ight, when the revelry was at its height, a door at the end
of the hall swung open, and a strong searchlight was turned full upon
it. The orchestra burst into the wailing dead march from _Saul_, and
out through the glare of light stalked the giant form of J. Wilton
Ames, gowned in dead black to represent a King Vulture, and with a
blood-red fez surmounting his cruel mask. As he stepped out upon the
platform which had been constructed to represent the famous bridge in
"_Sumurun_," and strode toward the main floor, a murmur involuntarily
rose from the assemblage. It was a murmur of awe, of horror, of fear.
The "_monstrum horrendum_" of Poe was descending upon them in the garb
which alone could fully typify the character of the man! When he
reached the end of the bridge the huge creature stopped and distended
his enormous sable wings.

"Good God!" cried Gannette, as he thought of his tremendous financial
obligations to Ames.

Carmen shuddered and turned away from the awful spectacle. "I want to
go," she said to the petrified Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who had known
nothing of this feature of the program.

Straight to the trembling, white-clad girl the great, black vulture
stalked. The revelers fell away from him on either side as he
approached. Carmen turned again and watched him come. Her face was
ashen. "God is everywhere," she murmured.

Then her anxious look faded. A light came into her eyes, and a smile
wreathed her mouth. And when Ames reached her and extended his huge,
black wings again, she walked straight into them with a look of joy
upon her beautiful face. Then the wings closed and completely hid the
fair, white form from the gaping crowd.

For a few moments dead silence reigned throughout the hall. Then the
orchestra crashed, the vulture's wings slowly opened, and the girl,
who would have gone to the stake with the same incomprehensible smile,
stepped out. The black monster turned and strode silently, ominously,
back to the end of the hall, crossed the bridge, and disappeared
through the door which opened at his approach.

"I'm going home!" said the shaken Gannette to his perspiring wife.
"That looks bad to me! That girl's done for; and Ames has taken this
way to publicly announce the fact! My God!"

There was another astonished watcher in the audience that evening. It
was the eminent Monsignor Lafelle, recently back from Europe by way of
the West Indies. And after the episode just related, he approached
Car