ALL OR NOTHING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 570, 24 May 1913, Page 6

ALL OR NOTHING.

A THRILLING ROMANCE,

+ —By the Author of "A Bitter Bondage," "Two Keys," "Stella," ' : The Unknown Bridegroom," &c., CHAPTER I. The Bden Theatre was crowded almost to sufiocation ; outside, a dense mass of people had struggled and fous;lit for places ; women had been carried fainting from tlie doors, men had found their way by strength of arm. There reigned a marvellous ?. r n!"sion —shouting, calling of cabs, the cries of the orange-sellers, the roises of the many people for whom no accommodation could be found, nside, the house was literally ro.vded from floor to ceiling. The oses were filled with beautiful women in rich dresses, whose jewels learned in the bright .lights ; the -t lis were occupied by some of the eadiag men in London —critics, who made or marred the fame of an actress ; authors, dramatic writers, editors of papers, whose opinions rule half England ; celebrated novelists, whose names are known over all the world. The pit was a surging mass, so crowded that it did not seem possible either to breathe or move ; She galleries, the resort of the gods, unusually crowded and unusually

quiet —a house that made the fortunate manager rub his hands and con-

; ratnlate himself on the happy hit he had made. And all this excitement was caused by the simple announcement that Evelyn Romaine, Queen of the Stage, was, on that evening, to play "Marie Stuart" in a favourite drama of that name, now "forgotten —a drama founded on some incident that happened when the hapless Scottish Queen was Dauphiness of France. People in these days, before the "sensation " play was introduced, flocked in great crowds to hear "Marie Stuart," and came away better men and better ,7omen for the hearing of it. There was breathless silence in that

- rowded house when the curtain drew tip, discovering a room in the Louvre and the Dauphin of France, with the Queen-mother, awaiting the entrance of Marie Stuart. And when she came great thunders of applause seemed to shake the theatre walls, not only from the pit and the gallery, but from the boxes and the stalls. Great ladies were not ashamed to lay aside their jewelled fans and pay due homage to the woman who stood before them. She deserved her name, for she was every inch a queen, tall and stately in figure, with grace and harmony in every movement. Critics, who considered themselves judges, said' that in the beautiful lines oi that perfect figure Evelyn Romaine resembled the Venus of Milo. Looking at her, one felt that she was perfect ; no one ever said ' " she would be better • taller or shorter, thinner or stouter." The colour ol the arms and neck was exquisite as the shape. That figure was now arrayed in Royal robes. Evelyn Romaine wore a dress of rich, gleaming white satin, on which was embroidered golden fleur-de-lis. On her head she carried a small diadem, and over all was thrown a mantilla oJ fine, white lace.

Looking at her, one hesitates as to what country calls her child. Those dark eyes, the dark hair, the beautiful classic outline, the Grecian cast of feature, the passionate, dark, artistic face, are not English. Mere rosy, healthy beauty, full oJ vivid contrasts oI colour, fades into nothing before hers. In that cne reads not only passion, but the power of expressing it—Wt only genius, but the power of making others understand that genius. The earnest gazei of the dark eyes seems to be charged with electric fire. One ceases to think of her as a woman as she stands there in such sublime unconsciousness ; she is an artiste, a genous so gifted herself with the '•divine fire" that others are warmed by it. For a moment she remains. silent, perhaps half-startled by the tumult of applause, her attitude one of such unstudied, artistic grace that some people would not care if she stood there for an hour longer. She had walked on to the stage quietly, with downcast eyes and gentle step, feeling then that she was a woman about to endure the curious gaze of hundreds of curious eyes. She had forgotten that noise ; the shifting crowd the eager faces had faded away ; she saw only the gloomy Palace of Holj'rood that was to be her future home, and forbidding faces whose last frown would be darkling as her head lay on the block. She was no ;on;;er Evelyn Komaine, but Marie Stuart, lovely and beloved —Marie itiiart, the idol of that brilliant over whom there hung the lark shadow of impending doom.

A moment's silence in that vast rowd ; then she spoke, and the :ound of her voice seemed to thrill ■;he great soul of the people. Clear, rich, and musical, a voice whose tones reached the most hidden depths of the heart, and there bid "long sealed-up fountains flow." During the scene that followed she was interrupted by no applause ; those who listened to her were too deeply touched for that. They hung breathlessly upon her every word, they drank in every movement of the beautiful figure, every change in the dark, passionate face. Then, when the scene was ended, and she withdrew, it was bm though the spell that had bound them died, and they called for her with a voice she was obliged to hear. She reappeared, all woman then, blushing and half-ashamed of the tumult. Costly Douquets were flung

at the feet of the grand, beautiful gifted woman. Among others was a gorgeous wreath .of white lilies, flung by a young and handsome man from one rf the boxes in the lower tier. When she saw it, Evelyn Romaine looked up, a sweet, bright smile parted her lips for one half-mo-nunt. Her dark eyes seemed to say, ''Come !"

