off to my dressing-room.

The play was a great success, and often the reading of the suicide's
letter was punctuated by actual sobs from the audience, instead of
those from the mother. Young club-men used to make a point of going to
the "Saturday Funeral," as they called the "Alixe" matinee. They would
gather afterward, opposite to the theatre, and make fun of the women's
faces as they came forth with tear-streaked cheeks, red noses, and
swollen eyes, and making frantic efforts to slip powder-puffs under
their veils and repair damages. If glances could have killed, there
would have been mourning in earnest in the houses of the club-men.

One evening, as the audience was nearly out and the lights were being
extinguished in the auditorium, a young man came back and said to an
usher:--

"There is a gentleman up there in the balcony; you'd better see to him,
before the lights are all put out."

"A gentleman? what's he doing there, at this time, I'd like to know?"
grumbled the usher as he climbed up the stairs. But next moment he was
calling for help, for there in a front seat, fallen forward, with his
head on the balcony rail, sat an old man whose silvery white hair
reflected the faint light that fell upon it. They carried him to the
office; and after stimulants had been administered he recovered and
apologized for the trouble he had caused. As he seemed weak and shaken,
Mr. Daly thought one of the young men ought to see him safely home, but
he said:--

"No, he was only in New York on business--he was at a hotel but a few
steps away, and--and--" he hesitated. "You are thinking I had no right
to go to a theatre alone," he added, "but I am not a sick
man--only--only to-night I received an awful shock."

He paused. Mr. Daly noted the quiver of his firm old lips. He dismissed
the usher; then he turned courteously to the old gentleman and said:--

"As it was in my theatre you received that shock, will you explain it
to me?"

And in a low voice the stranger told him that he had had a daughter, an
only child, a little blond, laughing thing, whom he worshipped. She was
a mere child when she fell in love. Her choice had not pleased him, and
looking upon the matter as a fancy merely, he had forbidden further
intercourse between the lovers. "And--and it was in the summer,
and--dear God, when that yellow-haired girl was carried dead upon the
stage to-night, even the grass clutched between her fingers, it was a
repetition of w