But Elise neither saw the actors nor heard the music. With her hands covering her eyes, she had been listening for the voice of Dick. She could hear it, distant and faint, growing nearer, as if he were coming towards her through a forest. There was in it a despair she had never heard before. He was in danger—where or how she could not fathom—but over the surging music of the orchestra she could hear the voice of Boy-blue crying through the infinity of space.
The opera was over, and there was a storm of applause that developed into an ovation.
'The tenor isn't really handsome, after all,' said Lady Erskin.
'I think the women of to-day are shameless,' said the rector's wife, casting a last indignant glance at the box across the theatre.
'I feel a perfect rag,' said Lady Erskin's daughter. 'Good heavens!
Elise, what's the matter?'
'Nothing. I—I don't know,' Elise answered, looking up with terror-stricken eyes. 'I'm just overwrought. That's all.'
'You poor dear!' said Lady Erskin. 'You shouldn't take the opera so seriously. After all, it didn't really happen—and I have no doubt in real life the tenor is quite a model husband, with at least ten children.'
VI.
'Drunk,' said the company commander, stooping over the prostrate body of Dick Durwent. 'He was all right when he took over. Where did he get the stuff?'
'Smell that, sir,' said the subaltern of the night, handing him a water-bottle.