagerness, and
leaving her seat with a new strength. "Tell me quick, for I must go at
once--tell me, quick."

"It will do no good," said Roger, laying a detaining hand on her arm.
"Listen to me a moment, Olive,"--as she threw it off in wild impatience.
"They would not admit us behind the scenes, and besides, do you not see
how frail and weak she looks? The shock would unfit her for the rest of
the performance and--"

"What do I care for that? She shall leave them at once. I will go to
her. I'll go alone, if you will not go with me," cried Olive with
glowing eyes and trembling lips, and moving towards the door.

"But she dare not leave, and they would not allow you to see her," said
Roger earnestly. "Only wait until the performance is over, and we will
be at the stage entrance to meet her as she comes out. It will be best
so; believe me, and trust in my interest, that is doubly deep for your
sake."

Olive hesitated, but reason conquered, and she came trembling back to
her seat, saying in an excited whisper:

"I cannot look at her again; I shall certainly betray myself if I do.
Oh, how deathly she looks! I cannot bear it!"

Roger did not doubt her self-control, until the gypsy queen appeared
from her tent to disturb the love-scene of Thaddeus and Arline; and
then, as Olive started forward and leaned against the box-rail, with
parted, colorless lips, he certainly thought the name hovering on them
would escape. But it did not. She pressed her hands tightly together
and looked down, with such glittering eyes that it is a wonder their
intens