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She reached Riverhead in an incredibly short space of time;
and, dismounting at the gate, hastened to the door, and
trembling, shuddering, followed the astonished servant into
the reception-room, where she fell into a chair, exhausted,
overcome, and shedding torrents of tears.

A light step startled her, and she rose, trembling, from
her seat. The young girl she had asked for, stood before
her.

“Did you ask for me—Clare?” said the young girl, wonderingly.

“Oh, yes! for you!” cried poor Beatrice, clasping her
hands and sobbing: “I could not breathe until I saw you!
I came to tell you that I am not the miserable creature that
you think me! that I am not so abandoned as to wrong you
so!”

Suddenly Clare recognized her rival, whose features had
been hidden by the partial darkness of the room. She drew
back with a sudden faintness.

“Yes! you shrink from me!” cried Beatrice, with inexpressible
anguish in her voice; “and perhaps you are not
wrong—you have heard so much falsehood of me! But
you wrong me bitterly—my heart is bursting with this load
of unjust scorn—I cannot bear it! It is cruel—oh, it is
unjust!”

And she covered her face with her hands, and sobbed
passionately. Clare felt as if she were about to faint; but
indignation, and the bitterness of wounded love and pride
sustained her. She looked at Beatrice with scorn, and
shrunk from her as she approached.

“Do not—do not touch me!” she said, alternately flushing
and turning pale.

“Oh, you are cruel!” cried Beatrice, wringing her hands;
“you are cruel and unjust! He told me you were tender,
and that every body loved you—and I find you with a heart
harder than stone! You have no pity on me—you scorn

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me—my very presence is loathsome to you! Oh, madam,
it is unjust!—it is a bitter and unmerited punishment! I
never could have come had I really expected this—though
what more had I the right to expect? But he told me you
were so good—that your heart was so pure—that you were
in such distress—how could I live with the thought that
you despised and scorned me!”

Clare shrunk further back and trembled. Then she had
been the topic of careless conversation between this unworthy
creature and her lover! Her name, and her love for him,
even, had been bandied in tavern purlieus with scoffs, and
rude jests, perhaps! He had said she was “so good”—
doubtless, deriding her soft, tender manner, so tame, compared
with the fiery and brilliant carriage of this shameless
creature!—her “heart so pure”—no doubt contrasting derisively
her simple truth with the scoffing boldness of this
woman! Then, to crown the whole, he had told this woman
that she, Clare, was “distressed”—that she was pining for
him!—that she envied, hated, would give life to hold the
position of that rival in his affections! This last bitter
thought put the finishing touch to Clare's agony, and she
rose.

“I can listen to no more, madam!” she said, hoarsely,
and with inexpressible anguish and indignation in her altered
voice. “You are deceived—Mr. Effingham—if you refer to
him—Mr. Effingham is nothing to me!”

And, shuddering from head to foot, she looked at Beatrice
with an expression of sick and scornful aversion, which
pierced the poor girl's heart like a dagger.

“Oh, no—no! do not look at me so!” she cried, clasping
her hands, and sobbing as if her heart would break; “do
not look at me so! I am not the unworthy creature you
think me! I am innocent! He sought me—has persecuted
me with attentions I abhor—he has made my life, dark
enough, God knows, already, darker still by his eternal persecution.
Oh! madam, you have no right to scorn me!
You have no right—however much you may hate me! I
am innocent before God of any thing done to give you pain—
this rash young man has done all! Do you think I am his
paramour, madam? I see your cheek flush and your eyes
flash! Doubtless your maiden purity is shocked by the

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very word. But we, madam, we poor actresses have to look
at and hear things coarsely, and call them by their names.
God forgive you, if you thought that of me! I am a poor,
unhappy girl, with no defence but my self-respect; but I
am innocent—innocent as a child, in thought as in deed!”

And sobbing, moaning, shedding floods of tears, Beatrice
stood before the young girl like an angel pleading for a word
of love, of charity. Her fair hair had fallen, from the violence
of her emotion, her snowy arms had let the cloak covering
them fall down, her face was eloquent with a sorrow and
despair which sublimated its tender beauty, and would have
touched, indeed, any but a heart of stone.

Clare's was that heart; she only saw how lovely this
young girl was; she only saw in her a triumphant rival,
darkening her life, and taking from her him she loved.
What did it concern her whether this woman was innocent
or not? And the frigid, sick, and scornful look remained.
She pointed to the door, and, unable to say more than—
“this interview—must—end!” hoarsely and almost inaudibly.

“No, no! it shall not end,” cried Beatrice, wringing her
hands, and sobbing, and speaking with passionate grief; “it
shall not end until you have heard me! I am innocent—
Oh! I am innocent—before God! your distress is not upon
my hands! He came and addressed me on the stage, the
first night I appeared in this country—I drew back and endeavored
to avoid him! He came to see me the next day.
I tried to deny him any converse with me;—he staid,—he
came again and again—he has made my life wretched! I
shrink when I see his face, or hear his voice!—Ah, I am innocent
of wounding you,—as God hears me, I am innocent!”

