the portico of the opera.

He followed to find that the occupants had alighted, and upon entering
the lobby he caught sight of the back of Marion's dress as she swept
through one of the great baize-covered doors.

Here there was a check. The door-keeper held out his hand for the
customary ticket, and Chester turned impatiently away, to go to the
box-office, when for the first time it struck him that he was not in
evening dress, and could not pass into the stalls.

He stood biting his lips, and hesitating as to whether he should take a
cab back home, to dress, and return, but he felt that he could not do
that. A dozen things might happen to prevent his catching sight of
Marion again; and snatching at the first idea that came, he took a
ticket for the upper part of the house, hired an opera-glass and then
climbed nearly to the top.

Here upon taking a seat he came out again in despair. Even with the aid
of the glass he found he could not get a glimpse of a third of the
house, and feeling that at all costs he must get into the stalls in as
central a position as possible, he descended again to the box-office,
and secured a stall nearly in the centre of the third row.

Having made sure of his seat, he hurried back to Raybeck Square
calculating that he could be back within an hour.

Bidding the cabman wait, he sprang up to his room, conscious of the fact
that Aunt Grace was watching; and after his hurried change he knew by
the ajar door of the drawing-room that she was there watching still.

But this passed almost unnoticed in the excitement, and once more he was
in the cab, eager and with his imagination running riot.

"What an idiot I was not to ask the number of their box," he said to
himself.

He did ask as soon as he reached the opera house, and found it was
almost central on the grand tier; but after taking his place he had no
opportunity for turning round till the end of the act in progress, and
he sat trembling with excitement and wondering whether Marion had
recognised him as he entered.

The stage, the music, the house crowded with a fashionable assembly,
were non-existent to Chester, as he sat there gazing in imagination at a
face--the face of the woman who from their first encounter seemed to
have taken entire possession of his faculties, enchaining his spirit so
that he seemed to live and breathe for her alone.

"Will this wretched singing never end?" he said to himself, as one of
the great Italia