But Kate still continued to advance, although held by Montgomery and Miss Leslie. The long black hair hung in disordered masses; her brown eyes were shot with golden lights; the green tints in her face became, in her excessive pallor, dirty and abominable in colour, and she seemed more like a demon than a woman as her screams echoed through the empty theatre.
'By Jove! we ought to put up Jane Eyre,' said Mortimer. 'If she were to play the mad woman like that, we'd be sure to draw full houses.'
'I believe you,' said Dubois; but at that moment he was interrupted by a violent scream, and suddenly disengaging herself from those who held her, Kate rushed at Dick. With one hand she grappled him by the throat, and before anyone could interfere she succeeded in nearly tearing the shirt from his back.
When at length they were separated, she stood staring and panting, every fibre of her being strained with passion; but she did not again burst forth until someone, in a foolish attempt to pacify her, ventured to side with her in her denunciation of her husband.
'How should such as you dare to say a word against him! I will not hear him abused! No, I will not; I say he's a good man. Yes, yes! He is a good man, the best man that ever lived!' she exclaimed, stamping her foot on the boards, 'the best man that ever lived! I will not hear a word against him! No, I will not! He's my husband; he married me! Yes he did; I can show my certificate, and that's more than any one of you can.
'I know you, a damned lot of hussies! I know you; I was one of you myself. You think I wasn't. Well, I can prove it. You go and ask Montgomery if I didn't play Serpolette all through the country, and Clairette too. I should like to see any of you do that, with the exception of Lucy, who was always a good friend to me; but the rest of you I despise as the dirt under my feet; so do you think that I would permit you—that I came here to listen to my husband being abused, and by such as you! If he has his faults he's accountable to none but me.'
Here she had to pause for lack of breath; and Dick, who had been pursuing his shirt-stud, which had rolled into the foot-lights, now drew himself up, and in his stage-commanding voice declared the rehearsal to be over. A few of the girls lingered, but they were beckoned away by the others, who saw that the present time was not suitable for the discussion of boots, tights, and dressing-rooms. There was no one left but Leslie, Montgomery, Dick, Kate, and Harding, who, twisting his moustache, watched and listened apparently with the greatest interest.
'Oh, you've no idea what a nice woman she used to be, and is, were it not for that cursed drink,' said Montgomery, with the tears running down his nose. 'You remember her, Leslie, don't you? Isn't what I say true? I never liked a woman so much in my life.'
'You were a friend of hers, then?' said Harding.
'I should think I was.'