Cruel As The Grave

"Very well. I will do so. Anything else?"

"Nothing now, thank you," said Sybil, kissing her hand as she left the

room.

And Sybil, dressed now in the plain, close-fitting camlet gown and prim

white linen cap, cuffs, and collar of the Puritan maid, and with a pale,

young looking mask on her face, reëntered the saloon to try her

experiment.

She looked around, and soon saw her husband and her rival sitting

side-by-side, on the little retired sofa in the corner. They were

absorbed in each other's attractions, and did not see her. She glided

cautiously into a seat near them.

They were sitting very close together, talking in a very low tone. Her

hand rested in his. At length, Sybil heard her inquire: "Where is your wife? I have not seen her for some time."

"She has left the room, I believe," answered Mr. Berners.

"Oh, that is such a relief! Do you know that I am really afraid of her?"

"Afraid of her! why? With me you are always perfectly safe. Safe!" he

repeated, with a light laugh--"why, of course you are! Besides, what

could harm you? Of whom are you afraid? Your friend, my wife, Sybil? She

is your friend, and would do you only good."

Rosa Blondelle slowly shook her head, murmuring: "No, Lyon, your wife is not my friend--she is my deadly enemy. She is

fiercely jealous of your affection for me, though it is the only

happiness of my unhappy life. And she will make you throw me off yet."

"Never! no one, not even my wife, shall ever do that! I swear it by all

my hopes of--"

"Hush! do not swear, for she will make you break your oath. She is your

wife. She will make you forsake me, or--she will do me a fatal mischief.

Oh, I shiver whenever she comes near me. Ah, if you had seen her eyes

as I saw them through her mask to-night. They were lambent flames! How

they glared on me, those terrible eyes!"

"It was your fancy, dear Rosa; no more than that. Come, shake off all

this gloom and terror from your spirit, and be your lovely and sprightly

self!"

"But I cannot! oh, I cannot! I feel the burning of her terrible eyes

upon me now."

"But she is not even in the room."

(Here Sybil slipped away to a short distance, and joined a group of

masks as if she belonged to them.) "But I shiver as if she were near me now."

Lyon Berners suddenly looked around and then laughed, saying: "But there is no one near you, dear Rosa, except Death."

"Death!" she echoed with a start and a shudder.

"Why, how excessively nervous you are, dear Rosa," said Lyon Berners

laying his hand soothingly upon her shoulder.