Something went through the theatre like a chill wind. The music of the band died away in a mournful wail.
There were a few frightened shouts, and then came a deep, breathless silence.
Standing in the midst of them was one who, in face and form, seemed to be none else but Our Lord Himself!
Hampson knew that voice. Even as it pealed out he rose, staggered, and sank back into the arms of the man next to him. He did not know that Sir Thomas was pointing with outstretched arm to the figure of a woman who stood among the surrounding group in the box. He hardly heard the young baronet's agonized cry of "Mary! Mary!"
He heard only that awful accusing thunder—
"Woe Unto You, Samaria!"
There was an extraordinary silence in the theatre, such a silence as the Frivolity had probably never known before in the whole of its disreputable career.
The members of the orchestra dropped their instruments, and the gay music died away with a frightened wail. Mimi Addington stopped suddenly in her abominable song. No member of the vast audience made a single sound. The silence of fear, swift, astonished fear, lay over all the theatre.
Who was this man?
Joseph was, of course, in modern dress. But the long, dark cloak he wore, Lluellyn's cloak, which Mary had given him, a veritable mantle of Elijah, robbed the fact of any modern significance.