imed to bring so helpless a respondent
before even the informal court at the graveyard; but it gave Hilda a
magnificent opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to the skull, holding it
tenderly with both hands, while Lord Ingleton smiled appreciatively in
advance of the practical benevolence which was to sustain the lady
through the divorce court and in the final scene offer to her and to the
prejudices of the British public the respectability of his name.

It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the audience uncertain
whether, after all, enough attention had been paid to that tradition of
the footlights which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium and
compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. Duff Lindsay
turned, as the wave of clapping spent itself, to say to Stephen that he
had never respected Hamilton Bradley's acting so much. He said it to
Herbert Livingstone instead; the priest had disappeared.

The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made his way among them in
a direction which was not that of the exit. He went with hurried
purpose, in the face of them all, toward the region, badly lighted and
imperfectly closed, which led to the rear of the stage. He opened doors
into dark closets, and one which gave upon the road, retraced his
unfamiliar steps and asked a question, to which--it was so unusual from
one in his habit--he received a hesitating but correct reply. A moment
later he passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a
hostile stare and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a
door upon which was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a
poster, of Miss Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when
she cried, "Come in!" with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single
chair the place contained in the dress and make-up of the last scene. A
Mohammedan servant, who looked up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes.
Various garments hung about on nails driven into the unpainted walls,
others overflowed from a packing-box in one corner. A common teak-wood
dressing-table held make-up saucers and powder-puffs and some remnants
of cold fowl which had not been partaken of, apparently, with the
assistance of a knife, and fork. A candle stood in an empty soda-water
bottle on each side of the looking-glass, and there was no other light.
On the floor a pair of stays, old and soiled, sprawled with unconcern.
The place looked sordid and miserable, and Hilda, sittin