"Stage-struck," said another. "She'll give it up now, of course. Here's her carriage. She'll be here directly."
"And the happy man at her heels, I
suppose," sneered the first speaker. "They say she's madly in love with him, and that he, of course, wants her money."
"He's a cad, I know that," growled a younger man.
Impelled by an interest of which he himself did not know the source, Francis Trent had drawn nearer to the stage door as the young fellows spoke. He was quite close to it, when it opened at last and the pretty actress came forth.
She was escorted by a train of admirers, rich and poor. Her maid was laden with wraps and bouquets. The manager and the actor who played the leading part were on either side of her, and Ethel was laughing the merry, unaffected laugh of a perfectly happy woman as she made her triumphal exit from the little theatre where she had achieved all her artistic success. Another kind of success, she thought, was in store for her now. She was to know another sort of happiness. And the whole world looked very bright to her, although there was one little cloud—no bigger than a man's hand, perhaps—which had already shown itself above the horizon, and might one day cloud the noontide of her love.
Francis Trent was so absorbed in watching her lovely face, and in wondering why her name had seemed so familiar, that he paid scant attention to her followers. It was only as the carriage drove off that his eye was caught by the face of a man who sat beside her. A gleam from a gas-lamp had fallen full upon it, revealing the regular, passionless features, the dark eyes and pale complexion of Ethel's lover. And as soon as he saw that face, a great change came over the mental condition of Francis Trent. He stood for a moment as if paralyzed, his worn features strangely convulsed, a strange lurid light showed itself in his haggard eyes. Then he threw his arms wildly in the air, uttered a choked, gasping cry, and rushed madly and vainly after the retreating carriage, heedless of the shouts which the little crowd sent after him.
"He's mad—he'll never catch up that carriage! What does he run after it for, the fool?" said one of the men on the pavement.
And indeed he soon relinquished the attempt, and sat down on a doorstep, panting and exhausted, with his face buried upon his arms.
But he was not mad. He was sure of that now. It was only that he had—partially and feebly, but to some extent effectually—remembered what had happened to him in the dark dead Past.