Then the radiant figure disappeared from the stage, and it was as though the theatre was left in darkness and gloom.

She stood in the green-room, the white satin falling in rich, sweeping masses behind her, the diadem, shining on her queenly brow, her dark, fccaatiful face yet glowing with the passion of her words, when the manager came up to her. "It is useless, Miss Romaine, for me to refuse your numerous admirars permission to come behind the .scours. Here is the Duke of Baite-

iif.n, who persists in seeing "you."

A change, wonderful to see, passed over her face ; the passionate glow 1" colour died out of it, the eyes _;n.w darker, and the proud lips curbed. "I will see him," she said.

Ha came up to her, bowing, smilini~, full of graceful flatteries and flittering compliments, then Btopped h' r I v as he saw the proud scorn of lur beautiful f»M.

"I have something to return to you, my Lord Duke ot Baitenon," she said, slowly. "One of your ser/unts left this at my house yesterday, with a letter. The letter I .-ur.'ud —the box I return." She laid it on the table near him. A dark flush overspread the duke's face.

"MiYs Romaine," he whispered, "you cannot mean it. Believe me, you shall be a duchesß in everything save the name."

"Even should you offer me that," she replied, calmly, "I should decline it." He looked at her in wonder. " You would decline, Miss Romaine ?" he said, breathlessly. Most assuredly. I consider my name, although not written in history, mere honourable than yours." He bent over her, his handsome iace Hushed, his eye* full of an evil light, and he whispered a few words in her ear. She drew back haughtily the jewels of her diadem flashing with light. "It is enough," she said. " Our interview is ended."

With a bow as dignified and graceful as though she had been a queen dismissing an ambassador, Bvelyn Romaine turned away. Discomfited and abashed, his Grace of Bairenon withdrew, with a muttered curse on his lips. Then Lord Illingworth, considered the best judge of theatrical matters in London, came up to her.

"You are excelling yourself, Miss Romaine, to-night. Your ' Marie Stuart' is without peer." To him the beautiful young actress held out her hand, with a kindly smile.

"Thank you, Lord Illingworth," she said. "I love my part, therefore I am sure to play it well."

She conversed with him for two or three minutes in a vindly, frank fashion that was irresistibly charming ; then a step sounded outside the green-room, and her face flushed, her lips quivered. How often had she said to herself that even were she lying in her grave, and that step rustled in the long, thick grass, she should hear it ?

Then entered a young man, handsome, with a gay, debonair Btyle of beauty, a grand head, covered with short of chestnut hair, a fair, comely Saxon face, with large blue eyes and sensitive lips, and he came tip to Evelyn with, a smile of assured welcome.

"My queen," he whispered—" nay beautiful love, I wiah to-night that I were David Rizzio or the Dauphin of France, that mifht smile upon me." She received him in a very diflerent manner from what she had shown to his rivals. Lord Illingworth made way, for he had a shrewd suspicion that Evelyn Romaine and the Honourable Clive Noel were, to say the least of it, very dear friends. "You have no need to change your identity in order to win a smile from me," she said, a beautiful light shining in her dark eyes. " When did I ever receive you with a frown?" "What have you been saying to the Duke of Baitenon ? I met him just now in a terrible rage." Her dark, passionate face flushed. "Never mind him," she said, "He has received his lesson."

"Has he dared to insult you ?" broke out the young man. "Oh Evelyn : This ean*ot go on. You must listen to my prayers. I shall go paad if. this st*te of things continues." "Miss Romaine !" called the callboy.

"I must go," she said ; "I have to quarrel with the Dauphin and the Queen-mother."

"I shall wait until you return," he replied. "I will put it out of the ,)owcr of any man to insult you, ivelyn." He heard the applause that greeted that wondrous scene, where the passion, the fire, and the genous of the young actress seemed to reacli its climax.

She came of! the stage again, but it was only for a few minutes, during which he did not venture to speak to her, for he saw that the inspiration of her part was so strong upon her. "What an actress she is !" he said to himself, with a sigh. "I wonder if she will jive up the stage even for me ?"

