far back there in the house? What was that at
sight of which the audience rose white and aghast from their seats?
What was it that made Sebastian as he entered rush suddenly forward
and fall with awful cry before Francesca's body? What was that
trickling down the folds of her white dress? Blood?

Yes, blood! In an instant I put my hand upon the cushion of the box,
vaulted down to the stage and was kneeling beside my dying love.
But as the clamorous bell rang down the curtain, I heard above its
noise a light and silvery laugh, and looking up saw in the box next
to mine the coal-black devilish eyes of the yellow woman.

Then the curtain fell.

CHAPTER IX.

TELLS HOW TWO VOICES LED ME TO BOARD A SCHOONER; AND WHAT BEFELL
THERE.

She died without speech. Only, as I knelt beside her and strove to
staunch that cruel stream of blood, her beautiful eyes sought mine in
utter love and, as the last agony shook her frame, strove to rend the
filmy veil of death and speak to me still. Then, with one long,
contented sigh, my love was dead. It was scarcely a minute before
all was over. I pressed one last kiss upon the yet warm lips,
tenderly drew her white mantle across the pallid face, and staggered
from the theatre.

I had not raved or protested as I had done that same afternoon.
Fate had no power to make me feel now; the point of anguish was
passed, and in its place succeeded a numb stupidity more terrible by
far, though far more blessed.

My love was dead. Then I was dead for any sensibility to suffering
that I possessed. Hatless and cloak-less I stepped out into the
freezing night air, and regardless of the curious looks of the
passing throng I turned and walked rapidly westward up the Strand.
There was a large and eager crowd outside the Coliseum, for already
the news was spreading; but something in my face made them give room,
and I passed through them as a man in a trance.

The white orb of the moon was high in heaven; the frozen pavement
sounded hollow under-foot; the long street stood out, for all its
yellow gas-light, white and distinct against the clear air; but I
marked nothing of this. I went westward because my home lay
westward, and some instinct took my hurrying feet thither. I had no
purpose, no sensation. For aught I knew, that night London might
have been a city of the dead.

Suddenly I halted beneath a lamp-post and began dimly to think.
My love was dead:--that was the one fact that