She was gone. In a few minutes he also reëntered the playhouse, and went to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he might watch her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty through the throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a great peruke, who, despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an old roquelaure tawdrily laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy pace with him, and that when he at last reached his station the cloaked figure fell into place immediately behind him.
Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken—Ah, the curtain!
The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward holding their breath. Darden's Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone in the Sultan's tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes, then slowly rising began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from the one to the other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look thus, with contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house? What inarticulate words was she uttering? What gesture, quickly controlled, did she make of ghastly fear and warning? And now the familiar words came halting from her lips:—
"'Sure 'tis a horror, more than darkness brings,
That sits upon the night!'"
With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great storm of applause. 'Gad! how she acts! But what now? Why, what is this?
It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the middle of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and throw a mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden's Audrey had hitherto not followed the fashion. Also it was not uncustomary for some spoiled favorite of a player to trip down, between her scenes, the step or two from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh, jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such weighty trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player had not heretofore honored the custom; moreover, at present she was needed upon the stage. Bajazet must thunder and she defy; without her the play could not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with the audience. What was it? Why had she crossed the stage, and, slowly, smilingly, beautiful and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those few steps which led to the pit? What had she to do there, throwing smiling glances to right and left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and simple, from her path, pressing steadily onward to some unguessed-at goal. As though held by a spell they watched her, one and all,—Haward, Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the cloak, every soul in that motley assemblage. The wonder had not time to dull, for the moments were few between her final leave-taking of those boards which she had trodden supreme and the crashing and terrible chord which was to close the entertainment of this night.
Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes sought one there. Then, suddenly, she swerved. There were men between her and Haward. She raised her hand, and they fell back, making for her a path. Haward, bewildered, started forward, but her cry was not to him. It was to the figure just behind him,—the cloaked figure whose hand grasped the hunting-knife which from the stage, as she had looked to where stood her lover, she had seen or divined. "Jean! Jean Hugon!" she cried.
Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant to stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who had stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon's vengeance were not complete. For his own safety the maddened half-breed had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done aught but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he turned his back upon his prey.
In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the house was in an uproar; and now Haward's hands were at his throat, Haward's voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he had built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was between him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night in Fair View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so now. An access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free; the knife gleamed in the air, descended.... He drew it from the bosom into which he had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who would else have sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the horror-stricken throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking in the tongue of the Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the house, and for a time none thought to follow him.