She went on again, and half an hour passed away. Then by the renewal of the applause, he knew the play was ended. He waited silently until she came. She n ,va"- queen no longer ; the diadem had been cast at the feet of her conquerors. She was white and trembling with the emotion she could not help feeling

in such truth ; tan long, dark hair was all unbound, and fell over the < learning satin like a dark veil ; the iark eyes were full of tears, the lips tremulous with emotion. As he went to her, she held up one whit# hand.

"Hush !" she said. "Wait a few minutes before you speak to me, Clive, I am ' Marie Stuart' still ; wait until the glamour dies away." He stood watchiug her with curious eyes ; it was as though she became transformed. The fire and the passion, the tea?" in her eyes, the trembling of her lips ceased ; slowly- 6hr: resumed ner usual expression, a d then turned to him with a slight liivcr a:ul a deep sigh. ".t, always takes me some minut.s to forget my assumed character and remember my own." "Would you rather have been Marie Stuart than Evelyn Romaine?" lie asked. she replied, a sudden flush covering her face, " not if it be really true that you love me." CHAPTER 11. Evelyn Romaine had never been anything but an actress. As a child she was the delight of all her companions and the wonder of her gentle mo'.her. The grand smile of a "soul of flame in a body of gauze" applied to her. As a child she was delicate, fragile, and often ailing. Yet .she dranL in with marvellous avidity all the beauties and marvels of the world of liction and poetry. She pondered over the heroines of Shakespeare ; she studied their words, she entered into the ideas that produced them ; she entered, as it were, their very heart and soul until she forgot her own identity, and lost all self-consciousness to her art.

"A born actress," all said who knew her. "You must let her go en the stage, Mrs. Romaine." And Mrs. Romaine, who from her quiet village home had been accustomed to cousiuer an actress as outside the pale of civilisation, looked with wonder and consternation on the beautiful younc girl who differed bo greatly from a* itiose around her. Mr.. Romaine had been for many years curate of the pretty little town of Glen Dale, in Tioucestershire. He was in his fortieth year when he married the pretty, gentle daughter of the only lawyer the town could boast. One little daughter, Evelyn, was given to them, and when she was three years old Mr. Romaine died. His widow &nd child lived in the pretty cottage where his peaceful, blameless life had been spent. The good curate had but one weakness, and he had indulged it —that was reading. He left behind him a rare library—good and costly editions of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Milton, of the old-time poets whose verses still ring through the world. And this library formed Evelyn Romaine's character. She spent entire days there. Her mother entering, and seeing the child with shining eyes looking orer one of Shakespeare's grand dramas, would say : " Evelyn, you are trying your eyes."

The girl would look up at her, dazed and bewildered, as one brought suddenly from an ideal world. " Listen, mamma !" she would cry, with flushing face and brightening eyes. "This is Queen Katherine of Arragon before the king. Such grand words ! Listen." Then throwing her whole soul into the part, she would stand up and repeat it with such perfect and appropriate gestures that gentle Mrs. Romaine would stand aghast, wondering who the child took after, and what would become of her. She was sent to the only ladies' school that Glen Dale could boast ; but she was not in the least like other children. Music she learned rapidly ; history was a favourite study ; but the organs of ideality, of veneration, were too strongly developed. She never lived a true child's life —it was all one ideal dream. There were times when the governess would look bewildered and the pupils delighted, listening to Evelyn Romaine. A dry passage of history became in her hands a glowing romanee, mythology a grand epic poem. Not understanding this wondrous gift of ideality, there were times when the worthy governess really thought the girl slightly deranged. If she wrote a theme it was full of qrilliant fancies—wild, romantic theories. She icsembled no other child in that quiet, sleepy town of Glen Dale.

The wind had a voice for her, and it was full of music—from the sweetest whisper that ever thrilled a rose, to the mightiest tempest that bent the branches of the trees. She loved it all. She had a fashion, in the solemn, golden hush of summer nights, of laying her face on the thick, soft grass and listening to the vague, sweet murmur that touches the heart as no other sound ever does. She had a way of listening to the sound of raindrops pattering m green leaves —to the ripple of the brook —to the song of the river—to the tiny drops of water that fell from the fountain. "What did she bear '!" Other girls asked her, and she answered by a bright, sweet smile.

The dew in the bright mornings, the evening gloaming, the glory of the sun, the song of the birds, the fragrance of flowers, the solemn silence of starlit night, the solemn bush of deep green woods, tilled her heart and soul with a vague, delicious rapture.

"What did she ««e in it all ?" young girls asked, anti she could not tell them. Sho did not know, in those early days, that all nature, all beauty, spoke to her because God had given her some of the divine [ire men call genius. In her beautiful dream-world she lived pure and peaceful, the passionate heart still sleeping, the passionate soul still at rest.

(To be Continued).