Mogley took the envelope as in a dream, answered not a word, and hastened homeward. He thought only:
“To tell her the truth will kill her at once.”
Mrs. Mogley was awake and in a fever of anticipation when Mogley entered the little room. She was sitting up in bed, staring at him with shining eyes.
“Well, how was it?” she asked, quickly.
Mogley's face wore a look of jubilant joy.
“Success!” he cried. “Tremendous hit! The house roared! Called before the curtain four times and had to make a speech!”
Mogley's ecstasy was admirably simulated. It was a fine bit of acting. Never before or since did Mogley rise to such a height of dramatic illusion.
“Ah, Tom, at last, at last! And, now, I must live till morning, to read about it in the papers!”
Mogley's heart fell. If the papers would mention the performance at all, they would dismiss it in three or four lines, bestowing perhaps a word of ridicule upon him. She was sure to see one paper, the one that the landlady's daughter lent her every day.
Mogley looked at the illuminated clock on the steeple across the way. A quarter to twelve.