The Rival Queens; A Story of the Modern Stage (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. PLIGHTED TROTH. " So rush'd, mix'd, melted, life with life united ! Lips, cheeks burn'd, trembled?soul to soul was won ! And earth and heaven seem'd chaos, as, delighted, Earth?heaven was blent round the beloved one." CAROLINE rapidly recovered health and strength. It was apparent at last that Herbert loved her; his love had been growing and ripening until it burst into life on the night of " The Rival Queens." " The pity of it," her peril, her innocence, her helplessness, her unprotected loveliness, all these combined to create a passion so intense and absorbing that he grew to live in the light of her eyes, to hunger for the music of her voice, to feel that life was not worth living without her. As for her, her heart had gone out of her keeping the very night she first beheld him; to her he had ever been the man of men, the quintessence of all that was manly, and chivalrous, and noble, and tender true. For some time they must have read each other's hearts, though no word had left their lips to bind their lives. At length the supreme moment came. The coincidences in the lives of these two women were more than strange. Clara opened in London on the very night that Caroline made her first appearance after her recovery in Castleton. The play was Tom Taylor's noble drama " Clancarty." It was then acted for the first time in the company, and it was a revelation to all concerned?actors and audience. We were crowded to overflowing in front, and after the first act I was privileged by Tony to stand in the prompt entrance. They had reached the great situation in the third act, in which the supposed Captain Heseltine, escaping from his pursuers, amidst a shower of bullets, gains shelter and sanctuary in Lady Clancarty's chamber, where he revea...