d about in the least. Remember that."

She kissed him passionately, and ran lightly upstairs. In the hall
below she could hear his firm voice giving quick commands to the
servants.

_Chapter XXVIII_

THE HISSING OF "ALCIDE"

There was a strange and ominous murmur of voices, a shuffling of feet
in the gallery, a silence, which was like the silence before a storm.
Anna, who had sung the first verse of her song, looked around the
house, a little surprised at the absence of the applause which had
never yet failed her. She realized in a moment what had happened. Even
though the individual faces of her audience were not to be singled
out, she had been conscious from the first moment of her appearance
that something was wrong. She hesitated, and for a moment thought of
omitting her second verse altogether. The manager, however, who stood
in the wings, nodded to her to proceed, and the orchestra commenced
the first few bars of the music. Then the storm broke. A long shrill
cat-call in the gallery seemed to be the signal. Then a roar of
hisses. They came from every part, from the pit, the circle and the
gallery, even from the stalls. And there arose too, a background of
shouts.

"Who killed her husband?"

"Go and nurse him, missus!"

"Murderess!"

Anna looked from left to right. She was as pale as death, but she
seemed to have lost the power of movement. They shouted to her from
the wings to come off. She could not stir hand or foot. A paralyzing
horror was upon her. Her eardrums were burning with the echoes of
those hideous shouts. A crumpled-up newspaper thrown from the gallery
hit her upon the cheek. The stage manager came out from the wings, and
taking her hand led her off. There was more shouting.

The stage manager reappeared presently, and made a speech. He
regretted--more deeply than he could say--the occurrence of this
evening. He fancied that when they had had time to reflect, they would
regret it still more. ("No, no.") They had shown themselves grossly
ignorant of facts. They had chosen to deliberately and wickedly insult
a lady who had done her best to entertain them for many weeks. He
could not promise that she would ever appear again in that house.
("Good job.") Well, they might say that, but he knew very well that
before long they would regret it. Of his own certain knowledge he
could tell them that. For his own part he could not sufficiently
admire the pluck of this lady, who, notwithstandin