It was during the first season of her reappearance that Mrs. Bury went to Drury Lane, on an off-night, to witness one of the latest efforts of Garrick as Richard the Third.  He was, as usual, terribly great in the part; but, in spite of his overwhelming power, Zelma found herself watching the Lady Anne of the night with a strange, fascinated interest.  This part, of too secondary and negative a character for the display of high dramatic powers, even in an actress who should be perfect mistress of herself, was borne by a young and beautiful woman, new to the London stage, though of some provincial reputation, who on this occasion was distressingly nervous and ill-assured.  She had to contend not only with stage-fright, but Garrick-fright.  “She met Roscius in all his terrors,” and shrank from the encounter.  The fierce lightnings of his dreadful eyes seemed to shrivel and paralyze her; even his demoniac cunning and persuasiveness filled her with mortal fear.  Her voice shook with a pathetic tremor, became hoarse and almost inaudible; her eyes sank, or wandered wildly; her brow was bathed with the sweat of a secret agony; she might have given way utterly under the paralyzing spell, had not some sudden inspiration of genius or love, a prophetic thrill of power, or a memory of her unwearied babe, come to nerve, to upbear her.  She roused, and went through her part with some flickering flashes of spirit, and through all her painful embarrassment was stately and graceful by the regal necessity of her beauty.  The event was not success,—­was but a shade better than utter failure; and when, soon after, that beautiful woman dropped out of London dramatic life, few were they who missed her enough to ask whither she had gone.

But Zelma, whose sad, searching eyes saw deeper than the eyes of critics, recognized from the first her grand, long-sought ideal in the fair unknown, whose name had appeared on the play-bills in small, deprecating type, under the overwhelming capitals of “MR. GARRICK”—­“Mrs. Siddons.”  She looked upon that frightened and fragile woman with prophetic reverence and noble admiration:  and as she walked her lonely chamber that night, she said to herself, somewhat sadly, but not bitterly,—­“The true light of the English drama has arisen at last.  ‘Out, out, brief candle!’”

* * * * *

Season after season, year after year, Zelma continued to play in London, but never again with the fame, the homage, the flatteries and triumphs of a great actress.  All these she saw at last accorded to her noble rival.  Mrs. Bury had shone very acceptably in a doubtful dramatic period,—­first as an inspired, impassioned enthusiast, and after as a conscientious artist, subdued and saddened, yet always careful and earnest; but, like many another lesser light, she was destined to be lost sight of in the long, splendid day of the Kembles.

Yet once again the spirit of unrest, the nomadic instinct, came back upon Zelma Bury,—­haunted her heart and stirred in her blood till she could resist no longer, but, joining a company for a provincial tour, left London.