Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?

The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the
house.

At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by
hearing "Dahlia" called from the pit.

Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of
Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her
eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily
being drawn. "My sister!" she sent out a voice of anguish, and remained
with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one spot,
as if she would have flown to it. She was wedged in the mass, and could
not move.

The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose
burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the
disgust of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.

Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from
Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong
out, surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital
in her eyes alone. The farmer put his arm about his girl's waist. The
instant, however, that Anthony's head uprose on the other side of her,
the evil reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the
evening produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played,
miauling, and yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a
noise. Algernon feared mischief. He quitted his seat, and ran out into
the lobby.

Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were
mutually drenched with water by the shock. It was his cousin Edward,
bearing a glass in his hand.

Algernon's wrath at the sight of this offender was stimulated by the
cold bath; but Edward cut him short.

"Go in there;" he pointed to a box-door. "A lady has fainted. Hold her
up till I come."

No time was allowed for explanation. Algernon passed into the box, and
was alone with an inanimate shape in blue bournous. The uproar in the
theatre raged; the whole pit was on its legs and shouting. He lifted
the pallid head over one arm, miserably helpless and perplexed, but
his anxiety concerning Rhoda's personal safety in that sea of strife
prompted him to draw back the curtain a little, and he stood exposed.
Rhoda perceived him. She motioned with both her hands in dumb
supplication. In a moment the curtain closed between them. Edward's
sharp white face c