And in another part of the house a young lady also sank, pale, trembling, and overcome with feelings of acute anguish, upon her father's bosom.
So deeply did that dread accusing voice affect the sensitive and astonished Mary-Anne, and the faithful Isabella!
All was now confusion. The audience rose from their seats in all directions; and the theatre suddenly appeared to be converted into a modern Babel.
Overwhelmed with shame, and so bewildered by this cruel blow, that he knew not how to act, Markham stood for some moments like a criminal before his judges. Ellen, forgetting where she was, clung to him for support.
At length, the unhappy young man seized Ellen abruptly by the hand, and led her from the public gaze.
The curtain fell as they passed behind the scenes.
The audience then grew more clamorous—none scarcely knew why. Some demanded that the man who had caused the interruption should be arrested by the police; but those in the gallery shouted out that he had suddenly disappeared. Others declared that the accusation ought to be investigated;—people in the pit maintained that, even if the story were true, it had nothing to do with the success of the accused as a dramatic author;—and gentlemen in the boxes expressed their determination never to support a man, in a public institution and in a public capacity, who had been condemned to infamous penalties for an enormous crime.
Thus all was noise, confusion, and uproar,—argument, accusation, and recrimination,—the buzzing of hundreds of tongues,—the clamour of thousands of voices.
Some called "Shame!" upon the manager for introducing a discharged convict to the notice of Englishmen's wives and daughters,—although the persons who thus clamoured did not utter a reproach against the immoral females who made no secret of their profligacy, and who appeared nightly upon the stage as its brightest ornaments—nor did they condescend to recall to mind the vicinity of that infamous saloon which vomited forth numbers of impure characters to occupy seats by the sides of those wives and daughters, whose purity was now supposed to be tainted because a man who had undergone an infamous punishment, but who could there set no bad example, had contributed to their entertainment!
And then commenced a riot in the theatre. The respectable portion of the audience escaped from the scene with the utmost precipitation:—but the occupants of the upper region, and some of the tenants of the pit, remained to exhibit their inclination for what they were pleased to term "a lark." The benches were torn up, and hurled upon the stage:—hats and orange-peel flew about in all directions;—and serious damage would have been done to the theatre, had not a body of police succeeded in restoring order.