And falling on her knees, Beatrice hid her face in her
hands, and shook with passionate weeping. She seemed so
broken and overwhelmed by her sorrow, her accents were so
profoundly miserable, she resembled so much some tender
bird, wounded mortally and about to fall and die, that Clare,
with all her pride and love, and hatred and indignation,
melted. She struggled with herself, echoed the sobs of Beatrice,
and then turning from her, murmured:

“Leave me—I cannot speak — I pardon you — God
will—”

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There she stopped, overcome by emotion. Beatrice raised
her head.

“Oh, I have done nothing to ask pardon for!” she cried,
in a voice of bitter anguish. “God is my witness, that I have
acted as a loyal and pure woman! I saw your scorn of me
was unjust, and it is—it is!—for I am innocent—I had no
part in inflicting this wound upon you; you have reason to
hate me—but you cannot—no! no! you cannot scorn me!”

“I do not,” muttered poor Clare, sobbing and turning
away.

“Oh, thank you! We poor girls are not like you ladies,
protected and surrounded by every comfort, able to choose
our associates,” continued Beatrice, weeping, but betraying
great feeling at these words from Clare. “God exposes us
to every persecution and temptation! We are met with intoxicating
applause upon the stage—a dangerous and fatal
thing!—and there we fancy that we are really something
more than human! Alas! we go out in the sunlight, and
those hands, which applauded us, repulse us; those smiles
are turned to frowns! The commonest woman that toils in
the meanest employment, is more worthy. Contempt is our
portion—for what are we but abandoned playing girls! Or,
if not contempt, what is more dreadful—oh! so dreadful,
madam, that you in your pure home here cannot imagine it.
The temptation which a strong man offers to a defenceless
girl, without a thought of that avenging God who looks down
on this world!—I will not speak of it—I shudder to think
of it!—my brain burns, and my temples throb!—God decreed
that I should fill the position I do, and I know its terrors and
its snares. Oh, do not undervalue them, madam! if a poor
weak girl comes from that furnace of fire, still pure in all
things, she is not fit for scorn!”

And the poor agitated breast labored and heaved, the
cheeks were bathed in tears, the childlike hands trembled
and could not arrange the hair, falling around the face so
eloquent and pure.

And Clare felt her true woman's heart moved—with that
high truth and worth which the reader will find she possessed
from future pages of this narrative. She violently suppressed
her sorrow and wounded love; she saw only a poor
broken-spirited girl before her—a mere child she seemed;

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praying and sobbing, and entreating mercy—or rather justice,
but simple justice.

“I have listened—to you—and pity—you—and do not,
cannot scorn you—or—hate you—” she said, in a broken
and agitated voice, shedding tears as she spoke. “If I have
been—unjust—to you, I pray for your pardon! We are all
weak—and—poor;—God does not permit us to scorn each
other!”

And covering her face with one hand, she felt as if earth
was dark for ever for her from that day—heaven only left.

Beatrice heard these words with passionate delight, and
burst into an agony of tears.

“Oh, you are too good!” she cried, seizing the hand
of the young girl, which hung down, and covering it with
kisses; “you are too good and noble, to speak so kindly to a
poor, weak child like me! Oh, God will reward you! God
sent me to you, to hear these blessed words from you—to
know that my existence was not wholly cursed! God had
pity on me, and inspired me with the thought! Oh, say
again that you will not hate or scorn me;—forget that I am
a common actress, one of a proscribed and branded class—
one who has cruelly wronged you, however innocently;—
forget that I am so much your inferior in goodness,—forget
that my life has been thrown in contact with so much that is
vile! See before you, at your feet, only a poor weak girl,
who prays you not to scorn her!—See in me a feeble creature,
like all mortals, weak and stumbling and sinful, like all the
world, but with good impulses and pure feelings like the
purest! Oh, bless me again with the sound of your kind
voice—I am so helpless! so broken-hearted—so overborne
by agony and suffering!” she continued, strangling a passionate
sob at the thought of Charles; “so wretched—ah!
so miserable!—Speak to me!—one more kind word, before
I leave you—Oh, for pity's sake!”

And covering the hand she held with kisses, she half
rose in an agony of weeping. And that hand she held was
no more drawn away. The trembling forms approached
each other with a last shudder, and the two women were in
each other's arms: the bitter rivals, the wronged and she
who had wronged her, the actress and the lady! Sobbing

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upon each other's shoulders, trembling like a single agitated
form, they wept in silence.

A quarter of an hour afterwards Beatrice was on her way
back to Williamsburg. God had spoken: her tears were
happy tears.