name Carrie started. She began to feel the
bitterness of the situation. The feelings of the outcast descended upon
her. She hung at the wing's edge, wrapt in her own mounting thoughts.
She hardly heard anything more, save her own rumbling blood.

"Come, girls," said Mrs. Van Dam, solemnly, "let us look after our
things. They are no longer safe when such an accomplished thief enters."

"Cue," said the prompter, close to her side, but she did not hear.
Already she was moving forward with a steady grace, born of inspiration.
She dawned upon the audience, handsome and proud, shifting, with the
necessity of the situation, to a cold, white, helpless object, as the
social pack moved away from her scornfully.

Hurstwood blinked his eyes and caught the infection. The radiating waves
of feeling and sincerity were already breaking against the farthest
walls of the chamber. The magic of passion, which will yet dissolve the
world, was here at work.

There was a drawing, too, of attention, a riveting of feeling,
heretofore wandering.

"Ray! Ray! Why do you not come back to her?" was the cry of Pearl.

Every eye was fixed on Carrie, still proud and scornful. They moved as
she moved. Their eyes were with her eyes.

Mrs. Morgan, as Pearl, approached her.

"Let us go home," she said.

"No," answered Carrie, her voice assuming for the first time a
penetrating quality which it had never known. "Stay with him!"

She pointed an almost accusing hand toward her lover. Then, with a
pathos which struck home because of its utter simplicity, "He shall not
suffer long."

Hurstwood realised that he was seeing something extraordinarily good.
It was heightened for him by the applause of the audience as the curtain
descended and the fact that it was Carrie. He thought now that she was
beautiful. She had done something which was above his sphere. He felt a
keen delight in realising that she was his.

"Fine," he said, and then, seized by a sudden impulse, arose and went
about to the stage door.

When he came in upon Carrie she was still with Drouet. His feelings for
her were most exuberant. He was almost swept away by the strength and
feeling she exhibited. His desire was to pour forth his praise with the
unbounded feelings of a lover, but here was Drouet, whose affection was
also rapidly reviving. The latter was more fascinated, if anything, than
Hurstwood. At least, in the nature of things, it took a more ruddy form.

"Well, well," sai