Cruel As The Grave

Oh, these transient fascinations, what eternal miseries they sometimes

bring!

But a greater trial awaited the jealous wife in the evening, when they

were all gathered in the drawing-room, and Rosa Blondelle, beautifully

dressed, seated herself at the grand piano, and began to sing and play

some of the impassioned songs from the Italian operas; and Lyon Berners,

a very great enthusiast in music, hung over the siren, doubly entranced

by her beauty and her voice. Sybil, too, stood with the little group at

the piano; but she stood back in the shade, where the expression of her

agonized face could not be seen by the other two, even if they had been

at leisure to observe her. She was suffering the fiercest tortures of

jealousy.

Sybil's education had been neglected, as I have told you. She had a fine

contralto voice and a perfect ear, but these were both uncultivated; and

so she could only sing and play the simplest ballads in the language.

She had often regretted her want of power to please the fastidious

musical taste of her husband; but never so bitterly as now, when she saw

that power in the possession of another, and that other a beauty, a

rival, and an inmate of her house. Oh, how deeply she now deplored her

short-sightedness in bringing this siren to her home!

At the most impassioned, most expressive passages of the music, Rosa

Blondelle would lift her eloquent blue eyes to those of Lyon Berners,

who responded to their language.

And Sybil stood in the shadow near them, with pallid cheeks, compressed

lips, and glittering eyes--mute, still, full of repressed anguish and

restrained fury.

Ah, Rosa Blondelle, take heed! Better that you should come between the

lioness and her young than between Sybil Berners and her love!

Yet again, on this evening, this jealous wife, this strange young

creature, so full of contradictions and inconsistencies; so strong, yet

so weak; so confiding, yet so suspicious; so magnanimous, yet so

vindictive; once again, I say, successfully exerted her wonderful powers

of self-control, and endured the ordeal of that evening in silence, and

at its close bade her guest good-night without betraying the anguish of

her heart.

When she found herself alone with her husband in their chamber, her

fortitude nearly forsook her, especially as he himself immediately

opened the subject of their beautiful guest.

"She is perfectly charming," said Mr. Berners. "Every day develops some

new gift or grace of hers! My dear Sybil, you never did a better deed

than in asking this lovely lady to our house. She will be an invaluable

acquisition to our lonely fireside this winter."

"You did not use to think our fireside was lonely! You used to be very

jealous of our domestic privacy!" Sybil thought to herself; but she

gave no expression to this thought. On the contrary, controlling

herself, and steadying her voice with an effort, she said smilingly: "If you had met this 'lovely lady' before you married me, and had found

her also free, you would have made her your wife."