‘I do reproach myself, nevertheless,’ was the reply. ‘That boyish episode has left its taint on my whole life; yes, it is like the mark of a brand burned into the very flesh. I had no right to woo another woman; yet I have done so, to my shame, and now Heaven is about to punish me by stripping me bare in her sight and making me a social outlaw. I have deserved it all.’
The two remained together for some time longer, but Bradley, though he listened gently to his friends remonstrances, could not be persuaded to take a less gloomy view of the situation. He was relieved unconsciously, nevertheless, by the other’s cheery and worldly counsel. It was something, at least, to have eased his heart, to have poured the secret of his sorrow and fear into a sympathetic bosom.
They had dined very early, and when they rose to separate it was only half-past eight o’clock.
‘Will you go on to my chambers?’ asked Cholmondeley. ‘I can give you a bed, and I will join you after I have done my duties at the office.’
‘No; I shall sleep at Morley’s Hotel, and take the early morning express down home.’
They strolled together along Pall Mall and across Leicester Square, where they separated, Cholmondeley sauntering airily, with that sense of superhuman insight which sits so lightly on the daily journalist, towards the newspaper office in Cumberland Street, and the clergyman turning into Morley’s, where he was well known, to arrange for his room.
As it was still so early, however, Bradley did not stay in the hotel, but lighted his pipe and strolled thoughtfully along the busy Strand.
At a little after nine o’clock he found himself close to the Parthenon Theatre, where ‘Hamlet’ was then being performed for over the hundredth night. He had always been a lover of the theatre, and he now remembered that Mr. Aram’s performance of the Danish prince was the talk of London. Glad to discover any means of distracting his dreary thoughts, he paid his two shillings, and found a place at the back of the pit.
The third act was just beginning as he entered, and it was not until its conclusion that he began to look around the crowded house. The assemblage was a fashionable one, and every box as well as every stall was occupied. Many of the intelligent spectators held in their hands books of the play, with which they might be supposed to be acquainting themselves for the first time; and all wore upon their faces more or less of that bored expression characteristic of audiences which take their pleasures sadly, not to say stupidly. In all the broad earth there is nothing which can quite equal the sedate unintelligence of an English theatrical audience.
Suddenly, as he gazed, his eyes became attracted by a face in one of the private boxes—he started, went pale, and looked again—as he did so, the head was turned away towards the back of the box. Trembling like one that had seen an apparition, he waited for it to incline again his way—and when it did so he watched it in positive horror. As if to convince himself of its identity, he borrowed an opera-glass from a respectable-looking man seated near him, and fixed it on the face in the box.